A Treasured People - Treasuring People Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772

עם סגולה

A TREASURED PEOPLE - TREASURING PEOPLE

Congregation Albert

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772

Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld

In the book of Genesis chapter 4 Cain  rises up and kills his brother Abel.  God punishes Cain in verse 11 “and now cursed be you from the ground which has opened her mouth to take your brother’s blood from your hand; when you till the ground it shall not continue to give unto you her strength. A vagabond and a wanderer shall you be on the earth.” Cain’s response: “my punishment is greater than can be borne.

I always wondered why Cain felt this punishment was too great. It is not as if God punished him with death or incarcerated him forever, which would be the way we today handle murders. Was Cain so upset that God had punished him by making it harder for him to farm? Or, was Cain upset that he would be “community-less” a wanderer forever?

For me the answer to this question lies in Genesis chapter 2 verse 18. “It is not good that a person should be alone.” While most commentators understand that God is saying human beings need a partner to help them with the mundane tasks of the world, S’forno the great Italian Kabbalist and commentator of the 16th century, has a different understanding of the text. He says: “the end implicit in being created in God’s likeness and image would not be achieved if you would have to devote yourself on your own to supplying your daily needs.” In other words, to be a complete human being, wholly formed in the image of God, we need community. When we are without community we are alone, spiritually imperfect.

Judaism has always recognized this need to be in community in order to reach our full spiritual potential. That is why I prefer the description of Judaism as a faith-family. As much as we are a religious entity, we are also a community with deep familial ties. It is why when Jews are in trouble Israel is threatened, regardless of our differences, we unite as a single community. In my generation alone we witnessed the rescue of Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry, as well as the welcoming of thousands upon thousands of Jewish refugees and immigrants into both the United States and Israel. Once these refugees landed on our shores and arrived in our communities we did not stop but rather both here in the States and in Israel we worked hard to integrate them into the very fabric of our communities.

These familial ties are why Jews rarely, almost never, live a monastic lifestyle. Instead we form congregations like this one.  The Hebrew word for congregation is קהילה literally meaning community.  In fact, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many congregations added the words קהילה קדושה –  holy or sacred congregation before their actual name in recognition that gathering together as a community has the potential to add an extra measure of holiness we cannot find on our own.

True, some of an individual’s most powerful spiritual moments come when he or she is alone. In fact one of my great pleasures is to sit on my back porch, look at the stars and feel my small place in the universe. Many of my most sincere prayers have been uttered either when I have been alone or during silent meditation in a congregational service. But that Silent prayer occurs while being a part of, not apart from, my congregation and therefore dwarfs even the power of looking at the stars. Both Torah and the prophets bear out the importance and power of being alone. Moses at the burning bush and  Elijah hearing the still small voice while alone in the desert exist to teach us: we can find God on our own. But both Moses and Elijah understood the need to be in the company of others to complete their spiritual journeys and effect the transformation of our people. Both Moses and Elijah needed others to exist fully in the image of God and in turn were able to bring their communities the opportunity to exist fully in the image of God.

Connected through a shared history and tradition, we Jews bound ourselves as a family at Sinai answering God’s call to join with God in ברית - in Covenant. ָAt that moment we accepted as a matter of faith and obligation that we exist with God in partnership. God began the creation of the world, set it in motion and gave us the free will to take up and keep up our end of the partnership, לתקין עולם במלכות שדי - to finish the work of creation and bring our world closer to perfection.

What does it mean to be a Jew in a covenantal partnership with God? To use biblical language, when God finished the work of creation on the 6th day it was only very good, not perfect. God left some “unfinished business” for us to complete. All faith traditions have their own relationship with God but partnering with God to ensure that captives know freedom, those who lack have access to the resources to meet their needs and, as the Union Prayerbook put it so eloquently, we “lift up those who sleep in the dust.”

