Three Journeys, or, How I Learned to Find the Love in Jewish Text - Mattot-Masei 5775

I think that Mattot-Mas’ei is an ideal parashah for moving on, because (a) it's the end of Bemidbar, and (b) it's about journeys, especially Mas'ei. And so, as Judy and I are busy packing to go (the second most-stressful lifecycle event, BTW), I have been thinking quite a bit about my own journey, and how it fits into the context of our people.

There are different kinds of journeys: those of the body, those of the mind, and those of the heart. This parashah is about all three: the physical journey of the Israelites through the desert, and the mental journey, that of the mind, as they receive the Torah and struggle to live it and learn it; and the spiritual journey, that of the heart, as they endeavor to build a relationship, a berit / covenant, with their God.

A midrash about Mas'ei, about the journeys from place to place that we read today, where all the places are identified, is as follows. God recounts the names of each of these places to remind the Israelites where they were and what transpired along the way: “Here you needed water; here you were ill; and so forth. And from this we learn that we, as Israelites and as Jews, take note of our journeys.

Because we are all on a type of journey. We never really stop moving, even when we put down tent stakes and never pull up the tent for decades.

The journey is the interesting part. “Life,” as John Lennon once put it, “is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.” I never expected to become a rabbi or a cantor. I never expected to be living on Long Island. I never expected to move to Pittsburgh. I never expected to be married to a ballet dancer who speaks Hungarian. I never expected to have a son who lives in Israel most of the year. I never expected to get to know all of you so well. I did not plan for any of these things. But they have all made my life very, very rich.

When I graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary, I thought that the most important type of journey was that of the mind. In the seven years that I spent there, I put a sizeable spike on my knowledge curve in the area of Torah, halakhah, Jewish history, ritual, critical approaches to the Tanakh, etc.

But one thing that I have learned in my eight years here, and arguably the most important thing, is that the journey of the heart is much more important. The spiritual journey is the one we need to emphasize more.

There is a school of thought out there that believes that rabbis ultimately tend to give the same sermon over and over and over: the sermon that he or she needs to hear.

And it took me a few years, but I think I discovered the sermon that I needed to hear. In fact, you can very much trace my development as a rabbi from the first sermon I gave here, on my interview weekend in March of 2007. It was Parashat Ki Tissa, and I gave what I now understand to be a very heady sermon - an analysis of the language of the episode of the Molten Calf that was rooted in a close reading of one of the verses of the parashah.

Over the last eight years I have learned that it’s nice to appeal to the mind, and sometimes a rabbi has to do that. But an appeal to the heart is much more valuable, much more welcome, and much more likely to inspire people (i.e. you). I can give the most sophisticated, deep, self-impressed reading of Torah verses, and it might be greeted with a shrug at qiddush. But I have found that when I demonstrate that the Torah can be interpreted to help us live better lives as Jews and as people, I find that the message is far more likely to be heard, understood, and appreciated.

So, for example, looking at Parashat Mattot, which we read (earlier) today, we see that it opens with a detailed explanation of some of the laws surrounding vows, nedarim. Much of the detail of the law is lost on us today; most of it is irrelevant, some of it is offensive to modern people, and furthermore, we nullify personal vows in advance on Yom Kippur when we recite Kol Nidrei as a community.

However, you might make the case that the overarching message of the passage on vows is about the power of words: how they have the potential to do good or to do harm, depending on how they are used. What comes out of our mouths should be holy - it should build relationships and not destroy them. Our words should be pure, powerful and carefully considered to make sure that they are as effective as possible in repairing the world. To do anything less is to insult our God-given ability to communicate, to besmirch the sanctity of human relationships.

And that type of appeal to the heart is far more attractive, homiletically-speaking, then the most well-executed midrashic analysis that is delivered entirely divorced from the realities of our lives. The Torah is meant to teach us lessons about how to live better, not to be analyzed dispassionately in slices arrayed on sterile glass slides.

And that is the sermon that I needed to hear. JTS, bless her soul, is the Jewish ivory tower. I learned to think critically about Jewish text. I learned to review and interpret textual oddities by checking extant contemporary manuscripts. I learned about the evolution of Jewish law and custom through the lens of Jewish history. I learned to read and interpret high-minded Jewish philosophers like Buber and Heschel. I learned to read Akkadian in the original cuneiform. In short, I took a journey of the mind.

