Dedication of the new Aron HaKadosh
Holy Ark at Central Reform Temple
Rosh Hashanah 2024/5784
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
As I place the scrolls of the Torah into our newly commissioned Aron HaKodesh – Holy Ark for Central Reform Temple, we dedicate this ark for the first time at the beginning of a new year of hope and promise. This festival of Rosh Hashanah brings with it joy and celebration in the midst of family and community and so too our new ark symbolizes the joy we feel in being part of this unique community; one in which two congregations, Christian and Jewish, pray under one roof to one God. As God directs in the book of Exodus (25:8),” Asu li mikdash v’shochanti b’tocham – Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them”. Through the diligent and creative work of members of our community and with it’s fabricator, we have created a new home for our Torah scrolls under the illuminated Hebrew inscription, Brit Olam– Eternal Covenant representing our enduring relationship with the Divine. As God says in Genesis (9:12) “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for Eternity. It is the promise, the assurance that this Eternal Covenant will be sustained and that the teachings of the Torah within, are a sure and tested way to live out that promise and fulfill God’s expectations of us as Jews, as peoples of faith, as human beings and as one of the myriad forms of life on this diverse planet.
As we pray, we will gaze upon the ner tamid – the Eternal light radiating from three sides and the imaginative design of the doors and we will be reminded that we are but a small part of this vast creation and yet we still hear God’s commanding voice within us as a “kol damama daka - a still, small voice” (I Kings 19:11). ‘We will know before whom we stand’ calling us to respond to the prophet Micah’s call (6:8) to “Do Justice, Favour Compassion and Walk humbly with your God”.
We thank God for enabling us to dedicate this new ark for our Service of the Heart;
Blessed are You, Eternal, our God, Creator of the Universe, for giving us life, sustaining us and enabling us to reach this day. Amen
As we pray, we will gaze upon the ner tamid – the Eternal light radiating from three sides and the imaginative design of the doors and we will be reminded that we are but a small part of this vast creation and yet we still hear God’s commanding voice within us as a “kol damama daka - a still, small voice” (I Kings 19:11). ‘We will know before whom we stand’ calling us to respond to the prophet Micah’s call (6:8) to “Do Justice, Favour Compassion and Walk humbly with your God”.
We thank God for enabling us to dedicate this new ark for our Service of the Heart;
Blessed are You, Eternal, our God, Creator of the Universe, for giving us life, sustaining us and enabling us to reach this day. Amen
From Ageing to Sageing
May 12, 2023
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
In the book of Leviticus, we read, ‘Mipne Seva, Takum v’hadarta p’mei zaken’’- You shall rise before the seva -the Elder [Literally the one with white hair] and show deference to the zaken– the Old [literally the wise leader].; (Leviticus 19:32). What does it mean to be an elder, a sage who offers their experience, their judgment, and their wisdom for the welfare of others. Most of us have grown up with a deep seated fear of old age: Our youth oriented culture that looks for perfect bodies and lifestyles focuses on the physical diminishment associated with old age. This means wrinkled skin, sight and hearing and mobility challe’nges and chronic conditions are represented as the fruit of long life experience rather than wisdom, serenity, balanced judgment and self knowledge.
But our culture’s limited one sided view of aging is undergoing a profound change as medical and scientific advancements has enabled our lifespan to increase to such a degree that the elderly now represent the fastest growing segment of the population. Whereas the Bible proposed an ideal lifespan of three score and ten, we now know 90 is the new 70! Someone born today can expect their life expectancy to be in the 100s. It has taken individuals pushing the medical envelope to reframe the thinking of doctors. My father in law in his late ‘80s, perfectly healthy and independently living had to literally beg his doctors to give him an internal heart pump which kept him alive for a further two years and see his grandchildren become Bar and Batmitzvah. My mother, as you know, at 102 recently had a heart valve replacement procedure. Google says that the oldest heart valve replacement in the world was for a 90 year old. Google is now wrong! My mother’s doctors had to decide if the benefits would outweigh the risks and the potential longevity. They decided in favour and they pushed medical science one more step towards a new understanding of ageing.
We have generally accepted the view of aging that includes the inevertible decline of nature, but this is being reconsidered. Rather than seeing decline as an outcome of age, researchers are seeing decline as a product of the ways in which elders have been treated. Having a sedentary lifestyle, being cared solely by others, only taking low risks in lifestyle and being offered medication to prevent any and every possibility is the approach that determines decline is natural in old age. In his book, From Ageing to Sageing, Rabbi Schachter – Shalomi, reminds us that the ancient world held onto a vision of ageing that implied physical vigor, intellectual growth and visionary work as we read about in the stories of Abraham and Sarah or Moses, Miriam, Naomi and others. Our tradition chooses to depict the sages as elders with an understanding that this is a strength and an opportunity. Naomi is the widow who has to re-invent her life after her husband and two sons die. She calls herself ‘mara’ – bitter. She has to rely on her loyal daughter-in-law Ruth to support her emotionally and economically. But she makes a choice to generate a new life for herself actively building a new family with Boaz and Ruth’s children. The end of the book of Ruth indicates that it is Naomi, the elderly grandmother who brings up her grandchild Obed. In Obed’s old age, he sees his grandson David crowned the King of Israel. As grandchildren, we carry the legacy of our grandparents’ love and nurturing, not so much when they were young but rather when we knew them in their old age.
Erik Erikson, the psychologist described the lifecycle as having six stages of growth. The last one, the one we inhabit in old age, he said was a tension between generativity and stagnation. That is, we can choose to see this stage as generating new opportunities, new learning, new growth or we will face stagnation and decline. This is true of spiritual growth too. James Fowler, a religious psychologist, in his book Stages of Faith suggested that elders deepening their understanding of meaning making are the ones who more readily understand the common values expressed in all faiths and the common humanity of all peoples. As these elders deeply value their own religious identities, symbols, stories and rituals of their own tradition, they come to respect and honour the deeply held faith of others and learn from this enlarged consciousness of making meaning and finding purpose in life. I think this is so true here in our shared community of Jew and Christian unafraid of each other and eager to learn the wisdom of the Other.
This generativity allows older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital and socially responsible elders of the tribe. Elders express their wisdom in dedicated service to the community. They endow their lives with meaning and avoid thinking of themselves as burdens on anyone else. This process which Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi calls ‘spiritual eldering’ transforms the downwards concept of aging to turn upward in expanded consciousness. Frank Lloyd Wright was 70 when he designed Falling Water, perhaps the most famous house in America. He was 92 when his dream of a whole new architecture was realized in the building of the Guggenheim museum in Manhattan. Others like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Maria Montessori, Florence Nightingale all culminated their life’s work with powerful energy well into their old age when their expanded consciousness fed wisdom back into society for improvement and advancement. They serve as pathfinders offering hope and guidance to those who are searching for models of a fulfilled human potential.
So how can we become such elders as we move on in our own lives. In the book, Wise Ageing by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr Linda Thal, they offer a pathway for us all to consider in our path from ageing to sageing.
We can start with telling our story. Reflecting on our life experience, sharing that experience in writing or orally is a very important foundation for self-learning and transmitting to others. Passing on those family stories, family photographs, life maps is so vital in knowing and living our life story. But what about our regrets in life? For those of us who carry burdensome stories, this is the time to let go of regrets if we are to be free and fresh elders. Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, the famous Hasidic rebbe who was also an amateur pyschologist, understood the double sided difficulty of teshuva – of turning away from past hurts to a new liberated consciousness. On the one hand, he assured his disciples that change is possible at any time in life, but he also acknowledged how difficult this can be, to actually do it. What he offered was that the very obstacle that makes it so difficult for us to change is the actual pathway to that change. Confronting our envious nature in old age can only come about when we resolve the jealousy with a sibling that we have held life-long. Coming to terms with our irritation at being let down by others will only truly change when we understand how we did not live up to our own true potential in early years. This takes work on our behalf and yet is so fundamental to becoming the elder that seeks resolution to our life story.
Secondly, elders are wisdom keepers who have an ongoing responsibility for stewardship. Stewarding our families, our neighbours, our communities, all the while safeguarding our health and the health of our ailing planet with which we are interdependent. Jewish legend emphasizes this stewardship in the tale of Honi Ha’meagel – Honi, the circle maker who saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asks the man, ‘how many years will it take for this tree to bear fruit? 70 years, says the man. ‘Is it clear to you that you will live another 70 years? Asks Honi. The man famously replies; ‘just as I just live in this world that is full of carob trees and just as my ancestors planted for me, so I will plant for my children and their children’.
Finally provide mentoring and healing for others. Bring compassion and empathy to your family, your community. Leave the judgement and the criticism to the younger frustrated young things. Be open to curiosity, to heartfelt questions and longing.
The teaching of sageing is quite simple; tell your story, steward the world and be open to the wonder of all around you. Learn to accept with compassion what life brings. Experience yourself as part of something so much bigger than ourselves and find the prayers, the melodies, the poetry and the silence that expresses your awe and gratitude. Build a community of people that responds to need and reach out to serve the world. For we are told in Psalm 92 ; Tzadik ka‘tamar yifrach’ -the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, they shall thrive like a seed in Lebanon. They shall bear fruit even in old age. They shall ever be fragrant and fresh’.
May we live like the Palm and the Cedar bearing the fruit of wisdom, fresh with the liveness of being present to each moment and each step along life’s path. May we each discover that pathway that helps shape our remaining years with wisdom, resilience and renewed spirit.
Rabbi Michael Shire
Acknowledgement to Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi’s ‘From Ageing to Sageing’.
But our culture’s limited one sided view of aging is undergoing a profound change as medical and scientific advancements has enabled our lifespan to increase to such a degree that the elderly now represent the fastest growing segment of the population. Whereas the Bible proposed an ideal lifespan of three score and ten, we now know 90 is the new 70! Someone born today can expect their life expectancy to be in the 100s. It has taken individuals pushing the medical envelope to reframe the thinking of doctors. My father in law in his late ‘80s, perfectly healthy and independently living had to literally beg his doctors to give him an internal heart pump which kept him alive for a further two years and see his grandchildren become Bar and Batmitzvah. My mother, as you know, at 102 recently had a heart valve replacement procedure. Google says that the oldest heart valve replacement in the world was for a 90 year old. Google is now wrong! My mother’s doctors had to decide if the benefits would outweigh the risks and the potential longevity. They decided in favour and they pushed medical science one more step towards a new understanding of ageing.
We have generally accepted the view of aging that includes the inevertible decline of nature, but this is being reconsidered. Rather than seeing decline as an outcome of age, researchers are seeing decline as a product of the ways in which elders have been treated. Having a sedentary lifestyle, being cared solely by others, only taking low risks in lifestyle and being offered medication to prevent any and every possibility is the approach that determines decline is natural in old age. In his book, From Ageing to Sageing, Rabbi Schachter – Shalomi, reminds us that the ancient world held onto a vision of ageing that implied physical vigor, intellectual growth and visionary work as we read about in the stories of Abraham and Sarah or Moses, Miriam, Naomi and others. Our tradition chooses to depict the sages as elders with an understanding that this is a strength and an opportunity. Naomi is the widow who has to re-invent her life after her husband and two sons die. She calls herself ‘mara’ – bitter. She has to rely on her loyal daughter-in-law Ruth to support her emotionally and economically. But she makes a choice to generate a new life for herself actively building a new family with Boaz and Ruth’s children. The end of the book of Ruth indicates that it is Naomi, the elderly grandmother who brings up her grandchild Obed. In Obed’s old age, he sees his grandson David crowned the King of Israel. As grandchildren, we carry the legacy of our grandparents’ love and nurturing, not so much when they were young but rather when we knew them in their old age.
Erik Erikson, the psychologist described the lifecycle as having six stages of growth. The last one, the one we inhabit in old age, he said was a tension between generativity and stagnation. That is, we can choose to see this stage as generating new opportunities, new learning, new growth or we will face stagnation and decline. This is true of spiritual growth too. James Fowler, a religious psychologist, in his book Stages of Faith suggested that elders deepening their understanding of meaning making are the ones who more readily understand the common values expressed in all faiths and the common humanity of all peoples. As these elders deeply value their own religious identities, symbols, stories and rituals of their own tradition, they come to respect and honour the deeply held faith of others and learn from this enlarged consciousness of making meaning and finding purpose in life. I think this is so true here in our shared community of Jew and Christian unafraid of each other and eager to learn the wisdom of the Other.
