Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5779/2018

 

The largest and oldest Reform congregation in Atlanta, Georgia is a temple called, “The Temple.” For a few decades during the mid-20th century, the spiritual leader of The Temple was a man by the name of Rabbi Jacob Rothschild. Back then, Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews in the United States had very little to do with one another, and yet Rabbi Rothschild became good friends with his Orthodox colleague, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, rabbi of Atlanta’s Beth Jacob Synagogue. Rabbi Rothschild would often invite Rabbi Feldman to banquets and other events at the Temple. These were sumptuous affairs, and the tables were laden with copious amounts of beautiful, delicious, and decidedly un-kosher food. Rabbi Feldman, of course, wouldn’t eat such fare, and, as a result, Rabbi Rothschild arranged it so that when Rabbi Feldman arrived at his seat he’d find a very nicely prepared fruit plate waiting for him there. The fruit couldn’t hold a candle to the food that everyone else was eating, but at least it was kosher.

Well, one time, the Orthodox Rabbi Feldman invited Reform Rabbi Rothschild to a dinner at the Orthodox synagogue – Beth Jacob. Everyone sat down at their places and were served plates heaped with wonderful kosher food. But when Rabbi Rothschild received his food, what was it? A fruit plate.

My friends, we live in a wonderful time for the Jewish people. In terms of religious expression and religious opportunities, we have more choices now than our ancestors could have ever dreamed of. If you doubt it, just imagine, if you would, what it would be like to go back in time to, say, 17th century Europe, meeting one of our ancestors, and asking him or her about one of the most important Jewish choices we make today. If you were to ask that person, “What kind of Jew are you?” they would have looked at you like you were nuts! “What kind of a Jew am I?” they would have said. “I’m just a Jew. I eat kosher food, I observe Jewish holidays, I live in the ghetto…I’m a Jew.” Nowadays, of course, the question – What kind of Jew are you? – makes must more sense. We can be Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, Orthodox Jews, Reconstructionist Jews, Renewal Jews, or even Secular-Humanist Jews. We can be Gastronomic Jews who just like Jewish food, Pediatric Jews who focus their entire identity on their kids’ religious lives, or Agricultural Jews who are in it just for the cemetery plots. Unlike our ancestors, we can be any kind of Jews we want, and it is a blessing almost beyond words. For us Jews, it’s good to live in the 21st century.

Most of us in this room, of course, have chosen to identify ourselves as Reform Jews. As Canadians, the choice to identify as Reform is a bit unusual. We are a minority here.

Reform Judaism, you see, was created in Germany during the first half of the 19th century, and in the 1840s there was a huge wave of German Jewish immigration to the United States, and Reform flourished there, as a result. But, for the most part, German Jews didn’t come here to Canada. As late as 1881, there were only 2400 Jews in all of Canada, and not a single Reform synagogue. The first Reform congregation was founded a year later, in 1882 – Temple Emanuel, in Montreal (which, by the way, was the synagogue where some of the founding members of our congregation grew up).

Here in Calgary, the story is similar. Temple B’nai Tikvah is much younger than the Conservative and Orthodox congregations here in town. We haven’t even hit 40 yet – and we won’t until this coming April. Beth Tzedec is by far the largest congregation in town (or at least the congregations that merged to form it are), and many members of Calgary’s longstanding Jewish families belong there.

For me personally, experiencing Reform Judaism as a minority marks a real change….one that has taken me some time to get used to. In the US where I’m from, Reform is by far the largest of the Jewish denominations. Here, we’re a minority, and being a minority can sometimes be challenging. And yet, even though we’re a minority, I, for one, am proud to be a Reform Jew, and tonight I’d like to share with you a few reasons why I feel that way. And even though I’ll be speaking personally, I hope you’ll agree with me that there are a lot of good reasons to feel just the way I do.

So, why am I proud to be a Reform Jew? I’ll tell you in a few minutes. But first, in order to understand why we should feel proud of our Reform Judaism, I think it’s important for us to understand just what Reform Judaism is…or, more precisely, to understand what it is not. And here is one of the most important things I want to share with you tonight: Reform Judaism is NOT “Judaism Lite.”