No one of us alone can complete the sacred work. It is only by gathering together as a קהילה קדושה, a sacred community, that we have even the slightest hope of being able to fulfill our obligation to each other and to God. As we look around us and see members of our own congregation in need, growing poverty in our community and continuing oppression and environmental threats to our world we understand just how daunting the challenge of completing the unfinished business God left for us. 

Tonight marks the beginning of our 115th year as a  congregation. One way to express the number 115 in Hebrew is by using the letters ה ע מ. Together these letter spell the Hebrew word העם-the people. This will be a year in which we celebrate our existence as a congregation and as a community. Congregation Albert has a long and proud history of being a community. From our earliest days 115 years ago our founders understood that in forming a sacred community they brought themselves closer to fulfilling the potentiality of the divine image in each other as individuals. Coming together in prayer, in times of personal need, and in reaching out to make this community, our country, and the world a better place they left us an inheritance that challenges us to animate the divine in ourselves by doing the sacred work of God’s unfinished business.

In more recent times we have seen the development of some Chavurot and our caring community committee which reaches out to  members of our Congregational family in their times of need. As I have met members of our current Chavurot I see how they have become in every sense of the word family. Even those who were strangers before they joined a Chavurah now have a sense  they are members of an extended family. Since the initial development of our Chavurot many of us are new to the congregation. That is why you received a brochure with your high holy day mailing describing our effort to expand this incredible opportunity to make our congregation more of a community and our community more of a family.

In a similar vein, our caring community committee does amazing work. They visit the homebound and sick, help provide rides for the high holy days, are a support to those in morning, and touch your lives in more ways than I have time to list tonight. But they and we need more help. As hard as they work, and I am in awe of how hard they work, and as many people as they serve in our community their work only scratches the surface. If you are willing to help with their sacred task or know of members of our community who could use our help please please let us know. The members of this committee deserve our deepest thanks and need our continued commitment and help.

But as I indicated before, God’s unfinished business does not stop at the doors of the sanctuary, this building or on the doorsteps of our homes. Our obligation in continual partnership with God demands that we reach beyond ourselves into the larger community around us. IHN, Project Share, the TASTY food drive and our other projects help us partially fulfill this mission. But the needs are endless. What do you do to help complete our world? What do you want to do but cannot do alone? Do you need help fixing the broken parts that keep you up at night?

I am honored and blessed that you called me to be the rabbi of this קהילה קדושה that understands so well the inherent blessing of being a community. And so I make this commitment to you: If you come to me with an idea, a desire, a need which is appropriate for us as a Jewish congregation, and you are willing to give of your time to make it a reality, we will give you every level of support we can. Our future is limited only by our vision. Our future is limited only by our commitment to see our dreams come true. We have seen this work over and over again. Congregation Albert has a solid tradition in facilitating the fulfillment of dreams. Most recently a few people decided our congregation needed to be more environmentally friendly and thus the Green Team began to gather and has begun a process that will culminate in reducing our carbon footprint. From our recycling bins to the changing of light bulbs our transformation has begun. Whatever you see as needing fixing in this world I guarantee other members of our congregation see as well. Let us help you find them. Working together with others from our faith-family not only multiplies your impact on our world but, as S’forno points out, helps animate the divine in you. Our human and divine power resides not in ourselves alone but rather in harnessing the קדושת הקהילה – the sacred soul of our congregational community.

Our task is to help you make your Jewish dreams come true, and thus create a Kehillah Kedoshah, a holy Congregation spreading its welcoming and sheltering wings around all who choose to enter, so that all who look upon us will be able to see you spiritual growth and go beyond God's words: “It is very good!”

Rosh Hashanah Evening 5769 - Under the Mishkan

This is our new Shabbat prayerbook, Mishkan T’fillah. The first Reform Movement prayerbook in over 25 years, we again have a prayerbook that unites the Reform Movement with a standard liturgy. Many people were involved in the creation of our in-house prayerbooks, Shabbat M’nucha and Shabbat Kedushah. Personally and as a congregation we owe them a great deal of thanks. Their creativity, spirituality and hard work brought worship at Temple Beth Zion into the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

We are also grateful to those who generously provided us with the means to acquire our copies of Mishkan T’fillah and to make sure that our upcoming B’nei Mitzvah students will each have their own copy from which to study and pray.

