 |
|
|
|
|
SERMON BY RABBI michael berk
delivered on rosh hashanah evening
september 12, 2007
The Safest Place to Be
What an honor it is for me to stand before you today on the High Holy Day pulpit of CBI, the historic, flagship Reform congregation of San Diego.
She'hechyiyanu ve-kimanu ve-higianu – God is good to us, and I thank God for the leaders and members of CBI who bring honor to God's name through the worship, study, and celebration that happen at this House of Israel.
On my first Shabbat as your rabbi, I was teaching Torah early in the morning, when something happened that took me by surprise. I returned to the congregational rabbinate after serving the Reform Movement as a regional director for the Union for Reform Judaism because I missed being people's rabbi. When someone asked me a question that Shabbat morning in July, as I began to answer I got choked up. I was overcome by the joy of teaching Torah in a congregation to people who called me their rabbi. I thank God every day I go to the temple now.
I love being a rabbi. In my career, as a congregational rabbi and as a regional director for the Union for Reform Judaism, I have learned a lot about synagogues. I've also come to understand what make for a great synagogue, one that is open and welcoming, welcoming, compelling and attractive to its members.
And above all I have learned how precious synagogues are. The temple is the place you call when a child is born and you want to name her and bring her into the Jewish covenant. The temple is the place you call when you are looking for a rabbi to be with you at a love one's funeral. The temple is the place you go to when your children are ready to learn about their people. The temple is the place you go to when you need to pray.
go to top
You can go to a fine college, you can go to law school, or business school, or to medical school, but the temple is the best place I know of to ask the question, What is life all about? And you can be an educated person, a fine attorney, an able engineer, a clever businesswoman, a devoted physician, a great teacher, a doting parent, but you still have to look into your heart every once in a while and ask, "What am I? Who am I? Am I good? Does my life matter?"
The synagogue is the best place I know, the healthiest place I know, the safest place I know, to seek answers to life's biggest, most important questions. It's the safest place I know to talk about hopes and dreams, since the synagogue deals in hopes and dreams. It's the safest place I know to be tender, sensitive and caring; it's probably the only place outside their home and a dimly lit theater where you'll see some people cry.
Our rabbis say that words that come from the heart go into the heart. I hope mine do right now. CBI is my life; the subject of my dreams. And today I want to share my dream with you and ask you to help me.
What really is a synagogue? It is a close, intimate community. A temple should be a place where no person goes unacknowledged or unappreciated. Everyone should be given their due dignity; everyone should be treated as though they matter because, of course, we know they do. We, who gave the world the idea of "betzelem elohim" – humanity created in the image of God, we know the intrinsic worth of every human life.
One of my favorite jokes is about the High Holydays. During the Yom Kippur service, the Rabbi went before the ark, fell on his knees, and prostrated before God proclaimed: "O God, I am nobody." Then the cantor took her turn and before the ark proclaimed, "O God, I am nobody." Then the president of the temple, moved by this display of humility and piety, prostrates before the ark and says, "O God, I am nobody." The rabbi looked at the cantor and said: "Hmph! Look who thinks he's nobody."
go to top
Friends, the truth is: only God has a right to be a no-body. Everyone else has a body and a mind and a soul. Each of us deserves and needs recognition and acknowledgement. The synagogue is the only place I know that appreciates every single human being as precious, simply because of his or her humanity. The temple is the only place I know that everyone is a somebody.
And now let me talk more about children. Do I have to mention the scarcity of decent, caring, and safe places for children? In our Torah reading for this new year observance we read the frightening and chilling story of Isaac's near sacrifice. Maybe the message of that disturbing story is simply this: that the institution of which Abraham and Sarah are the spiritual parents, the synagogue, is a place where you child will NEVER be sacrificed. It is rather a place where your children are held in the highest regard, because we know they represent the image of God in the world. The synagogue is one place where you children are safe; it's the one place where they are cherished as highly as they are in your homes. Your children represent your individual immortality. In the synagogue they represent the immortality of the Jewish people.
What is a synagogue? At its best it is like the tent of Abraham and Sarah, the spiritual mentors of our people. The rabbis teach us that to make it easier for them to spot travelers, their tent was open in all four directions. That way, they wouldn't have to wait for someone to approach them; as soon as they spotted anyone coming towards their tent, they would run out to greet and welcome them.
Astonishingly, the Talmud teaches us that it is more important to be hospitable to strangers than it is to welcome God into your heart.
go to top
But I know what some of you are thinking right now. That doesn't sound like our tent. I've painted a rosy picture, and let's be honest: CBI has experienced enormous disappointments over the years. Despite the successes of the synagogue, including the engaging and wide-ranging programs (for which, by the way, we just found out that we are receiving the Reform Movement's "Congregation of Learners Award" for our outstanding array of adult Jewish programming), despite our stunning campus, and despite devoted and hard working clergy and staff, there is a hole in the heart of the congregation. The rabbinic transitions have caused deep and painful wounds, creating an environment of cynicism, distrust, apathy. Some dear members have left us. Many of you have lost faith; some of you have assumed a "wait and see" posture.
