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high holy day sermons 2023 | 5784

rosh hashanah sermons 2023 | 5784

Rosh HaShanah: Unsettled: The Gloriously Complex and Compelling Reality of Being Jewish
I have never presented one, expansive Rosh HaShanah sermon in sections over the course of the entire holiday. This year, as I thought about and prepped for the High Holy Days, I found myself returning to and expanding on the same theme. I decided to pay attention to my heart and my head.
 
You can read the entire piece below, or by clicking here, or further down the page you may read or listen to and reflect on each one of the three sermons separately.
 

Unsettled: the gloriously complex and compelling reality of being jewish

Rosh HaShanah 2023 | 5784
 
-I-
It’s been quite a year since we were last here. How have you been? I’ve been well, thanks for asking. Looking back, like me, I hope you have much to appreciate, little to regret, and some good moods and moments to carry with you into this New Year. I trust you and I also have some mishaps and memories to leave behind in the annals of last year.
 
If your retrospective on last year is more negative than positive, I wish you renewal and rejuvenation in the unlived and undefined days ahead of us. Use these sacred days to plan changes where you can, imagine responses to circumstances as you must, and live the best you are able by pushing yourself to manage with everything else.
 
Jewish tradition offers a daily b’rakhah, a blessing to recite each morning acknowledging any unsettled feelings we may hold. Barukh Atah Adonai, Blessed are You, Eternal God, Eloheinu Melekh haOlam, Sovereign of existence, haNoten la’ya-ef koah, giving strength to the weary.
 
These words were added to the list of blessings we recite each day as support and encouragement to those feeling unsettled and overwhelmed by the events and circumstances of their lives. We’re all weary at one time or another. Yet, through determination, and with the support of others, for through our caring comes God’s caring, we can all be strong of spirit, of purpose, and of vision as we meet the opportunities and challenges of each new day, of this New Year.
 
Unsettled. Was there ever a time in the past when folks didn’t live in a world unsettled by conflict or change? Bothered by disagreement or discord? Overwhelmed or stymied by the too fast or too slow pace of progress? Striving to hold on to the familiar or personally yearning for respect and acceptance?
 
No. Apart from our individual sense of being content or discontent in life, in every era of human history, there were reasons for people to feel uneasy about their larger world. Were the ancient Israelites calm and steady as they wandered through the wilderness to a new and unknown land? In our history of exile, conquest, persecution, or acculturation, our ancestors rarely lived at ease as they evolved new forms of Judaism and Jewish identity in foreign lands.
 
It may just be that a Torah based religious tradition, what we know as Judaism, first fully emerged in response to the larger world, to the religious-cultural expression of ancient Greece, Hellenism. Think Maccabees and their zeal for Torah among the Jews of their day that we recount on Hanukkah.
 
That would mean that for almost 2200 years, we Jews have actively and creatively interacted with the larger world. Our mandate is not to withdraw unto ourselves, but to know who we are and give of ourselves.
 
In the larger sweeps of human history from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age, through World Wars and revolutions, reacting to the printing press, the renaissance, and the enlightenment, people have always felt anxious.
 
Our time is one in which we must keep up with the dynamics of information, technology, gender identity, climate concerns, social schisms, political polarization, and the development of artificial intelligence. We feel, as people always have, a mix of wonder, curiosity, and apprehension.
 
Being unsettled is also part of Jewish identity. The Book of Proverbs teaches us to transform our uneasy feelings into joy. To be constructive and productive with our worry. Commenting, the Talmud teaches to live a dynamic and focused life, join with others to counter the stresses and challenges before you.
 
Ben Sira, a second century Hellenistic Jewish scribe and sage wisely cautions us. Deal with today. “Do not suffer from tomorrow’s trouble, as you do not know what a day will bring.” In response, one kabbalist master proclaims, when feeling unsettled “be content in your portion, trust in your God, and do good things.” I can go on and on. We Jews are good at worrying, wondering, and overthinking things through.
 
This sacred season I will explore some of what unsettles us. We begin a year of deliberation and understanding, as 5784 symbolizes in its Hebrew letters. Tehi Sh’nat Iyun va’Da’at.
 
To be unsettled is to be alive. Aware of the world. Engaged in life. Caring. Worrying. Hoping. Believing. Doubting. Arguing. Asking. Helping. Participating. Learning. Changing. Living.
 
-II-
In at least one aspect of our lives, however, I sense we share in a different and collective feeling of being unsettled. We live at a time when being Jewish occasionally overwhelms or confuses many of us.
 
Consider the antisemitic gestures and demonstrations that are much too frequent and all too real. Remember, as we have reminded ourselves repeatedly for the last few years, we respond to others’ ignorant and hideous hatred for us from a posture of confidence, conviction, and pride.
 
We are not Jewish because they hate us. We are Jewish because we love the values and ideals of our people’s historic and enduring heritage. Our best response to antisemitism is “prosemitism.” We need to identify as Jews publicly and proudly.
 
Reflect on the recent and ongoing unrest among the Jews of Israel. It is hard to watch and complicated to explain. We misunderstand the debate and protests taking place in Israel if we think they are only about judicial reform and coalition politics. Take note of the unresolved and insufficiently addressed unrest between Israelis and Palestinians, too.
 
Israeli Jews are in the midst of a serious conversation about the character and quality of who they are as Jews. How to govern their society in which different lived Jewish identities merge.
 
Well beyond the borders of the state, and very much within the boundaries of Diaspora Jewish identity, we grapple with these very same questions. The degree to which religion is important. The degree to which secular society is important. The degree to which they complement or challenge one another.
 
-III-
Let me pose this question with which to begin the New Year. Why is Jewish identity so complicated? Like all good rabbis today, I asked an expert to help me answer this question. Here’s what Chat GPT told me.
 
“Being Jewish can be perceived as complicated for a variety of reasons, and it's essential to recognize that individual experiences and perspectives may differ. Some of the factors that contribute to the complexity include a rich history of religious and cultural diversity, historic persecution, assimilation, the legacy of the Holocaust, and many modern challenges.”
 
A couple of years ago, I told you of my desire to visit the Museum of the Jewish People, ANU, in Tel Aviv. This past May, along with everyone traveling on the San Diego Community Mission to Israel, I did visit the museum.
 
