An Ancient Principle Revived: Our Shared Story - Vayishlah 5774

This past week we observed Veterans’ Day, which, I think, is just behind Memorial Day in the list of Most Unappreciated American Holidays. NPR played stories of recent veterans - one man who served in Afghanistan and is recovering from horrible burns, vets who are finding work and community by becoming firefighters, older vets recalling their experiences in WWII as their numbers dwindle. The stories were touching indeed, but my sense is that most Americans were not reflecting too seriously on Monday about those who have served in the nation’s armed forces.

What Veterans’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving do for us as Americans is to help maintain our shared story. This is who we are; this is our history; these are the memories and principles that sustain us as we move forward.

Problem is, I don’t think we have a shared story any more. Maybe we never did, but in any case, the texture of American society is too varied, and our willingness to spend time reflecting about anything is too scarce. We are more likely to spend these days shopping than celebrating our American-ness or recalling those who served and died for this nation. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of our society has, I think, yielded multiple Americas: Consider how we are failing to speak to one another in the public sphere - our politics, issues of education or race or even religion.

And, thanks to the magical information-sorting mechanism known as the Internet, we are moving to a place where we are all living in our own little echo chambers. As print media and even broadcast journalism (is anything actually “broadcast” today?) continue their slow decline, we are gradually growing more isolated due to the search engines that make choices for us regarding what we want to read or watch, all in the name of the advertising dollars that sustain Google and Facebook by getting us to click on more and more links.   

Abetted by the binary thinking that underlies computer technology (everything boils down to ones and zeros; you either “Like” something on Facebook or you don’t), there are two mutually-exclusive narratives on climate change, two narratives on health care, multiple narratives on Israel, and on and on. These binary echo chambers are, in some ways, limiting our abilities to see the complexity in difficult issues and ancient religious traditions.

In this environment, it is very hard for us to have a shared story.

However, ladies and gentlemen, shared stories are the vehicle that binds us to each other. And no matter how talented our electronic devices become, they will never bring us together in the ways that our ancestors bonded, first over communal meals by the fire, then in the foundational myths that held ancient societies together, then in the common ideals and dogma of the great religions, and in contemporary times, the modern tales of war, revolution, and technological advancement that have shaped our world.

So, while shared stories have always been the glue of societies ancient and modern, consider for a moment the following. In the last month, I have been to four different gatherings of Jews discussing the Jewish future: 

• the United Synagogue Centennial Convention,
• a seminar on the future of the rabbinate with Long Island colleagues, hosted by UJA-Federation’s Synergy program,
• a workshop on using the model of community organizing for synagogues hosted by the Rabbinical Assembly (Clergy 2.0), and
• a training session for congregational facilitators of United Synagogue’s Sulam for Emerging Leaders, a leadership-development program that we are launching here at Temple Israel next month. 
   

At three out of four of these gatherings, significant attention was paid to the need to build relationships between people by sharing stories. In the seminar on community organizing, I and 43 other Conservative rabbis spent a day and a half learning techniques for eliciting stories from members of our communities, individually and in small groups. It seems that the idea of sharing stories is one of the foundational principles of the brave, new world of reimagining faith communities.

But here’s the irony: we know that! In particular, we, the Jews, the People of the Book - we know that stories bind us to one another. We are the keepers of the greatest contribution of storytelling to Western society: the Torah!

In fact, we read this morning what I have long felt is the most essential, foundational story in the Torah related to Jewish peoplehood. It’s Yaaqov’s one-on-one encounter with an angel, where he wrestles all night long, but before the angel departs, he bestows upon Yaaqov a new name: Yisrael.

What does Yisrael mean? The Torah tells us:

כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים, וַתּוּכָל.

For you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.

We are Benei Yisrael, the children of Israel. Our very name says everything you need to know about the Israelite people. We are the people who struggle with God. We ask questions. We argue. We disagree. That is an essential quality of the Jewish character. I could rattle off any number of relevant jokes here, but what I am saying is actually quite serious: our theological struggle, our willingness to wrestle with the words of the Torah and Jewish tradition and yes, with God, defines our peoplehood.

