Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation Agudas Israel
Yom Kippur
September 14, 2013
L’shanah Tovah. Just a moment ago you did a great mitzvah. You showed that you are a part of this community and that you want to support it. Before I begin my formal address this morning, a comedic insert courtesy of Rabbi Kramer and Ken Copans.
May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs, and your stocks not fall. And may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your cholesterol, your white blood count, your PSA and your mortgage interest not rise.
May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, gastroenterologist, urologist, nephrologist, proctologist, podiatrist, dermatologist, obstetrician, oncologist, rheumatologist, endocrinologist,ophthalmologist, ENT, psychiatrist, plumber, and the Internal Revenue.
May your work be secure, looking for work stress-free, good friends and contacts willing to make solid introductions.
May your checkbook / budget balance and include generous amounts for charity.
May you find a way to travel from anywhere to anywhere during rush hour in less than an hour, and when you get there may you find a parking space.
May what you see in the mirror delight you and what others see in you delight them.
May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner.
May Israel be safe, continue to flourish and strong against all enemies that plan to do harm.
May this Rosh Hashana, find you seated around the dinner table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends, ushering in the Jewish New Year ahead.
May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your partner, your child, and your parent(s). You can say it to your secretary, your nurse, your butcher, your photographer, your masseuse, your seamstress, your hairdresser or your gym instructor, but not with a "twinkle" in your eye.
May we live as intended, in a world at peace with the awareness of the beauty in every sunset, every flower's unfolding petals, every baby's smile and every wonderful, astonishing, miraculous part of ourselves. Bless you with every happiness, great health, peace, tranquility, contentment and much love during the next year and all those that follow.
LeShanah Tovah U’metukah Tikatayvu Vetaychataymu.
Best sermon ever, right? In truth, greatness can come out of tragedy. Brilliance can come from dark places. Some of our greatest poets, authors, scientists and teachers have struggled with depression and other forms of mental illness. In the depths of our suffering we can find insight. The Talmud teaches that suffering can be a gift from Gd, a time to reflect and consider our actions. Yet at the same time, suffering can be unwanted and we may not desire the lessons we learned. In one of my favorite passages of Talmud from Tractate Brachot, we discover that the rabbis did not enjoy suffering, saying that they wanted neither the suffering nor the reward. In their illness though, they found inspiration in each other, in their community and in the power of a pastoral visit. For me, this has been a personal inspiration. Chaplaincy has been a way for me to meet people and bring holiness to their lives, to be a bright spot in the darkness. The sugya, the narrative unit, of Brachot 5b tells us that visiting a person who is ill removes 1/60th of their suffering. It asks why the miracle-working rabbis cannot heal themselves and concludes that a “prisoner cannot free himself from prison”--that we must help each other in our most difficult times. This is the power of Jewish mourning customs. Shiva, Shloshim, and Yahrzeit teach us that mourning is not only an individual journey, but a communal one.
It is amazing to me how a single moment can change and inspire us. When I was in rabbinical school, a fellow student, Rafi Lehmann, passed away. He was not my best friend. He was an acquaintance. I had met Rafi before rabbinical school, when his father Rabbi Allan Lehmann was the Jewish Chaplain at Brandeis. Rafi loved Torah. He loved the teachings of early Hasidic masters. He loved good food, good meals and good friends. Tragically he died shortly before he was scheduled to be married, a few months before he was to be ordained. JTS arranged bus transportation to his funeral and many of us attended.
At his funeral I had two transformative moments. The second was at his burial, where they literally ran out of dirt. There were still dozens of people in line to put a shovelful of dirt on his grave, but the grave was filled. There was no more dirt. Friends, family, acquaintances, students, teachers all came together and literally buried the one they had loved and learned from. It was an inspiration to me of what we are supposed to do at Jewish funerals.
I told you the second, but not the first. The first was at the synagogue. Temple Emmanuel in Newton, a large Conservative synagogue, had large posters hanging throughout the building. At every seat there was a booklet. The title of the booklet was “Seven Gates.” The gates were “Torah, Prayer, Israel, Shabbat, Redeeming the World, Building Community, and Teaching Jewish Values.” Their website includes the same gates. In that brochure, in these themes, they show that all are welcome and that all have a place.