The title of the prayer-book, Mishkan T’fillah, translates to: Tabernacle or Dwelling Place of Prayer. Forty-two years ago, the membership of Temple Beth Zion built this sanctuary to be just that - a place where our TBZ extended family comes together to dwell in prayer - to focus on prayer - to understand that a congregation that prays together evolves into a community of caring.

As we wandered through the desert, there were several names for the sanctuary they built. HaMishkan - the dwelling place, the place where Moses and our ancestors experienced God; Mishkan Ha’eidut - the tabernacle of witness, a place of witnessing not only the presence of God but a court, a place to settle disputes; Ohel Mo’ed - the tent of coming together to meet God and learn the values that enable us to live together and the rules, the practical application of the values.

These names represent pieces of a puzzle that together define what it means to be a congregation, a community. For the ancient Israelites, the Mishkan literally and figuratively transformed our ancestral families into a holy nation.

What does it take to be a true community? Why did the Israelites believe that the Mishkan, the center of their community was the place where God dwelled and where Moses spoke with God? Two words - TRUST and HOPE. Trust that the motivation of those in our community, entrusted with our financial future, entrusted with our safety, entrusted with helping us teach our young and care for our elderly lies in a commitment to do what is good and right and does not violate our trust. Hope that when our trust is misplaced, we can still redeem our community and ourselves.

An Eastern European story: A farmer with serious financial problems bought a mule from another farmer for $100. The seller agreed to deliver the mule the next day. However, on the next day the seller drove up and said, "Sorry, but I have some bad news: The mule died."
"Well, then, just give me my money back," said the buyer.
"Can't do that. I spent it already," the seller replied.
"OK, then. Just unload the mule," said the buyer.
The seller inquired, "What are you going to do with a dead mule?"
"I'm going to raffle him off."
The incredulous seller said, "You can't raffle off a dead mule!"
"Sure I can. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."
A month later, the two met and the farmer who sold the dead mule asked the buyer, "Whatever happened with that dead mule?"
"I raffled him off just like I said I would. I sold 500 tickets at $2 a piece and made a profit of $898."
"Didn't anyone complain?" the incredulous seller asked.
The smug buyer replied, “Just the guy who won, so I gave him his two dollars back."

This story is obviously illustrative of what we have learned the past several weeks, that those we trusted with our financial futures often simply raffled off dead mules. (I know I have learned more about the workings of credit markets, stock markets, investment markets and insurance markets than I ever thought possible.) But this tale teaches a deeper lesson. Once we someone betrays our trust, it becomes easier for us to betray the trust of others.

In Leviticus, God commands us to act in holiness is by using honest weights and measures, paying people when their wages are due and not oppressing those who need to borrow funds to survive. Clearly, the trust in our economic systems has caused a rip in the Mishkan of our community.

This year our Mishkan has also been rent open by breeches by those entrusted with our safety. We have seen a Governor fall and threats to our country’s safety ignored while those whom we trust to protect us worry about shoe laces while not inspecting cargo containers and assault weapon and armor piercing bullets remain legal on our streets. Part of the tear was sewn closed by miscarriages of justice in our community undone and reopened by news of new exonerating evidence being ignored by others.

Our trust in the commitment of our schools to put our children's’ education first and for our seniors to be protected was severely damaged by self serving avarice. Resources poorly allocated. Personal ego thrusting aside fairness and equity.

These past months, this past year could leave us cynical and misanthropic. But as Jews, especially at this time of year, we know that we have the ability to commit ourselves to changing our world, repairing the defects that have been inflicted upon our Mishkan.

For we Jews are experts in hope! Not the generalized hope of which both Senators McCain and Obama speak. But rather, for us hope consists of the knowledge that our communal Teshuvah consists of more than feeling bad about our active and passive failings. Teshuvah is the expression of our hope that we CAN change ourselves and our world. For us hope motivates us to not only hem the ragged edges and sew the holes in our Mishkan, in our community but make it stronger and sturdier, working to ensure the Mishkan will never again be damaged.

