Equal Access to God - Pesah 5774

My eldest son’s bar mitzvah was in Israel two-and-a-half weeks ago. He lives at Kibbutz Ein Gev, which might just be Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden), located on the eastern shore of the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee. We put together complete, Conservative-style, fully egalitarian Shabbat evening and morning services there for family and friends and kibbutzniks, but we started the process in Jerusalem, two days earlier at the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. There, on Thursday morning, we held a service where Oryah laid tefillin and read Torah, accompanied by his immediate family.

What was particularly unique and interesting about this day for me, in addition to my son’s bar mitzvah, was that this Thursday morning service took place not at what most of us think of as the Kotel, but at what might be described as a new ancient location: the southernmost area of the Western Wall, just under the archaeologically-significant outcropping of the wall known as Robinson’s Arch. (It was named after the early 19th-century American biblical scholar, Edward Robinson, who identified the arch on a visit to Palestine in 1838 as part of the ancient bridge that led to the Temple plaza from Jerusalem’s downtown prior to the Roman destruction in 70 CE.)

To distinguish it from the main plaza in front of the Western Wall where most people congregate, this area has come to be known informally in recent years as “HaKotel HaMasorti,” the Conservative Western Wall (Masorti being the international term for the Conservative movement).  But now it has a new name: “Ezrat Yisrael.” It’s really a very clever name: it’s the name of an area in the Second Temple that was open to all Israelites (i.e. those who were neither Kohanim or Leviim). However, to the speaker of modern Hebrew it suggests a place that is open to all Jews, differentiated from the women’s section in an Orthodox synagogue called the ezrat nashim, the women’s section that is separate from that of the men in any Orthodox synagogue; this name also derives from ancient Temple, where there was also an ezrat nashim.

Since last September, when the Israeli government finally agreed to make access to the Masorti Kotel easier, there are a couple of new features at the Robinson’s Arch area. There is now a huge, expansive platform with several rolling lecterns overlooking the site, which may be reserved in advance by anybody wishing to hold an egalitarian service there. There is also a special, separate entrance adjacent to the main entrance to the Kotel Plaza, with a sign saying “Ezrat Yisrael” and a security guard (although no metal detectors, as for the traditional Kotel). These innovations have made the whole experience far more pleasant and convenient and accessible than the site had been previously. As I passed through the new entrance, I thought, Pithu li sha’arei tzedeq, avo vam odeh Yah. Open for me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter to praise God. (Psalm 118:20 - We sang those words a few minutes ago in Hallel.) It has been a long time coming that this prayer space of equality, where women and men may worship in contemporary style, where all can be seen as equal with respect to God, where all may participate fully, is now open to the public and functioning respectfully.

We held our service on the new platform, overlooking the ancient walls built by King Herod nearly 2,000 years ago, and enjoyed the relative peace and serenity of the scene as compared with the hubbub of the traditional Kotel area.

A little basic history is called for here: Prior to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, Judaism was mostly centralized. Worship was governed by the kohanim, the priests, and included pilgrimage and agricultural sacrifice.  When the Temple was destroyed and the role of the priesthood effectively nullified, a new group of leaders, scholars that went by the title of “Rav” or “Rabban” or “Rabbi” developed a new way to engage with God: through words of prayer and words of study. As a result, they redefined what it means to be holy for Jews. Holiness would no longer be assigned to one central place, but would be carried with the Jews in their hearts and minds wherever they went throughout the world. We each carry within us the spark of holiness, and wherever we gather to sanctify time or to engage with the ancient words of our tradition, that holiness multiplies itself to make a miqdash me’at, a little place of holiness.

(As an aside here: It was this portability and effective democratization of Judaism that enable us to survive. As I referenced on Shabbat Hagadol, we could have disappeared when the Romans ceased the Temple service. But instead we found a creative workaround. This is why the Dalai Lama convened a bunch of Jewish leaders back in the early 1990s to learn strategies on how a people may maintain its faith in exile; this tale was the subject of Rodger Kamenetz’s book, The Jew in the Lotus.)

That said, I must confess that I have become, in recent years, somewhat disenchanted with whole Kotel experience. It has become an obsession for our people - these ancient stones. Certainly, they are laden with history, and certainly, it is a place that speaks with great emotional power. But since the Roman destruction, there really are not holy places in Judaism like there are in, say, Islam. Holiness is where the Jews are, and is not tethered to any particular location.

