YIZKOR 5772 (Thanks to Susan Grossman)
This is my 16th YK Yizkor Sermon at KS, my 31st as the rabbi of a congregation and including my student pulpits my 34th preaching at services on the High Holidays. I don’t remember my sermons from 25/30 years ago, but I think I’ve always tried to do a sermon to prepare myself and my community for Yizkor tears. While all these sermons were ultimately about life, this year I offer something without the tears of memory.
Rabbi Naomi Levy is one of my truly gifted colleagues. Upon ordination, she became a successful congregational rabbi in California. She married a wonderful guy. They had two beautiful children. She published. Then she received the call from the pediatric specialist. / No one wants to get a call like this. That story is in her third book, Hope Will Call.
The results were in. Her daughter, Noa, had a terminal degenerative disease called, ironically, A-T, which stands for Ataxia-telangiectasia, (the-lan-jick-tay-sha). Most of its victims are wheelchair bound by the age of ten and die before they turn twenty.
Second opinions were ambiguous. At best though, they wouldn’t know if Noa had A-T until she was older.
Rabbi Levy’s whole world narrowed to trying to “fix” her daughter. There were medical and therapy appointments and fighting the insurance company for coverage.
She spent every waking moment focused on her child. She stopped working. She stopped writing. / Can we blame her? Yet she blamed herself. She felt lost. / She stopped praying. Where was God anyway? / The fear, pain and anger bubbled up inside her.
How did she find her way back? / To herself? To God?
It was a long journey that begins with a story: A story about a homeless man named Bo who wanted to study Bible with Rabbi Levy: “One day in late October as I was [waiting for Noa,] sitting in a waiting room, watching my life slip away from me, I flashed a memory of Bo…”
“Bo was a person who told his story: ‘I could have had it all: a home, a wife, kids. I could have been a teacher. But I was running away and chasing after other gods. / I traded it all in for the drink and the needle.’
In a conversation Noami said to Bo, ‘Do you know where Jonah finally found God? Right in the belly of that whale. It’s time for you to find God, Bo.’ Bo got very excited. He said, ‘God’s with me in the belly of the whale.’
“Watching Bo, I so wanted to believe he could turn his life around. I wanted to believe that it’s never too late to change. I thought about the ways we all run from the call of God or the call of our souls. But Bo’s life had spun out too long and too far. Bo began the process of changing his life, but he could never get out of the belly of the whale. He died of AIDS.
“Sitting in that waiting room, I saw myself inside Bo’s whale. I couldn’t figure out how to keep things in perspective. I couldn’t figure out how to get my life back on track again. Fighting for Noa’s health had become my obsession.... Thinking of Bo I whispered to myself, ‘It’s never too late’ is a lie. / Suddenly I saw the danger of putting things off, of dropping out of life the way I had. I understood that if you wait for the right moment to appear, it might never come. I told myself: You’re waiting to be saved from above, but transformation requires effort from below. You keep telling yourself you’ve got plenty of time to get back on track, but time has better things to do than to stick around waiting for you…”
In her story Rabbi Levy’s miracle was also subtle. Her angel? / A bald man, another waiting room parent. One day, he commented to Rabbi Levy that her daughter Noa was something special. These words began to open Rabbi Levy’s eyes to the good before her, in her own daughter. Despite all her pain and weakness, all of her learning challenges, Noa bubbled with enthusiasm, optimism and ideas about how to live her life the maximum within her challenges. She exudes a joi de vivre – a joy in living every moment which is tangible.
One day, as she was cleaning out Noa’s backpack, Rabbi Levy found a spiral notebook filled with entries Noa had written. She couldn’t help but read them.
Rabbi Levy writes: “Where did this come from? That voice…that depth. I slid to the floor of her bedroom and read on. My tears were dripping on her words…barely legible…words full of wisdom and encouragement…Did she know she was talking to me?...”
“I asked Noa for her permission to share them with others…I call them ‘Noa’s Twelve Rules for Living a Rich Life…’
“1. Be Adventurous: You can sit at home and be grumpy and life will mean nothing to you. Or you can go on an adventure through life and try stuff you never thought you would do and life will be exciting for you. You shouldn’t just sit around and do nothing because there should be some pretty cool adventures in life.
“2. Be Kind to Yourself: If you’re mean to yourself, others will be mean to you. So respect yourself. It’s a good thing. People will see your positive outlook and add to your happiness.
“3. Make Mistakes: If you don’t do anything you will never make a mistake. If you don’t make a mistake you will never try anything. So make mistakes; it will be good in the end.
“4. Laugh: When you are in a bad mood and someone makes you laugh, it gives you a jump start on your day. My friend once hurt her head and I said something funny that made her laugh and then that really cheered her up.
“5. Lift Your Own Spirits: If you are sad or down you have to will yourself not to be down anymore. One morning, I was driving in the car to school and I said to myself, ‘I don’t have any talent,’ and I really got sad. Then I thought, ‘I can blow Shofar,’…(and) my sadness went away. So remember you can wish yourself up.
“6. Play to Your Strengths: If you can do something, don’t let it get involved with what you can’t do. I can’t do math so well but I can do reading really well if I try. So I don’t get my good reading mixed up with my bad math. So don’t let your good get mixed up with your bad.
“7. Ask Yourself for Help: If you are having trouble with something, think first before you ask someone for help… Once my mom was having trouble writing a sermon. Before asking anybody for help she thought about it some more and wrote a great sermon. So think before you ask for help. It will be better.
“8. Live Up to Your Dreams: If you have dreams they’re probably not going to happen if you don’t live up to them. None of my dreams are going to happen if I don’t stick with them and believe they’re going to happen. So follow your dreams. What can go wrong? Most everything will come true.
“9. Be a Friend: Nobody is ever perfect, so your friends have to learn to look past your faults…Someone isn’t going to like you because you know everything. They’re going to like you because you truly care…True friends are the people who really care for you when you need them.
“10. Don’t Let Mean People Shake You: If someone is being mean to you, it’s probably because they have there own problems…At my old school there was this girl and she was always mean to me and talked about me behind my back. That mean girl said I was so weak. She said I couldn’t do anything. Now, I wasn’t going to sit there and take her rudeness. I went out there and proved I could do it. You can do anything you want to do. Don’t let some negativity hold you back.
“11. Forgive: If someone hurts your feelings, you will be offended, but it can be fixed…I once had a big fight with my friend at school…We finally made up and became good friends again. You know you can’t change the past, but you can change the future.
“12. Stand Up to Peer Pressure: You know who you are. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are…[you] don’t have to do what other people tell [you you] should do. Be strong! Be smart! Make good decisions!”
Did Noa know she was also talking to each of us? These 12 rules encapsulate how to make the most of our journey through life. Be Adventurous. Be Kind to Yourself. Make Mistakes. Laugh. Lift Your Own Spirits. Play to Your Strengths. Ask Yourself for Help. Live Up to Your Dreams. Be a Friend. Don’t Let Mean People Shake You. Forgive. Stand Up to Peer Pressure.
Some miracles are so subtle they begin with barely legible words scrawled in a young girl’s spiral notebook.
Noa’s 12 Rules for Living a Rich Life speak to how we can hold onto hope. How we can see the good before us. How we can reach out a hand to another and be strengthened ourselves thereby. How the power of transformation comes from within us and we should not wait too long to begin.
