Rabbi David’s Yom Kippur Morning talk 5782
For the last year and a half, most of us have had to change how we connect with each other. For a long stretch of time during the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us physically saw far fewer people than we’re used to; last spring, weeks would go by without me seeing anyone in person (outside of the people I live with, the people who delivered things to my house, and the people in my neighborhood I would see when I walked my dog). Our congregation, of course, Zoomed with each other extensively, as so many of us did with people from disparate parts of our lives. However, as I unhappily experienced the absence of my normal amount of human contact, I realized that in addition to missing being with other people in general, I specifically really missed being physically together with other Jews. I happen to live in a neighborhood where almost no other Jews live – a not-uncommon reality here in Williamsburg – so aside from my family, and the one member of our congregation and his child who live in the neighborhood across the street from ours, I spent most of the pandemic rarely if ever seeing more than five other Jews in person. This was a big change for me.
Most of the ways that most people experience being Jewish include physically being together with other Jews. As we’ve noted so many times since the pandemic began, as amazing as it is to be able to do so many Jewish things online, digital Jewish community is missing many of the benefits that we derive from physically being together with other people. I, and I know all of you, have deeply felt that absence during these last eighteen months. As I reflected on this during the heart of the pandemic, I started to think about just what it was that we were all missing by not physically being together – what we all really get out of being members of a congregation, out of being parts of a Jewish community. When the time finally arrived for us to go back to being together physically, I wondered, what would we be going back to?
The answers that came to me as I spent more and more time in, and felt increasingly isolated in, my mostly non-Jewish neighborhood, were twofold. First was the more obvious component of being able to experience Jewish rituals, observances, and celebrations, with other people. These things are meant to be done in the company of people, and are probably the most explicitly Jewish moments of our lives – moments that are unquestionably richer and more meaningful when we experience them together, in the same place. The second answer was about what happens the rest of the time, in the moments when we’re not engaged in explicitly Jewish activities, but instead are doing things in ways that are Jewish (even though we might not realize that at the time). It’s those moments that I want to talk about with you this morning – both to help to clarify what some of them are, and also to remind us all that spending time together with other Jews, ideally in person, provides us with comfort, support, and companionship in those moments when you find yourself doing things in ways that are both explicitly and implicitly different than your neighbors.
The places where I spent my time during the heart of the pandemic amplified my awareness of these issues, which is why, back in June, I asked you to answer questions about this on our website. The questions I posed then were: What do you do that’s Jewish in your everyday life? How and where does Judaism manifest in your life – particularly in your day-to-day life, outside of holidays and religious observances? How and when is being Jewish an active part of your life? How is who you are as a person – morally, ethically, and psychologically – impacted by, if not defined by, the fact that you’re Jewish?
Although the pandemic magnified my interest in these issues, I’ve actually been thinking about them for the last eleven years, ever since we moved from Philadelphia to Williamsburg – when we moved from a city with one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, to a place in which the Jewish population numbers in the hundreds. We hadn’t been here for long when I realized the degree to which Judaism is absent from public life in Williamsburg. I was expecting the larger-scale, more public absences, like schools not being closed for Jewish holidays, and Jewish symbols, like Menorahs, usually being absent from public spaces. What I wasn’t ready for was the glaring absence of Jewish ways of doing everyday things – the same feeling that overwhelmed me in my neighborhood during the pandemic. When we first moved here, I often felt like there was a larger gulf between me and most of the people I met than I’d expected there would be – but I couldn’t put my finger on why that was. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that it’s about this very issue: that my default, deeply Jewish ways of doing many everyday things are actually significantly different than those of many of the folks we live near.
Articulating just what those differences are is tricky. Over the years, when I’ve talked with people about what makes us different, one of the first things often mentioned is Jewish culture. Jewish literature, art, music, and television and film are important shared reference points for many of us. Food is also an easy one, both in that some of us make dietary choices as a way of practicing our religion, as well as in the strong connection many of us have to things like deli, and bagels, and other Ashkenazic staples. However, I think that for most of us, doing Jewish things is about more than Seinfeld and Chagal, and pastrami and kugel (although it’s also, at least a little bit, about all of those things!).
Maybe the most obvious place to look is at religious differences. I’d posit that the things that make us unique as a people all start from, and are driven by, the things that make our religious tradition unique. Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, articulated this idea nicely when he defined Judaism as “the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people.” Rabbi Kaplan felt that Judaism encompassed Jewish language, culture, food, history – all of the elements that compose a civilization – and that the Jewish religion influenced, and was at the core of, all of those things.
