by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Mysteries Revealed in a Teriyaki Restaurant

Kol Nidre Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
5779/2018

By Rabbi Mark Glickman

When I lived in Washington State, I used to frequent a teriyaki restaurant near the synagogue where I worked. Teriyaki places are very common there, and this one could be counted on for decent workday lunches.

One day, right after I sat down, a man and his two kids sat at the table right next to mine. His daughter looked to be about six, his son looked to be about four, and he looked to be a guy with very full hands that day. At the time, my kids were only a few years older than his, so I knew exactly what he was going through. By all appearances, it was an afternoon out with Dad, so that Mom could have some time to herself. Maybe she had some errands to do, or maybe she was going to lunch with some friends, or perhaps he was even giving her an afternoon at the spa. Regardless, Dad had several hours to fill with those two little people – maybe at the mall, at the playground, or at the movies – and of course he had to get some food into them. That, I knew, was why they were at the teriyaki place that day.

He got hold of some booster seats, plopped the kids into them, pulled out a couple of activity books, and began to study the menu. “Rachel, do you want chicken, or beef?”

“Umm…I want beef, Daddy.”

“OK, one small plate of beef for you. How about you, Joey? Chicken, or beef?”

“I want chicken,” Joey said.

“Terrific,” Dad replied. “You and I will split a plate of chicken.”

“No, Daddy. I want my own plate.”

“I know, Joey, but those plates are really big. We’ll share one, and you can have as much chicken as you want off of it, OK?”

“No, Daddy. I want my own plate, just like Rachel.”

My heart went out to the guy. I’d been there. I knew full well that ordering restaurant food for small children is a challenge similar in magnitude to that of mapping the human genome. Very few people have figured out how to do it successfully, and I was pulling for the guy.

“Joey, we’ll share a plate. It will be fine.”

“Daaaad. I want my own!” There was now a little catch in Joey’s voice – a small hint of what we might call “youthful complaint.” Joey was ratcheting things up a little bit, and things were getting interesting.

“Come on, Dad!” I thought. “You can do this. You’ve already set aside this day to be with your kids. You got them loaded into the car, you’ve started your errands – you’ve got it all together. Now, rise to the occasion my friend. The I-want-my-own-plate monster is beginning to breathe fire. Stand up to that dragon, and slay it. I’ve been there and slayed some of those dragons myself, my friend. I know what you’re going through. You can do it.”

“Joey, you’ll be able to order your own plate when you’re older and bigger. Today you’ll be sharing with me. Now take out your crayons and color in your coloring book.”

“Daaaaaad!” Joey’s voice grew louder. “I want my own chicken!!!”

“Joey, be quiet, and color in your coloring book. Everything will be fine.”

The advantage in this battle was starting to swing toward Joey. Dad was losing ground. My heart really went out to him.

“But I want my own chicken!!!” Joey yelled.

“Joey! Either you stop yelling, or I’m going to have to take you out to the car.”

“Uh-oh,” I thought. “That’s it. Dad just fell into the I’m-going-to-have-to-take-you-out-to-the-car trap. This is not looking good for him. In the history of fatherhood, very few men have ever emerged from that trap alive.”

Now, Joey shrieked even louder. “I want my own chicken!!!”

“That’s it – you’re done,” Dad said. As Joey continued to scream over the ultimate injustice of his life, Dad picked the boy up, put him under his arm surfboard style, and headed out to the car.

Rachel sat alone the table, paging through her coloring book. What she didn’t realize was that her father’s hasty exit had just activated the Father Code of Ethics. Now, it was my job to keep an eye on Rachel until her father returned. That said, she looked like she was doing fine on her own.

At one point, Rachel and I did make eye-contact. “Does your brother do that very often?” I asked.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “All the time!” she said.

“Yeah,” I told her. “That’s kinda what little brothers do. He’ll probably get better, but it might not be until you’re much older. Do you think you can hold out until then?”

“I suppose,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes again.

After just a few minutes, Dad came back, holding the hand of Joey, who walked calmly beside him, wiping his nose, and rubbing the last few tears from his cheeks. “Atta boy, Dad,” I thought. “You have reasserted control. Good job!” Again, I had been where he was and done what he was doing many times before. I knew exactly what he was going through.

Soon, the waitress came to take their order. Chirpy and enthusiastic, she turned to the kids and said, “So, what are you doing today.”

“We’re going to the hops-pital,” said Joey. “Our Mommy is there.”

“Oh…I hope she’s not too sick,” said that waitress, trying to keep things happy.

“Well,” said the father, “actually, it’s cancer. Stage Four.”

“Oh,” said the waitress. “Sorry to hear that.” There was an awkward pause. “Well…what would you like for lunch, then?”

It turns out, that I was wrong about this man the whole time. I only thought I knew what he was going through. In my mind, I had painted a detailed picture of this man’s life – one that, coincidentally, looked a lot like mine. In reality, however, his life was very different than mine, and the lives of his kids were very different than the lives of my own. He was dealing with a dying wife. His kids were likely facing the prospect of living much of their remaining childhoods – not to mention much of their remaining lives – without their mother. My assumptions, it turns out, were nothing but smug projections of my own life onto theirs. Sitting there eating Japanese food with his kids, that man looked lonely. I hoped he had a community that could give him support. How could I have gotten him so wrong?

Fortunately, in this case I had kept those assumptions to myself and didn’t act on them. But how often do our assumptions – our presumptions – seep into the way we interact with people? I invite you to think about it in your own life. Most of us assume things about others all the time. Someone snubs you at a party, and you think, “She’s still holding a grudge against me for that time I stood her up at dinner.” Your boss calls you three times to remind you to send out that email, and you think, “He’s such a control freak.” Someone else talks your ear off about something that doesn’t make any sense, and you think “He’s just a nut.”

All of those assumptions, of course, might be true. But, as I learned so well with that guy in the teriyaki place, they might not. Instead, there might be far more to the story than you ever dreamed of. She might have snubbed you at the party because that day she had just learned her job was in jeopardy, and her mind was simply elsewhere – not focused on the niceties of party talk. Your boss might be reminding you to send that email because that email is important to the completion of a huge project in ways you’re simply not privy to. And that other guy might be jabbering on because he’s all alone at home, talking with you is the first meaningful moment of human contact he’s had all day, and he doesn’t want to let you go because he’s afraid of the loneliness that will flood in when he does.

The reality is that we never know the totality of another human being’s story. What we see when we look at the person standing before us is only a tiny portion of the person who they are – the proverbial tip of their “otherness-iceberg.” Think about that person you said hello to on your way into services tonight. How much do you really know about them? Do you really know what it is that makes that person tick? Do you really know what happened to them before you saw them today? And if you do, do you think you really have a full sense of how those events resonated with them? You might be able to guess as to what those events would have meant for you, but that person is not you – what happens to them means something different than the same events do when they happen to you.

It’s even true of the people we know and love most. We might know a lot about our spouses and our siblings and our kids and our close, close friends, but do we really know it all? Of course we don’t. That’s why even good friends have arguments sometimes; that’s why being a parent can be so unpredictable. That’s why marriage is often so very complicated.

Of course, the fact that we don’t know what motivates other people shouldn’t let them off the hook when they misbehave. Nasty behavior is nasty behavior, and we should never tolerate it. But understanding the complexity and the otherness of the people with whom we interact can add compassion to the equation. No, it was not OK for that cashier to snap at you the way he did, but maybe the fact that you don’t know what his day was like before your encounter with him can allow you to give him the benefit of the doubt. Understanding and empathy humanize other people, and we need such understanding and empathy if we are ever to bridge the vast chasms that separate us.