I’ll say that again: Reform Judaism is NOT “Judaism Lite.”

Reform Judaism does not mean being less Jewish than other denominations, and Reform Judaism isn’t necessarily an easier form of Judaism than Conservatism or Orthodoxy. Actually, in many ways, to be a committed Reform Jew is harder than it is to be a committed member of one of the more traditional denominations.

So, if Reform is not Judaism Lite, then what is it? Well, it’s a lot of things, but the main difference between Reform and, say Orthodoxy, has to do with the authority we ascribe to Torah and the other classical texts of the Jewish tradition. Orthodox Judaism holds that the Torah as we have it today came straight from God – that God gave it to Moses on Mt. Sinai in exactly the form we have it now, and that our ancestors passed it down through the ages without changing a single letter. As a result, Orthodoxy argues, the Torah is a perfect document. Its every story is literally true, and, maybe even more important, its every law is utterly binding upon us as Jews. We might not like some of those laws, they say, and some of those laws might not make sense to us, but that doesn’t matter, because the laws are from God, and we don’t have the right to change them. What’s more, the Orthodox argue, since the Torah is perfect, it is also complete. It might be ancient, but, they say, it’s all we need to answer the all of questions that we face in every generation.

Reform Judaism disagrees. In the eyes of Reform, the Torah is a sacred document, perhaps inspired by God, but it is also a human one. It was written by people in a certain time and place striving to understand their world, their God, and their role in the developing drama of human history. Those people had a lot of wisdom to teach us, but they were also fallible – sometimes, they got it wrong. If you believe that the Torah really said that we’re supposed to execute homosexuals, Reform Judaism would say that, in this case, the Torah is wrong. If you read the Torah, as many people do, as having commanded us to commit genocide against the Midianites, Reform Judaism would say that, there too, the Torah got it wrong. And if Torah really does teach that it’s just as important to avoid combining wool and linen fibers in our clothing as it is to be a kind and compassionate person, we would say that that’s wrong, too.

Now, to be fair, I don’t know of any Orthodox Jews who really think that we should go around killing homosexuals, but they need to go through some legal gymnastics in order to get there. Technically, in Orthodox Judaism, that law is still on the books.

Think about it. If you were an Orthodox Jew, and a family were to walk in here tonight and tell you that they’re Midianites, you would be duty bound to kill them. We Reform Jews would respond differently. We’d probably invite them to stay for the Oneg.

Since the Torah was written, Reform says, we’ve learned some things. Among other lessons, we’ve learned that one’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to one’s worth as a human being. We’ve learned that sometimes you can be a nice person – and a valuable person – even if you are a Midianite. And we’ve learned that religious values like kindness, dignity, compassion, and justice are far more important than many of the minutiae of religious observance to which other Jews give equal emphasis.

So, Reform Judaism isn’t just Judaism Lite. No! Instead, it’s a Judaism that celebrates the sanctity of Torah while also acknowledging that there are other places to learn truth, too. Reform Judaism agrees with Orthodoxy that we’re always supposed to do what it is that God wants us to do, we just discern what it is that God wants of us in very different ways.

Reform Judaism is also a type of Judaism that emphasizes the importance of personal choice, particularly in ritual matters. Those choices, should be based on knowledge, of course, but ultimately, they’re our choices to make. Should you keep kosher? I’m not going to say yes or no. What I will say is that you should study the laws and the principles of kashrut, and you should even experiment with keeping those laws. But, in the end, the choice of whether to eat the foods permitted by Jewish law are yours and yours alone to make.

The same goes for other rituals, too. Should you fast on the ninth day of the month of Av (Tisha B’av)? Study it. Try it. Then decide what works for you. Should you put on tefillin? Study it. Try it. Then decide what works for you. Should you build a sukkah in your back yard? Study it. Try it. Then decide what works for you. Should you eat matzah rather than bread during Pesach? Should you say the Shema before you go to sleep? Should you celebrate Havdalah when the sun goes down on Saturday night? The answers are still the same. Study it. Try it. Then decide what works for you.