But Noa certainly is wise enough to play to her strengths and make the most of her journey through life. It is the journey that matters most.
How do we make the most of our journey? / How do we hold onto hope in the dark belly of the whale? / How do we see the good before us? / How do we reach out our hands to others and strengthen ourselves thereby? / How do we embrace the wisdom that the power of transformation comes from within us and we should not wait too long to begin?
We are all hikers on the trail called life. We, too, can find ourselves alone in the dark, beset by storms, facing exhaustion, and despairing of hanging in there until the sun again shines.
How we weather those storms depends on our attitude. How we hang onto hope, even in the dark, depends on our ability to see the good despite the bad. How we rise above our exhaustion depends upon our ability to reach out to others and be strengthened thereby.
It is not where we start from, nor where we end up, that is most important. It is not what we are going through, nor how long we have, that is most important. It is the journey itself that matters most.
The quality of that journey, where we find joy and where we derive strength, is up to us. Our lives can be filled with pretty cool adventures. God’s subtle miracles are all around us, if we open our eyes to see them. The ability to transform ourselves, even in the belly of the whale, is within us whenever we choose to start. Let us not wait too long to begin.
It’s the journey to life and of life that matters most.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Kol Nidray Sermon 2011
KOL NIDRAY 5772 (Thanks to Jack Reimer and Mark Greenspan)
Let me tell you the story of a person from whom I learned a lesson this year. Her name is Talya Glazer, and she is a member of the pre-school class of the Jewish Community Center of Harrison, New York.
Harrison is an upper middle class community that is located in Westchester County, not far from White Plains and Scarsdale. Talya is a rabbi’s daughter, and she taught me a very important lesson.
Rabbi Glazer and his wife have a custom that many other parents have as well. Whenever they go for a walk with their daughter, and they pass a fountain, they give Talya a penny, and they tell her to throw the coin into the fountain and make a wish. They did that one day this year, they passed a fountain, and so they gave Talya a penny and they told her to throw it into the fountain and make a wish, say a prayer.
She thought, and she thought, and she prayed, but did not throw the coin into the fountain. A minute went by, two minutes went by, three minutes went by and still she did not throw the penny into the fountain. They could see that she was thinking very hard. And then finally, finally, finally, she threw the coin into the fountain.
Her parents asked Talya: What took you so long? And what did you finally wish for? What did you pray for? And she told them: She said: I was concentrating so long and thinking so hard, because I really, really, really wanted my wish to come true. They asked her: so what was your wish? And she said: I wished that I could see my friend, Eddie.
Eddie was Talya’s best friend. They went to the same Pre-School together in Harrison. But Eddie & his parents recently moved from Harrison to Philadelphia, & Talya missed Eddie very much. And so she held on to that penny for a long time, and then she threw it into the fountain. And the wish was that she could see Eddie again sometime soon.
Now I ask you: What do you do when your child makes a wish like that? Her parents looked at each other, and they both had the same thought at the same time. And so, when they got home, they called Eddie’s parents in Philadelphia, and invited them to come back to Harrison for Tot Shabbat. And they invited them to stay at their home, so that Talya and Eddie could have the play date that they both wanted to have so much.
When I heard that story, I learned from Talya the power of friendship. In contrast, you probably know the story of Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook of how he is now one of the richest men in the world, but has lost almost all the friends he had before his amazing business success. But in some ways Talya is richer than he, because he may have invented Facebook and the social network, but he himself had no friends, whereas Talya had only a penny, but she was fortunate enough to have a real friend. And therefore, I think that in some ways she is richer.
At its best that is what Kehilat Shalom has meant. We made friends who supported us in hard times and celebrated with us at simchas. When we needed a friend we had a circle of friends who had been through the ups and downs of life with us. Many of us still have those kinds of connections and for those who do not yet enjoy that core experience I’ll have some suggestions in a few moments.
There is another kind of friendship that is about conversation. We all have friends we trust to listen and shmooze and advice us. We have circles of people we enjoy learning with and from. We have havurot after services or on pick up from schools with whom we share our thoughts and feelings. We are not alone in our common quest for not just social connection, but open and honest conversation.
But there is another level of friendship conversation, which has been damaged, in the past year. One of the things that joins us a human beings in sacred quest for Jewish meaning is a shared vision of the future for our community. It’s friends who share an outlook on life.
That’s what so much of today’s liturgy reflects. From the rituals, to the words of the confession and prayers of forgiveness, it’s not about me, it’s always “WE”. Yom Kippur is a day of AT-ONE-MENT. It is not simply a matter of saying 'I'm sorry' and resolving not to sin anymore. It's a day on which we're challenged to reconnect with God, with family, and with one another. It is a day when we become a community, united by our weaknesses and strengths. In prayer and confession, we become each other's advocates. It is not our own sins for which we seek forgiveness but the sins and failings of those sitting around us. The most common word in the Yom Kippur liturgy is "WE."
But we've lost how to be a community. There was a time, not so long ago, when the emphasis in Jewish life was on peoplehood. Our parents and grandparents may have had doubts about faith and observance but they knew who they were and to what people belong. They didn’t just build houses of worship - they built "community centers" like the "Kehilat Shalom." Then, there was a sense that Jews around the world shared a common destiny, or at least a common enemy. In 80s, a quarter million Jews descended on Washington, DC and half a million in NY for a mass rallies calling on the Soviet Union to allow unrestricted emigration of Jews. I don’t think we could do that today.
The High Holy Days may be the last bastion of communal solidarity. We come here to be with one another on a day of AT-ONE-MENT. There's something powerful that happens when we come together in prayer and celebration during the Yamim Noraim. We see old friends. We reconnect with something larger than ourselves. We feel a sense of warmth and community as we raise our voices in song and prayer together. We speak of shared values and visions.
But community can't exist once or twice a year, or only when it's convenient. You have to sign on and be a constant part of the community for the community to be part of you. Either you're an active member of the community or not, either you're part of the Jewish people or not. There must be give and take.
How do we re-create that shared dream of a thriving, loving community? I spoke on RH of the governance tasks needed to continue to be a caring community. But we also need to meet each other by living Jewishly to reconnect ourselves to our roots and our spirituality and to each other.
CE21 has worked for three years and we’re ready to implement WITH YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT some fun, exciting and holy experiences for all ages
Show cards – didn’t pick up on your way in … fold down on your way out
Sukkah Raising – need help putting up your sukkah… we’ve got a team to help
Shabbat Guests – want to make a friend … break bread together
If you can stomach eating and talking with someone … bond
Invite people to your home to share Shabbat meal… teach how to enjoy at least one meal a week when we slow down, don’t rush, and eat and talk about life
Personalizing our Directory with Pictures – enhance with pictures
Shabbaton/Retreat –
Immersion experience: camp, USY, - live Jewishly – create lasting positive connection
Spend a day living, eating, learning, praying, schmoozing, playing…
Le Dor Vador Shabbat –
For a number of years we’ve celebrated a Grandparents Shabbat
But we have lots of grandparents whose grandchildren are not around or who don’t have grandchildren. Kind of intergenerational programming that is what community is about
Expanded Round the Table
Last year through the RS families did Jewish learning together with text and activities coordinated by the School – opportunity to do and to learn together
Not only for RS students and families- but for all ages and backgrounds to experience and learn together
Bracha University – On Jan 22 with BSO we’re going back to enjoy our old University Model of Learning. Dozen of workshops by age and by family – cognitive, experiential, food, doing… learning about blessings to use our daily lives
Ushers/Greeters: for many years we’ve had a friendly face say hello and help you when you come to Friday Night and Saturday Morning Services. We need more people to help with putting a welcoming face on coming to our community and to empower those who volunteer to know and feel comfortable with what they’re doing
CE21 Taskforce Members Stand. Stop for a minute … fold down … ask a question….