This day – Yom Kippur – is in part about healing broken relationships. It invites us to look at what we can do to repair the rifts that have opened up between ourselves and other people. As we look at these fissures, I encourage you to remember that our tradition reminds us that God created each of unique – profoundly so. Each person you encounter in your life is vastly different than you, and what you know of them is only a small piece of who they are. In fact, more often than not, it is the part of them that you don’t know which leads to the breaks and tensions in your relationship with them. Our tradition also teaches that not only are each of us different from one another, but also that each of us was created for a specific purpose – different and distinct from that of everyone else. That person – the one that causes you such frustration and difficulty – God put that very person here for a reason. And the main reason that they’re so frustrating to you is that you haven’t yet figured what that reason is.

It’s a fascinating challenge, isn’t it? You meet someone and you learn about them, but something of them will always remain a mystery. And we’re left wanting to connect with them, anyway. Even despite the mystery. Even despite the holes in their story, some of which we’ll never fill.

You know this about people. Even the good ones can be so very puzzling. That’s why we spend our lives reaching out to others. We do try to connect despite those separating gaps, and even when we succeed, we know that we always do so with the chasms still there, waiting to be bridged by our ongoing attempts to connect.

At the time when I saw Joey and Rachel and their Dad at the teriyaki place, I was a regular religion columnist for the Seattle Times, and not long after that day at the restaurant, I wrote a column about my experience seeing them there. I changed their names (just like I did for this sermon, by the way), described my encounter with them, and shared my thoughts. Here I thought I knew so much about them, I wrote, when in reality I knew so little.

Not long afterward, I received an email from a woman I’d never met. “Dear Rabbi Glickman,” she wrote. “My name is Jennifer Archers, and a friend of mine recently showed me the article you wrote about that man and his children who you saw in the restaurant. I’m writing because I think that that man is my husband Matt, and that ‘Rachel’ and ‘Joey’ are our kids. From what Matt told me about the events of that day, you described it perfectly – it was a really hard day for him. But I’m writing you now because there are a couple of things I thought you might be interested in knowing about me. First,” she wrote, “contrary to what you wrote in your article, I’m not dying. I have a few more rounds of my treatments to go, but the doctors are pleased with the way things are progressing, and they’ve given me a pretty good prognosis. And second, believe it or not, I’m Jewish. I haven’t been involved in a synagogue for years, but I grew up as part of one, I had a Bat Mitzvah, and, even though Matt can’t understand it, I just love gefilte fish! I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’m Jewish, and I can’t tell you how amazed I am that you – a rabbi – chose to write this article about my family.”

I was shocked. Originally, I had thought I knew everything about Matt, but then I had overheard his conversation with his waitress and realized that I’d gotten his story all wrong. His wife was dying. His kids were going to grow up with no mother. It was horrible. But now, reading Jennifer’s email, I realized that my second version of the story was also a figment of my imagination. I’d gotten that wrong, too. How could I have been so wrong…again?

I wish I could tell you that there was a storybook ending to this tale. If there was one, it would have been great. I would have invited Jennifer to bring her kids to Temple, where she would have heard words and melodies that stirred her soul and reminded her of the beauty of her Jewish tradition. The family would have joined the Temple, the kids would have enrolled in the religious school, Matt would have taken my Introduction to Judaism Class and begun to think about conversion, Jennifer would have joined the board and put herself on track to becoming Temple president one day, and Joey and Rachel would both have decided to become rabbis.

Alas, that’s not what happened. I think I did invite Jennifer and her family to Temple, but they never came. Instead, Jennifer and I exchanged a few more pleasant emails, and then, as often happens, our connection drifted away.

Still, I now know more – much more – about Matt and Joey and Jennifer and Rachel than I did when I first laid eyes on them at that teriyaki place, but what I’ve also learned is that I am positive there is much more of their story that I don’t know. They, like everyone, show only part of themselves to the world around them, and the rest of them will always remain a mystery.

This is true even for you and me. In the two years that I’ve been your rabbi, many of you have shared bits of yourselves with me, and for that I feel unspeakably grateful and privileged. But there are also parts of you that I don’t know, and never will. You, too, are mysterious, and it makes the process of growing with you into one that is awesome, fascinating, and magnificent.

Think about the people in your life. You reach out. Another life touches yours, and yet it remains so utterly mysterious at the same time. Each human soul is infinite – revealing untold wonders, while also concealing worlds.

This year, may you be privileged to connect with others, and my you learn to love even as you acknowledge the glorious mystery of every human being around you.

Shanah Tovah.

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 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

The Magnificent Fruit Plate: Why I’m Proud to be a Reform Jew, and Why You Should Be, Too

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.

in Sermons 1 comments
 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Forgiveness: When to Do It and Why It’s Important

Yom Kippur Morning Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
September 30 2017 – Tishri 10, 5778

 

There’s been a bit of a drought going on around here lately, in case you haven’t noticed. We didn’t have much rainfall at all this past summer, and while the sunny days were nice, the dry conditions affected crops, and they contributed to wildfires, which affected our air quality, and the dryness caused other problems, as well.

Of course, our recent drought is far from the first drought in history. There have been many others in the past, and today I’d like to focus on one of them that happened many centuries ago, because the people who endured that drought learned some lessons that still bear value for us many centuries later.

This particular drought happened in the late first or early second century of the Common Era, and it happened in the land of Israel. It was a horrible drought, and unlike today, Ancient Israel didn’t have plentiful water reserves and hi-tech irrigation systems to get them through the dry times. They needed water to survive, and a drought like this was very perilous indeed. It was a matter of life and death.

The Jewish community proclaimed fast-days. Jewish leaders offered special prayers. Jews did everything they could to curry divine favour and bring the water they so desperately needed.

At one point, according to the Talmud, the great Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus stepped forward and began to pray. He prayed not one prayer, not two or three prayers – instead, Rabbi Eliezer offered fully twenty-four prayers to God, pleading for rain to help his community survive. And after his final prayer, Rabbi Eliezer stopped speaking, there was a moment of silence, and then…nothing happened. Everyone looked outside, and saw to their great dismay that they sky was just as blue as it had been for weeks.

Then, Rabbi Eliezer’s student, Rabbi Akiva, stood before the congregation, and said, “Avinu Malkeinu, Parent and Sovereign, ein lanu melech eleh atah, we have no Ruler but you; Avinu Malkeinu, Parent and Sovereign, rachem aleinu lema’an sh’mecha, have mercy upon us for Your sake.” (Yes, the origins of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer that we recite during these Days of Awe can be traced back to this very moment.) Immediately after Rabbi Akiva finished praying, the skies darkened, and the rain began to fall.

As soon as they realized what had happened, all the rabbis who were present began murmuring about what they had just seen. Evidently, God had been quite ready to heed Rabbi Akiva’s plea, but not Rabbi Eliezer’s. Had old Rabbi Eliezer lost his touch? Was he over the hill? Was there something about his twenty-four prayers that God didn’t like? Could it have been that God just liked the fact that Akiva was so much more concise than Rabbi Eliezer? Maybe, they wondered with horror, God actually likes the concise rabbis far more than the long-winded ones.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long for a definitive answer, because soon a divine voice spoke to them from the heavens. “It is not because Akiva is any greater than Eliezer that his prayer was answered,” God said. “Instead, it’s just because Akiva is a forgiving person, and Eliezer isn’t.”

Because Akiva is forgiving. Now I’ve spoken about forgiveness from this bima before. Many of you will recall that last year I gave a sermon about forgiveness. Not all the sermons I deliver from up here hit home – far from it. But evidently there was something about that particular message that resonated with many of you. Several people came up to me in tears afterward, and shared the way it touched them. It was actively discussed at the Yom Kippur afternoon study session last year, and I’m told that it’s gotten a lot of hits on our website, too.