This generativity allows older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital and socially responsible elders of the tribe. Elders express their wisdom in dedicated service to the community. They endow their lives with meaning and avoid thinking of themselves as burdens on anyone else. This process which Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi calls ‘spiritual eldering’ transforms the downwards concept of aging to turn upward in expanded consciousness. Frank Lloyd Wright was 70 when he designed Falling Water, perhaps the most famous house in America. He was 92 when his dream of a whole new architecture was realized in the building of the Guggenheim museum in Manhattan. Others like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Maria Montessori, Florence Nightingale all culminated their life’s work with powerful energy well into their old age when their expanded consciousness fed wisdom back into society for improvement and advancement. They serve as pathfinders offering hope and guidance to those who are searching for models of a fulfilled human potential.
So how can we become such elders as we move on in our own lives. In the book, Wise Ageing by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr Linda Thal, they offer a pathway for us all to consider in our path from ageing to sageing.
We can start with telling our story. Reflecting on our life experience, sharing that experience in writing or orally is a very important foundation for self-learning and transmitting to others. Passing on those family stories, family photographs, life maps is so vital in knowing and living our life story. But what about our regrets in life? For those of us who carry burdensome stories, this is the time to let go of regrets if we are to be free and fresh elders. Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, the famous Hasidic rebbe who was also an amateur pyschologist, understood the double sided difficulty of teshuva – of turning away from past hurts to a new liberated consciousness. On the one hand, he assured his disciples that change is possible at any time in life, but he also acknowledged how difficult this can be, to actually do it. What he offered was that the very obstacle that makes it so difficult for us to change is the actual pathway to that change. Confronting our envious nature in old age can only come about when we resolve the jealousy with a sibling that we have held life-long. Coming to terms with our irritation at being let down by others will only truly change when we understand how we did not live up to our own true potential in early years. This takes work on our behalf and yet is so fundamental to becoming the elder that seeks resolution to our life story.
Secondly, elders are wisdom keepers who have an ongoing responsibility for stewardship. Stewarding our families, our neighbours, our communities, all the while safeguarding our health and the health of our ailing planet with which we are interdependent. Jewish legend emphasizes this stewardship in the tale of Honi Ha’meagel – Honi, the circle maker who saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asks the man, ‘how many years will it take for this tree to bear fruit? 70 years, says the man. ‘Is it clear to you that you will live another 70 years? Asks Honi. The man famously replies; ‘just as I just live in this world that is full of carob trees and just as my ancestors planted for me, so I will plant for my children and their children’.
Finally provide mentoring and healing for others. Bring compassion and empathy to your family, your community. Leave the judgement and the criticism to the younger frustrated young things. Be open to curiosity, to heartfelt questions and longing.
The teaching of sageing is quite simple; tell your story, steward the world and be open to the wonder of all around you. Learn to accept with compassion what life brings. Experience yourself as part of something so much bigger than ourselves and find the prayers, the melodies, the poetry and the silence that expresses your awe and gratitude. Build a community of people that responds to need and reach out to serve the world. For we are told in Psalm 92 ; Tzadik ka‘tamar yifrach’ -the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, they shall thrive like a seed in Lebanon. They shall bear fruit even in old age. They shall ever be fragrant and fresh’.
May we live like the Palm and the Cedar bearing the fruit of wisdom, fresh with the liveness of being present to each moment and each step along life’s path. May we each discover that pathway that helps shape our remaining years with wisdom, resilience and renewed spirit.
Rabbi Michael Shire
Acknowledgement to Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi’s ‘From Ageing to Sageing’.
Installation Service
April 30, 2023
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Given in response to Rabbi Marcia Plumb's address...
Thankyou Marcia. People always want to know what to call the husband of a rabbi. The wife of a male rabbi has traditionally been known as a rebbetzin. It is said that the husband of a female rabbi is just known as lucky!! And that is certainly the case today! People don’t know this, and please don’t tell anyone, but the only one thing that a rabbi is actually required for in Jewish practice is…to make another rabbi. Anyone can conduct a prayer service or perform a wedding or funeral in Judaism. However, the act of s’micha, ordination can only be conducted by a rabbi and I was lucky enough that Marcia was the one who ordained me at Leo Baeck College over 25 years ago.
It has been a real gift to have this installation weekend and so many have made this a such a special occasion that it has been a real blessing. Thank you to Rabbi Devon for bringing me to CRT and installing me so movingly today. Thank you to all my new friends at CRT and Emmanuel, Thank you to all our local clergy and to my colleagues and students from Hebrew College who have joined us today and my predecessor Rabbi Howard Kosovske. I know my mother, sister, brother-in-law and dear friends are watching us from England and elsewhere and my son in Scotland. And my late father feels very present as he too combined being shul president and president of a Jewish Christian interfaith organization and he brought hope and healing to all who knew him.
People had no idea what a rabbinic installation was, and I was the brunt of many jokes including, ‘He’s not a piece of art!’ or ‘how many light bulbs does it take to install a rabbi’ or ‘is this your coronation’? So, definitely not a Coronation – we shall leave that to Charles and Camilla next weekend. Thank goodness the dates didn’t clash, or they would have had to move it!
It is most appropriate that Marcia, the rabbi of Congregation Mishkan Tefila and the clergy of Emmanuel Church be here together, for in April1865, it was the first rector of Emmanuel Church and the first Rabbi of Congregation Mishkan Tefila that publicly eulogized Abraham Lincoln in Boston following his assassination. Both Jewish and Christian communities were bereft at the loss of their common leader in a land that has provided freedom of worship to all and safety and security to all religious minorities. As we read in the passages about leadership, it is no small challenge to choose to become a leader and yet when leadership is called for, none of us can excuse ourselves. We read in the Mishnah, the 2nd century code of Jewish practice, in a section of ethical sayings of the Rabbinic Sages; pirke avot; you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. Stepping up to be a leader is an act of response to that call. It suggests that we respond to those things that need repair and for which we may ask ‘what is the work that is ours to do?
I have been teaching and preparing students for a life of service to the Jewish Community for these past three decades and that has been the most enriching and satisfying career and vocation. Yet now I am being called myself to respond to this rapidly changing world and step up to respond directly and yes, perhaps step down from the ivory tower to meet the people on Newbury St. This street outside, that has the wealthiest goods and products for sale and yet Jackie and others literally sleep on our doorstep all year round.
What is that will make us all feel the need to respond, or indeed the ability to respond; to be response-able. Judaism teaches the imperative of ethical responsibility as a prime feature of our faith; Tzedek Tzedek Tirdorf says Moses in Deuteronomy as he establishes the principles of our faith ‘Justice Justice shall you pursue’. We can rightly celebrate Judaism’s commitment to the ethical imperative and especially Reform Judaism’s emphasis on this essence of our faith. Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jewry during the Shoah/The Holocaust and my grandparents’ rabbi commented on the Torah portion of Kedoshim/ The Holiness Code that we read yesterday in Synagogue in our lectionary reading. When the core teaching of the Torah from Leviticus 19 is recited as Love your neighbour as yourself – ve’ahavta re'cha camocha’, it is truncated. The sentence is not complete until we also add the final two words – Ani Adonai – I am the Eternal One. For Baeck points out that every principle of Torah is followed by “I am the Eternal Your God”. The very nature of God is bound up with the command to act, to do, resulting in the ethics of responsibility. The Good and the Holy are interconnected and mutually dependent. The Good reflects our response to our fellow human beings and the Holy, our response to God and the response that God searches for in us.
The Prophets of Israel warned against a split between the Holy and the Good. Unless the Holy leads us out to the Good and the Good leads us inward to the Holy, faith dries up and our response -ability is truncated. In six days, we are told God creates and declares it Good. On the seventh day, God ceases that work and declares it Holy. We need to connect to the Good and the Holy in our lives in order that unity of purpose and unification of self is our life’s work and vocation and our Godly play. It is what fellow Godly player, Dr Rebecca Nye means when she talks of teachers cultivating the Relational Consciousness of their students. As Professor Larry Hoffman said to me when I told him I was coming to Central Reform Temple, ‘Wow! Those are serious thinking Jews; help them find their inner selves in order to change their outer world’.
This sense of responsibility entails a number of relationships. We cannot be leaders on our own. Our relationships are Vertical and horizontal as we spend time in worship and acts of justice; our Relationships draw upon the wisdom of our traditions in the past and ensure they speak to us in the present. Our Relationships are deeply rooted in our Peoplehood and open to our partners in faith whether they be within our families or within our congregations. Our Relationships are expressed in word in English, Hebrew and Aramaic and the variety of traditional and contemporary Jewish music that we hear today. At the end of this service, we shall sing one of the most popular of all Jewish hymns from the 15th Century, Adon Olam – God of All, set to a British Sephardi melody from the famous Bevis Marks Synagogue that transfixed me as a child and has accompanied me across the waters for its debut in Boston today. Thankyou Amy, Andrew, DJ and Louise for your beautiful voices and music that takes us to that inner place.
I am excited about this coming together of all my sparks of passion in this act of leadership; history of this land, connections to the European Jewish experience and Jewish learning from all lands, teaching our Jewish wisdom texts and our pathways for religious experience, our interfaith work that is both face to face here in our sanctuaries and side by side on our street outside.
In the meditation, that my daughter Anya and Jill read and that I wrote over 40 years ago for the rabbinic installation of a dear friend, I allude to Jacob’s wrestling with another being in the middle of the night. Here is the Biblical image of response and leadership. Is this a struggle or an embrace? Is it injurying by wounding and yet also healing by challenging and growing? Does it empty us and yet also replenish us? All of these are the components of leadership and responsibility as we learn to grow together. Let blessing spread over this dawning for God has imparted wisdom to those who strive for the sake of heaven, l’shem shamayim. As Jacob finally says in the grasp of the Embrace, I will not let you go, until you have blessed me.
Shabbat Service
February 24, 2023
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Calling In / Calling Out
My son, Micah recently spent his spring break with his fellow students in the city of York in Northern England. I told them to spend some time at Clifford’s Tower, an outcrop of rock with a fortress on top just outside the city walls. In 1190, 150 local Jews took refuge there from a mob who had been incited to attack them by a noble who was deep in debt and refused to repay his loan to his Jewish bankers. The Jews were so afraid that eventually they decided to take their own lives rather than fall into the hands of the mob who subsequently burned the tower and everyone in it, dead or alive. All this information is given at the site and Micah’s non-Jewish friends were horrified to read of the worst Antisemitic pogrom in medieval England and expressed their sympathy to him, knowing that he is Jewish. However, Micah told me that he shrugged them off, saying, don’t worry about it. It happens all the time to us? He may have been half joking, but it is that kind of Jewish humour that masks the difficult and challenging issue of Antisemitism that is growing again in our midst. The recent data collected suggests that Antisemitic incidents have increased 48% in Massachusetts since 2021 and this includes everything from daubings of swastikas in cemeteries, synagogues and schools including at Newton North, Multiple College and University antisemitic incidents and events, desecration of the Boston Holocaust Memorial twice over a weekend in 2021 and then again last week. Slurs and defamation uttered in the streets and all the way up to the stabbing of Rabbi Noginski in Brighton in 2021 right outside the Jewish Day School on Washington St.
I have to say that I did not want to talk about this – I have never spoken about Antisemitism before and I am uncomfortable doing so. I believed that being integrated in a Western cultured civilization would put an end to so called ‘oldest hatred’ ; an irrational and enduring hatred against Jews. So way do we want to speak about it now? What can we possibly achieve by speaking about Antisemitism and acting to counter it? First of all, what to call it? The German philosopher Wilhelm Marr who did hate Jews invented the term Antisemitism in order to sanitize German society from the Jew hatred that he and others promoted. We have adopted the word sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes with a capital A but Rachel Fish, our local expert on the subject suggests we should use the term Jew Hatred because it says what it actually is, and from research she conducted, young people seem to think that they should be anti-racist, anti-Islamaphobic and anti-semitic!! After all, what is a semite anyway? It’s a confusing term when what we mean is to call out those for whom hatred of Jews is a collective and racist prejudice for no other reason than that we are Jews.
It is so ingrained and so unconscious for many that it continues to flourish in the ignorance and falsehoods of those who can spread this hatred quite easily with all the ease that other hatreds are spread. We are not the only one who suffer this way but there is something peculiar about antisemitism in our society - we are not considered a persecuted or oppressed minority when people attack Jews. We do not get the allies, that others do, to protect and stand up for us. We are considered a powerful, strong community, passing as white who do not need the support or protection of a coalition of minorities. So on the one hand, we are seen to enjoy the privilege of the powerful and yet also they see us as ‘other’ ‘different’ ‘disloyal’. And this of course is not new. When Haman went to King Ahaseureus in Persia 2500 years ago, that is exactly what he said, ‘There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples of your lands. They are set apart and do not obey your laws. Let an edict be drawn up for their destruction and I will pay you 10,000 talents of silver to carry this out. The King replied to Haman – The money and the People are yours to do with as you see fit. It took Esther, the Queen, passing as WASP Persian to risk her life and stand up to be counted, in order to save Persian Jewry, establishing the festival of Purim which we will celebrate in great jollity and mirth in two weeks time.