Volunteer Pledge Cards explanation…
So this is my wish for our synagogue: In this coming year may whoever comes in here, wherever they may come from, and for whatever reason they may come here, may they enter as strangers and may they leave as friends. For if we can achieve that, if we can create the kind of synagogue where the stranger is welcomed when he arrives, but where the stranger leaves as a friend, then I believe that this synagogue will grow and prosper, that it will have no financial problems and that it will be in truth a Jewish CENTER, a place where people will come on their spiritual quest, and to meet each other, and it will be a place where God’s Presence will delight to dwell.
And my second wish is for each one of you is this: May you acquire a friend in the only way that anyone ever acquires a friend, which is by being a friend. Because, if you do, I promise you: your joys will be twice as sweet, and your troubles will be half as heavy. I ask you to acquire a friend—by being a friend, because if you do, your life will have meaning, and your days will be blessed. This is my wish for you today.
And if you don’t believe me, then listen to the words of my friend, Talya, who taught me by the way she thought and thought and thought before she threw her penny into the fountain, that friendship counts for so much in life.
I wish you a good year, a year of friendship between you and me, and between each other, and between us and our Parent who is in heaven.
I wish you a good year, a year in which there will come true for us the words that we say on the eve of every new month, but don't need to say on Rosh Hodesh Tishrai because it is already understood:
Haverim kol yisrael. - May all of Israel be friends. And to this, let us all say: Amen.
Let me tell you the story of a person from whom I learned a lesson this year. Her name is Talya Glazer, and she is a member of the pre-school class of the Jewish Community Center of Harrison, New York.
Harrison is an upper middle class community that is located in Westchester County, not far from White Plains and Scarsdale. Talya is a rabbi’s daughter, and she taught me a very important lesson.
Rabbi Glazer and his wife have a custom that many other parents have as well. Whenever they go for a walk with their daughter, and they pass a fountain, they give Talya a penny, and they tell her to throw the coin into the fountain and make a wish. They did that one day this year, they passed a fountain, and so they gave Talya a penny and they told her to throw it into the fountain and make a wish, say a prayer.
She thought, and she thought, and she prayed, but did not throw the coin into the fountain. A minute went by, two minutes went by, three minutes went by and still she did not throw the penny into the fountain. They could see that she was thinking very hard. And then finally, finally, finally, she threw the coin into the fountain.
Her parents asked Talya: What took you so long? And what did you finally wish for? What did you pray for? And she told them: She said: I was concentrating so long and thinking so hard, because I really, really, really wanted my wish to come true. They asked her: so what was your wish? And she said: I wished that I could see my friend, Eddie.
Eddie was Talya’s best friend. They went to the same Pre-School together in Harrison. But Eddie & his parents recently moved from Harrison to Philadelphia, & Talya missed Eddie very much. And so she held on to that penny for a long time, and then she threw it into the fountain. And the wish was that she could see Eddie again sometime soon.
Now I ask you: What do you do when your child makes a wish like that? Her parents looked at each other, and they both had the same thought at the same time. And so, when they got home, they called Eddie’s parents in Philadelphia, and invited them to come back to Harrison for Tot Shabbat. And they invited them to stay at their home, so that Talya and Eddie could have the play date that they both wanted to have so much.
When I heard that story, I learned from Talya the power of friendship. In contrast, you probably know the story of Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook of how he is now one of the richest men in the world, but has lost almost all the friends he had before his amazing business success. But in some ways Talya is richer than he, because he may have invented Facebook and the social network, but he himself had no friends, whereas Talya had only a penny, but she was fortunate enough to have a real friend. And therefore, I think that in some ways she is richer.
At its best that is what Kehilat Shalom has meant. We made friends who supported us in hard times and celebrated with us at simchas. When we needed a friend we had a circle of friends who had been through the ups and downs of life with us. Many of us still have those kinds of connections and for those who do not yet enjoy that core experience I’ll have some suggestions in a few moments.
There is another kind of friendship that is about conversation. We all have friends we trust to listen and shmooze and advice us. We have circles of people we enjoy learning with and from. We have havurot after services or on pick up from schools with whom we share our thoughts and feelings. We are not alone in our common quest for not just social connection, but open and honest conversation.
But there is another level of friendship conversation, which has been damaged, in the past year. One of the things that joins us a human beings in sacred quest for Jewish meaning is a shared vision of the future for our community. It’s friends who share an outlook on life.
That’s what so much of today’s liturgy reflects. From the rituals, to the words of the confession and prayers of forgiveness, it’s not about me, it’s always “WE”. Yom Kippur is a day of AT-ONE-MENT. It is not simply a matter of saying 'I'm sorry' and resolving not to sin anymore. It's a day on which we're challenged to reconnect with God, with family, and with one another. It is a day when we become a community, united by our weaknesses and strengths. In prayer and confession, we become each other's advocates. It is not our own sins for which we seek forgiveness but the sins and failings of those sitting around us. The most common word in the Yom Kippur liturgy is "WE."
But we've lost how to be a community. There was a time, not so long ago, when the emphasis in Jewish life was on peoplehood. Our parents and grandparents may have had doubts about faith and observance but they knew who they were and to what people belong. They didn’t just build houses of worship - they built "community centers" like the "Kehilat Shalom." Then, there was a sense that Jews around the world shared a common destiny, or at least a common enemy. In 80s, a quarter million Jews descended on Washington, DC and half a million in NY for a mass rallies calling on the Soviet Union to allow unrestricted emigration of Jews. I don’t think we could do that today.
The High Holy Days may be the last bastion of communal solidarity. We come here to be with one another on a day of AT-ONE-MENT. There's something powerful that happens when we come together in prayer and celebration during the Yamim Noraim. We see old friends. We reconnect with something larger than ourselves. We feel a sense of warmth and community as we raise our voices in song and prayer together. We speak of shared values and visions.
But community can't exist once or twice a year, or only when it's convenient. You have to sign on and be a constant part of the community for the community to be part of you. Either you're an active member of the community or not, either you're part of the Jewish people or not. There must be give and take.
How do we re-create that shared dream of a thriving, loving community? I spoke on RH of the governance tasks needed to continue to be a caring community. But we also need to meet each other by living Jewishly to reconnect ourselves to our roots and our spirituality and to each other.