“The Seven Gates stand for the proposition that everyone can find a place at Temple Emanuel. Whatever your passion, whatever inspires you, it is here. All you have to do is enter.
While these are entry points, it is not only about entering.
It is also about what you do once you are here. It is about engaging.
It is about finding meaning, purpose, and friends within a community of people who are moved by what moves you.
The gates are open and waiting for you.
Through which gate will you enter?”
The Seven Gates show that we are individuals and that together we make up a community. The Seven Gates teach us that as individuals, we have different interests and access points.
I listed the seven gates, but what do they mean for us here?
Torah sounds self-evident, studying Torah, living Torah, teaching Torah, learning Torah. But what is Torah? Yes, it is the scroll we read from this morning, with Genesis-Deuteronomy, but Torah is also the entire canon of Jewish learning, as well as philosophy, science, and more. Studying Torah can mean looking at our roots, our genealogy, which we can do together in a few weeks. It can mean learning Hebrew, helping to make our texts and traditions more accessible. If you have never learned to read Torah, I will be starting my third group of Read Hebrew America in October. If you want to learn how to read Torah or Haftorah, join my other Thursday class, which focuses on liturgy and prayer skills. Torah can also be learning about our Jewish traditions or even reading a good book. If there is something that we are not doing yet, just ask! I have been studying Daf Yomi, which can be an arduous path through Talmud. the Conservative Yeshiva is beginning a Daf Shevui, studying a page of Talmud a week, which will be sent by email in Hebrew and English to you every day--a much more manageable task. If you would like to discuss this project, please be in touch with me. Torah is not just classes though, it is also our collective wisdom. Every single person in this room has Torah to teach. What I would love to see in the coming years is for YOU to teach ME (and everyone else). If you are a talented dancer, musician, amateur historian, professional psychologist, doctor, lawyer, you have skills and knowledge that we do not all share. Please teach us!
The second gate is Prayer. We meet regularly for Tefillah, for Shabbat and Festivals. We meet monthly before the Board Meeting for evening minyan--which lasts all of 8-15 minutes. When congregants request a Yahrzeit or Shiva minyan, we make it happen. Most of our prayer is traditional, but I open to trying different options. Together we can connect our souls to the Divine!
Israel is not just a vacation spot or a historical entity, but a living, breathing, Holy Place. Visiting Israel is transformative, as some of our congregants discovered this summer with me. Walking in the footsteps of our ancestors, we learned much about our history and I believe, much about ourselves. It was a blessing to travel together and I hope that in another two or three years we can again travel to Israel as a community, uniting past and present in our souls. Israel needs our attention from here, as well. There are many people around the world who see Israel as a source of hate or violence. They speak ill of Israel and often preach hate and violence against all Jews. We must be advocates for Israel, reminding the world that Israel is valuable, important and rarely reflects the image that hate-mongerers and average people imagine. Modern Israel is a young country. It is growing and changing and we must be a part of that. We have to show Israeli society that it is possible to be modern, Jewish, observant, egalitarian and open to all. The Kotel should not be an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, but a place where ALL can daven. The Temple Mount should be regularly accessible to Jews AND they should be allowed to pray there. Israel should not be one of the only places in the world where I, a Conservative Rabbi, cannot perform a wedding!
Shabbat: Ahad Ha’am was an early Zionist thinker, philosopher and writer. He penned the famous line, “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.” Jewish law has varying interpretations of how to keep the Sabbath and modern Jews find many different ways of observing it. Whether your Shabbat practice is to shut off all electronic devices, make Kiddush and light candles on Friday night, or simply savor your favorite book; Shabbat can be a very special time for families. Would I love to have all of you decide today to be traditionally observant of Shabbat, YES, but I think that you can gain many of the benefits of Shabbat without entirely changing your lives. Talk to me about your Shabbat practices. Make a special dinner. Save a great article. If you use TV on Shabbat, skip the violence and watch a nice movie with your loved ones. If you use the phone, call your children--make Shabbat a time of connection.
