According to some parents the answer is, “none.” They take seriously the sentiment behind the traditional prayer uttered by the parents of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, thanking God for relieving them of responsibility for their child’s sins. This blessing has been dropped from the Reform liturgy, but the idea behind it persists: at thirteen years (some say twelve for girls), a child is eligible to participate as a full member of the Jewish community, and is considered of age to take responsibility for his or her own conduct. The shorthand for this outlook—and I have used this language myself—is that becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah means becoming a Jewish adult.

Most parents take a somewhat nuanced approach to the idea of their B’nai Mitzvah being Jewish adults, and to the question of their role in their child’s Jewish life going forward. Our adolescent children, after all, are far from adults—and everyone, including them, knows it. We do not allow them at this age to drive, drink, or even vote; we do not expect them to support themselves financially, or live independently. Why would we expect our children to determine their own course, unaided, for something as sophisticated and challenging as building for themselves a religious and spiritual identity?

Still, many parents, wanting to approach their teenaged children respectfully, with consistency and integrity, find themselves struggling with the question one parent voiced to me on this Shabbat morning:

How can we tell our children one moment that they’re Jewish adults and the next moment that, Jewishly speaking, they still have to do what we say? And if Bar and Bat Mitzvah does not mean becoming a Jewish adult, then what does it mean?

One could teach a whole course on this question, and I’m grateful to the parent who asked it for prompting my thinking about it. Briefly, however, I will say that we probably should stop telling our kids that becoming B’nai Mitzvah means they have become Jewish adults. Why? Because we live in a very different world than our ancient and medieval forebears did.

It has been said of American Jews that we are all Jews by choice. There have been times and places not distant from where we stand today when this was not the case, and being born a Jew (all the more so converting to Judaism) meant a certain kind of life, within a clearly defined community. In our post-modern, post-denominational world where diversity is valued and freedom too-often assumed, many of the adult Jews I know have not fully answered for ourselves the question of what it means to be a Jewish adult.

What we do have, all of us who are B’nai Mitzvah (that is, thirteen or older), are the tools to learn how to be a Jewish adult, to wrestle with our heritage and decide for ourselves what are the obligations and privileges of our rightly and much celebrated status. Using those tools means a lifetime of Jewish living and learning. Not just for our children, but for all of us.

The years now having passed, beginning this November, I was to have begun another such sabbatical period of renewal and regeneration. However, as I assessed the difficult circumstances faced by so many of our members and families, and recognizing this as a time of both transition and transformation for our Temple, I decided that it was not in the best interests of our congregational community for me to accept the sabbatical period as previously agreed. Instead, I proposed to our leadership that the six months promised to me for spiritual and intellectual growth might be divided into somewhat more modest and manageable segments of two month-long interludes. And so, that is why I will be taking a brief, but most welcomed and appreciated sabbatical spell this January and February.

Looking back some eight years ago, I think back to all I was able to accomplish during that period, and how I tried to make each and every day meaningful. I began my Doctoral Studies at Spertus College with an intensive course on the History of Jewish Spirituality. I attended lectures on Pastoral Therapy at Hebrew College, studied Bible with Elie Wiesel at Boston University, and explored Jewish Mysticism at Brandeis. I also was invited to lecture on Jewish Theology to a gathering of over one hundred Christian ministers in the Midwest, and laid the groundwork of research for two papers that would later be published in national, scholarly journals.

Without a doubt, our congregation was equally the beneficiary of my own, personal learning and spiritual journeys. Upon my return in early 2002 from six months of sabbatical, we began a process of introspection and change that would result in the long overdue and thorough renovation of our patterns of worship, of study, of leadership and of communal outreach, which transformed, all for the better, the very face of our congregation.

So now looking ahead to the next eight weeks, even though the time away will be so much more fleeting, I am confident knowing that once again, my personal rejuvenation will bring seeds of transformation and growth for our congregation as well. I have already laid out a course of study to continue towards the completion of my Doctorate, and I also have a certain number of other goals in place – including becoming more proficient at chanting the nusach – especially Haftarah tropes, and experiencing modes of worship in different synagogue settings.

I know that the weeks will pass quickly — in the blink of an eye, and am grateful to our wonderful congregation for affording me these sabbatical moments. I am already looking forward to sharing with you all that I might learn and discover, as I continue growing intellectually and evolving spiritually as your Rabbi.

Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead, MA

We all expected that the substantial and consistent growth of this Jewish community that’s taken place over the past two decades would only continue, but the rather sudden and extreme economic downturn has changed all of that. Times are tough, but still, Jewish parents are continuing to encourage their children to pursue higher education with the hope of their finding upward, economic mobility. But some kids – a lot, actually — are choosing to stay in college and graduate school simply because they can’t find work in their chosen fields right now.

Because of the shortage of jobs, towards which neither the local government nor the Jewish Federation can offer much assistance, our local Jewish newspaper has begun to run advertisements so that out-of-work community members might publicize their available skills.

The American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune reads the situation more gravely: “Judaism is badly in need of a major operation,” it writes. “Send for the ambulance – or the undertaker.”

The year is 1935, and all of this is part of the historical record of our American Jewish community at the time. (1) Oh, and the Temple Emanu-El I mentioned is the one in New York City. Here in Marblehead, we hadn’t yet come into being.

But it all sounds frighteningly familiar, for we are now living through the most significant economic decline since the Great Depression of those 1930’s. And keeping the wise truism of historian, Santayana front and center, that if we don’t learn from the past, then we are condemned to repeat it, I think it is crucial for us to learn from the past. What happened to the Jewish community back in that last, Great Depression, and what were the ramifications for the succeeding generations? How did the Jewish community respond to the grim conditions, and how might we do better this time around?

Of course, the Jewish community of the 1930’s was still becoming integrated into mainstream American life, particularly here on the East Coast. During the Great Depression, Anti-semitism forced Jews into very specific, economic niches, and Jews, like many minority cultures of today, needed to form their own banks, professional alliances, and even schools of advanced learning.