The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv offers another explanation for “the incredible diversity of expressions of Jewish identity and culture.”
 
“In this day and age,” the introductory exhibition explains, “there are many and diverse ways to be Jewish and belong to the Jewish people, a collective memory, a bond with Israel, a connection with the Jewish religion, knowing and using Hebrew and Jewish languages, an affinity with Jewish culture, a kinship with other Jews and any Jewish group, ties with family and origins…each of these ways, separately and combined constitutes a foundation for the multifaceted identity of Jews as individuals and as a group in modern times.”
 
Why is Jewish identity so complicated? Here's what artificial and most other definitions miss. We Jews are not defined by the perceptions and proclivities of others. We are not a race, superior, inferior, or anything else. We are a people. Unique in the world.
 
It is complicated because we Jews are a microcosm of all of humanity’s categories: race, nationality, ethnicity, and individual identity. Our bond is in a shared collective myth of common origins and history, of common values and culture, of challenges and relationships, and a common destiny. We have our own language, mores, customs, homeland, and Diaspora. As members of a people, we care about each other's welfare and well-being.
 
This real Jewish identity doesn’t conform to the categories people most commonly use to define themselves or others they know. We all know proud Jews who are not religious, disconnected and non-identifying Jews, and practicing Jews by Choice with no biological Jewish families.
 
More than what any one of us, or all of us believe, Jews are a group bound by covenants of history and fate, collective memories and eternal, sacred ideals. We know others don’t fully understand this about us. Through the ages, they never have. Honestly, neither we have.
 
-IV-
The story is told about a rabbi who was once so intent on his studies that he failed to hear the cry of his baby son. The rabbi’s father heard the baby’s cry, went down, and took the baby in his arms until he went to sleep again. Then he went to speak with his son, still focused on his books, and said, “My son, I do not know what you are studying, but it is not Torah if you read it so closely that it makes you unable to hear the cry of a child.”
 
We misrepresent the Jewish religious tradition when we read our sacred texts so closely, so literally, that we miss the larger moral message at the heart of Torah. All human beings represent the image of God and are to be treated with dignity. All of us are expected to behave ethically. Shema Yisrael! We call it Ethical Monotheism.
 
Torah study and interpretation must be intellectually rooted in sacred history. It must also reflect conscience and common sense. Reasoned and religious understandings of Jewish tradition, in every era, honor both a previous past and a contemporary present.
 
To be a religious Jew is to embrace the fullness of human life. To remember and to hear the cries of the afflicted and the affected, and to find inspiration in the goodness and caring we seek and strive to sustain. To live the imperatives of Torah with kindness and humility.
 
Humility is the official Jewish character trait. Torah tells us “Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.” Moses, the one person whom Torah describes as speaking to God face to face did not grow haughty or arrogant. Moses is known for his humility.
 
We model this humility in our ritual practice when we cover our heads suggesting there is existence in life beyond each one of us. We learn from our Talmudic tradition. “When those with boastful hearts proliferated, dispute proliferated in Israel.”
 
As Jews we ought to strive to be unpretentious and respectful. Elu v’elu divrei Elohim hayim. Both these and those are the words of the living God is our tradition’s truth. It’s not a cliché. We are taught to follow the decisions of those who are genial and humble because Judaism does not claim to know God’s will. What we possess is our best current understanding of God’s will.
 
Religious authority is earned through respect, admiration, and shared experience. By moral vision and spiritual truth. Here’s a test you can use to evaluate the variety Jewish teachers all around when you encounter them.
 
Pay attention to the ideas and the attitudes reflected in what they teach. Ask about their messages. Are they intolerant, dismissive of those different than themselves? Are they arrogant, disrespectful of ideas and choices they disdain? Are they insensitive, seeking to impose their will on others as if that’s their role or their right?
 
Ponder the prevalent and sometimes problematic news stories we read about our people. Depictions of Jews we love, but whose world view we do not share. Extremist personalities in Israel and here in our Diaspora who either present Jewish particularism as chauvinism or universalism as Jewish purpose.
 
I want to be very careful in my descriptions of other Jews. I seek to be tolerant, humble, respectful, and sensitive. I believe everyone should live the life they choose for themselves. I don’t care if you’re secular or religious, or aligned with any of the many religious streams that comprise Jewish religiosity today.
 
We can be eclectic. We can be “reconservadox” Jews, picking and choosing as meaningful to each of us. I learn from the insights of a great diversity of Jewish voices past and present. I wish to honor the ideal of ahavat Yisrael, to love all Jews. Even those with whom I disagree. I don’t want to stereotype.
 
But. I’m not without an opinion and a preference. For example, I understand the felt success of a rejuvenated Haredi population among the Jewish people. A victory over Nazism we all ought to appreciate. I also understand projections that by 2040, one quarter of the entire Jewish people will be fundamentalist Jews. This unsettles me.
 
Is it possible that a full fourth of the children growing up to be the next generation of Jews will not be educated in math or science, language skills and history? Classical rabbinic tradition prizes a robust and worldly education along with Torah learning in order to produce productive, socially adept people.
 
While the essence of Judaism is ethical monotheism, we are not an essentially monolithic group. I embrace our dynamic diversity. I celebrate the gloriously complex and compelling reality of Jewish identity for everybody. Up to a point. We have to explain to our children and to the world our way of being Jewish. We must raise our voices and be heard.
 
If we don’t, if we are quiet and reserved, if we don’t actively teach how we think and read and interpret the sacred texts, if we don’t model and practice the moral, religious, and spiritual lessons of Judaism from a worldview that embraces tradition and modernity, then literalism or illiteracy will become the dominant demonstrations of Judaism in the world.
 
If this happens, most of us and our children will reject such a Judaism because our intellects and consciences will not abide fundamentalism. It fosters an ethnocentrism about the rest of the world we reject. Or, on the other secular extreme, we’ll be unmoved by a thin Judaism, empty of compelling purpose and relevant meaning.
 
-V-
I am grateful to all of you. Though Jewish communal trends may suggest otherwise, this is the right place for us to gather, to connect, and to converse with each other.
 