But the fascination with that big, open-air, continuous pick-up minyan adjacent to an ancient retaining wall is challenging to me. It has a faint whiff of avodah zarah, idolatry. The history of the Temple Mount is powerful and inspiring, incorporating the ancient Jewish tale of destruction and rebuilding coupled with hope and Divine connection, but it has never been, and was never intended to be what it has become in recent years: an Orthodox synagogue. We do not worship rocks, ladies and gentlemen. We worship only God.

Today, the Kotel has a mehitzah (that was not always the case) and an Orthodox rabbi appointed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, who has expressly forbidden mixed minyanim, or even women-only services that feature women singing out loud like men do. I continue to read accounts of how some of the worshippers there have become increasingly bold about telling others how to behave / pray / walk / dress and so forth in the plaza. Ladies and gentlemen, there are many paths to God, and if my approach differs from yours, that’s fine. We should make an effort to accommodate each other where possible, and respect each other’s path.

When I am at the Kotel, I too feel the ancient reverberations of our history and our tradition emanating from that wall. And I feel the sadness of loss, the hope of rebuilding, and the yearning of two thousand years of exile. Indeed, the ancient ruins of Israel, the wellspring of our heritage, made it not just possible but mandatory that the Jewish state be located there, and not in Madagascar or Birobidjan or Brooklyn or Vilna.

But even more, I feel the pain of divisiveness, the arrogance of those within our midst who want to tell others what to believe and how to act, the anger at the insulting and even dangerous behavior of those who have somehow incorporated intolerance into their religious zeal.

If those Herodian rocks could speak, what would they say? Can’t you people all just get along? Can’t you just accept that there are many paths through Judaism, that every Jew should be entitled to visit this venerated, historical place and access God through whatever means he or she chooses? If those rocks could speak, wouldn’t they remind us of the Talmudic passage that tells us that the Second Temple was lost due to sin’at hinam, causeless hatred?

The victory of the last year, when the Netanyahu government agreed to created this open prayer space for egalitarian groups at Robinson’s Arch, is of utmost importance because of the message it broadcasts to the Jewish world: Women count too. And this message, which is a bridge we crossed at Temple Israel in 1976, has not yet infiltrated into much of the traditional Jewish world. Pesah in particular is a time when we should actively recall this, because of a passage in the Talmud related to the seder (Pesahim 108a):

ואמר רבי יהושע בן לוי: נשים חייבות בארבעה כוסות הללו, שאף הן היו באותו הנס.

Ve-amar Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: Nashim hayyavot be-arba’ah kosot halalu, she-af hen hayu beoto hanes.

R. Joshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated for the Four Cups, because they too participated in the same miracle.

It may be hard to believe for the frummer residents of Beit Shemesh and Boro Park, but half of those who were redeemed from Egypt were female. And so they deserve a place at the table as well, not relegated to another room or behind a mehitzah. And not just on Pesah, but in all aspects of Jewish life.

Why do we need to continue to focus on the equality of women? Because there are Yiddish signs in neighborhoods of Brooklyn asking women to step off the sidewalk in deference to a man. Because there is an ongoing campaign in Jerusalem and other primarily Haredi cities to remove women from sight: prohibition of women on advertising billboards, or when they do appear, vandalization by anonymous zealots. Because an eight-year-old girl, Naama Margolis, was harassed and spat upon by Haredi residents of Beit Shemesh two years ago because they felt that her dress was was not sufficiently modest. Eight years old!

This is all the more reason why the Ezrat Yisrael is so important. While certain quarters of Judaism are busy trying to make women invisible, we have succeeded in elevating them by actually building a raised platform. We have physically elevated those choosing to worship adjacent to the ancient site of Beit HaMiqdash, and thus raised them spiritually as well.

Chairman Mao famously said, “Women hold up half the sky.” Well, they did in ancient Israel too, and in Egypt, and they do so today. (Maybe even more than half.) But that does not mean that our work is done - on the contrary, we must continue to strive to make men and women equal partners in holiness, with equal access to God.
By bringing together the sparks of holiness found within every one of us, male and female, we can only raise ourselves higher.