When the first so-called “Jewish” bank in New York City went belly-up in 1930, its closure left thousands of Jewish families and businesses devastated. At the time, most New York Jews had little connection to Wall Street, and the previous year’s Crash had little immediate impact on them. But the failure of the Jewish-owned Bank of the United States, which held the savings of nearly 20% of New York’s Jews, transformed the community both economically and psychologically.

“When a non-Jewish bank falls through,” wrote the Yiddish newspaper, The Day, “it is said that only an individual or an individual institution did not act as it should have. But when a Jewish banker and a Jewish bank go bankrupt, people right away create the impression that it is the downfall of all Jewish bankers and all Jewish people.” (2)

Of course, our current economic depression is taking place within a much different set of realities for the American Jewish community. With the exception of the large influx of Jews from the Soviet Union that started taking place a quarter-century ago, we are no longer a community of immigrants or children of immigrants, and in intervening years, we have established a much more diversified presence both socially and economically on the American continent. Nonetheless, some rather dire predictions are already being pronounced looking ahead to the aftermath of this current economic downturn.

Dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Steven Windmueller, a specialist on politics and American Jewish history, suggests that in the aftermath of the current economic upheaval, our American Jewish community will be forever changed. Looking forward, Windmueller believes that the political and economic clout of American Jewry will be seriously compromised as the result of the community’s being perceived as structurally and functionally weakened by the current crisis. He notes how the Bernie Madoff affair has not only caused the loss of anywhere between $600 million to $1 billion to our Jewish communal resources, but also the loss of confidence and trust in the management of our most essential philanthropic institutions. Windmueller believes that the impact of the global, economic downturn has already generated a significant increase in anti-semitism overseas, as seems to always accompany economic turmoil, and may be becoming more evident in the United States as well. He anticipates that many of our Jewish institutions will not survive this crisis, and many others will seek to merge or be acquired by stronger organizational partners. (3)

Our own community’s recent Task Force project, led by Carl Sloane and a team of Harvard Business School interns, has presented some of these same predictions, although their more hopeful reading of the landscape includes specific strategies that might result in healthier outcomes for our Jewish, communal future here on Boston’s North Shore.

In addition to surveying contemporary realities, I strongly I believe that we can and should learn from the past, as we make predictions and strategies for the future. There are three specific lessons from experience of American Jews during the Great Depression that, through my own studies, I think are crucial moving forward and through this most difficult time of recession.

First, it is recognized among all scholars and historians that as synagogue membership plummeted during the Depression years, and membership in Jewish Community Centers likewise dropped, Jewish education was left on the back burner of communal concerns. Historian, Beth Wenger, writes of the situation facing some of New York’s most prominent synagogues:

“During the Depression, student enrollments drastically declined. Without a steady income from tuition, synagogues had difficulty supporting programs and paying teacher salaries. In 1931, the Institutional Synagogue owed $9,000 in back salaries to teachers who remained unpaid for four to seven months at a time. Like many congregations, the Kane Street Synagogue could not fund a paid teaching staff and relied on volunteers (usually women) to serve as teachers in its Sunday school. Many professional educators denounced the practice of hiring unskilled volunteer teachers and were particularly incensed when congregations made school budgets the primary victims of money-saving efforts. Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox rabbinical organizations publicly protested the decisions of congregations and Federations to allot Jewish education secondary status in budgetary decisions…” (4)

Professor Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University, one of the foremost experts on the history of American Judaism, suggests that the losses in the realm of Jewish education were never regained, and that the impact of years of Jews poorly educated in their faith and traditions is a deficit we continue to pay in this generation.

There is no doubting our own congregation’s ongoing commitment to maintaining a strong Religious School, Youth Programs, and continuing education opportunities, and every member of this Temple helps to support our school through our dues and other contributions. Our Temple budget will not be balanced on the backs of our children. But even as the Temple leadership is doing everything possible to help families who are hurting financially to maintain their memberships, even our school cannot be completely exempted from budget cuts and salary freezes.

That is why creative solutions, such as our groundbreaking collaborations with Congregation Shirat Hayam are so important going forward at least in the near future. Interestingly, our decision to pool resources with Shirat Hayam in the hiring of our new Youth Director, Darren Benedict, as well as the trial merging our 8th Grade Service Learning classes, was one of the few places where Temple Emanu-El was mentioned in Carl Sloan’s Task Force report. In the area of education, we were singled out as a model to be emulated moving forward through this difficult economic climate. Therefore, as a community, and as families, let us learn from the past by staying firm in our resolve not to let the Jewish education of our children become a casualty of this day, and thereby, a liability for the future.

Professor Sarna has also written of how the American Jewish community turned markedly inward during the years of the Depression. (5) Rabbis and other communal leaders struggled to convince the local Jewish population to maintain their support for world-wide Jewish concerns. And I have to wonder, how might history have been different if we, on these shores during the ‘30’s were paying greater attention to what was happening on the European continent, as the Nazi Party was rapidly gaining momentum?

Looking both backward and ahead, I worry that we might be seeing a similar trend happening again today. I think back to last December. The war Israel was fighting in Gaza to protect her civilians under fire by Hamas terrorists may have been the first time when Israel has been forced to defend herself, and American Jews failed to mobilize much in the way of support. Oh yes, we had our rally here on the North Shore. Maybe two hundred people showed up. And we sent some Ipods to the Israeli soldiers and Game-Boys to the kids of Sderot. But other than those rather negligible expressions of support, we, like most American Jews, for the first time ever, pretty much let Israel go it alone.

As a Board Member of our local Jewish Federation of the North Shore, I don’t think I’m crossing any boundary of impropriety by sharing with you that discussions and research are on-going to explore the possibility of Directed Giving as part of the Federation’s campaign strategy. I support the initiative, and hope that it will help increase giving by allowing donors more of a say in how their contributions will express their values and priorities. But as I have shared with Federation Director, Liz Donnenfeld, and President, Robert Salter, I am concerned that the pressing needs of Jews in Eastern Europe, in South America, in the former Soviet Union, on the African continent, and of course, in Israel may end up getting shortchanged as a result. We must be diligent in communicating the ongoing importance of looking to the welfare of our brothers and sisters in other lands beside our own. And I think that history provides the sobering reason why this is so true.

