High Holy Days 2011 - 5772

Yes, I know that I have fallen woefully behind... in keeping with the tone of the season, I humbly beg your forgiveness... I will be trying to catch up and keep up as we move forward.

For those who missed any or all of the three, here, in a single entry, are my three High Holy Day sermons for this year. While they should work (as apparently they did in real time) standing alone, together, I think the best results may actually be achieved by giving a quick reread to last High Holy Days' efforts (just scroll down)...

As always -- all feedback is welcome... more than usual, my words this year are meant to incite discussion and debate, and lead to meaningful action and growth. Shanah tovah!

High Holy Days 5772

Ayecka? Hineini! Aval Eifo Zeh? Toto…?!
Looking Backwards, Forward, and Around to Find Ourselves
In and At the New Year
A Sermon Series
Rabbi Steve Weisman – Temple Solel, Bowie MD

Rosh Hashanah Evening
Ayecka? Where are We? And How Did We Get Here?

We begin tonight, as we have begun in past years, by looking at the calendar. For 12 High Holy Days seasons now, you and I have shared a simple perspective-shifting truth – that regardless of the vagaries of the secular calendar, Rosh Hashanah (and indeed, all Jewish holidays) actually arrive right on time every year! But even I have to admit, that arriving right on time on the first of Tishri on the Hebrew calendar FEELS awfully late this year, given that it is the 28th of September!

But more than that, on Rosh Hashanah, we focus on the item that IS changing – the year itself. As a puzzle person, and would-be post-modern mystic, I love to look at the letters we use to denote the new year, to play with them, trying to find hidden meaning. In MOST years, even to me, the results of those efforts can seem somewhat forced and contrived. However, when I sat down to play this year, I was genuinely EXCITED by what I saw!

(TAKE OUT GRAPHIC #1) Our New Year, 5772, is written in Hebrew characters as tav shin ayin vet. The 5000 is assumed (sort of like the thousands place was assumed in referring to years in data storage on our computers prior to the Y2K hysteria!). Tav = 400, Shin = 300, Ayin = 70, and Vet = 2 – giving us the remaining 772.

Take those letters, shift them around a little, and you get (GRAPHIC #2) Sin (same as Shin in writing and numerical value), Vet, Ayin, Tav. Savata – an actual Hebrew word, and one, if we are good detectives and Hebrew students, that should actually sound familiar. We say it every time we recite Birkat HaMazon – the “grace after the meal.”
In fact, savata is a Biblical word, and the line that we sing in Birkat HaMazon is the repeat of that Biblical verse in which the word is found, which turns out to be the very reason why we recite Birkat HaMazon in the first place! The Biblical verse is Deuteronomy 8:10. Add the word “kakatuv” in front of this, and start humming to yourselves, and you may very well recognize it:

“V’akhalta v’savata, uveirakhta et Adonai Eloheikha – al ha’aretz hatovah asher Natan lakh.”

Sound familiar? Good. But now, what does it mean? Usually, we translate it something like this: “When you have eaten, and been satisfied, bless Adonai, your God, for the good land that God has given you.” Given this translation, we can easily see both how and why the verse inspired the tradition of Birkat HaMazon, and came to be included as part of the text.

However, there are a couple of issues with the usual translation, and what I think the verse really means happens to take us EXACTLY where I want us to explore and find ourselves on these Holy Days. Wait a second, Rabbi – are you telling us that your annual tenuous word play on the new Hebrew year actually is CONNECTED to the message you were going to preach anyway? What a shock!

I AM saying that – the connection is actually at the CORE of our discussion! One of the problematic words is savata. That is the word translated in the passive voice – “and been satisfied” – even though the verb is grammatically in the active voice. AFTER we do what we need to do to survive by feeding our hunger successfully – taking care of our animal needs – the text wants us to recognize that we still have one more task. We still need, at that point, to remember both our role AND God’s role -- as our Creator, and the source of our sustenance -- in the meal just completed! In other words, even as we remember to thank the true Source of our food, we are embracing being ACTORS in this drama we call life and survival, and acting to fulfill our needs ourselves!

Therefore, the voice we use SHOULD BE ACTIVE! But our translation is passive – we are being satisfied! But, grammarians, how do you make this verb active? “When you satisfy yourself?” Hebrew uses a different form for reflexive cases like this, and it is NOT used here! “When you satisfy?” Usually refers to others. Aha! This may be part of the issue.

Eating is intensely personal. So is the act of praying and thanking God for the food we have eaten and been satisfied by and asking God to send us other blessings (the OTHER problem with the usual translation – we do not bless God, who is the “Source of blessings,” rather” God blesses us; our prayers, our b’rakhot instead express our praise of God, our thanks to God, and our requests from God). Therefore, it would be natural to understand savata, falling between the other 2 verbs, in a similarly personal way. And there would even be great value in the use of the passive voice here, if it reminds us that ultimately we did not act to feed and satisfy ourselves, but rather, that it came from God!

But that important realization blinds us to the equally important reality of the Hebrew text, that the passive voice translation of savata fails to pick up for us – namely that our personal satisfaction and fulfillment when we eat cannot be separated from that of others. Before we can be satisfied ourselves, in the passive voice usually used in this verse’s translation, we must first satisfy – others – to make the grammar and mood of the verb and verse work! And to fulfill what is expected of us!

