Warm regards,
Rabbi Gerber
What Does It Mean To Be Jewish? (TAM)
Shanah Tovah!
Every year, at the
Passover Seder table, we read from a book called 'the Haggadah.' Bear with me,
people. I KNOW it’s not Passover right now, I haven’t lost my mind, but I’m
going someplace with this, you’re just gonna have to trust me.
So it’s Passover. We’re
reading from the Haggadah, and we’re talking a lot about questions, right? Like
the Four Questions. And there’s one particular Haggadah that I like to use for
teaching purposes and at our communal Seder here at Ohev, called A Different
Night. And when you get to the page with the Four Questions, there’s a little
story in the margins about Nobel laureate, Isidor Rabi. Mr. Rabi – let’s call
him ‘Izzy,’ we’re all pretty informal around here – Izzy was once asked why he
became a scientist, rather than a doctor, lawyer, or businessman like the other
immigrant kids in his neighborhood. And he responded: “My mother made me a
scientist without ever intending it. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn
would ask her child after school: ‘Nu? Did you LEARN anything today?’ But not
my mother. She always asked me a different question. ‘Izzy,’ she would say,
‘Did you ask a GOOD QUESTION today?’ That difference – asking good questions –
made me become a scientist.”
Now first of all, my
mother loves that little story, and she reads that at our Passover Seder EVERY
year, so that’s one reason why I like to begin my sermon there. But again, I
know it’s not Passover today – in fact, we’re about as far from Passover as we
can possibly GET in the Jewish calendar! – yet nevertheless, that story jumped
out at me, when I was planning for this year’s High Holiday theme.
The theme is NOT
questioning, I just wanted you to know that. It's also NOT about asking good
questions. But questioning IS going to guide us along on our journey through
these holiday services, as we explore the theme that we ARE going to deal with,
namely ‘Guilt Free Judaism.’ So let’s begin with our first question, which is
‘Why is this our theme for 2013, or the Jewish year, 5774?’ Why should these
High Holidays be any different from all other High Holidays?!?
Well, let’s begin with
the fact that it, guilt, is here, right now, in this Sanctuary. It’s almost
palpable, that infamous Jewish guilt that we like to kid about all the time,
but can actually be quite powerful, and quite painful for so many people. Just
think about how many of you here are attending because someone said to you,
‘How can you NOT be in services on Rosh Hashanah??’
Or at least, maybe you
WORRIED that someone MIGHT say that to you, and you started feeling guilty even
before giving anyone the CHANCE to make you feel bad! And how many people feel
guilty because they haven’t set foot in the Sanctuary since last year’s
holidays? Or feel guilty because their kids aren’t as familiar with this
service or the Junior Congregation service as they'd like? Or are wishing I’d
stop talking already so this service can end, because they're bored… but are
then feeling guilty for even thinking that! (and you know, even though this
sermon is about being Guilt Free, you SHOULD feel bad for even implying that my
sermon is boring or long...). All kidding aside, it really IS a powerful
emotion that seems almost entirely intertwined with our experience of Judaism,
and maybe all religion. And it creates distance. It stops us all from being
fully present and open to some of the essential questions that we SHOULD be
asking ourselves here today.
I started my sermon by
referencing two Jewish mothers, our buddy, Izzy’s and my own. And in part, I
did that because we often try to trace back a lot of Jewish guilt to moms
everywhere, which is sometimes a little unfair, and sometimes a little bit
justified. But in addition, I often feel like a lot of people trace their guilt
back to right here, to the synagogue. It may be this one, or it may not.
Perhaps you grew up in another part of the country or the world, but it's
unfortunately quite likely that SOME synagogue SOMEWHERE holds memories of
guilt and failure. Or maybe it's a church or mosque, if you grew up in a
different religion. Some of it MAY come from parents and grandparents, but we
also institutionalize a lot of guilt as well, especially in religious communities,
and quite frankly, that, makes me really, really sad.
