My father
likes to tell jokes. He always has a
joke ready for any situation. As kids,
when he’d start a story, often my sister, brother, and I wouldn’t know until
the end whether it was true or some elaborate set-up. He even has a joke to tell when someone
messes up the telling of a joke. I will
let him tell you that one because he tells me I don’t tell it right. Many of the jokes have to do with Jews and
our quirks. There’s an old joke about
everything!
One of the
jokes that I remember him telling me at a fairly young age has to do with two
Jewish sailors. Let’s call them Sam and Simon.
It’s a joke whose punchline, I’m sure, some of you will know, but please no spoilers.
You see, these two Jewish sailors, Sam and
Simon, are the only Jews on their ship.
Well, suddenly there’s a storm and the ship heaves and hos, tossed by
the waves, until finally it hits some rocks and breaks apart and sinks. As luck would have it, the two sailors each
found their way to a large floating piece of plastic and held on together until
they washed ashore on an uncharted desert island.
Years later, after having survived on that
island praying for someone to come and save them, a passing ship sees their
signal fire and comes to rescue them.
When the landing party comes ashore to see who’s on the island, they see
a small little village set up, a couple of huts, some small gardens, and oddly,
three synagogues.
When the captain of
the rescue ship greets them, he asks Sam and Simon about the anomaly. “There are only two of you and yet three
synagogues. Why is that?”
“Well,” Sam says, “the one over here is the one I pray in.”
“Well,” Sam says, “the one over here is the one I pray in.”
“And the one over here,” Simon
says, “is the one I pray in.”
“Well, what about the third
one!?” The captain asked.
“Well, that one… Feh! …neither of
us will pray in that one!”
Well, friends, we have merged our
two congregations into one, and if you had heard some of the comments as we
were working hard to bring our new community together, you’d have thought that
the clergy, the leadership, and the staff were working to create a synagogue that no one
was comfortable praying in. We heard
many comments like: “It’s going to be too religious!” And, “It’s not going to
be religious enough!” Often on the same
day, after the same meeting! We heard lots of skepticism that
we’d be able to bring our community together, to pray as one, and yet, look at
us now. Look around and see, on the day
we commemorate God’s creation, how we have all come together to create a new
synagogue and celebrate these High Holy Days.
Sure, there are some changes to what we have been accustomed to. Sure, some things are not the same. And sure, some things are going to continue
to change as we continue to make decisions for our evolving community. But here we are, together, praying alongside
one another, ringing in a New Year.
It’s not surprising that throughout
our process of coming together, many of us may have felt the divisions
acutely. Many of us feel a sense of
division in so many places today. We
cannot make it through our social media feed, a news broadcast or article, or
sometimes even a conversation with a loved one in our family without feeling as
if we are not just disagreeing, but on opposite sides of a battle, each staking
a claim to our territory, our sense of right and wrong, and our boundaries.
We hear a lot about what divides
us, and the truth is, I cannot recall a time when our nation felt as divided as
it does today. It’s hard to prevent the
national mood from inserting itself into our daily lives, our relationships,
and even our houses of worship. And
though we may look around today, tomorrow, and next week and see our newly
grown congregation coming together, intoning the same words, praying to the
same God, it’s hard not to also recognize that though we’re making great
progress, we’re not yet one big happy family.
And that’s ok. It would be nearly
impossible for all of us to feel that way, yet.
We’re only a couple months into this new project. It’s going to take time for the dust to
settle, for the place to feel like home for all of us. There’s been so much change.
We have been divided into so many
different groups, and whether knowingly or unknowingly, we have aided those
divisions by overzealousness, by unfriending, by not talking, by talking
without knowing, and by assuming the worst.
We have forgotten what unites us.
We have forgotten how to focus on those commonalities which are so
important. We have forgotten how to even
look for them. Or worse, we have decided
that it’s no longer important to look for those points of agreement, of
unity.
The punchline of that joke about
the two sailors and their three synagogues is, of course, referring to the old
saying that when you have two Jews, you have three opinions. We’ve got two synagogues full of Jews coming
together! But let’s think for a moment
about that third synagogue on the island.
The one neither Sam nor Simon would pray in. Sam and Simon may not have agreed on much,
but they agreed on something, and it was that third synagogue. At least, one could argue, Sam and Simon
could agree on what they both disliked!
I’m not suggesting that’s a great way to live or to run a synagogue—finding
common ground only by what is equally reviled—but, hey, at least it’s a start.
