There are many reasons why I am in love with the Adat Shalom community. One
of those reasons is that whenever I have the chance to offer a d'var torah,
teach a class or deliver a sermon, I am sure to get sufficient thoughtful and
challenging response to sow the seeds for yet another presentation.
Such was the case earlier this year when I gave a d'var torah on a shabbat
morning and raised the question of whether or not liberal Jews were missing out
on an important religious experience by not embracing some form of holy
man/holy woman figure in their communal lives--what Judaism calls a "rebbe".
What prompted my question was an experience I had just a month earlier
when my son Danny and I were invited to join a Purim tisch at the home of an
Orthodox rabbi. Now a tisch is a peculiar custom that exists in the Hasidic
world which combines food and drink with the teaching of torah. The teacher, of
course, is the rebbe. Everyone else is there to listen. You may have seen
pictures of Shabbat Tisches with the late Lubavitch Rebbe on Eastern Parkway,
Brooklyn--hundreds of hasidim packed into a room, hanging onto every word of
the rebbe. And when the rebbe made a bracha over the challah and took a piece,
the men would push towards the front of the room to get a piece of the challah
that the rebbe had touched and blessed.
Danny and I were not invited to Eastern Parkway. Only to Kemp Mill, the hub of
the Orthodox community in this area. Rabbi Hirsch Chinn, a colleague who works
down the hall from me, had invited us. Raised in a Hasidic community, he runs a
program of study for college students from diverse Jewish backgrounds called
the Avi Chai Fellowship. Hirsh's son is a friend of Danny's.
The evening was an eye opener for me. The day before Purim, traditional Jews
fast. Then comes a raucous reading of the Megillah on the evening ushering in
Purim as well as a more subdued reading on the next morning, presumably because
the revelers are suffering hangovers from the religiously mandated
drinking--one is supposed to drink until you canıt tell the difference between
Haman and Mordecai. The Purim tisch we were invited to rounds out the day.
Before sundown and the end of the festival, Jews gather to study "Purim Torah".
In the Hasidic community, it is the occasion for a tisch.
The evening itself was a feast of food, Torah, song and, drink. My
friend, Reb Hirsh, was, without a doubt, the center of attention. He taught a
piece of Torah, did a lıchaim, downed a glass of wine and then led us in a
song. Food came out. Then we repeated the cycle, again, and again and again.
First I was amazed at Hirshıs ability to drink such large quantities of wine.
Then by his ability to down such large quantities of food. Then by his ability
to stay cogent as he continued to teach Torah into the night. And finally I was
amazed by the sense of all of us who were crowded into the house, perhaps 40
strong by 10pm, that we were in the presence of a holy man. That evening,
Hirsch personified everything about the festival that we were celebrating. He
did it with such passion and energy and fullness of heart and spirit, that we
were all raised up as a result. I felt like I had been transmitted to
another dimension.
In the days that followed, I tried to unpack my experience.
I was most struck by the contrasting styles of the community that I helped to
shape--Adat Shalom--and the community of Orthodox Jews in Kemp Mill who were
part of Reb Hirsh's circle. I, unabashedly, set out to create a holy
community at Adat Shalom, and I'd like to think that we have had a fair amount
of success in this regard. Our strategy at Adat Shalom, from day one was to
empower as many people in the community as possible to assume leadership roles.
As a result, we harvested an incredible treasure trove of gifts and talents of
members which, in numerous other synagogues, stands untapped. I am often
asked how it is that we have so many bright, talented and gifted people at Adat
Shalom. The obvious answer is that talented people gravitate to an
institution that provide the opportunity to share those gifts and talents.
My Purim experience put me face to face with another model. One in which the
holiness resided less in the community and moreso in one person. If there was
holiness in the room that evening, it was derivative--we were feeding off of
Reb Hirsh's energy and charisma. Not being a member of that community, it is
far more difficult for me to assess the staying power of that holiness,
something I can speak to regarding Adat Shalom with much greater certainty.