Finally, looking back to the lessons of the Great Depression, we can find certain, positive outcomes for the Jewish community, that we might also learn from and hopefully emulate. As Jews had always done, throughout the previous two thousand years while living in diverse lands across the globe, the Jewish community did its best to care for its own.

In 1654, newly arriving Jews met significant resistance from New Amsterdam’s governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who feared that the new arrivals would soon become destitute and would drain the limited resources of the fledgling colonies. Meanwhile, the Dutch West India Company urged Stuyvesant not to expel the immigrants, whom they believed would be of great benefit to enlarging the new, local economy. After some negotiation, the three parties reached a compromise: Jews would be allowed to settle in New Amsterdam, provided they agreed to take care of their own poor and needy. This agreement came to be known as the “Stuyvesant Promise”, and it evolved into an accepted Jewish norm to reject government support and establish their own philanthropic and social welfare agencies. (6)

Here in America in the 1930’s, the “Stuyvesant Promise”, which for some 250 years had guided the sense of mutual responsibility among American Jews, ironically did not survive the Depression. The Jewish community had nowhere the resources to meet the significant needs of the day, and many Jews were forced to seek help from state agencies and welfare programs. But of course, individual Jews and organizations stepped up their efforts to plug the gaps. Some Yiddish newspapers began their own relief funds, and as I mentioned at the outset, a regular column in one Jewish periodical provided space for unemployed men to list their qualifications, under the headline: “Do You Have A Job For Him?” (7) Interestingly, this past summer, our own Jewish Journal of the North Shore mounted a similar campaign, but it has yet to bear much positive result.

Our Jewish Family Services, which knew remarkable success in the historic re-settlement of émigrés from the Soviet Union back in the 1980’s, simply hasn’t the capacity to manage the enormous needs of the current crisis. Nearly a half-million dollars in accumulated debt, I expect our JFS soon to be absorbed or merged into some larger institution.

However here, within our own congregation, perhaps in an ironic twist on the idea of the Stuyvesant Promise, the imperative of member-to-member assistance in time of crisis continues to take hold. Recognizing the pressing needs, on the more micro-level of our synagogue community, you continue to answer the call for help through our Hineynu Initiative, which was imagined and spearheaded by our President, Stuart Cohen, our Board of Trustees and professional staff nearly a year ago. This became our opportunity to pull together resources as a community within a community, and as a family of families. And I personally want to thank every member of our Temple who has responded – either by sending grocery gift cards, offering transportation assistance, volunteering medical advice, legal counsel, and employment guidance. As we say in our weekly Shabbat announcements: “Do you need help? Can you offer help?” That is the way we say to one another: “Hineynu – We are Here.”

During the Depression years, the ethical obligation that one community member should care for and support another, history has shown, was key to emerging safely from those years on both the individual and communal level. And so we can look for it to be in our current situation going forward.

Who might have imagined, back in 1935, the scenario during which I began this sermon, that in the aftermath of the Great Depression, a powerful spiritual revival would take hold in America, and that our Jewish community, revitalized, would engage in a period of growth and expansion unseen even in the years preceding the Crash? Might that possibly be what the future holds for us, as well, despite the dire predictions of what lies ahead for the American Jewish community?

This past March, as we were announcing the formation of our Hineynu Initiative, I shared a parable in our monthly Temple Bulletin, that I would like to conclude with on this day of Yom Kippur.

It is told of two woodchoppers who felled a tree that was over one hundred years old. Looking at the growth rings to determine the tree’s age, the younger man noticed that there were five very narrow rings. He concluded that there had been a five-year drought, during which the tree had shown very little growth.

However, the other lumberjack, a wise, older man had a different viewpoint. He contended that the dry years actually were the most significant in the tree’s history. His reason: because of the drought, the tree had to force its roots down farther to get the water and the minerals it needed. With a strengthened root system, it was able to grow faster and taller once conditions improved.

So do we hope and trust that these “dry years” will find us strengthening the very foundations of our congregation and community. The power to make it so is in each of our own hands, and history will have the final word as to how well we do. Let us stay the course on our commitment to Jewish education. Let us keep our eyes open to the situation of Jews world-wide. And let us continue to look to one another, and be there for one another to our fullest capacity, to help withstand whatever storms we might face.

In so doing, may future generations look back to what we were able to accomplish, and perceive this as likewise a period of strength and promise. Perhaps some scholars and rabbis of the future will look to this time, this community, and especially, this congregation to help discover ways to weather their own generation’s unforeseen economic crisis. Looking to the past, perhaps they, too will learn its lessons, and not be condemned, but blessed, to repeat it.

(1) See Beth S. Wenger, New York Jews and the Great Depression. Uncertain Promise. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1996.

(2) Wenger, p. 14.

(3) Dr. Steven Windmueller, “The Unfolding Economic Crisis: Its Devastating Implications for American Jewry”. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, No. 47, 16 August 2009 / 26 Av 5769.

(4) Wenger, p. 191.

(5) Jonathan Sarna, “Reinventing American Judaism”, Reform Judaism, Fall 2009.

(6) Marc Dollinger, “Die Velt, Yene Velt, and Roosevelt’: The New Deal in the Jewish Community”, in Franklin D. Roooseveldt. The New Deal and Its Aftermath, Thomas P. Wolf, William D. Pederson, and Byron W. Daynee. p. 38.

(7) Wenger, p. 143.

Because we are Jews, we are here tonight. Something impels us to worship with our fellow Jews on this occasion. We may embrace it with enthusiasm, or we may not even be sure why we are here. Because we are Jews, we come, knowing that we belong. And being here honors our mothers and fathers and grandparents and all who came before us back into the dim corners of our collective past.

Our people have come down through history with a unique identity. Judaism stands for something: for justice, and for learning, because through learning we keep the flame burning as the civilization around us changes so rapidly. It stands for tikkun olam, making the world a better place. These are part of who we are as Jews. Whether you’ve come to worship here for decades or are in this sanctuary for the very first time, we all share a piece of this heritage. This is what we are obligated by covenant to pass on to our children, and to make sure this essence also lives within our children’s children.