But what I did not learn is what I feel the Jewish world, and particularly the Conservative Jewish world needs. And that is a wee bit more heart. I was preparing to be too much the Scarecrow and not enough of the Tin Man.

But Rabbis, and Jews in general, should be talking about love. We should be talking about repairing the world. We should be demonstrating that our tradition teaches us how to live in a way that is better for us as individuals, better for us as a people, and better for the world as a whole. Because it is. We are Or Lagoyim, a light unto the nations. We have the potential to bring everybody the message that our bottom line is not measured in dollars or in trinkets or in how many degrees we have acquired, but in the quality of the relationships we build, within and without. As Paul McCartney once put it, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” (Can you tell I'm a Beatles fan?) That’s what mitzvot are all about. We have the potential to increase the love in this world by acting in it, by reaching out beyond ourselves.

When we study Torah, we acknowledge that there are shiv’im panim latorah, seventy faces to the Torah, that is, seventy ways (at least) of understanding every passage, every word, every story, every mitzvah, and so forth. (OK, so maybe not seventy, but that’s just rabbinic-speak for “a whole bunch.”)

There are many ways of understanding our foundational text, and the way we approach this text, referred to rabbinically as “Talmud Torah,” we must take as axiomatic the idea that no single approach is the lone correct understanding. Talmud Torah includes the seventy faces. And among those faces are those of the heart and those of the mind.

So while it makes sense to study Torah from both the rational perspective, the cool, removed, just-the-facts-ma’am position, as well as from the spiritual perspective. We should not merely ask, “What does this mean?” but also, “What does this mean to us?” And this takes a whole lot more work. So while the standard commentators (Rashi, Ramban, ibn Ezra, etc.) usually try to resolve issues within the text by working through the challenging language, the midrashic approach seeks to humanize the text by telling stories. And Hasidic tales tend to go even further by seeking the personal angle - how might we learn from this to emulate the acts of piety and selflessness of which Hasidic lore often speaks.

It took me a long time to figure out that the journey of the heart is where it’s at, since my own inclination is to be analytical. (If my wife would let me I'd be going for my 6th degree in something...anything... I love that Ivory Tower.) But Talmud Torah for the modern audience has to hit us where we live: to answer questions like this:

• What do I want my children to learn about life?
• How do I make a difference in this world?
• Why is this world so much more complex than it used to be, and how do I navigate the complexity?

And so forth.

These are all essential questions that we might often overlook if they are not staring us in the face. And that’s why the most important mitzvah in Jewish life is Talmud Torah (see Mishnah Pe’ah 1:1, etc.). You can light all the Hanukkah candles you want; you can daven with passion while fasting on Yom Kippur; you can gorge yourself on matzah and sit in the Sukkah and make sure your boys are circumcized and your doorposts have mezuzot and on and on, but until you commit to learning the precious words of the Jewish bookshelf, you cannot fully appreciate the richness and value of our tradition. When I pray, I speak to God. When I study, God speaks to me.

Bottom line is that I learned here in Great Neck the value of the third, and most important, Jewish journey. And I am going to exhort you to step up to the plate: the beit midrash awaits.

Don't be afraid to take that journey. Embrace it. That is the way we move forward, the way that we discover who we are.

I found my voice here at Temple Israel. I found my stride, my legs. I discovered my hands, and the good works that I could do for others. My true passions were revealed to me here.

This stuff actually works.

Talmud Torah keneged kulam. The study of Torah weighs more than all of the other mitzvot combined. Keep learning, and asking “What does this mean to us?” You are not taking a physical journey like we are (though Pittsburgh is a great place to visit - just sayin'). But I hope you will all keep moving forward, and work hard to bring everybody else in this community along with you. Keep moving.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 7/18/2015.)

A Double Minyan for Peace, or, Seeing the Holiness in Others - Mattot 5774

On Tuesday evening, I experienced an evening minyan like no other. I was not here at Temple Israel, where there was the regular evening minyan at 8 PM, thanks to those who made the effort to come.

No, this minyan was unique. It was at Temple Sinai in Roslyn, and it was part of a Long Island Board of Rabbis (LIBOR) program that brought together Jews and Muslims from the area for learning and prayer. It was part of a world-wide program called Boharim BaHayyim, Choose Life, and such meetings were held all over the world: in Israel (where there were four such meetups in Jerusalem alone), in Kuwait, in the US and Canada, in several European countries. 

