Why We Need A Synagogue; Why
We Need Conservative Jews & Conservative
Judaism
First Day Rosh HaShanah - 5766
October 4th, 2005
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Temple Beth-El
Richmond, Virginia
There are many imperative issues facing us today,
as Jews, as Americans, as individuals. There are many things I want
to talk about with you. Three of them are most current: the genocide
of Darfur last night; tomorrow's sermon on Israel; and, Kol Nidrei
- to die with dignity. Tonight's three vignettes and my Yizkor sermon
address our human condition.
This morning I am addressing two subjects in one sermon. They are:
Why do we need a synagogue?
Why pay these dues?
Why stay members "after our kids are done with Hebrew School?"
Why come to services on Shabbat and weekdays?
This leads me directly into a second subject:
Why are we specifically a Conservative Congregation, a member of
the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism?
What is the uniqueness of Conservative Judaism?
Why do America Jewry and particularly Israel, where it is called
Masorati, need Conservative Judaism? Why do we?
Because of many discussions this past year, I decided to directly
address the essence of our identity. I need to speak to all of
you. It will also be sent out on the listsev and archived on the
website for those not here or to allow for a slow, studied reading.
Though I have much more to say, I have written concisely. I speak
and write from my heart to yours.
My opening statement: we are all Jews by choice. While this is
a term usually applied to those who convert, it is true about all
of us. You choose to identify as a Jew. You choose to live as a
Jew. You choose -how you live as a Jew. You choose whether to become
a member of a synagogue. You choose in which synagogue to become
a member. You choose to stay. You choose to leave. America has
bestowed us with autonomy and imbued us with individualism. The
locus of authority is centered in ourselves.
So why, for our personal lives, do we need the synagogue? My short
list has five answers.
- The synagogue provides community. Recently during the Maccabi
Games, we had people from Rochester, New York and Detroit,
Michigan just drop in to services. They knew that there was
a community waiting for them. I receive phone calls from all
over the country from people considering moving to Richmond.
They call the synagogue - because - using a phrase made famous
by an old Pittsburgh Pirate team - we are family. We are the
most mobile generation in history. Companies like Genworth,
Philip Morris and Capitol One. They are constantly bringing
strangers to live among strangers. Here, in this place, they
are welcomed, embraced, invited to Kiddush and oneg Shabbat,
and treated like a long lost relative. The synagogue is family.
It is community par excellence. It defines our uniqueness.
- The synagogue provides us a way to observe the cycles of
life. Through rituals provided by our faith, moments that connect
the journey from birth to death are imbued with transcendent
meaning. We celebrate the birth of a baby with naming and brit,
growth and learning through bar/bat mitzvah, love through marriage,
untimely endings with get, sickness and illness and death with
companionship, prayer and rituals that reflect our eternal
holiness. Only the synagogue community connects the dots of
our lives with lines of purpose and the weave of ultimate significance.
Personal celebration and sadness are shared in context. There
are more smiles, hugs and kisses in celebration; more shoulders
to lean on in times of need. Automatically. Without question.
Whether we are young or old. We have instant parents, siblings,
children and grandchildren. They have instant grandparents,
aunts and uncles. We are never too young or too old. This is
not just a beautiful building. This is our home. In it we have
the rituals, in the context of an instant family, to live,
feel, celebrate and commemorate the ebb and flow of our lives.
It defines our lives.
- The synagogue provides us through Torah, our source of ethics
and morality. The Jewish point of view on end-of-life issues,
stem cell research, abortion, the Ten Commandments in public
space, personal morality, is unique. It has been developed,
tried and tested, augmented and updated for nearly three thousand
years. It is different. It is not synonymous with Christianity,
humanism, deism or secularism. We have much to say and to do
in the public domain about poverty and violence. The Torah,
Talmud and Tradition are NOT ancient artifacts. The synagogue
is a living voice for our lives. It message is more modern
and insightful because of its roots and antiquity. It defines
our personal content.
- The synagogue provides us through Torah our sense of
self-discipline. Besides the intrinsic reasons for observing
Shabbat, Yom Tov and kashrut, they teach me/us to control
ourselves. As the synagogue is a society in microcosm,
we learn here the good or harm that the lack of control
does to the world. There is a direct line in our moral
fiber that leads from the self discipline taught by our
faith here in the synagogue to not using drugs, not smoking,
not engaging in promiscuous sex, not cheating on our spouses,
not cheating our customers, on our tests or on our taxes. Reaches
from our prayers here to what kind of video games, some
filled an unbroken line with violence and personal degradation
that our children play. By its existence, the synagogue
proclaims a different world wherein we learn how, where,
when and why we are to live as human beings created in
the image of God. This place is like no other. It defines
our message to others and ourselves.
- Lastly, the synagogue
represents holiness, in time and space. The synagogue represents
God's presence among us. This is not a stage. You are not
an audience. We are not putting on a show. We are a holy community,
gathered in hallowed space, expressing ultimate desires,
fears, and dreams in sacred time. That occurs only here. There
is no place like this place; no time like holy time; no group
like a holy society. Being here and part of this elevates
us, ennobles us, and enables us to transcend the mundane and
limitedness of our lives. Here we grasp eternity. Here we meet
the voice of God. It defines our essence and our vision.
