The Treasure of Our Stories
February 22, 2010
Fourth in a series
We are our stories.
While each of us has a unique identity that feels like it comes from inside us individually, we are not separate from our family, our community, our heritage. The stories about what our fathers and mothers did and what was done to them, how they lived and died, where they went and how they lived form the foundation of Jewish identity.
Jewish stories present archetypes and role models. They weave together thousands of years of history. We understand our place from what happened in ancient Egypt, in the kingdom of Judea, through Spain, perhaps Poland and Ellis Island, Israel and our own north shore community. That’s why it is so important to teach our stories to our children and grandchildren, so that they will know who they are too.
We all have stories about our parents when they were young and the pivotal life events that shaped them and brought them together. The small stories are as important as the big ones: the boyfriend or girlfriend who would never have become the spouse but for some incident or friend or lucky bit of timing. We don’t need to hear them often, but we do need to hear them.
We learn morality from stories, not from being told to be moral. We saw what happened when other people behaved in certain ways. The books we read and movies we watch immerse us in other people’s stories, where we pick up grains of truth or wisdom that we can apply in our own lives.
Elie Wiesel wrote: “Jewish history unfolds in the present… it affects our life and our role in society… Were it not for his memory, which encompasses us all, the Jew would not be Jewish, or more precisely, he would have ceased to exist.”
That’s why it matters that we stay in touch with specifically Jewish stories. When we study the same parashah from the Torah year after year, we find new insights and new connections. There are plenty of excellent non-Jewish writers and secular stories. But consider as you pick up that next book or choose that next movie that Jewish stories are often richer and offer greater rewards because we have an innate understanding of where they came from.
Jewish stories not only teach us. They reinforce our identity. They form a foundation for us to create our own stories, which become our own contribution to the endless Jewish narrative.
Kavannah without Attitude
January 16, 2010
This is the third in a series of Jewish religious topics from a lay perspective.
Kavannah refers to mindfulness, intentionality, full engagement. Used to describe religious participation, praying with kavannah means immersing one’s self in the practice and devoting one’s heart, soul and mind fully.
It sounds like a good idea. If we are going to make the effort to pray at all—in the Temple, at home, or elsewhere—it shouldn’t be an empty gesture. Why just mouth the words or go through the motions in a half-baked fashion? Put ourselves into it and we’ll get more out of it: it makes perfect sense. But it turns out to be not that simple.
As a Reform Jew, I don’t feel the need or obligation to immerse myself in prayer on a daily schedule as more observant Jews do. Since becoming involved with Temple Emanu-El’s board a few years ago, I started to enjoy attending Shabbat services once or twice a month. But ritual prayers remained more ritual and less prayer. I found the often-repeated language of our written prayers a challenge to take literally (though the new weekly prayer book, Mishkan Tefilah, is a big improvement). The language of traditional prayer also leads many Jews to prefer to pray in Hebrew: because we don’t have to negotiate the meaning of all the specific words.
I tried it to pray with kavannah, at least when I remembered to. I would focus on saying a prayer with full concentration to boost my level of spiritual engagement, at least for a few moments. It didn’t work very well. The problem was that in sharpening my focus, I ended up putting all the attention on focusing instead of on praying. In other words, the harder I tried to pray, the more I was caught up in the trying, leaving less energy for whatever praying was supposed to be about. It gave me a bad attitude about kavannah.
What caused it to change, I really don’t know. But at some point the whole idea of intentional prayer flipped completely on its head. My understanding of kavannah turned itself upside down.
Kavannah works not as focus and effort but as surrender: giving yourself over rather than pushing harder. It may be counterintuitive but it has worked to abandon the effort entirely.
Now, when I enter into prayer I no longer try to do it right. Instead, I open myself to the process. By surrendering myself spiritually in this way—which means temporarily giving up thought, judgment about content, and uncertainty about the whole idea of prayer—prayer feels much better. It brings me closer to the ineffable spirit that is at the heart of religion. It draws me in, in a fashion impossible to fully describe.
The words provide the structure, but the spirit of prayer is what yields the meaning. Whether praying the Shema, reciting Kaddish for my parents, or in silent meditation, the act of turning my consciousness over to that which is beyond my understanding and control makes all the difference.
It still doesn’t happen all the time. My mind is as busy as anyone else’s. Perhaps I lack the experience, or discipline, or desire to lose myself in prayer all that often. When it does occur, prayer becomes more meaningful and rewarding than I had ever thought it would be.
The key is giving up thought and judgment that are so highly prized in other areas of life. Prayer through willful immersion, even occasionally, provides a spiritual richness that is as rewarding as it was, for me, unexpected.
Belief and Faith
December 12, 2009
Second in a series of Jewish religious discussions from a lay perspective.
Though the two words are sometimes used interchangeably, belief and faith are not identical. For those who may be uncomfortable with believing, in a religious sense, the distinction is crucial.