Tuesday was Shiv’ah Asar beTammuz, the 17th of Tammuz, which is one of the five minor fast days of the Jewish calendar, a sun-up to sundown fast, commemorating (among other things) the day upon which Moshe broke the tablets of Torah that he received on Mt. Sinai, and the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians after the siege of 586 BCE. It was also the eighteenth day of Ramadan. So observant Jews and Muslims around the world were fasting together on this day, and given the current situation in Israel and Gaza, some of us took this as an opportunity to meet, learn, pray, and break bread together after the fast. (An article about the international event also appeared on the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot’s website, and Nechama Liss-Levenson, a Great Neck writer and member of Great Neck Synagogue, blogged about the event for the Forward.)

The meeting at Temple Sinai attracted about 60 people, about half Jews and half Muslims. Among the Jews, there were representatives of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox communities.

So, after some introductory speeches, Rabbi Lina Zerbarini of the Sid Jacobson JCC taught a passage from our textual tradition, which we discussed as a group. The text, from the Talmud Yerushalmi (30b), raises the question of the greatest principle found in the Torah:

ואהבת לרעך כמוך ר' עקיבה או' זהו כלל גדול בתורה

בן עזאי אומ' זה ספר תולדות אדם זה כלל גדול מזה

Rabbi Akiva taught: “‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Leviticus, 19:18] This is the most important rule in the Torah.” Ben Azzai says: “’This is the record of Adam’s line. When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God,’ [Gen. 5:1] And this is an even more important rule.”

Why does Ben Azzai argue that this statement regarding the creation of human in God’s image is greater than loving your neighbor? Because it is essential to acknowledge the spark of Divine holiness that is present in each of us on this Earth - rich and poor, black and white, American and Pakistani, Jewish and Christian and Hindu and Buddhist and Muslim and secular and, yes, even the atheists. This latter principle should lead to the first one; that is, seeing the holiness in others should enable us to love them as we love ourselves.

A visiting Islamic scholar, Imam Ibrahim Negm, who is a special advisor to the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, invoked a similar principle from Muslim tradition. He said that you cannot call yourself truly faithful until you understand and appreciate the value of the faith of others. This fits nicely in-between the two Torah principles identified in the Talmud.

And then that minyan. The Jews went first. Temple Sinai’s bimah faces west, but the Jewish custom is that if there is a sefer Torah in the room, we face the Torah. So we gathered on the bimah together and recited the traditional ma’ariv, while the Muslims in the room sat patiently and observed in their seats. After we concluded with Mourner’s Qaddish, we returned to our seats while the Muslims, men and women, removed their shoes, gathered at the back of the room, and performed their evening prayer, known in Arabic by the name maghrib, a cognate to our ma’ariv.

I wonder how often it has happened that Muslims have gathered to pray in a synagogue? (It is worth pointing out here that both Muslims and Jews acknowledge each other’s tradition as purely monotheistic, and therefore that neither a synagogue nor a mosque is a place of avodah zarah, of idol worship. Not all Jewish authorities agree that this is the case for Christian houses of worship.)

At the end of both the Jewish and Muslim prayers is, interestingly enough, a prayer for peace. Just as we say “Oseh shalom bimromav,” they conclude by saying, “As-salaam aleikum.” How ironic, and yet not so.

****

Some of you may have noticed that Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi passed away a little more than two weeks ago. Reb Zalman, as he was generally known, was a key figure in the Jewish Renewal movement. He came from the Chabad-Lubavitch fold, but left them to forge his own path in the middle of the 20th century, drawing on a variety of religious traditions that brought him away from his Hasidic background. His obit in the New York Times said the following:

"His exposure to Eastern religion, medieval Christian mysticism and LSD... helped him formulate some of the innovations he brought to contemporary Jewish practice...

[Reb Zalman] “realized that all forms of religion are masks that the divine wears to communicate with us,” [a friend was quoted as saying]. “Behind all religions there’s a reality, and this reality wears whatever clothes it needs to speak to a particular people.”

