What Does it Mean to be a Congregation?

Once the fall holidays come to a close, I find myself pondering: What is it that makes Beth Shalom a congregation?  Sure, we all came out to observe the High Holy Days together. Many of us remained beyond Yom Kippur to celebrate in the Sukkah (on our beautiful new patio garden), and even to dance together on Simchat Torah. We experienced a wonderful sense of ruach and camaraderie during that sacred time. Nevertheless, I wonder, what keeps us linked together as a congregation the rest of the year? 

Elie Wiesel once asked:  “What does it mean to be a congregation? It means to care about each other.  Pray? We can pray at home. We come together as a congregation in order to share in each other’s lives and in order to share in the life of the Jewish people — past, present and future.”

Once the Gerer Rebbe, decided to question one of his disciples: ‘How is Moshe Yaakov doing?’ The disciple didn’t know. ‘What!’ shouted the Rebbe, ‘You don’t know? You pray under the same roof’? You study the same book? You serve the same God? — yet you tell me that you don’t know how Moshe Yaakov is, whether he needs help or advice or comforting? How can that be?’

Here lies the essence of our way of life: every person must share in every other person’s life, and not leave anyone to themselves. Not in sorrow and not in joy.

Wiesel was right.  But in our consumer-driven society, we increasingly look to the rabbi or other synagogue professionals to provide that kind of concern, instead of seeing it as a responsibility that we all share for one another.

When I visit someone in the hospital, I often learn that besides the family, I was the only one to have visited them during their illness.  This should not be. Maybe it is because many people find it difficult to get intertwined with someone else’s tzuris, or we just don’t know the right words to say, but I usually find that just being there is the greatest help of all. As the rabbis teach us, when you visit someone who is ill, you take away 1/60^th of their illness.

In reality, it is the duty of all Jews to perform such mitzvot.  This isn’t just a “service” that we join a synagogue in order to receive, rather it should be a natural expression of being a part of a caring community and sharing concern for one another.  No one person can adequately fulfill this task alone, but as a congregation we can work to make sure that nobody is ignored in their time of need.

My colleague Rabbi Ed Feinstein wrote: “Ancient Greek democracy created the ‘citizen.’ Renaissance Europe invented the ‘gentleman’. Colonial America produced the ‘frontiersman’. Each human civilization, it seems, fashions its own unique character type. And ours is no exception. Contemporary America has spawned the ‘consumer’.

The consumer is a character type unique in human history. The Greek citizen saw himself as an inseparable part of an organic community. The European gentleman conceived of himself in terms of a code of obligations – chivalry and noblesse oblige – that bound him to others… By contrast, the consumer seeks absolute independence. He is sovereign, complete unto himself, and in need of no one. No unfulfilled existential need motivates him. The consumer engages the world only as a source of stimulation and satisfaction.

Henry James called America a “hotel culture.” A hotel - where you eat and sleep, but never fully unpack and move in. You never set down roots. You never really own the place. You can mess up your room knowing that while you’re out, someone else will come and straighten up. You care nothing for the people who live next door for soon you’ll be checking out and moving on. So, too, the consumer joins, but never belongs. Never will he allow the obligations that come with relationships, values or community to compromise his sovereignty. He has no attachments, only a series of limited-liability partnerships. In a moment of crisis, he’ll call for Emergency Roadside Judaism. Otherwise, he keeps his distance.”

In our religious life, we need Jews who are more than just a consumer of services. Beth Shalom is no different.  And while we need people to help us build and maintain our community, we only thrive when we have real commitment and concern for one another as well. If we only pay our dues, drop off our kids, and occasionally visit, we can’t expect to be part of a genuine congregation.  Yet it is precisely that sense of kehillah, or community connectedness that we all strive for and yearn to create.

God willing, with your involvement, your concern for one another, and your support, together we can make CBS into just that kind of congregation. Amen.

L’Shalom,

Rabbi Mark

What Do We Have to Kvetch About?

In our cycle of Torah readings this time of year, we read how for forty years our ancestors trekked through the wilderness, far from cities and civilization.  They trudged along without the luxury of interstates, service plazas, or travel agents. So it should come as no surprise that throughout their journey there were also endless complaints, arguments, and rebellions.

How different travel is today!  I recently returned from leading a synagogue trip to Eastern Europe. We took planes, trains, a motor coach and even an old turbo-prop. (I was a bit nervous about that last part.) But it all went off without a hitch, traveling thousands of miles and an ocean away with ease. Such are the miracles of modern life.