Hag sameah.

On Being Holy

קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ, כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

Qedoshim tihyu, ki qadosh ani Adonai Eloheikhem

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. (Leviticus 19:2)

The first 18 chapters of the book of Vayiqra / Leviticus, which we have been reading since before Pesah, can be challenging for modern Jews. The Torah spends a luxuriously extensive amount of time on the (frequently gory) details of the ancient sacrificial cult, the form of worship that our ancestors practiced prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans in 70 CE. But of course none of this applies to us today - we are fortunate that we communicate with God directly through the words of prayer, without a priestly intermediary.

And suddenly, Vayiqra opens up into another, seemingly more relevant way of interacting with God, a kind of counterpoint to the beginning of the book: rules of how to conduct ourselves with respect to others. Holiness may not only be achieved through sacrifice; it may also be attained by honoring one’s parents, paying a laborer his fair wages at the end of the day (rather than the following day), and not placing a stumbling block before the blind. The principles enumerated in this passage, to which scholars typically refer as “the Holiness Code,” are mitzvot / commandments of the sort that not only make for a healthy society, but also give us a basis for understanding that God’s demands of us are not merely personal or ritual in nature; they also require derekh eretz, respect in all our dealings with others. Holiness is not only achieved through coming to synagogue or singing Shema Yisrael with your children at bedtime -- it is also found in commitment to placing the needs of others high on your list of priorities, and sometimes above your own needs.

The Talmud tells us that several of the agricultural laws identified in Leviticus 19 must be taught to converts to Judaism, including leaving the corners of your fields un-harvested and not picking up fallen fruit, both for the benefit of the needy in your town. The message of these laws, the very essence and literal meaning of derekh eretz (“the way of the land”), is that we are obligated to take care of one another -- to feed the hungry, to house the homeless, to clothe the naked. As we are far removed from the land itself and often cushioned from the sight of hungry and homeless people, the Torah’s challenge to us today is to pro-actively find ways to fulfill these mitzvot.

It is through providing for those in need that we may rise to the holiness that God expects of us. Qedoshim tihyu - you shall be holy.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

Journey of Holiness - A Kavvanah for Lekh Lekha

The Torah exhorts us, in a variety of places and ways, to be holy. But what exactly is "holiness," and how do we go about acquiring it?

The Hebrew root ק-ד-ש, which is spun out into many forms throughout Jewish text and liturgy, originally means "separate" or "distinct." Those things which are קדוש / qadosh, "holy," have been set aside for a particular, non-ordinary purpose. The Shabbat, for example, is a day that is set apart from the other six ordinary days of the week. At a Jewish wedding, the bride and groom are joined to each other when the groom says, הרי את מקודשת לי / harei at mequddeshet li, "Behold, you are sanctified to me...", and thus they are set apart from everybody else and committed to each other. And so forth.

From NASA, a satellite photo showing drought in the Fertile Crescent in 2008.

In Parashat Lekh Lekha, Abram is instructed by God to leave his home in what is today Iraq and venture all the way to the other end of the Fertile Crescent to what is today Israel. The Torah tells us neither why Abram was chosen, nor why the destination is Israel; Abram himself does not even seem to know where he is going or why.

But there is no question that Abram's journey is a spiritual one, a quest for holiness that takes him out of his ordinary environment to someplace new, a place where he will be set apart. As the father of monotheism and of two sons from whom Muslims, Christians and Jews see themselves as being descended (at least theologically, if not genetically), Abram is himself becoming holy and creating a new way for all who follow to seek holiness. He is a pioneer of sanctification, one who exemplifies the pursuit of distinctiveness that marks the Abrahamic faiths by taking the extreme path of physical relocation to balance his internal journey.

Fortunately, we do not have to pick up and move to seek holiness. In Judaism, sometimes the act of differentiation that makes us holy is as simple as picking up a book. Now go and learn it.

Shabbat shalom!


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

Rosh Hashanah 5773: Why Be Jewish?

Goldie Cohen, an elderly Jewish woman from New York, goes to her travel agent. "I vont to go to India."

"Mrs. Cohen, why India? It's filthy, much hotter than New York, and very crowded."

