sermons

Questions

(Opening story: Told of a man who went searching for the treasure of his dreams under a bridge in a far away city, only to find out that the treasure was in his own kitchen all along.)

My friends, we have a problem. We are searching in our lives, and we don’t know what we are looking for and where to look. We come here today as a part of that search, and many of us don’t know why we are here. I mean, we know that this is Rosh Hashanah, the New Year and the High Holy Days, but we really don’t know what we are supposed to be doing here.

And the questions go deeper and further. Is the only reason to be Jewish a sense of nostalgia? A feeling of guilt that we are obligated to keep alive just a bit of our grandparents and great-grandparent’s world. For what? This is the new world. Do we really need to take all of the time and money that is necessary to try and educate our children in a religion that when we sit here on the “most important day” of the year we feel no real connection with? Everything changes; perhaps this throwback to another time has outlasted its usefulness.

Day after day, as we look at the world around us, questions arise as to the usefulness of Judaism in our lives. After all, we know how to cook food now. Why should we worry about the rules of Kashrut that must have been created to maintain our health? If Shabbat is truly a day to relax, why can’t we do all of those things we truly find relaxing instead of having to sit at home or in services all day? My child is going to have to get into college, a monumental task these days, is Hebrew school really going to help him achieve that or is it merely time that could be spent on much more important tasks?

Every day of our lives, from every direction, we face challenges that strike to the heart of traditional Judaism. So much so that it has caused people to begin to look elsewhere for the things they need, for the nourishment that fits in with the diet of the times – Buddhism, New Age religion, Kabbalah, for many Jews has become a dietary supplement to fill the void left by traditional Judaism. And every day, more and more Jews step away from their heritage.

Tonight I want to lay out some of the challenges that face us as modern Jews, and over the next few days we are going to be looking at them coming up with some real responses to the most important question that we can possible ask ourselves on these Holy Days – why be Jewish? What possible reasons could there be to change the way I live my life to incorporate even some of the traditions that the Rabbi talks about year after year? To answer this is the task ahead of us these Holy Days.

Every summer I have the opportunity read a bit more that I do during the year, and I usually use that time to read books that I feel may fit into the theme of the Holy Days. This summer I was able to read a book that really brought into focus some of the challenges that we face as Modern American Jews. The book is called Letters to a Buddhist Jew, and it is co-authored by Rabbi Akiva Tatz, an orthodox rabbi in London, and David Gottlieb.

David explains that he was raised in a Conservative Jewish household, and he is married to a woman who also is Conservative, but over the years he has been faced with challenges to his Judaism that made it extremely difficult for him to connect. He found his way to Zen Buddhism and took to it like a fish to water. In one of his first letters to Rabbi Tatz he writes, “Dear Rabbi Tatz, I am a Zen Jew struggling to resolve these two identities.”

What began was a lengthy correspondence between the two of them in which David lays out what he sees as 15 “questions and observations” showing Buddhism’s advantages over Judaism. And Rabbi Tatz, throughout the book, responds to each in turn. I have to share with you that reading through the introduction was a jarring experience for me, as question after question was raised and I said to myself, wow that’s a good point!

The one which stood out most poignantly is the one that I hear often in one form or another. David Gottleib writes:

“Although Buddhism can get very ornate and very intricate, its basic tenets are extremely simple, and it is therefore not only extremely accessible, it is also portable: that is it does not conflict with the practice of other religions. You can practice Buddhism,” says Gottlieb, “and still be a Jew. After all, I’m merely cultivating mindfulness, watching my breath, realizing the interconnectedness of all things and beings, and striving to recognize and uproot the causes of suffering.”

He goes on: “Judaism, on the other hand is confoundingly inaccessible, and the deeper one tries to go, the denser the thicket of laws, and texts, and beliefs and practices gets.” (pg 14)

This is a critique that we often hear in the Conservative Movement. We are trying to make Judaism accessible to everyone, and yet we insist on maintaining all sorts of obstacles to that very accessibility – The language of the service being the best example. If we are supposed to come into services and have a spiritual and powerful experience, does it not make sense that we understand what we are saying? Yes the music is nice and there can be a sense of holiness listening to the prayers in Hebrew, but in terms of personal connection, it’s a real problem.