This is the most compelling case for the everlasting place
of this synagogue in our lives. From our birth to our death,
perpetually and consistently our lives need what the synagogue
provides, even if we don't realize it.
What does it mean to be a Conservative synagogue and a Conservative Jew?
- It means that we take Jewish law and tradition seriously.
That is what our names mean. In English, Conservative
is to conserve the best of tradition, in Hebrew, Masorati,
which means traditional. We live in a creative tension
between the three thousand years of its development and
our current condition. It is to Judaism like the bone structure
to our bodies. It is the instrument through which I/we
portray what God wants from us. It is a living, pulsating
corpus of Jewish understanding and thinking. Specifically
in the world of personal autonomy to which I referred before,
through it, Judaism makes demands upon us and asks us to
respond: to make concrete the covenant between us as Jews
and God.
- It means that we struggle with new issues and do not have
easy answers. We critically study our tradition. We are open
to modern scholarship while not rejecting Jewish law. Women
have become Rabbis and Cantors, Torah readers and service leaders
inside Jewish tradition and not despite it. I was at the Jewish
Theological Seminary in the years of the great disputes. We
argued them in class. We cited modern studies of society and
the insights of the Rabbis in the same breath. That dialectic
is uniquely and singularly ours.
Based on halachic foundation, Conservative Judaism pioneered the way and
is the only movement to deal with religious divorce and recalcitrant husbands
from within Jewish tradition.
Homosexuality in terms of personal sexual orientation, secular laws about
civil unions, and their acceptance into synagogue context has been an ongoing
debate and dialogue between our modern understandings and the view of classical
Judaism. Ten years ago, I preached a series of sermons reflecting our unique
position. Our son Menachem has joined with other Conservative Rabbis who
are faithful to Jewish law and take tradition seriously to further their
role and place in the synagogue and society. That integration is singularly
that of Conservative Judaism.
We work diligently to formulate a path to welcome couples where one spouse
is Jewish and the other not. Judaism is founded on the concept of the unique
covenant made between God and Abraham, renewed and ratified at Sinai. It
is our definition. We maintain this covenant. Without it we cease to exist.
It creates borders and boundaries. Conservative Judaism also recognizes the
dynamics in society. I have personally worked exceedingly arduously and assiduously
to welcome, respect and embrace interfaith couples, lovingly present Judaism
in class, from the pulpit and in personal, private conversation. I have done
that while respecting them as well as the borders and definitions that are
our covenantal parameters. It is not easy- because I treat it seriously,
and know that I do not make everyone happy. Using the Rabbinic idiom, I have
threaded an elephant through the eye of a needle countless times, in deciding
how to handle life cycle celebrations, after much study and contemplation.
I believe that I have created here the best presentation of Conservative
Judaism, respecting people's right to personal decisions, and Jewish tradition
and law at the same time, while doing so in a loving light.
- Conservative Judaism means to respect the individual Jew
as living on a religious continuum, never satisfied where we
are, yet with a vision to always rise higher. Jewish life does
not have to be an all or nothing affair. I began my life quite
differently from the Jew I have become. It was and is a process
of learning and growth that specifically Conservative Judaism
nurtured. It encouraged me - us - to grow, seek, embrace, and
question. And it does so with humility, respect and deference
for those who do more and those who do less. With utmost respect
and admiration to Orthodoxy I say, my family and I are Conservative
Jews, and not Orthodox.
- Conservative Judaism welcomes and embraces those who seek
Judaism no matter how they find us. Distinctly being a Conservative
Rabbi means that I interface with other faiths. I have preached
from the pulpit of a Catholic Church and taught in a mosque
with my kippah on, without diminishing my/our faith.
- Conservative Judaism expresses hopes for either or both
Messiah or Messianic times, redemption and salvation for Israel,
peace for our State, and indeed for all humanity, without claiming
to know who it is and when it is coming.
- Lastly, yet with much more left to say, Israel's internal
turmoil is much worse, because our movement there is so weak,
because we here don't feel part of the movement there, and
don't support it. There is no moderating voice between the
left and right of the political spectrum. There is no articulation
of any place between the very religious and the non-religious.
We do not seek to blow up the mosque of Omar in order to build
a third Temple. That is a critical statement. When I went to
two secularist high schools in Emek Hefer and talked about
you and me, our synagogue, men and women reading Torah, they
looked at me as if I was from Mars. There is an enormous chasm
within the Israeli population, and our formulation of Judaism
and Jewish identity is the only bridge between the two sides.
They need our enunciation of Judaism in the struggle to define
what is Jewish about a Jewish State.
Conclusion
I have two main goals in delivering this sermon:
To articulate why you should be proud, participating, supportive, engaged and
dedicated members of a synagogue, and particularly this one; and to remain
a member for as long as you live. I say that simply and proudly. Today I choose
to speak for the synagogue, for our synagogue, for our honored and unique presentation
of Judaism. I hope that you will leave here today with a deeper appreciation
and dedication to both. Like any human organization, we have politics. Leave
it at the door, and come in to find God, to find faith, to find community,
in joy, celebration, friendship and love.
Besides the subject of any sermon delivered in these days, I believe that every
one should conclude with a prayer beseeching God for protection for Medinat
Yisrael, that they should live in tranquility and serenity. May the insanity
that has griped this world cease. May peace come soon, in our lifetime, and
let us say,
Amen.
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