"I vont to go to India."

"But it's a long journey, how will you manage? What will you eat? The food is too hot and spicy for you. You can't drink the water or eat fresh fruit and vegetables. You'll get sick.  And can you imagine the hospital, no Jewish doctors?"

 

"I vont to go to India."

The necessary arrangements are made, and off she goes. She arrives in India and, undeterred by the noise and crowds, makes her way to an ashram. There she joins the long line of people waiting for an audience with the guru. She is told that it will take at least three days of standing in line to see the guru.

"Dats OK," Goldie says.

Eventually she reaches the guru’s entryway. There she is told firmly that she can only say three words.

"Fine," she says.

She is ushered into the inner sanctum where the guru is seated.  As she approaches him, she is reminded: "Remember, just three words."

Unlike the other devotees, she does not prostrate at his feet. She stands directly in front of him, folds her arms on her chest, fixes her gaze on his, and says: "Shmuel, come home."

 
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all Jews by choice.

Usually, that is a term reserved for those who were born into another faith and became Jewish. We often refer to converts to Judaism not as “converts,” but as “Jews by choice.”  In Jewish tradition, a Jew is a Jew is a Jew, whether born Jewish or not.  A Jew by choice is first and foremost a Jew.

But the reality of today’s marketplace of ideas is that we are ALL Jews by choice.  We have all made the choice to be here today; we choose to celebrate Pesah with family, or light Hanukkah candles together, or to eat only kosher foods, or bring our children for berit milah or bat mitzvah.

The ability to opt for something different, to start over in a new place with a new identity, is the hallmark of the American character.  Personal autonomy -- individual choice -- has always been placed at the top of our pile of values.  We do not ask our children, “What do you need?”, but rather, “What do you want?”  We reinforce from birth that we have choices. (I’m not sure if this method always works out so well for parents, but that’s the subject of a different sermon.)

Our people arrived on this continent in 1654, almost 360 years ago.  The first American Jews resisted Old World rabbinic control for decades; to this day, this country has the only significant Jewish community in the world that has never had a chief rabbi.  Meanwhile, Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, Issur Danielovich Demsky became Kirk Douglas, Sandy Koufax became a hall-of-famer even though he did not pitch on Yom Kippur, and full assimilation and interfaith families became inevitable features of the American Jewish landscape.

Shmuel, the Jewish guru, chose something else.  For whatever reason -- perhaps he could not find that path within Judaism that led to spiritual satisfaction and so he found another option -- he and others like him have left the fold for other pastures.  But far more of our young people today are exercising their freedom of choice by simply opting out of Jewish life, not necessarily to become gurus in ashrams, but becoming what is increasingly known as “Just Jewish,” or not Jewish at all.  A friend of mine from my Cornell days casually announced on Facebook that he was “no longer Jewish.”  When I asked him if that meant that he had converted to another religious tradition, he told me that he had not.  He had simply stopped practicing any Jewish rituals and disconnected himself from the faith of his parents.

And he is not alone.  What is the fastest-growing religious tradition in America today, across all demographics?  None.

I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately, because I think that we, those of us who are still committed, who are still invested in the traditional aspects of Jewish living, have to start making the case to ourselves about why Judaism is valuable.  Why be Jewish?  If we can answer that question for ourselves, we have a better chance of making the case to others for whom the inclination is to drop out.

Why be Jewish?

We need an answer to that question, one that we must share with our families and friends.  I’m particularly concerned with our children who are in the parking lot, or at home on Facebook.  I’m concerned that the ultimate result of the freedom of choice that modernity highlights will be that Judaism will cease to play a role in the lives of its descendants.  And I am particularly concerned that our Judaism, the open, non-judgmental, progressive, egalitarian practices that we represent here at Temple Israel.  We are the inheritors of Rabbi Mordecai Waxman’s principles of Tradition and Change, principles that I know many of us hold dear.

So the question should be asked and answered, re-asked and re-answered.  Why be Jewish?  And some of our children and grandchildren will no doubt find the answers not compelling enough, and will, like Shmuel and my college buddy, end their relationships with Judaism.

But some (and, I hope, many) will choose Judaism, will choose our open, tolerant approach to tradition.  Just like we in this room have done.