In this dichotomy, we get to a struggle which is moving to the front burner of the discussion of American spiritual life in general in our own time, namely, the phenomenon of the individualization of religiosity. I realized just how widespread this issue truly is, when I read an essay last month, written by a female Church of Christ minister, bemoaning the developing cliché in her life that is the response when people she meets casually, often on airplanes or at social events, find out that she is a minister. She summarizes this reaction as follows: “I am not a terribly religious person myself… I find God in a sunset.”

And then she went off on the response. I felt she was correct in both of her points. First, do people who feel this way about organized religious groups and practices really believe that we DON’T find God in a sunset when we gather to pray? And second, where is the challenge in embracing a spirituality, much less a theology, that is internally based, that you never take out in public to have challenged or have to defend?

Last High Holy Days, we used our three sermons to develop a new model and metaphor for the necessary role of the synagogue in our post-modern world. Its foundation was built on two triangles. The first, the traditional, particularistic Jewish “trinity” of the embrace of God, Torah, and the people of Israel as central in our unique Jewish identity. The second triangle, a more universal statement of human needs, that any group needs to help its members embrace and address in providing order and meaning for our lives. That triangle comprises legacy – the sense of building or being part of something that will outlast us and let those who come after us know that we were here; love – the awareness that we are respected, and cared for and about, and valued for who we are and what we believe and do; and relevance – that what we do here, and throughout our lives, has meaning and order because of our involvement here, and the way this colors our experience.

Assumed in that discussion was this more recent discussion that there actually IS still a value to participation in “organized religion.” I believe personally that this model we created last year demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that such a value still exists and is recognized by some, hopefully many. But this newer discussion may help those of us who understand better the value of belonging, to begin to see why this position does not yet enjoy wider acceptance from others.

And it is central as well to any meaningful discussion or application of the practical implications of our new model. To be able to offer our model to others, we cannot use “insider” language that we understand, but which those on the outside may not. We need to be able to translate our thoughts and beliefs into THEIR experience and language, to help them recognize that there is value TO THEM in getting involved with us.

In discussing this model throughout the year, I have come to realize that those who embrace it understand and value four particular concept words far better than those who find little or no value in the model. Those four concept words, therefore, become critical to our success in creating a working model of meaningful religious community for our time. That is the good news – we have identified the words.

Now for the bad news – we have a great deal of work to do to bridge the gap in our understandings of these words, and their importance and place in our lives; to be able to positively use them in conversation with other Jews to make our congregational family stronger; to demonstrate them by our actions. The reasons for the enormity of the challenge are not hard to find. Two, perhaps three, of these concept words will likely first strike our ears and our guts as sounding “Christian.” Two of them, for different reasons, have simply become “dirty words” in our day.

The words are (GRAPHIC #3): mission, service, sacrifice, faith. Each of these deserves its own sermon (and if these sermons ever get published, they will each get a chapter!) – helping us to understand what the words really mean in a religious context, particularly in a (Reform) Jewish one, and how they apply in our lives.

In the time I have left this evening, I would like to give a condensed version of those points for each word, to help us begin to reclaim them as the critical vocabulary by which our own personal religiosity can grow, and through which we will enlarge and strengthen our communal identity as a congregational family.

Mission has become a “bad word,” I believe, in large part because of its usage in business jargon, and the appropriate scorn THAT usage has received at the hand of the cartoon strip “Dilbert.” In other words, the reason we shrink from using this word in its proper Jewish religious context is because of how it has been misused elsewhere!

But, have we ever stopped to consider why a “mission statement” is called a mission statement? It tells others what those involved in our group think we are doing, and why we are doing it! As we will see, this is not far from the understanding we need to get back to!

For that matter, why is a (usually Christian) trip to an exotic locale called a Mission? I know, many of us think of Mormons with this usage of the word. The word is used not just because they are being sent out from their home base, but really because once they arrive, they are doing work connected to the group’s mission. Or try the language of John Belushi in the Blues Brothers, and we get even closer to where we need to be – “We’re on a mission from God – we can’t be stopped!”

And then go to the Hebrew – to be sent on a mission is to become a shaliach – to go on shlichut. The root is the same as the one Moses spoke over and over to Pharaoh – shalach et ami – best understood as “send my people out, so we may serve our God.” There are two kinds of shlichim – the ones sent from Israel to the diaspora to teach us about and better connect us to our spiritual homeland – their actions match those of the Mormon college kids “on mission.” The others are the Chabad, whose actions often seem to us to be more insidious, but in fact, are equally centered on sending out emissaries to spread the teachings of and connections to their community.

We Reform Jews may be scared away from embracing a sense of mission, because we don’t want to seem like Chabadniks or Mormons, who are usually seen as proactive proselytizers. But Rabbi Alexander Schindler, of blessed memory, gave us the proper example of Reform shlichut early in the development of outreach, a huge part of his personal legacy to the Jewish community.

He taught that we should not be standing on street corners, trying to bring in converts to the cause. But, he also hoped that we would all be so comfortable with our own identity as Reform Jews, and our understanding of the world, that we would be willing and able to share these with anyone who expressed a desire to learn more or to join us, because they felt THEIR religious identity did not provide this strong foundation in their lives.