That’s why, unlike at other synagogues, nobody is ever going to tell you that you need to wear a kippah or tallit when you come here to Temple. If you want to do wear a kippah or tallit – if doing so deepens your spiritual connections or is meaningful in some other way, go for it. But if you’d rather not wear them, that’s fine too. And if somebody tries to tell you otherwise, I want to know about it. Because here, these practices are matters of personal choice.

Don’t get me wrong. Even though these are matters of personal choice, as your rabbi I’m going to try to influence those choices, and I’ll try to influence them often. I love it when you choose to make Shabbat observance a meaningful part of your lives. I love hearing about it when you build sukkahs in your backyards (and I like getting invited even more!). I think it’s terrific when you come to services, and have Passover Seders, and get drunk on Purim, and do any of the myriad of activities that comprise a meaningful Jewish life. But ultimately, these are your choices to make, and nobody else’s.

So Reform Judaism is about personal autonomy, but it’s important to note that this isn’t all that it’s about. From the time of its inception, our movement has placed profound emphasis on the importance of prophetic ethics, the principles of goodness and justice that the biblical prophets implored our people to embrace. In fact, in 1885, the members of the Central Conference of American Rabbis – the professional association of American Reform rabbis to which my colleagues and I belong – met in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, and there composed the first platform of Reform Judaism – the first comprehensive statement of what it means to be a Reform Jew. Their statement, which came to be known colloquially as “The Pittsburgh Platform” concluded with these words:

…[W]e deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.

Now, their conception of Judaism as being about repairing the world might sound like a no-brainer today, but back then, it was revolutionary! To the founders of our movement, Judaism wasn’t just about rituals. Understood correctly, these rabbis argued, Judaism is also about building a better world. It’s about racial and economic justice. It’s about ending and end to war and hunger. It’s about making sure that the poor and the widow and the orphan are taken care of. It’s about what we now call Tikkun Olam, repairing this broken world that we all share. Such a view of religion broke the molds of what people thought religion was back then, as it does today. Many religions see themselves as havens from the troubled world out there. Many religions see themselves as being about ritual and about the private relationship between the individual and God. Even other Jewish groups often emphasize the importance of ceremony over and above that of dealing with universal problems. Reform Judaism, on the other hand, has from the very get-go affirmed the importance of universal Jewish values as well as the particular ones. Ours was the first movement to open a lobby on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, and now our movement has an active social action life here in Canada, as well. We have led the charge in teaching the modern Jewish world that it is not good enough just to fix our own house – we need to repair our worldwide neighborhood, as well.

All of the synagogues here in Calgary do great work, but there’s only one that regularly feeds needy people at the Drop In Centre, and there’s only one that used to host Inn From the Cold. And last weekend, there was only one synagogue that marched as a group in Calgary’s Pride Parade, and that was ours. These activities reflect the commitment to social justice that has been so central to Reform Judaism ever since it was created.

So why am I proud to be a Reform Jew? I’ll tell you in a few minutes. But I want to add some additional comments, as well. Reform Judaism, from its very inception, has been at the forefront of showing the world what kind of magic can happen in the awesome encounter between Judaism and modern life. Reform Judaism, in other words, is magnificently modern. Other movements have social action operations too – ours was the first. Ours was the first denomination in Jewish life to welcome women into roles of Jewish leadership, and in 1972, ours was the first to ordain a woman – my colleague, Sally Priesand – as a rabbi. Later that same decade, under the leadership of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, our movement became the first to prioritize outreach to interfaith families. The very first Reform synagogues in 19th century Germany weren’t called Reform synagogues, they were called “organ synagogues,” because one of the most notable changes they instituted was that of bringing modern instrumental music into the synagogue – and back then, having modern religious music meant having an organ. And ever since, our movement has led the way in creating modern Jewish music. Many of the most prominent composers of today’s Jewish music have come out of our movement, and that’s why, these days, even in synagogues affiliated with other denominations, you’ll often hear music that originated right here in Reform.