Belief refers to holding an idea to be true, without consideration of evidence. Faith is different. Faith has more to do with trust, the willingness to commit to a principle or idea in advance and act as if it were valid without demanding proof. Jewish religious faith, at least here in the Reform movement, involves dedication to the ideals and tenets of Judaism. It circumvents the need to believe in the historic accuracy of Bible characters and events or consider the veracity of other stories in texts of the Jewish canon.
Judaism demands thinking as we interpret and reinterpret what we have been given. Through faith we agree to take the interpretation process seriously enough to find value and meaning, whether in the original writings, the commentaries, or the commentaries on the commentaries.
Reform Judaism gives us the latitude to look freshly and creatively at what has come down to us. It is entirely in keeping with who we are today to have strong faith that enriches our lives and binds us to our People without ever having to come down on one side or the other of belief. Faith also allows us to transcend the language of prayer when the words in the book seem anachronistic and unsatisfying.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great philosopher and theologian, said, “Faith always includes striving for faith.” It is an active process of reaching beyond what we know in the service of learning and spiritual depth. We use the term “leap of faith” because we never know for sure where we will land. In making the commitment to faith we open ourselves to discovery. But, of course, we won’t land anywhere—the promise will remain unrealized—if we do not first take some kind of step or leap.
Judaism encourages us to take that chance, to have faith that our efforts will be rewarded. The alternative is to stay put: we have the choice not to ask questions and pursue answers. Without a leap of faith we cannot be proven wrong. But we won’t get very far either.
Faith is the opportunity to engage in study and thought, to penetrate the limits of our knowledge. Temple Emanu-El offers a number of ways to engage Jewish learning and grow in spirituality and wisdom.
The benefits come to those who leap, or at least take the first step.
Trading with the Gods
November 28, 2009
Fisrt in a series
When you agree to become Temple president, you start to ask a different set of questions: What’s the meaning of all this? Why do we have a synagogue, and what should it be doing? How do we serve the members? Starting this month and over the coming months, I’d like to share with you some thoughts that have arisen in response to asking these kinds of questions.
Religion seems to be a universal impulse. For years I have been interested in how cultures hold themselves together, which generally means how they address the larger questions of existence. All the civilizations I’ve looked at, in both more developed and less developed places, have a cosmology and set of rituals that can be called a religion. Most recognize a power or powers of a higher order that gave rise to life on earth. In most systems, people are obligated to give back to that higher power in order for all to be well and life to continue.
This notion of exchange with God is especially intriguing. Judaism is full of such obligations: it’s part of the covenant at Judaism’s core. Yet, how many Jews in our community feel compelled to participate in exchange, in the religious sense, at more than a token level? How many of us think that spiritual devotion in the practice of ritual or the intensity of worship matters? Do you feel complete in fulfilling your commitment to Judaism if you attend High Holyday services, light Chanukah candles, and have a Seder at Pesach? Do you even think there is any such commitment?
Part of the difficulty here arises from living in a world aligned with values and assumptions of the majority religion. The Christian image of God is of a benevolent, non-demanding deity who forgives easily and asks little. Belief is the fundamental act: all you have to do is believe to merit salvation. Surrounded by this norm, many contemporary Jews—who of course don’t believe as Christians do—find little motivation to engage in religious exchange by participating actively in Jewish practice and ritual.
Is it any wonder that those who give little get so little meaning in return? Meaningful reward, in a Jewish sense, escapes them because their investment is so small. Our covenant requires engagement to work, just as a marriage requires effort to grow strong. If you don’t keep Pesach, the small sacrifice of not eating bread for a week, or acknowledge the weekly cycle of Shabbat, how can you expect the flame of Judaism to burn brightly in your heart and spirit? And how can you expect your children—even if you make them attend Sunday school through Bar/t Mitzvah—to care?
More and more I hear, especially from younger members, that they seek “spiritual” rather than specifically “religious” meaning. Well, they are one and the same. Through deliberately choosing to put ourselves into Judaism we make Judaism come alive in us, with all the wisdom, color and richness of thousands of years of shared history.
Engagement with Jewish practice is a great opportunity as well as the fulfillment of an historic obligation. The opportunity is to find more meaning and satisfaction through a pathway that has served humanity for millennia. It takes study and effort and offers rewards unmatched by more mundane pursuits.
The principle of exchange with God or the gods used to be simple: either we give back, through worship, rituals and sacrifices, or our existence will be taken from us by greater powers. Today, we don’t feel threatened in that way. The downside is much less. The upside, however, is still great. The meaning and spiritual satisfaction people have yearned for over the centuries is still available. Each of us has the choice whether or not to pursue it.
Because We Are Jews
October 28, 2009
Delivered to the Congregation by Stuart Cohen, Kol Nidre 5770
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.