Our historic mission is the prophetic mission. The prophets of the era of the Biblical kings and later were seen as being God’s mouthpieces, speaking a message of morality directly to the people, rather than through the priesthood or the kings. We, as Reform Jews embrace those prophetic messages, and seek to speak to the moral souls of our fellow Jews and human beings. This must be a process of active engagement, rather than passive, and in order to succeed, we must have that deep level of comfort in our Judaism.

Sacrifice has become a dirty word throughout society, but is best seen on the baseball field. Now that “Chicks dig the long ball” and home runs make the highlight reels and 9 figure contracts go to the guys who score the runs and knock them in, the strategy and skill of sacrificing your at bat to advance a teammate already on base, so your next teammate has a better chance of scoring him, long ago became a lost art.

Worse, too often in our modern world, an accurate assessment of how the Biblical system of sacrifices was supposed to work leads to a cynical misunderstanding that actually encourages the personalization of religiosity, rather than combating it. We explain the physical offerings of cattle or produce to God as being done to appease God, or to thank God, but with the ultimate goal of convincing God to give us something different of equal or greater value. That just sounds too close to the modern “What’s in it for me?” mentality we are trying to overcome.

No, sacrifice here simply means being willing to give something of ourselves for the “greater good” of something larger than ourselves. To do something that, in keeping with the Hebrew root meaning, draws us closer – to each other, to God, to our ideal selves. Sacrificing time away from family, or personal pursuits, to help our community grow, or even to improve our skills so that we have more to offer our community – these are the modern forms of sacrifice.

In truth, those who are able to do this personal, but selfless, calculus so that it makes sense, recognize that, as in the Biblical system, we ARE getting something better in return – a sense of contributing to the success of a community which gives meaning and value to their lives and supports them in good times and bad. BUT, that “internal only” understanding doesn’t translate well to the outside, in the “real world.” But, right now, I AM talking to us, the insiders, and this truth is perhaps the best way to help us to see the true value involved in sacrifice.

Service is another one of those words that sounds Christian to us from our own lack of usage, and is subject to misinterpretation. We think of the “Service hours” our children and grandchildren are obligated to do for school or scouts, of churches that advertise being “in service to the community.” We may even think about our own worship services, and too many of us think those drag on too long!

To better understand the Jewish concept of service, we have to look at Jewish history and the Hebrew language. Before there were worship services, there were sacrifices to God. Led by the priesthood, who served God. It was their work. Before there was a dynastic priesthood, there was a priesthood of the first-born of each family. And even after, Isaiah and others reminded us that God expects us all to be “a nation of priests, a holy people.”

The common root in all of these concept words is the Hebrew root for work. It is also the word for servitude – Moses is referred to, with this same root, as a “servant of God.” And HERE is where our Jewish understanding of service should be based – in acknowledging our need to find an outlet through which we feel that we are doing “God’s work,” to improve ourselves and the world around us. Even in a post-slavery era, where we are very glad to no longer be in servitude, we need to act more like we still are willing to serve God freely.

And finally, Faith. This may be the most difficult and controversial of all. It is certainly the most personal, and for that reason, needs to become a conduit for moving us back from ourselves into the life of the community. We watch Christians, especially Evangelicals and Catholics, even Muslims, willing to stand up and publicly proclaim their faith, or act on it, and that makes us even less comfortable doing the same.

But I believe our more basic discomfort comes from a general uncertainty in what we, both individually and collectively, believe about God, and how we believe IN God. Instead of acknowledging that human uncertainty, in ourselves and in others, many of us run from it. In the process, we run from God, just as Jonah mistakenly did, with equally empty results. And worse, that abdication leaves a tremendous void, which many of us choose to fill in the “church of the self.”

..We need stronger faith – in ourselves, in each other, and in God.
..This, in turn, will lead us to be more comfortable in feeling that we are acting in God’s service, and not just for our own narrow self-interests.
..That will allow us to be more comfortable making true sacrifices for the good of others – in ways that really WILL bring value back to us.
..And all this will give us a better sense of mission in our lives, strengthening our collective identities.

We stand here tonight on the edge of the new year, looking back at how we got here, and what we have learned along the way. May we come to recognize in the coming year that our ability to enjoy all of God’s gifts, and truly be satisfied by them is based in strengthening our embrace of these four truly core Jewish values, and sharing them with others. Only then can we remember to make sure that we are working for the satisfaction of the needs of others as well. Only then will we remember to thank God for all God’s gifts to us. Only then will the fulfillment of our hopes to be inscribed for another year in the book of blessing truly have value. KYR


Kol Nidre – Where are We? Finding Our Way in the Moment

It happened again this year. It is not the first time, by far. In fact, for those of us who pay close attention, it seems to happen more often than not. In the weeks leading up to our High Holy Days, we were visited first by an earthquake of almost unprecedented size; then by the remnants of a hurricane, and finally by the flooding connected to one of the rainiest Septembers in our region’s history. This is not the first time that natural disasters have dominated the headlines as we prepared ourselves to enter the sanctuary during our period of atonement seeking. Perhaps they struck a little – okay, a LOT – closer to home than usual. But the phenomenon is not new to us.