Speaking as one who stands up and advocates for Jewish tradition on a daily basis, I must confess that some of his ideas were too far beyond the pale of what is normative in Judaism to be appealing to me. But what does indeed resonate with me is the idea that all religious traditions have similar objectives: to get us in touch with the Divine, to encourage us reach out to one another in healthy, inspiring ways, to spur us to do good works in this world.

He was, in this regard, not too far away from Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, from whose work the Reconstructionist movement emerged. Rabbi Kaplan rejected the idea of Jewish chosenness, arguing instead that all religious paths to God are effectively equal.

Now, I know that these sorts of ideas make some of us uncomfortable. If all religions serve the same goals, why should we be in any way particularistic? In other words, why be Jewish, when being Christian might be just as good and much easier? Kaplan’s response to this is that the Torah is ours; our ancestors have carried it with them for centuries and given it to us. I would add the rhetorical question, “Who are we to leave such a rich, glorious tradition? Who are we to deny our own heritage, to abandon what we have received from our parents and grandparents and all who preceded them?”

But the larger point here is that just as our tradition is rich and glorious and valuable and meaningful, inspiring centuries of Jews and, let’s face it, launching other religious traditions, so too are the teachings of the other great religions. And while we differ over dogma and rituals, the goals are ultimately the same. Love your neighbor as yourself. See the holiness in yourself as well as others. Pursue peace with all your being. Our tradition teaches this, and we should learn it and live it; and likewise for everybody else.

We need not fear the other. On the contrary, we should strive to see the divinity in each human being on this Earth. We cannot live a holy life until we understand and value the needs of everybody else around us, and appreciate their life and faith and fundamental human rights.

We must instead cooperate with all of the good, open, moderate people in this world, the ones who are willing to talk, and to bypass and constrain the bad actors. In our own corner, we have to work to eliminate the Jewish extremists like the group that carried out the brutal murder of 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir. And across the border, we have to reach out beyond Hamas to the people of Palestine and Gaza. (A credible poll from the past week by Palestinian pollsters indicated that roughly 70% of Gaza’s population does NOT support Hamas.)

Let’s face it. Just as Gaza has been hijacked by terrorists, who are more insistent on shooting rockets into Israel then taking care of their own people, so too have certain parts of the Muslim world been hijacked. And parts of Judaism and Christianity. There are even violent Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and Hindu nationalists in India who have persecuted Muslim minorities there.

But about 30 Muslims came the other night to break bread with Jews right here on Long Island, and hundreds more around the world did the same. We need to find more ways of bringing people together, not just one day a year, not just in the 30 or so gatherings that were held on Tuesday evening around the world, but again and again in more places and more contexts, in synagogues, in mosques, in churches, in ashrams, in temples of all sorts. We need to seek and appreciate the divinity in others.

As I wrote these words, I received the not-particularly-surprising news that Israel has launched its ground invasion. I hope and pray with all my being that our valiant IDF forces are able to take out terrorist infrastructure with a minimum of pain and loss and suffering on both sides, a minimum of lives lost. But we know that people will die, some ordinary people, some good people, some civilians. We should not lose sight of the divinity of a single person who loses a life or is injured, and we should continue to pray that this round will pass quickly.

But we should further pray that a long-term solution is found more quickly, that the good people of Gaza throw off the yoke of Hamas, that the good people of Israel are safe and secure and never again subject to hourly bombardment by terrorists of any stripe.

As a part of the illustrious tradition that God gave to us, every weekday, three times a day, we offer in the Shemoneh Esreh, the weekday Amidah, a series of berakhot / blessings that follow the pattern of: Praise - Request - Thanks - Peace.

I really wish, some times more than others, that we could save those thanks to God for when we get the peace. But tefillah / prayer does not work that way. On the contrary, it’s a blueprint for what could be. We thank God in advance for what we hope will be a better world.

And that goes double for the ma’ariv / maghrib minyan in which I participated on Tuesday evening. A blueprint. An aspiration. A hope.

I assure you that I am not as naive as I might seem. But I am filled with hope. We have to keep hoping for peace, concluding every service with a plea to God for peace, and taking baby steps toward peace, even in our darkest hours.

Shabbat shalom.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 7/19/2014.)

