High Holidays Sermons, 1995

 See pdf of these sermons by clicking here.

TBE Bulletin - Spet. 1995

 

TBE Bulletin, July, `995

 

Who's The Boss? (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week , June 16, 1995

How many bosses do you have?

I've been told I have 700, or one boss per family unit of my congregation. That makes no sense, though, because how many family units are of one mind about anything? Let's multiply that number by three, then, and a conservative estimate would be that I've got at least 2,100 bosses.

But to be fair about it, some have moved to Florida, so of the 2,100 bosses there are only about 2,000 full-time bosses.

Then there are approximately 12,000 Jews in my town who, while they aren't my congregants, claim to know how everyone else's shul should be run.

Then there are the leaders of my movement and other rabbinic colleagues, who are interested in how I put their ideology into practice; and the founders of my congregation, who although deceased still have a rightful say as to how their life's work is evolving.

Then let's add those who read my columns and desire to teach me a thing or two.

That brings our total to somewhere around 25,000 bosses, or, purely coincidentally, exactly 100 times the number of plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians at the Red Sea, according to Rabbi Akiba.

Now since we're including the deceased, how about hundreds of generations of Jews who gave their lives for the heavenly yoke that now rests on my shoulders?

And what of the great rabbis of the Talmud?

What of the Six Million?

What about Moses?

What about God?

Speaking of the One Upstairs, what about my wife?

And what of my two children, asleep upstairs every night at 10:30 when I creep in through the front door, wondering aloud whether I've betrayed my own family in the interest of promoting family values?

What about Israel, which needs my active support, and all the worthy fund-raising organizations that rely on my passions and integrity to get their message across?

What of my other homeland, America, which desperately needs non-fundamentalist religious role models to rescue it from the dangers of the Ralph Reed Right?

I've got plenty of bosses, but for me it all comes down to three -- exclusive of the Ones Upstairs.

- The aforementioned "700 Club," my congregants.

There is no question about it: They hired me, they trust me, and I work for them. The relationship is far more complex than employer-employee because, while they instruct me, my instructions are to lead them. But that's no different from Bill Clinton's relationship with his 250 million bosses, or any hired CEOs. What is different is that I also name them, marry them and bury them. I encounter their children at several stages of growth and am deeply involved with them at the most emotion-saturated times of their lives. I am seen by many as their primary link to the Source of their Being, their community, their own parents and to immortality.

All this, and I am accountable to them if anything goes slightly awry.

- The as-yet unborn.

A chief of the Iroquois nation once said, "We are taught to plant our feet carefully on Mother Earth because the faces of all future generations are looking up from it."

That's an interesting twist on the Cain and Abel narrative. When Jews look at the Earth, we hear the cries of the deceased; but Native Americans look forward, routinely measuring the impact of their actions not on the next generation but several generations hence.

I'm capable only of looking ahead two or three decades, and even then the picture is frustratingly cloudy.

But I know that every decision I make influences the Jewish world my grandchildren will inherit and whether or not they will be Jewish at all. When I'm tempted to relax standards for the convenience of a congregant (and to avoid conflict), that grandchild yanks at my conscience and says, "No, you can't tell him it's OK to have the bar mitzvah party on the Goodyear blimp. What will become of me?"

- Myself.

Not myself now, but myself 25 years from now, the one who will be looking back at a full career. I want to be able to say that I made a difference, that I did all I could to seek my destiny and fulfill it.

It is no coincidence that the Hebrew word for work, avodah, is also the word for worship. Our work is nothing less than our supreme offering to God, whether we are a rabbi, doctor or welder. Each of us must try to discern the cry of the times, perceive this mission and act on it. I see my task as being analogous to that of the ancient biblical prophet, of whom Heschel wrote, "He is neither a singing saint nor a moralizing poet. His images must not shine, they must burn."

Nikos Kazantzakis posited that if we are each a bow in God's hands, then there are three kinds of prayers uttered by three kinds of souls. The first says, "Draw me, Lord, lest I rot"; the second, "Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break"; and the third says, "Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break."