I love Judaism. Not
every minute of every day, to be totally honest with you, but I do LOVE being
Jewish, and I love sharing that with all of you. But I also hear a lot about
Jewish Guilt, in one form or another. Whether it’s someone saying, “Rabbi, I
really should come to services more often,” or “Rabbi, I am not as spiritual as
I should be,” or “Rabbi, do I have to do this or say that or keep this or
observe that?” There’s a lot of ‘Thou shalt’ in there, but probably a whole lot
more ‘Thou shalt not.’ It's like there's this weight, this mass, just pressing
down on SO MANY people, a weight of communal expectations - perceived or real -
of family obligations, unmet personal goals, unrealistic expectations; and it
all seems to be just unbearably, excruciatingly, and exhaustingly dragging us
down, and sapping us of energy. And it hurts me, when I see that in people. And
what really makes me particularly upset is to hear about all the negative
experiences people have had with synagogues, and rabbis, and congregational
leaders, and yes, even cantors,
throughout their lives,
in different communities, cities, and countries, and from almost every decade.
I pray to God, literally, that I am not contributing to those experiences, or
heaping more guilt and shame and anguish onto people’s already heavy burdens,
or adding to their severely tarnished, bruised, and battered images of Judaism.
Instead, I try to find
ways to say to people, to you, to everyone here, and almost every single day of
the year, but ESPECIALLY right now on the High Holidays; I say: it ain’t about
the guilt. I don’t want to dismiss your bad memories, or devalue your
experiences, which WERE painful, and which stay with you. I recognize them, and
I hear them; I really do. And if you’re loving holding onto that Jewish Guilt,
if it's truly doing something good for you, then I guess there isn’t much I can
say to take that away. But I honestly don’t get it. And I don’t want it FROM
you. I don't want you to feel that I'm looking for it, that I'm expecting it,
or that I'm going to give you extra credit for feeling bad that you didn't pay
better attention in Hebrew School 30 years ago. I'll hear it, if you really
want to tell me about it. But I just want you to know, it doesn't do anything
for ME, and I don't entirely believe that it's doing anything good for you
either. And I most certainly don’t want YOU to be burdened by it.
Last month, I had to
write a press release, as we were trying to let the wider community know about
High Holiday services here at Ohev Shalom, and as I thought about what I wanted
to say, regarding Guilt, I just kept coming back to this one thought, ‘What is
it doing for you?’ ‘What are you getting out of it?’ And to quote a beautiful
meditation that we used during the month of Elul, written by Amy Graham's
mother, Barbara Wissoker, ‘Is it worthy of you? Is your guilt worthy of the
wonderful person that you, that we all, are?’ And the answer, resoundingly, is
‘NO!’
So I’m starting us down
this path of asking all these questions, of asking some really Good Jewish
Questions, as our pal Izzy might have said. But I want to boil it down to its
essence. Let’s focus on one, really big, and really important question: ‘What does it mean to be Jewish?’ If
we’re going to talk about our guilt, and if we’re going to start unpacking the
barriers and road blocks that we either put up for ourselves, or which other
people have constructed in order to halt our progress, we need to FIRST
understand what it’s all about. And not just ‘What does it mean to be Jewish
GENERALLY,’ but ‘What does it mean to be Jewish… for ME’ and in MY life.
Now I need to stop for
a second and share with you a small side note. I’m not ready, you see, to let
go of the Passover undercurrent just yet (or, as you'll soon discover, really
at all for these holidays), especially since I have FOUR major sermons (two
days of RH, KN, and YK), and the theme of FOUR is so prevalent at Passover
(questions, children, cups, Biblical verses of redemption, etc.). But I
actually don’t want to focus on the Four Questions, per se, though that WAS
where I began my sermon, but rather the Four Children, or what were
traditionally known as the Four Sons. Because the story of the Four Children
isn’t really about four kids at all. It’s about four urges, four emotional
states, four ways of being that ALL of us experience throughout life. All four
are IN us. We feel smart, we feel contrary, we feel shy, and we feel clueless. Sometimes
one, sometimes another, and sometimes all four at once. And sometimes many more
than just those four...
So as we delve into
that good ol’ fashioned Jewish guilt that we all love to talk about so much,
and try to unpack what it’s all about, I think it’s helpful to take four
approaches to this question, representing different sides of each of us,
individually and collectively. And so each of my four main High Holiday sermons
is going to be modeled on one of the Four Children from the Passover Haggadah.