What was it that I said in that sermon? Well, don’t worry – I’m not going to redeliver it in its entirety today. But, in short, what I suggested was that, in Judaism, forgiveness might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. I said that, during the Days of Awe, Judaism has us focus not on forgiveness, but on atonement – not on letting people off for their misdeeds, but rather on atoning for our own. I said that Judaism takes issue with the teachings of other religions and all the modern psycho-drivel suggesting that we should forgive everyone who has ever wronged us, and I went on to say that Judaism teaches us to forgive only those people who have earned our forgiveness, that we should only forgive those who are repentant. Those who haven’t apologized, I said, don’t deserve one whit from us in the forgiveness department, and we shouldn’t forgive them until they have sincerely apologized and made right the wrongs they did to us.

Forgiveness has its place in Judaism, I argued, but that place is a far more limited one than many people today would have it occupy.

And then comes this story about Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer, telling us that the only reason that God listened to Rabbi Akiva’s prayer was that he was forgiving, and I’m sure that right about now, many of you are wondering just what in the world is going on. Does Judaism consider forgiveness important, or doesn’t it?

Well I still stand behind every word that I shared with you in last year’s sermon – forgiveness should be reserved only for those who repent of their sins. But today I’ll confess that, although last year’s sermon was correct, it wasn’t complete; it was the truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Today, I’d like to remedy that by filling out more of the picture.

In order to do so, I’d like to loop back to the story of Akiva and Eliezer. The text praises Akiva for being more “forgiving” than his teacher, but, in this context, I wonder what that word – forgiving – really means. Reflecting upon it, I think that the word as the rabbis used it in this Talmudic story could mean a few things, and that looking at the possibilities can help us complete our picture of forgiveness in Judaism.

One possibility is that, when the Talmud tells us that Akiva was more forgiving, it meant to say that he was more tolerant of people’s foibles than Eliezer was. Maybe Eliezer was the kind of guy who just didn’t have any time or patience for people when they fell short, while Akiva was more easygoing. Maybe Eliezer corrected people’s grammar all the time, while Akiva didn’t seem to mind if you said “irregardless,” or “me and” or “sherbert.”

Akiva’s wife was named Rachel – maybe Akiva didn’t make a big deal about it when Rachel ran a little late, or got grouchy, or overcooked the chicken. Eliezer’s wife was named Ima Shalom – Peace Mamma. Maybe he was the kind of guy who did make a big deal the things that Akiva let slide. Maybe to him, punctuality, good cheer, and well-cooked chicken were important, and for Ima Shalom to demonstrate anything less was simply unacceptable.

And maybe Akiva’s tolerance, and Eliezer’s lack of tolerance, went even deeper. Maybe, as Akiva interacted with people, he sometimes found real moral or ethical shortcomings in them, but still made room for those flawed people in his life. Maybe he had friends who were unfaithful to their spouses, or maybe he saw people cheating in business, or maybe he even felt the personal sting of gossip, and still was able to find in his life room for the people who did those things. I can’t imagine that Akiva would have ever sanctioned such behaviour. To the contrary – he must have railed against it wherever he saw it. But maybe, even as he told these people that what they were doing was wrong, Akiva was still able to stay connected with them.

When the text says that Akiva was forgiving, in other words, maybe what it meant to say was not that he forgave anything people did wrong, but rather that he acknowledged that nobody is perfect, that that he was able to see the good in people even when they weren’t being all they could be.

Well just like the people in Akiva’s life, you’re not perfect either – none of us is. (We’ve reminded you of that often during the past few hours, haven’t we?) But even though you’re flawed, you still have enormous worth as a human being. You know this about yourself, I hope, but do you remember that this is true of other people, as well? Even the people you love most will disappoint you sometimes. Your friends, the members of your family, the people you like at work. Every one of them has a tendency to fall short from time to time. Can you love them, anyway? Is your heart big enough to make room for all of those imperfect people who populate your world? I certainly hope so.

Again, I’m not saying that we should forgive everyone for everything they do wrong. No, last year’s sermon still holds – we love best when we hold the people we love up to the highest moral and ethical standards we can. But even if you haven’t forgiven them, can you still make room for these flawed people in your life? And even more to the point, can you still make room for them in your heart? Sometimes, of course, the answer will be no, because sometimes people do things that are so horrible that we need to cut them off. But if the answer is always no – if every flaw in everyone we encounter merits a total cutoff, you’re going to end up being one very lonely person. Do you have the strength, do you have the generosity of spirit, to make room in your life for other people even though they’re not perfect? For their sake, and for yours, I certainly hope so.

So maybe, in telling us that Akiva was forgiving, the Talmud was trying to teach us an important lesson about human frailty and imperfection. But maybe it was trying to say something else either in addition to that or instead of it. Maybe it really was trying to tell us something about forgiveness.

As I said, Judaism insists that we forgive only the repentant sinner. That means that if somebody harms us, and they want us to forgive them, they have to go through a process we call teshuvah to earn that forgiveness. And teshuvah is far from an easy process to undergo. It demands that the wrongdoer admit what he or she did wrong, change their behaviour, apologize, compensate the victims, and maintain their changes over the long haul. In other words, if you’ve done something wrong, you have to own up, change up, ‘fess up, pay up, and keep it up. It’s difficult work, because it involves changing yourself, and making yourself vulnerable, and working hard for a long, long time to be better.

And I’ll remind you, that if you’re the victim of someone else’s wrongdoing, you don’t need to forgive the person who harmed you unless that person is going through that teshuvah process. At the same time, the flipside is also true – and this is something that I didn’t emphasize last year. If the person who wronged you is undergoing teshuvah – if he or she really is remorseful and is committed to changing and righting the wrong that he or she has done, then Jewish law tells us that you have to forgive that person, even if you don’t want to. You don’t necessarily need to be friends with him anymore, but you need to forgive him…like you forgive a debt.

Maybe that’s what Akiva did. Maybe the text was trying to tell us that when someone wronged him, and then genuinely apologized and tried to make things right, Akiva was willing to forgive that person. That guy who backed up into his car, and left a note with his phone number on it, and paid for the damages, and apologized and improved his driving? Maybe Akiva forgave that guy, and that’s why they called him forgiving. Or maybe it was because he forgave Rachel, who used to be so snappy at him when he got home in the evenings, and who finally realized what she was doing, figured out how to hold things in check, and apologized. Maybe it was because he forgave her, too. Maybe, when people who wronged Akiva did their teshuvah, Akiva was the kind of guy who let them off the hook.

No, we shouldn’t forgive anyone unless they repent, but when they do repent, then we need to forgive them even if we don’t want to. In fact, Judaism teaches that if you remain adamant in your refusal to forgive a repentant sinner, then not only does God clear them of their sin, but God also adds their misdeed onto your account. Refusal to forgive a sin when the person who committed it is repentant, in other words, means that you get to own whatever it was that they did wrong.

People can hurt us so deeply sometimes. And often they don’t own up and do what they need to do in order to fix it. But sometimes they do, and when they do their teshuvah – when they’ve truly righted the wrong they committed – then the obligation to forgive falls upon the shoulders of the victim. And when that happens, sometimes we won’t want to forgive, because we still hurt, but they’ve done their work, and we should forgive them anyway.

Knowing that we’ve been wronged can actually be of comfort sometimes – it helps us remember that we’re OK morally, and that the perpetrators were the bad guys. Having to forgive those very same people can be hard, because it means letting go of our feeling that they still owe us.

You were wronged. The other person comes to you sincerely apologetic, changed, begging your forgiveness. Can you find it within yourself to tell them that you forgive them? I certainly hope so.