In a synagogue community, in a community devoted to God by caring about one another and the destiny of the Jewish people, in a community of Jews gathered to mark this sacred season in the annual cycle of Jewish living, this is where we best consider all we confront and take comfort in all we cherish. Not only here, but especially here, the ideas and ideals of Judaism inform our cares and frame our questions.
 
Now, I ask what you think. I make a simple request. Next, I’ll tell you why I’m asking and make a more challenging request.
 
At lunch or dinner today, or whenever you next can, ask, answer, and discuss these questions. What is Jewish identity to you? What are the ideas, practices, beliefs or tenets, memories and meanings you hold and hope to pass along? Think for and speak to yourself. Think with and speak to your children, your grandchildren, each other.
 
From ancient to modern times, we who are Jews seem to be central characters in the ongoing drama of human history. I believe all the positive and negative attention people focus on us is because what Jews do matters, and not only to us.
 
History is replete with perspectives. Some say Jews and Judaism are quintessential outsiders who by our very survival and creativity represent freedom and human dignity. Others suggest it is the originality of Judaism’s ethical monotheism that carries influence or calls attention.
 
I believe as Jews we represent that first memory and message of the Exodus for all of humanity. Judaism is a religious humanism which measures the fullness of human life and deeds by criteria of moral good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
 
-VI-
It is an imperative of Torah to Moses. “Speak,” God often tells Moses. “Daber el b’nei Yisrael. Speak to the Children of Israel.” Jewish tradition derives from this Divine command to Moses something about us all and our relationships with our people and our God. In words we must speak our minds. In prayers we must speak from our hearts.
 
On this day of thoughtful words and heartfelt prayers, it is also an imperative for me to speak to you, the Jewish community I serve from my heart and my head. As a rabbi, a teacher of Judaism and our Jewish heritage, I often ask myself. How do we learn to be Jewish and live Jewish lives?
 
For a moment, let me ask from the past. Were we taught by our parents and grandparents? Did they teach us from knowledge and a vision of who they hoped we’d become as Jews? Or did we learn from their good or bad experiences? Their biases and attitudes? Their suppositions and uncertainties? Their choices and modeling, for better or worse?
 
Now, let me ask about the future. Are we teaching our children and grandchildren how to be Jewish? Do we teach them from our knowledge and a vision of who we hope they’ll become as Jews? Or do they learn from our good or bad experiences? From our biases and attitudes? Our suppositions and uncertainties? From our choices and modeling, for better or worse?
 
Does the world teach us how to be Jewish? Do we figure out who we are in comparison or contrast to others? Do we learn through experience how people of different religious or cultural backgrounds react to and treat us? Are we conditioned through history, memories, sorrows, and joys?
 
Does the Jewish community teach us how to be Jewish? Students attend religious or day schools, summer camps, JCC programs, and the like. Mentors or teachers inspire. Jewish communities offer social groups, informal educational experiences, and travel to Israel for all ages. An alphabet soup of organizations, institutes, and creative ventures vie to teach us, reach us, connect us, and engage us.
 
Still, I ask. How do we learn to be Jewish? Though there are a myriad of resources and opportunities available to us and our children, I’m not sure anyone actually teaches anyone else how to be, let alone how to do, Jewish.
 
Being Jewish is a gloriously complex and compelling reality. It is best learned and internalized through experience, by discovery, and with peers. It is very hard to be Jewish by ourselves. It’s even harder to learn to be Jewish without connection to others also journeying toward and forming their Jewish identities.
 
Especially for our youth. A dynamic, ever changing, and exciting world awaits them. Too often, they, and I regret to say some of their parents, don’t see Judaism as a vital and compelling part of all of that.
 
If it were my way, and I could redesign the Jewish education programs we provide our children, whether they go to afternoon Religious School or Day School, I’d realign our efforts at Jewish identity formation to focus on the prime teen years of our students’ growth, ages 13-18, with Bar Mitzvah at 16. Or with Bar Mitzvah still at 13, but as a gateway not an off ramp.
 
The most important group we need to reach and teach is our teenagers. Adolescents doing the personal work of coming into their own and forming their identities.
 
As you were growing up, did anyone engage you in thinking about God beyond fanciful tales of Torah, beyond a literal reading of religious metaphor and mythology? Did you ever debate about moral truth and seek relevance for the questions of your life from Jewish sources? Were you given permission to question authority, as every adolescent does, in order to define your purpose in life? Did you argue with Abraham, Maimonides, Spinoza, Yehudah haLevi, Talmudic sages and the great Jewish thinkers through the ages? If you answer yes, you are among the fortunate who grew up engaged in the on-going Jewish conversation through the generations.
 
Imagine the intensity and excitement of debating and confronting the great ideas, ethical challenges, and complex, compelling lessons of Jewish history with master teachers and friends. Imagine the bonds, the social reinforcement, and the personal meaning embraced as complementing and supporting all the other responsibilities, requirements, and interests of high school. Imagine conversations at home focusing not only on the vital secular subjects of schooling, not only on academic achievement and future learning or career plans, but also equally important discussions validating the wisdom of Judaism for a life well lived.
 
While I may not get many takers for my vision, here at Congregation Beth El Rabbi Libman and I will convene parent-teen gatherings (we’ll welcome grandparents, too), hopefully in some of your homes, for small groups of us to think and learn and talk in this manner.
 
Of all the challenges currently facing us as American Jews, the hidden one, the one least addressed, the one almost nobody is even aware of, is the one that undermines our vitality and viability. We must figure out how to effectively take responsibility for ourselves and our descendants.
 
We need to acculturate ourselves and the next generations within our community to connecting with a Jewish culture and identity that inspires and sustains each of us and our people. Otherwise, the viability of the Jewish people into the future, especially in our non-Orthodox/liberal Jewish communities, will be less secure and less captivating.
 
The expressions and demonstrations of Jewish values and visions are what create bonds to Jewish peoplehood and identity. To say nothing of the religious, spiritual, and moral ideals which are the actual essence of what it means to be a Jew.
 
I believe to be a Jew is to inherit from our ancestors, and to interpret and pass along to our descendants, the ethics and moral insights, celebrations and rituals, ideals and life wisdom, stories and symbols of Jewish tradition, all taught in the name of God. I believe Judaism’s goal is nothing less than the refinement of our humanity and the fulfillment of every human being’s existence in this world.
 