Judaism is not a religion lived in isolation. We are commanded to live in the world and continually improve it. For some Jews, Tikkun Olam, Redeeming/Repairing the World, is their primary connection to Jewish life. Whether volunteering at Habitat for Humanity, donating blood, giving tzedekah, there are many ways to help the world. If you are looking for suggestions or have suggestions, be in touch!
Many recent books about the future of Judaism in America say that one of the most important things we can do is to build communities. When we build community, we use our sacred values to look out for one another. We do not want to be the synagogue where someone leaves after a decade not knowing anyone. We want to be the place where people feel welcome from day one. In the last two years, I think we have made tremendous strides in that direction. Yet, welcoming and building community neither happen overnight nor are once and done programs. They are long term, continued and committed efforts to make sure that every single member of our community feels valued and an important part of our congregational whole. In a day and age when our families are scattered around the country, if not the globe, our congregation has an opportunity to bring people together. We cannot neglect this responsibility.
Teaching Jewish Values: We live this through teaching our children, through the rituals of Simchat Bat and Brit Milah, through B’nai Mitzvah, but also through daily life. We teach Jewish Values in every interaction we have with anyone. Every time we talk to someone; every business deal we make; every class we teach; every patient we treat is an opportunity to demonstrate and reflect our values. Powerfully, Temple Emmanuel has created a “Living Legacy Guide” a way for you to think about your values and share them with your loved ones. I mentioned earlier that we will soon have an opportunity to think about our family trees. Sharing our history, sharing our values is a poewrful expression. Writing down the things that matter to us are just as important as telling our children the account numbers of our bank accounts. Long after our physical inheritances have been saved, invested or spent, our spiritual, educational, emotional inheritances will resonate.
Over these High Holy Days, I have mentioned the Gd-shaped hole, the idea that we can feel far more fulfilled, complete, and happy if we let Gd in. Sharing these seven gates are seven different ways for you to let Gd in. Seven different gates, seven different days, seven different opportunities. Looking around this room, I see people of different backgrounds, different ideas, different politics. Why would I expect that every single person connects to Gd, each other, the same way? The seven different gates show us that we are individuals. All of the gates should be important to us in SOME way, but for all of us, one gate will probably speak to us more than another. Our tradition speaks of shivim panim batorah, the seventy faces of Torah, really meaning that there are many different ways, many different access points. On Rosh Hashanah I mentioned that even the opening of the Amidah, when we remind Gd of our connection to our ancestors, we also remind ourselves that our ancestors were individuals. We remind ourselves that our ancestors connected to Gd in different ways. It is a lesson that is very easy to forget. As a rabbi, prayer is very important to me. Yet being married to my lovely wife and now being a father to an amazing daughter, I see that my attitude towards prayer has changed. My prayers may be briefer, but they feel more powerful. I am more grateful, more thankful than I have ever been.
Watching all of you, looking at the example of my parents and grandparents, I see people who have connected to our traditions. Their observance may have waxed and waned, but they always knew they were Jewish and their lives reflected that. In just a moment, we will offer our Yizkor prayers. We will remember those who had an influence on us. We will remember their Jewish lives. We will think of their yiddishe neshamas, the aspects of them that brought us joy and infused a spirit of holiness. Whether we think of brisket and kugel, afternoons with a crossword puzzle, memories of shul, walks on the beach, mornings in a store or pushcart or an office, the ones we loved influenced us greatly. Many of them built this shul (or the ones on Grand or Williams Streets). We stand in their footsteps. They spent their lives bringing our families together. Let us spend our doing the same. Our shul may not look exactly the same--the people in the bimah certainly look a little different--but the spirit we bring is the same. We come together to celebrate Torah, Prayer, Israel, Shabbat, Redeeming the World, Building Community, and Teaching Jewish Values. Together those principles have changed my life and I know they have changed all of yours. May the coming year continue to bring us holiness, happiness and the power of community.