There’s a third possibility as to what the Talmud meant when it said that Akiva was forgiving, too. Maybe the Talmud was simply trying to say that Akiva didn’t bear grudges very often. People did wrong by Akiva, for all of us fall victim to the misdeeds of others sometimes. But maybe Akiva was the kind of guy who did what he could to put these things behind him.

The Torah tells us specifically, “Lo tikom v’lo titor. Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge.” (Lev. 19:18) What’s the difference between taking vengeance and bearing a grudge? The rabbis explained it often in the ancient literature. If you ask your neighbour to borrow his axe, and he says no, and then later he asks you to borrow your shovel, then if you were to respond to him saying “You wouldn’t let me borrow your axe, so I’m not going to let you borrow my shovel,” that’s taking vengeance. On the other hand, if you respond to him saying “You wouldn’t let me borrow your axe, but I’m much better than you, so unlike you, I’m going to be generous and let you borrow my shovel,” that’s bearing a grudge.

When somebody wrongs you, the question is this: Are you going to let their misdeed continue to define who you are, or are you going to put your memories of what they did to you into a place where they don’t control you, where they don’t define you? Maybe by calling Akiva forgiving, what the Talmud really meant to say is that Akiva didn’t let his memory of being wronged continue to weigh upon him. Maybe the Talmud was attesting to Akiva’s ability to avoid letting past misfortunes determine his behaviour.

It all comes down to this. As much as you might want the people around you to be perfect, they never will be. They all have faults; they all have foibles. They may be really good, but they, like you, are striving for a perfection that nobody can ever fully achieve. It’s fair to expect them to grow; but can you love them along the way, even when they still have improvements to make? It’s important never to forgive them until they repent, but can you actually go ahead and give them that forgiveness when they do? It’s normal to feel hurt when they let you down, but do you want that hurt to continue to define you? Can you, like Akiva, approach these complexities of life with a spirit of forgiveness, settling for nothing less than full repentance, while striving for love and connection even without it?

Akiva made room in his life for people even though they were imperfect; he forgave people when they earned it; he remembered his pain, but didn’t let it define him. His model was a model that we all should strive to make real today.

It’s been dry out there, my friends. We thirst for love, we long for connection with others. Maybe if we can be forgiving like Akiva was, then when such thirst plagues us, our prayers too, will be answered with love and true human connection.

Ken yehi ratzon. So may this be God’s will.

Shanah Tovah.

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 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Flowers for the Future: The Blessing of a Mitzvah-Filled Life

Erev Yom Kippur Sermon
Temple B’nai Tikvah
September 29, 2017 – Tishri 10 5778

Her given name was Mildred Cecilia Harriet Sturt, and she was born in 1869. Unfortunately, we don’t know many details of her life. As is the case with many female members of the British gentry during Victorian times, most of what we know about her is what we might call genealogical information – who her parents were, whom she married, and the names and dates of her children.

We know that Mildred Cecilia Harriet Sturt was the daughter of Henry Gerard and Augusta Sturt, the first Baron and Baroness Alington of Crichel. She grew up in Dorset, England, and, in 1892, the 24 year-old Mildred married a Conservative Member of Parliament and former army officer named Henry Arthur Cadogan, the Viscount Chelsea. Suddenly, the young Miss Sturt had become the Viscountess Mildred Chelsea, a mid-level member of the British nobility in her own right. She had six children with the Viscount – five daughters, and a son – before her husband died of cancer at the age of 40 in 1908. One of her daughters married into the Spencer-Churchill family – Spencer like Lady Diana Spencer; Churchill like…Churchill. Another daughter married into the Stanley family, of Stanley Cup fame. Two years after her husband’s death, in 1910, she married a British naval officer named Hedworth Lambton Meaux, and a year after his death in 1929 she married her third and final husband, Charles William Augustus Montagu. Their wedding took place at Kimbolton Castle, the final home of Henry VIII’s wife, Katherine of Aragon. So I guess you could call her Mildred Cecilia Harriet Sturt Chelsea Meaux Montagu. She lived until 1942, when she died in London at the age of 73.

That, in short, is what we know of Mildred Chelsea’s life.

But there’s one other detail that we know about her. One day, sometime between 1899 and 1910, the young Viscountess Chelsea – then in her 30s – read a small book of poetry. It was probably a spring day, and as I imagine it, the sun was shining, she was wearing a simple but elegant white dress, and she had taken a walk on the grounds of her estate, or perhaps at a local park down by the water.

Sitting on a bench, Mildred pulled out a small, leather-bound volume of poetry, entitled Posies Out of Rings and Other Conceits, by William Theodore Peters. You may never have heard of the book Posies out of Rings and Other Conceits, and that’s probably because of what we might charitably call the “quality” of the poetry it contains. In the book, you can find such memorable compositions as this one, called “Betty’s Eyes”:

Betty’s eyes are violets
Violets where sweetness lies
Promises she may not keep
Lurk in Betty’s flower-like eyes.

And if you like that one, well then you’ll love “Star and Flower.”

The Star of Love is a flower, a deathless token
That grows beside the Gate of Unseen Things.
A daisy is a fallen star, a thought unspoken
Written by one whose wings are silver wings.

You get the idea.

For whatever reason, flowers must have been on Mildred’s mind that day – maybe because of the “Posies” in the title of the book, or maybe because of the poem reminding her that “The Star of Love is a flower.” For whatever the reason, before Mildred put that book of poetry away, she noticed that there were some wildflowers growing nearby. Getting up, she walked over to where they were, bent over, picked a small purple one, and laid it between the pages of the book where it could dry flat.

That little incident isn’t written up in her biographical record, of course. How do I know about it? I know about it because I have the book that right here – I purchased it several years ago at a used bookstore in Victoria. Here is the title page, indicating that the book was published in 1896, here is Mildred Chelsea’s bookplate, and here is the flower that she picked and pressed between its pages (the flower is what sold me on the book).

Think about it. More than a hundred years ago, a young woman – maybe without thinking about it very much at all – bent over and picked a flower, perhaps reasoning that it would be nice to look at later sometime. And now, half a world away and a over century later, hundreds of us here in this room are benefitting from her decision to do so.

How many things that you do during your life will last a century? How much of what you do will have people smiling a hundred years from now? Will any of it continue to inspire people in a century…or at least have any effect whatsoever?

Some things certainly will continue to benefit people in the long-term. If you build a building, or have grandchildren, or write a book, there’s a good chance that, in a century, at least someone is going to remember what you’ve done. But most of what we do won’t be that memorable. A hundred years from now, nobody will remember that you brushed your teeth this morning (though if you never brush your teeth, they may remember that!). They won’t remember that you bought furnace filters, or paid your electric bill, or went out to a nice restaurant with your friends.

So much of what we do is in the realm of the forgettable; so little of it is eternal.

The forgettable, of course, isn’t necessarily bad. Going out to dinner with your friends can be very nice, and it’s important to buy your furnace filters. But the question is whether we want these types of activities – the forgettable ones – to be the sum total of our existence. As you reflect upon your life, don’t you think that it would be nice if at least something of what you do during your limited time here on earth could outlast you? Wouldn’t it be nice if the reach of your life’s activities could extend beyond the years of your life? It was so wonderful that Mildred Chelsea left us that flower; wouldn’t it be great if a hundred years from now, someone, somewhere, could say something similar about something that you’ve done?

The problem, of course, is that it can be difficult to figure out what’s memorable and what will end up forgotten. After all, we never know whether the things we do in life will have staying power, or not. When Mildred Chelsea bent over to pick up that flower a little over a hundred years ago, I don’t know exactly what she was thinking, but I think it’s safe to assume that one of the things she wasn’t thinking was, “Oh look, a flower. I should press it between the pages of my book, because 110 years or so from now, a rabbi in Calgary Alberta will be able to share that flower with his congregation.” No, she probably had no clue about the power of that flower; she probably had no idea that what she was doing had left the realm of the forgettable and entered realm of the immortal.