If I may combine metaphors, a quarter-century from now I want God to have spent all the burning arrows in the quiver marked "Hammerman." For when all is said and done, I will have to answer to no boss.

But I will have to account for all those unused arrows -- and for the bow that refused to be overdrawn.

TBE Bulletin, June 1995 - State of the Synagogue

 

Recreating Zeyde's Living Room (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week, May 18, 1995

Normally at this time of year I present my own version of the State of the Synagogue. Since we've been taking our temperature quite a bit recently and since the incredible things that have gone on this year really speak for themselves (and what else can you say about a year that includes visits form the likes of Colette Avital, Yitz Greenberg and Debbie Friedman, dozens of great programs and wonderful new spirit of can-do), I'm using this year-end space to discuss some of my vision for Beth El. The following is adapted from a recent sermon, entitled "Zeydeh's Living Room," and it explains, I think quite clearly, just what I feel is needed for us to fulfill our responsibility to our membership, our community and our people.

The idea came to me in the midst of a recent Friday night dinner for our young families. Nearly 150 were present, all ages; and with the kids running around, the adults chatting, the grandparents kvelling, I began to understand what it must have been like for my father in Brooklyn when he was growing up, when every Shabbat he would kibitz with dozens of cousins at his Zeideh's home. Back then being Jewish meant having the kind of organic, extended family that most of us pine for. But here we had it, if but for a fleeting evening.

And the screwy thing was that in our educational scheme, this program was seen not as an end in itself, but as a tool for encouraging the families to do the same things at home. It's known as "family education," the heir apparent to "continuity" on our ever-fluctuating priority pedestal. Of the dozens of families present that night, maybe four or five will expand their Shabbat home ritual based on this program; but scores wanted to know when we could do it again, at the synagogue. That's when it hit me: family education is fine, but what we need most of all is not a chicken in every Jewish pot on Friday night and a Kiddush in every cup, but an extended cousin's club in the shul.

The fact is that most of these families won't do it at home every Shabbat, and many can't. Even if they have time to make the chicken, even if there are two parents present, even if both are Jewish, and even if a grandparent miraculously appears from time to time, from where will they import the sense of wholeness that obliterates generational boundaries and allows people to relax and share the love they all so wish to share? Zeydeh's living room can now be realized only on a larger communal scale.

The family as we once knew it hardly exists anymore. Surveys show that actual two-parent families with children, devoid of divorce, widowhood and all the other forces that have detonated this nuclear unit, constitute a minority of Jews in America. How can you expect true bonding with Judaism to occur in this setting? But while we're still talking in "Leave it to Beaver" language, the people we're addressing are living in a far more fragmented world. By placing the burden of Jewish cultural transmission on the parents, we're actually rendering it inaccessible to their children.

We're talking to single parents who don't have time to breathe and we're telling them to whip up a hearty dinner every Friday night, preferably with company. We're talking to couples who scratch out two incomes and barely see each other during waking hours, and we're telling them that their kids will stay Jewish if only they would build a Sukkah in the backyard. We're saying that we're willing to be partners, but that the fate of Judaism is ultimately in their hands. And we're telling the children the worst message of all: if your parents aren't willing to buy into the program lock, stock and barrel, you, my friends, are lost. If your parents can't hack it, there's not much we can do about it.

On that fateful Friday, I realized (what I sort-of knew already) that what these families need is not the training to be Jewish at home, but more chances to do it here, in a non-threatening, multi-family setting. They don't need instructions, they need a support system. The route to greater commitment is not through persuasion and training, but through embrace and communal bonding. Most people avoid commitment like the plague, but no one will turn down a cheap meal that someone else cooks and a chance to relax with friends.

I have nothing against practicing Judaism in the home. But the social phenomenon of disintegrating families is far beyond our capacity to fix by ourselves. We can support efforts that promote home-based "family values," such as the celebrated V-chip; but in an era of dwindling resources, the Jewish establishment has a choice: rebuild the family-unit or renew Judaism. My vote is to pour our energy into building a communal life so vibrant that what the family does at home will hardly matter. We've got to serve Judaism up to them on a platter, so that in the end, parents and children will look forward so much to decorating the synagogue's sukkah with their friends and eating in it, to spending each Friday night and Shabbat morning with their new extended family, that they won't even realize how much time they are pouring in to being Jewish - and being together.