Every time it happens, my mind goes to the same liturgical text, and, as always, this time, I was repulsed in larger parts of my being. But this time, the discussion ALSO happened on the internet, where an atheist friend challenged me, the day after the hurricane passed, when I said I was sitting in my family room, watching out the back sliding door, admiring both the power and beauty of God manifest in nature.

By the time that dialogue was finished, I had been pushed to justify how I could believe in the beauty of God’s presence in nature, without also seeing the raw power as having some punitive aspect, in much the same way as some politicians claimed to be joking about God sending messages through these disasters to other elected leaders. Because of my annual struggle with our Holy Day liturgy, and particularly the Un’taneh Tokef that is the centerpiece added onto our T’fillah in the morning and afternoon services, I felt like I had an unfair advantage.

You all know exactly which words I struggle with, because many of you struggle with them, too. They are a part of those several paragraphs of English, with a couple of cantorial pieces thrown in as counterpoint, that begin “Let us declare the greatness of this day – it is awesome and full of dread.” And specifically, in the third of those paragraphs, after we listen to the soaring melody once again:

“On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed –
how many shall live, how many shall die;
Who shall live, and who shall die –
Who shall see ripe age, and who shall not.”

This concept, for many of us, as for my atheist friend, is difficult enough. On the one hand, the idea of God acting in all the roles of the court, as the liturgical poem lists off – judge, jury, prosecutor, and witness – is so central to our understanding of why we come into the sanctuary on this day, seeking to earn the Heavenly Court’s blessing for another year of life, that we are reassured of the legitimacy of the prayer.

But on the other hand, we apparently are then forced to confront, in these last words and those that follow, the idea that there is a converse to our desired outcome – that if we are judged unworthy, the opposite of continued life and blessing must become our lot. Even for the minority of us who do not have difficulty with this as an empirical truth – just as we accept that an essential element in recognizing our mortality is that we must, someday, die – adding a temporal frame and a clear sense of causality can and often does become hugely problematic.

I can accept that I will die, someday. I can admit that, as a human being, I am imperfect. It gets a little harder when I am asked to accept that the first truth might be a consequence of the second. It gets harder still when I am asked to accept that by a certain date and time, if I do not show sufficient improvement, I am condemning myself to that death in the coming year.

And yet, I think we CAN be a little more comfortable seeing these words as a product of an earlier time, even if, in doing so, we acknowledge that we find little personal meaning in them for our day. We can even identify the historical period in which these words found their liturgical relevance – Germany of the period of the Crusades, roughly 1000 years ago. And recognizing the historical setting, we can even, perhaps, understand the hyperbole of the words that follow in the liturgy – words which I have chosen to skip over for the last several years.

The words I, and we, now leave out are the litany of HOW those who are destined to die will die. “Who by fire, and who by water, who by sword, and who by beast, who by hunger and who by thirst, who by earthquake, and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning…” Assuredly, for all but the most traditional of us, this is NOT our theology, not our world view.

The last thing we wanted to confront in the aftermath of an earthquake that literally shook the foundations of our creature comfort, was the possibility that the cause of the seismic event was God seeking to carry out one of the sentences of last Yom Kippur – if not on us, then on a neighbor. Likewise as we waited for the power to return, or struggled to bail out the water from our basements after Hurricane Irene, or the later week of torrential rains. Even less so, as we demonstrate our worthiness to be granted another year of blessings through such selfless behaviors as participating in the annual High Holy Day food drive, are we comfortable even considering the possibility that those most in need of the help we are providing are suffering because of Divine punishment for their misdeeds! Or worse, that others, like us, suffer for their acts!

In truth, if these words ever DID make sense of the senseless suffering of our ancestors nearly a thousand years ago, clearly they have lost most of their power over us today – even if the tag line that follows these most difficult verses still DOES work as a positive guide for us. For indeed, our presence here, our annual struggle with this prayer text, surely IS the proof that we do still believe that t’shuvah – the act of seeking atonement from each other and God, t’fillah – our ability to enter the sanctuary and offer sincere prayer from our heart and soul, not only today but throughout the year, and tz’dakah – our charitable behaviors based in our acceptance of God’s commanding role in our lives – can at least lessen the impact, if not spare us completely, from God’s negative verdict.

Simply put, while we find enough in this liturgical poem that still makes sense in our lives, the pieces that no longer do make sense miss so badly that they force us to question, and have forced me to edit, albeit uneasily. And the reason for this complex theological struggle is equally simple – the words that trouble us do not represent the world we live in or the lives that we seek to live TODAY.

More than anything else, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters occurring in close proximity to these days – in our present tense – remind us how these words are not reflective of our present reality. And more than anything else, our focus tonight is on the here and now.

On Rosh Hashanah, our hope for the year still unknown pushes us to look back to the year we now can evaluate. As we move further into this Day of Atonement, our hopes rise for another year, and we begin to look forward to what might be. On this night, we are between those two, locked into admitting who we are, warts and all, AT THIS MOMENT.

Un’taneh Tokef IS so challenging that my teacher, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, has written and edited an entire volume of struggles with these 39 verses. I highly recommend it, as much for what it teaches us about not being alone in our struggling, as for the incredible diversity of voices expressing how they try to address the challenges of this text.