CE21 has worked for three years and we’re ready to implement WITH YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT some fun, exciting and holy experiences for all ages
Show cards – didn’t pick up on your way in … fold down on your way out
Sukkah Raising – need help putting up your sukkah… we’ve got a team to help
Shabbat Guests – want to make a friend … break bread together
If you can stomach eating and talking with someone … bond
Invite people to your home to share Shabbat meal… teach how to enjoy at least one meal a week when we slow down, don’t rush, and eat and talk about life
Personalizing our Directory with Pictures – enhance with pictures
Shabbaton/Retreat –
Immersion experience: camp, USY, - live Jewishly – create lasting positive connection
Spend a day living, eating, learning, praying, schmoozing, playing…
Le Dor Vador Shabbat –
For a number of years we’ve celebrated a Grandparents Shabbat
But we have lots of grandparents whose grandchildren are not around or who don’t have grandchildren. Kind of intergenerational programming that is what community is about
Expanded Round the Table
Last year through the RS families did Jewish learning together with text and activities coordinated by the School – opportunity to do and to learn together
Not only for RS students and families- but for all ages and backgrounds to experience and learn together
Bracha University – On Jan 22 with BSO we’re going back to enjoy our old University Model of Learning. Dozen of workshops by age and by family – cognitive, experiential, food, doing… learning about blessings to use our daily lives
Ushers/Greeters: for many years we’ve had a friendly face say hello and help you when you come to Friday Night and Saturday Morning Services. We need more people to help with putting a welcoming face on coming to our community and to empower those who volunteer to know and feel comfortable with what they’re doing
CE21 Taskforce Members Stand. Stop for a minute … fold down … ask a question….
Volunteer Pledge Cards explanation…
So this is my wish for our synagogue: In this coming year may whoever comes in here, wherever they may come from, and for whatever reason they may come here, may they enter as strangers and may they leave as friends. For if we can achieve that, if we can create the kind of synagogue where the stranger is welcomed when he arrives, but where the stranger leaves as a friend, then I believe that this synagogue will grow and prosper, that it will have no financial problems and that it will be in truth a Jewish CENTER, a place where people will come on their spiritual quest, and to meet each other, and it will be a place where God’s Presence will delight to dwell.
And my second wish is for each one of you is this: May you acquire a friend in the only way that anyone ever acquires a friend, which is by being a friend. Because, if you do, I promise you: your joys will be twice as sweet, and your troubles will be half as heavy. I ask you to acquire a friend—by being a friend, because if you do, your life will have meaning, and your days will be blessed. This is my wish for you today.
And if you don’t believe me, then listen to the words of my friend, Talya, who taught me by the way she thought and thought and thought before she threw her penny into the fountain, that friendship counts for so much in life.
I wish you a good year, a year of friendship between you and me, and between each other, and between us and our Parent who is in heaven.
I wish you a good year, a year in which there will come true for us the words that we say on the eve of every new month, but don't need to say on Rosh Hodesh Tishrai because it is already understood:
Haverim kol yisrael. - May all of Israel be friends. And to this, let us all say: Amen.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Rosh Hashanah Sermon - Second Day
Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day 5722 (Thanks to Rabbi Jack Reimer)
One of the things I always do as the High Holy Days draws near to look back over the main events of the year and see if I can find any lessons in them that will help us live in the new year.
This morning, I want to remind you of one event that occurred this past year, last October, that you may not have seen and if you did have probably forgotten. When it occurred, it made every newspaper in the country, but then, after a few days it faded from our memories. In a month, the story was almost forgotten. But, the story has stayed in my mind, and so, I want to study it with you today.
It is the story of two prominent, highly educated and very successful women, and the mistake that they both made. The first is Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. And the second is Anita Hill, who is a member of the faculty at Brandeis University.
Twenty years ago, the whole world knew their names. Anita Hill was the woman who testified against Clarence Thomas when he was being considered by the Senate for the position on the Supreme Court. She made terrible accusations against him, which he denied. And the story of those accusations that she made were in every newspaper in the world.
Finally, Clarence Thomas was approved. And that was the last we heard about this matter until this year. And then, this year, Mrs. Clarence Thomas did a very strange thing. For some reason, I don’t know why, Mrs. Thomas called Anita Hill this year. She called her at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday. And she called her, not at her home, but at her office. Surely she knew that the odds were very slight that she would be in her office at such an hour, but that is what she did.
And when no one answered, she left this message on the machine. “Good morning, Ms. Hill. This is Virginia Thomas calling. I just wanted to reach across the years and ask you to consider making an apology for what you did to my husband. So give it some thought, would you, please? Ok. Have a nice day.”
My guess and it is only a guess, I don’t claim to know, is that the reason Mrs. Thomas chose to call Anita Hill at her office on seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday was because she did not want to speak to her directly. She probably felt it would be easier to leave a message on her machine than it would have been to speak to her in person. I can understand that. You and I have probably done the same thing on occasion, haven’t we? Sometimes, it is easier to write a letter or to send an e-mail or to leave a message that it is to confront someone directly. Isn’t that so? But for whatever reason, that is what she did.
My question to you today is: Did she do the right thing in reaching out to the woman who had made an awful accusation against her husband more than twenty years ago or not? Before you answer that question, let me tell you what happened next.
Ms. Hill came into her office on Monday morning, and heard the message. And do you know what she did? She reacted by contacting the campus police department, which in turn notified the FBI, and from there, the story of what happened went to the newspapers.
I ask you: If the caller had threatened her life, then I think she would have been justified in calling the police. But in this case, there was no threat; there was no danger, just a message from a woman who lived in Washington, many miles away from Boston. And in the call she made no threats, and she made no warnings. All she did was ask for an apology.
By going to the police, what did Anita Hill accomplish?? She only made the event into a news story, a story that was in every newspaper in the world for a day or two, before it faded away.
Who are these two women? Virginia Thomas is a wealthy and a successful woman. She is active in many political causes. To the best of my knowledge, she has a good marriage. And Anita Hall is also a very successful woman. She is a tenured professor at a major university. She has written some very substantive articles in her field of expertise.
And yet, I must tell you that I feel sorry for them both. I feel sorry for both of them because, even though more than twenty years have gone by, the two of them are evidently still obsessed by what happened. Even though the world has almost forgotten what happened back then, Virginia Thomas and Anita Hill are evidently still preoccupied with the scandal that they were involved in so many years ago. What happened more than twenty years ago is evidently still a festering sore that continues to pain them. And so, one made the mistake of bringing the matter up again, in a way that did no good. And the other made the mistake of publicizing what she did, in a way that did no good.
And what did they accomplish by doing that? They only succeeded in reminding us of an embarrassing incident that is better forgotten, for all our sakes.
Why do I talk about this matter today? After all, neither Virginia Thomas nor Anita Hill is here today to hear what I have to say?
I do so, because you and I are here, and I think that most of us have made the same mistake on occasion that these two people made this year. Who among us does not carry inside us the memory of some incident in which someone hurt us, for no good reason? And who among us has had the wisdom to put that incident behind us, and to let the past be past?
How do we make it better and find a way to move on? Part of the answer is that we do need time to grieve. I do. Many of us have invested hours and hours and our souls toward the right direction for our community and some of us have not seen those dreams bear fruit. We need to move forward together but some of us are just going to need some more time. I would ask everyone to consider: if your vote had been cast with the minority, how would you feel and how much time would you need to work again for the future?