Jewish ideas give us our values and vocabulary for life. Jewish meanings comfort us when life is difficult, challenge us when life is comfortable, and inspire us when life is demanding. To live our lives as Jews passionate about Judaism elevates our humanity and validates our individuality. Who else but all of us is going to teach that to and model that for our children and their children.
 
Many years ago, Rabbi Richard Israel wrote these words while waiting for the birth of his first child, “One goal that I think I shall not give up is that I want you to be clearly and irrevocably Jewish. I do not know if my way will be your way, but your way must be a real way, and a serious way. I won’t give an inch on that one. I do not feel compelled to wish you an easy time of it. Valuable things usually cost quite a bit. I want you to be happy, caring, and Jewish. How I am going to get you to be any of them – ah, now the anxiety begins.”
 
Earlier, I asked you to think. Now, I’m asking you to become exemplars of the Jewish future. To help me, to help us, become the Jewish community we and our world desire and require.
 
“You shall love the Eternal God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” We’re certainly all familiar with this imperative of Torah. Taking this goal to heart, the first task Moses’ assigns the Jewish people is to “teach them to your children. V’shinantam l’vanekha.”
 
In Jewish tradition, this command is not only about teaching. It is about making an impression. Our children should be impressed by what we teach and how we live. They should internalize for themselves these lessons we model. They should become confident in their own Jewish knowing and being.
 
Here at Congregation Beth El, we will work to facilitate, support, and celebrate your discussions, your affirmations and qualms, your visions and values, your efforts and enthusiasm. Let’s make of our communal space and bond something even more.
 
Let’s overcome our Jewish complacency. Let’s not be so set in our ways and so sure of our assumptions that there can’t be one new mitzvah, one renewed act of Jewish living, one new sacred habit, one intriguing idea, one former personal religious or spiritual practice, one expression of Jewish culture we might return to or discover. Let’s reclaim our curiosity, our sense of wonder and awe, our vision of who or what we might be or become in life.
 
-VII-
At our core, we the Jewish people profess a rational religion. A tradition, heritage, and culture intellectually rooted in sacred history. Our people’s wisdom for life cultivates conscience and common sense. We openly and honestly express wonder and worry. We ask probing questions and seek relevant answers. We cherish hope and dignity.
 
We affirm a reasoned and religious understanding of Jewish tradition rooted in both history and modernity. Our very presence and persistence in the world advocates for the dignity of all human beings created in the image of God.
 
It is a privilege to be a Jew. Precious few of us walk through life so honored. Affirming the privilege of our places as responsible members of the Jewish people we walk together on a path toward meaning, community, and life promise.
 
That’s why we feel unsettled as Jews right now, if not always. It is also why we must model and put forward our beliefs about what Jews and Judaism are all about. In this New Year, may we affirm the gloriously complex and compelling reality of being Jewish.
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 

unsettled - part one

Unsettled: The Gloriously Complex and Compelling Reality of Being Jewish
Part One
Erev Rosh HaShanah 2023 | 5784
 

 

 
It’s been quite a year since we were last here. How have you been? I’ve been well, thanks for asking. Looking back, like me, I hope you have much to appreciate, little to regret, and some good moods and moments to carry with you into this New Year. I trust you and I also have some mishaps and memories to leave behind in the annals of last year.
 
If your retrospective on last year is more negative than positive, I wish you renewal and rejuvenation in the unlived and undefined days ahead of us. Use these sacred days to plan changes where you can, imagine responses to circumstances as you must, and live the best you are able by pushing yourself to manage with everything else.
 
Jewish tradition offers a daily b’rakhah, a blessing to recite each morning acknowledging any unsettled feelings we may hold. Barukh Atah Adonai, Blessed are You, Eternal God, Eloheinu Melekh haOlam, Sovereign of existence, haNoten la’ya-ef koah, giving strength to the weary.
 
These words were added to the list of blessings we recite each day as support and encouragement to those feeling unsettled and overwhelmed by the events and circumstances of their lives. We’re all weary at one time or another. Yet, through determination, and with the support of others, for through our caring comes God’s caring, we can all be strong of spirit, of purpose, and of vision as we meet the opportunities and challenges of each new day, of this New Year.
 
Unsettled. Was there ever a time in the past when folks didn’t live in a world unsettled by conflict or change? Bothered by disagreement or discord? Overwhelmed or stymied by the too fast or too slow pace of progress? Striving to hold on to the familiar or personally yearning for respect and acceptance?
 
No. Apart from our individual sense of being content or discontent in life, in every era of human history, there were reasons for people to feel uneasy about their larger world. Were the ancient Israelites calm and steady as they wandered through the wilderness to a new and unknown land? In our history of exile, conquest, persecution, or acculturation, our ancestors rarely lived at ease as they evolved new forms of Judaism and Jewish identity in foreign lands.
 
It may just be that a Torah based religious tradition, what we know as Judaism, first fully emerged in response to the larger world, to the religious-cultural expression of ancient Greece, Hellenism. Think Maccabees and their zeal for Torah among the Jews of their day that we recount on Hanukkah.
 
That would mean that for almost 2200 years, we Jews have actively and creatively interacted with the larger world. Our mandate is not to withdraw unto ourselves, but to know who we are and give of ourselves.
 
In the larger sweeps of human history from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age, through World Wars and revolutions, reacting to the printing press, the renaissance, and the enlightenment, people have always felt anxious. Keeping up with the dynamics of our information-technological age, people respond with that very same mix of wonder, curiosity, and apprehension we see and feel all around us today.
 
This sacred season I will explore some of what unsettles us. We begin a year of deliberation and understanding, as 5784 symbolizes in its Hebrew letters. Tehi Sh’nat Iyun va’Da’at.
 
To be unsettled is to be alive. Aware of the world. Engaged in life. Caring. Worrying. Hoping. Believing. Doubting. Arguing. Asking. Helping. Participating. Learning. Changing. Living.
 
If, like me, you feel unsettled because you care about so much to which you pay attention, then you also better care about what kind of Jew you are and what you can find within Judaism that speaks to these concerns. As we begin a new Jewish year for our lives, we embrace and recognize the gloriously complex and compelling reality of being Jewish.
 