We can’t ever know whether the memory of what we do will outlive us, but we can certainly try to fill our lives with that type of activities. Or maybe we could put it another way. There are no guarantees that what we do will be remembered – we have no control over that. But what we do control is whether our activities are worthy of being remembered. If you want, you can fill your life with the mundane – getting yourself showered and dressed in the morning, running your errands, attending that endless series of meetings at work. But if you want, you can also fill at least part of your time with things that have more eternal significance – working on behalf of an important cause, fighting for justice, committing random acts of kindness. And when you get really good at it, you can also figure out ways to transform the ordinarily mundane acts of life into deeds that are truly memorable. You’ll take a detour on your daily errands to drop off a surprise little gift at the home of a friend who’s feeling down; you’ll make something magnificent out of the time you spend in those work meetings; or maybe you’ll just be able to contextualize buying those furnace filters, seeing it as part of what it takes to create a warm, safe home for your family.

Of course, Judaism is all about getting us to spend our time on things that are worthwhile rather than on things that are trivial, but in Judaism, we use different language to describe those activities. In Judaism, we’re supposed to be holy – kadosh – rather than it’s opposite – chol – mundane, or humdrum.

In fact, we chanted words echoing this sentiment earlier tonight. Just a little while ago, we said, “V’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha, b’chol levavcha, uv’chol nafsh’cha, u’vchol m’odecha. You should love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and [to translate literally] with all your very,” with all your oomph. How are we supposed to love God? In Judaism, we love God by doing what it is that God wants us to do. And how do we know what God wants us to do? We read our sacred texts, and there in the Torah we find 613 things that God wants us to do – the 613 commandments, mitzvot, of our sacred scripture. God wants us to give some of what we have to those in need. And God wants us to be faithful to our spouses. And God wants us to take care of the earth, and to come and worship together on Jewish festivals just like we’re doing now. And as the sun goes down on Shabbat, God wants us to light candles against the darkness.

More generally, if you read those old books, you’ll find that God wants us to create a world that is kind, and just, and compassionate. God wants us to build strong Jewish communities. God wants us to be good to ourselves and to every human being, because we each carry a spark of the divine within us. And doing all of these things are the ways we in Judaism show our love to God.

And remember, we’re supposed to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our oomph. That leaves no heart, soul, or oomph for anything else at all. We Jews have one thing to do in life, and one thing only, and that’s to love God. When we do it right, we love people, and we love the world around us, as well, for that’s what our tradition means when it tells us to love God.

God wants us, in other words, to do things that are worthy of being remembered. God wants us to leave flowers of all kinds for the generations yet to come.

According to Judaism, as I mentioned last week on Rosh Hashanah, every time a Jew fulfills a mitzvah, every time we do something that God wants us to do, we move the world closer to fulfilling our great messianic dream of the future, and that’s an act that is worthy of being remembered. Making the world better is a gift that can be our greatest bequest to future generations.

It is an important message, I think, and it’s particularly important for us to remember that message now. Nowadays, our fellow human beings are reeling in the wake of horrible natural disasters – in Houston, in Florida, in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. And many of those disasters were due to at least in part to humanity’s mismanagement of the earth’s precious natural resources. Closer to home – in Waterton, in British Columbia, and elsewhere, fires have ravaged the land in recent months, and we didn’t even have to turn on the TV or read the papers to learn of those disasters. Here in Calgary, if you’ll recall, all we had to do was look at the pall of smoke that descended on our city, and smell the choking fumes that it brought. These fires, too, were partly a result of the vulnerability we humans have created by heating up the world around us.

God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to till it and to tend it. Have we forgotten this sacred call to all humanity to take care of our world? When our grandchildren’s generation comes of age, will there be any more flowers left to pick?

Nowadays, our fellow human beings are showing up on the shores of this country and others in search of safe haven, fleeing violence and oppression in their native lands. South of us, the president of the United States rants on about building walls and closing the gates of that country to people in need of safety. Here in Canada, we can take pride in the fact that our country is more open to refugees, and yet, there are voices around us saying that we should close the gates, that we should be concerned about our own people before worrying about others…as if it’s an either/or proposition.

Sadly, some of those voices have even come from within our own congregation. We have a group of heroic volunteers who took in and supported a family of Syrian refugees, and there were those right here at Temple B’nai Tikvah who said that we need to help Jews before we help others…as if it were an either/or proposition. As a community, we should have no tolerance for such a sentiment. Yes, it’s true, to paraphrase the words of Hillel, if we are not for ourselves, who will be for us? But the second part of that statement is also true – if we’re only for ourselves, what are we? We Jews aren’t at liberty to be concerned only for our own well being. We need to be concerned about the rest of the world, too. For us, it’s never an either/or proposition. To be a sacred people means remembering that it’s always a both/and.

Nowadays, people around us continue to struggle economically; nowadays, the clouds of nuclear conflict are beginning to form over the Korean peninsula; nowadays, families around us – some right here in our own community – struggle to stay together, even as they put on a smiling façade to hide their problems from their neighbors.

Nowadays, there is a screaming, howling need for you to do devote your time and energy to sacred work. The earth needs you to heal it; people need you to take them in; families need your help in facing the mounting economic and emotional stresses that plague them.

In short, if you want your life to matter, if you want to reach beyond the mundane and truly do something of lasting significance with your time on earth, then now – especially now – you’ve got to do mitzvot. A mitzvah, remember, is not just a good deed. It is, instead, the fulfillment of a sacred commandment. To do a mitzvah is to do something holy – something precious, and noble, and sacred, and certainly beyond the mundane.

Be kind to other people. Come here to Temple and help us in any one of our many social action activities. Come to services and lend your voice to our sacred song. And when it gets really dark, then join us in lighting candles against the gloom.

Being Jewish is all about doing things of genuine and lasting significance in a world that so often gets mired in the mundane and the trivial. You should be proud to be an inheritor of such a sacred tradition. May the fires and the storms around us continue to remind you of the importance of realizing our tradition’s sacred truths.

Early in the last century, Mildred Chelsea picked a flower, and now we can all still enjoy its beauty. What flowers will you leave behind for future generations after you’re gone? Let’s turn to one another, and let’s turn to our glorious Jewish tradition, and together let us figure out how to leave precious and magnificent bouquets for the generations that will come after our own.

That way, this year, as well as future years, can truly be a shanah tovah u-metukah, a good sweet new year for us all.

Shanah Tovah.

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 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

The Real Real Thing: Judaism and the Messiah

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon
September 20, 2017 – 1 Tishri, 5778

If you are of a certain age, you’ll remember it well. Or to be more precise, if you are old enough to have been watching television by 1971, you’ll remember it like it was just yesterday. Your TV screen fills with an image of a beautiful, fresh-faced young woman with blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes. She sings,

I’d like to buy the world a home,
And furnish it with love.
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtledoves.

The camera pulls back, and we see that there are other good-looking young people standing there, too. They’re from all over the world. There are Asians, and Africans, Pacific Islanders, and Europeans. Each is dressed in native garb, each is holding a bottle of Coca Cola, and each joins in as the song continues.

I’d like to teach the world to sing,
In perfect harmony.
I’d like to buy the world a Coke,
And keep it company.

“Coke is the real thing,” the song tells us, and we now see an aerial shot of hundreds of young people standing in formation on a hillside in Italy, singing to us about love and harmony, honey bees, turtledoves, and Coca Cola. [Watch the original video remastered.]