Today, as we’ve seen in the recent Northshore Task Force report, our local Jewish community isn’t doing too well. Our institutions are struggling. Our loyalties are fragmented. Only one in four Jews in our area even belongs to a synagogue: one in four. But Judaism has survived for centuries not because of individual Jews like you and me but because of our institutions. Judaism is a religion not of me but of us.

While this poverty of participation flies in the face of our shared history, it is also easy to understand. We live in a world overflowing with diverse options and opportunities. That world is oriented to what we can get not what we can give. Our goals are spoken of in terms of things, activities, and experiences we can acquire and have.

And it has to do with money, because most everything we do is fee for service. The telephone bill is fee for service, as is the mortgage, even our children’s tuition. When the synagogue bill comes, it’s natural to ask what are we getting for our donation, and if the return is worth the cost. (By the way, you should know that the full family donation here at Temple Emanu-El, $1875, compares with dues at the Reform temple in Lexington, $2525, Framingham, the same figure, and Wellesley closer to $3000.)

But Judaism is not fee for service. There is a cost associated with belonging, not just as a member of this Temple but as an engaged being in the chain that goes back to Moses. When Judaism becomes fee for service, there will be no more Judaism. If we let go of the instruments and institutions of our Jewish community, our synagogues and community centers, we forsake what has brought us to who we are as Jews.

I’m not asking you for money tonight. The Fund for our Jewish Future presentation is tomorrow morning. It’s a compelling family story. I hope you’ll come hear it. We are also in the process of creating a bequest campaign; more on that in the coming months.

I am asking you to live a bit more Jewishly. Light Shabbat candles. It’s an addictive tradition. Collect tsedakah in your home and distribute it where it is needed. If we can’t be bothered to remember to live Jewishly, what message will our children and grandchildren receive? And make no mistake: living Jewishly is not a matter of juggling the schedule. It is a series of actions born of deliberate choice.

I have a vision for what Temple Emanu-El can be, with your involvement, and I’d like to share it with you. And I ask you to share it with your unaffiliated Jewish friends.

I see this temple as a vital expression of who we are as Jews, as a place that ripples with the passion for life that is central to what it means to be a Jew. I am especially keen to transcend generational boundaries. The more families with children and grandchildren, the more brimming with life the Temple will be.

I visualize weekly Shabbat worship vibrant with sacred meaning that comes not from sitting back and mouthing the words but from jumping in heart and soul first. Worship only works to the degree we invest ourselves in it. You can’t sidestep the leap of commitment and expect any meaningful benefit. I invite everyone here to attend Shabbat worship at least twice—Friday evenings or the Saturday morning round table minyan—within the coming year. And when you do, take a chance. Participate with kavanah, spirit. It may take some practice to get the hang of it. When you do, it’s got some juice.

I see our festival celebrations, including these High Holydays, as an anchor that grounds us in the sense for the ineffable that resides in our bones, inherited from time before knowing.

I see our education programs stimulating and rewarding for children and adults. Continuing learning is central to what it means to be a Jew. If you crave more Jewish learning and are not getting it, whatever your age, ask.

Mostly what I see in this vision is our engagement. Yours and yours as well as mine. We benefit from a lot of love in the form of lay participation here. If you’ve got some love you’d like to share, come talk to us. Serve this community and help shape it. Be counted.

And not just here: join the JCC; support Federation. This Temple and our sister institutions are nothing without you, and you, and you. Step up. Since the time of the patriarchs Judaism has been a religion of covenant, active engagement. Make Temple Emanu-El the Jewish community institution that touches you and feeds you as nothing else can.

And if you wonder why bother, why show up, why participate, just look inside. It’s because of who we are. We are Jews.

A teaching from tradition:

Da ki tzarikh ladun et kol adam lekaf zekhut;

You have to judge every person generously.

Even if you have reason to think that person is completely wicked,
it’s your job to look hard and seek out some bit of goodness,
some place in that person where he is not evil.

When you find that bit of goodness
and judge the person that way,
you may really raise her up to goodness.

Treating people this way allows them to be restored (lehashivu),
to come to teshuvah. (2)

So taught Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav,
great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov,
the founder of modern Hasidism.

A Hasidic master himself,
born in 1772 in Medzhybizh, Poland,
Rabbi Nachman lived a brief, brilliant, and spiritually dramatic life.

Like his great-grandfather, he served God with joy, and
was capable of attaining great heights of devekut—
a meditative state of dedication to the Eternal.
He also suffered from dark depressions, and was
“a person more burdened than most with a sense of sin and guilt.” (3)

You have to judge every person generously….
Treating people this way allows them to be restored [le-hashivu],
to come to teshuva.

Tonight begins Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
The first of
aseret yamei teshuva,
the ten days of teshuva.

Often we translate “teshuva” as “repentance”:
these are the Ten Days of Repentance.
But what is teshuva, really?

The word “teshuva” comes from the Hebrew root shuv,
which means “turning,” an idea contained also within the concept of repentance:
turning away from error or sin,
turning through contrition and remorse,
finally turning to a better path, an improved version of ourselves.

And yet, something about the very idea of turning
itself resists definition or containment;
every time you think you’ve arrived,
a new turn presents itself.

In our Torah portion last Shabbat, Nitzavim,
the parashah we always read
on the Shabbat immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah,
we find in a passage of ten verses eight repetitions
of the root shuv.

The people stand on the shores of the Jordan River,
preparing to enter the Promised Land,
listening to Moses’ final exhortations.

They hear him speak
of a turning of their hearts,
a moral and spiritual turn toward core values, toward God;
of a physical return to the land,
a restoration of this wandering people
to the home God promised their ancestors;
of an emotional restoration,
a return to wholeness.

Moses assures the people:
Adonai will “delight in your well-being,
just as God delighted in the well-being of your ancestors . . .
once you return (tashuv) to Adonai your God
with all your heart and soul.” (4)

Always returning to something always already there:
a restoration of all things lost.