And this story of who we are is just one of literally hundreds in the Tanakh, the entire Hebrew Bible. Why do we read the Torah in its entirety every year? Yes, because we continue to learn from it. Yes, because God has commanded us to meditate on these words day and night (c.f. Joshua 1:8). But all the more so, because these are the stories that unite us. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, even the Secular Humanists have to admit that the Torah is our collective, national story.

Here is the challenge that we face as the 21st century picks up speed: the Torah may not be enough. Why are all these Jewish organizations exhorting their rabbis and lay leaders to focus on building relationships through shared stories? Because we have lost sight of our heritage. Because we no longer have one narrative.

How many of us are hear the Torah read regularly? How many of us are meditating on it night and day? I can tell you that in my weekly parashah discussion, Dor HaBa, we usually have about 12 very eager participants. It’s always a great discussion, but can we seriously say that this community is engaged with the Torah?

The recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that only 11% of American Jews attend synagogue once per week or more, and another 12% once or twice a month. Most of the people in those two categories are Orthodox. That means that ¾ of American Jews, and the vast majority of the non-Orthodox, are not engaged in the time-honored tradition of hearing our Jewish story on a regular basis. And furthermore, even of the ones who are there week after week, how many of us are actually listening, reading, and actively engaged?

We have to work harder to find our contemporary shared stories, so that we can maintain our ancient story, the Torah.

And that will require cultural change. What made big synagogues like this one function through the middle of the 20th century until recent years is the common narrative of its members. Not just the Torah, but the immigrant experience in the New World, the common foods and musical tastes and cultural pursuits, the struggles provoked by anti-Semitism here and abroad, the wake of the Shoah and the establishment and building of the State of Israel.

But we don’t have that anymore. We are far more diverse today, with an ethnic mix far more varied than that of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, with different tales and origins and foods and music. Israel is not struggling for survival. 73% of Jews in the Pew study indicated that “Remembering the Holocaust” is an essential part of being Jewish, but as the survivors among us dwindle and World War II recedes further into our national memory, this will also figure less as a uniter of Jewish peoplehood. (BTW, only 19% that “Observing Jewish law” is essential to being Jewish, although this, of course, is material for another sermon entirely.)  

What this institution, and all the institutions of American Jewish life need, at this point, is cultural change. We are going to need a change that is akin to Yaaqov’s name change, from the one who aspired at birth by grasping the heel of his older twin brother, to the father of the nation that struggles with God. That kind of change.

And that change will have to come from within. It will emerge through a range of conversations: individual conversations one-on-one with members of the clergy and senior staff or lay volunteers, larger conversations in group meetings, and so forth. The primary question that we will be asking, ladies and gentlemen, paraphrases that most famously asked by President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address. The question is not, “What can Temple Israel do for you?” but rather, “What are you willing to do with Temple Israel? What might you do to make this a more engaging place for more members of this community?”

We will need to move this congregation from a transactional relationship with its members (i.e. you pay your dues, we provide you with services) to that based on personal engagement and participation. And we can build that personal institution. Yes, there are some among us who will always prefer to write out a check than participate in a hands-on way, and there are many of us who feel like we simply do not have time for a more active role in Jewish communal life, and we need all of those people too. But it is upon us as a community to seek ways that we can reconnect, to make this a place of shared stories, to make this institution less, well, institutional.

We are all searching for personal meaning, and we as a community have to get to a place where meaning can be found in our relationships with members of this synagogue, where our stories bind us to each other and to God. And to find those entry points, to create the environment in which we can share those stories, we, the clergy and the laity of Temple Israel will need your help. So we hope that you will step forward when asked.

Until that framework is created, however, here is an easy suggestion: When you are in the building, don’t just talk and greet your friends. After today’s service is over, at the kiddush, find somebody you have never met before and get to know them. Ask: What’s your story? What brought you here today? Tell me about yourself. What makes you want to be involved with a community? What are the things about Judaism that appeal to you? If you had the time, the energy, and the resources, what great idea might you initiate in this community?

We have to continue to struggle with God. We have to continue to engage. If we stop doing so, then we will no longer be Yisrael, the ones who struggle with God. Look for those opportunities to elicit the stories of others, and to share your own. It’s an ancient idea whose time has come again.