The ad caught on like crazy. The song – without the reference to Coke – soon hit the charts on its own in both the United States and Canada. A Christmas version of the commercial came out a few years after the original, and a Disney version starring Mickey Mouse was released soon after that. In 1991, there was a 20-year reunion featuring the original cast and their children. In 2006, the rapper G. Love recorded an ad for Coke Zero starting with the words, “I’d like to teach the world to chill, take time to stop and smile….” There was a NASCAR version that came out in 2010, and the year before last, it was featured in the series finale of the TV show “Mad Men.” Critics consistently rate this ad as one of the greatest commercials of all time.

It was, of course, an attempt to get TV viewers to purchase sugary brown soda water. But there was something about the way it was made that captured people’s minds and hearts. What was that something? What was the secret to the great appeal of this minute-long TV commercial?

To answer that question, it is important to remember that when the commercial originally aired, the Cold War was still raging, and the specter of nuclear destruction hung darkly over everything. The US was mired in an increasingly bloody conflict in Vietnam, people were killing each other in the Middle East, and everywhere violence seemed to flourish. Yet there on TV, we saw hundreds of young people dreaming about peace and love and harmony. The vision was as simple as it was silly: If we could all just sit down and have a Coke together, things would be great. From our perspective today, it sounds kind of foolish, but in 1971, the image of people all over the world connecting in love and harmony was downright inspirational

Of course, the folks at Coca Cola weren’t the first to provide the world with glowing visions of the future. In fact, we Jews beat Coke to the punch by centuries! “On that day, God shall be one, and God’s name shall be one,” we sing in our services – it’s a vision of the world coming together in unity under the umbrella of God’s oneness. “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they study war any more,” proclaimed Isaiah, and we’re still singing the words today – “Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilm’du od milchamah.” “Each shall sit under his vine and fig, with none to make them afraid,” said the prophet, Micah.

Yes, for centuries, Jews have dreamt of the coming of the messiah, and the visions put apple trees and honeybees to shame. In fact, the English word messiah actually comes from the Hebrew word, mashiach. Other religions might talk about the messiah a lot more than we do, but we had the idea first!

Our tradition’s descriptions of the Messiah are both vivid and voluminous. I don’t have time to share all of them here, but I can highlight a few. The messiah, Jewish tradition says, is going to be a descendant of King David. The messiah, many texts predict, will reunite all Jews. And when they say “all” Jews, some of these texts really mean it, for many suggest that the messiah will reunite in the land of Israel all Jews who have ever lived. They suggest that there will be a physical resurrection of the dead – that the bodies and souls of deceased Jews will reunite, and that they’ll rise to live together in the newly rebuilt Jewish commonwealth. This, by the way, is the reason that traditional Judaism forbids cremation and embalming. Since our bodies will be resurrected, we want to keep them in a condition as pristine as possible so that they’ll be good to go when the messiah comes.

The vision continues. According to Judaism, the messiah will enable Jews to observe all the laws of the Torah, just like in the old days. Now remember, there are a lot of commandments in the Torah – fully 613 of them, to be precise. However, of those 613 commandments, 244 of them are impossible for us to keep these days because they’re about sacrifices, and sacrifices in Judaism are only to be practiced in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Temple was last destroyed in the year 70 CE. When the messiah comes, our tradition tells us, one of the things that will happen is that the Temple will be rebuilt, and we’ll be able to practice sacrifices once again.

Most important, Judaism says that the Messiah will usher in an era of universal peace and justice and righteousness – a time during which, as Maimonides says, “there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry.” It will be a time when, as Isaiah taught us, the lion will lie down with the lamb, even though, as Woody Allen added, the lamb won’t get much sleep.

The point is that when the messiah comes, according to our tradition, things will become really good – even better than apple trees and honeybees and Coca Cola, if that’s possible to imagine. When the messiah comes, then, for us Jews, things will become like they were in the good ol’ days, when we had a beloved king, and when the Temple stood and we could do Judaism the way we were really supposed to. More universally, when the messiah comes, the world will become the kind of place we know it can be – a place of peace, and justice, and kindness among all people.

When I was a freshman in college, my roommate was a terrific guy named DJ, from a little town in Eastern Kentucky – hillbilly country. I think I was the first Jew DJ had ever met. One day when we were talking in our room, our conversation turned to religion. At one point, DJ paused and said, “I don’t understand why you Jews don’t accept Jesus as the messiah.” DJ wasn’t trying to convert me; he wasn’t being hostile or adversarial at all. He was really just curious why we Jews didn’t accept something he’d been taught as a fundamental religious truth.

My initial inclination was to respond by saying “Duh! Of course Jesus wasn’t the messiah. Why would we believe that?!” But this wouldn’t have been a very constructive response to a perfectly legitimate question. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember how I answered DJ that day…I just remember hemming and hawing a lot. At the time, I didn’t have the tools to give him a clear answer. Why don’t we believe that Jesus was the messiah? Because we don’t believe that anyone has been the messiah – at least not yet. And why don’t we believe that anyone has been the messiah? Because we read the papers; and we watch the news; and we look at the world around us; and whenever we do, we see that, although the world has a lot of good in it, there’s a lot that’s not so good there, as well. There’s war, and there’s hunger, and there’s nasty gossip, and there are all kinds of other evils both large and small – so many, in fact, that we can’t help but notice that our world is a fundamentally broken place. And these times in which we live are most definitely pre-messianic in nature.

Now, a few additional comments about the messiah in Judaism are in order. First, the idea of the messiah – particularly as it’s been understood in Judaism – is profoundly dangerous. For one thing, in Judaism, the messiah, as I said, will rebuild the Temple. Actually, to be more specific, some texts say that the messiah will rebuild the Temple, whereas others say that Jews will need to rebuild the Temple in order for the Messiah to come. But remember, that Temple can only be built in one place, and that’s on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, right behind the Western Wall. The problem, of course, is that these days there are some very important Islamic shrines that sit on the Temple Mount – the beautiful gold-domed Mosque of Omar (or the Dome of the Rock), and beside it the silver-domed Al Aqsa Mosque. In order for the Temple to be built, it would have to be at the very spot where those buildings now sit, so those Islamic shrines would have to go away, and to date there is no movement that I know of within Islam to destroy those shrines. In the mid-eighties, the Israeli police caught a Jewish religious extremist on his way to the Temple Mount carrying a backpack full of explosives – he was planning to blow up those Islamic shrines so that the Temple could be rebuilt. Can you imagine what would have happened if he had succeeded? If he had, Israel would have had about a billion quite understandably ticked-off Muslims on its hands, and the results would have been utterly catastrophic. But to this terrorist, everything was OK, because he was about to bring the messiah, so even if he was caught in the process – even if he was killed in the process, the messiah would soon come and make it all right.

In fact, more generally, if I can make you believe that I’m the messiah, or if I can make you believe that I truly speak on the messiah’s behalf, then I can get you to do practically anything. Like Jim Jones did in the 1970s, I could get you to drink poisoned Kool-Aid for me. I could get you to fight for me, and live for me, and die for me, and to do all kinds of horrible things in my name. And because you would see me as the saviour of the world, you would do it, and you’d be willing to tolerate any adverse effects from those deeds, because since I’m the messiah, and you were on my side, you wouldn’t have anything to lose.

Perhaps this is why our tradition has long been a little leery of too much messiah-talk. To be sure, the Talmud expresses this leeriness quite explicitly. If you’re planting a tree, the Talmud says, and someone comes up to you and excitedly tells you that the messiah has just come, what are you supposed to do? First, finish planting the tree, then go see what all this messiah stuff is all about.