In his introduction, Hoffman raises a somewhat complex, but intriguing approach, developed by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. According to Ricouer, for most of us, our religious sophistication and understanding are on a primary level. Perhaps we have come to recognize, as we have with this prayer, that it no longer works for us. Our natural reaction is to begin to question, in a more wholesale manner, whether ANYTHING in liturgy still works for us. But how many of us have worked through our natural wholesale skepticism, and brought our more sophisticated adult world view back to these texts we came to doubt, to develop a “more mature understanding of religion.” Ricouer calls this level a “second naivete,” to distinguish from the “first naivete” of that primary level at which we started to understand religion.

One of the examples Hoffman brings may make this even easier for us to understand and embrace. A child begins with a dependence upon and worship of their parents, which is eventually challenged by the awareness that our parents are NOT perfect. In adolescence we rebel, often ignoring or even trashing our parents, undervaluing their knowledge and experience, sometimes even their love and caring for us. Hopefully, eventually, in a healthy relationship, we reach that mature “second naivete” in our relationship with them, growing to understand them, and put our faith in them once again.

Remember this concept, as we move forward. For on this night, as we begin to make our individual cases before God for continued life and blessing – even if we are still in a rebellious phase of our religious formation, and have some questions about God’s role – we must, as a matter of consequence, also answer collectively for the state of the world in which we live.
Our Jewish tradition teaches us that God created us as part of the Creation, but gave us, as human beings, an exalted role as shepherd and superintendent over the rest of Creation. This is a great responsibility, but also a singular honor. And therefore, it seems to me, part of what we assuredly are judged on, in addition to our individual actions on a personal and interpersonal level, is our role, our personal actions and inactions, on a global scale as well. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, one of the clearest moral voices of our lifetime, once said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Surely that statement was significantly influenced by his personal experience on the wrong end of the rod of apartheid. But equally clearly, his words confirm that we do all have a role in what we as Jews call tikkun olam b’sheim Adonai – the repair of our world in God’s name. Furthermore, his words indict us for our silence and inaction at those times when our hearts and souls cry out that something needs to be done.

A look at the daily headlines makes pretty clear to us that there is much in our world today that needs to be changed, many areas in which our relative inaction must be atoned for, and seen as continuing, if not contributing to, the problems. Just 2 Friday nights ago, I again brought to the attention of our community the case of Troy Davis, who was executed for supposedly murdering a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. In a case in which there were large questions raised from the very moment of his being named as the leading suspect, when no murder weapon was found, no DNA evidence gathered, exculpatory evidence was not shared with his lawyers, when it was ASSUMED that he did it, rather than questioned as to whether he did, and when 7 of the 9 alleged eyewitnesses whose words convicted him later recanted their testimony, each claiming they were threatened with arrest on perjury charges if they changed their stories – despite all these glaring questions, and 21 years since his conviction to allow a thorough review, which apparently never occurred, no justice of the Georgia Supreme Court or the Supreme Court of the United States found a reason to intervene and stop his execution. When I first brought his case to our attention, several years ago, there was time for people of conscience to act – and many of us did. Two weeks ago, I was mourning his execution, and the fact that even if what seemed obvious to me and a million others could now be proven true, it is too late to bring justice in the case.

Cases like this suggest to me that part of the reason that most of us do NOT do more to live up to Archbishop Tutu’s words, to the ideals of our tradition of tikkun olam, is that most of us are in that adolescent rebellious state of formation when it comes to issues like this on the national or global scale. We have recognized that the system no longer works as it should, and worse, had too many examples like this where even the best efforts of too many good people go for naught, that it causes us to doubt if the system can even be salvaged. We have not yet reached that “second naivete” in which our mature world view allows us to come back to what we have been forced to abandon from our rosy childhood view, and find value and chances for resolution.

We vote for candidates that run on platforms of “change,” because we recognize the desperate need for change in how our country is run and does business, and cares for our citizens. But we feel helpless to otherwise bring about change where it is needed – in the systems that lead to stalemate instead of solutions, that block new ideas that allow us to grow and evolve. We feel powerless and small in the face of international corporations and billionaires, whose money and power give them access to influence those who are supposed to be working for our best interests. We watch politicians play political games of chicken that risk plunging our nation and our world into the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression, while claiming to be acting for that greater good – as only they and their rich and powerful supporters see it – instead of seeking real and needed solutions.

And as a result, it is easy to point the finger of blame at others, to feel that there is nothing we can do, to curse the darkness, rather than looking for the light. Justified response, to be sure, but not terribly useful in actually improving the situation. And one which is an abdication of our responsibility as Jews.

How can a fellow Jew look the innocent victims of Hurricane Irene square in the eye and insist that before they can get the FEMA assistance they need in order to recover, that so many others have benefitted from in the past, equivalent savings must be found in the government budget? How can a fellow Jew insist that those funds be taken from other social safety net programs, because “when we have a problem in our families, we tighten our belts and deal with it”?

Yet, when Rep. Eric Cantor said those very words, where were we, as Jews, standing up to speak truth to power? Or calling his threatening of others’ recovery in this way the violation of the commandments we will reread tomorrow that it surely is, namely not to place a stumbling block before the blind, or stand idle while our neighbors bleed, especially after fighting harder than anyone else to get that same FEMA money when it was HIS constituents that needed it? Or making clear that, in OUR family, when someone is in need, we first ask what we can do, and only THEN figure out how to pay to make the help real? And more than that, where were we demanding ACTION, and not just decrying the iniquity?