Dara Horn’s new book with its provocative title, People love Dead Jews, suggests that laughing off antisemitism as well as venerating the memory of its victims distracts us from the work that we need to actually do in persuading people that they should love live Jews and Judaism’s contribution to our Civilization. She quotes Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice which we are reading in the book group this month, as a satire on this double standard of hating Shylock for his Jewish greed while emphasizing with his humanism in the ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed’ speech. I don’t want to concentrate on the hatred that others may feel or think they feel to live a Judaism that is defensive, insecure and inward looking. I want the Judaism I teach and espouse to be one of joy and celebration; one that provides meaning to the ups and downs of life’s journey and enables us to thrive as responsible human beings individually and in the communities we inhabit.
In our current times, when calling out those who consciously or unconsciously express racist or prejudiced views and attitudes is frequent, it is troubling that Antisemitism is not regarded with the same disdain and disapproval. It still can be socially acceptable in polite circles. I would not call Whoopi Goldberg an Antisemite but why is it that she, of all people, sincerely believes the Holocaust was not about race when 6 million Jews were killed precisely because the Nazis saw us as a race to be exterminated. The Nuremburg Laws were racial purity laws. Each minority is oppressed in its own way and it is not a zero sum game. Racism against Black People and its roots in American slavery does not negate the vulnerability of Jews or deny that there are those who simply hate the very idea of the Jew in our society. Why couldn’t she even say that?
Whereas we have seen hatred of Jews from the far right and White Supremacy buoyed during the Trump years shockingly in
Charlottesville and other places, we have also seen Jew Hatred from the far left who equate all Jews with the tragedies of the Middle East. What is most disturbing now is that Antisemitism is tinged with both sorts of prejudice. We are all rich and powerful, taking control of the finances of the world while at the same time denying Palestinians their rightful destiny and creating an Apartheid State open only to other Jews. There is so much to say about this contemporary Antisemitic trope and how we have become the scapegoat for so many of the issues that anger people. One of my colleagues visited a university in California on the day that the authorities found that the walls had been daubed with swastikas and the words ‘Zionism is racism’. My colleague asked his hosts who they think had done this, ‘was it people outside the university who had come in to do this or was it students from inside the university despoiling their own home and fellow students’? He was given the answer that whoever had done it, had carefully deposited all of the spray paint cans in the recycling bins on campus! Contemporary crusaders of all issues, continue to view Jews as collectively responsible for the ills they wish to eliminate.
So, what is it we can do to in this heated climate as preventative ways to build the safe, secure and yet outward looking Jewish experience that we want?. Taking local experts Rachel Fish, Dara Horn and CJP’s recent pronouncements work into account, I have come up with the following:
- Call In and Call Out; Calling In is to engage in real conversation with people who express anti- Jewish attitudes including ones that imply all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions. That is antisemitic by definition. This is best done with friends and family to whom you can converse quietly, listening to each other with open curiosity rather than closed judgement and hearing where the hurt or offence lies. That was how Whoopi Goldberg, Mark Ruffalo and others got to change their mind and heart.
- Calling Out is standing up to express what you believe is wrong when you witness it. This is often done in public, on social media or social situations. You know it when you feel it and when you call it out, it changes the atmosphere. However, later you wont regret that you made a stand and helped prevent prejudice being spread. When my mother’s third age group suggested that the Jews were stealing all the water in the Jordan river, she bravely pronounced, ‘That is not true. Give us your evidence’. There was an awkward silence and the person involved responded, you are right, I don’t really know, I just read it somewhere.
- Enjoy our Judaism and spread its joy and delight wherever we go. That is the best way to celebrate the fact that we love our Jewish identities and are prepared to share its benefits and opportunities with all peoples.
- We need to build our allies. We are a minority and we are vulnerable like other minorities. So our work on anti-racism and ensuring Black Lives Matter and acknowledging the native lands on which we now prosper and the support for refugees from war torn lands or walking and marching to eradicate homelessness on our streets is a crucial part of our responsibility but also as building alliances for all vulnerable minorities including our own when we need them.
- Finally and it has to be said, we need to keep safe. To ensure the security of those participating in Jewish life whether it be in schools or synagogues. Being vigilant and cautious but not to the detriment of opening our doors to all who wish to join us. There is a balance to be had and so far I think it is working well except perhaps for the one student who arrived at the door last Rosh Hashanah without any ID and went home before we could do the necessary checks!
We cannot live our lives in the shadows in this land that was the first to offer Jews liberty and freedom of worship. We can rightfully worry about our vulnerability as a minority and the increased danger that the current times present. In the end, however let us live joyfully as Jews and allies of Jews, celebrating our 4000 year old renewable tradition and its wisdom and take responsibility for all those, like us, who cannot remain silent when evil in whatever form raises it’s ugly head. And some humour won’t go amiss as we will see on Purim. After all, they did come for us, we have survived, now let’s eat!!
Sunday Morning Service Emmanuel Church
December 18, 2022
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Lit Up
The new rabbi turns up at his new congregation and before long he is embroiled in a huge dispute between different members of the congregation. There is an important ritual that needs to be performed and the community is divided on the right way of doing it according to the congregational custom. Half of them say, this is how we have always done it, it’s our tradition, we want to do it as we have always done. The other half of the congregation say, no that is not how we have done it, this is our tradition, we wouldn’t want to change anything. The new rabbi is perplexed. What should he or she do? He comes up with a great solution. We shall go and ask the old rabbi what is the congregation’s tradition for this custom. The whole community comes before the old rabbi – the new rabbi explains the dilemma that half the community think they know the tradition, the other half think they know the tradition. Who is right? They wait with baited breath as the old rabbi considers the issue. Finally, he turns to the new rabbi and says they are both right. It’s our tradition to always argue about it!
If this sounds familiar to us today, we can go back into antiquity to hear a familiar story. For in the Talmud, the rabbinic source of Jewish law, an account is given of two sages who disagreed as to the lighting of the Chanukah menorah. The Lighting is of course a remembrance of the struggle that the Jews in the land of Israel had with Hellenist invaders in the 1st century before the Common Era, one of the earliest recorded accounts of a fight for religious freedom. The Maccabees rose up against their Hellenist occupiers and for three years fought a bitter battle for control of the land and the Temple in Jerusalem. The few Maccabees defeated the many and as they rededicated the Temple - in Hebrew Hanukat Habayit - for worship again, legend tells us there was only enough sacred oil for the everlasting light for one day, but through a miracle – in Hebrew, nes, it lasted for eight days. The Maccabees inaugurated an eight day festival but by the time of the rabbis writing the Talmud 500 years later, it seems to have fallen into obscurity and they don’t know anymore the ritual of lighting the Chanukah menorah.
There is a dispute between the sage Hillel and his contemporary nemesis Shammai. Shammai declares that the correct way to light the Chanukah menorah is to start with 8 lights and each night to reduce one light so that there none left at the end. Shammai looks to the decreasing numbers of days ahead – 8, then 7, then 6. The lights reduce as the days of the festival decrease. Shammai’s reasoning is that light pushes out the darkness and so each day the light diminishes the darkness until is eliminated and no more lights need be lit. We may think of Shammai’s approach as acting with all our energy and force of will to dispel the darkness in our world until it is all gone and the light is not needed anymore. It’s an idealistic and romantic view of the world and the people in it.
Hillel however takes the opposite view. Hillel states that we should light one light on the first day and increase with an added light each day until we light eight lights on the last night of Chanukah. For Hillel, the days are increasing ahead, first one, then two all the way to eight. The lights increase as the days increase. Hillel’s position is that we are not trying to eliminate the darkness, we are trying to increase the light. This is a position of hope and faith in a fractured and complex world. As Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, "Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle".
Rather than seek to eliminate the dark, we may want rather to engage with it. Too often we pose darkness as the thing to avoid, to be fearful of, to eradicate. But in our age of breaking down polarities, there is much in darkness that can be embraced. We think of darkness as despair, solitude, evil but we also know that all life is created in darkness, that the depths of the ocean and the night sky hold great power to inspire and move us. In the deep darkness of the soil, the seed waits to germinate until it reaches the light to flower and blossom. Hillel understood that the very act of being involved in creating something new demands that we ourselves say, ‘Let there be Light’ and so we bring light out of the darkness.
As you most probably know, despite the love of argument in the Talmud where two Jews can really have three opinions, Hillel’s position won out and tonight on the first night of Chanukah this year, we will light one candle for the first night of Chanukah.
There was however one part of the ritual of lighting that the Rabbis agreed on. The fact that the Chanukah menorah should be lit in a window so that the lights would be displayed outside the home and at a time when there were still people in the marketplace about to go home from work. This concept of displaying the miracle, in Hebrew we call it ‘pirsumei nes’, is to remind ourselves that increasing the light is not just for our homes but it is for our neighborhoods, our streets, our marketplaces. It is to bear witness to injustices that are present on our streets, in our society and to shed the increasing light of hopefulness upon them.
Lighting lights on Chanukah or Christmas is to be a testimony of our commitment to increase the light.
There is a Jewish story told of the Hasidic community in Ukraine in the 18th century in places today which literally have no light and no warmth in this midwinter. It was the first night of Chanukah, and the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Baruch of Mezhibuzh lit the menorah and sang Chanukah songs with his Chassidim, his students. Suddenly, the candle flickered, as though dancing or struggling, and then the flame disappeared. The candle had not gone out-- there was no smoke. The light had just vanished. All of the students despaired and worried, ‘Should we relight the menorah?’ But the Rebbe insisted that they continue singing. Later that evening, a traveler came to the Rebbe and his Chassidim and said that he had been lost in the dangerous woods trying to get back in time to light the menorah. Suddenly, a single flame appeared in the darkness and guided him home, protecting him until he arrived at the Rebbe’s Chanukah table. After the traveler finished his story, the Rebbe and his Chassidim turned and looked at the menorah to find that the flame that had vanished was now burning brightly, as though it had never disappeared.
We may never know what the miracle of increasing the light actually is. For Walt Whitman, “he knew of nothing else but miracles”;
“To wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles”
There is one further discussion in the Talmud about the lighting of the lights for the menorah. It suggests that each household light one light to place on the menorah. However as if to suggest that it is everyone’s individual responsibility to spread the light, the Talmud invites those who want to enhance the ritual of lighting to have their own separate Chanukah menorah to light.
This concept of Ner ish u-beito – A Light for each person in a household is in the words of my colleague R. Adina Allen both a democratization and an activation of the light-giving capacity within each of us. Chanukah is a time for each of us to connect to the light within and, one candle at a time, to bring that light into the world. It is an opportunity for us to support others in kindling their unique flame, and for learning to appreciate the ways different lights glow. And it is a time for noticing what is possible when millions of little sparks are all lit up across the world.
And so we will each light one candle tonight – a small act of resistance for we do not know, as the Maccabees did not know how long our hope, our democratic way of life, our societies religious tolerance, a woman’s right to choose, even our legal same sex relationships will endure in the growing darkness. How long will war rage in Ukraine and climate change go unchecked? But we do light in the hope that the miracle is still present, that each light increases the vision of a just and equitable society, increases the numbers in the marketplace who see truth and become their own kindlers of light – ner mi ner – from light to light.
Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, a contemporary rabbi, teaches that the dispute between Hillel and Shammai belies a symbolic struggle over the strategic approach to resisting oppression: Do we focus on the destruction of these dark forces or harness the power of truth to bring illumination and dissipate the darkness? Weinbach tells us to look closely at the nature of a flame. It has two very distinct properties: it can burn down, and it can light up. Chanukah is an opportunity to notice the light, the darkness and the shadows in between. It is an invitation to bear witness to oppression and destruction and a time to rekindle the flames of hope and celebrate the power of resistance.
Tragically in our times again Chanukah reminds us that we need to act against growing antisemitism, just as we will fight against other forms of racism, bigotry, homophobia and hate. We do so together because of the poignant words of Pastor Martin Niemoller inscribed on the Boston Holocaust Memorial
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
But we cannot just live in that darkness and that is why I and we are here. For we celebrate an age old Jewish culture, a reimagination of Jewish life, and the creation of a proud, purposeful, and joyful Jewish community that chooses intentionally to overturn the dark past by being in Covenant relationship with Emanuel Church. There can be no more powerful way of truly increasing the light, spreading its glow and handing the light from one to another than by sustaining and developing this sacred relationship between us.