Shabbat shalom.

~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, November 16, 2013.)

Summer Sermon Series #1: Leading With Our Narrative - Pinehas 5773

I rarely have time for television, and in fact there have been times in recent years when I have questioned whether paying for cable is indeed a fiscally-sound choice.

However, two years ago Judy and I acquired a guilty pleasure: Mad Men, the series about a 1960s-era Madison Avenue advertising agency. It is an extraordinarily well-crafted show, and we take great pleasure in watching the characters and storylines unfold from week to week. Mad Men has just concluded its sixth season, and just a few episodes ago we realized that the series creators planted information in early episodes that fed into the later ones. I really do not have time for this, but it makes me want to go back and review those early episodes to put the entire puzzle together (fortunately, I have them on DVR.)

That is the power of narrative. It connects us; it draws us in.

Usually, I give a sermon once a month or so. This is the first time that I will be doing it for seven straight Shabbatot. I have been inspired by Mad Men to plot out these seven sermons very carefully so that they all fit together in a natural progression. What we will have, after this seven-part series is complete, is a blueprint for a vision of what Temple Israel is: who we are as a community, what we stand for, what we believe. So the topics that we will be discussing today and the next six Shabbatot are as follows:

1. Leading with our narrative (Pinehas)

2. Welcoming Others (Mattot - Mas'ei)

3. Learning / Torah (Devarim)

4. Egalitarianism (Va-ethannan)

5. Israel (Eqev)

6. Repairing the World (Re’eh)

7. Tradition and Change (Shofetim)

Why do this at all? Why not merely discuss the weekly parashah?

Having been here in Great Neck for six years, some things have come into focus. We now have a professional staff in place that is solid, works well together, and is supremely capable of making things happen. That is very good news for this community, because when the professionals work well together, we are able to build. And our ultimate goal is to continue to build – to build a congregation of shared Jewish values, of close-knit social involvement, of personal connections forged in the context of qehillah qedoshah, a holy community.

And of course, building means attracting others to join our qehillah. To do so, we need to be the kind of community that people want to join. And that's not such an easy sell nowadays.  Most Jewish involvement today can be characterized as “episodic.” That is, people show up from lifecycle event to lifecycle event, or perhaps from holiday to holiday. For the vast majority of us, the days of regular attendance at synagogue events, that is, services or dinners or volunteer activities or events, when many American Jews saw the synagogue as the center of their social lives, are largely gone. And that makes the task of attracting others even harder. After all, how can you justify spending thousands of dollars on synagogue dues when you will rarely take advantage of what the synagogue offers?

As a rabbi, my primary goal is to teach Torah, in the widest sense of that word, as I discussed in this space two weeks ago. We as a congregation can spread more Torah if we have more people tuned in to what we offer. And the way to reach more people is as follows:

1. We must have a clear sense of who we are and what we stand for. Now, of course we do not agree on everything. But there are some basic principles here that differentiate us from other congregations, and those are the items upon which we must focus.
2. We have to invite people in. If nobody new comes in, and we do not reach out to new people, Temple Israel will not continue long into the future. I will be speaking more extensively about that next week.
3. We have to tell our story more effectively - that is, who we are, what we stand for, and why being a part of this community is worth your time and your financial investment. Telling our story will strengthen our core and draw others in.

And that is today’s theme: We must lead with the narrative of who we are.

So who are we?

The sign out front on Old Mill Road defines us as a “Conservative, Egalitarian Synagogue.” That's a good start; we are committed to the principles of Conservative Judaism, including an open approach to Judaism that incorporates contemporary scholarship when studying Jewish text, a sense that Judaism has always been open to change and outside influence, that halakhic observance is important, but not necessarily the only or even the highest aspiration of Jewish life, that men and women are considered equal under Jewish law and tradition, and that change within Judaism comes about conservatively, that is, through careful consideration of the relevant sources and customs (hence the name of our movement). But that is not enough.