“Everything returns,” writes Rabbi Lawrence Kushner;
“Comes back to that which it was.
This is not futility.
It is fulfillment.” (5)

Elohai neshamah shenatata bi
tehora hi:
My God, the soul you have implanted within me is pure. (6)

This, then, is teshuvah:
A return to what you were,
to what you already are;
a return to what you are supposed to become.

*****

Da ki tzarikh ladun et kol adam lekaf zekhut;
You have to judge every person generously. (7)

But where does Rabbi Nachman get this idea,
that, tzarikh, we “must judge everyone generously?
Why must we?

The teaching does not originate with Rav Nachman;
he is quoting Pirkei Avot,
“Chapters of the Fathers,”
a tractate of the Mishnah that
collects the ethical teachings of the Tanna’im,
great rabbinic teachers who lived in the land of Israel
beginning in the late first century C.E.
and continuing to the end of the second.

Aseh lekha rav ukenei lekha chaver
vehevei dan et kol ha-adam lekhaf zkhut.
“Get yourself a teacher, find someone to study with,”
reads the first, more familiar part of this teaching;
“and judge everyone generously.”

The Mishnah is the oldest,
most authoritative collection of
Jewish law and wisdom in our tradition,
and it is telling us that judging generously
is the right thing to do.

That may be reason enough for some,
but here’s one more good reason,
in the words of Rav Nachman again:

Treating people this way allows them to be restored,
to come to teshuvah.

Not only must we judge every person generously
because our sages the Tanna’im
have told us it is a mitzvah, the right thing to do;
we must do it because it brings on another mitzvah:
it brings people to teshuvah.

*****
Da ki tzarikh ladun et kol adam lekaf zekhut;
You have to judge every person generously.

So what does it mean to judge generously?

What, especially, does it mean to judge generously
when dealing with one whom we have reason to think
is “completely wicked,” rasha gamur?

Does judging generously mean we have to
forgive everything,
ignore the record of evil,
let the rasha off the hook for his wickedness?

This is not justice, we protest.
Must generous judgment be poor judgment?

“No, no,” I imagine Rav Nachman responding
to us, his students.

Not at all.

For judging generously still is judging,
and we are all responsible for our transgressions
against God and humanity.

Rather, judging generously means
seeking out every side of a matter,
every aspect of a human being.
It means, as Rabbi Nachman urges us,
seeking out ayzeh me’at tov, “some bit of goodness,
someplace in that person where he is not evil.”

Treating people in this way allows them to be restored,
to come to teshuvah.

Rav Nachman continues:

This is why the psalmist says:
[‘Od me’at] “just a little bit more
and there will be no wicked one;
you will look at his place and he will not be there” (Ps. 37:10).

By seeking out that bit of goodness
you allowed her to change,
you helped teshuvah to take its course.

Some of you might think “well, isn’t that nice?”
“Always see the best in people. So what?”
In fact, one of my best friends, a rabbinic colleague,
said exactly this
when I told him that I had taken this teaching of Rav Nachman
as the theme for my Rosh Hashanah sermon.

But I’d like to turn this text for you in a different direction
and propose that Rabbi Nachman’s message here,
“judge generously,”
is radical.

Teshuva is a returning, we’ve said,
to what you were,
to what you already are;
to what you should be.

But how do we do it?
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin explains:
“[t]he process of teshuvah begins
when we acknowledge that we were wrong,
that we did wrong.
It continues when we seek forgiveness from the one we wronged . . .
and when we strive with honest intention
not to repeat the wrongful act.”

It is a fairly standard three-step process
that is taught and discussed
from kindergarten Sunday school classrooms
to the halls of rabbinic seminaries:
1. Recognize that you have done wrong;
2. Seek forgiveness from those you have wronged (including yourself, and God);
3. Do your best not to do it again.

But this is not what Rabbi Nachman is describing;
not at all!

Da ki tzarikh ladun et kol adam lekaf zekhut;
You have to judge every person generously.
Treating people this way allows them to be restored,
to come to teshuvah.

Before the rasha, the wicked one,
feels the smallest twinge of remorse;
perhaps before she even recognizes that she has done wrong,
let alone seeks forgiveness—

By seeking out that bit of goodness
you allowed her to change,
you helped teshuvah to take its course.

We raise that me’at tov, that bit of goodness, to the light.
We show the rasha
something about himself
that he had lost sight of.
We remind him: betzelem elohim bara oto(8)
in the image of God, God created humanity;
and thus the divine reflection resides
in every human being,
somewhere, however deeply buried.

By looking for the little bit of good
in every person,
Rabbi Nachman teaches,
we allow that person to come to teshuva,
even the one who seems completely wicked,
the one to whom it has not yet occurred to feel regret.

The German poet Goethe said:
If we take people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat them as if they were what they ought to be,
we help them to become
what they are capable of becoming. (9)

Such power each one of us wields,
every moment, and so often
unawares:
over others,
over our whole world,
to “hel[p] teshuvah take its course.”

Every one of you has an example you can share.
The teacher who helped a child blossom,
emerge from his shell,
by finding his me’at tov,
the one so many others called troublemaker:
It turns out this kid, who doesn’t think school applies to him,
is meticulous about keeping his pencils sharpened and in order,
so the teacher makes him the classroom pencil monitor.
His duties: giving out pencils, collecting pencils, sharpening pencils,
sorting out the pencils that have outlived their usefulness.
He’s good at it. All the students, now,
always have sharpened pencils
with working erasers.
He feels good. He catches himself
paying attention to the teacher’s lessons now and then.
And this student, in the course of half a year, goes from
troublemaker to top of the class…

I have a friend who was unhappy
because the city never plowed his street after a snowstorm.
All the other streets, but not his.
He called public works
and asked to speak to the director,
the guy who’s already had hundreds of people
call to complain to him this winter,
the guy who today is also answering the phone,
because his secretary’s kid is home sick.
My friend asks, cordially enough, if he can
send someone over to plow his street.
It’s a city street, after all, and the snow
stopped falling 36 hours ago,
the third big storm in two weeks.
“We’ve been working twenty-hour days over here!”
the exhausted director snaps.
“We’ve got to get the schools cleared out first:
the driveways. the sidewalks . . .”