By the way, I’ve never done this before. Delivering a Rosh HaShanah sermon in three parts. As I thought about and prepped for our holiday gatherings, I found myself returning to and expanding on the same theme. I decided to pay attention to my heart and my head.
 
Consider these questions which I’ll discuss tomorrow and Sunday. Why is Jewish identity so complicated? How do we learn to be Jewish?
 
A couple of years ago, I told you of my desire to visit the Museum of the Jewish People, ANU, in Tel Aviv. This past May, along with everyone traveling on the San Diego Community Mission to Israel, I did visit the museum.
 
The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv offers another explanation for “the incredible diversity of expressions of Jewish identity and culture.”
 
“In this day and age,” the introductory exhibition explains, “there are many and diverse ways to be Jewish and belong to the Jewish people, a collective memory, a bond with Israel, a connection with the Jewish religion, knowing and using Hebrew and Jewish languages, an affinity with Jewish culture, a kinship with other Jews and any Jewish group, ties with family and origins…each of these ways, separately and combined constitutes a foundation for the multifaceted identity of Jews as individuals and as a group in modern times.”
 
Jewish identity is complex because we Jews are not defined by the perceptions and proclivities of others. Because we meld together as one people from many different backgrounds and experiences. Because we are a group bound by covenants of history and fate, collective memories and eternal, sacred ideals. We’ll delve deeper into all of that tomorrow.
 
Tonight, I want to remind you. Being unsettled is also part of Jewish identity. The Book of Proverbs teaches us to transform our uneasy feelings into joy. To be constructive and productive with our worry. Commenting, the Talmud teaches to live a dynamic and focused life, join with others to counter the stresses and challenges before you.
 
Ben Sira, a second century Hellenistic Jewish scribe and sage wisely cautions us. Deal with today. “Do not suffer from tomorrow’s trouble, as you do not know what a day will bring.” In response, one kabbalist master proclaims, when feeling unsettled “be content in your portion, trust in your God, and do good things.” I can go on and on. We Jews are good at worrying, wondering, and overthinking things through.
 
On the eve of our New Year, let’s take the advice. I do hope you and yours are well. I do hope the New Year will bring you much of what you desire, all that you deserve, and little to disturb you. I wish us all renewal and rejuvenation in the unlived and undefined days ahead of us. As we reflect and celebrate during the next two days, may we be content in our portions, trust in our God, and do many good things.
]
L'Shanah Tovah!
 

 

unsettled - part two

Unsettled: The Gloriously Complex and Compelling Reality of Jewish identity
Part Two
Rosh HaShanah Day One Sermon 2023 | 5784
 

 

 
-I-
It’s been quite a year since we were last here. How have you been? I’ve been well, thanks for asking. Looking back, like me, I hope you have much to appreciate, little to regret, and some good moods and moments to carry with you into this New Year. I trust you and I also have some mishaps and memories to leave behind in the annals of last year.
 
If your retrospective on last year is more negative than positive, I wish you renewal and rejuvenation in the unlived and undefined days ahead of us. Use these sacred days to plan changes where you can, imagine responses to circumstances as you must, and live the best you are able by pushing yourself to manage with everything else.
 
Last night, I introduced my sermon for today. Here’s a brief synopsis. It’s both natural and human to feel unsettled and overwhelmed by the events and circumstances of our lives. We’re all weary at one time or another. Yet, through determination, and with the support of others, for through our caring comes God’s caring, we can all be strong of spirit, of purpose, and of vision as we meet the opportunities and challenges of each new day, of this New Year.
 
There has never been a time when folks didn’t live in a world unsettled by conflict or change, disagreement or discord. Stymied by the too fast or too slow pace of progress. Striving to hold on to the familiar or personally yearning for respect and acceptance. In every era of human history there were reasons for people to feel uneasy about their larger world.
 
For the Jewish people this has also been true. Because as Jews we actively and creatively interact with and react to the larger world, we are often unsettled by the condition of our lives. Our mandate is not to withdraw unto ourselves, but knowing who we are to give of ourselves.
 
To be unsettled is to be alive. Aware of the world. Engaged in life. Caring. Worrying. Hoping. Believing. Doubting. Arguing. Asking. Helping. Participating. Learning. Changing. Living.
 
Raise your hand if anything I mention concerns you today. Our time is one in which we must keep up with the dynamics of information, technology, gender identity, climate concerns, social schisms, political polarization, and the development of artificial intelligence. We feel, as people always have, a mix of wonder, curiosity, and apprehension.
 
If, like me, you feel unsettled because you care about so much, then I hope you’ll join me this morning in thinking about who you are as a Jew. Understanding something deeper about ourselves, we can then discover about Judaism wisdom that speaks to these important concerns we carry. (Concerns we’ll address another time in classes and explorations this fall.)
 
-II-
I sense we share a collective feeling of being unsettled. We live at a time when being Jewish occasionally overwhelms or confuses many of us.
 
Consider the antisemitic gestures and demonstrations that are much too frequent and all too real. Remember, as we have reminded ourselves repeatedly for the last few years, we respond to others’ ignorant and hideous hatred for us from a posture of confidence, conviction, and pride. We are not Jewish because they hate us. We are Jewish because we love the values and ideals of our people’s historic and enduring heritage. Our best response to antisemitism is “prosemitism.” We need to identify as Jews publicly and proudly.
 
Reflect on the recent and ongoing unrest among the Jews of Israel. It is hard to watch and complicated to explain. We misunderstand the debate and protests taking place in Israel if we think they are only about judicial reform and coalition politics. (Take note of the unresolved and insufficiently addressed unrest between Israelis and Palestinians, too.)
 
Israeli Jews are in the midst of a serious conversation about the character and quality of who they are as Jews and how to govern their society in which different lived Jewish identities merge.
 
Well beyond the borders of the state, and very much within the boundaries of Diaspora Jewish identity, we grapple with these very same questions. The degree to which religion is important. The degree to which secular society is important. The degree to which they complement or challenge one another.
 