Our congregational narrative, that is, story of Temple Israel’s past, present, and future, includes not only those things, but also the following:

א. That Rabbi Mordecai Waxman served as the Senior Rabbi here for 55 years, and during that time not only wrote the book whose title became the unofficial slogan of the Conservative movement in the latter half of the 20th century (i.e. “Tradition and Change”), but also became a pioneer in egalitarianism by calling his own wife, Ruth Waxman, to the Torah in 1976, far earlier than most Conservative synagogues. As such, this congregation has been something of a standard-bearer for the movement and for egalitarianism for half a century.

ב. That the growth of this congregation, one of the largest Conservative congregations in the New York area, came after World War II, when many Ashkenazi Jews were leaving urban enclaves for leafier suburbs, and that the last quarter of the 20th century brought an influx of Jews who had left Iran in the wake of the revolution there. This synagogue, therefore, is unusual in the Conservative movement because of its rich ethnic diversity, and this is a strength upon which we continually draw.

ג. That Rabbi Stecker, Cantor Frieder, Rabbi Roth, Danny Mishkin, Leon Silverberg, Rachel Mathless and I, and a complement of lay volunteers are working very hard to maintain our level of quality in programming, educational offerings, and ritual services. Furthermore, we, in partnership with the laity, are committed to developing a vision of the Temple Israel of the future, a vision that will incorporate all of the items that I will be discussing over the next six Shabbatot.

ד. That although Temple Israel of Great Neck is one of the oldest congregations on this peninsula, the landscape has changed. We are now one of 20 or so synagogues, most of which are Orthodox. Just as we embrace diversity within our immediate community, we seek to maintain diversity and cooperation without.  It is of vital importance for TIGN to survive as the sole Conservative congregation and thrive on the peninsula for the sake of Kelal Yisrael, the idea that all Jews are interconnected as a nation. But it is also essential that we look outward as well. I mentioned two weeks ago that I hope that in the near future we will look for opportunities to reach outside these walls, particularly through learning Torah together with our neighbors.

****

This communal narrative must be told and retold. The way that we build connections between people is by having them share their stories: our individual, personal stories and collective stories. Our congregation is not just a place to come to services or to get “bar mitzvahed”. It is a strong, vital community of more than 900 families, each with their own stories, and each a part of our communal narrative. Narrative, storytelling, builds connections, and builds community.

Parashat Pinehas is the parashah that we read from most frequently throughout the year. It contains instructions to the kohanim / priests for the sacrifices that were performed in the Temple in Jerusalem for every holiday. Today, we continue to read this passage about how to perform rituals that have not been performed for 1,943 years, as of the 17th of Tammuz, this past Tuesday. That is the day that the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6) identifies as the date when the daily Tamid offering ceased, when the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. Since then (more or less), we have given the words of our mouths and hearts as offerings to God in place of animal sacrifice; I think that this is a much better path to holiness and communication with God.

But here’s the important part: the rabbis could have decided, in the wake of the Temple’s destruction, that reading the parts of the Torah related to sacrifice, such as this one, was no longer relevant to us and thus could be omitted. Instead, they insisted not only that we read them, but that we read the entire Torah every year. Instead of casting them aside, we incorporated the story of the sacrifices and the destruction of the Temple into our national story in many other ways as well: we mention it at various points of our tefillot; we invoke it at various holy moments, such as when we add salt to our hallah at Shabbat meals, or when we break a glass at the conclusion of a wedding; and of course it is the theme of the Three Weeks that stretch from last Tuesday until Tish’ah Be’Av, the Ninth Day of Av, this year on July 16.

The Torah is the essence of the Jewish narrative; as Jews, we lead with that narrative, and it has been a rallying point for millennia. It has kept us Jewish, and enabled us to thrive through centuries of oppression and wandering.

Our communal story here at Temple Israel, as we have begun to discuss this week, is the focal point that makes us strong as a community, that keeps us coming back to the synagogue, and that attracts new members. We need to tell it and retell it, just like the Torah.

Next week, we’ll talk about inviting people in. Shabbat shalom!