Jewish religious ideas are clearly at the core of most of the responses from synagogue folks on our web site. One person wrote the following: “For as long as I can remember, I was taught to always have room at my table for someone else to eat. That got me thinking about what I do that’s in line with the notion of hospitality. In Genesis, just after Abraham circumcises himself as a devotion to the covenant he makes with G-d, three men visit Abraham. Abraham jumps up and quickly offers water to them, and gets Sarah to open his tent to them for what they need. When I was a teenager, working at the local JCC, I would stop by my fraternal grandmother’s to visit. She always had cookies and Gatorade for me. I learned from those moments that you should always have something on hand for a visitor, so whenever anyone comes by, I offer them something to eat and drink, a place to rest, and time to relax. I’ve been doing this for some time, and I’ve never really thought anything of it. Reflecting now on my Judaic education, it’s apparent that what I am doing is uniquely Jewish; I had taken these teachings and put them into practice as part of my life.” I find that putting Jewish teachings into practice in our lives is often the thing that often defines us as Jews – from the most- to the least-religiously observant of us, and for pretty much everyone in between. We’ll see evidence of this again and again in what this, and other website respondents, had to say.
This person went on to share the following thoughts about their efforts to 3D print faceshields for hospital staff and first responders throughout the pandemic – an effort that ended up including several other members of our congregation, and which has produced over 6000 faceshields to date (I’ll note that it’s somewhat easy this year to determine who some of our website responders are. I’ll also note that I’ve edited people’s responses a bit for this talk, and that you can read their full responses by visiting our website): “As the pandemic deepened and medical workers were slowly becoming infected with the Coronavirus, I had had enough of the misery and lack of help from the PPE industry, so I set into motion what would be an effort to make a difference; to do my part for Tikkun Olam – healing the world. Though I couldn’t solve everyone’s issue, I figured I could at least help, following Pirke Avot 2:21, ‘You are not obligated to complete the work, nor are you free to desist from it.’ This is another thing that I do that’s Jewish in my everyday life; the work to make our world better.” Doing what we can to do good in the world, to make the world a better place, is another Jewish principle that’s usually ‘baked in’ to who we Jews all are – again, regardless of how religiously observant we are or aren’t. When we recently asked our teenage son – someone who has no interest in ritual Judaism – to articulate, for a college essay, why he continues to raise money to help people who have cancer, he looked at us, the way only a 17 year-old can look at their parents, and said “Obviously – it’s to make the world a better place.” While we Jews don’t have a monopoly on doing good and helping others, it’s hard for this Jewish parent not to hear the clear echoes of the vital Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam in that response.
Another respondent also sees helping and being respectful of others as ways of doing things Jewishly. That person wrote: “Overall, I identify with the practice of Tikkun Olam, to mend or heal the world, individually or as part of a group. Sometimes, I’ll arrange shopping carts so cars won’t hit them; other times, I try to engage in healing conversations, sometimes with strangers or acquaintances who might be suffering in some way. Even when folks hold views opposed to mine, I encourage them to get involved, because this temple, this community, this country will fail without the ongoing respectful dialogue that is essential for all of us to succeed.” The impulse towards Tikkun Olam is not just an impetus for action for us, but it’s also a way of thinking about whatever we do, from the major endeavors of our lives to the little things we do when no one is looking.
Another way of doing things Jewishly that a respondent shared is about Shabbat – the only ritual practice contained in the Biblical story of creation. They wrote: “I have always tried to remember the Sabbath, which is something I have been able to do during this pandemic, something that to me is definitely a silver lining. I make Challah, prepare a big meal, and generally do what I can to begin the process of relaxing. Folks who live around me know that Shabbat is coming soon because they tend to be the benefactor of a pair of Challahs. I’ve learned how to make the dough into four loaves, so that not only do I have a pair for myself, but I also have a pair for someone else. It always feels great to give to someone at the beginning of Shabbat, a reminder that being Jewish and living Jewish is a life of peace.” The basic idea of regularly taking a break – which, as I noted, is introduced by the Torah when the world is created – was one of the revolutionary concepts that Judaism brought to the world, and is at the root of nearly everything that we do. We’re able to do so many of the things we do with such fervor – many of us tirelessly work to repair the world, to pursue justice, to feed the hungry, to stand up for the disenfranchised and the underprivileged – because we know that we’ll take a break once a week to replenish and care for ourselves. Ideally, by guaranteeing us a time to cease the work and get some rest and peace, Shabbat ensures that we won’t become resentful of the work we do, nor of the people for whom we do it. By being passionate about our work in the world and also taking the Sabbath seriously, we model a Jewish way of doing things by showing respect for ourselves, for each other, and for the Torah – by embodying balance. I think that, as this respondent implicitly pointed out, this is a very Jewish way of doing things.
Doing things Jewishly, as all of these folks talked about, grows out of a very specific background. It grows out of having the Torah and the Talmud and Rabbinic tradition and all of our history as some of the basic building blocks of who you are, simply from having been exposed to those things while you learned about Judaism (even if that exposure was minimal). It grows out of having been exposed to another language, your people’s ancient language, in religious settings throughout your life – even if that exposure was minimal. It grows out of being a member of a people who are a religious and cultural minority just about everywhere in the world. It grows out of your people having an annual festival of freedom, an annual day on which you ask for forgiveness for all the things you’ve done wrong in the past year, and an annual festival when you’re supposed to spend a week sitting outside in a temporary structure you might build on your front lawn or back porch. It grows out of being someone for whom some of the most significant cultural celebrations in your society are, by definition, not yours. All of these things shape our personalities, the ways in which we think, and the ways in which we see and do things in the world.