Before we’re ready to put the past behind us we should always first seek forgiveness and that’s what I want to do now in two steps. First, it has been a difficult year for me professionally and more so personally. That does not excuse any act or word that I may have expressed that was hurtful to anyone. As a symbolical step I’d like to apologize to anyone I have caused pain or embarrassment. That is not a true apology, though. I have spoken to a few people who I may have injured with words this year. If you are someone that I have hurt with anger, or hearsay or flip uncaring remark, please give me a call or email in the next few days. I’d like to make a direct confession of regret and hope to not repeat the inappropriate behavior before Yom Kippur so that I can cleanse myself as much as humanly possible before the Day of Atonement.
I also know that some people will be afraid to contact me. So I return to the earlier them about our quest during these Holy Days for healing. There is a key section of the Mussaf that is called Zichronot. And in that section, there is a passage that says: Ata zocher kol hanishkachot. You remember all that we forget. I always thought that means that the things we do wrong that we forget about, God remembers. God writes them in a book and God confronts us with them on Rosh Hashanah.
But perhaps Ata zocher kol hanishkachot has another meaning. Perhaps it means that God remembers all the times when we were insulted or when we were criticized, or when we were treated badly and we forgot about it. That … God remembers, to our credit. The fact that we don’t spend our lives brooding over the things that were done to us, but that, instead, we get over them, and go on with our lives, THAT is what God remembers on our behalf on the Day of Judgment.
Let me tell you of an experience from some years ago. When I was in an former congregation, I got a call that one of our members was in the hospital, and that he was going to have surgery. So I went to see him as soon as he could. I walked into this patient’s room, and, much to my surprise, the man began to cry. I asked him why he was crying, and this is what he said, “That you would come to see me after what I did to you? I can’t believe it.”
I asked him what he meant, and he said, “Don’t you remember. You came to the board once with a proposal. And I was one of those who spoke against it. I ridiculed your idea, and said that it would never work. And thanks to me, your proposal was turned down by the board. And now, you come to see me? After what I did to you?” And he cried.
I must tell you that I am not a great saint, but even then my memory is not what it used to be. And I honestly did not remember the incident. If I had, who knows? Perhaps I might have been a little late going to see him, or I might have been a little bit less effective in praying for him, but I really didn’t remember. And that made it easier for me to live with and to work with this man all the years that we were in the same synagogue together. Whereas he had to live all those years with the feeling that perhaps he had hurt me or insulted me, or that I was mad at him. There are times when it is good to have a bad memory, and this was surely such a time.
And so, this is my wish for you as the new year begins: May you have, not only a good memory for all the blessings that you receive in your life, but may you also have a good forgettery for all the painful things that you receive in your life. May you have a good memory for all the joyous moments that you experience in your life, and may you have a good forgettery for all the slights and hurts and insults that you experience in your life.
And may this year be a year of happiness, healing and peace for us all.
One of the things I always do as the High Holy Days draws near to look back over the main events of the year and see if I can find any lessons in them that will help us live in the new year.
This morning, I want to remind you of one event that occurred this past year, last October, that you may not have seen and if you did have probably forgotten. When it occurred, it made every newspaper in the country, but then, after a few days it faded from our memories. In a month, the story was almost forgotten. But, the story has stayed in my mind, and so, I want to study it with you today.
It is the story of two prominent, highly educated and very successful women, and the mistake that they both made. The first is Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. And the second is Anita Hill, who is a member of the faculty at Brandeis University.
Twenty years ago, the whole world knew their names. Anita Hill was the woman who testified against Clarence Thomas when he was being considered by the Senate for the position on the Supreme Court. She made terrible accusations against him, which he denied. And the story of those accusations that she made were in every newspaper in the world.
Finally, Clarence Thomas was approved. And that was the last we heard about this matter until this year. And then, this year, Mrs. Clarence Thomas did a very strange thing. For some reason, I don’t know why, Mrs. Thomas called Anita Hill this year. She called her at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday. And she called her, not at her home, but at her office. Surely she knew that the odds were very slight that she would be in her office at such an hour, but that is what she did.
And when no one answered, she left this message on the machine. “Good morning, Ms. Hill. This is Virginia Thomas calling. I just wanted to reach across the years and ask you to consider making an apology for what you did to my husband. So give it some thought, would you, please? Ok. Have a nice day.”
My guess and it is only a guess, I don’t claim to know, is that the reason Mrs. Thomas chose to call Anita Hill at her office on seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday was because she did not want to speak to her directly. She probably felt it would be easier to leave a message on her machine than it would have been to speak to her in person. I can understand that. You and I have probably done the same thing on occasion, haven’t we? Sometimes, it is easier to write a letter or to send an e-mail or to leave a message that it is to confront someone directly. Isn’t that so? But for whatever reason, that is what she did.
My question to you today is: Did she do the right thing in reaching out to the woman who had made an awful accusation against her husband more than twenty years ago or not? Before you answer that question, let me tell you what happened next.
Ms. Hill came into her office on Monday morning, and heard the message. And do you know what she did? She reacted by contacting the campus police department, which in turn notified the FBI, and from there, the story of what happened went to the newspapers.
I ask you: If the caller had threatened her life, then I think she would have been justified in calling the police. But in this case, there was no threat; there was no danger, just a message from a woman who lived in Washington, many miles away from Boston. And in the call she made no threats, and she made no warnings. All she did was ask for an apology.
By going to the police, what did Anita Hill accomplish?? She only made the event into a news story, a story that was in every newspaper in the world for a day or two, before it faded away.
Who are these two women? Virginia Thomas is a wealthy and a successful woman. She is active in many political causes. To the best of my knowledge, she has a good marriage. And Anita Hall is also a very successful woman. She is a tenured professor at a major university. She has written some very substantive articles in her field of expertise.
And yet, I must tell you that I feel sorry for them both. I feel sorry for both of them because, even though more than twenty years have gone by, the two of them are evidently still obsessed by what happened. Even though the world has almost forgotten what happened back then, Virginia Thomas and Anita Hill are evidently still preoccupied with the scandal that they were involved in so many years ago. What happened more than twenty years ago is evidently still a festering sore that continues to pain them. And so, one made the mistake of bringing the matter up again, in a way that did no good. And the other made the mistake of publicizing what she did, in a way that did no good.
And what did they accomplish by doing that? They only succeeded in reminding us of an embarrassing incident that is better forgotten, for all our sakes.
Why do I talk about this matter today? After all, neither Virginia Thomas nor Anita Hill is here today to hear what I have to say?
I do so, because you and I are here, and I think that most of us have made the same mistake on occasion that these two people made this year. Who among us does not carry inside us the memory of some incident in which someone hurt us, for no good reason? And who among us has had the wisdom to put that incident behind us, and to let the past be past?
How do we make it better and find a way to move on? Part of the answer is that we do need time to grieve. I do. Many of us have invested hours and hours and our souls toward the right direction for our community and some of us have not seen those dreams bear fruit. We need to move forward together but some of us are just going to need some more time. I would ask everyone to consider: if your vote had been cast with the minority, how would you feel and how much time would you need to work again for the future?
Before we’re ready to put the past behind us we should always first seek forgiveness and that’s what I want to do now in two steps. First, it has been a difficult year for me professionally and more so personally. That does not excuse any act or word that I may have expressed that was hurtful to anyone. As a symbolical step I’d like to apologize to anyone I have caused pain or embarrassment. That is not a true apology, though. I have spoken to a few people who I may have injured with words this year. If you are someone that I have hurt with anger, or hearsay or flip uncaring remark, please give me a call or email in the next few days. I’d like to make a direct confession of regret and hope to not repeat the inappropriate behavior before Yom Kippur so that I can cleanse myself as much as humanly possible before the Day of Atonement.