Paradoxically, by building up communal life, we'll bring families together, away from their homes, perhaps, but under our watchful eyes. The more we eat together (and as you know, we now have a communal Shabbat lunch at least once a month) the more we become an extended family, and communities that become extended families love to travel together too. Shabbat retreats and Israel experiences become natural extensions of Zeydeh's living room.

By the time the children go away to college, our goal should be that they pine for their extended families almost as much as their real ones. We want to build up a tribal loyalty that goes beyond reason, a closeness that cannot be explained in words; so that when a Jew for Jesus approaches there will be no chasm of loneliness to fill, so that gathering with friends at Hillel on Shabbat will be as natural as the Brady Bunch going home for a snack.

I would love a family educator on our staff; but in the end that won't help us to create the feeling of wholeness that can enfold people in a living, breathing Judaism. What I would love more is additional funds for more lunches, dinners, baby sitters, trips and a bigger and more beautiful sukkah for us all to decorate together. For the "Zeydeh's living room" strategy to work, much more money would have to be poured into synagogue programming than ever before -- by Federations too -- not merely for classroom innovations, but for the nuts and bolts activities of synagogue life, and especially for the cheap meals, so that membership can be affordable to all. The synagogue is still the only place where the most significant Jewish sacred moments can be lived out on a communal scale. It is our best hope. Community priorities must be adjusted to reflect this.

Synagogues also have to change: to become a true living room, formality and pretense must be cast aside, democracy encouraged and responsibility shared. Most of all, each child has to become everybody's child -- and each adult too.

Sooner or later, we'll come to realize what Hillary Clinton has been hinting all along, that it takes a village to raise the next generation of Jews. For us to mobilize the villagers to the task, we've got to understand that the home can no longer be seen as our prime battleground. There is only one place that retains some of the magic of Zeydeh's living room, with small children running in circles, teens chatting in the hallway and the older generations exchanging Torah wisdom and stock tips, and the sweet smell of kugel in the air. And that place is the synagogue.

Help us to become that place. Be more active. Volunteer. Help us with our endowment drive. Strive at least to understand that what we do here will make a profound difference in the lives of thousands of people (or more) for generations to come.

TBE Bulletin, May 1995

 

It's Time to Start Shul Hopping

 

The Power of Ritual Transcends the Slippery Progress of Time (Advocate)

 

Shushan's Top 40 (Jewish Week)

 

A Footnote on the Sole of Judaism (Jewish Week)

 

TBE Bulletins, March and April 1995

 

Superabbi: The Flawed Model

New York Jewish Week: 1995

Item: A seventh grader's soccer coach has scheduled a practice for Rosh Hashanah. She walks up to him and says, "You'd better change this or my rabbi's gonna beat you up." She later relates the story to me, with a proud smile on her face. I pray that the coach is not a black belt.

Item: I am welcomed to a new congregation at a service filled with intense excitement and anticipation. The cantor dedicates a new musical composition in my honor, based on Isaiah, called "The Lord is in Our Midst." I fret that expectations are running a tad high.

Item: A large, influential group of Jews proclaims that their rabbi is the Messiah. The rabbi dies, but some insist that he is still the Messiah and will soon return.

The role of the rabbi has always been complex, but lately it appears to have broken the bounds of all human capability. There have been wonder-working rabbis for centuries, but none until now have been called upon to pull off the greatest miracle of all: to single-handedly fill the gaping spiritual hole in the postmodern, alienated Jewish soul. This is a job for Superabbi.

Like frantic Lois Lanes falling from a burning building, people are reaching out; people without roots, without purpose, all stretching their arms toward Superabbi to heal, to shepherd, to redeem them. Skeptical people, betrayed by the very modernity that promised them salvation, now turn to this lonely man of faith imploring, "Make my life full, before it is too late....