In times of darkness, Chanukah invites each of us to rededicate ourselves – hanukat habayit- to the pursuit of our shared purpose and to notice and appreciate the effect that our light can have when shared. We are here to increase the light in each other’s souls and in our neighbourhood and in our city and most importantly within our own faiths. So thanks to each of you for the light you shine. May we all be blessed in this act of resistance and in this act of creating a new world.
If this sounds familiar to us today, we can go back into antiquity to hear a familiar story. For in the Talmud, the rabbinic source of Jewish law, an account is given of two sages who disagreed as to the lighting of the Chanukah menorah. The Lighting is of course a remembrance of the struggle that the Jews in the land of Israel had with Hellenist invaders in the 1st century before the Common Era, one of the earliest recorded accounts of a fight for religious freedom. The Maccabees rose up against their Hellenist occupiers and for three years fought a bitter battle for control of the land and the Temple in Jerusalem. The few Maccabees defeated the many and as they rededicated the Temple - in Hebrew Hanukat Habayit - for worship again, legend tells us there was only enough sacred oil for the everlasting light for one day, but through a miracle – in Hebrew, nes, it lasted for eight days. The Maccabees inaugurated an eight day festival but by the time of the rabbis writing the Talmud 500 years later, it seems to have fallen into obscurity and they don’t know anymore the ritual of lighting the Chanukah menorah.
There is a dispute between the sage Hillel and his contemporary nemesis Shammai. Shammai declares that the correct way to light the Chanukah menorah is to start with 8 lights and each night to reduce one light so that there none left at the end. Shammai looks to the decreasing numbers of days ahead – 8, then 7, then 6. The lights reduce as the days of the festival decrease. Shammai’s reasoning is that light pushes out the darkness and so each day the light diminishes the darkness until is eliminated and no more lights need be lit. We may think of Shammai’s approach as acting with all our energy and force of will to dispel the darkness in our world until it is all gone and the light is not needed anymore. It’s an idealistic and romantic view of the world and the people in it.
Hillel however takes the opposite view. Hillel states that we should light one light on the first day and increase with an added light each day until we light eight lights on the last night of Chanukah. For Hillel, the days are increasing ahead, first one, then two all the way to eight. The lights increase as the days increase. Hillel’s position is that we are not trying to eliminate the darkness, we are trying to increase the light. This is a position of hope and faith in a fractured and complex world. As Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, "Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle".
Rather than seek to eliminate the dark, we may want rather to engage with it. Too often we pose darkness as the thing to avoid, to be fearful of, to eradicate. But in our age of breaking down polarities, there is much in darkness that can be embraced. We think of darkness as despair, solitude, evil but we also know that all life is created in darkness, that the depths of the ocean and the night sky hold great power to inspire and move us. In the deep darkness of the soil, the seed waits to germinate until it reaches the light to flower and blossom. Hillel understood that the very act of being involved in creating something new demands that we ourselves say, ‘Let there be Light’ and so we bring light out of the darkness.
As you most probably know, despite the love of argument in the Talmud where two Jews can really have three opinions, Hillel’s position won out and tonight on the first night of Chanukah this year, we will light one candle for the first night of Chanukah.
There was however one part of the ritual of lighting that the Rabbis agreed on. The fact that the Chanukah menorah should be lit in a window so that the lights would be displayed outside the home and at a time when there were still people in the marketplace about to go home from work. This concept of displaying the miracle, in Hebrew we call it ‘pirsumei nes’, is to remind ourselves that increasing the light is not just for our homes but it is for our neighborhoods, our streets, our marketplaces. It is to bear witness to injustices that are present on our streets, in our society and to shed the increasing light of hopefulness upon them.
Lighting lights on Chanukah or Christmas is to be a testimony of our commitment to increase the light.
There is a Jewish story told of the Hasidic community in Ukraine in the 18th century in places today which literally have no light and no warmth in this midwinter. It was the first night of Chanukah, and the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Baruch of Mezhibuzh lit the menorah and sang Chanukah songs with his Chassidim, his students. Suddenly, the candle flickered, as though dancing or struggling, and then the flame disappeared. The candle had not gone out-- there was no smoke. The light had just vanished. All of the students despaired and worried, ‘Should we relight the menorah?’ But the Rebbe insisted that they continue singing. Later that evening, a traveler came to the Rebbe and his Chassidim and said that he had been lost in the dangerous woods trying to get back in time to light the menorah. Suddenly, a single flame appeared in the darkness and guided him home, protecting him until he arrived at the Rebbe’s Chanukah table. After the traveler finished his story, the Rebbe and his Chassidim turned and looked at the menorah to find that the flame that had vanished was now burning brightly, as though it had never disappeared.
We may never know what the miracle of increasing the light actually is. For Walt Whitman, “he knew of nothing else but miracles”;
“To wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles”
There is one further discussion in the Talmud about the lighting of the lights for the menorah. It suggests that each household light one light to place on the menorah. However as if to suggest that it is everyone’s individual responsibility to spread the light, the Talmud invites those who want to enhance the ritual of lighting to have their own separate Chanukah menorah to light.
This concept of Ner ish u-beito – A Light for each person in a household is in the words of my colleague R. Adina Allen both a democratization and an activation of the light-giving capacity within each of us. Chanukah is a time for each of us to connect to the light within and, one candle at a time, to bring that light into the world. It is an opportunity for us to support others in kindling their unique flame, and for learning to appreciate the ways different lights glow. And it is a time for noticing what is possible when millions of little sparks are all lit up across the world.
And so we will each light one candle tonight – a small act of resistance for we do not know, as the Maccabees did not know how long our hope, our democratic way of life, our societies religious tolerance, a woman’s right to choose, even our legal same sex relationships will endure in the growing darkness. How long will war rage in Ukraine and climate change go unchecked? But we do light in the hope that the miracle is still present, that each light increases the vision of a just and equitable society, increases the numbers in the marketplace who see truth and become their own kindlers of light – ner mi ner – from light to light.
Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, a contemporary rabbi, teaches that the dispute between Hillel and Shammai belies a symbolic struggle over the strategic approach to resisting oppression: Do we focus on the destruction of these dark forces or harness the power of truth to bring illumination and dissipate the darkness? Weinbach tells us to look closely at the nature of a flame. It has two very distinct properties: it can burn down, and it can light up. Chanukah is an opportunity to notice the light, the darkness and the shadows in between. It is an invitation to bear witness to oppression and destruction and a time to rekindle the flames of hope and celebrate the power of resistance.
Tragically in our times again Chanukah reminds us that we need to act against growing antisemitism, just as we will fight against other forms of racism, bigotry, homophobia and hate. We do so together because of the poignant words of Pastor Martin Niemoller inscribed on the Boston Holocaust Memorial
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
But we cannot just live in that darkness and that is why I and we are here. For we celebrate an age old Jewish culture, a reimagination of Jewish life, and the creation of a proud, purposeful, and joyful Jewish community that chooses intentionally to overturn the dark past by being in Covenant relationship with Emanuel Church. There can be no more powerful way of truly increasing the light, spreading its glow and handing the light from one to another than by sustaining and developing this sacred relationship between us.
In times of darkness, Chanukah invites each of us to rededicate ourselves – hanukat habayit- to the pursuit of our shared purpose and to notice and appreciate the effect that our light can have when shared. We are here to increase the light in each other’s souls and in our neighbourhood and in our city and most importantly within our own faiths. So thanks to each of you for the light you shine. May we all be blessed in this act of resistance and in this act of creating a new world.
Shabbat Service Central Reform Temple
November 18, 2022 New Members Shabbat
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
The Third Place!
In her recent book The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker, reminds us that purpose is at the heart of any community gathering. When that community gathers, it is for a purpose and everything should be designed to fulfill that purpose; whether it is a birthday party, thanksgiving dinner, zoom family gathering – each gathering has its intention, and it is most successful when the goal for the gathering is planned and implemented. However, that goal may change over time and this was certainly the case with the establishment of the ancient synagogue.
In Rabbinic literature, the synagogue has three names that reflects it’s functions: House of Prayer (Beit Tefila), House of Study (Beit Midrash), House of Community (Beit Knesset). It was the final name, Beit Knesset that caught on and that is now the Hebrew word for synagogue. The early 1st century synagogue was most definitely a Beit Knesset as it welcomed visitors and travelers to stay the night and provided meals. Archeological evidence from the Galilee and Jerusalem supports this early view of the synagogue as primarily a hostelry with bedrooms and kitchens. It seems the idea of study later developed as the reading of the Torah became popular away from the central cult of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was only after the destruction of the Temple in 70CE that there was a move to use the synagogue for prayer since sacrifice was no longer available and would never ever return. One of early Mishnah passages, Pirke Avot – Saying of the Sages gives a rather biased view of Divine transmission omitting mention of the Temple and the priests and emphasizing the role of the rabbis and Torah study in the new institution of the synagogue:
Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.
In the same Mishnah text, we have the line: On three things the world stands; Al Hatorah – on study, Al Haavoda – on prayer and Al Gemilut Hasadim – on kindness and generosity to others. It could have been the mission statement of the early synagogue. Since that time, synagogues have fulfilled those three roles – prayer, study and community and we here at CRT provide prayer and study regularly. Yet we cannot “provide community”. That has to come from each one of us welcoming our guests (Knesset literally means in Hebrew; ‘access’), supporting our friends and modelling the atmosphere that provides warmth, relationship and fellowship. Over the past year and indeed since I joined you in July, a number of friendly faces have joined us at Shabbat services and they have all been impressed with the welcome and friendliness of our community. So in the spirit of the 1stcentury synagogue, we are delighted to acknowledge our new friends at this New Members’ Shabbat service. It is wonderful to see the turn out for this event of hospitality and care for others.
In the Torah portion, we read of Abraham’s hospitality when we are told he ran out of his tent in the middle of the day to greet three strangers who come out of the desert tired and weary. Together with Sarah, a meal is prepared and hospitality is given. The rabbis even go so far as to say Abraham’s tent was open on all sides so that he could catch wayfarers and invite them in to provide hospitality and sustanance.
Synagogues and churches that promote community are in the words of sociologist Ray Olderberg, ‘a third place’ complementing the first two places of home and work. What is a third place? It is where you go when you are not at home or work and where you find your source of fellowship, do your soulwork and fill up your humanity once again. Oldenburg writes:
“Your third place should come with a sense of ease and offer respite from the world without removing you from it altogether.” It invites us to open ourselves up to external experiences, and it asks us to examine our values and how we hold them in the presence of strangers.
I worked for a while at Temple Rodef Shalom in Virginia. The synagogue which is a modern building is laid out so that the library is at the intersection of two main corridors. The rabbis wanted to encourage members to come and sit and read or talk or do their own work next to the library before or after services, on Sunday mornings, before events etc. So they put chairs down the corridors to encourage people to come and sit and enjoy the synagogue as a meeting place. So they were disappointed when no one used the chairs and people commented it felt like a waiting room in a hospital or bus station. Then they thought about the features of peoples’ third place; that is their coffee shop, their local library, their local bar or club. They came up with the idea of putting coffee tables in front of the chairs. No longer it felt awkward as if waiting in a corridor. Now there was somewhere to dump the stuff you were carrying, put down your coffee cup, perch on it to talk to a friend. Suddenly it became a Third place as people were crowding in to put their laptops on the tables and work in the corridors or read their newspapers or browse books from the library. Kids would do their homework, parents would chat and schmooze waiting to pick up. It got so popular that the synagogue organized a Starbucks franchise to open up on Sunday mornings!
But if you can go to the Parish Café or Tatte to find your third place, why come here?
A Hasidic tale tells of a child who would often wander in the woods. His father, a bit concerned of dangers that might lurk in the forest, questioned him about this. “I have noticed that each day you spend many hours in the woods. I'm wondering why you go there”. “I go there to find God”, the boy answered. “It is very good that you are searching for God my son, but don't you know that God is the same everywhere?” Yes the boy replied, but I am not.
Here is a place where we can be in solitude without being lonely, where we can be in fellowship without being in conformity, where we can hope for a better future without forsaking our past, where we can be a Jew, a Christian, a seeker without also being fully a member of the human race.
As we will sing shortly, finding our third place is a lot like ‘The Road Home’
Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There's a way, there's a road
That will lead me home
Our Third Place finds others of like mind and heart and will who express their Judaism liberally – finding our inner self and changing our outer world. It is full of beautiful music, meaningful prayers that are understood and affirmed and the stimulation of learning and thinking about contemporary Judaism and our shared humanity. And good food! It is a place to celebrate our joys and share our oys, where we find comfort and solace in the trials and tribulations of life and death. It is also a place of gifts. Gifts of the heart and soul that are shared in those who step up to support the community, gifts of love and compassion from those who reach out to support others and gifts of talent and expertise in those who enable what we do service to service, event to event, zoom to zoom, song to beautiful song.