Doing things Jewishly grows out of being a people for whom whatever we think of as God, it’s definitely not something that’s finite and limited – it’s not something that’s like us. Jews fundamentally don’t believe that people or places or things can literally be divine – and that different understanding often defines how we relate to authority, and to other people in general. Our children are the ones who are more likely to challenge their teachers, to challenge authorities of any kind, because we fundamentally teach them that all of us are made equally in the image of God, and therefore no one human is more fundamentally valuable, more important, more divine, than any other. I believe that this foundational lesson that Jewish children explicitly and/or implicitly learn while growing up shapes how we do things, throughout our lives.
Doing things Jewishly grows out of being a people who don’t spend our lives focused on what’s going to happen to us after we die, but who instead focus on making this world the best place it can be. This means, as we’ve discussed, that we work as hard as we can to make the world we live in a better place. It also means that, explicitly and implicitly, we are taught to embrace nearly all that life has to offer us (in appropriate moderation), and to celebrate the glory and the bounty of creation by deeply engaging with the things that bring us joy. We’re not people who alter our behavior because of where we think we might go after we die. We’re people who engage, as fully as we possibly can, with what we encounter in the world around us. One of our respondents wrote: “All too often, as I have conversations with folks in and outside of the Jewish community, I hear others looking for answers to life. How did we get here? Who’s responsible for getting us to this point in life and why? And, as we look to the heavens, are we alone? And the best one – where are we heading? What is our destiny? For me, I know what my destiny is: a hole in the ground. Destiny is not what’s important in life. What’s really important is the journey, it’s how we spend our time.”
Doing things Jewishly, living a Jewish life, involves all of the behaviors and attitudes that I’ve talked about today, along with many others that we didn’t have time to address this morning. If you’ve thought of some of your own answers to this question while I’ve been talking, please feel free to log on to our web site and share your answers (sometime after the holiday ends). Doing things Jewishly encompasses both very broad ways to approach most things in life, as well as many very specific ways. All of them are things that we share almost exclusively with other Jews – which is why it’s so meaningful to spend time together with other Jews, in a Jewish community. As, God-willing, we continue to move towards getting back together physically, I invite you to consider all of the ways in which you do Jewish things, and to be ready to experience them together with the other members of our community, as soon as that’s possible.
To conclude this morning, I’d like to share parts of what two more people wrote on our website. One person said: “The most abstract (yet important way) Jewishness manifests in daily life for me is in how I go about questioning and investigating the world around me. Judaism is not just a faith, and it’s not limited to prayer or shul; it’s a civilization and a system of meaning, and it provides a framework with which to digest the human experience. The more I learn about Jewish subjects or have experiences within Judaism, the more tools I get for approaching the parts of my life that I might not have thought were affected by Jewishness. Thinking, interacting, and wrestling with inherited concepts, traditions, histories, and systems, is a key part of what being Jewish means to me, whether or not they become important in my life.” This echoes what I talked about last week, the fact that Judaism is inherently about questions, not answers, and process, not end results.
Another person shared the following thoughts, which I feel nicely sum up so many of the things I’ve talked about this morning. They said: “It’s very difficult to ‘do Jewish’ in Williamsburg, especially for someone brought up in 98% Jewish Brookline Mass and Manhattan! But, here goes:
- I teach a Tanakh class.
- I participate in Torah Study.
- I take a long-distance Talmud class.
- I “do” bagels twice a week at Manhattan Bagels (yum).
- I discuss Jewish subjects with my husband and our friends whenever we
have the opportunity to do so.
But we don’t have Jewish stores (clothing or otherwise) and we don’t have Jewish groups and we don’t have Jewish neshama on the streets; so, it’s difficult and I miss it a lot.”
For those who don’t know, the Hebrew word neshama is most often translated as inspiration, soul, or spirit, and is directly connected to the word for breath. In the context in which it’s used here, I believe, it refers to Jewish feelings, and attitudes, and the definitive yet intangible sensation that comes from Jewish things being done. I think it’s a perfect way to describe what I was so profoundly feeling the absence of when I was at home so much during the heart of the pandemic. While Jewish things are not often done in the streets of Williamsburg, we always do our best to make them happen at Temple Beth El. May 5782 be a year in which we all do more Jewish things, in which we’re all more aware of the things that we do Jewishly, and in which we get to come back together and share Jewish doing, Jewish neshama, with the other members of our community, God-willing, very soon. Ken yehi ratzon – may this be God’s will. And may we all say, Amen.
