A cure for the Ills of Society - Yom Kippur 2007-5768

Have I got a deal for you.  Get “more” for less… in fact, it doesn’t have to cost you a dime.  It will be available for you whenever you want it.  It will be maintained for you.  Not a thing will be asked of you. 

            Could this be the “real thing” or is there actually a catch?  Yet this is the claim I hear… down the road at Agudas Achim…. across the river where “Chabad” has come to Rhinebeck.  Something for nothing?  Too good to be true?  How and why might they be offering this?  What is in it for you?  What do you have to gain?  What do you have to lose?

            We stand at a precarious crossroads in our modern society.  Of course we know that we are Jewish.  Being Jewish is a very real part of our identity, even when we are hard pressed to understand why.  But at the same time, being Jewish is not necessarily something we “live by” or even a primary way that we “define ourselves” in the world.  Rather our Judaism is some amorphous aspect of our identity that is made up of guilt, habit and comfort…or discomfort. 

On the one hand, there is a liberating aspect of our “laissez faire” Judaism, for the most part, we feel that we are no longer “limited” by race or religion.  We feel that we have become, people of the world.  There are very few if any constraints on where or with whom we live, what we wear, what we eat, with whom or where we go.   

In fact we go everywhere, we travel to Ireland, Turkey, Egypt, Rome.  We participate in Budhist retreats, Native American Drumming & Sweat Lodges.  We make a habit of country clubs, yoga classes & our gyms.  We frequent elite restaurants and are graduates of Ivy League Universities that once denied us access because we were Jewish.  We are regulars, everywhere, with the exception of our Synagogue. 

We Jews are not alone.  Participation in Houses of Worship for people of every faith… Catholic, Protestant, Methodist… has declined, throughout America and throughout the World.  Fewer and fewer Jews of every affiliation: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox…  attend Synagogue on a regular basis.  And yet this decline in affiliation or participation in Houses of Worship is accompanied by an inverse phenomena, a surge of “fundamentalism” as it pertains to the doctrines and beliefs of Religions.  Fundamentalism or negligent detachment…. This is what we are facing today.

Why isn’t our Judaism central in our lives, beyond some amorphous and contradictory nostalgia?  We have rejected our Judaism because it wasn’t spiritual enough.  We have rejected our Judaism because it was too spiritual.  We have rejected our Judaism because it wasn’t intellectual enough, we have rejected our Judaism because it was too intellectual.  We have rejected our Judaism because of “the way it was”.  We have rejected our Judaism because it is no longer “the way it was”. 

I frequently use the following metaphor to try to help you understand the challenge of Reform Judaism in Israel, the “ordinary” Israeli says to the Reform Rabbi:  “The Synagogue that I refuse to go to….. better be Orthodox”.  Perhaps we need to adapt this metaphor to try to help us understand ourselves, the “ordinary” American Reform Jew who feels:  “Ultimately, whatever is offered in my Synagogue can’t be what I’m looking for on a deep level, because… it is being offered in my Synagogue”. 

Is there something about our home that is incongruous with the rest of the world we wish to live in?  What really does make us happy?  What are we striving for?

Our objectives include the desire to thrive in personal, political, physical, spiritual and intellectual realms.  We want to experience the satisfaction of providing for our families, being successful and accomplished in our careers, maintaining and sharing joys and celebrations with our friends and always deepening and actualizing our understandings of self.  For many we pursue physical, emotional and intellectual challenges that we believe will give our lives meaning. 

Yet notwithstanding our efforts, we repeatedly find ourselves coming up empty.  We build around ourselves towers of activity, energy, commitments and still carry a gnawing awareness that something is missing.

This is part of the human situation that returns us to Religion. 