And so this Rosh HaShanah, as we
take our first steps into a new year together, the first of many as a new
congregation, let us commit to finding and focusing on what unites us. We have more in common than not. We have the same goals and the same sacred
history. We have the same connection to
tradition and the same desire to create a spiritual home that is comfortable
for us. What unites us calls to us from
our sacred texts, from the stories by our ancestors about our ancestors. We are reminded about those elements of our
lives that are most important, most universal, the aspects of life that our day-to-day
existence glosses over, but which these High Holy Days call upon us to
remember. What unites us, in essence, is
that we are all children of a tradition that calls upon us to be one nation…
that calls upon us to come together.
What unites us is that we are all
children of Torah. We are all B’nai
Torah.
Hayom Harat Olam! This is the day of the world’s creation! At the conclusion of our Shofar service, we
hear these words that remind us that today is the birthday of the world. Tomorrow we will read from the first chapter
of Genesis and hear the story of God’s creating humanity. “And God said: Let us make a being in our
image, after our likeness, and let it have dominion over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air, and over the cattle; over all the earth and over
every creature that crawls upon it. Thus
God created us in the image of God, creating us male and female.”[1] We are all created in the image of God, the
Torah tells us, but the rabbis take this notion a step further.
The Mishnah, the rabbis’ code of
Jewish law codified in the first two centuries of the Common Era, expounds on
the story of creation, reminding us of the preciousness of life. But it also goes further to show an important
lesson about how we are supposed to understand ourselves in relation to each
other and in relation to God. Answering
the question, “Why did God create one man?,” the Mishnah answers: “for the sake of peace among men, that one
might not say to his fellow, ‘my father was greater than yours!” No one can say that their ancestry is better
than anyone else’s. No one can say that
they are better than anyone else. We all
come from the same place. We all come
from those first two beings, created by God on that sixth day of creation.
No one’s ancestry, ultimately, has more clout than anyone else’s. We come together these days to be reminded of
our shared heritage, our shared genesis.
We are reminded that no matter where we come from, we are all creations
of God. Because we believe that we are
all creations of God, descended from the same place, we are all B’nai
Torah. Because we recognize the value in
the person sitting next to us, because we make space for them like our own
sibling, because we see in them a member of our family: We are all B’nai Torah.
But the moment of humanity’s birth
is not the only moment we share in our spiritual past. We’ve already all been together before. We’ve already all prayed together before. I don’t mean one of the many services we’ve
shared over the last couple years. I
mean the first time that the Jewish people experienced God and spoke words to
God as a community. That moment of
revelation. That moment at Sinai.
On Yom Kippur, we read from
Deuteronomy a chapter where Moses reminds the people about the parameters of the
covenant they entered into with God.
Moses reiterates it for this new generation, saying: “I make this
covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are
standing here with us this day before the Eternal our God and with those who
are not with us here this day.”[2]
The Talmud expands on this, explaining what the Torah means by those who are
not with us here this day: “the subsequent generations, those who live
alongside us, and those who have chosen to join us.”[3] Everyone was present for the moment of
revelation. Though the rabbinic
commentaries shy away from this imagery, the Kabbalists are bolder, taking this
teaching to mean that every soul was present at that moment that God spoke the
words of the Ten Commandments.
We were all there, friends. Look above me, above the ark, at this
beautiful stained glass window depicting this familiar moment. It is familiar to us because it is in our
collective memory. The awe of revelation
is woven into the fabric of who we are as a community. We’ve been together before. And, just like that time, this time too we’re
all seeking God’s voice. Just like that
time, this time we’re nervous that we might not be adequate enough to approach
God and have our prayers answered. And just
like that time, when we answered God that “all that God had spoken we will do
and we will listen,” this time we come together knowing that our actions and
deeds are how we show God’s presence in the world. The revelation at Sinai prepared us for the
work of spreading God’s light which is ahead of us.
Because we seek God’s voice
alongside our community. Because we
recognize our insignificance before the Eternal. Because in God’s voice we hear the calls to
righteousness and justice through the work of our hands. Because we were all shoulder to shoulder at
Sinai: we are all B’nai Torah.