Summer Sermon Series #2: Elevating Ourselves Through Words of Welcome - Mattot/Mas'ei 5773

Shabbat shalom! We are into the second topic of the seven-part summer sermon series about the most essential parts of Temple Israel’s vision: being a welcoming congregation. Here is a brief sketch of the series:

1. Telling our narrative (6/29 - Pinehas)

2. Welcoming (7/6 - Mattot-Mas’ei)

3. Learning / Torah (7/13 - Devarim)

4. Egalitarianism (7/20 - Va-ethannan)

5. Israel (7/27 - Eqev)

6. Repairing the World (8/3 - Re’eh)

7. Tradition and Change (8/10 - Shofetim)

Considering the list of topics above, you might think that Torah comes before welcoming. Let me tell you why we are addressing welcoming first. Consider the following mishnah from Pirqei Avot, the collection of rabbinic wisdom which is traditionally studied in the summer months (3:21):

אם אין תורה, אין דרך ארץ; אם אין דרך ארץ, אין תורה.

Im ein Torah, ein derekh eretz. Im ein derekh eretz, ein Torah.

One possible translation: “If there is no Torah, there is no respect. If there is no respect, there is no Torah.”

“Derekh eretz,” while often translated idiomatically as “respect,” is more literally rendered as “the way of the land.” It refers to how we treat others as we go through life, and suggests to me, from an ancient Middle Eastern perspective (arguably the most important one when interpreting Jewish text), how strangers are treated when they are passing through your village, or how you might be treated when passing through somebody else’s territory. The point, of course, is that in the desert, you pay it forward: this time, I’ll give you food, water, and shelter; next time, you’ll give some to me.

Our patriarch Abraham is an exemplar of derekh eretz when he welcomes traveling strangers (acutally angels) into his tent and gives them food and water at the beginning of Parashat Vayyera. But even in today’s world, derekh eretz still carries a traditional sense among desert-dwellers, and it refers specifically to welcoming others into your tent.

When I was studying at the WUJS Institute in Arad, Israel in 1999, I did a lot of hiking in the desert around Arad, which is located not far from the Dead Sea in the southern Judean Hills. One day, a friend of mine and I were hiking nearby, and we wandered into a Bedouin camp - there were a few tents (well, temporary structures made of corrugated iron) surrounding a pen with a few horses and other animals. And there was a dog, which, when it spotted us, started barking and raising a ruckus. A middle-aged Bedouin gentlemen in contemporary Israeli clothes came out of his tent, spotted us, and beckoned to us to come in. We obliged, and sit on his poured concrete floor (this was a fancy tent) covered with rugs and pillows, alongside his Japanese SUV, and chatted in Hebrew about his work in the construction business as he gave us tea and water. A few other men in kaffiyas joined us, and we sat politely and soaked up the derekh eretz, and schmoozed with these Bedouin, whom we would otherwise never have met.

Without welcoming others into our tent, we will never get to the Torah. Without derekh eretz, there can be no Torah, no Israel, no community. Welcoming others in is the foundation of Judaism, and it is time for us to take it to the next level.

We read today at the beginning of Parashat Mattot about the power and significance of our words. We are able, through vows, to make a binding commitment that cannot be violated. As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught, a vow is “self-imposed legislation.” Vows are so important that there is an entire tractate of the Talmud, Massekhet Nedarim, devoted to the particulars of what constitutes a vow and its implications.

This is just one example of how our tradition elevates words, and how words can elevate us; our lips can praise and curse, heal and wound, impose a vow and break it. Jewish ritual is always accompanied by powerful words.

I would like to suggest the following: We as individual members of this congregation should all take the following vow: to work as hard as possible at welcoming others into this community.

Now, I am not suggesting that we are not friendly. On the contrary, as synagogues go, we are pretty good. In fact, we were roundly complimented by the Board of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which met here about a month ago. (United Synagogue is, of course, the umbrella organization of Conservative congregations.) Our member Marty Werber, who serves on the USCJ Board, reported back to us that many members of the Board came away from their visit to Temple Israel with the impression that they were made to feel welcome here, and that is a strong statement; these guys see a lot of congregations, so they have what to compare us to. And we came up pretty well. So Kol Hakavod.

Here is another example: at Tot Shabbat two weeks ago, the first held in the Blue Room, a guest parent exclaimed to my wife Judy, not aware that she is the rebbetzin, how friendly our congregation is. That’s another nice compliment.