Let us cherish this good place in our lives, commit to sustain and increase it and provide the warmth and kindness that will enrich it for all. When God commanded Moses to build a Mishkan – a sanctuary, God said ‘Make me a sanctuary and I will dwell among the People’. It doesn’t say God dwelt in the sanctuary but rather God will dwell among the People. For it is the people who make the sanctuary in which God’s spirit can repose. Here is God’s sanctuary, let us rejoice with us all!
In Rabbinic literature, the synagogue has three names that reflects it’s functions: House of Prayer (Beit Tefila), House of Study (Beit Midrash), House of Community (Beit Knesset). It was the final name, Beit Knesset that caught on and that is now the Hebrew word for synagogue. The early 1st century synagogue was most definitely a Beit Knesset as it welcomed visitors and travelers to stay the night and provided meals. Archeological evidence from the Galilee and Jerusalem supports this early view of the synagogue as primarily a hostelry with bedrooms and kitchens. It seems the idea of study later developed as the reading of the Torah became popular away from the central cult of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was only after the destruction of the Temple in 70CE that there was a move to use the synagogue for prayer since sacrifice was no longer available and would never ever return. One of early Mishnah passages, Pirke Avot – Saying of the Sages gives a rather biased view of Divine transmission omitting mention of the Temple and the priests and emphasizing the role of the rabbis and Torah study in the new institution of the synagogue:
Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.
In the same Mishnah text, we have the line: On three things the world stands; Al Hatorah – on study, Al Haavoda – on prayer and Al Gemilut Hasadim – on kindness and generosity to others. It could have been the mission statement of the early synagogue. Since that time, synagogues have fulfilled those three roles – prayer, study and community and we here at CRT provide prayer and study regularly. Yet we cannot “provide community”. That has to come from each one of us welcoming our guests (Knesset literally means in Hebrew; ‘access’), supporting our friends and modelling the atmosphere that provides warmth, relationship and fellowship. Over the past year and indeed since I joined you in July, a number of friendly faces have joined us at Shabbat services and they have all been impressed with the welcome and friendliness of our community. So in the spirit of the 1stcentury synagogue, we are delighted to acknowledge our new friends at this New Members’ Shabbat service. It is wonderful to see the turn out for this event of hospitality and care for others.
In the Torah portion, we read of Abraham’s hospitality when we are told he ran out of his tent in the middle of the day to greet three strangers who come out of the desert tired and weary. Together with Sarah, a meal is prepared and hospitality is given. The rabbis even go so far as to say Abraham’s tent was open on all sides so that he could catch wayfarers and invite them in to provide hospitality and sustanance.
Synagogues and churches that promote community are in the words of sociologist Ray Olderberg, ‘a third place’ complementing the first two places of home and work. What is a third place? It is where you go when you are not at home or work and where you find your source of fellowship, do your soulwork and fill up your humanity once again. Oldenburg writes:
“Your third place should come with a sense of ease and offer respite from the world without removing you from it altogether.” It invites us to open ourselves up to external experiences, and it asks us to examine our values and how we hold them in the presence of strangers.
I worked for a while at Temple Rodef Shalom in Virginia. The synagogue which is a modern building is laid out so that the library is at the intersection of two main corridors. The rabbis wanted to encourage members to come and sit and read or talk or do their own work next to the library before or after services, on Sunday mornings, before events etc. So they put chairs down the corridors to encourage people to come and sit and enjoy the synagogue as a meeting place. So they were disappointed when no one used the chairs and people commented it felt like a waiting room in a hospital or bus station. Then they thought about the features of peoples’ third place; that is their coffee shop, their local library, their local bar or club. They came up with the idea of putting coffee tables in front of the chairs. No longer it felt awkward as if waiting in a corridor. Now there was somewhere to dump the stuff you were carrying, put down your coffee cup, perch on it to talk to a friend. Suddenly it became a Third place as people were crowding in to put their laptops on the tables and work in the corridors or read their newspapers or browse books from the library. Kids would do their homework, parents would chat and schmooze waiting to pick up. It got so popular that the synagogue organized a Starbucks franchise to open up on Sunday mornings!
But if you can go to the Parish Café or Tatte to find your third place, why come here?
A Hasidic tale tells of a child who would often wander in the woods. His father, a bit concerned of dangers that might lurk in the forest, questioned him about this. “I have noticed that each day you spend many hours in the woods. I'm wondering why you go there”. “I go there to find God”, the boy answered. “It is very good that you are searching for God my son, but don't you know that God is the same everywhere?” Yes the boy replied, but I am not.
Here is a place where we can be in solitude without being lonely, where we can be in fellowship without being in conformity, where we can hope for a better future without forsaking our past, where we can be a Jew, a Christian, a seeker without also being fully a member of the human race.
As we will sing shortly, finding our third place is a lot like ‘The Road Home’
Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There's a way, there's a road
That will lead me home
Our Third Place finds others of like mind and heart and will who express their Judaism liberally – finding our inner self and changing our outer world. It is full of beautiful music, meaningful prayers that are understood and affirmed and the stimulation of learning and thinking about contemporary Judaism and our shared humanity. And good food! It is a place to celebrate our joys and share our oys, where we find comfort and solace in the trials and tribulations of life and death. It is also a place of gifts. Gifts of the heart and soul that are shared in those who step up to support the community, gifts of love and compassion from those who reach out to support others and gifts of talent and expertise in those who enable what we do service to service, event to event, zoom to zoom, song to beautiful song.
Let us cherish this good place in our lives, commit to sustain and increase it and provide the warmth and kindness that will enrich it for all. When God commanded Moses to build a Mishkan – a sanctuary, God said ‘Make me a sanctuary and I will dwell among the People’. It doesn’t say God dwelt in the sanctuary but rather God will dwell among the People. For it is the people who make the sanctuary in which God’s spirit can repose. Here is God’s sanctuary, let us rejoice with us all!
Shabbat Service Central Reform Temple
September 9, 2022
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Heal Me Now!
It has become common practice in Synagogues to recite the healing prayer that we shared tonight but it wasn’t always part of the Jewish service. The Torah and Talmud emphasize our obligation to care for the sick and ailing. Abraham is often cited as the exemplar as he runs towards the three strangers who emerge out of the desert thirsty and hungry. His reward is to find out that they are in fact angels come to announce the birth of Isaac. It became a tenant of Jewish values that visiting the sick – Bikur Holim – was an obligatory Jewish practice. However this was in the main to provide physical comfort and care through bringing food and looking after the needs of the sick. Prayers for healing weren’t introduced until the time of the first prayerbook in the 10th century. A prayer for healing was introduced into the daily intermediate blessings of the Amidah – part of the 18 weekday benedictions – the Shemone Esreh. It read:
Heal us God and we shall be healed. Save us and we shall be saved; for it is you we praise. Send relief and healing for all our diseases, our sufferings and our wounds. Blessed are you God who heals the sick – Barukh Atah Adonai Rofe Haholim.
This prayer recited daily but not on Shabbat, since we don’t make requests of God on God’s day of rest, is primarily about the People as a whole and not about individuals. It also equates healing with being saved and ascribes all healing to God and only God. This was more of a medieval mindset that viewed sickness as a flaw that needed the human being to do better if she or he was to be saved by God’s healing powers. The idea that God could heal individuals of course goes back to Moses’ plaintive cry in the Torah when his sister Miriam contracts leprosy. He cries out in what must be the first spontaneous prayer in the Torah, O God, heal her now! El na ref a na la! There may have been plenty of times we have cried out in anxiety and fear over the sickness of a loved one saying in effect, O God, heal them now! Jewish rituals often respond to a human need and a fixed prayer for healing is no exception. So if we don’t think illness is a visitation from God for our sins and that we understand healing is not just down to God, what is it we are actually praying for?
The insertion of the Mi Sh’berach prayer for healing in our services suggests that we need a way to acknowledge our fears and frights over sickness of loved ones and that we know that healing is a complex process involving body and mind as well as reliance on those who are trained as medical and mental practitioners. The British Reform prayerbook introduces the healing prayer this way:
In sickness, I turn to you O God and seek your help. You create the healing powers that flow in the bloodstream of every living creature. You are the source of the knowledge and skill of doctors and nurses and of the dedication it prompts them to give of their best. From you comes the comforting care of my loved ones and the tranquility of spirit which I and they need at this time of distress.
Our understanding of health has changed over the centuries. Whereas health was considered to be a condition of human perfection with all limbs, organs and nerves working to peak condition, we now consider those without limbs or organs or nerve endings to live perfectly healthy lives. Health is no longer a condition of bodily perfection but rather it is a dynamic process of thriving. Whatever your condition, or capability or indeed mental capacity, you may be very healthy if you are thriving. So, the modern definition of health is ‘to thrive despite adversity’. To continue to lead a meaningful life, to be optimistic even with your limitations, to be hopeful with positive energy is to thrive. And we can all thrive despite our back pain, our diminished hearing or leg brace with wobbly knee. The same may be said for those with Down’s syndrome or on an autistic spectrum or indeed chronically depressed; to be healthy is to thrive despite adversity.
We also know now that the body and mind are interlinked and that physical healing is connected to our strength of will and our openness to possibilities. We know that we can support our own healing as much as Doctors and Nurses can do for us. It is therefore so important that our prayers for healing including ourselves for we all need to sustain our positive energy and resilience in the face of any adversity of body or mind we may face.
So our services offers us the opportunity to bring to mind those who are ill of mind or body and name them. More traditional synagogues will invite congregants upto the pulpit to whisper them in the rabbis’ ear. We however share them aloud with each other so as to find support from each other’s care and concern.
The story is told in the Talmud of Rabbi Yohanan who went to visit his friend Rabbi Hiyya who was ill. Rabbi Yohanan laid his hands upon him and healed him. But then Rabbi Yohanan fell ill himself and Rabbi Hiyya went to visit him. Rabbi Hiyya asked Rabbi Yohanan how he could heal others but not himself? Rabbi Yohanan answered, "Prisoners cannot release themselves from their own confinement."
Prayers for healing enable each of us to help others deal with the reality of their situation. For we may not all heal or heal completely. A friend of mine once told me that she loved the prayer for healing. She prayed it every week for her partner. Her partner had MS however and would never get better. He would never be cured and no amount of praying would change that. She said that she prayed for the strength and compassion to continue to look after her partner. She prayed that her partner would continue to see beauty in the world and to find life worth living.
Healing can mean wholeness, reconciliation, acceptance. It may mean an appreciation of the blessings we do have, despite the physical or mental illness we endure. Healing also refers to reconciliation between loved ones and overcoming pain of conflict. It can mean recovering after grief or loss. If we are caregivers, the prayer for healing brings us renewed compassion and patience for our sacred work. If we are doctors or nurses, the prayer may help us feel strengthened hope and fulfilment in the service and expertise we give to others. As a community, the prayer for healing can remind us that we are all seeking to thrive together, and we can lean on each other for support.
Mi Sh-Berach - May it be Your will, O God and God of our fathers and mothers, to send a complete and speedy healing, a healing of body and a healing of spirit to all who are ill among us.
Heal us God and we shall be healed. Save us and we shall be saved; for it is you we praise. Send relief and healing for all our diseases, our sufferings and our wounds. Blessed are you God who heals the sick – Barukh Atah Adonai Rofe Haholim.
This prayer recited daily but not on Shabbat, since we don’t make requests of God on God’s day of rest, is primarily about the People as a whole and not about individuals. It also equates healing with being saved and ascribes all healing to God and only God. This was more of a medieval mindset that viewed sickness as a flaw that needed the human being to do better if she or he was to be saved by God’s healing powers. The idea that God could heal individuals of course goes back to Moses’ plaintive cry in the Torah when his sister Miriam contracts leprosy. He cries out in what must be the first spontaneous prayer in the Torah, O God, heal her now! El na ref a na la! There may have been plenty of times we have cried out in anxiety and fear over the sickness of a loved one saying in effect, O God, heal them now! Jewish rituals often respond to a human need and a fixed prayer for healing is no exception. So if we don’t think illness is a visitation from God for our sins and that we understand healing is not just down to God, what is it we are actually praying for?
The insertion of the Mi Sh’berach prayer for healing in our services suggests that we need a way to acknowledge our fears and frights over sickness of loved ones and that we know that healing is a complex process involving body and mind as well as reliance on those who are trained as medical and mental practitioners. The British Reform prayerbook introduces the healing prayer this way:
In sickness, I turn to you O God and seek your help. You create the healing powers that flow in the bloodstream of every living creature. You are the source of the knowledge and skill of doctors and nurses and of the dedication it prompts them to give of their best. From you comes the comforting care of my loved ones and the tranquility of spirit which I and they need at this time of distress.