My friend, feeling not heard,
begins to speak with an edge to his voice, and soon
both men are shouting.

My friend’s wife
(sorry—not to stereotype, but it’s a true story)
takes the phone from her beloved and
begins thanking Mr. Public Works for the great job he’s doing
clearing all the other streets in the city
(except for hers
and maybe a few other short little cul-de-sacs),
because truly, the streets that have been cleared
look like the storm never happened:
“so thorough! and efficient!
we know how hard you’re working…
long hours, short money,
we really appreciate it . . . .
And oh, about our street?”

“Can’t promise anything,” says
Mr. Public Works, considerably softened. “Maybe in another twelve hours.
We’ll do the best we can.”
Call ended, not five minutes later
the snow plow shows up.

[And this is the part I imagine:]
Back at the city offices, Mr. Public Works is smiling,
radioing his crews about the nice compliment they’ve received,
realizing how tense everyone has been
these last two weeks
since he’s been barking orders like a drill sergeant.
And the next day,
after an evening when he and his wife for once didn’t argue
when he got home late,
but enjoyed a glass of wine together
while looking out on the clear winter night,
he brought doughnuts to the office for all the drivers,
and made a point to ask his secretary
how her kid was feeling this morning.

It’s not as dramatic as a jailhouse redemption,
or a Holocaust story. Those happen
too. We’ve all heard such stories,
of amazing transformations,
a spectacular blossoming of the me’at tov,
that little bit of goodness
someone saw in the former villain.

And then there are the little things that happen every day….

We help others to teshuvah,
to return, to fulfillment of
the best that they can be,
by judging generously.
Each one of us possesses this
wondrous gift.

But there’s yet one more reason to
judge every person generously.
Rabbi Nachman continues:

So now, my clever friend,
now that you know how to treat the wicked
and find some bit of good in them—
now go do it for yourself as well!

You can change your whole life this way
and bring yourself to teshuvah.

We return to ourselves our very life,
Rav Nachman writes.
What else?
Is it truly living
when we have become a distortion of ourselves,
twisted to fit into the false consciousness
built of all our careless transgressions?

Find that nikud tov, that dot of goodness
in yourself,
and you can change your whole life this way.
Harsh judgment distorts us just as much
as the transgressions.
By judging generously,
we give ourselves the strength to
make a change,
to return to the holiness of our origin,
our tzelem elohim, the image of God reflected in each and every one of us.

This is the most important part:
if we can judge everyone generously,
we can do it for ourselves.
And, doing it for ourselves,
we are so much better prepared to do it for others.
And now, in judging everyone generously,
we return ourselves, the whole world, to who we really are,
what we are supposed to be.

We can bring ourselves to teshuvah.

Rabbi Nachman concludes:

[Singing niggun.]

1. I am grateful and indebted to Rabbi Art Green, who brought me this text; to Rabbi Laurie Phillips, who taught it to me; and to Rabbi John Linder, who provided me with Goethe, lots of encouragement, and the perfect ending. And, of course, to Rav Nachman.
2. Nachman of Bratslav, Likutei Maharan. Translation, Art Green in Ehyeh.
3. Art Green, Ehyeh.
4. Dt. 30:9-10.
5. Lawrence Kushner, Honey from the Rock, “Circles of Return.”
6. Birkot Ha-shachar, morning liturgy.
7. Pirkei Avot 1:6.
8. Genesis 1.
9. Quoted by Viktor Frankl in The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy.

The origins of Halloween are pre-Christian, rooted in the Celtic Pagan year, which was divided into two halves. The first half, roughly from spring to fall, was for the world of light, and the second half was for the world of darkness. Holidays marked the transitions from each half to other. In spring, “Beltane” celebrated the spiritual beginning of light-filled summer days and the life-giving force of the sun. By contrast, “Samhain” (pronounced “sow-an”), the precursor to Halloween, fell on November 1 and represented summer’s end, winter nights, and, in general, darkness. It was seen as a bridge between two opposite worlds: the human world of light and good on one hand, and the netherworld of darkness and evil on the other. Our evening “Ma-ariv” prayer and morning “Yotzer” prayer can be understood as twice-daily rejoinders to these Pagan ideas, by stating that there is but One God, who both “fashions light and creates darkness.”

However, I have never believed that the Pagan origins of Halloween should dissuade American Jews from allowing their children to participate in what has become a purely cultural, rather than religious, celebration.

I remember when my children were little, how they would dress in their costumes (somehow always favoring Red Sox and Patriots and Celtics get-ups over the more customary ghosts and goblins). We would go to one of the local nursing homes here in Marblehead, where the staff members had prepared a Halloween path through the rooms of the residents, and while the hundreds of kids walking through got their bags filled with treats, the residents were able to delight in seeing and greeting the happy children.

There were other years when we would take kids to “Trick or Treat” at the homes of Temple members who were ill or house-bound, thereby also fulfilling the mitzvah of “bikkur holim” (visiting the sick), which brought joy to everyone involved.
Yes, there are “Jewish” ways to celebrate Halloween, and over the years, we keep finding out new and different ways to make it more meaningful. Some families collect canned goods in addition to candy while going door to door. We have often sponsored a “Share the Loot” collection for kids to share their goodies with the needy. And because the holiday is absolutely NOT religious, it allows various communities to come together for the fun, who might otherwise have limited opportunities for celebrating together. These are not only American values, but they’re Jewish as well. So although at my age, I’ll still save my own costumed revelry until Purim, I’m looking forward to seeing the neighborhood kids, many of whom, of course, are Temple members, coming to the front door ready to fill their bags to the brim.

This past summer, I had the chance to be in Los Angeles on a Shabbat evening, which coincided with a reunion of staff members from the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, with whom I had worked back in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s. For nearly a decade, I had been a songleader and Music Director at that unique educational center. It houses a Jewish summer camp for kids, special summertime study programs for college students, and year-round scholar-in-resident retreats for adults and families. As the reunion program got underway, one of my cohorts from those days told me, “Hey, David! I still have one of your guitar strings!”

