L’Shanah Tovah!
Of course, before I get started, I have an announcement – Temple Sinai is turning 50 next June and we have a committee working hard on programming an amazing celebratory weekend. To help you get in the mood for the celebration – and to help relieve those tummy rumblings after we finish up this morning’s service – stop by their table on your way out for some cider, bagels and cream cheese and a bit of Temple Sinai trivia.
Now, on to business!
There are three persistent themes underlying all Temple President remarks during the High Holidays: 1) Ask for money, 2) Insist that you will keep your remarks brief, and 3) Use them as an opportunity to practice material for your upcoming Comedy Central stand-up special. I hope to do at least one, but no more than two of these during my remarks over the next 2-3 hours . . .
Actually, I have just a few things that I would like to touch on this morning.
First, and most important, I want to acknowledge and thank people. If you remember only one thing when my droning ends, it should be this: Temple Sinai is a community that relies on the generosity of many many people. But I am not speaking about money here. I am referring to the generosity of their time, their spiritual commitment and tireless support of this institution. We rely on our community to volunteer their time to ensure that our very modest – but outstanding – paid staff can do amazing things.
While I may be here as the face of the organization, Temple Sinai is what it is because of folks who serve on the Board, serve on committees, chair committees, volunteer to build things or play music or teach students (whether young or older), lead or assist with services, serve the community . . . the list is endless. Whether you know it or not, whether you come here just once a year or every week, it is because of your friends, fellow congregants, and committed community members that Temple Sinai is here for you.
And here is my “ask”: if you see something interesting that you can and would like to contribute to or be a part of – we’d love to have YOU be involved in making these wonderful things happen. And just as important: if you DON’T see something that we, as a Congregation, as a community, SHOULD be doing – we’d love to have you work with us to make it happen. We know that time is our most precious resource, so I want to acknowledge and thank all of you who have been so generous and to thank – in advance - those of you willing and interested in being involved.
But why do we get involved? Why are we a part of this community? And why do we, as Jews, always seems to answer a question with another question‽ (Why not‽) Let me try to address this by taking one step back and asking a more fundamental question: what does it mean – to each of us - to be Jewish?
Well, part of being Temple President entails thinking and reading about being Jewish. Much of this results in realizing how little I really know and have left to learn. One thing that I have learned is that we all experience “Jewishness” in different ways. Many of us decided to become Jewish, while some were just born that way. Some of us may not be Jewish, but have Jewish children, a Jewish spouse or partner or friend or relative. Each of us has our own sense of what it means to be Jewish based on our unique circumstances and experiences – and there are as many stories as there are people here today.
My story is not special. I was born this way – my parents were Jewish and so am I. I grew up feeling like I was Jewish. My parents bought homes in towns where there were significant populations of Jews and we always belonged to a nearby synagogue, where my two brothers and I attended religious school and were Bar Mitzvah’d and confirmed. In fact, the Jewish population of the town I grew up in near Rochester, New York, was so large that our public schools closed for the High Holidays. I never thought that I was a minority and I never felt like a minority, nor did I experience any anti-Semitism.
In fact, I had a very strong, positive Jewish identity. I recall trying to figure out whether John Lennon or Ringo – with their “roman” noses – were the Jewish members of the Beatles (I just assumed that some of them were Jewish). When I heard Peter, Paul and Mary sing “Go Tell It On the Mountain”, I assumed it was a Passover song and then concluded that they must be Jewish. As it turned out, Peter (Yarrow) was Jewish but, of course, I was wrong about the Beatles – although, Brian Epstein, their manager, was Jewish. Still, when I discovered that someone famous or special was Jewish – like: Isaac Asimov, Mel Brooks, Bob Dylan, The Marx Brothers, Albert Einstein, Leonard Nimoy or, more recently, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Scarlett Johansson – I felt proud knowing that we shared a common heritage.
But I was not a particularly observant, religious Jew. I identified with the central tenets of our faith, but rebelled against some of the rigid structures of organized religion. So, my tefillen and tallit stayed in their velvet zippered bag following my Bar Mitzvah and I never took to wearing a yarmulke except when facing extreme pressure to do so (like when my grandfather – a cantor – offered me his yarmulke if I agreed to wear it at a life cycle event). Note, I have nothing against wearing a yarmulke – they just never seem to stay on my head . . . I am waiting for Velcro implants . . .