The use of the first person plural used in our High Holy Day liturgy of responsibility for the problems in our world reinforces our understanding of the truth that sin in our community only exists because WE allow it to continue. As Jews Rabbi Tarphon’s teaching of 1800 years ago underlies our hope and our responsibility to reach out and change the world: “It is not incumbent upon you to finish the work but neither are you exempt from it!” It is incumbent on each of us, infused with a measure of hope, to work for the day when we and the whole world realize that we rise and fall together. Our true teshuvah and deep belief in hope infuse within each of us the knowledge that our success does not come from stepping on the backs of others but rather from understanding that even when, maybe especially when it looks the bleakest, we all work to repair the Mishkan together.

We all know that we cannot wait for others, even God to fix our world. In the wake of Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and now Kyle, this classic story embodies a renewed poignancy.

Once there was a pious man who had never sinned sitting in a rowboat in the middle of the lake. The boat springs a leak and begins to sink. And so the man begins to pray: “Sovereign of Mercy, I have been your loyal servant my whole life, please save me.” Just then another boat comes by and throws the man a life buoy. “Grab the rope and we will save you!” “No,” the man replied. “God will save me.”

Time passes and the water is up to his waist. “Ruler of all” he prays, “I have been your loyal servant my whole life, please save me.” Just then a helicopter came by and lowered a ladder. “Grab the ladder and climb up and we will save you!” “No,” the man replied. “God will save me.”

The rowboat continues to sink and the man is submerged up to his neck. And so he prays one more time: “You in whom I place all my trust, I have been your faithful servant. I have lived a life free of sin. I have resisted temptation after temptation. Please God, save me.” Another boat comes by and threw yet another buoy. “Please grab the buoy and we will take you to safety.” “No,” the man replied. “God will save me.”

At that moment, the boat sinks and the man drowns. Suddenly he finds himself before God and the throne of judgement. “God” he cries. All my life I served you and lived a pure life. In my time of need I called to you and you let me die. Why God? Why?”

God looks and the man and replies: “I gave you three chances. I sent two boats and a helicopter.”

Living a life of hope means asking for the wisdom and strength to do what we must to repair our Mishkan. We cannot wait for others to do the work for us. Our Jewish communal values of , אל תפרוש את עצמך מן הציבור - Do not separate oneself from the community, צדקה, גמילות חסדים and of course תקווה demand we to work to repair our Mishkan through our votes, our participation and our dollars. We look to God for strength and inspiration, but we look to ourselves and each other to grab onto the rope, pull ourselves into the boat and row together.

A story quoted in Gates of Prayer, the last Reform prayer-book, that I have not found in Mishkan T’fillah:

Rabbi Chayim of Tsanz used to tell this parable: A man, wandering lost in the forest for several days, finally encountered another. He called out: Brother, show me the way out of this forest!. The man replied: Brother, I too am lost. I can only tell you this: the ways I have tried lead nowhere; they have only led me astray. Take my hand and let us search for the way together. Rabbi Chayim would add: So iti s with us. When we go our separate ways, we may go astray; let us join hands and look for the way together.

May we take each other’s hands and walk through the forest together.

Kein Y’hi Ratzon - So may it be God’s will.

Shanah Tovah.

Rosh Hashanah Morning 5769 - Connecting with God - Connecting With Each Other Facebook – “Sefer” Panim Yafot

Inspired by a sermon by Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky, Temple Beth El, Phoenix, Arizona

I recently found that while my comprehension of Hebrew conversation remains good, through lack of regular use my Hebrew speaking level had deteriorated to an elementary school level. So I signed up for a conversational Hebrew class on e-teacher. Every Sunday afternoon I turn on my web cam and have a conversational Hebrew lesson with a teacher in Haifa. If I miss a class, I simply go to the website and watch the recording of the class, do the work and sign in the next week.