I used to break a lot of guitar strings, using the same sort of 12-string guitar that I still to this day. And when I’d get particularly into the music, it wasn’t the least bit unusual for a string to suddenly snap right in the middle of a song. I’d then quickly pop it out, wind it into a little bracelet, and give it away to some youngster for a keepsake souvenir. I was a bit astounded to find out how many of those kids, some 25 and 30 years later, have kept those broken strings as a reminder of the music, the friendship, and the memories that is Jewish camping and Youth Grouping at its best.

Of course, when playing a 12-string guitar, losing a string or two doesn’t pose much of a problem — I can manage on even 9 or 10 strings pretty well. But what if someone were playing a violin – a four stringed instrument? It’s hard enough for me to imagine playing an instrument without frets. But what if one of those four strings suddenly, unexpectedly, and without warning – snapped? I know that some of you have heard this story before, about how:

On November 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City (1). If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage slowly, one step at a time, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, unhooks the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

I want to consider with you these three Jewish concepts, Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah, which we are taught can help soften the blow of misfortune, can lessen the impact, to see why and how they might allow us to regain power over our uncertain lives.

The first idea, Teshuvah, we generally translate as “repentance”, and certainly it is the primary theme of these High Holydays. We usually think of repentance as remorse and penitence for the errors of our ways, and yes, teshuvah is all about turning toward our higher vision. But teshuvah also means “direction”, “answer”, or “response”, and essentially, teshuvah is the process of deciding the direction of our lives. So although I cannot control all of the events that shape my life, so long as I am alive, I have control over my response to those events.

Not long ago, there was a terrible accident at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. The ants that live in a big glass display case in the Invertebrate House beheaded their queen.(2)

They didn’t mean to do this, you understand. No one actually saw how it happened, but apparently the worker ants were trying to transfer their egg-laying queen from one chamber to another. But the hole through which they were trying to pull her was small. And a queen ant is big. And, well, you can imagine the rest.

Now what do you suppose the ants did when they realized what they had done to their queen? They reacted just like many of us do when we realize we’ve made a terrible mistake, or when faced with a thoroughly unexpected circumstance: they pretended nothing had happened. When the keeper looked, the ants were still tending the queen. And as long as she still smelled like a queen, they kept on doing this. But no matter how carefully the ants tended to their headless queen, their colony was finished. Without a queen, there can be no eggs, so eventually the colony dwindled down and died.

What a fitting parable for our New Year! In our personal lives, and in our community, how often do we retreat to the comfort of established habits? Teshuvah is changing direction, recreating who we are and how we how we wish to live. We are able to re-examine our priorities and our goals, and forced into the scenario of starting over, pursue new directions of meaning and purpose.

In so many cases here within our congregation, and throughout the nation, men and women faced with the loss of employment or relationships, or blindsided by a variety of unexpected changes, are choosing to respond not by simply trying to reestablish the status quo, but by taking the opportunity to recreate their very lives. I have spoken with those who have responded to loss by re-ordering their priorities, and are actually feeling more fulfilled and happy in the aftermath of some unforeseen crisis!

Understood in this way, teshuvah, is not simply expressing remorse over the past, but far more – it is an act of self-transformation and creative renewal. “Repentance,” writes the great Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik, “is an act of creation – self-creation. The severing of one’s psychic identity with one’s previous ‘I,’ and the creation of a new ‘I,’ possessor of a new consciousness, a new heart and spirit, different desires, longings, goals – this is the meaning of… repentance.” (3)

After Teshuvah, the Unetaneh Tokef poem calls us to Tefilah, worship. If teshuvah is about connecting to something deep within ourselves, then perhaps we can understand Tefilah as connecting to something beyond ourselves. Yes, Tefilah means “prayer”, but I don’t believe that we are here simply suggesting that praying to God to relieve our pain or solve our problems is what Judaism has in mind. Of course we reach upward in our cries to God, and in our prayers, we beseech the Almighty to come to our aid and defense.

But I can’t help but think of the old joke between two, elder statesmen of their synagogue community: Goldberg who comes to Temple to talk to God, and Levine who comes to Temple to talk to Goldberg! (4)

Whether or not God intervenes to heal our pain, restore our lost ambitions, protect our security, or comfort our mourning is simply a question that I, and nobody else for that matter, can answer with unwavering certainty. But when I think of Tefilah, Jewish worship, I call to mind a community of worshippers, gathering for the sake of, and in support of one another. And I am absolutely certain that in the midst of a caring community, the storms of life find buffer. Our sadness and pains are always lessened when we share them in the circle of caring others.

I can provide personal testimony to this effect as experienced by members of our own congregation, some of whom I hope will come forward when we bring the Torah from the Ark later on in our service. I can’t begin to recount how many times I have heard, even during this past year alone, the importance for our families and friends simply knowing that their names are being recalled for blessing during our Shabbat evening and morning worship.

To be honest, I think that the scientific studies of how prayer might be an aid to healing are flawed at best – particularly the ones that contend that physical healing is facilitated even when the patient is unaware of prayers being said on his or her behalf. However, the most recent research of the local, Framingham Heart Study, as reported just this week in the New York Times(5) , breaks fascinating new ground in understanding how health, well-being and healing are all enhanced when we share in communities of prayer and support at our most uncertain times. Similarly, the rapidly emerging field of “Social Neuroscience” has discovered the existence of “mirror neurons” in certain brain cells, which allow moods and feelings to be shared in the wordless company of others. (6)

It turns out that hope and healing can be contagious, and so it is that Tefilah, prayer, can help us find both solace and strength as our burdens are lightened in the context of a community of worship.

Finally, the concept of Tzedakah, inadequately and rather weakly translated as “charity” provides that third effective and therapeutic response imagined by our tradition, by which we find the power to overcome the severity of the trials we face in our uncertain lives. As our young people are taught from an early age, Tzedakah, does not correlate well to the English and Western concept of “charity”. Charity, from the Latin word “caritas”, is a deed that comes from the feeling of love. It comes from the heart. Tzedakah, literally means “Justice”. Tzedakah, is not about feeling good – it is about doing good. And it is one way that we, through the gifts of our resources, help bring greater justice into the world.