Our understanding of health has changed over the centuries. Whereas health was considered to be a condition of human perfection with all limbs, organs and nerves working to peak condition, we now consider those without limbs or organs or nerve endings to live perfectly healthy lives. Health is no longer a condition of bodily perfection but rather it is a dynamic process of thriving. Whatever your condition, or capability or indeed mental capacity, you may be very healthy if you are thriving. So, the modern definition of health is ‘to thrive despite adversity’. To continue to lead a meaningful life, to be optimistic even with your limitations, to be hopeful with positive energy is to thrive. And we can all thrive despite our back pain, our diminished hearing or leg brace with wobbly knee. The same may be said for those with Down’s syndrome or on an autistic spectrum or indeed chronically depressed; to be healthy is to thrive despite adversity.
We also know now that the body and mind are interlinked and that physical healing is connected to our strength of will and our openness to possibilities. We know that we can support our own healing as much as Doctors and Nurses can do for us. It is therefore so important that our prayers for healing including ourselves for we all need to sustain our positive energy and resilience in the face of any adversity of body or mind we may face.
So our services offers us the opportunity to bring to mind those who are ill of mind or body and name them. More traditional synagogues will invite congregants upto the pulpit to whisper them in the rabbis’ ear. We however share them aloud with each other so as to find support from each other’s care and concern.
The story is told in the Talmud of Rabbi Yohanan who went to visit his friend Rabbi Hiyya who was ill. Rabbi Yohanan laid his hands upon him and healed him. But then Rabbi Yohanan fell ill himself and Rabbi Hiyya went to visit him. Rabbi Hiyya asked Rabbi Yohanan how he could heal others but not himself? Rabbi Yohanan answered, "Prisoners cannot release themselves from their own confinement."
Prayers for healing enable each of us to help others deal with the reality of their situation. For we may not all heal or heal completely. A friend of mine once told me that she loved the prayer for healing. She prayed it every week for her partner. Her partner had MS however and would never get better. He would never be cured and no amount of praying would change that. She said that she prayed for the strength and compassion to continue to look after her partner. She prayed that her partner would continue to see beauty in the world and to find life worth living.
Healing can mean wholeness, reconciliation, acceptance. It may mean an appreciation of the blessings we do have, despite the physical or mental illness we endure. Healing also refers to reconciliation between loved ones and overcoming pain of conflict. It can mean recovering after grief or loss. If we are caregivers, the prayer for healing brings us renewed compassion and patience for our sacred work. If we are doctors or nurses, the prayer may help us feel strengthened hope and fulfilment in the service and expertise we give to others. As a community, the prayer for healing can remind us that we are all seeking to thrive together, and we can lean on each other for support.
Mi Sh-Berach - May it be Your will, O God and God of our fathers and mothers, to send a complete and speedy healing, a healing of body and a healing of spirit to all who are ill among us.
Shabbat Service Central Reform Temple
August 12, 2022
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Rest Assured*
Rabbi Elimelech and Rabbi Zusha loved the feel of the holiness of Shabbat every week, from its beginning to its end. Rabbi Elimelech said to Rabbi Zusha: “Brother, we should put this Shabbat feeling to the test to see if it’s a genuine feeling that comes from God. Because if it’s not, then our worship of God is also not genuine.”
“Brother,” Zusha replied, “What should we do about it? How can we put Shabbat to the test?” Elimelech replied, “We should hold a Shabbat dinner, authentic in every detail, on a weekday, and we should sit among our friends and talk Torah. If we feel the sanctity of Shabbat, we will know that our way is not one of truth. But if we feel nothing, that will prove that our way is true.”
They did just that. On a weekday they held a Shabbat dinner, dressed in their best clothes and sat with other their friends to discuss Torah. They immediately had the same feeling of the holiness of Shabbat that they would feel on a real Shabbat. The next time they met, Rabbi Elimelech said: “So, brother, we failed the test, what are we going to do?” Rabbi Zusha suggested that they to consult with their rebbe, the Magid of Mezrich. They went together and shared their concern with him. The Maggid told them: “If you made a Shabbat dinner and put on Shabbat clothes then it’s only natural that you felt the holiness of Shabbat. You didn’t fail the test, you in fact proved that Shabbat feelings have the power to spread the light of the holiness of Shabbat whenever we need them. It is people that make the day holy not just the things we do to make Shabbat, so you have no reason at all to be worried.” You did not fail but rather you succeeded.
This Hasidic story retold by Martin Buber seems deceptively simplistic but at its core is the fundamental philosophical speculation of how we control our own time and control of the world around us.
Perhaps the single most practical thing Judaism has offered to the world, is the distinction between the working week and a day of rest. This concept of Shabbat first conceptualized in the Hebrew Bible has been applied by every Civilization through the ages to provide a cessation in the unceasing drive to have, to own and to obtain more! For as Abraham Joshua Heschel stated in his Classic work, ‘The Sabbath’, Shabbat is rather a time to be, to become, to be open to wonder. As we all struggle with the boundaries of work and rest, blurring that distinction has only been exacerbated by the devices and machines we are addicted to, what a gift Shabbat can be to all of us. To cut back on consumerism, to take a break from addictive behaviours, to give the natural world some breathing space and rekindle attention to relationships in our lives. Shabbat is a much needed universal gift to all people. It was in fact immigrant Jewish workers in 1908 in a New England mill that first demanded and won a five day working week.
But before we give Shabbat away to everyone else, we need to understand and honour it’s meaning in our own community. That has been difficult because so many of us were taught the notion of a coercive Sabbath – one where we were required to give up everyday things and activities. The Talmud cites 39 types of activity to cease on Shabbat. A new book by Professor Nehemia Polen entitled ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ offers a different perspective on the notion of a day of rest. Polen argues that Shabbat is far from restful – there is so much to prepare, perform and do as prescribed by Jewish custom. So rather than thinking of it as a day of rest, Polen suggests we honour this Jewish gift of Sabbath by overcoming anxiety and tension; to stop, look and listen and allow Shabbos to let you rest assured . How can we make a Sabbath of Peace for ourselves?
Shabbat is a time for the hear and now, not the far away. It is coming home from a journey and sinking into that favorite sofa or armchair. It is looking with fresh eyes at everything around us and listening anew to those we love, to beautiful sounds of music or birdsong and to our own inner voice.
Shabbat is introduced to us in the Torah one month after the Exodus from Egypt. The Matza that was baked on leaving is running out and there is little food in the wilderness. So God sends Manna from heaven to sustain the people. We are told that on the 6th day they are to collect a double portion which is to last over the Sabbath. This is why Jews traditionally have two challot on their Shabbat table. The preparing, settling in, finding nourishment are the original sources for the meaning of Shabbat. Shabbat is not simply rest but rather awareness and attention to what really matters in your life and how to recover its meaning and purpose at week’s end. To rest assured.
Shabbat is a clearing of space and time that opens the heart to blessing and holiness, to transcendent presence. It’s purpose is to enhance dispositions of joy, gratitude, hospitality, generosity, kindness, acceptance, appreciation, optimism and hope. Don’t worry about the Do’s and Don’t’s of traditional practices. Think rather of the feelings that Shabbat engenders as Rabbis Elimelech and Zusha discovered can appear with the correct spiritual intention. There is an incredible lightness of being as we yield to an inwardness for the sake of higher pursuits and transcendent values.
Shabbat is a gift, a unique Jewish gift though we have shared it with the world. Whether we sit here in our sanctuary, or at home, we can make the best use of this gift by stopping for these moments of peace, looking at something or someone as if for the first time and I find it helpful to look up once in a while particularly if outside, and then listening to our inner voice, dreams and wonderings.
Favour us, O lord, with happiness and peace
And hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen
*Acknowledgement to Rabbi Nehemia Polen for this concept in his book ‘Stop, Look, Listen; Celebrating Shabbos through a Spiritual Lens’, Maggid Books, 2022.
“Brother,” Zusha replied, “What should we do about it? How can we put Shabbat to the test?” Elimelech replied, “We should hold a Shabbat dinner, authentic in every detail, on a weekday, and we should sit among our friends and talk Torah. If we feel the sanctity of Shabbat, we will know that our way is not one of truth. But if we feel nothing, that will prove that our way is true.”
They did just that. On a weekday they held a Shabbat dinner, dressed in their best clothes and sat with other their friends to discuss Torah. They immediately had the same feeling of the holiness of Shabbat that they would feel on a real Shabbat. The next time they met, Rabbi Elimelech said: “So, brother, we failed the test, what are we going to do?” Rabbi Zusha suggested that they to consult with their rebbe, the Magid of Mezrich. They went together and shared their concern with him. The Maggid told them: “If you made a Shabbat dinner and put on Shabbat clothes then it’s only natural that you felt the holiness of Shabbat. You didn’t fail the test, you in fact proved that Shabbat feelings have the power to spread the light of the holiness of Shabbat whenever we need them. It is people that make the day holy not just the things we do to make Shabbat, so you have no reason at all to be worried.” You did not fail but rather you succeeded.
This Hasidic story retold by Martin Buber seems deceptively simplistic but at its core is the fundamental philosophical speculation of how we control our own time and control of the world around us.
Perhaps the single most practical thing Judaism has offered to the world, is the distinction between the working week and a day of rest. This concept of Shabbat first conceptualized in the Hebrew Bible has been applied by every Civilization through the ages to provide a cessation in the unceasing drive to have, to own and to obtain more! For as Abraham Joshua Heschel stated in his Classic work, ‘The Sabbath’, Shabbat is rather a time to be, to become, to be open to wonder. As we all struggle with the boundaries of work and rest, blurring that distinction has only been exacerbated by the devices and machines we are addicted to, what a gift Shabbat can be to all of us. To cut back on consumerism, to take a break from addictive behaviours, to give the natural world some breathing space and rekindle attention to relationships in our lives. Shabbat is a much needed universal gift to all people. It was in fact immigrant Jewish workers in 1908 in a New England mill that first demanded and won a five day working week.
But before we give Shabbat away to everyone else, we need to understand and honour it’s meaning in our own community. That has been difficult because so many of us were taught the notion of a coercive Sabbath – one where we were required to give up everyday things and activities. The Talmud cites 39 types of activity to cease on Shabbat. A new book by Professor Nehemia Polen entitled ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ offers a different perspective on the notion of a day of rest. Polen argues that Shabbat is far from restful – there is so much to prepare, perform and do as prescribed by Jewish custom. So rather than thinking of it as a day of rest, Polen suggests we honour this Jewish gift of Sabbath by overcoming anxiety and tension; to stop, look and listen and allow Shabbos to let you rest assured . How can we make a Sabbath of Peace for ourselves?
Shabbat is a time for the hear and now, not the far away. It is coming home from a journey and sinking into that favorite sofa or armchair. It is looking with fresh eyes at everything around us and listening anew to those we love, to beautiful sounds of music or birdsong and to our own inner voice.
Shabbat is introduced to us in the Torah one month after the Exodus from Egypt. The Matza that was baked on leaving is running out and there is little food in the wilderness. So God sends Manna from heaven to sustain the people. We are told that on the 6th day they are to collect a double portion which is to last over the Sabbath. This is why Jews traditionally have two challot on their Shabbat table. The preparing, settling in, finding nourishment are the original sources for the meaning of Shabbat. Shabbat is not simply rest but rather awareness and attention to what really matters in your life and how to recover its meaning and purpose at week’s end. To rest assured.
Shabbat is a clearing of space and time that opens the heart to blessing and holiness, to transcendent presence. It’s purpose is to enhance dispositions of joy, gratitude, hospitality, generosity, kindness, acceptance, appreciation, optimism and hope. Don’t worry about the Do’s and Don’t’s of traditional practices. Think rather of the feelings that Shabbat engenders as Rabbis Elimelech and Zusha discovered can appear with the correct spiritual intention. There is an incredible lightness of being as we yield to an inwardness for the sake of higher pursuits and transcendent values.
Shabbat is a gift, a unique Jewish gift though we have shared it with the world. Whether we sit here in our sanctuary, or at home, we can make the best use of this gift by stopping for these moments of peace, looking at something or someone as if for the first time and I find it helpful to look up once in a while particularly if outside, and then listening to our inner voice, dreams and wonderings.
Favour us, O lord, with happiness and peace
And hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen
*Acknowledgement to Rabbi Nehemia Polen for this concept in his book ‘Stop, Look, Listen; Celebrating Shabbos through a Spiritual Lens’, Maggid Books, 2022.