I also know that some people will be afraid to contact me. So I return to the earlier them about our quest during these Holy Days for healing. There is a key section of the Mussaf that is called Zichronot. And in that section, there is a passage that says: Ata zocher kol hanishkachot. You remember all that we forget. I always thought that means that the things we do wrong that we forget about, God remembers. God writes them in a book and God confronts us with them on Rosh Hashanah.
But perhaps Ata zocher kol hanishkachot has another meaning. Perhaps it means that God remembers all the times when we were insulted or when we were criticized, or when we were treated badly and we forgot about it. That … God remembers, to our credit. The fact that we don’t spend our lives brooding over the things that were done to us, but that, instead, we get over them, and go on with our lives, THAT is what God remembers on our behalf on the Day of Judgment.
Let me tell you of an experience from some years ago. When I was in an former congregation, I got a call that one of our members was in the hospital, and that he was going to have surgery. So I went to see him as soon as he could. I walked into this patient’s room, and, much to my surprise, the man began to cry. I asked him why he was crying, and this is what he said, “That you would come to see me after what I did to you? I can’t believe it.”
I asked him what he meant, and he said, “Don’t you remember. You came to the board once with a proposal. And I was one of those who spoke against it. I ridiculed your idea, and said that it would never work. And thanks to me, your proposal was turned down by the board. And now, you come to see me? After what I did to you?” And he cried.
I must tell you that I am not a great saint, but even then my memory is not what it used to be. And I honestly did not remember the incident. If I had, who knows? Perhaps I might have been a little late going to see him, or I might have been a little bit less effective in praying for him, but I really didn’t remember. And that made it easier for me to live with and to work with this man all the years that we were in the same synagogue together. Whereas he had to live all those years with the feeling that perhaps he had hurt me or insulted me, or that I was mad at him. There are times when it is good to have a bad memory, and this was surely such a time.
And so, this is my wish for you as the new year begins: May you have, not only a good memory for all the blessings that you receive in your life, but may you also have a good forgettery for all the painful things that you receive in your life. May you have a good memory for all the joyous moments that you experience in your life, and may you have a good forgettery for all the slights and hurts and insults that you experience in your life.
And may this year be a year of happiness, healing and peace for us all.
Rosh Hashanah Sermon - First Day
Rosh Hashanah 1 (Thanks to Rabbi Mark Mallach)
Earlier today we read from the Torah about the birth of Yitzhak. Our ancestor, Avraham, now heads a seemingly happy family: a son from his beloved Sara and the older son, Yishmael, born to Haggar. For Avraham, life must be good. However, just three years later, the Torah relates that Sara sees the son of Hagar at play, and the exact nature of what Yishmael was doing is left undefined, but Sara’s reaction is visceral. She says to Avraham: GA`RESH HA`AH`MA HA`ZOT V`ET B`NAH – CAST OUT THAT SLAVEWOMAN AND HER SON! (Gen. 21:9).
We are left to ponder, what, caused this seemingly idyllic family picture to be torn apart by such hatred, such enmity? Where does such hatred come from to change a person from being part of the family to being an enemy of the family? And, how long can it last?
Someone asked me not long ago if I have enemies. The question caught me by surprise; I couldn’t think of anyone who fits that horrible category and responded: “I don’t think so, but I’m sure there must be some people who don’t like me.” I’ll ask all of you the same question: do you have enemies? Think about it, is there someone you really dislike, just can’t stand, whom you consider to be your sworn enemy? Or, is there someone whom you know that really dislikes you?
A true story: “Thirty-seven years ago, in the Vietnam War, Dan Cherry was piloting an American F-4 Phantom fighter plane --- and actual cockpit voice recordings tell what Dan heard on his radio. "There's a MiG… Go get 'em, Dan..." And Dan did go get 'em. Life and death … an enemy.
Dan saw the MiG go down in flames and the pilot ejecting and his parachute opening. Decades later, he would think back and wonder...(about) the fate of the MiG pilot…(did) he … survive … was he OK… did he have a family?... But Dan did more than wonder. / He did some research and learned that the pilot …had survived.
(Dan then arranged for the two former enemies to meet, and) … after all those years, … the two had a very firm handshake (and each said)… I hope that we can be friends...'" (Dan was invited to his former enemy’s home), where he met the family and got to hold his little grandson. Cherry said, "And I held him in my arms. It was a special thing and I thought to myself, 'How quickly has trust developed between the two of us...'" …Imagine... "To be able to actually meet the guy I fought a life-and-death duel with --- to be able to put all that behind us --- it was the right thing to do..." Thirty-seven years --- maybe time does heal old wounds."
I heard this story on WCBS radio, it is from the segment The Osgood File; it is an amazing story of reconciliation. But, it is a rarity. Reconciliation is hard to achieve and the consequences of enmity, of harboring hatred can be so severe.
We have been through a gut-wrenching year at Kehilat Shalom. From my perspective it began with the illness and death of Larry Froehlich. We’ve coped with that sad loss, but our community was diminished. A little more than a year ago, the leadership of the synagogue made the commitment of time and serious money to implement truly cutting-edge publicity in the larger community for enrollment in our ECC [40,000 professional looking post cards] and the failure of that PR … was a devastating moment of realization, that change was absolutely necessary for the wellbeing of Kehilat Shalom. Kehilat Shalom has changed because the world around us changed.
We as a community have done a lot of thinking starting around the first of the year about the direction for our sacred community. We have all mourned, verbalized pain and anger and tried to understand and figure out the best way to continue our camaraderie and this place that binds us together and to God.
It has been an excruciating debate for everyone who participated in our reflections and arguments throughout the summer. I knew there would be pain and grief. How could we consider the future of our community as it goes through change without serious disagreement? The real hard questions in our lives are always wrenching. But there was an anger beyond mourning on both sides of the divide. At its core those who voted to seek the merger were saying we want KS to continue as the holy place where our children have a dynamic community to learn and can enjoy the great experiences we had in our shul. That is threatened by the demographic and social realities of today. And at its core the majority who wanted to remain in this our place were saying it’s too much to give up now. We love this place for its beauty and the community that shares it and we have some time. We need time to figure out what is best. And if people were angry on both sides of this debate …. it truly demonstrates how much Kehilat Shalom meant to everyone who spoke. And we articulated the pain and frustration rooted in those two different stories and visions.
I know that anger because I felt it and could barely control my own emotions and words. It took everything I had to not lose it and if a handful of others could not stop themselves from articulating everything they thought and felt… I am not ready to condone or excuse things that have been said… but knowing how close I came to saying something similar… I do understand.
I’m not going to play Monday Morning Quarterback and analyze what we could have done differently. There are a number of things that I know now that I never had experience with before, but I hope I never have to go through something like these past months.
I do have a couple of regrets.
First, I’m sorry that my long-standing plans to stop being in the pulpit fulltime expedited the process for deciding our strategic direction. I wish we could have given the whole congregation more time to feel through and think through where we are and where we need to go… but the necessity of hiring my successor, to put together a Search team and do the Search process internally and then interviewing candidates has to begin soon after these holidays. And I am glad that we have this season of forgiveness and self-renewal to begin the process of healing.