According to Jewish tradition, our yearly, financial tzedakah, obligation is called a “tithe”, equal to approximately ten-percent of our annual income. Because I tend towards the more lenient position, I suggest that our tzedakah, obligation amounts to 10 percent of our income AFTER taxes, but there are other rabbis more generous and righteous than I…

To some of us, this idea is rather counter-intuitive. If, for instance, you have become suddenly unemployed, or have had your income unexpectedly diminish, how might the financial burden of tzedakah, lessen the hardship of the moment?

Well, there is an old story about a man who had a strange dream –he was standing in the middle of a room surrounded by thousands and thousands of candles. Some of the candles were burning bright, some were dim, and some were almost flickering out. He looked up to discover a man, who seemed to be in charge, tending the flames. He asked, “What is this place? Why all these candles?” The man replied, “Each candle represents each soul living in the world. The ones burning bright are in the prime of life. The ones low on oil and flickering are people who are dying. When the candle goes out, the person dies.”

The keeper of the candles turned his back for a moment, and the man quickly searched for his own candle. He found the candle with his name flickering in the corner. It looked as if it was about to go out. The man panicked, and looked around for some more oil to pour into his candle so it would burn brighter. He started to take oil from another candle that was burning bright – but a hand stopped him.

“That is not how it works here. Your candle does not burn brighter when you take oil from someone else. On the contrary, your candle burns brighter when you give oil to someone else.”

The man picked up his flickering candle, and poured oil into several other candles. When he put it down, the flame started burning brighter.

And so it is with our gifts of tzedakah, because tzedakah is more than a donation, even more than an act of graceful giving. It is our way of bringing justice into the world. I think that is why Jewish law demands that even a poor person, one who is himself or herself sustained by the tzedakah of others, is still required by Jewish law to donate that 10%, back into the system as it were. And in a universe that simply and frankly is random and unfair, what greater power might we articulate as an expression of our own personal relevance and vitality than changing that same world into a more just and meaningful place. Now THAT’S powerful!

Faced with a thoroughly unexpected and catastrophic moment, Itzhak Perlman, our violinist with the broken string, knew what he needed to do. And now the story continues:

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity, as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone:

“You know - sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

On this first day of our New Year, as we read the harrowing words of Unetaneh Tokef, we acknowledge that we will, for certain, face challenges and crises in the year ahead we can not even begin to imagine. But we can be powerful nonetheless! I’m not trying to tell you that “everything happens for a reason”, or certainly not that “everything happens for the best.” No! Sometimes we can be blindsided by the stark randomness of and unfairness of life. Even from the earliest days of our people, Judaism has recognized the bad things DO happen to good people. And while we may not understand why, we are given the pathway and the means of how we might respond.

TESHUVAH – Repentance and re-direction — an inward response, as we discover the person we can possibly become, growing as men and women as we create and recreate ourselves anew.

TEFILAH, prayer — reaching upward and beyond, linking ourselves not only with that transcendent source of all creation, but also with the community around us, with whom we connect in our common need for support and strength.

And finally, TZEDAKA – a thoroughly outward response, making a difference in this world by tipping the scales of justice through the sheer force of our own vision and will.

We cannot begin to imagine what awaits us in the weeks and months ahead. But this much we do know: Sometimes the task and the challenge we all face, as we live our lives year by year by year, is to discover how much music we can still make with whatever we have left – even when we find ourselves holding onto a broken string.

Amen.

1. As attributed to Rabbi Harold Schulweis. Based on my own research, I have doubts as to whether this story is history or legend, but I’ve chosen Rabbi Schulweis’ recollection for its sense of both realism and impact.

2. Katie Sherrod, “Addicted to Ant Logic”, Fort Worth Star Telegram, June 19, 1991.

3. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, translated by Lawrence Kaplan, JPS, 1983, p. 110.

4. Generally attributed to the late, Harry Golden, who recalls his father explaining to him why an atheist would go to Temple.

5. “Is Happiness Catching?” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 13, 2009.

6. “Cells That Read Minds” New York Times, January 10, 2006.

But then, so often, after the release of the break-fast and the return to our ordinary round of activities, not to mention all the errands and business that has built up while we were away and busy with holy-day activities, despite our best intentions, we forget. We drift back into old habits. Other priorities assert themselves. We lose our Jewish, not to mention spiritual, head of steam.

Now I will not pretend to know for everyone in our community what lights this one’s spiritual fire, what makes that one excited about being Jewish. There are many gates by which to enter the palace. But since I started down a didactic path in my message last month by exhorting all our families and especially our young people to try attending congregational worship services on a more regular basis, I’ll continue this month with another suggestion.

Not only do I invite you to attend services more regularly (whatever that means to you—if you are in the habit of visiting two days every fall, you might try a springtime visit; if you already come three times a year, maybe you’re ready for a bimonthly prayer fix), please consider this: if you’ve ever read from the Torah before, why not try doing it again?

This month, on Simchat Torah, our festival of Torah, we will salute our beloved teacher of Torah, Leona Glazer.  Some of the students she helped raise to Jewish adulthood will read for us that night from Torah.  We will all stand together, supporting the unfurled scroll on our outstretched fingertips.  We will consecrate our youngest students into the study of Torah.  Whether Torah for you means ancient tribal history or cultural identity or a Tree of Life or a path of righteousness or something else, the evening is bound to extend your holy-day buzz.  So please come.
 
And then consider this: beginning this fall, I invite any congregant—and especially our teenagers—to celebrate the anniversary of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah by reading again the ancient words from the sacred scroll that you studied once so long (or not so long) ago.  Every week the Round Table Minyan gathers for a quick and cozy hour of prayer and a Torah service.  Some weeks a rabbi reads the Torah portion, other weeks a congregant.  Anyone who chooses to read from the Torah will tell you that it is elevating, a thrill, in some way a moving experience.  And some will tell you that I’m willing to help.  A lot.
 
So who will take me up on this offer of a post-Holy Day High?
dlk@emanu-el.org