...Only don't expect me to commit to anything.

...Only I don't want my friends to see that I am vulnerable.

...And don't forget, it's because of you that I'm so alienated."

And who is "you?" "You" is what I've come to call the O.B.R., the One Bad Rabbi. All it takes is one, and a Jew can be turned off to Judaism for life. Apparently, most of us have had him, and we all went to the O.B.H.S., the One Bad Hebrew School, where this O.B.R. used to rap knuckles and force kids to sing the Sh'ma while screeching chalk along the blackboard with sadistic pleasure. Whatever this O.B.R. did, and it ranges from giving O.L.S. (One Lousy Sermon) to adultery, what matters is that he fell short of expectations, and therefore so did Judaism. The O.B.R. is the one reason I hear more than any other for individuals having been turned off to organized Jewish life.

If the O.B.R. is so dangerous, it's because he is Superabbi unmasked. If we were to not rely so heavily on Superabbi to save us, we'd be far less susceptible to the inevitable revelation that rabbis are fallible. Judaism is too important, and its future too uncertain, for Jews to place its fate in the hands of a single human being.

Or maybe the O.B.R. is just a convenient excuse for those who long ago left the fold but don't want to blame the other likely culprits: Mommy and Daddy, conformity, greed, fear and self-hatred. Whatever the reason, the O.B.R. has got to go, and Superabbi with it.

Through the ages, Jews have had a knack of creating the perfect model of leadership to match their needs. In ancient Israel, kings and prophet answered the call for military might and social justice. In Babylonian exile and beyond, prophets became more comforting and priests arose to create the rituals that would bring the people back into God's favor.

Then, in the wake of the Second Temple's destruction, the rabbinic model of scholar/arbiter/teacher and part-time miracle worker came to dominate the Jewish world. The source of his power was clearly his ability to reason. In the melting pot of 20th century America, the rabbi was converted from teacher to pastor/shepherd, so he could be just like the Christian clergy next door, but with all the ancient Jewish trappings of the miracle worker intact. When the holy man is a teacher, his holiness endows him with wisdom, but otherwise he remains human; when the holy man is primarily a pastor, however, his mere touch can bring salvation.

That kind of promise arouses superhuman expectations -- and disappointments.

Further, if the rabbi is a shepherd, that makes the rest of us sheep. O.K., so Moses, David and Akiba started out as shepherds, but they didn't have to worry about an intermarriage rate of 52 percent and climbing. If the rabbi is a shepherd, he has to lead the flock up the hillside, pulling, pushing and cajoling. Superabbi is expected to get those sheep to the destination, even if they don't want to go.

I have a better idea. How about the rabbi as a co-traveler, a very well educated member of the flock? I chose this model for myself long ago. I don't push or pull my companions, I share my experiences and learn from theirs; together we strive to reach the thick pasture at the top of the hill.

As I see it, I am a spiritual leader simply because I want to refine my own spirit, using the texts of my tradition for guidance, and, in doing so, possibly to inspire others to do the same. I am no different from my friends on the journey, except that I have some wisdom as a tourguide that I share where appropriate.

I believe that the rabbi is neither holier than others nor less human. The extent to which the rabbi can share his humanness, in fact, is the extent to which he can touch the lives of those who choose to travel along. To be the "perfect rabbi," therefore, is not to avoid mistakes, but to make them and then grow from them.

It is time to reaffirm the original intent of the rabbinic model as teacher and spiritual guide, in order to rescue our communities from the ravages of unmet expectations. If Superabbi is allowed to survive, we're setting ourselves up for a fall. In the end, there will be only burnt out rabbis and dissatisfied congregants, lots of O.B.R.s and very few Jews.

TBE Bulletin, January 1995

 

Shift Toward Neutrality In War Between Sexes

The Jewish Week, December 29, 1994

 

Perhaps the most universal trend seeping across the non-Orthodox world in recent years has been the shift toward gender neutrality in prayer. It was most awkward at first -- those fumbling attempts to please everyone by inventing the pronoun "S/he" when referring to God, or the clumsy shifting from third person to second person, to the replacement of "mankind" with the more generic "humankind." I had my greatest difficulty with the term "brotherhood of man."