Second, if I could change one thing: I would have informed the congregation sooner and more clearly of the challenge we were facing. We had written a couple of pieces over the past two years and if I could do it over we would have circulated them. It would have eased the shock sooner for many of us so that we could move through the pain to what we thought was best sooner.
Last, as is so often the case, I wish I personally had spent even more time on the communication to you, our members. More important than all the hard work figuring out what we would look like merging or staying and all the papers that were written … was to listen and let everyone know they were heard. We knew the story we were telling was going to be a shock, we knew there would be grief and anger. We set up meetings to enable those feelings to be heard… We needed many more small meetings where everyone could painfully but calmly, sort through the information and the real choices. If I had to do it over again, I would personally have done more of those kinds of meetings. //
One of my favorite movies about community is “Remember the Titans.” In 1971 in Alexandria, Virginia, at the desegregated T. C. Williams High School, an African American head coach is hired to lead the school's football team. Coach Boone takes the coaching position from current white, head coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton), The new coach, Herman Boone (portrayed by Denzel Washington), is black, and his team is a mixture of black players and white players. The struggles that arise from the racial diversity are profound. / The black and white athletes of the football team frequently clash in racially motivated conflicts at their football camp, including those between captain Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris). However, after forceful coaxing and rigorous athletic training by Boone, the team achieves both racial harmony and triumph. Subsequently, the Titans go through the season undefeated while battling racial prejudice, before slowly gaining support from the community. / Ten years later, the coaches and athletes from the team reunite to attend Bertier's funeral, as Yost’s daughter, Sheryl reiterates the message of racial equality and community taught by the Titans.
In the movie a divided community was brought together to play football and in the course of time provided a partial pathway to the larger community to accept the cultural change of the 60s and 70s.
(at KN I’ll talk about the creative tasks)
Today – I want to spend a few minutes on the things, a few of the tasks for this year we need to do together … If we want a future as a community we will, like the TC Williams Football team, have to come together or we will not enjoy a future. They’re all biggies.
First we need to work together to refine and implement the ideas of the Stay Independent document. There are lots of great dreams of how to govern better, learn together better, reach inward and outward to our community better. When we come together and implement a few of these activities … we as a community can revitalize the relationships that are at the core of what Kehilat Shalom has and does stand for.
Second, as you know, CE21 has been working for three years to create a new model of learning for all ages and backgrounds. We did some low hanging fruit last year. We have plans for 5-6 fun and exciting activities this year. Sneak preview: expanding the “Around the Table” program last year where outside of the school, families do focused Jewish experiential learning together and this year we will not be limited to RS families. / In January we will share a Bracha University with Bnai Shalom of Olney, dozens of workshops by age or for families about experiencing and using blessings in our lives. / And a Shabbat “guests” program - families inviting other families and singles to their homes to share and learn the joys of Friday Night dinners. I will talk more about these plans at Kol Nidre and ask you to commit to joining us for at least one of these great experiences. Together we can build momentum to heal and reenergize Kehilat Shalom.
And crucially, we need to find my successor. First we need a committee to do the process. And that’s not just interviewing. We do need a conversation about what do we really want in my successor. No rabbi has everything (I certainly do not) although we’d all like to hire the Messiah. Do we want a great teacher of children or a great teacher of adults? Do we want a wonderful pastor or a fantastic preacher? Do want someone who will engage children, teens, adults – which one is the priority? When we do this rabbinical search process the right way, the new rabbi will have the opportunity to complete the healing which we begin today during this High Holiday Season.
If we can work together on these crucial tasks I think we may gain something equally important. Together, we will find our pathway first to healing and then to nurturing Kehilat Shalom for the coming years.
I remind you before I conclude that this process is not different in our personal lives. If you have not been conflicted, if you have not been angry with someone at work or home… it may be peaceful, but it’s probably the calm before a larger storm… because the changes of life create tensions and anxiety that stress even the best relationships. How do we cope with those stresses? – by working together to meet the challenges.
Sometimes, it may require a long time for this transformation, with set-backs, ups and downs, but it’s ok as long as we have faith in our inner strength to persevere. My colleague, Rabbi Naomi Levy, witnessed at the age of fifteen her father murdered before her; she endured a heart afflicted with bitter pain. She concludes her first book, “To Begin Again,” with the following words:
“In the years since my father’s death, I have learned to trust, to hope, and to laugh again. After my first marriage, I somehow learned to open my eyes, my heart, and my arms again. Throughout our lives we will, we should, feel the pain of our losses, the scars still present even after much time has passed. But we will also feel the strength of our spirit, the ability to persevere in the face of pain. The power to dream despite the many nightmares of existence. The stamina to push forward into the future carrying our past with us all the while. This is the power of God within us. This is our hope, our salvation. This is how we begin again. (p. 267)
Earlier today we read from the Torah about the birth of Yitzhak. Our ancestor, Avraham, now heads a seemingly happy family: a son from his beloved Sara and the older son, Yishmael, born to Haggar. For Avraham, life must be good. However, just three years later, the Torah relates that Sara sees the son of Hagar at play, and the exact nature of what Yishmael was doing is left undefined, but Sara’s reaction is visceral. She says to Avraham: GA`RESH HA`AH`MA HA`ZOT V`ET B`NAH – CAST OUT THAT SLAVEWOMAN AND HER SON! (Gen. 21:9).
We are left to ponder, what, caused this seemingly idyllic family picture to be torn apart by such hatred, such enmity? Where does such hatred come from to change a person from being part of the family to being an enemy of the family? And, how long can it last?
Someone asked me not long ago if I have enemies. The question caught me by surprise; I couldn’t think of anyone who fits that horrible category and responded: “I don’t think so, but I’m sure there must be some people who don’t like me.” I’ll ask all of you the same question: do you have enemies? Think about it, is there someone you really dislike, just can’t stand, whom you consider to be your sworn enemy? Or, is there someone whom you know that really dislikes you?
A true story: “Thirty-seven years ago, in the Vietnam War, Dan Cherry was piloting an American F-4 Phantom fighter plane --- and actual cockpit voice recordings tell what Dan heard on his radio. "There's a MiG… Go get 'em, Dan..." And Dan did go get 'em. Life and death … an enemy.
Dan saw the MiG go down in flames and the pilot ejecting and his parachute opening. Decades later, he would think back and wonder...(about) the fate of the MiG pilot…(did) he … survive … was he OK… did he have a family?... But Dan did more than wonder. / He did some research and learned that the pilot …had survived.
(Dan then arranged for the two former enemies to meet, and) … after all those years, … the two had a very firm handshake (and each said)… I hope that we can be friends...'" (Dan was invited to his former enemy’s home), where he met the family and got to hold his little grandson. Cherry said, "And I held him in my arms. It was a special thing and I thought to myself, 'How quickly has trust developed between the two of us...'" …Imagine... "To be able to actually meet the guy I fought a life-and-death duel with --- to be able to put all that behind us --- it was the right thing to do..." Thirty-seven years --- maybe time does heal old wounds."