Let me pose this question with which to begin the New Year. Why is Jewish identity so complicated? Like all good rabbis today, I asked an expert to help me answer this question. Here’s what Chat GPT told me.
 
“Being Jewish can be perceived as complicated for a variety of reasons, and it's essential to recognize that individual experiences and perspectives may differ. Some of the factors that contribute to the complexity include a rich history of religious and cultural diversity, historic persecution, assimilation, the legacy of the Holocaust, and many modern challenges.”
 
Why is Jewish identity so complicated? Here's what artificial and most other definitions miss. We Jews are not defined by the perceptions and proclivities of others. We are not a race, superior, inferior, or anything else. We are a people. Unique in the world.
 
It is complicated because we Jews are a microcosm of all of humanity’s categories: race, nationality, ethnicity, and individual identity. Our bond is in a shared collective myth of common origins and history, of common values and culture, of challenges and relationships, and a common destiny. We have our own language, mores, customs, homeland, and Diaspora. As members of a people, we care about each other's welfare and well-being.
 
This real Jewish identity doesn’t conform to the categories people most commonly use to define themselves or others they know. We all know proud Jews who are not religious, disconnected and non-identifying Jews, and practicing Jews by Choice with no biological Jewish families.
 
More than what any one of us, or all of us believe, Jews are a group bound by covenants of history and fate, collective memories, and eternal, sacred ideals. We know others don’t fully understand this about us. Through the ages, they never have. Honestly, neither have we.
 
-III-
The story is told about a rabbi who was once so intent on his studies that he failed to hear the cry of his baby son. The rabbi’s father heard the baby’s cry, went down, and took the baby in his arms until he went to sleep again. Then he went to speak with his son, still focused on his books, and said, “My son, I do not know what you are studying, but it is not Torah if you read it so closely that it makes you unable to hear the cry of a child.”
 
We misrepresent the Jewish religious tradition when we read our sacred texts so closely, so literally, that we miss the larger moral message at the heart of Torah. All human beings represent the image of God and are to be treated with dignity. All of us are expected to behave ethically. Shema Yisrael! We call it Ethical Monotheism.
 
Torah study and interpretation must be intellectually rooted in sacred history. It must also reflect conscience and common sense. Reasoned and religious understandings of Jewish tradition, in every era, honor both a previous past and a contemporary present.
 
To be a religious Jew is to embrace the fullness of human life. To remember and to hear the cries of the afflicted and the affected, and to find inspiration in the goodness and caring we seek and strive to sustain. To live the imperatives of Torah with kindness and humility.
 
Humility is the official Jewish character trait. Torah tells us “Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.” Moses, the one person whom Torah describes as speaking to God face to face did not grow haughty or arrogant. Moses is known for his humility.
 
We model this humility in our ritual practice when we cover our heads suggesting there is existence in life beyond each one of us. We learn from our Talmudic tradition. “When those with boastful hearts proliferated, dispute proliferated in Israel.”
 
As Jews we ought to strive to be unpretentious and respectful. Elu v’elu divrei Elohim hayim. Both these and those are the words of the living God is our tradition’s truth. It’s not a cliché. We are taught to follow the decisions of those who are genial and humble because Judaism does not claim to know God’s will. What we possess is our best current understanding of God’s will.
 
Religious authority is earned through respect, admiration, and shared experience. By moral vision and spiritual truth. Here’s a test you can use to evaluate the variety Jewish teachers all around when you encounter them.
 
Pay attention to the ideas and the attitudes reflected in what they teach. Ask about their messages. Are they intolerant, dismissive of those different than themselves? Are they arrogant, disrespectful of ideas and choices they disdain? Are they insensitive, seeking to impose their will on others as if that’s their role or their right?
 
Ponder the prevalent and sometimes problematic news stories we read about our people. Depictions of Jews we love, but whose world view we do not share. Extremist personalities in Israel and here in our Diaspora who either present Jewish particularism as chauvinism or universalism as Jewish purpose.
 
I want to be very careful in my descriptions of other Jews. I seek to be tolerant, humble, respectful, and sensitive. I believe everyone should live the life they choose for themselves. I don’t care if you’re secular or religious, or aligned with any of the many religious streams that comprise Jewish religiosity today.
 
We can be eclectic. We can be “reconservadox” Jews, picking and choosing as meaningful to each of us. I learn from the insights of a great diversity of Jewish voices past and present. I wish to honor the ideal of ahavat Yisrael, to love all Jews. Even those with whom I disagree. I don’t want to stereotype.
 
But. I’m not without an opinion and a preference. For example, I understand the felt success of a rejuvenated Haredi population among the Jewish people. A victory over Nazism we all ought to appreciate. I also understand projections that by 2040, one quarter of the entire Jewish people will be fundamentalist Jews. This unsettles me.
 
Is it possible that a full fourth of the children growing up to be the next generation of Jews will not be educated in math or science, language skills and history? Classical rabbinic tradition prizes a robust and worldly education along with Torah learning in order to produce productive, socially adept people.
 
While the essence of Judaism is ethical monotheism, we are not an essentially monolithic group. I embrace our dynamic diversity. I celebrate the gloriously complex and compelling reality of Jewish identity for everybody. Up to a point. We have to explain to our children and to the world our way of being Jewish. We must raise our voices and be heard.
 
If we don’t, if we are quiet and reserved, if we don’t actively teach how to think and read and interpret the sacred texts, if we don’t model and practice the moral, religious, and spiritual lessons of Judaism from a worldview that embraces tradition and modernity, then literalism or illiteracy will become the dominant demonstrations of Judaism in the world.
 
If this happens, most of us and our children will reject such a Judaism because our intellects and consciences will not abide fundamentalism. It fosters an ethnocentrism about the rest of the world we reject. Or, on the other secular extreme, we’ll be unmoved by a thin Judaism, empty of compelling purpose and relevant meaning.
 
-IV-
I am grateful that all of you are here this morning. Though Jewish communal trends may suggest otherwise, this is the right place for us to gather, to connect, and to converse with each other.
 
In a synagogue community, in a community devoted to God by caring about one another and the destiny of the Jewish people, in a community of Jews gathered to mark this sacred season in the annual cycle of Jewish living, this is where we best consider all we confront and take comfort in all we cherish. Not only here, but especially here, the ideas and ideals of Judaism inform our cares and frame our questions.
 