All this weighs heavily on me. I do not want to go more into our challenges and failures, though they should be considered in our evaluation of our synagogue. Right now, I want to go deeper than programs and politics. I want to speak about your life and your relationship to CBI.
I've only been your rabbi for two months, but I know that there are people in this room who are fighting cancer. There are people in this room whose marriages have ended, or are in deep trouble. There are people here today whose children are on self destruct, or whose selfishness is appalling. There are lonely people in this room. There are confused people. We are, to borrow the phrase of Erving Goffman, the walking wounded. On the surface, we Americans are the fattest, happiest, and sassiest group of people ever to walk the planet. But when you penetrate the surface, as I am forced to do in my work, you discover another reality.
Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar me-ode: the whole world is a very narrow bridge, ve ha-ikar, the key thing is, lo le-fa-chaeid, the key is not to be afraid.
go to top
How do we keep our balance in a world where thirty year olds get cancer and children are selfish and adults are so disappointing? How do I wake up in the morning and feel grateful for my life and tuned in to the miracle of yet another day? How can I be appreciative? How can I know that life is a narrow bridge, when everything in my culture and around me tells me life is a beach?
This is where CBI comes in and why we need to heal our beloved congregation. CBI is a place where we face life for what it really is; where we stare at the universe eyeball to eyeball; where we dare to speak to God about it all. CBI is the place where, in the face of the horrors and terrors and pains of life, we can come together to sing songs, to pray, to comfort each other, to sit in silence together, and to tell stories.
In "Death of a Salesman," when Willie Loman's wife sees that her husband has reached the end of his rope, she cries out, "This is a human being! Attention must be paid!"
Attention must be paid. Right here, right now, CBI is where we pay attention. CBI must be a place that pays attentions. Life is hard. The whole world is a very narrow bridge. The key is not to fear; to rebuild faith and trust. Then you will be able to make room in your life for warm and welcoming community. To make room in your life to help create that community. To open your heart and mind to your new rabbi who is here for you and will be for a long time to come. Don't be afraid; we have each other. We have 4,000 years of wisdom and wit and ceremonies and songs and stories. We are the eternal people. God gave us resilience. We know about survival. One of the things we know is that we need a place to be together. We need Torah. We need teachers and we need students. We need a place to sing and to dance and to celebrate and to mourn and to plan. We need CBI!
go to top
There is so much for us to do, but healing the pain, rebuilding the lost faith, restoring lost trust is paramount. Each of us needs CBI for our own healing; the world needs CBI so badly for its own healing. We must find the courage, the strength, and the faith, to move forward. I know it's not going to be easy. The wounds are that deep. I often see it in the skeptical look I receive from people who are uncertain if I will be their rabbi in three years.
This is Rosh Hashanah. This is the beginning. On this day the world was created and on this day we can create new worlds, new realities. It is to Rosh Hashanah that Jews have returned for 3,000 years in order to generate hope, to conceive new worlds.
When the Jews were exiled to Babylon, there was unprecedented despair. "By the Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion." (Psalm 137)
The prophet Jeremiah wrote these broken Jews and told them to build homes, to arrange weddings for their sons and daughters, to live and celebrate life. As Elie Wiesel, an authority on hope, describes it, Jeremiah called on this mass of mourners not to resign, not to give in to despair, not to accept the enemy's victory as definitive or just. But to transform waiting in to dreams, suffering into prayer. "Celebrate life even if it seems somber; wager on the future even if it beckons you from the other side of darkness."
go to top
Today I stand before you and ask you to trust me, to help me, to create new worlds with me. Let us build creatively, so CBI continues to earn its status as the Reform flagship congregation of Greater, San Diego; let us arrange weddings and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and celebrate life together. Let us not resign and give in; let us not despair; let us not allow history to determine our future.
This is Rosh Hashanah. This is the place and this is the time to begin a new chapter in the unfolding story of CBI. Look around you right now. Is this not sweet? This coming together of people to share song and story and words. This is what CBI is all about: this people Israel who refuse to give in. This people of the House of Israel who will never surrender to despair. We will survive. We, the children of hope, who have inherited this holy congregation from generations of devoted members who came before us, we will rebuild and move to even greater heights.
According to rabbinic legend, Rabbi Joshua once traveled to Rome. In that great place, Rabbi Joshua walked amid the breathtaking splendor of the world's most important city. But at night, he saw something else. He saw unclothed, cold, homeless men and women roaming the streets of the wealthiest city on earth. He saw a society which allowed people to starve to death in its cold, stone streets; streets adorned with statues which were carefully draped in cloth at night to prevent erosion from the weather.
My friends, we need CBI. Our society, our Rome, will take very good care of your things. CBI will care for your soul. Our society, like Rome's, values things above people. CBI cares little about your material possessions. The Temple cares about your life, the life of your spirit. CBI will not drape your material things in protective cloth. But, come in off the cold streets, and let CBI cloak you in warmth and love.
Ken Yehi Ratzon. May this be God's will.
go to top
|
|
|
|