And the problem does not end with the language alone. Even the ideas and images in our liturgy can be difficult for modern Jews to understand, so that when we do take the time to read the translation, what we read does not speak to us.

As I have said many times before, High Holy Days are the worst culprits in regards to personal connection. That is, of course the tragic irony, this is the day that everyone shows up. These next ten days are supposed to be such a highly spiritual and connecting time, and then we come face to face with a service that is foreign and imagery that many adults find difficult to accept.

Take the Unetaneh Tokef, a beautiful prayer in Musaf about which I have spoken in the past. It informs us that on this day even the angels tremble in fear. That each of us is judged by God and that judgment will dictate what happens to us in the coming year. We all understand that these Holy Days are set up around the concept of Judgment, but many have great difficulty taking these types of prayers at face value.

Then we have the Torah readings chosen specifically for Rosh Hashanah. Tomorrow is the story of how Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness, and on the second day we read how he almost sacrifices his own son. Not comfort literature to be sure. What do we, as modern Jews, learn from stories like these?

Clearly we have an accessibility problem with a literature that is quite ancient, requiring a great deal of effort to translate into the modern world. But accessibility is not the only challenge facing modern Judaism.

With all of the legalism and details of Jewish law, many claim that Judaism has lost its sense of spirituality. One of the things that causes people to look to other religions is this feeling that traditional Judaism does not fill the need of the people searching to find their spiritual selves. Hence David Gottlieb writes, “A Buddhist almost invariably puts openness and awareness and compassion front and center and is a spiritually enlivened being.” (pg 16)

A few days ago I read a report on Fox News titled Cantor Madonna. On her new album she apparently has a song called Isaac, about the 16 th century kabbalist Isaac Luria. The Kabbalah movement has attracted people from all different backgrounds, but is most attractive to Jews as does have its origins in Judaism. But once again we find that people feel the need to look outside of traditional practice to get a sense of connection and spiritual nourishment.

How do we as parents justify passing along an empty container to our children? Don’t we want them to be connected with more than just laws and ritual? Where is the connection to God and Universe that gives us meaning and a place?

These questions lead us further to another more basic and fundamental one. Some of the most mystical and spiritual role models we seem to see today appear to go through the world with an overpowering sense of Joy. You look at their faces and see that the spiritual fulfillment that they have found has brought them to a place that seems to elude most of us. Where has the Joy gone in Judaism? Most people now-a-days connect through life cycle events, but even the “good” ones seem to be focused so much on the details of what must occur that we forget sometimes that they are good.

Of course, when we realize that the most attended days of the year at shul are the High Holy Days, it brings out the issue even more strongly. Let’s be honest, it is tough to be joyful on Yom Kippur, and perhaps not even appropriate. And yet the strongest memories that many have of the synagogue and traditional Jewish practice is the solemnity of that day. If Judaism is to survive as a religion we need to find the joyful in it as well as the solemn.

Ultimately, if we are going to ask the tough questions, the way that “why be Jewish” translates to us is very simple – does traditional Judaism actually have anything to offer us in the 21 st century. Can it speak to the issues of the day and help us navigate the increasingly rough waters of the world around us.

• What does it offer to a teenager struggling to develop her sense of self and identity in today’s world?
• What does it offer a person who hates their job but can not change because they need to feed their family?
• What guidance can it offer to people in the business world, in the “real world” who want to be ethical but are faced with the realities of the way others do business?
• How does it help or comfort a son or daughter faced with watching the deterioration of a parent and knowing that difficult decisions will have to be made?

Well my friends I am going to do something tonight that my homiletics teachers told us we should never do. But as of this past May I am celebrating 10 years of being a Rabbi and I’m feeling a bit adventurous.

One of the rules of sermon writing is not to leave people with questions because you may not see them next time to give the answers. Tonight, we come to these High Holy Days only with questions. I am going to encourage you to join us over the next ten days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as we look within our tradition to find the answers we are looking for.

Tomorrow we will looks at whether Judaism can have a voice in the modern world, and on the second day of Rosh Hashanah we will talk about our need for spirituality. Yom Kippur will bring the questions of finding joy in Judaism as well as finding a community and connecting to the past.

We have great treasures in our tradition right here in our own kitchen. The time has come to stop looking for bridges and to start digging in our own back yard.