Now, I ask what you think. I make a simple request. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you why I’m asking, possibly discuss your answers, and make a more challenging request.
 
At lunch or dinner today, or whenever you next can, ask, answer, and discuss these questions. What is Jewish identity to you? What are the ideas, practices, beliefs or tenets, memories and meanings you hold and hope to pass along? Think for and speak to yourself. Think with and speak to your children, your grandchildren, each other.
 
From ancient to modern times, we who are Jews seem to be central characters in the ongoing drama of human history. I believe all the positive and negative attention people focus on us is because what Jews do matters, and not only to us.
 
History is replete with perspectives. Some say Jews and Judaism are quintessential outsiders who by our very survival and creativity represent freedom and human dignity. Others suggest it is the originality of Judaism’s ethical monotheism that carries influence or calls attention.
 
I believe as Jews we represent that first memory and message of the Exodus for all of humanity. Judaism is a religious humanism which measures the fullness of human life and deeds by criteria of moral good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.
 
At our core, we the Jewish people profess a rational religion. A tradition, heritage, and culture intellectually rooted in sacred history. Our people’s wisdom for life cultivates conscience and common sense. We openly and honestly express wonder and worry. We ask probing questions and seek relevant answers. We cherish hope and dignity.
 
We affirm a reasoned and religious understanding of Jewish tradition rooted in both history and modernity. Our very presence and persistence in the world advocates for the dignity of all human beings created in the image of God.
 
It is a privilege to be a Jew. Precious few of us walk through life so honored. Affirming the privilege of our places as responsible members of the Jewish people we walk together on a path toward meaning, community, and life promise.
 
That’s why we feel unsettled as Jews right now, if not always. It is also why we must model and put forward our beliefs about what Jews and Judaism are all about. In this New Year, may we affirm the gloriously complex and compelling reality of being Jewish.
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 

unsettled - part three

Unsettled: The Gloriously Complex and Compelling Reality of Jewish identity
Part Three
Rosh HaShanah Day Two Sermon 2023 |5784
 

 

 
We are here today because Jewish tradition understands Rosh HaShanah to be one very long day, Yoma Arikhta. A long day blending 48 hours into one sacred day with which we begin our New Year.
 
I’m so very glad you’re here today. As an extended family, in synagogue is where we best consider all we confront and take comfort in all we cherish. For the next moments, I want to pick up where I left off “earlier today” (meaning yesterday) when I made a simple request.
 
I asked you at lunch or dinner, or whenever you next could, to ask, answer, and discuss these questions. What is Jewish identity to you? What are the ideas, practices, beliefs or tenets, memories and meanings you hold and hope to pass along?
 
I suggested you think for and speak to yourself. Think with and speak to your children, your grandchildren, each other. Now, I’ll tell you why I asked and make a more challenging request of you.
 
It is an imperative of Torah to Moses. “Speak,” God often tells Moses. “Daber el b’nei Yisrael. Speak to the Children of Israel.” Jewish tradition derives from this Divine command to Moses something about us all and our relationships with our people and our God. In words we must speak our minds. In prayers we must speak from our hearts.
 
On this day of thoughtful words and heartfelt prayers, it is also an imperative for me to speak to you, the Jewish community I serve from my heart and my head. As a rabbi, a teacher of Judaism and our Jewish heritage, I often ask myself. How do we learn to be Jewish and live Jewish lives?
 
For a moment, let me ask from the past. Were we taught by our parents and grandparents? Did they teach us from knowledge and a vision of who they hoped we’d become as Jews? Or did we learn from their good or bad experiences? Their biases and attitudes? Their suppositions and uncertainties? Their choices and modeling, for better or worse?
 
Now, let me ask about the future. Are we teaching our children and grandchildren how to be Jewish? Do we teach them from our knowledge and a vision of who we hope they’ll become as Jews? Or do they learn from our good or bad experiences? From our biases and attitudes? Our suppositions and uncertainties? From our choices and modeling, for better or worse?
 
Does the world teach us how to be Jewish? Do we figure out who we are in comparison or contrast to others? Do we learn through experience how people of different religious or cultural backgrounds react to and treat us? Are we conditioned through history, memories, sorrows, and joys?
 
Does the Jewish community teach us how to be Jewish? Students attend religious or day schools, summer camps, JCC programs, and the like. Mentors or teachers inspire. Jewish communities offer social groups, informal educational experiences, and travel to Israel for all ages. An alphabet soup of organizations, institutes, and creative ventures vie to teach us, reach us, connect us, and engage us.
 
Still, I ask. How do we learn to be Jewish? Though there are a myriad of resources and opportunities available to us and our children, I’m not sure anyone actually teaches anyone else how to be, let alone how to do, Jewish.
 
Being Jewish is a gloriously complex and compelling reality. It is best learned and internalized through experience, by discovery, and with peers. It is very hard to be Jewish by ourselves. It’s even harder to learn to be Jewish without connection to others also journeying toward and forming their Jewish identities.
 
Especially for our youth. A dynamic, ever changing, and exciting world awaits them. Too often, they, and I regret to say some of their parents, don’t see Judaism as a vital and compelling part of all of that.
 
If it were my way, and I could redesign the Jewish education programs we provide our children, whether they go to afternoon Religious School or Day School, I’d realign our efforts at Jewish identity formation to focus on the prime teen years of our students’ growth, ages 13-18, with Bar Mitzvah at 16. Or with Bar Mitzvah still at 13, but as a gateway not an off ramp.
 
The most important group we need to reach and teach is our teenagers. Adolescents doing the personal work of coming into their own and forming their identities.
 
As you were growing up, did anyone engage you in thinking about God beyond fanciful tales of Torah, beyond a literal reading of religious metaphor and mythology? Did you ever debate about moral truth and seek relevance for the questions of your life from Jewish sources? Were you given permission to question authority, as every adolescent does, in order to define your purpose in life? Did you argue with Abraham, Maimonides, Spinoza, Yehudah haLevi, Talmudic sages and the great Jewish thinkers through the ages? If you answer yes, you are among the fortunate who grew up engaged in the on-going Jewish conversation through the generations.
 