I heard this story on WCBS radio, it is from the segment The Osgood File; it is an amazing story of reconciliation. But, it is a rarity. Reconciliation is hard to achieve and the consequences of enmity, of harboring hatred can be so severe.
We have been through a gut-wrenching year at Kehilat Shalom. From my perspective it began with the illness and death of Larry Froehlich. We’ve coped with that sad loss, but our community was diminished. A little more than a year ago, the leadership of the synagogue made the commitment of time and serious money to implement truly cutting-edge publicity in the larger community for enrollment in our ECC [40,000 professional looking post cards] and the failure of that PR … was a devastating moment of realization, that change was absolutely necessary for the wellbeing of Kehilat Shalom. Kehilat Shalom has changed because the world around us changed.
We as a community have done a lot of thinking starting around the first of the year about the direction for our sacred community. We have all mourned, verbalized pain and anger and tried to understand and figure out the best way to continue our camaraderie and this place that binds us together and to God.
It has been an excruciating debate for everyone who participated in our reflections and arguments throughout the summer. I knew there would be pain and grief. How could we consider the future of our community as it goes through change without serious disagreement? The real hard questions in our lives are always wrenching. But there was an anger beyond mourning on both sides of the divide. At its core those who voted to seek the merger were saying we want KS to continue as the holy place where our children have a dynamic community to learn and can enjoy the great experiences we had in our shul. That is threatened by the demographic and social realities of today. And at its core the majority who wanted to remain in this our place were saying it’s too much to give up now. We love this place for its beauty and the community that shares it and we have some time. We need time to figure out what is best. And if people were angry on both sides of this debate …. it truly demonstrates how much Kehilat Shalom meant to everyone who spoke. And we articulated the pain and frustration rooted in those two different stories and visions.
I know that anger because I felt it and could barely control my own emotions and words. It took everything I had to not lose it and if a handful of others could not stop themselves from articulating everything they thought and felt… I am not ready to condone or excuse things that have been said… but knowing how close I came to saying something similar… I do understand.
I’m not going to play Monday Morning Quarterback and analyze what we could have done differently. There are a number of things that I know now that I never had experience with before, but I hope I never have to go through something like these past months.
I do have a couple of regrets.
First, I’m sorry that my long-standing plans to stop being in the pulpit fulltime expedited the process for deciding our strategic direction. I wish we could have given the whole congregation more time to feel through and think through where we are and where we need to go… but the necessity of hiring my successor, to put together a Search team and do the Search process internally and then interviewing candidates has to begin soon after these holidays. And I am glad that we have this season of forgiveness and self-renewal to begin the process of healing.
Second, if I could change one thing: I would have informed the congregation sooner and more clearly of the challenge we were facing. We had written a couple of pieces over the past two years and if I could do it over we would have circulated them. It would have eased the shock sooner for many of us so that we could move through the pain to what we thought was best sooner.
Last, as is so often the case, I wish I personally had spent even more time on the communication to you, our members. More important than all the hard work figuring out what we would look like merging or staying and all the papers that were written … was to listen and let everyone know they were heard. We knew the story we were telling was going to be a shock, we knew there would be grief and anger. We set up meetings to enable those feelings to be heard… We needed many more small meetings where everyone could painfully but calmly, sort through the information and the real choices. If I had to do it over again, I would personally have done more of those kinds of meetings. //
One of my favorite movies about community is “Remember the Titans.” In 1971 in Alexandria, Virginia, at the desegregated T. C. Williams High School, an African American head coach is hired to lead the school's football team. Coach Boone takes the coaching position from current white, head coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton), The new coach, Herman Boone (portrayed by Denzel Washington), is black, and his team is a mixture of black players and white players. The struggles that arise from the racial diversity are profound. / The black and white athletes of the football team frequently clash in racially motivated conflicts at their football camp, including those between captain Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris). However, after forceful coaxing and rigorous athletic training by Boone, the team achieves both racial harmony and triumph. Subsequently, the Titans go through the season undefeated while battling racial prejudice, before slowly gaining support from the community. / Ten years later, the coaches and athletes from the team reunite to attend Bertier's funeral, as Yost’s daughter, Sheryl reiterates the message of racial equality and community taught by the Titans.
In the movie a divided community was brought together to play football and in the course of time provided a partial pathway to the larger community to accept the cultural change of the 60s and 70s.
(at KN I’ll talk about the creative tasks)
Today – I want to spend a few minutes on the things, a few of the tasks for this year we need to do together … If we want a future as a community we will, like the TC Williams Football team, have to come together or we will not enjoy a future. They’re all biggies.
First we need to work together to refine and implement the ideas of the Stay Independent document. There are lots of great dreams of how to govern better, learn together better, reach inward and outward to our community better. When we come together and implement a few of these activities … we as a community can revitalize the relationships that are at the core of what Kehilat Shalom has and does stand for.
Second, as you know, CE21 has been working for three years to create a new model of learning for all ages and backgrounds. We did some low hanging fruit last year. We have plans for 5-6 fun and exciting activities this year. Sneak preview: expanding the “Around the Table” program last year where outside of the school, families do focused Jewish experiential learning together and this year we will not be limited to RS families. / In January we will share a Bracha University with Bnai Shalom of Olney, dozens of workshops by age or for families about experiencing and using blessings in our lives. / And a Shabbat “guests” program - families inviting other families and singles to their homes to share and learn the joys of Friday Night dinners. I will talk more about these plans at Kol Nidre and ask you to commit to joining us for at least one of these great experiences. Together we can build momentum to heal and reenergize Kehilat Shalom.
And crucially, we need to find my successor. First we need a committee to do the process. And that’s not just interviewing. We do need a conversation about what do we really want in my successor. No rabbi has everything (I certainly do not) although we’d all like to hire the Messiah. Do we want a great teacher of children or a great teacher of adults? Do we want a wonderful pastor or a fantastic preacher? Do want someone who will engage children, teens, adults – which one is the priority? When we do this rabbinical search process the right way, the new rabbi will have the opportunity to complete the healing which we begin today during this High Holiday Season.
If we can work together on these crucial tasks I think we may gain something equally important. Together, we will find our pathway first to healing and then to nurturing Kehilat Shalom for the coming years.
I remind you before I conclude that this process is not different in our personal lives. If you have not been conflicted, if you have not been angry with someone at work or home… it may be peaceful, but it’s probably the calm before a larger storm… because the changes of life create tensions and anxiety that stress even the best relationships. How do we cope with those stresses? – by working together to meet the challenges.
Sometimes, it may require a long time for this transformation, with set-backs, ups and downs, but it’s ok as long as we have faith in our inner strength to persevere. My colleague, Rabbi Naomi Levy, witnessed at the age of fifteen her father murdered before her; she endured a heart afflicted with bitter pain. She concludes her first book, “To Begin Again,” with the following words:
“In the years since my father’s death, I have learned to trust, to hope, and to laugh again. After my first marriage, I somehow learned to open my eyes, my heart, and my arms again. Throughout our lives we will, we should, feel the pain of our losses, the scars still present even after much time has passed. But we will also feel the strength of our spirit, the ability to persevere in the face of pain. The power to dream despite the many nightmares of existence. The stamina to push forward into the future carrying our past with us all the while. This is the power of God within us. This is our hope, our salvation. This is how we begin again. (p. 267)
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