This was the dilemma that I posed to the Adat Shalom community on that shabbat
morning in March. The dialogue and some subsequent conversations revealed a
phenomenon that I call, "fear of flying". Fear of flying is an expression that
I like to invoke to describe the resistance of many liberal Jews to talk about
stuff that is neither tangible or rational--in other words, hints of the
transcendent in the world.
Reconstructionism has its roots in a rational
reinterpretation of Judaism. It is true: the movement has today emerged as the
most "spiritual" of all American Jewish denominations, giving rise to the split
that I have called in the past, the skeptic-seeker divide. Yet historical
biases run deep. There are still many in our, and other Reconstructionist
communities, who get the heebie geebies at mention of things like God, angels,
spirituality and holiness. I gave a sermon some years ago called
"Reconstructionists and the G-word", speaking about this "fear of flying" in
our community.
Well, predictably, the "fear of flying" factor was raised when I broached the
subject of whether our community would be well served to be less averse to a
rebbe-model. "You don't really believe that?" I was challenged. "Sure I do", I
responded, out of a desire to both challenge conventional thinking and to be
provocative.
Think about it. What is a rebbe? It is a term most frequently used in the
context of the hasidic community, yet I find something about the role that is
important in the attempt to create "holy community". A "rebbe" is someone
who is acknowledged by his or her community to have more than just a solid
grounding in Judaic knowledge. Rebbes have that intangible quality that
inspires people to heed their advice, counsel and to follow their
life-commitments. Rebbes have the ability to build communities and movements.
Rebbes are seen to have a certain quality of wisdom, insight, and a connection
to that which is sacred and holy in the universe. It boils down to this:
"a rabbi has employers, while a rebbe has followers". In fact the term
"hasid" literally means, "loyal follower".
The irony here, of course, is that if I were to canvas members of
Reconstructionist synagogues around the country, asking them whether they felt
their communities would be stronger and more spiritual places with a rebbe-like
figure at the helm, my guess is that the vast majority would recoil at the
thought. I dare say that I would get the same reaction in other liberal
denominations as well. Now don't get me wrong. I am not declaring my candidacy
for rebbe-hood and I am certainly not here as a shill for Rabbi Fred.
But it is worth contemplating this: Why is it that most contemporary Americans
are suspicious of individuals who purport to have some channel to God or to the
holy? They are, in fact, more comfortable with clergy who have strong
managerial skills than they are with a person who claims that he/she is an
agent of God on earth. The American synagogue and church has morphed into a
corporation and their boards of directors try to hire the best CEO they can
find. Moses, Isaiah and Akiba would not have a chance with the clergy
selection committees of most contemporary American congregations. They never
went to Wharton or anything close to it.
And yet I am left to ponder whether this is at the core of the problem of
Judaism in America today. The American synagogue has spent the last 50 years
trying to become the model of a profitable, efficient, American corporation
with a suitable rabbi to serve as its CEO. Meanwhile, a growing percentage of
Jews are desperately seeking holiness elsewhere.
And herein lies the problem. Liberal Judaism not only
Americanized Judaism, it secularized it as well. And I believe that we are
poorer for it. I am as much a victim of this phenomenon as many of you--perhaps
moreso. I came from a traditional Jewish home, received a yeshiva
education, then found Reconstructionism in college and "saw the light". I
adopted what seemed like an obvious and simple paradigm: Orthodoxy/rigidity/ritual=bad;
Liberal Judaism/relevant/flexible/ethical
=good. Like all simple paradigms, it discourages critical thinking and makes
nuanced understanding nearly impossible. While it may be true that
traditional Judaism needs a heavy dose of "reconstructing"--a process from
which our community has benefitted enormously--today there is a different need.
I think we need to re-sanctify Judaism. We need to overcome our fear of flying
and begin to pick out the holy sparks of our lives and weave them into a fabric
of transcendent meaning.
When I led a solidarity trip to Israel last February, the group started teasing
me about a mantra that I adopted. "There are no coincidences in Jerusalem", I
would say. I had the occasion to say it over and over, after every seeming "coincidence".