Imagine the intensity and excitement of debating and confronting the great ideas, ethical challenges, and complex, compelling lessons of Jewish history with master teachers and friends. Imagine the bonds, the social reinforcement, and the personal meaning embraced as complementing and supporting all the other responsibilities, requirements, and interests of high school. Imagine conversations at home focusing not only on the vital secular subjects of schooling, not only on academic achievement and future learning or career plans, but also equally important discussions validating the wisdom of Judaism for a life well lived.
 
While I may not get many takers for my vision, here at Congregation Beth El Rabbi Libman and I will convene parent-teen gatherings (we’ll welcome grandparents, too), hopefully in some of your homes, for small groups of us to think and learn and talk in this manner.
 
Of all the challenges currently facing us as American Jews, the hidden one, the one least addressed, the one almost nobody is even aware of, is the one that undermines our vitality and viability. We must figure out how to effectively take responsibility for ourselves and our descendants.
 
We need to acculturate ourselves and the next generations within our community to connecting with a Jewish culture and identity that inspires and sustains each of us and our people. Otherwise, the viability of the Jewish people into the future, especially in our non-Orthodox/liberal Jewish communities, will be less secure and less captivating.
 
The expressions and demonstrations of Jewish values and visions are what create bonds to Jewish peoplehood and identity. To say nothing of the religious, spiritual, and moral ideals which are the actual essence of what it means to be a Jew.
 
I believe to be a Jew is to inherit from our ancestors, and to interpret and pass along to our descendants, the ethics and moral insights, celebrations and rituals, ideals and life wisdom, stories and symbols of Jewish tradition, all taught in the name of God. I believe Judaism’s goal is nothing less than the refinement of our humanity and the fulfillment of every human being’s existence in this world.
 
Jewish ideas give us our values and vocabulary for life. Jewish meanings comfort us when life is difficult, challenge us when life is comfortable, and inspire us when life is demanding. To live our lives as Jews passionate about Judaism elevates our humanity and validates our individuality. Who else but all of us is going to teach that to and model that for our children and their children.
 
Many years ago, Rabbi Richard Israel wrote these words while waiting for the birth of his first child, “One goal that I think I shall not give up is that I want you to be clearly and irrevocably Jewish. I do not know if my way will be your way, but your way must be a real way, and a serious way. I won’t give an inch on that one. I do not feel compelled to wish you an easy time of it. Valuable things usually cost quite a bit. I want you to be happy, caring, and Jewish. How I am going to get you to be any of them – ah, now the anxiety begins.”
 
Yesterday, I asked you to think. Today, I’m asking those of you who are cognizant of the meaning of being in synagogue on this Second Day of Rosh HaShanah, I’m asking you to become exemplars of the Jewish future. To help me, to help us, become the Jewish community we and our world desire and require.
 
For if we don’t actively model, learn and teach how to think and read and interpret the sacred texts, moral, religious, and spiritual lessons of Judaism from a worldview that embraces tradition and modernity, then, as I warned yesterday, literalism or illiteracy will become the dominant demonstrations of Judaism in the world.
 
If this happens, most of us and our children will reject such a Judaism because our intellects and consciences will not abide fundamentalism. It fosters an ethnocentrism about the rest of the world we reject. Or, on the other secular extreme, we’ll be unmoved by a thin Judaism, empty of compelling purpose and relevant meaning.
 
“You shall love the Eternal God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” We’re certainly all familiar with this imperative of Torah. Taking this goal to heart, the first task Moses’ assigns the Jewish people is to “teach them to your children. V’shinantam l’vanekha.”
 
In Jewish tradition, this command is not only about teaching. It is about making an impression. Our children should be impressed by what we teach and how we live. They should internalize for themselves these lessons we model. They should become confident in their own Jewish knowing and being.
 
I’ve never before delivered a Rosh HaShanah sermon in three parts. I certainly recognize the disparity in congregational size, and possibly interest as I share my message. Even so, I decided to pay attention to my heart and head.
 
I began by reminding us that it is both natural and human to feel unsettled and overwhelmed by the events and circumstances of our lives. In every era of human history there were reasons for people to feel uneasy about their larger world. Unsettled by the condition of our lives, we Jews actively and creatively interact with the larger world. Our mandate is not to withdraw unto ourselves, but knowing who we are to give of ourselves.
 
If, like me, you feel unsettled because you care about so much, then I hope you’ll join me in thinking about who you are as a Jew. Understanding something deeper about ourselves, we can then discover about Judaism wisdom that speaks to these important concerns we carry. Being Jewish is a gloriously complex and compelling reality. It is best learned and internalized through experience, by discovery, and with peers.
 
We’ve explored why Jewish identity is complicated. We’ve reflected on how we learn to be Jewish. I’ve asked you to ask, answer, and discuss questions about Jewish identity. What is Jewish identity to you? What are the ideas, practices, beliefs or tenets, memories and meanings you hold and hope to pass along?
 
Here at Congregation Beth El, we will work to facilitate, support, and celebrate your discussions, your affirmations and qualms, your visions and values, your efforts and enthusiasm. Let’s make of our communal space and bond something even more.
 
Let’s overcome our Jewish complacency. Let’s not be so set in our ways and so sure of our assumptions that there can’t be one new mitzvah, one renewed act of Jewish living, one new sacred habit, one intriguing idea, one former personal religious or spiritual practice, one expression of Jewish culture we might return to or discover. Let’s reclaim our curiosity, our sense of wonder and awe, our vision of who or what we might be or become in life.
 
At our core, we the Jewish people profess a rational religion. A tradition, heritage, and culture intellectually rooted in sacred history. Our people’s wisdom for life cultivates conscience and common sense. We openly and honestly express wonder and worry. We ask probing questions and seek relevant answers. We cherish hope and dignity.
 
We affirm a reasoned and religious understanding of Jewish tradition rooted in both history and modernity. Our very presence and persistence in the world advocates for the dignity of all human beings created in the image of God.
 
It is a privilege to be a Jew. Precious few of us walk through life so honored. In this New Year, may we affirm the gloriously complex and compelling reality of being Jewish.
 
L’Shanah Tovah!
 
Sun, September 24 2023 9 Tishrei 5784