One of the words I learned this past week סקר means survey. And as we all know, the secret to learning a language is to use it, I am going to conduct a quick 6 question ,סקר survey. Please answer by raising your hands: Be honest.

1. Who has a love/hate relationship with his or her cell phone? You can’t live without it but
you want to leave it at the bottom of Lake Erie so you can have some peace and quiet?
2. Who remembers thinking that calling someone and getting an answering machine instead
of a person was annoying?
3. Of those, who now grumbles when you call someone and they do not have voice mail or
an answering machine?
4. Who communicates by using text messaging and instant messaging?
5. Who has more than one email address?
6. Who gets more spam than real email?

All of these marvelous technologies help us communicate on a business or personal level and have the downside of tethering us to them. The siren call of the ring (or vibration) of a cell phone, the signal that we have voicemail, the popping up of text and instant messages lure us off our course and into the raging waters of their demand to be answered. God forbid our need to answer these siren calls do not literally lure us off course and into oncoming traffic.

About a year ago, I realized that email and IM had run their course and our young people, high school, college and post college refocused their communication through social networking sites. So up went my MySpace page and a few months later, my facebook page. Through these sites I have not only connected with many of our young people, but to my great surprise, many adults as well! In fact, by paying attention to what people put on their page and tell the entire network, I learn more than I have ever known about not only what is happening in our congregational family but the people, issues, ideas and activities they most value.

Surprisingly, I find facebook reinforcing some of the lessons of these Days of Awe.

We are a community:
Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky of Beth El Congregation in Phoenix reminded me of the following teaching of Pirke Avot. He writes:

“we should greet all human beings “Bsever Panim Yafot” – with a cheerful face.“ He goes on to change the phrase slightly: “In 2008 many people greet one another “B’SEFER Panim Yafot” – literally “a book of cheerful faces”, in other words – FACEBOOK.”

Not every face on facebook is cheerful but I have to admit, I see more happiness, cheer and pure enjoyment among people in the virtual world of facebook than I do in this tangible world of our. Browsing through the pages of my facebook friends, (what is a friend is a topic for another time) I find pictures of people smiling, people playing, people doing what they enjoy most. Kids and adults, young and old, write about the happenings of their lives and what I read is overwhelmingly positive! It is the opposite of every Jewish stereotype! I love it because it seems as though everyone tries to follow my favorite commandment - Thou Shalt Not Whine. It is as if facebook is the polar opposite of most blogs: Positive and affirming not negative and disparaging.

Even more exciting to me is just how positively and supportive people react to each other’s happiness. Comments ranging from: “Your kids look adorable!” to “Awesome” make up other people’s responses to the happiness of their friends. It is as if facebook is the virtual embodiment of the Rabbi’s dictum from Pirkei Avot: “מצווה גוררת מצווה” “One mitzvah begets another mitzvah.” Appreciation and happiness beget appreciation and happiness.

Don’t get me wrong, facebook is not גן עדן, utopia on earth. The Messiah does not walk among us and perfection does not reign. One can find unhappiness and discontent in three distinct areas:

Politics:
Politics on facebook parallels politics in the real world and everyone feels compelled to share her or his views.

Changes that the owners of facebook try to make to the site:
Think of someone coming into your home and rearranging your kitchen or your furniture because they like it better.

IMPORTANT life issues:
Here we see that we definitely do not live in גן עדן. Real people lose real jobs. Real people face real illnesses. Real people confront the serious real problems of life. On facebook no one has to ask: “How are you?” and receive a perfunctory “Fine” in response. Perhaps because of the virtual nature of the environment and people do not really “see” each other face to face, thus putting up a comment about a challenge facing you is easier and it seems as though people respond in a totally supportive manner. Perhaps the virtual world enables us to tear down the facades we put up for each other. Sincere messages of caring, empathy, sympathy and support pass through the ether at the speed of light finally alighting on the recipient’s page and lifting a bit of the burden off his or her heart.