And when, as so tragically happened just this week, in an Israel that tonight, more than perhaps EVER before, needs our support, understanding, and effort on the world stage, people who call themselves Jews, who frequently challenge the legitimacy of other forms of Jewish belief and practice, attack a Muslim mosque, and burn it to the ground, scrawling words like “revenge” on it first, or attack Israeli soldiers sent to keep the peace, where are the Jewish voices decrying these as the pogrom and sacrilege they most certainly are? I am proud of the leaders of our Reform movement for decrying the attack on the mosque, prouder that we have set up a fund to help rebuild the mosque as a symbol of our support for innocent victims who are not Jews. But somehow, even this does not seem to be enough of a response for me.

In his letters from the Birmingham Jail, at the height of the civil rights movement in this country, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." Sadly, it appears that his words, like those of Desmond Tutu, still ring true and unanswered in our day.

And yet, on this night, I stand before you, extremely concerned, but not without hope. Since last we appeared before God on Yom Kippur, our world has witnessed the so-called “Arab spring,” still ongoing in many places, in which, simple people like you and like me finally stood up and demanded an end to tyranny and repression, insisted on having a voice that leads to action in determining their own fate in their own countries. The efforts of that “Arab spring” transferred over within Israel to a summer of grass roots protests that started with college students and recent graduates, demanding more affordable housing options, and spread at its height to a half million Israelis, speaking Jewish truth in search of better treatment by their own government.

And now, with the arrival of fall, it seems as if that frustration that led and is leading to violence in the Arab world, and to peaceful, if mostly ineffectual, protest in Israel, may now have arrived on our shores. What started as a movement to “Occupy Wall Street,” by individuals upset that the needs of Main Street are being sacrificed to protect the entitlements of Wall Street, is spreading to Washington, DC and other areas of our country. It is still too early to know what, if any, meaningful change this effort may achieve, or even how the movement will evolve. But it is a start, and therefore I am hopeful.

However, if the banner I saw being carried by one young woman protestor is any indication, there is more than reason for hope. The banner read “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” I believe the quote is actually a lyric from Jimim Hendrix. So hopeful, so positive, so seemingly simple and obvious. Has this woman reached her level of “second naivete” before the rest of us when it comes to such matters? Or has she not yet fully left behind her “first naivete”? We cannot be sure. But we can take pride that, even as we sit here tonight, in the comfort of our sanctuary away from home, Kol Nidrei has been chanted, and Yom Kippur services have been held out on the street as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest demonstrations. Maybe we as Jews do have a leading role to play in reclaiming America for all Americans!

So as we struggle tomorrow with the words of Un’taneh Tokef, as we struggle to express our true contrition and atonement, and to grant forgiveness to those who seek it from us, in this moment of the here and now, let us remember to look beyond the walls of our own congregational life. Let us pledge not to be dismayed, not to lose faith, and if we do, to struggle to regain a more mature faith that leads us toward reaching a level of “second naivete.” One that is achieved by learning from the past, and rediscovering faith and hope for the future. One that allows us to work for meaningful and needed change not only within ourselves, our liturgy, and our community, but indeed, for our nation and our world. Nothing less can ensure that the life that we hope to be blessed to continue enjoying in the coming year will have the meaning we want and need it to have. KYR


Yom Kippur Morning – Where are We? Where are We Going? And How Do We Get There?

So, here we are, once again. It is Yom Kippur morning – continuation of, arguably, the holiest day of our year. Even more assuredly, for most of us, today is the most physically challenging day of our year, as we fast, in an effort to purify our bodies as well as our souls, as we stand before God to make our case for inclusion in the Book of Life and Blessing for another year. Both needing to make that case, as well as making the case itself, make this as spiritually challenging a day as it is a physical challenge.

So, naturally, I want to begin today by talking about weddings. Oh, and Chanukkah, too!

As a Rabbi, I have the privilege of sharing in the lives of an incredible group of individuals – the members of the Temple Solel “family,” their extended families and friends. This sharing comes on both the communal level, on occasions such as this Yom Kippur day, and also on the individual level.

Sharing on the individual level takes many forms. It can be benign – running into each other in the supermarket, or while listening to the Crayfish. It can run in one direction, when I call upon a member of the congregation for their expertise, or in the other, when one of us brings a question to their Rabbi. It can come on the most difficult days of our lives – as we sit with a sick friend or relative, or, God forbid, as we mourn their passing. But it can also come on the best days – the birth of a child or grandchild, or celebrating as they become bar or bat mitzvah.

Or – at a wedding. My role on those days is to perform the ceremony, and provide just enough gravitas, so that the state will recognize the couple’s union, and their family and friends will know that they truly are married, before going off to celebrate appropriately. And I often join in that mitzvah of rejoicing with bride and groom after the ceremony.

When I sit with a couple to plan their joyous day, I run through the basic service. I explain to them, as I explain during the service, that the ritual basically has three parts. The first part celebrates the path that has brought them to this moment. The exchange of rings and vows is the here and now. The last portion looks to their future as a family.