Like when one of our group was randomly matched up for shabbat home
hospitality with a rabbi, whose father knew her father in Manchester, England
before WWII. Like when Jerry Flanzer got randomly seated next to the wife
of a Palestinian professor who came to address us and who, it turns out, was
the author of a book that he had just reviewed for a professional journal. Like
when during a quick in and out visit at the Israeli foreign ministry I bumped
into an old and dear friend who I knew a decade ago when he worked at the
Israeli Embassy and whose daughter I named in a ceremony at the Embassy but
with whom I had lost touch.
My mantra started to morph into: "there are no coincidences in Israel" and
then, "there are no coincidences in life". What did I mean? "Coincidence"
is a secular term we use to describe a chance event that has no logical
explanation. Increasingly I have come to believe that life is filled with
events, both joyous and sad, that are juxtaposed, not by chance occurrence, but
through some grand design. Our traditional brothers and sisters would call it
"the hand of God". To me, it points to a design built into each and every
one of our lives in which every event, every experience, every meeting is a dot
that is meant to be connected to another dot in our lives. And when we start to
connect the dots, we see a pattern of transcendent meaning that is the mark of
holiness.
Is it a coincidence when two people meet, fall in love, marry and have a family
or was it "meant to be?" Is it a coincidence when an infertile couple conceives
just after the death of a parent or was it "meant to be?" Is it a coincidence
when a despondent and lost soul happens upon a faith community that lifts their
spirits and puts them into the bosom of a community that embraces them or was
it "meant to be?" All of these things have happened in this community, and
dozens more such occurrences which time doesn't allow me to detail. Is it a
coincidence when, during the very week that I was developing this sermon I
receive in the mail a promotional copy of a magazine to which I do not
subscribe, peruse it and find an article on UFIs--unknown forces of
interconnection in the universe, just what I am talking about here. Or was it
"meant to be?"! No, there are no coincidences in life. There is something big
going on here.
The book of Leviticus screams out: kedoshim tehiyu, "you are destined to
be holy." Judaism should help us see that we are holy people, living lives
filled with holy moments, in a quest to create holy community. A
person of faith, a person who is in touch with the spiritual dimension of life,
begins to see how every event, every encounter, every new idea and experience
in life is somehow forming a pattern of meaning. There are invisible lines of
connection between the seemingly, disparate moments in our lives. Religion
assumes that there are no coincidences in life. It bids us to look for
those invisible lines. They are sacred lines of holiness. That is why I am
increasingly comfortable speaking about the "hand of God", both at work in
history and in my life.
I started
this sermon telling a story about Purim. Purim, by the way, means "lottery" so
Purim means "lottery day. The holiday of chance occurrences. The holiday of "coincidence"!
The rabbis speculate about the curious word play that suggests that Yom
Kippur, is a day "like Purim". By now you've heard too much from me to dare
suggest that the word play is a coincidence. But how, pray tell, is the holiest
day of the year, similar to the festival which is, seemingly, the least holy.
Yom Kippur is filled with prohibitions-- no work, food, drink, electricity, not
even sex. A day of introspection, prayer and repentance. On Purim, anything
goes. There are no ritual prohibitions at all. The megillah doesn't even
mention the name of God.
And therein lies the connection. Purim is holiness in masquerade. It doesn't
look like holiness because all the events that lead to the eventual salvation
of the Jewish people from the designs of a wicked despot seem like
coincidences--Esther's selection as queen, Mordecai's hearing of the evil plot,
Achashverous' sleepless night, and on and on. The message is: Even when
it doesn't seem like the hand of God is at work in our lives, it actually is.
It is only masked. The masks of Purim!
So whereas Yom Kippur is explicit holiness, Purim, leaves holiness implicit and
hidden. Just... like... life. The challenge for us is not so much to see
the holiness on Yom Kippur, but rather to see the sparks of holiness all around
us every day.
May this new year, provide us with the ability to see how our lives are filled
with miraculous, holy moments and may our consciousness of that transcendent
holiness, make us better able to create a holy community together.