One traditional response to the question of “Why be Jewish” is that of faith.  The Torah tells us that if we embrace the mitzvot / commandments of Jewish life -- Shabbat, kashrut, tefillah, lifecycle events, holidays, and so forth -- we will be rewarded by God.  

But let’s face it: that does not work for everybody.

So we have to find another way.  We have to make other arguments for why choosing Judaism is a good idea.  

Here is another way of looking at this, one way that has worked for me.  I’m going to call this “the History Argument.”

There have been Jews in this world for at least 2300 years, and arguably as many as 3500 years.  Every one of us in this room is the descendant of at least 100 generations of Jews.  Our ancestors have followed these ancient customs and laws for millennia.  Who are we to question their adherence to Judaism?  Who are we to break the chain?

I choose Judaism because my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and on and on and on were Jews.  They carried their faith through war and peace, East and West, through slavery and oppression and liberation and migration, from place to place and nation to nation.  Likewise, I want my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and on and on to continue these practices as well, wherever they end up and in whatever circumstances.

Tradition, sang Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.  The key to our lives is maintaining our tradition.

The History Argument may work for some of us.  My suspicion is that for most of us who are under the age of 30, that will not work very well at all.  As humans, we are much better at living in the present than acknowledging the past or envisioning the future.

So we need some better reasons to be Jewish.  I’d like to propose the following:  What makes Judaism valuable today, and in an ongoing way are the Jewish values that we share. These shared values can be called the Internal, the External, and the Holy.

1.  Internal: Judaism values learning and mandates critical thinking.

2.  External: Judaism encourages us to relate well to others.

3.  Holy: Judaism offers a glimpse of the Divine.

First, let take a closer look at the Internal:  Judaism values learning and mandates critical thinking.

As I grow in my own relationship to what we call Judaism, I am ever more fond of the statement found in the Mishnah, tractate Pe’ah 1:1: Talmud Torah keneged kulam.  The study of Torah outweighs all the other mitzvot, including honoring your parents, performing deeds of charity, and making peace between people.

That’s right.  Learning is the highest value in Judaism, going all the way back to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, nearly 2000 years ago.  In the wake of that destruction, our ancestors grappled with the question of how to maintain our distinctiveness, and they settled on learning.  Judaism would become a tradition that would be related from teacher to student.  No more priesthood, no more hierarchy; Talmud Torah, the learning of Torah is the great equalizer of Jewish history.  Only a small elite could perform the sacrifices in the Temple, but everybody could learn and relate our Jewish stories.

“Why do Jews always answer a question with a question?”  
“How should they answer?”

We are a people who ask questions, who challenge, who seek wisdom.  And the critical thinking piece is essential.  Unlike some other religious traditions, which urge followers to check their intellect at the door, Judaism encourages us to question, to argue, to disagree.  There is never one answer in the Talmud; there is always a second opinion.  

We are the original critical thinkers, and every single one of us can benefit from Judaism’s rigorous pursuit of study, learning, and debate.  That is the Internal reason to be Jewish.

Second, the External.  Judaism requires us to relate well to others.

One of the best-known stories of the Talmud is as follows: a potential convert who approaches the sage Hillel and asks him to teach him all of the laws of Jewish life while standing on one leg.  Hillel lifts a leg off the ground and says, “Do not do unto others what is hateful unto you.  All the rest is commentary.  Now go and learn it.”

The second part of his statement, the “Go and learn it” part, refers back to the learning that we just discussed.  But the first part, the part about not doing unto others what is hateful to you, is the key to being Jewish in relationship to others.  We have to treat each other well.  

And let’s face it: treating your neighbor respectfully is not so easy.  We live in a fundamentally selfish society, in which independence is prized above all else.  We compete against each other for resources, for access to good schools, good grades, good jobs, and good business deals.  We learn from a young age that performance outweighs learning, that bringing in a good salary can sometimes justifiably conflict with being a dedicated parent.

But the Torah and Judaism ask us to re-examine those equations.  Ve’ahavta le-reiakha kamokha - love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18).  Honor your parents, says the Torah, even when it might be inconvenient to you.  Pay your employees a fair wage, says the Torah, even if it cuts into your own profits.  If you find your enemy’s ox suffering under a heavy load, says the Torah, you must help lift it up.  Don’t put a stumbling block in front of the blind; don’t curse the deaf.  From Pirqei Avot: Al tifrosh min hatzibbur - do not separate yourself from your community.

