Rosh Hashanah 2015/5776 Empty-Nester Rabbi- Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

This summer as we’ve been reading the book of Deuteronomy, I’ve been identifying with Moses, as he gives his last speech to the Israelites before they cross into the Promised Land, leaving him behind. He exhorts them to not forget all he has taught them and to remember their larger purpose as a People in covenant with God.

It may be presumptuous to imagine this as a Moses moment for me. But I would venture to say that I get where he is coming from. As we enter this last year for us together as rabbi and congregation, I too have an urge to exhort you to not forget all we have learned together, and to remember what your larger purpose is.

Another image has occurred to me these past couple weeks, as I’ve watched the overstuffed station wagons passing me on Rte 95 – that of a mother sending her children off to college. I’m anticipating being an empty-nest rabbi, watching from afar, rooting for you every step of the way. Before you fly away, I want to leave you with some last words of insight into who you already are and who I believe you can become.

In our Torah portions today and tomorrow, we have two stories of parents having to let their children go. This morning, Abraham puts a skin of water on Hagar’s shoulder, and sends her off with their son Ishmael, into the desert. And tomorrow, Abraham will take his son Isaac to the top of Mount Moriah, intending to offer him up as a sacrifice to God.

These are heart-wrenching stories of abandonment and near-sacrifice of children, and they are very disturbing. But over the years, perhaps because of my own experience of parenthood, and our experience of growing together as a congregation, I’ve come to see these stories in a new way.

These stories are surely not here to ask us to sacrifice or abandon our children. But they are here to evoke the raw, painful feelings of letting go. They are here to ask us what parenting is for in the first place. Parenting is not about holding on to our children so tightly that they can never grow up. It is about giving them all the love and guidance we can and then letting them go so that they can become who they are meant to be in the world.

But these stories are bigger than just parents and children – they are really about the covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish People. Isaac is the only heir to the covenant. By asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, God asks Abraham to put the future of the whole covenantal project at risk.

It’s a paradox – similar to parenting. Abraham personally has to let go of control over the future of the covenant so that the covenant itself might be fulfilled. In order for the Jewish people to become who we are meant to be, God and Abraham both have to let go enough that they risk losing us altogether. These stories ask us to consider letting go of what is most precious to us – our children; our sacred tradition –so that this preciousness might manifest even more fully in the world and become what it is meant to be.

As a congregation, these stories teach us to risk who we are and how we sustain ourselves as a synagogue in order to keep Judaism and the Jewish People alive and vibrant in the future. We are taking such a risk this year. In order to lower barriers to involvement of families with younger children, we have made the fees for our kids’ learning programs a freewill gift – allowing families with kids in Kindergarten through 3rd grade to decide how much they will pay for religious education for their kids.

This community should continue to take these kinds of meaningful risks – to see its mission as reaching beyond who is already here and beyond who you already think Jews are.
A congregant recently showed me a powerful video[1] of the actor Michael Douglas accepting the Genesis award in Israel. In his acceptance speech, which he delivers in front of an audience that includes Prime Minister Netanyahu, he speaks about how his father Kirk Douglas and his son Dylan both inspired him to embrace his Jewish identity, late in life. Michael Douglas is a patrilineal Jew – his mother was not Jewish, his father was, and so according to strict interpretation of Jewish law, he is not a Jew. But in the Reform movement, we consider anyone with one Jewish parent, who is raised as a Jew, to be Jewish. Douglas’ public affirmation of Jewish identity, passed down by the father, was actually a radical thing to do, especially in Israel, where the Orthodox rabbinate does not recognize patrilineal descent. And Douglas, who gets to determine where the prize money goes – announced that a portion of it would go to organizations that promote the welcoming of intermarried families into the Jewish community.

The future of the Jewish People, and of this community in particular, is going to rest in its willingness to open the doors as wide as possible and to go out there and find people who are unaffiliated, who marginally identify as Jews, who grew up with one Jewish parent or maybe even just one Jewish grandparent –and for sure, people who are intermarried – and invite them to investigate and cultivate their Jewishness and the Jewishness of their children. This community cannot afford to interpret the covenant in narrow terms – as only including those who were born into unambiguously Jewish families – as only including those who would naturally walk into a synagogue without an invitation. You must risk the terms of the covenant to fulfill the covenant.

By taking these kinds of risks, we keep Judaism from becoming stagnant – we keep it alive. And this brings me to the second story we read this morning – the Haftarah’s story of Hannah. This summer at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, I studied with Bible scholar Michah Goodman, who sees this morning’s Haftarah as a critique of institutional Judaism.

Hannah goes up to the Temple in Shiloh every year with her family, to offer sacrifices and enjoy a festive meal. She is barren and deeply yearns for children. One year, Hannah stands outside the Temple and weeps bitterly, praying for a son. Her lips move, but no sound can be heard. The High Priest Eli, who is in charge of the Temple, sees her and accuses her of being drunk. His instinct is to push her away. When she explains herself, he finally gets it, and her prayer ultimately is answered. But we all know that if we were to push someone like Hannah away from our doorstep, she probably would not come back and try again. She would be lost to us.