Biblically Rosh Hashanah is called יום הזכרון - the Day of Remembrance. Torah does not tell us what we should try to remember. facebook also helps us accomplish this major task. We can look back at our own page and the pages of others to reinforce our understanding of the positive impact we have made on others and they have made on us.

Through a colleagues facebook site, I found the son of the senior rabbi I worked with in Memphis. From that connection, one of his childhood friends found and wrote me. As an assistant rabbi I helped train him for his Bar Mitzvah in 1982 (I’ll let you do the math) Needless to say he was not one of my best students. In fact, I would have given good odds that Judaism would not be a major part of his life. Yet, here is a piece of what he wrote me:

“We're in Canada -- my wife grew up here and we met on JDate while I was living in Virginia, but traveling every month for work to where she lived.
My wife, by the way, is a professional Jew. Her parents are survivors whose first language is Yiddish. She teaches and translates Yiddish, and she taught for 15-odd years at the Jewish day school here. This summer she left the school to take over all of the Holocaust education and memorial programs run by the local Federation and Jewish Community Center.

Lessons 2: Honestly, we have changed.
Since moving to Buffalo, I have been fascinated by the death notices in the Buffalo News. One thing in particular draws my attention: the pictures people choose to put in the death notice of a loved one. In a recent obituary of a woman with 14 great-grandchildren, yes that is 14 great-grandchildren, I found the picture of a woman who looked to be in her 20’s. Here too I find that those who use facebook understand another of the meanings of these High Holy Days - we all change. Other than a few people who use a piece of art work to represent themselves, the pictures of people you find on facebook are of who they are today - and it is not always flattering.

Judaism teaches us that life embodies change and that who we are today, as individuals and as a community, is built upon a foundation years in the making. During these Days of Awe, we do not just look back at the past year for specific acts to celebrate or rue, but to find the path to repentance, to be able to change our behaviors and lives for the better, we need to look farther back and see that significant change means knowing the path we took to today AND accepting the image we see in the mirror, the photograph, or our soul cannot be turned back like flipping pages on a calendar. A facebook picture of who we are today symbolizes an acceptance of our current reality and that brings us to the point where our journey to a better future begins. Each line, each gray hair, each missing hair, each extra pound tangibly represent our life’s journey. We can cover the reality up with make-up, dye, transplants and well tailored clothing, but we only fool ourselves into thinking that we, and those around us, do not know the reality.

Most of us know the story of God telling Abraham and Sarah that a 90 year old Sarah would conceive a son with a 99 year old Abraham. Sarah’s reaction - she looked at the reality of her age and the wrinkled face of her husband and laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Perhaps the ancient Rabbis picked this story as the traditional portion for first day Rosh Hashanah to teach us that even if we accept who we are and how we got there, the possibility to change our lives still exists. We have to see ourselves in our true present state - show the world and ourselves a current picture as it were - in order to bring about a seemingly miraculous positive change.

People tend to minimize, facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites as only being virtual networks comprised of people who rarely if ever see each other and whose relationship consists of the thinnest thread of connection, being members of the same social networking site. Being Jewish, I do not. For Jews, community consists of a network of people crossing time and space whose only connection consists of claiming the identity of being a part of the same faith.

At the beginning of each month, we recite a blessing: May God gather us from the four corners of the earth, Israel all being friends.

Sounds like a Messianic promise. Jews not only feeling connected to one another, but being friends? Please God, soon and in our days! It is almost happening over the next 10 days. Here in our congregation, in congregations around the world praying for each other’s well-being. Sharing in dissimilar practices all connected by name and intent. Perhaps we those days are closer than we think.

Ok, is he serious? Does he really believe facebook exemplifies the lessons of Rosh Hashanah? Let’s review:

1. Commitment to put forward a better face to the world. - Check
2. Commitment to be supportive of members of our community in need. - Check
3. Commitment to honestly face ourselves and honestly present ourselves to the world. - Check
4. Commitment to connect more closely to others in our community. - Check

Sounds like Rosh Hashanah to me.

Shanah Tovah.