Just a few moments ago, we heard so
beautifully chanted by so many congregants the tragic and difficult portion for
Rosh HaShanah morning, Akedat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac. We often focus our time on the climax of the
scene, as Abraham’s knife is about to plunge into his son and God’s
intervention prevents the filicide. We
hear about Abraham’s trust in God that allowed him the faith and the strength
to continue. After the moment of divine
intervention, we tend to look to the ram, created, the midrash teaches us, on
twilight of the sixth day of creation, just after humanity, and just for this
purpose. It makes sense to focus on the
ram, given the role of the shofar in our services. But there’s a moment of tenderness between
father and son before they ascend the mountain which calls out to be
heard. They both went on together. Three
words in Hebrew: וילכו שניהם יחדו.[4] They both went on together.
Isaac looks up to his father and
asks him where the tools are and where the animal is for the sacrifice. “God will see to the sheep for the sacrifice,”
Abraham tells his son. וילכו שניהם יחדו.
And the two went on together.
Though he probably can’t fathom it
at the moment, Abraham has confidence that everything will turn out ok. He has confidence that the terrible act to
which he has committed himself will not come to pass. He might not be able to see the future, but
because he trusts in God, and believes in the covenant that they forged,
Abraham takes his son’s hand, and the two go on together. וילכו שניהם יחדו.
Though he probably can’t know what
is to come, Isaac has no choice but to trust his father. He has no recourse, and he cannot know what
is in store. Still, Abraham must have
been so convinced of the positive outcome that he was able to convince his
son. Isaac was a child according to many
commentaries, but not so small or young that he couldn’t have wriggled away
from his nonagenarian father if he suspected something was amiss. Isaac had to trust in his father in order to
move ahead. Because of the trust,
because of the familial bond, וילכו שניהם יחדו,
they both went on together.
Of course we can’t know what the
future holds for our congregation. Like
Isaac, we must trust in each other that we are all working toward the best
possible outcome. Like Abraham, we must
trust in God that the path that we are on is the best way. When we have trust that even when we come to
a moment of seeming calamity we will make it out to the other side, then we can
truly go on, שנינו יחדו, both of us
together. Because we have that trust in
each other, because we have that trust in God, we are all B’nai Torah.
“Shema Yisrael!” We often think of the Shema as the most
important prayer in our liturgy, referring to the one line declaring above all
else that there is only one God. But
it’s the next lines in the Torah that teach us who we are in addition to what
we believe. In the words of Torah that
follow the Shema, which we know as the v’ahavta, we have the commandment
not just to be in deep relationship with God, but to ensure that our children
are given the same opportunity. ‘It’s
not just for you,’ Moses and God tell the Israelites about the Torah and the
covenant. It’s for those who come after
you. It’s your job to give it to them,
the way we gave it to you. It’s your job
to ensure the next generation.
We have come together not just for
us, but for those who come after us. We
have brought our two communities together to allow for that transmission to the
next generation. We think not only of
what matters to us, but what will matter to our children, and our
grandchildren, and their children after them.
Veshinantam levanechah – teach it to your children. Vedibarta bam – speak of it at all
times. Ensure that what you have learned
and experienced in the wilderness is passed on.
Because we believe in the
importance of a next generation of Jews.
Because we believe in the importance of a next generation of Reform
Judaism thriving on this part of Long Island.
Because we have heard God calling us to educate our children in our
traditions, our shared spiritual history, and the beauty and meaning that
Judaism adds to our lives, we are all B’nai Torah.
In a moment, we will transition to
our Shofar service. The calls of the
Shofar we will hear are always the same, though each year we hear them anew,
and this year we all hear them with new ears as members of a new B’nai Torah. Each set ends with a full tekiah. After the brokenness of shevarim, the
shatteredness of teruah, we always return to the wholeness of tekiah,
as if the sounds had been united.
But when we end the calls, when the cantor calls for that final blast,
for the tekiah gedolah, let the long lingering call of the shofars
surrounding us remind us that when pieces come together, sometimes, they don’t
just come back as whole. Sometimes, they
come back stronger, more powerful, more united, and therefore more impactful. Let us strive to build a congregation like
the tekiah gedolah. Let that
sound rally us under the banner of Temple B’nai Torah because we are all B’nai
Torah. When we do that, when we come together, united, focusing on what we
share and willing to work through what we don’t, well then, then we will truly
be building a synagogue that we’re all comfortable praying in.
Shanah Tovah.
[1]
Genesis 1:27-28
[2]
Deut. 29:13-14
[3]
Shevu’ot 39a, my own liberal translation
[4]
Genesis 22:12