Let us begin, not in
the order presented in the Haggadah (cause that would just be WAY too easy and
obvious…), but with the third child, known as Tam in Hebrew, meaning ‘simple’
or ‘artless.’ And that is why, before we descend deeper into this question of
‘guilt,’ I think it’s important this morning to ask a very basic and very
SIMPLE question, ‘What does it mean to be Jewish?’ Before we can unpack our
guilt and our baggage, our issues with religion and history and culture and
family and food; before we take on ALL that stuff, let’s remind ourselves what
we’re doing here, why we care about being Jewish at all.
I actually started this
conversation with all of you back in the summer. Inspired by my friend, Rabbi
Eric Yanoff at Adath Israel in Merion Station, I engaged in some ‘crowd
sourcing’ by putting a question up on Facebook for anyone to answer. My query
was this: Can you summarize the basis of your Jewish identity in SIX words?
Literary legend (though apparently not necessarily fact) tells us that Ernest
Hemingway once challenged other writers to compose an entire novel in just six
words, to really emphasize the importance of crystallizing your message. He
himself offered the tragic, but thought-provoking, ‘Baby Shoes for sale: Never
worn.’ There are many other examples out there of using six words as the bench
mark for summarizing and boiling down concepts to establish what something
truly means.
NPR (National Public
Radio) launched a terrific online campaign called The Race Card Project, inviting
readers to summarize the meaning of ‘Race’ (as in, skin color or nationality)
in six words. There are thousands of submissions that you can read online, many
of which are filled with emotion and tension. A couple of examples are: ‘What
kind of name is THAT?’ and ‘Who Will Your Children Play With?’
And so I tried to take
a page from these playbooks, turning that same spotlight on Judaism and putting
a challenge out there to the magical world that is the online community of
Facebook. I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Hemingway – or should I say ‘Ernie’ –
by throwing out a challenge without taking it on myself, and so I came up with
a few suggestions of my own. Two of them were inspired by our compadre, Izzy:
“Ask Good Jewish Questions Every Day,” and “Questioning Is In Our Blood. Why?”
I had a couple others as well, like ‘We’ve Got A Holiday For That,’ but I
really wanted to see what others could come up with. I was thrilled and
impressed when I received an incredible TWO DOZEN responses back to my
question, some of them from people sitting here today. I want to share just a
few of them with you:
- In my blood, in my life – from a member of the congregation
- Two Jews, Three Opinions, Chosen People.
- I wouldn’t be alive without it.
- And here’s one from another member of the congregation, who's SIX
years old, Jordana Jasner: The Judaism is awesome to me! (I love that one)
- I also had someone submit ‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai, Eloheinu, Adonai
Echad,’ which is certainly a classic answer, an oldie-but-a-goodie, but let's
be honest, it’s not very original.
- And perhaps my favorite one: Candles glow, tradition guides soul;
nourished.
If you’re interested in
reading all of them, you can find them on Facebook or on my blog. Or you can
just let me know and I’ll print you out a copy.
There's no time limit
on this. I invite and encourage all of you to mull it over, and see if you can
come up with a six-word answer to this essential question, 'What is the basis
of your Jewish identity?' You can send it to me, you can write it on a small
slip of paper and just keep it with you, in your pocket or your wallet, or you
can just ponder the question without writing ANYTHING down. BUT if we're going
to plunge ourselves further into this question of guilt, and if we're serious
about wanting to make changes in our lives, and lift that burden off ourselves,
then we need to begin somewhere, and this is where I'd like us to start.
I've always been
intrigued by that third child in the Passover four-some. 'Tam,' again, meaning
'simple.' 'The Simple Child.' Except nothing in Judaism, or in Hebrew, is ever
quite that 'simple' at all. The word 'Tam,' (T-A-M) is also the word used to
describe our ancestor Jacob, in the Bible. He was an 'Ish Tam,' we are told, a
'mild-mannered guy,' as opposed to his wild-man brother, Esau. 'Tam' is also
the word used whenever we conclude the study of a rabbinic work. We say 'Tam
v'Nishlam,' it is finished and complete. So the word can signify 'simple',
'mild,' 'innocent,' but also 'complete,' and even 'honest.' At the Passover
table, the Simple Child is just boiling down all the questions and confusion,
laws and customs of the holiday, and focusing in on what really matters. For
that child it's 'what is Passover all about,' and for us, today, at the start
of this High Holiday journey, it's 'what is the essence of Judaism in my life?'