And look at all we have accomplished in this regard in the last couple of years:

• We have pioneered the Nitzanim Family Connection, a program that brings together parents of children who are beginning their religious school experience to discuss what it means to be Jewish parents;
• We put together a phenomenally successful pre-bar-mitzvah retreat for the Vav class families;
• We have started a social group for empty nesters and one for parents of young children (called Temple Israel Bonds, the first event, a barbecue, is on August 1 - see Jackie Astrof for details, and there is a flyer out front);
• We have created new offerings in the Youth House to reach out to teens more effectively;
• We have offered adult learning programs in congregants’ homes that welcomes both TIGN members and non-members and thereby creates new connections within our wider community that synagogue-based programs do not necessarily foster.

We have also made it a point, as you may have noticed, to re-arrange the sanctuary (at least some of the time) in a way that many find more inviting, and we often have one rabbi standing at the back with the other greeters and Shabbat officers, to make sure that everybody is properly welcomed, and we have initiated a task-force discussion to talk about our religious services here, and to consider more carefully how we approach them. Focus on the welcoming aspects of our tefillah / prayer experience will surely be a part of that discussion.

However, there is always room for improvement. A few years back, a colleague and friend of mine, Rabbi Kate Palley, was visiting here at Temple Israel for Sukkot. She came early to services, and was davening quietly to herself when she realized that somebody sitting in front of her seemed somewhat agitated, and was looking and pointing at Rabbi Kate and talking to a friend in an animated fashion. At some point, the friend comes over and says, “You’re in his seat!” She moved, and was otherwise undeterred. But is that really the impression that we want to give visitors?

Furthermore, we cannot afford to welcome only those who are already in the building. We have to work a little harder, to reach beyond these walls.

Why is being welcoming so important? Because building this community, as I mentioned last week, is the central pillar of maintaining Temple Israel's strength, for supporting the egalitarian approach to Judaism that we value in an increasingly non-egalitarian community, for ensuring that modern understandings of Judaism and an open approach to the Torah are given a fair shake in the theological marketplace. And there are many people in our wider community who respond positively to our take on Jewish life when they experience it.

By inviting others in and making them feel like a part of us, we stand a chance of growing.  There is no shortage of unaffiliated Jews out there, some of whom may be amenable to finding a spiritual home in a qehillah qedoshah, a sacred community such as ours. But they likely will not join unless we reach out to them and make personal connections.

I am going to frame this issue another way. We read elsewhere in Pirqei Avot the following (2:5):

הלל אומר, אל תפרוש מן הציבור

Hillel omer: Al tifrosh min hatzibbur

Hillel says, “Do not withdraw from the community.”

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a time in which many Jews have, in fact, separated themselves from their community. But I think that this statement implies that just as we personally are obligated not to separate ourselves, we are also encouraged to act on the converse of that statement: that is, not to allow others to separate from us, the Jewish community. Chabad, Aish HaTorah, and other such Orthodox organizations commit much of their energy to doing exactly that; we need to do so as well, so that those who are unaffiliated are exposed to all of the values that we cherish as modern Jews committed to traditional Judaism.

In other words, we, individual members of Temple Israel, and not just the clergy and the officers, have to reach out, to take on the personal challenge of inviting others to join us. Like Abraham and my Bedouin buddy, we have to go outside the tent and invite others in.

So that is why I want everybody here to take a “vow” today: to be an ambassador of welcoming for Temple Israel, even off the synagogue grounds. Let’s kick it up a notch - let our words of greeting and invitation elevate ourselves and this community. To that end, here are a few action items:  

1. Whenever you are in the building, take Maimonides’ advice and greet everybody with a smile (Mishneh Torah Hilkhot De’ot 2:7).
2. If you have a friend who is unaffiliated but may be open to visiting, let Rabbi Stecker or I know and we might be able to suggest a point of entry best suited to her or him.
3. Find one person whom you do not know at kiddush each week with whom to strike up a conversation. Likewise, you might even want to introduce members of this community who may not know each other.
4. If you bring a guest to TIGN, introduce him or her to me and to a member of the Board or the Membership committee. If you do not know any board members, ask me, and I’ll hook you up.
5. If you have a tech-savvy young person in your orbit, ask them to “like” our Facebook page, and/or to follow @TempleIsraelGN on Twitter. Spreading information far and wide is easy today if you’re connected to the Internet, which we are.

Shabbat shalom! Next week, we’ll talk about the value of learning Torah.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, July 6, 2013.)