But when I first traveled to Israel, still in High School, I felt different than I did here in the United States. In Israel, I was no longer a minority and it felt that way. There was a freedom to just be Jewish and not to be concerned about whether or not anyone would understand what I was up to, like having to explain absences from work on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. I was in a country that had institutionalized these practices, even those (like kosher rules) that, being a vegetarian, I did not need to pay attention to. It was fascinating to see an entire country that implemented Jewish practices that, here in a predominantly Christian country, we would have to work to achieve. In Israel, there was no need to assimilate into a non-Jewish society; everything shut down for Shabbat – kind of like Christmas here, except that even Chinese restaurants and movie theatres were closed. Instead of working to “fit” into the societal structures, I found that the structures built into Israel already “fit.”
It is hard to describe this feeling, unless you have experienced it. I his book “Covering,” Kenji Yoshino, a Yale Law Professor and writer, relates the story of “a nonobservant Jew, describing how it felt to go to Israel for the first time. He . . . had been asked by his peers why he ‘hadn’t been yet.’ He . . . had resisted into adulthood. Yet when the El Al plane touched down in Tel Aviv, and the passengers broke into . . . ‘Hatikvah,’ he wanted to kiss the earth.”
We all struggle with our identities. Whether religious, ethnic, political, sexual, gender, or physical, we try to reconcile how our genetics and life experiences conspire to create the unique individuals that we are. And, rather than face these alone, we are relieved to find that there are others that share some of these qualities. Whether we choose to ascribe any meaning to these associations and whether they prompt us to feel an affinity with those with those who share these common bonds, is part of how we define who we are.
Take, for example, Einstein and Richard Feynman (both Nobel Laureates and probably the two foremost Physicists of the 20th Century). While both were born to non-religious Jewish parents and were themselves not religious, Einstein identified as a Jew while Feynman refused to be identified as such. But regardless of how we decide to identify ourselves, the perception of our identity – how we are viewed by others – can play a significant role in our lives. So, for example, Feynman ended up attending MIT after being refused admission to Columbia University as a result of their quota on the number of Jewish students they would admit.
How we, as Jews, fit into a non-Jewish society is often a function of how well we can “pass” or disguise our “Jewishness” so that we are not perceived as being Jewish. With a name like Goldberg, and some decidedly Jewish physical features, it is hard for me to pass. Many Jews end up changing their names so that they can pass more readily – my uncle changed his name to Gold . . . not a very effective way to pass – writer/director/comedian David Steinberg used to joke that the only way to shorten his name to obscure his being Jewish was to go from Steinberg to Stein to Stt!
But whether you can pass or not, the question of how much to reveal about your Jewishness remains a matter of debate. How “Jewish” should you look? Should you change your physical appearance either surgically (the classic “nose job”) or by eschewing Jewish-looking clothing and symbols (like a yarmulke) that reveal your Jewish identity? Do we “cover” our Jewish identity when we are out in non-Jewish society? Yoshino cites Alan Dershowitz’s admonition that we should change our attitude from “fearing embarrassment” to fully flaunting our Jewishness.
This is what keeps me coming back to and being a part of the Temple Sinai community. Regardless of how accepting the broader community in Vermont may be, we are a minority population – our children are likely one of maybe a couple of Jewish kids in their classes, and we probably had to explain to our bosses and coworkers why we are not at work today. Temple Sinai is a place where we can be Jewish without having to cover, where we fit without having to adjust who we are. We are a congregation comprised of people with diverse identities – and regardless of how we identify and express our religious, sexual, gender, ethnic and political orientations, we are committed to being an open and welcoming community where one need not feel the need to pass as something we are not, or to cover who we really are. This is that place where you know you will be welcomed and accepted for who you are, without having to distort yourself to fit into a something you are not.
In addition to each one of us needing to consider our own Jewish identity, in this New Year (5776), Temple Sinai as an institution will be undergoing a similar process. One of the outcomes of this year’s Board Retreat – held on a very cold and snowy weekend last February – was a commitment to exploring and re-establishing who we are as a congregation: to clarify our Vision, re-establish our Mission, and ensure that all we do is guided by our Values. For this we will need your input and participation, so that we can capture and encapsulate in these public statements Temple Sinai’s identity as we move towards our 50th Anniversary next June and begin the first year of our next half century. I look forward to working with you and the Board as we plot our course towards the Temple Sinai of 5826!
I wish you all good health, happiness and prosperity and a good, sweet, New Year – L’Shanah Tovah!