Later in the story of Eli, we learn that he and his sons are corrupt priests, skimming money off the top for themselves.

So, here we have the High Priest, who wears the breastplate with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel inscribed on it, as a constant reminder that he serves the whole People of Israel. And he walks outside the Temple and can’t recognize the spiritual needs of an actual Israelite standing right in front of him. He can’t see that her spirituality – spontaneous, creative, and outside the walls of the institution – is authentic. He is so focused on maintaining the institution, tending to the sacrifices, doing things the way they have always been done, and reaping the benefits of that, that he forgets whom he is supposed to serve and why the Temple exists in the first place.
According to Michah Goodman, this story is meant to reveal how easily religious institutions, especially those with fancy buildings! – can become self-serving, inward-looking, and stagnant. How easily we can forget that we have a larger mission beyond keeping the institution itself operating –and enjoying this community as it already is.

This synagogue is so vibrant and successful, and it will continue to be those things only if you don’t forget why you are here. You are here to help Jews know how to be Jews and to experience how Judaism can enrich their lives. You are here to meet people’s actual spiritual needs, to respond to where they are and to take them further –through Torah study, through prayer and music and other forms of spiritual practice, through celebrating Shabbat and holidays. You are here to make Judaism live and breathe – to get creative and let in new ideas. You are here to make Torah speak to your lives and make it touch the world – by taking on difficult issues and engaging each other in bold acts of social justice. You are here to care for one another – those whose names you know, and those whom you’ve only just met. You are here to see the person standing outside, trying to connect, and to help them feel part of something larger.

So many religious institutions become all about themselves, all about their buildings, and all about what they have always done. You are an amazing community. You already know how to push the boundaries on what is possible. You already know how to keep changing and adapting. This gorgeous building is an asset. Don’t forget that these blessings are meant to be harnessed to bring Jews close to Judaism and to each other, to cultivate people’s souls and to heal the world.

So far this morning, I’ve brought you teachings from the Torah and from the Prophets. I can’t conclude until I’ve brought a Talmudic teaching I studied this summer that I believe has a message for this congregation as well.

In the Mishnah, the rabbis discuss, when building a town, whether it is necessary to build a wall around the town, with a gate with a bar, and a gatehouse. Rabban Gamliel argues that it is not always necessary to have these things, and therefore you can’t compel a resident to pay for it with their tax money. The next generation of sages take up the question in the Gemara. Some propose that these security measures are considered an improvement (which would imply that you should tax people for them). But others disagree, and tell a story to illustrate their point. They tell the story of a pious man who would converse with the prophet Elijah, and when this pious man suggested that building a wall and a locked gate around a town would be an improvement, Elijah refused to converse with him anymore.

A puzzling text. Thankfully, the Medieval commentator Rashi comes along and explains it. He says: these security measures are not considered an improvement and in fact are a loss to the town. Why? Because the wall, the locked gate and the gatehouse prevent the sound of the cries of the poor from reaching the town.

We are blessed to live in a privileged area. It is beautiful and wealthy, and white, and can seem far from the suffering and the cries of the poor. The Talmud is telling us, that it can be a detriment to our Jewish community when we shelter ourselves from the cry of those who are suffering.

In fact, there are people who are in need in our very congregation, in our bucolic little towns, in the prisons just down the road, and in the cities surrounding us. Elijah is telling us, it is harder to be a good Jew out here. We can collect tzedakah, do mitzvah projects and teach our kids about Tikkun Olam – and we must do that. But it takes a larger effort to move out of our safe, peaceful communities to the places where we can hear those cries. This effort must continue to be at the heart of this congregation that has in its name “Rodfe Zedek,” seekers of justice.
Eight years ago today, I stood here and gave my first Rosh Hashana sermon in this community. And I spoke about this beautiful ark, which has become a Jewish text for me over the years. I want to conclude this morning with one more commentary on it.

About 6 years ago, our family made a pilgrimage to Mass MOCA to see the LeWitt wall drawing retrospective. There is a segment of the exhibit with a wall drawing that looks a lot like this ark. We stood in front of it, and I remarked to our daughter Amina, who was about 4 years old at the time – “look Amina! Do you recognize that? It’s the same painting that we have on our ark at home in the synagogue!!” I was so excited for her to see the connection and couldn’t wait to hear her reaction. Which was… “Ima, that is not the same as the painting in our synagogue.” Boy was I confused! “What do you mean Amina? Of course it is!” And she said, “No Ima, it’s missing a color – it doesn’t have the grey!” I had never noticed that this ark had a grey color in it. But Amina had noticed. This ark – this unique place – had already made a distinct impression on her.

This place has made a deep impression on me – and on my family. And we will be carrying so much with us across our river to wherever we are going next.

I believe and will say with all humility, never having met the man, that this community embodies what Sol LeWitt created in this piece. The covenant – the Jewish People – the Torah – are really forms of conceptual art. The concept lives on long after the artist is gone, and it can be made manifest in every moment, and in every generation, and in every place that we dwell.

This community is a unique and colorful manifestation of the ancient concept of Judaism. Keep returning to that concept – and make it new, make it dance, make it live.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYpcTqnDNM&sns=em