Shabbat Service Central Reform Temple
July 22, 2022
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
To Build and to be Built Up
As some of you may know, I have just returned from Israel as part of a Rabbinic Leadership Seminar at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. 150 rabbis of all shades – Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal and Reform gathering together to deliberate on the nature of Liberal Zionism and its connection to Judaism.
I have been travelling and visiting Israel for 50 years. My parents took me on my first family visit at Pesach 1973 which was of course just months before the Yom Kippur war that year. I went back on my own every few years after that working the land, digging the archaeological treasures and studying at the Hebrew University. It was a time to build and to be built up by those experiences; livnot u’l’hibanot. For me coming from cold England, it was experiencing for the first time a country in the Tropics. There was a actually a hamsin – a hot sand storm raging as we got off the plane and walked to the terminal in the old Lod Airport. To enter the ancient streets of Jerusalem, Acco, Caesarea with the Bible in mind was particularly exciting heightened by having read those famous novels of the ‘70s – James Michener’s the Source and Leon Uris, Exodus. It was also seeing a country in development, where absorption of immigrants was a huge task as the population kept doubling every decade with housing, roads, agriculture and making the desert bloom. Most especially it was meeting cousins for the first time, of whom our shared grandparents had all left Germany in 1938 and never seen each other again, let alone their children or grandchildren. These were sweet encounters of adults and children speaking different languages but celebrating Pesach together at a kibbutz seder with all of the agricultural and biblical significance heightened and understanding what a festival of freedom meant to Jews who had escaped Europe to find a home in a sovereign Jewish state. It really seemed to bring to life the words of our prayerbook – Ki M’tzion tetze Torah u’dvar Adonai Yerushalayim – For out of Zion shall come forth Torah and the word of God from Jerusalem.
However the innocence of that teen experience belies the current realities of today’s Zionism and the geopolitical reality that we all need to address for everyone – Jews and Palestinians in that shared land. One on the one hand we are the generation blessed to live in a time when there is a Jewish State after 2000 years. On the other hand, it is upto us to ensure that State represents the Judaism that we have struggled to maintain over those 2000 years.
Our seminar addressed this very theme: To what question is Israel now an answer to? The questions that early Zionism sought an answer to were; how to keep Jews safe and and how to give Jews sovereign power over their own destiny. In many ways that Zionist project has been successful and largely answered these two questions in less than a 100 years. For those who witnessed the birth of the State, the ingathering of the refugees from Europe and Arab countries and those who share in the memory of the fragility of keeping it alive, this is quite remarkable. I do so wish we could sit back and enjoy it as it is.
But there are now other questions for which Israel has to become an answer. This is now the work of a Liberal Zionism and is probably the most crucial challenge of 21st century Judaism.
There is the question of the moral use of the sovereign power that Israel now holds. This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of our aspirations for Zionism. To be a Sovereign People was not to rule over others and indeed take away their rights and historic claims to the land. During our Covid shutdown I read the historical account of 1948 as told by historian Benny Morris. There is much to know and relearn about the ways in which the Zionist project succeeded and how we got to the Middle East conflict today. Much like our rethinking here of the birth of European occupation on the American Continent with the 1619 project, enslavement of people of colour and genocide of native Americans, Zionists have to come to terms with the impact of the success of our Sovereign power and find an answer to those moral questions.
There is the question of the position of the Jewish people vis a vis the State. Engagement with Israel is one of the most active projects of the organized Jewish community – From birthright trips to family visits and next year for Israel’s 75th anniversary, CJP has organized trips for hundreds of Jews from Boston to visit. Whether these engagement projects with Israel are having the impact they want is still in doubt? Last year’s public letter from students in all of the American rabbinic schools criticizing Israel’s actions reflects the growing dissatisfaction from future American leaders with Israeli government policy and the 50 year military occupation of conquered territory. We have yet to answer the question of the relationship of the worldwide Jewish People with the State.
There is the question of the place of diversity of Jewish practice and belief in the Jewish state. While I was there, Zoe, the granddaughter of our colleague Cantor Louise Treitman was interrupted in her Batmitzvah ceremony at the Kotel – the Western Wall by a nasty group of haredi – ultra Orthodox followers tearing up siddurim and loudly disturbing poor Zoe’s Torah reading. The Rabbanut in Israel wields ungodly power over the lives of people being born, marrying, getting divorced and dying. This is a real scandal of the State that needs to be dismantled from the arrangement that David Ben Gurion set up in 1948. Yet, last Shabbat I was in Caesarea overlooking the cobalt blue Mediterranean with hundreds of secular Israelis who had turned up for a Kabbalat Shabbat service on the beach organized by the local Reform synagogue. With a woman rabbi and a lively band playing, the sun set over the Med as everyone turned towards the West as we sang Lecha Dodi!
Then there is the major question of two peoples living in one land. Up to now those on the left have advocated for a two state solution which has gone nowhere under the current leadership on all sides. However, there is now emerging from the grass roots, a new concept of confederation much like the European Union where commerce, free movement of labour, monetary policy can all be governed by an Abrahamic Union of Jews and Palestinians. Former Israeli President Rivlin spoke of 4 tribes now occupying this land; secular Jewish Zionists, religious Zionists, Palestinian Arabs and ultraorthodox Jews and they are all now mixed up together. As I heard it from ordinary people in all of these groups, physical borders delineating peoples is an outdated form of Nationalism. Identities and cultural differences can be distinguished by different kinds of divisions in one geographic entity, as long as, as a Palestinian told me, there is dignity for all and the opportunity to put bread on the table for all. I visited one such attempt at confederation in an area South of Jerusalem where an Israeli town, an ultra orthodox Jewish settlement and a Palestinian village are cooperating together for the first time, economically, socially, commercially and in terms of their mutual security. It was truly an inspiring concept and interestingly they all hold equal disdain for their respective governments and authorities. This bottom up approach seems to hold some hope for a growing coexistence, much like it did in Northern Ireland as Catholic and Protestant mothers and wives forced the political reconciliation that has held for 30 years. Is this an answer to the question of two peoples living together in one land for as a settler rabbi expressed it; the land does not belong to us, we all belong to the land.
Finally, there is the question of the Jewish dream. It was Herzl who famously declared ‘if you will it, it is no dream’ - Im tirzu – ayn zo agada. Within 50 years of that statement, a Jewish State was born with a revived language and literature and renaissance of Jewish culture and Israeli know how and technology in a Start-up Nation. But for the young teenager now growing Jewishly what is there left to build and to be built up by? What is the Jewish dream today that will inspire and create new vistas and have answers to both our Jewish and Universal values for all Peoples. How will we bring holiness from this narrow strip of land bridging Europe, Asia and Africa that has been the answer to questions of Jews, Christians and Muslims over thousands of years. Could this be a place where humanity can dream a better world together and turn those dreams into reality. Can an Abrahamic Union be an answer to that question? We pray for the day when Torah will truly come forth from Zion and the words of God from Jerusalem.
I have been travelling and visiting Israel for 50 years. My parents took me on my first family visit at Pesach 1973 which was of course just months before the Yom Kippur war that year. I went back on my own every few years after that working the land, digging the archaeological treasures and studying at the Hebrew University. It was a time to build and to be built up by those experiences; livnot u’l’hibanot. For me coming from cold England, it was experiencing for the first time a country in the Tropics. There was a actually a hamsin – a hot sand storm raging as we got off the plane and walked to the terminal in the old Lod Airport. To enter the ancient streets of Jerusalem, Acco, Caesarea with the Bible in mind was particularly exciting heightened by having read those famous novels of the ‘70s – James Michener’s the Source and Leon Uris, Exodus. It was also seeing a country in development, where absorption of immigrants was a huge task as the population kept doubling every decade with housing, roads, agriculture and making the desert bloom. Most especially it was meeting cousins for the first time, of whom our shared grandparents had all left Germany in 1938 and never seen each other again, let alone their children or grandchildren. These were sweet encounters of adults and children speaking different languages but celebrating Pesach together at a kibbutz seder with all of the agricultural and biblical significance heightened and understanding what a festival of freedom meant to Jews who had escaped Europe to find a home in a sovereign Jewish state. It really seemed to bring to life the words of our prayerbook – Ki M’tzion tetze Torah u’dvar Adonai Yerushalayim – For out of Zion shall come forth Torah and the word of God from Jerusalem.
However the innocence of that teen experience belies the current realities of today’s Zionism and the geopolitical reality that we all need to address for everyone – Jews and Palestinians in that shared land. One on the one hand we are the generation blessed to live in a time when there is a Jewish State after 2000 years. On the other hand, it is upto us to ensure that State represents the Judaism that we have struggled to maintain over those 2000 years.
Our seminar addressed this very theme: To what question is Israel now an answer to? The questions that early Zionism sought an answer to were; how to keep Jews safe and and how to give Jews sovereign power over their own destiny. In many ways that Zionist project has been successful and largely answered these two questions in less than a 100 years. For those who witnessed the birth of the State, the ingathering of the refugees from Europe and Arab countries and those who share in the memory of the fragility of keeping it alive, this is quite remarkable. I do so wish we could sit back and enjoy it as it is.
But there are now other questions for which Israel has to become an answer. This is now the work of a Liberal Zionism and is probably the most crucial challenge of 21st century Judaism.
There is the question of the moral use of the sovereign power that Israel now holds. This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of our aspirations for Zionism. To be a Sovereign People was not to rule over others and indeed take away their rights and historic claims to the land. During our Covid shutdown I read the historical account of 1948 as told by historian Benny Morris. There is much to know and relearn about the ways in which the Zionist project succeeded and how we got to the Middle East conflict today. Much like our rethinking here of the birth of European occupation on the American Continent with the 1619 project, enslavement of people of colour and genocide of native Americans, Zionists have to come to terms with the impact of the success of our Sovereign power and find an answer to those moral questions.
There is the question of the position of the Jewish people vis a vis the State. Engagement with Israel is one of the most active projects of the organized Jewish community – From birthright trips to family visits and next year for Israel’s 75th anniversary, CJP has organized trips for hundreds of Jews from Boston to visit. Whether these engagement projects with Israel are having the impact they want is still in doubt? Last year’s public letter from students in all of the American rabbinic schools criticizing Israel’s actions reflects the growing dissatisfaction from future American leaders with Israeli government policy and the 50 year military occupation of conquered territory. We have yet to answer the question of the relationship of the worldwide Jewish People with the State.
There is the question of the place of diversity of Jewish practice and belief in the Jewish state. While I was there, Zoe, the granddaughter of our colleague Cantor Louise Treitman was interrupted in her Batmitzvah ceremony at the Kotel – the Western Wall by a nasty group of haredi – ultra Orthodox followers tearing up siddurim and loudly disturbing poor Zoe’s Torah reading. The Rabbanut in Israel wields ungodly power over the lives of people being born, marrying, getting divorced and dying. This is a real scandal of the State that needs to be dismantled from the arrangement that David Ben Gurion set up in 1948. Yet, last Shabbat I was in Caesarea overlooking the cobalt blue Mediterranean with hundreds of secular Israelis who had turned up for a Kabbalat Shabbat service on the beach organized by the local Reform synagogue. With a woman rabbi and a lively band playing, the sun set over the Med as everyone turned towards the West as we sang Lecha Dodi!
Then there is the major question of two peoples living in one land. Up to now those on the left have advocated for a two state solution which has gone nowhere under the current leadership on all sides. However, there is now emerging from the grass roots, a new concept of confederation much like the European Union where commerce, free movement of labour, monetary policy can all be governed by an Abrahamic Union of Jews and Palestinians. Former Israeli President Rivlin spoke of 4 tribes now occupying this land; secular Jewish Zionists, religious Zionists, Palestinian Arabs and ultraorthodox Jews and they are all now mixed up together. As I heard it from ordinary people in all of these groups, physical borders delineating peoples is an outdated form of Nationalism. Identities and cultural differences can be distinguished by different kinds of divisions in one geographic entity, as long as, as a Palestinian told me, there is dignity for all and the opportunity to put bread on the table for all. I visited one such attempt at confederation in an area South of Jerusalem where an Israeli town, an ultra orthodox Jewish settlement and a Palestinian village are cooperating together for the first time, economically, socially, commercially and in terms of their mutual security. It was truly an inspiring concept and interestingly they all hold equal disdain for their respective governments and authorities. This bottom up approach seems to hold some hope for a growing coexistence, much like it did in Northern Ireland as Catholic and Protestant mothers and wives forced the political reconciliation that has held for 30 years. Is this an answer to the question of two peoples living together in one land for as a settler rabbi expressed it; the land does not belong to us, we all belong to the land.