These High Holy Days work similarly. On Rosh Hashanah, indeed for all of the month of Elul that precedes it, as we prepare ourselves to seek atonement, we look back and evaluate where we have been - what we have done in reaching this season. Last night, as we listened to the lofty melody of Kol Nidrei – more than just an insurance policy against human failings in the year to come, in that it is also our admission of the human frailty and imperfections we live with daily -- we were very much thinking and acting in the present tense. On both of those occasions, the power of the moment, and our needs, can make our mood more pessimistic than we might otherwise be comfortable with, as we struggle to work through our needed atonement efforts, and our admission of our human flaws. Seeing clearly what we have done or not done that has harmed others, or admitting our imperfections, not as some abstract concept, but in real time, can have that effect.

But now, this morning, even as our ultimate fate in the New Year may still be in doubt, we already look into this New Year, at the future that awaits us. Our mood becomes more hopeful as the vision takes shape.

And so it is that, on this Yom Kippur morning, I want to turn us to our collective future. In early 2012, roughly mid-year of this 5772, Temple Solel will mark the 48th anniversary of our beginnings as a congregation. Which means that 5774 will mark our congregation’s Jubilee year, our 50th anniversary. A time worthy of great celebration, to be sure. And, to be sure, we will celebrate extensively throughout that year.

We read, in Leviticus 25, all about the rituals of the Jubilee year. In Biblical times as well, every 50th year was a huge communal celebration. It was a time in which even the land was given a break from working, when even those in servitude were released from their bonds. THIS is the context of the quotation from Leviticus 25 that is famously found on the Liberty Bell, at the insistence of America’s Founding Fathers: Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof.

The Jubilee year was proclaimed on Yom Kippur of that year, by the sounding of the Shofar. Since we have a significantly larger crowd at this moment than we will at the conclusion of the N’eilah service later today, forgive me please if I move forward the pronouncement of the beginning of our Jubilee celebration by a few hours in the day!

But wait, I can hear you saying – why should we care about a few hours when I am also moving that announcement forward by a full two years. I do so with solid grounding and motives. As we note every year on Rosh Hashanah, in the old days, even after our religious leaders had the experience along with mathematical and scientific awareness to accurately forecast the arrival of the NEXT New Year’s moment from the knowledge of this year’s, they STILL required that the new moon of each month be witnessed, reported to, and affirmed by the Sanhedrin.
That obligation, which limited the lead time on announcing and planning of holy days, is no longer observed, allowing us to start earlier.

Furthermore, as we start to think about what the celebrations of that 50th year will look like, the wedding model comes back to mind. We will, of course, celebrate the occasion in fine style. But, in getting there, wouldn’t it be nice to celebrate the moment by looking back in pride to how we got here; by looking with hope to a bright future? It seems to be the perfect time for us also to stop and figure out exactly who we have been, who we are, and who we wish to be as a congregational family, as part of that celebration. That effort will be extensive, and assuredly will require more than a single year to complete properly. And since that effort will embrace both our history and our dreams of the future, and not merely the celebration of the moment, why not start a couple of years early, and plan to extend a couple of years beyond our 50th as well.

And so, this morning, we begin an undertaking that our leadership has called “Mission 50.” It will be a 5 year effort, designed to evaluate who we are, what we do, how and why we do it, as a congregational family. We will look at our history, to understand what has been, even as we dream of what we hope our congregational family will become.

At the center of this effort, lighting the spiritual guiding light of each of the focal points that will make up Mission 50, is that 50th anniversary itself, the joyous celebrations of who we are and what we have already accomplished. In that respect, our Jubilee will serve the same function as the shammash – the candle that lights the others on our Chanukiyot each winter! The one which, by sharing its light in a meaningful way, allows the physical and spiritual light to increase throughout our celebration of Chanukkah. And wouldn’t you know that Mission 50 just happens to have 8 distinct points of emphasis!!


Just as the shammash lights the way, giving life to the other lights of the Chanukiyah, and in the process, has its reach broadened, its spiritual power increased, it is our hope that Mission 50, triggered by our Jubilee celebration, will ring as loudly and clearly as the Liberty Bell rang in the new era of Independence for the colonies; ushering in a time of spiritual growth for each member of our congregational family, and for the congregation as a whole. By choosing to include in our celebration the opportunity to redefine who we are and what we seek to achieve and be, we hope to make our 50th anniversary that much more of a legacy to the first half century of Solel’s life, a more loving and meaningful celebration of whom and of what we have already become.

The 8 focal points of Mission 50 have been identified over the course of many years of efforts and energy on the part of the leadership of this congregation. There is no correlation between past efforts or lack thereof, or their success or failure in any of these areas, and their inclusion as part of the plan. Indeed, in many cases, we have deliberately chosen to take areas that are working, and attempt to build from strength to even greater strength.

The 8 “candles” of Mission 50, as we visualize it at the start, will be:

1. Mission and Vision – Our leading efforts in this area will include: reviewing our current Mission statement (copies of which are available on the table outside with other important materials); updating it 11 years later to catch up with changes that have already occurred and those we deem to be needed; fleshing it out with greater detail and specifics that will make it easier for us to utilize the document as a practical guide to all that we do programmatically, spiritually, educationally, communally, and even administratively and fiscally.