And today, as we talk
about resetting, and refocusing on the heart of the matter, and as we also talk
about four different types of children, I also want to turn our attention to
education. Our chaver - our friend - Izzy, reminded us all of the importance of
asking good Jewish questions, but he also talked about how his mother, in her
efforts to shape the way he viewed the world, was able to start him off from a
very young age on a life-long path of exploration and wonderment. THAT is what
we are trying to do here at Ohev Shalom with our new launch of Mispallelim, our
synagogue's educational program. We spent a year dreaming, and brain-storming,
and marketing, and planning, and organizing this new program, with the help of
JLV, Jewish Learning Ventures. And I especially want to recognize and thank our
Ometz team, members of the congregation who spent hours and hours every week
putting this together, under the fearless and patient leadership of Michael
Speirs, our School Committee chair.
And now it's here! It's
about to get off the ground THIS upcoming Sunday morning. The program is called
LeV, meaning 'heart,' as in 'getting to the heart of Jewish education.' And
that's really our theme here today as well, right? Boiling it down to its
essence. So let's do that for a second, let's strip away all the distractions
and the noise, all the bad memories of Hebrew Schools we hated and lessons
about the Jewish holidays we learned over and over, EVERY, SINGLE year. Strip
all that away. And let's focus in on the real questions we want to ask. Do we
want our kids to be able to answer what Judaism means to them? Do we want them
to be able to ask good Jewish questions, and also ask questions about their
world Jewishly, with a Jewish lens that informs all aspects of their secular,
everyday, regular lives? And if we're really being simple and honest, we should
also ask ourselves another question:
"Has Jewish
education improved much in the last 100 years?" And without feeling GUILTY
about it, we need to admit to ourselves that the answer is 'no, it hasn't
improved.'
Our new program? It
ain't perfect. And as it gets off the ground on Sunday, it'll have flaws and
challenges, kinks that need to be resolved. But will it also be pushing all of
us to think about the meaning of Jewish education, and the fundamental basis of
what it means to be Jewish? Yes, most definitely. Our kids will learn in new
ways, they'll see Judaism as a positive and guiding element in their lives, and
they will develop a strong and confident answer to the question of what Judaism
means to them. They will go from simple and artless to honest and complete.
We need to talk more
about guilt. And luckily we have four sermons to do it. And I'm assuming you're
all going to be coming back to hear all four sermons??? I'm kidding, I'm
kidding! Yes, I definitely want you to feel guilty by the end of my sermon
about Guilt-Free Judaism. But if you can't make it back, and you still want to
hear my sermons - only if you want to, NO guilt - I AM going to be recording
them and putting them online.
For now, just sit with
that first, basic question, and think about what Judaism means to you, and how
grappling with that question CAN and WILL help relieve the burden of Jewish
Guilt that weighs down on all of us. We CAN change the script. We CAN reverse
the trends and change the narrative, and give ourselves, and our children, a
Jewish identity that we can all be proud of. But you have to be willing to
engage, to challenge. Our leadership team for the new Mispallelim is called the
Ometz team, from the Hebrew word meaning 'courage.' It takes courage to think
outside the box, to shirk old models and be willing to dream big... AND then
act on it.
Yeah, it's scary, and
yeah, it's safer to stick with what we know, and just keep repeating the same
lines, and joke about good ol' Jewish guilt the way we've always done. But
Isadore Rabi's mother didn't stick with the same tired questions all the other
mothers asked their kids. She changed the conversation, which emboldened her
son to change the world, and inspired my mother to tell THEIR story every year
at Passover, and motivated me to stand here and tell you all to LET GO of your
guilt, and hopefully has now sparked something in each of you. So? Nu? Did it
work?
Shanah Tovah!
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