Today (yesterday) we enter/ed the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance, bracketed by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  On these days we can ask for forgiveness from God for those transgressions of mitzvot bein adam lamaqom, commandments that are between us and God.  God will forgive us if we ask.  

But regarding those violations of mitzvot bein adam lehavero, the obligations between people, only those we have personally wronged can forgive us for what we have done to them.  We can only be forgiven with the help of our haver, our buddy, spouse, child, parent, sibling, coworker, boss, employee, neighbor, or enemy.  As Jews, we take this human partnership seriously.  

And that’s another great reason to be Jewish, the External reason.

Third: Holiness. Judaism offers a glimpse of the Divine.

Last spring, we hosted the noted professor of Jewish education, Dr. Ron Wolfson.  Dr. Wolfson’s work is primarily to help synagogues become more welcoming.  But he also reminds those of us who work in synagogues that we are not a business, whose bottom line is a dollar amount.  Our bottom line is qedushah, holiness.  That is the one thing that you can get here at Temple Israel that you can’t get at the gym, or the supermarket, or at Amazon.com.   

Why do we maintain the rituals of our ancestors?  Why do we read the Torah from beginning to end every year?  Why do we offer classes and discussions on various topics in Jewish text and law and philosophy?  Why do we recite the lengthy prayers in this mahzor?  Because that is how we Jews get access to God.  And let’s face it: despite the growing secularity of American society and among American Jews, most of us still want some access to God.  And the place to do that is here.

But we also stand for the qedushah / holiness that you can get outside this building.  Why do we bless our children on Friday night?  Because setting aside that holy moment with your kids, a pause from the insanity of the week, reaffirms everything that is sacred about life.

Why do we give tzedaqah / charity?  Why does the Temple Israel Chesed Connection, which goes out into the community to help people in need?  Why does the Youth House feature Mitzvah Corps, which brings 8th-graders to soup kitchens and retirement homes and the ACLD group-living home for disabled adults? Because there is nothing holier than reaching out your hand to others who have less.  

Why do we sponsor the PJ Library program, which provides absolutely free Jewish children’s books to kids in our community?  Because the holiest thing a parent or grandparent can do is to teach our tradition to the next generation.  (Call our office to sign up for PJ Library!)

Why be Jewish?  Because Judaism offers a connection to God, moments of holiness.

***

I’m going to conclude with the words of French-Jewish writer Edmund Fleg, a secular Jew who, like Theodor Herzl, rediscovered a connection to his people in the wake of the trial of Alfred Dreyfus in the 1890s:

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of the mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires of me all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because in every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because at every time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the word of Israel is the oldest and the newest.

I am a Jew because the promise of Israel is the universal promise.

I am a Jew because, for Israel, the world is not yet completed; we are completing it.

I am a Jew because, above the nations and the faith of Israel, we place humanity.

I am a Jew because above humanity, which is created in God’s image, Israel places God’s oneness and divinity.

****

Why be Jewish? Because Judaism offers a framework for living, a set of shared values that if applied properly, will enable your inner spirituality by turning on your mind, will enhance your outer relationships, and will, once in a while, offer contact with God and qedushah / holiness.  As we move forward, those of us who continue to be Jews-By-Choice will draw on these offerings of Judaism, gaining inspiration as well as inspiring others.  

Epilogue: A congregant came to me last week to tell me that she has found her path through Judaism at Temple Israel, but she had to work quite hard to seek it for herself.  When he was here in May, Dr. Wolfson told the story of his having visited a synagogue, and upon arriving he found the front door locked.  He looked around the building for a good twenty minutes, and when he finally found his way in and met with the rabbi, he was told, “Everybody knows you go in through the kitchen!”

Some of us are self-motivated seekers; others are not.  If you can’t find the kitchen door and you need an entry point to learn more, to participate more, to step up your relationship with the faith of your parents and grandparents, give me a call, shoot me an email, friend me on Facebook, find me on Twitter, or whatever.  I would be personally thrilled to help you find your way.


~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Monday morning, September 17, 2012.)