2. Governance and Leadership – Beginning from two points of reflection, we will work to improve the quality of our congregational leadership. We will undertake a review of our board and committee structure, to make sure we are best utilizing our human leadership resources, and to ensure that the “system” doesn’t interfere with our leaders’ ability to lead. This will include exploring ways to strengthen ALL our auxiliary groups and tighten our working relationships, to remove redundancies and points of contradiction. And we will develop an organized system to identify and train future leaders BEFORE the nominating committee calls them and asks them to serve as leaders, so our leaders are better prepared to lead.

3. Finance – We will undertake a comprehensive review of our finances from top to bottom, including our fundraising efforts, to improve and streamline our practices and policies, and make sure that we are on solid financial footing for the future, while also making sure that we are placing appropriate expectations on ALL members of our community to support ourselves as best we can.

4. Education – This is one of those areas in which we are building from strength. It is also an area in which much has changed around us, and will be changing, beyond our ability to prevent it from doing so, in how we do what we do so well. We will continue to evaluate our curriculum, and our teacher recruitment and development, to make sure that we have the best teachers utilizing the best techniques and materials. We will examine the evolving role of a supplemental Reform religious school like we run here, to see what else is possible and necessary without watering down what we are doing well already. We will emphasize the development of a “youth culture” that extends beyond the classroom and coordinates formal and informal educational opportunities, like junior choir, camps and youth group programs. We will rededicate ourselves to the active pursuit of the goal of lifelong Jewish learning, creating opportunities for every member to participate at a comfortable and appropriate level. And, we will look at how we can continue to provide these essential programs and services, affordably, under the best leadership possible, while keeping a finger on the pulse of the ever-changing world of Jewish education.

5. Membership – We will continue to explore how we can best get our “brand” out there in the forms and locations that are most likely to be seen by those who will become our future members. We will develop strategies to help all our members become more comfortable in their membership, more willing to give back through greater involvement; and learn to “close the deal ” better with more prospective members. This effort will also work closely with the effort to evaluate our…

6. Communications – Here, we will look at how we can best get our activities out into the public eye, and how we communicate with our members and prospective members directly and most effectively, particularly in the ever-evolving realm of technology. As part of this effort, we will look at those areas of the larger community in which we are already involved, and recognized for our involvement, as a way to leverage that involvement to create more awareness of Temple Solel.

7. Facility – None of this can happen unless our brick and mortar home is strong, and appropriately maintained and equipped. The focus here will be on evaluating whether we are currently best meeting our need to do so, and what it will take in the short, medium and long term to get up to speed and stay up-to-date and up to code. Among the items that we expect to confront in this area is how we can better utilize the building, both as a source of revenue, and as the setting for our growing programs, given the limits of our physical space.

8. Program – This last area (not temporally nor in importance) will evaluate and co-ordinate the entire overall program of activities at Temple Solel for balance, and to identify areas which we have been overlooking or underserving. It will look at both the macro and micro issues of our program, as well as finding the balance between specifically Jewish programs that only we can provide, and broader external programs in which our involvement and support would further our mission. As the only Jewish institution in Bowie, the only Reform congregation in Prince George’s County, serving a larger membership circumference than ever before, we need to find ways to become the “virtual JCC” that we often talk about being without weakening our existing strengths and programs, and within the realities of our tangible resources.

In short, when fully realized, Mission 50 seeks to ensure that our Jubilee anniversary celebration is both spirited and spiritual, that the congregation that emerges from that celebration is even stronger than the one which will begin it. We seek to build on the literal foundations that are the legacy of our founders and the first two generations of our leadership and members, to build a spiritual communal home that, even more than it already does, will work to make sure that our children and grandchildren, along with every one of us, feels the love and appreciation from being involved, gains the sense of order and relevance from our participation, and has the opportunity to leave behind something of ourselves as a legacy for those who will follow after us. A community and congregational family that fosters Jewish wellness, that embodies Isaiah’s clarion call to us to be a “light unto the nations” through our involvement in programs that better the entire community of which we are a part, and that uniquely and without question is identifiable as not only being Jewish, but as acting on the teachings of Judaism for EVERYONE’S betterment.

This will not be easy. But it can be done. All it will take is every one of us buying into the vision, every one of us committing to the effort, every one of us finding the niche within which we want to make our involvement felt – both in the work of Mission 50 over the next 5 years, and in the congregation that emerges from our efforts.

I am happy to announce today, as well, that the first piece of this complex jigsaw puzzle, the “Mission Statement Review Committee” will be forming in the coming weeks, under the leadership of our Executive Vice-President, Gary Worthman. I also expect that we will all soon be hearing officially from the members of our Board of Trustees, who will be in contact with us to get our initial commitment to be involved in one of the 8 candles on Mission 50 menorah, as we seek to celebrate rededication to our synagogue as our communal home, much as Judah Maccabee and his followers did over 2000 years ago.

In this way, the marriage between our congregation and our individual members will grow from strength to strength. I can think of no better way to demonstrate to ourselves, to our children, to each other, and to God on this Atonement Day that we are serious in our commitment to growing from the actions of our past, atoning for any mistakes we have made, and working hard to correct ourselves in the future. KYR