When we think of religion, the fundamentalism that we reject still carries an alluring attraction, a pretense of authenticity, the real thing.  Why as our world becomes more and more sophisticated, more and more “open” do we find so many turning to fundamentalism?  A fundamental approach to religion provides easy answers, right and wrong, black and white.  It is the phenomena of the American tourist in Israel who visits the ultra Orthodox quarter in the old city or in Meah Shearim and sighs with satisfaction… imagining that this is “the real thing”.  It is the part of you, who sends money to Ultra Orthodox Institutions but doesn’t see the need to contribute generously to your own Community.  We are pros at being enamored by that which we are not.  Yet this is ultimately an abdication of responsibility.  Chabad entices us with the misnomer that it is “easy”, do one mitzvah, take one little step.  But there is an implicit oxymoron that you, are not required to do that, which by definition they MUST DO to be part of their Community.  The other, that magical community is ultimately that which we are not and that which we would never agree to become… because it is too foreign, too difficult, to Jewish, because ultimately to be part of that community they would demand strict observance to their view of what is religion and relinquish our image of ourselves as people of the world.

We say we are not religious, or we are religious but in our own ways.  We don’t participate in Synagogue observance, but still feel the need to be here today on Yom Kippur.  But after Yom Kippur?  We will once again acknowledge that none of this satisfies us completely.  How do we break this cycle?

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama addresses his encounter with this very conundrum.  Obama is one of us.  He is a man of the world, who doesn’t experience himself limited by race or religion.  Replace Jewish for African American.  As a minority running for the Presidency of the United States he hopes to be elected to a position for which an African American has never held office.  As a student at Harvard once refusing to admit people of color, he was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review.  He is a product of a mixed marriage.  A man of deep faith, he attributes the fabric of his moral, ethical and spiritual upbringing to his mother whom he reverently describes as a true “citizen of the world” a woman who dabbled in cultures, thrived on diversity, was open to spirituality as it came in every direction, color and flavor.  Obama describes her as “the most spiritually awakened person that [he] had ever known”… “she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature that could properly be described as devotional.”  She had what he described as “a fundamental faith-in the goodness of people and in the ultimate value of this brief life we’ve each been given”.  Carrying these lessons as central to his being, wanting to live his life according to these values… yet Obama, with all his success, encountered the empty void.  He articulates this void (something that he believes his mother never resolved) as being an individual who is grounded by his deepest held beliefs without a particular “community of faith” with which to share them.  Addressing the void, Obama chose to become an active participatory committed member of an Urban Liberal Activist Church.  Ultimately, there is no religion without community.        

In a few moments we will read together the High Holiday Torah teaching from Deuteronomy:  “You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God…”  This is plural, not singular.  How do we create a connection with God, a sacred connection that will address the void that we experience?  Deuteronomy guides us: “For this commandment” to be in a relationship with God, “which I command you this day is not too hard for you, nor too remote…. It is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart…. And you can do it.”

This morning’s Torah portion presents the challenge and the solution.  Each one of us has to do it “men, women and children” but there is no “doing it alone”.  Religion isn’t a solitary affair, it takes a village, it takes the willingness to be vested in the village, committed to the “vessel”, vested in the Community.  It is time to stop being a “visitor” to your own Community.  There is no getting more for less.    

Judaism has always been about what we do.  How we live in the world and in our own community.  In order to thrive in that community we must be willing to push beyond our comfort zones.  We must begin to practice our religion not for someone else, our parents, our children, our spouses, but for ourselves.

Deep faith, cannot be imposed upon an individual nor can the individual impose one’s faith on another.  Yet we can and must begin to use our liberal faith, in making decisions that we live by.  It is the intentional choice to orient ourselves with a religious voice, practice and decisions. 

The true definition of being religious is to embrace our liberal faith by being part of a faith Community that is vested in the modern world.  Community is that through which we ground ourselves, share and act on our most deeply held beliefs.  One cannot be an observer of a Community or a sometime visitor, but must be transformed as part of the Community.  Religion is not experienced vicariously.  There are no real deals… the surprise is, you need to be present.  The more you are willing to bring the more you will inevitably receive.  It is not difficult, it is not above you.  Your Judaism that we are advocating for is “very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart….And you can do it.”  Bruchim Ha-chozrim…Welcome Back.