In fact, Reform Judaism shares this leeriness about traditional messianic views. That’s why our movement since its inception has rejected the notion of a personal messiah. We Reform Jews have long looked forward not to a person coming along who can save the world, but rather to the coming of the Messianic Age. We see ourselves as working as God’s partners on behalf of Tikkun Olam, repairing our broken world, so that our people’s dreams of peace and justice can somehow come to fruition.

But even though this messiah idea is so dangerous, and even though many of us are so leery about it, the other thing that’s true is that it lies at the very heart of what it means to be Jewish. That’s because the possibility that the messiah will come along and perfect the world someday is what has long given meaning to Jewish existence.

Why be Jewish? Why bother with Shabbat, and keeping kosher, and Temple dues and all of the other obligations of Jewish life? And why tolerate the expulsions and pogroms and mass murder that always looms as one of the risks of being Jewish? It’s because we have the hope that all of these Jewish things we do will help bring about the fulfillment of our people’s great messianic dreams for the future.

Think of the world as a big wheel slowly rolling along the track of history. It began way down there with creation, and one day it will get way over there to messianic times, and in the meantime, we’re somewhere here in the middle. According to Judaism, whenever a Jew fulfills a mitzvah – whenever we light candles, or study Torah, or give to tzedakah, or keep any of the other six-hundred-and-some-odd commandments of Jewish life, we roll the world one click – one tiny step closer – to the fulfillment of our great messianic dream of the future. And, conversely, whenever we transgress one of those commandments, we move the world away from the fulfillment of that dream.

Our mitzvot bring the messiah, our rabbis taught, and our transgressions delay it. Each moment, we should imagine that the world is in balance, they continued – that collectively our deeds and misdeeds perfectly outweigh each other, so that what you do right now will determine whether the messiah comes. Right now, at this very moment, the destiny of the world is on your shoulders. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to do something good and sacred that will transform the universe into something good? Or are you going to do something petty or evil and ruin it for us all? You get to choose.

In this sense, Judaism is messianism. The very reason that we do anything Jewish is to bring the messiah. That’s why being Jewish matters.

Finally, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings here, but this great dream of ours – of universal peace and justice and brotherhood and all the rest? It’s probably not going to be fulfilled anytime soon…and to tell you the truth, it might not ever be fulfilled. Maimonides taught that a good Jew is supposed to say, “I believe in the coming of the messiah, and even though the messiah tarries, I still believe.” The wording there is important – we’re supposed to say that we believe in the coming of the messiah, not in the “caming” of the messiah. In other words, a Jew is supposed to believe that the world holds enormous possibility, that it can and will become better. And never – at least not for the foreseeable future – are we supposed to believe that the world is already a perfect place. As the scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz taught, in Judaism, the false messiah is the one who has arrived.

There’s an old Jewish story about a man named Mendel who lived in a small shtetl. There in the shtetl, Mendel’s job was to sit at the gates of the city and wait for the messiah to arrive, and for this work, Mendel was paid one ruble a week. At one point, a friend of his said to him, “Mendel, how could you do such a boring job, and for such horrible pay?” “Well,” Mendel replied, “the pay might not be great, but the work is steady.”

Even during the darkest of times, we Jews have always maintained the hope that things can and will get better. It’s that hope, that dream, that has given us the strength to endure our greatest challenges and our greatest difficulties.

My friends, in many ways, this is one of those dark periods. The smoke shrouding our city in recent weeks is in many ways an apt metaphor for the tenor of these times. These days, there are earthquakes, and hurricanes, and floods. The spectre of nuclear conflict is growing once again, and everywhere fear seems to be overtaking compassion as the primary motivating factor of humanity. Now more than ever, we need our people’s vision of a better world, and the realities of contemporary life call upon us to work for it’s fulfillment. Now more than ever, God needs us as a partner, to bring a better day for humanity.

The psalmist taught that when the messiah comes, hayyinu k’cholmim, we’ll be like dreamers. The great messianic dream of the Jewish people, you see, in in part the dream of being able to dream. That’s why that commercial was so popular. At a time when the very existence of the world seemed to be in peril, it helped thousands of people dream of a better time. It’s a lesson for us all. When people despair, we can’t always give them happiness, but what we often can give them is a dream of a better time. This is the great gift of Judaism’s messianic vision.

It is now Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. Will this be the year that the messiah finally comes and makes things better for us all? Maybe, but probably not. Still, we can dream of a better world, and we can take steps to make that dream real. Picture a time of apple trees and honeybees, and lions and lambs together, and of peace, justice, and righteousness pervading the world. Dream it. Work to make it happen. You might not finish the job, but working together with the rest of us who share that dream, maybe – just maybe – we can make at least part of it come true.

Shanah Tovah.

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 by Rabbi Mark Glickman

Sermon Delivered on Occasion of Installation

What an honour it is to be here. Standing here before you as your duly installed rabbi is a privilege beyond words.

Looking around this beautiful room, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude. I am grateful first and foremost tonight to my friend, my colleague, my teacher, Dr. Gary Zola, who shared his words and wisdom with us so beautifully. I worked for Gary when I was a student, and in many ways it was he who taught me how to be a rabbi. His commitment to excellence, his love of history and of storytelling, and his deep devotion to the well being of the Jewish people continue to inspire me every day. What a thrill it is to have him here to share this moment with me.

I’m also grateful to my family who have come from so far to be here with us tonight – to my brothers, Larry and Jimmy Glickman; to my kids, Jacob, Shoshana, and Kyleigh; to my parents, Ron Glickman and Joel and Harriet Katz, a heartfelt thank you for traveling to be here tonight. Thanks especially to Caron, who travels here to be with me all the time. Her love gives me the strength to do this work, and we all owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.

Also, this moment in the history of our congregation was only made possible thanks to the efforts of scores of congregants who worked along the way in order to help us reach this juncture.  We all should be grateful to the search committee, so ably led by the woman who is now our president, Betsy Jameson. It was a joy to work with you, and I am honoured to have been the one you chose to lead this congregation.

To the transition committee – led by Roz Mendelson, and powered by the work of Katie Baker, Nadine Drexler, Deborah Yedlin, as well as that of Josh Hesslein, Andy Kubrin and Ken Drabinsky– I thank you for all of your work not only to make this Shabbat a success, but also for your ongoing efforts to ensure a smooth and successful beginning to my new rabbinate here at Temple B’nai Tikvah.

I also thank our Board of Trustees, all of whom work so tirelessly on behalf of our congregation and its sacred work. We are all grateful to you for all that you do.

Thanks too to our staff – Sheila Hart, Danny Oppenheim, and Jenny Laing…not to mention the members of our support staff – Connie Harding, and Kenny Sullivan, and David Even-Har, and Phil Horovitz. Working with you every day is a real joy, and I thank you for the privilege of doing so.

Thank you to our musicians who are playing tonight, particularly to Norm Yanofsky, Katie Baker, and Deb Finkleman with whom I work on a regular basis. You add so much to our worship, and we’re all grateful to you for all that you bring to the experience.

And most of all, I thank each of you as members of this wonderful congregation. Each of you has already played a role in making my experience serving as rabbi of Temple B’nai Tikvah into a wonderful one, and words cannot express how truly thankful I am.

I stand before you in awe of the position you have appointed me to fill. Do you realize that I am the only full time congregational Reform rabbi in Canada between Toronto and Vancouver? This might not be the largest congregation in the world, but in terms of the size of my turf, I think I’ve got all of my colleagues beat.