Thursday Kavvanah, 8/18/2011 - Building Relationships Between Individuals

The second level of relationship-building that a faith community should be committed to is finding ways to connect people to each other, bein adam le-havero. One way of doing this is to build affinity groups; that is, to feature activities that bring together people with commonalities. Synagogues have traditionally done this through groups that categorize people by age, gender, or stage in life: seniors, young couples, men's club, sisterhood, and so forth. There are other groups that we can try as well: professions, hobbies, reading groups, and so forth.

Looking around the room at the minyan (morning service) attendees today, I saw that everybody who was willing to give an hour of their day, beginning at 6:45 AM, was fairly well-connected to others in the synagogue community. Only very rarely do we get somebody at morning minyan who is not.

But it is not enough to put similar people together in the same room. We must then offer ways for each person to share his or her own story. Telling one's own story, and listening to those of others, helps to build those personal bonds. We need more of this.

Va'et-hannan 5771 - Listening to our Jewish Stories

I am often asked what led me to the rabbinate, and my stock answer is that I was not happy working as an engineer, and wanted to work with people instead of things. That is true. But there is more to the story. The inclination to become a rabbi had been within me for many years. But there was some sort of obstacle – something prevented me from acting on it.

When I was 28, I was living in Houston, and I belonged to a Conservative synagogue (not many 20-something single men do, of course). After having sat anonymously in the back for a while, I was invited by one of the gabbaim to sing in the synagogue choir. I soon became close with Hazzan Stephen Berke, who invited me to learn how to lead High Holiday Shaharit / the morning service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Not long after I led my first Rosh Hashanah service, Hazzan Berke invited me to have dinner in his sukkah, during which he recommended going to cantorial school, something which had really never occurred to me.

I needed that series of invitations. I needed to be welcomed. It was that personal connection that enabled me to get around the roadblock that had prevented me from continuing my Jewish path. Thirteen years later (this Rosh Hashanah will be a kind of Bar Mitzvah for me), and here I am.

Everybody in this room has a Jewish story. Most of them do not involve rabbinical school. But we are all here because of the invitations we have received and the obstacles that we have circumvented. And that's what connects us all to Judaism, to God, and to each other.

****

Perhaps you noticed that I was sitting in back today for much of the service. Maybe I greeted you when you came in. I hope you don't mind that I was conducting a sort of experiment, inspired by lectures that I heard this week.

I spent two days at an institute hosted by the Jewish Education Project, an organization that provides training and resources to synagogues and religious schools in the metro area. I was there with our Religious School director Rabbi Klirs, our nursery school director Rachel Mathless, and educator Jennifer Khoda. This seminar was under the auspices of LOMED, a project that is helping synagogue schools move forward with new, “high-impact” models; Temple Israel has participated in LOMED for two years. The keynote speaker was Dr. Ron Wolfson, who is a professor of education at the American Jewish University in LA, and an uber-educator who has made it his business to help synagogues improve their educational offerings and everything else that they do. In particular, he has spent the last several years working on helping synagogues become more welcoming, and studying what makes houses of worship successful.

The essential mantra of Wolfson's presentations (I listened to him for nearly 6 hours over two days) was the following:

Many synagogues spend much of their time and energy preparing great programs and hoping that people show up. They should instead re-orient their priorities such that the bottom line is not, “How many people came to our fabulous program,” but rather, “Did our program build relationships?”

Because, let's face it: a faith community (synagogue, church, mosque, ashram, whatever) is about relationships. Why do most people join synagogues? Maybe it's because they want High Holiday tickets, or because they want their children to become bar or bat mitzvah, or because they want some kind of satisfying Jewish experience that they cannot get for free from Chabad.

But what makes them stay and become involved? That they have bonds with other members. That they make friends. That they feel like part of a community of like-minded people.

Why do people leave synagogues? Because they have nothing to connect them any more. Why do most members of Temple Israel deactivate? It's because their last kid completed bar or bat mitzvah.

In the four years that I have been here, our membership has remained about the same – that is, about the same number have left Temple Israel as have joined. That's good, I suppose, in one sense.

But it's not just about membership. It's not just about making our finances work. On the contrary – a synagogue exists to give people opportunities to get in touch with God. And study after study has shown that the vast majority of people, even skeptical, cosmopolitan Jews, want that. And we should be unapologetic about that goal. But we need to connect people first with each other, before we can connect them with God. If we succeed in doing that, the inflow of new members might stay the same, but the outflow might just decrease.