"Siblinghood of humanity" just didn't cut it.

But now gender neutrality has become more accepted, even expected. The new Reconstructionist and Reform siddurim are most sensitive to the matter, and the Conservative movement is heading that way, too. The matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, are finding their way into the Amidah right next to their famous spouses, even in Conservative texts, and that's a major change. Not long ago, none other than the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary came out strongly in favor of including the matriarchs in worship at that Conservative institution. This would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Why has such a significant shift suddenly become so widely accepted? I think there are two major reasons.

First is the matter of language. English and Hebrew have about as much in common as Chanukah and matzah brei, and it is virtually impossible to convey the texture of Judaism accurately to the non-Hebrew speaker. Until recently, most American Jews had a grasp of at least the embers of some basic Hebrew, or at least some Yiddish that carried with it the essence of the original.

So, a generation ago, a synagogue-goer could read the prayer "Avinu Malkenu" and have some understanding that the Hebrew word av doesn't just mean "father," it also means "ancestor," and that in Hebrew the masculine form is generic. The Hebrew speaker knows that the pronouns for "he" and "she" are so closely related that simply by slicing a vav into a yod, the former becomes the latter. In a real sense, calligraphy mirrors biology, conveying the identical makeup of the sexes. Fittingly, in Torah scrolls the feminine pronoun often appears in the masculine form, with a vav instead of the expected yod, to the great frustration of even the most expert Torah reader.

Gender neutrality serves the purpose of restoring some of the delicious ambiguity of the original, enabling us to dig deeper into our souls to discover new metaphors for divinity. Our sages were never constrained by the gender biases of the King James translation as they siddur-surfed through scores of different concepts of God to find the ones that resonated best. We need to free ourselves, in any language, in our search for the sacred.

More important than the language factor is the impact of a masculine God on society around us. In a recent essay, Dennis Prager claims that a male metaphor for God is beneficial because of our society's desperate need for compassionate male role models. While I disagree with some of his conclusions, I agree with his major premise: The example we set and the lesson we teach "in here," within the spiritual life of the synagogue, will go far to determine how people live their lives "out there," in the world.

For that reason, I take very seriously each word of every prayer that is uttered, especially when it comes to God. If children grow up believing that God is primarily male, how does that affect them? If their Jewish role models in the siddur are almost exclusively male, what is to become of girls starved for positive female role models? Does Jewish prayer encourage boys to feel inherently superior and girls to submit to the will of male authority?

Traditional prayerbooks project that impression in the morning blessings, where men thank God "for not having made me a women," and women say, "...who has made me according to His will." There are excellent traditional commentaries explaining this discrepancy in ways that satisfy many Jews. But for those from a non-Orthodox background, at least, the attitudes engendered by a He-God and patriarchal liturgy have potentially devastating implications.

A war between the sexes is being fought in this country, and the O.J. Simpson and Anita Hill episodes are only two of its most visible eruptions. What was once a matter of feminist politics is now, I believe, a question of conscience for those who shape thought, especially teachers and clergy. I cannot preach healing and discourage domestic violence if I then turn around and support a liturgy that seems to imply male dominance. But if I drive home the message that the Jewish God cannot be tied to any gender, perhaps that will help, in some small way, to breach the chasm that separates the sexes. At the very least it will encourage the abused wives of my community to seek help from their rabbi and find solace in their God.

If God is in the details, so are the ways in which we project Jewish values. I've been told that a synagogue's attitude toward children is best gauged by whether it has a changing table in the women's room, and its attitude toward women is seen by whether a changing table can be found in the men's room. My synagogue has installed its changing table in a more gender-neutral location -- the baby-sitting room. In the light of recent events, congregations need to be dwelling on such details.

The differences between the sexes will always be there. Thankfully. But until we realize that God is neither in one nor the other but in the sum of the parts, in relationship, the struggle will continue. But some day, God willing, we'll be whole.