Our movement is also at the forefront of liturgical reform to keep Jewish prayer relevant. We’ve worked hard to use gender-sensitive language in our prayerbooks, we’ve incorporated prayers for healing into our services (the Mi Shebeirach), our liturgies acknowledge the importance of the State of Israel and the Holocaust and other such modern realities. For Reform Judaism, worship isn’t just a set of old unchanging Jewish practices that are frozen in time. Instead, it’s modern; it’s dynamic, constantly changing and responding to contemporary realities while also connecting us deeply with the Jewish past.

And it’s not only with respect to rituals that we’re dynamic. Early Reform Judaism was opposed to the creation of the State of Israel – it was anti-Zionist. Today, Reform Judaism overwhelmingly embraces Zionism. Sometimes we’re critical of Israel, of course, but always from a position of deep love, support, and genuine care for its wellbeing. Early Reform Judaism was actively opposed to things like kashrut, and kippot and other such “unmodern” and “irrational” Jewish practices. Today, we welcome them as exciting options for those Jews who choose them. At the first congregation I served after I was ordained, I wore a kippah to one of the first services I led, and in so doing I raised the eyebrows of some of the oldtimers. “Is he Orthodox?” they wondered. Here, if I didn’t wear a kippah, some of your eyebrows wouldn’t only rise, they’d fly off your faces. Reform Judaism changes just as Judaism has always changed. This is part of what makes it so exciting to be a Reform Jews.

So why am I proud to be a Reform Jew? I’ll tell you in a minute. But first I do want to make one more comment. It’s no secret that I’m partial to Reform Judaism, but at the same time, I feel blessed beyond words to live at a time when there are so many wonderful Jewish choices available to our people. Each one of the many movements of modern Jewish life brings its own truths and its own blessings to our people, and we should rejoice that all of them exist. Orthodoxy’s deep commitment to Jewish continuity is a treasure. Conservatism’s commitment to deeply affirming Jewish law while also embracing modern sensibilities is a blessing as well. So are the new possibilities we learn from Reconstructionism and Jewish Renewal and other movements, too. Some people argue that we Jews live in a post-denominational era – a time when we can all be “just Jewish.” I disagree. Of course, we’re all “just Jewish” but each movement’s core principles have added profound value to modern Judaism. They are part of what makes this time a Golden Age of Jewish life for our people everywhere.

So why am I proud to be a Reform Jew? Funny you should ask.

I’m proud to be a Reform Jew because ours is a movement that teaches how important it is to repair the world while also enriching Jewish life in particular. I’m proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism allows me to find my own meaning in the time-honored values and practices of my people. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform teaches me that salvation can’t happen to me alone – I can’t be saved, until the whole world around me is. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform Judaism is a meeting ground between traditional Judaism and modern realities – and when Judaism and modernity encounter one another, magic happens. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because guitars and pianos and violins as well as beautiful vocals help me sing from my heart, and I not only love to sing, but I think God likes it when we sing together. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform was at the forefront in teaching the Jewish world that we’re all equal in the eyes of God – men and women, gay people and straight people, the powerful and the oppressed – each of us. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform forces me to be true to Jewish values and cognizant of modern change. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform makes room for me to find my own Jewish path, just as it does for you, too. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because Reform has and will continue to lead the way in building a robust, meaningful, Jewish community embracing both old-time Jewish values and modern Jewish realities.

Reform Judaism, of course, is a relatively new phenomenon in Jewish history – it’s less than 200 years old. And yet, even in its short history, this movement has transformed Jewish life. I’m proud to be a part of it, and I hope you are, too.

When we get together with other Jews, some of us might get to eat brisket, and some of us might just eat fruit. But when we embrace a Judaism that brings us closer to a life of holiness – whether it be the Reform Judaism I love or any of the other wonderful choices before us – they we’ll all feast on the magnificent banquet that we call modern Judaism.

Shanah Tovah.