So how do we build these relationships? Ron Wolfson has spent years studying two models that are thriving right now: Chabad and the so-called “mega-churches.” What makes these models work, in a nutshell, is that they have mastered the art of making connections with people. How does Saddleback Church in southern California draw 30,000 people for services on a Sunday morning? By making personal connections with each and every one of them.

You see, one reason that many synagogues are not good at building community is because they are committed to a top-down style of management that is traditionally associated with, well, the 10 commandments, which we read this morning. God dictated the aseret ha-dibberot to Moshe on Mt. Sinai, and Moshe reported them to the people, and expected them to follow. Leaders and followers – that is how it has always been. The rabbi, the president, the board – they run the synagogue.

Whose pictures adorn the walls of the hallway outside the chapel? The past presidents of the congregation, and of course Rabbi Waxman (zikhrono livrakha). And of course we are grateful for their service. But what is missing is the photos of families enjoying a meal in the Temple Israel sukkah. Where are the pictures of the Adult Bat/Bar Mitzvah classes? Or the Youth House kids playing ga-ga at a “shul-in”? Where are the people?

****

My friends, the world has changed. The tools of social media have enabled the sharing of ideas and collective social interaction that was never possible before. The governments of Tunisia and Egypt were felled by calls to action on Facebook. Maybe Syria is next. There are thousands of people sleeping in tents all over Israel, precipitated by movements on Facebook and Twitter. The people of Iran and the whole world know about the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan because of the Internet - you can even watch her death on YouTube. I heard on NPR yesterday morning that Great Britain is seeking to limit the power of social media sites to help quell the riots of the past week.

The world is changing. Powerful social innovations now come from everybody, not merely from Mt. Sinai. Traditional, top-down organizational structures are being bypassed. And certainly for just about everybody younger than I am, this is how we are all beginning to think.

All of us in this room today are the insiders of this congregation. And we want others to join us. But they will not do that unless they feel like they have a certain connection to Temple Israel, to others in the room, to the clergy, to the teaching staff, to the office staff, and so forth. Most of us in this room have those connections already.

Dr. Wolfson told us that studies conducted by Saddleback Church indicate that new members won't stick around until they have made strong bonds with 5-7 people. That might not sound like a lot in a congregation of 930 families. But it's actually quite a high number. Especially when most new adult members belong so they can send their children to the schools that we have, and might only rarely get out of the car during their 5 or so years of membership here.

The goal of every person in this room is to make sure that they DO get out of their cars, and that they are welcomed into the building, and that they hang around and talk and make friends. Everybody here is an ambassador, and we are going to call on your talents in the coming years. My role at Temple Israel is changing, and I hope to be focused on finding ways to engage people so that we might build the congregation that we want.

Now, Rabbi Stecker, Cantor Frieder and I can stand up here on the bimah, week after week, and parcel out the 10 Commandments from on high, as has happened at synagogues for 2000 years. I can give sermons that teach the the literary and grammatical nuances in the Torah or Haftarah or siddur. We might be able to impress you with fiery oratory or magnificent vocal acrobatics. But the question that we should all be asking is, do these things build relationships? Because in today's climate, that is all that counts. Yes, once people are engaged, then we can hit ‘em with Rashi and Ibn Ezra. But the first step is to invite them in.

One thing that we, the ambassadors, can do is to train ourselves to follow all the guidelines on this handout on how to make this congregation a place that people will want to come to.

We have to be the inviters, the ones that remove the obstacles to the Jewish journeys of others. Let them complete their journeys here. With us. Let’s not send them to Chabad, which will surely be waiting with open arms.

And that’s why I am sitting in the back today, welcoming people and making everybody feel comfortable to share their stories. We can’t all sit in the back, but we can all welcome, and we can all listen.

I want to thank you for being such good sports and sharing your Jewish stories. I look forward to hearing more of them from you and from everybody else, and I hope that all of you give the opportunity to others in this community to do the same.

Shabbat shalom!

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel, Shabbat morning, 8/13/2011.)