Of course, you didn’t hire me to be the Chief Reform Rabbi of the Prairie Provinces, you hired me to be the rabbi of Temple B’nai Tikvah, and here too I stand in awe.  I stand in awe because I know what this congregation is, and I have a sense as to what you want it to become, and I find the responsibility of leading it to be a task that is both daunting and thrilling at the same time. 37 years ago, thirteen families began meeting in the Bing’s living room with a commitment to building options for Reform Jewish life here in Calgary. Eventually, more of you came on board, and you hired rabbis to help lead you in your quest to build an active, vibrant community devoted to the ideals of Reform Judaism. All of Temple B’nai Tikvah’s leaders – rabbis and lay-leaders alike – have made their own contributions, and look at what you’ve built.

Look around you. Here under the canopy of creation, here in this magnificent building, you have already done so much of what you set out to do in the first place. Here at your temple, you conduct worship services every Shabbat and on every holiday, lifting your voices in song and prayer together. Here you study – both adults and children – learning the values of our people. And here you have created a center of tikkun olam – a place that is a source of healing and repair of the broken world in which we live.

I love this place. I love what you’ve done with it, and I love what I know we’re going to continue to do together.

I can’t help but think that it’s more than a coincidence that we celebrate this occasion tonight, for tonight is Shabbat Vayera. This week’s Torah portion opens by saying, “Vayera elav Adonai b’Elonei Mamre,” “and [God] appeared to [Abraham] at the Oaks of Mamre,” “Vayar v’hinei shloshah anashim nitzavim eilav.” “And [Abraham] looked up and saw that there were three people standing by him.”  God visited Abraham, and what Abraham saw was three people. In fact, the first thing he did when seeing these three people was to greet them by calling them “my lords,” which in Hebrew is “Adonai.” He ordered up a nice meal for them; they assured him that he and Sara would soon be parents and that God’s covenant with Abraham would be fulfilled.

Abraham saw the presence of God in the people he met. He saw clearly that these people who showed up at his doorstep weren’t just desert vagrants, but manifestations of the divine standing right before him. This is what you’ve done as a synagogue since your very inception. You’ve been a haven from the rampant materialism of the world around us, a sanctuary of humanity in a sea of despair.

And this too is what we need to devote ourselves to as we move ahead – to creating a community that continues to recognize the divine within each of us even when it seems so hidden. We do that when we worship; we do that when we learn together; we do that when we build a world that makes real our tradition’s vision of justice and righteousness.  In the few short months I’ve been here, I’ve seen you do it, and I’ve seen you strive to do it even more.

As we look ahead, let’s devote ourselves to continuing in this great tradition. Let’s commit ourselves to continuing to build Temple B’nai Tikvah as a lifelong congregation – a hub of activity for children, seniors, and everyone in between. Let’s continue to pray together, meaningfully and with gusto. Let’s continue to study. And let’s repair the world not only by tending to the needy, but more importantly, by doing what we can to bring true social change to a world that needs it so very much.

I’d like to share a story with you tonight – the story of an encounter that occurred in the summer of 1915 between another rabbi and one of his young congregants. The rabbi was a prominent man with the unfortunate name of Moses Gries – Rabbi Gries – who served for many years as rabbi of a temple in Cleveland, Ohio called, “The Temple.”

In May 1915, Rabbi Gries officiated at that year’s Temple confirmation service. It was a grand ceremony, featuring majestic organ music, a sanctuary bedecked with beautiful flowers, and several dozen white-robed 15-year-old confirmands. During the confirmation, Rabbi Gries pronounced a blessing over the young people, presented each with his or her confirmation bible, and sent them on their way, hoping to see them back again in the fall.

One of those teenagers, however, a young man by the name of Sylvester Marx, wouldn’t stay away that long.  Instead, several weeks after his Confirmation, Sylvester Marx made an appointment to come in and see the rabbi.  Sitting in the dark, booklined study, speaking with a slightly nervous quaver in his voice, Sylvester explained that he had a problem.  Evidently, Sylvester’s father had just done something that was becoming more and more common among American Jews back then – he had converted to Christian Science.  Sylvester, however, didn’t want to convert to Christian Science. Sylvester was Jewish; he liked going to the doctor!  “Rabbi,” he asked, “is there any way that a fifteen-year-old can take out his own membership in The Temple?”

Fortunately, the answer was yes. Rabbi Gries made the arrangements, and fifteen-year-old Sylvester Marx joined the Temple.

The years passed, Sylvester grew up, and in time he became a respected attorney in Cleveland. He married, had three children (the oldest of whom, Robert, would become a rabbi in 1951), and through it all, Sylvester remained a deeply religious man.  He went to services every week; he led the corps of ushers on the high holidays; and before he ever ate a meal, almost inaudibly, Sylvester would always whisper a short prayer to God.

That prayer was probably in English.  You see, when Sylvester grew up, places like The Temple didn’t use much Hebrew at all in their worship, nor did they teach much of it to their students.

And so, when in 1980, the congregation gave Sylvester Marx an aliyah to honor him for his 65 years of membership in the Temple, the family had to appoint one of his high-school-age grandsons to help him learn the Hebrew for the Torah blessing.  Afterwards, the boy razzed his grandfather a little.  “Grandpa,” he asked, “how can it be that you’ve gone to Shabbat services every week for the past 65 years, and you still can’t say “ch”?

No, I never could get my grandfather to learn that prayer very well. But we sure had a lot of fun working on it.

My grandfather, Sylvester Marx, died on Thanksgiving weekend, 1984.  I was a senior in college at the time, and when I got back to school after his funeral, I found a letter waiting for me from the Hebrew Union College, informing me that I had just been accepted into rabbinical school.

Five-and-a-half years later, when I was ordained a rabbi, one of the gifts I received was a small package containing this book.  The card was from my mother: “Dear Mark, This gift is from your grandfather. He would have been very proud of you today, and he would have loved to have been here….”

The book is an old bible, and inside the front cover it says, “Confirmation: Presented to Sylvester Marx by The Temple, Cleveland, May 23, 1915. Signed, Moses M. Gries”

One hundred one years ago, Rabbi Moses Gries welcomed into his congregation a young man who needed a synagogue, and partly as a result of that act, I stand before you as your rabbi tonight.  101 years ago, a fifteen-year-old Jewish kid in Cleveland mustered the chutzpah he needed to ask his Temple to make some special arrangements for him, because, to him, Judaism was important – it mattered and was worth the trouble.  101 years ago, in a dark, book-lined room some 3,000 kilometers from here, there was an encounter between a young Jew and his rabbi the effects of which would continue to ripple outward for many, many years.

If, as your rabbi, I can touch the life of even one person, young or old, the way Rabbi Gries touched the life of my grandfather, then my work here will be a success.  If I can inspire even one of you to see, as did my grandfather, that Judaism is something worth working for even when the work is hard or frightening, then my work here will be a success.  And if even one single act that I perform as your rabbi can ripple out through time in a way even remotely similar to what Rabbi Gries did for my grandfather, then I will consider my work with you to be an enormous success, indeed.

You see, that encounter between my grandfather and his rabbi touched eternity, and maybe, with your help, with your shared commitment to helping make Judaism live and shine here in Calgary, then together, we can touch eternity too.  And if we do, well, who knows what things will be like for our own descendants 101 years from now. Maybe one of them will stand before his or her own rabbi, pleading for the opportunity to stay connected to Judaism and Jewish life. Maybe one of them will even be a rabbi, standing before his or her congregation overwhelmed with awe, gratitude, and hope as I am tonight.

O God, I thank you for the privilege of working with these people and in this community, and I pray for the strength to be worthy of the honor.  As rabbi of this congregation, may my actions be sacred, may my words truly be words of Torah, and, in the years ahead, may I have the joy of growing and learning with this community, for we are B’nai Tikvah, the children of hope, in a world that needs the hope we offer so very, very much.

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