Finally, there is the question of the Jewish dream. It was Herzl who famously declared ‘if you will it, it is no dream’ - Im tirzu – ayn zo agada. Within 50 years of that statement, a Jewish State was born with a revived language and literature and renaissance of Jewish culture and Israeli know how and technology in a Start-up Nation. But for the young teenager now growing Jewishly what is there left to build and to be built up by? What is the Jewish dream today that will inspire and create new vistas and have answers to both our Jewish and Universal values for all Peoples. How will we bring holiness from this narrow strip of land bridging Europe, Asia and Africa that has been the answer to questions of Jews, Christians and Muslims over thousands of years. Could this be a place where humanity can dream a better world together and turn those dreams into reality. Can an Abrahamic Union be an answer to that question? We pray for the day when Torah will truly come forth from Zion and the words of God from Jerusalem.
Inaugural Service Central Reform Temple
July 1, 2022
Rabbi Dr Michael J Shire
Holiness is Becoming
I'm delighted to be with you on this first of July and my inaugural service at Central Reform Temple. The 1st of July is an appropriate moment for a new transition. However it happens to also fall on the Torah portion of Korach in the book of Numbers. Korach, the rebel, who tries to undermine the leader of the community, Moses, and inspires an insurrection, which fails dramatically when God opens up the ground to swallow up Korach and his followers. I hope this is not symbolic for our new beginning together! But there is a message here in the Torah for all of us. Korah complains to Moses that he is setting himself up above the ordinary people and quoting the book of Leviticus, which is of course the Torah that Moses has shared with the people, suggests that all the people are holy, not just Moses and Aaron. For Leviticus 19 states, K’edoshim tiyu – You shall be holy for I your God am holy. This Korach suggests that all the people have been given a holy task and that Moses should not aggrandize himself above them.
Korah however has misunderstood an important component of Leviticus 19. It does not say, all the people are holy. Rather it says K’doshim tiyu – You shall be holy… It is rather a call to become holy though action, belief and character. Korah thought, after Sinai and revelation, the work was done and now the people could revel in their freedom and liberty. But he, like others in our contemporary society, should have understood that in Leviticus 19 God says they are not special by virtue of being part of this holy community, it's not that they're special because they were born a certain way, it's not that they're special because they align themselves with the Torah but rather it is a call to become something special. it's a call to do better, to find a way to make everyday special, every relationship special, every sacred encounter exceptional. It takes work and effort to do the holy work that is required.
There is a cartoon pinned on my colleague’s door at Hebrew College. The top panel depicts a rabbi exhorting his congregation with the words, who wants change? In the congregation, everyone’s hand is up enthusiastically! In the bottom panel, the rabbi is asking, ‘Who wants to change’? Everyone in the congregation is looking sheepishly away!
K’doshim Tiyu seems to me to be a wonderful way to begin this very special relationship between Rabbi and congregation. I have always thought of a congregation having three pillars; Beit Midrash, Beit Tefila, Beit Knesset – House of Learning, House of Prayer and a House of Fellowship. In fact, my first errand after receiving Devon and Dick’s call to become your rabbi was to go to Staples and find a note book with tabs. That way, I can keep notes under each Bayit -each house or pillar of the congregational work. As a teacher I love the work of the Beit Midrash – the house of learning. Together we can uncover the wisdom of a 2500 year old literary tradition with all of its interpretations and hidden meanings still to be uncovered. The work of the Beit Tefila – the house of prayer will take place here in this sacred space drawing upon ancient and contemporary liturgy but perhaps most importantly the service of our heart. I look to Andrew and our wonderful singers to enhance our worship with their beautiful music and voices that “ascend the brightest heaven of invention”! The Beit Knesset – the house of fellowship is the heart of our community. One that I hope will always be a place of fellowship and support for all who enter and I look forward to becoming part of it.
What I quickly learned was that there are actually more than just three pillars of this community. Rev Pam brought me upto speed on what I am calling a Beit Shituf – A House of Partnership and Sacred Covenant and Jill introduced me to the work of the Emanuel Center and what I will call the Beit Tikkun – the House of repair and restoration of human dignity. I was fortunate that Staples’ notebooks have multiple tabs!!
I know how the community that has been built here over many years through different leaders and rabbinic spiritual guides particularly recently through the sterling work of Rabbi Howard Kosofsky. How important it has been for these friendships to be nurtured, developed, supported and enhanced during these difficult two plus years. Members of the congregation and particularly the Board of Trustees have spent themselves in the service of this Beit Knesset over these last two years and they deserve our appreciation and gratitude so that we can be here today to continue the good work.
But we cannot rest on our laurels. Kedoshim Tiyu! Benjamin Zander, The Boston based orchestra conductor tells the famous story of the rabbi’s gift in his book, The Art of Possibility. This is the story of the monastery that has fallen on hard times and no longer attracts visitors to pray or monks to work in the monastery gardens. The Abbot unsure of what to do, goes to the local rabbi to seek some advice but the rabbi has none to give. However as the Abbot is about to leave, the rabbi offers a gift of wisdom and suggests that one of the monks might very well be the messiah. Returning to the monastery and relaying the wisdom of the rabbi to his community, the monks begin to wonder, which one of us could very well be the messiah and they treat each other with greater generosity and kindness. Word spreads that the monastery is a warm and appreciative community, caring for each other with extraordinary gentleness and empathy. Visitors come again to stay and learn, new monks are eager to join and the community is rebuilt and restored to greater heights than before. As we build on the strengths of the past, we will continue to develop our capacities of support, empathy, kindness and responsibility for others.
Building Sacred community is our work to do together and we have three great teachings of the Hebrew Bible that have so inspired Western Civilization to guide us. That we are all created in the image of God – b’zelem elohim, is an obligation to respect and celebrate our diversity; of colour, of gender, of sexuality, of faith. To love our neigbour as ourself – ve’ahavta l’reacha camocha is to reach out beyond ourselves with empathy and kindness and that tzedek tzedek tirdorf – to go out and pursue justice so that all can receive the blessings of life, health and dignity in an uncompleted world. We have seen this past week how we cannot take these three principles for granted. We will have to continue to work for justice for women’s reproductive health, for the health of our planet, for the democratic principles that have developed and expanded liberty for the past 250 years in this country. We follow these principles in conjunction with our sacred partners at Emmanuel Church and know that we are interdependent with all faiths to bring about a more just society here and everywhere. As we try and navigate our way in a changing world tossed by the storms domestically and internationally, we need to keep anchored to these fundamental principles and values of our age old faith. So like Moses and Aaron in this week’s parasha, we will not be cowered by those who believe only they hold absolute truth. Rather we will take up the fight and resist their insurrection against our democratic and Torah values.
So as we go on this new journey together and receive the blessings of this sacred community, let us renew our commitment to work for holiness together so that we can hold firm to our values, enact them for the repair of the world around us and treat each other and those we love and know with extra kindness and love. After all, one of us might just be the messiah!
The Jewish ideal is a sacred community.
The successful beginning then, is not to find God in an instant, or even a day or a month or a year.
Sacred community begins with a modest but firm commitment to the project of our generation.
To transcend ethnicity and seek out the Holy in such things as the ways we speak, the blessings we say, the truths we discover and the homes we have or seek to find.
Sacred Community is not just what we want. It is what we need.
and it beckons us now more than ever to return, to find it.
Korah however has misunderstood an important component of Leviticus 19. It does not say, all the people are holy. Rather it says K’doshim tiyu – You shall be holy… It is rather a call to become holy though action, belief and character. Korah thought, after Sinai and revelation, the work was done and now the people could revel in their freedom and liberty. But he, like others in our contemporary society, should have understood that in Leviticus 19 God says they are not special by virtue of being part of this holy community, it's not that they're special because they were born a certain way, it's not that they're special because they align themselves with the Torah but rather it is a call to become something special. it's a call to do better, to find a way to make everyday special, every relationship special, every sacred encounter exceptional. It takes work and effort to do the holy work that is required.
There is a cartoon pinned on my colleague’s door at Hebrew College. The top panel depicts a rabbi exhorting his congregation with the words, who wants change? In the congregation, everyone’s hand is up enthusiastically! In the bottom panel, the rabbi is asking, ‘Who wants to change’? Everyone in the congregation is looking sheepishly away!
K’doshim Tiyu seems to me to be a wonderful way to begin this very special relationship between Rabbi and congregation. I have always thought of a congregation having three pillars; Beit Midrash, Beit Tefila, Beit Knesset – House of Learning, House of Prayer and a House of Fellowship. In fact, my first errand after receiving Devon and Dick’s call to become your rabbi was to go to Staples and find a note book with tabs. That way, I can keep notes under each Bayit -each house or pillar of the congregational work. As a teacher I love the work of the Beit Midrash – the house of learning. Together we can uncover the wisdom of a 2500 year old literary tradition with all of its interpretations and hidden meanings still to be uncovered. The work of the Beit Tefila – the house of prayer will take place here in this sacred space drawing upon ancient and contemporary liturgy but perhaps most importantly the service of our heart. I look to Andrew and our wonderful singers to enhance our worship with their beautiful music and voices that “ascend the brightest heaven of invention”! The Beit Knesset – the house of fellowship is the heart of our community. One that I hope will always be a place of fellowship and support for all who enter and I look forward to becoming part of it.
What I quickly learned was that there are actually more than just three pillars of this community. Rev Pam brought me upto speed on what I am calling a Beit Shituf – A House of Partnership and Sacred Covenant and Jill introduced me to the work of the Emanuel Center and what I will call the Beit Tikkun – the House of repair and restoration of human dignity. I was fortunate that Staples’ notebooks have multiple tabs!!
I know how the community that has been built here over many years through different leaders and rabbinic spiritual guides particularly recently through the sterling work of Rabbi Howard Kosofsky. How important it has been for these friendships to be nurtured, developed, supported and enhanced during these difficult two plus years. Members of the congregation and particularly the Board of Trustees have spent themselves in the service of this Beit Knesset over these last two years and they deserve our appreciation and gratitude so that we can be here today to continue the good work.
But we cannot rest on our laurels. Kedoshim Tiyu! Benjamin Zander, The Boston based orchestra conductor tells the famous story of the rabbi’s gift in his book, The Art of Possibility. This is the story of the monastery that has fallen on hard times and no longer attracts visitors to pray or monks to work in the monastery gardens. The Abbot unsure of what to do, goes to the local rabbi to seek some advice but the rabbi has none to give. However as the Abbot is about to leave, the rabbi offers a gift of wisdom and suggests that one of the monks might very well be the messiah. Returning to the monastery and relaying the wisdom of the rabbi to his community, the monks begin to wonder, which one of us could very well be the messiah and they treat each other with greater generosity and kindness. Word spreads that the monastery is a warm and appreciative community, caring for each other with extraordinary gentleness and empathy. Visitors come again to stay and learn, new monks are eager to join and the community is rebuilt and restored to greater heights than before. As we build on the strengths of the past, we will continue to develop our capacities of support, empathy, kindness and responsibility for others.
Building Sacred community is our work to do together and we have three great teachings of the Hebrew Bible that have so inspired Western Civilization to guide us. That we are all created in the image of God – b’zelem elohim, is an obligation to respect and celebrate our diversity; of colour, of gender, of sexuality, of faith. To love our neigbour as ourself – ve’ahavta l’reacha camocha is to reach out beyond ourselves with empathy and kindness and that tzedek tzedek tirdorf – to go out and pursue justice so that all can receive the blessings of life, health and dignity in an uncompleted world. We have seen this past week how we cannot take these three principles for granted. We will have to continue to work for justice for women’s reproductive health, for the health of our planet, for the democratic principles that have developed and expanded liberty for the past 250 years in this country. We follow these principles in conjunction with our sacred partners at Emmanuel Church and know that we are interdependent with all faiths to bring about a more just society here and everywhere. As we try and navigate our way in a changing world tossed by the storms domestically and internationally, we need to keep anchored to these fundamental principles and values of our age old faith. So like Moses and Aaron in this week’s parasha, we will not be cowered by those who believe only they hold absolute truth. Rather we will take up the fight and resist their insurrection against our democratic and Torah values.
So as we go on this new journey together and receive the blessings of this sacred community, let us renew our commitment to work for holiness together so that we can hold firm to our values, enact them for the repair of the world around us and treat each other and those we love and know with extra kindness and love. After all, one of us might just be the messiah!
The Jewish ideal is a sacred community.
The successful beginning then, is not to find God in an instant, or even a day or a month or a year.
Sacred community begins with a modest but firm commitment to the project of our generation.
To transcend ethnicity and seek out the Holy in such things as the ways we speak, the blessings we say, the truths we discover and the homes we have or seek to find.
Sacred Community is not just what we want. It is what we need.
and it beckons us now more than ever to return, to find it.