Compare that to the short hike our ancestors took from Egypt to Israel. That was a journey of even less than 300 miles, and it took them 40 years to complete! You could make that flight today in under an hour. And yet, we are so spoiled by the conveniences of modern travel that we kvetch even when our plane is delayed just for a couple hours, or when we are stuck taxiing on a runway waiting for a gate to open up. 

But we should never lose sight of how lucky we are to even experience the marvels of modern travel, or the myriad of other blessings we usually take for granted.

Traveling to Eastern Europe this summer was an eye-opening experience in so many ways.  It underscored for me how fortunate we are just to be among those Jews who survived the horrors that befell our people during the last century. We traveled through countries and towns that were once filled with bustling Jewish communities.  In many of them, all that is left now are synagogues turned into museums, memorials emblazoned with the names of families who perished, or a few remaining inhabitants struggling to keep their shul and communities alive. Sure, there are some places in Europe experiencing a resurgence of Jewish life (ironically, like Berlin), but they are only shadows of their former glory. And for every one of those communities, there are hundreds of decimated cities and villages throughout Europe where Jewish life once thrived, but remains no longer.

You feel that most deeply when you visit Auschwitz. One can never find the right words to describe what Auschwitz is, or what the horror of that place represents. As we walked into the one remaining gas chamber, and then casually walked out -- you are haunted by the stark realization that right where you stand, so many of our fellow Jews had their lives brutally snuffed out.

And yet in the midst of that terrible darkness, some stories of bravery, heroism, and perseverance managed to emerge. A few attempted to fight back. Others somehow managed to survive the terror and hopelessness of the shoah.  And a few of these survivors even decided to return to the very communities from which they were driven out -- though it is difficult to fathom the how or why.
One such community we visited was Bratislava.  Only a mostly empty shul remains where a few elderly Jews struggle to hold Shabbat services each and every week. And while remaining there would probably not have been my choice, I can understand the painful decision the returnees faced. Move somewhere else and allow another Jewish community to perish?  Leave and watch another shul close down and be turned into a museum?  Or stay and struggle to keep Judaism alive in your hometown, even if only for a while longer.

Then you realize how fortunate and blessed we are.  We take our shuls and even our Jewish community for granted. We feel self-assured, believing that if we don’t support our synagogues, someone else will step in and do so. But of course that isn’t the case at all. By maintaining and supporting our shuls and other important institutions, we work to ensure that Jewish life will continue here for generations to come.

This is the time of year when we think about where we will be for the upcoming holidays, which synagogue we will attend, and whether we will continue to be a supportive part of our shul community. If Bratislava has taught me anything, it is that we should never take our shuls or our community for granted. By supporting them, we are not just enriching our own lives; we are giving back to our community by showing gratitude for the myriad of blessings that we -- as the survivors of Jewish history -- have been so fortunate to receive.  May we never lose sight of that privilege and sacred obligation.  Amen. 

Embracing the Stranger and One Another

You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt...

In synagogues around the world we are now reading from the section of the Torah which tells of our people's exodus from Egypt - perhaps the most defining moment in Jewish history. In fact, one of our core Jewish values emanates from this verse, connected to our collective experience of having been liberated from Egyptian bondage. We are reminded time and time again to love the stranger, to care about the stranger, for we have been there ourselves.  And as it turns out, this wouldn't be the last time in Jewish history that we would be cast in the role of the stranger. We would go on to find ourselves in that unwelcome role many times throughout our history.

Events of this past week have shined a new light on how we respond to the plight of the stranger, just as they have highlighted the political tensions in our land.  And beyond refugees, we increasingly view anyone with whom we disagree as a stranger, which only serves to pull our country and our people apart from one another.

In today's highly polarized world, rabbis often find themselves pulled in multiple directions at once. Our social media heightens these tensions, making it very easy today for people to vent their righteous indignation upon anyone holding a viewpoint in opposition to their own. This is particularly true in the realm of politics.  Rabbi Yitz Greenberg's well-known adage about Jewish religious movements can easily be applied to political ideologies.  He famously said: "It doesn't matter which Jewish movement you are affiliated with, as long as you're ashamed of it".  And so we could probably all benefit from being a little more introspective when it comes to the bitter political discourse in our country.

We can and should vigorously debate issues, but we should not let our families, our friendships, or our congregations be torn apart by those who would pounce on anyone who dares to deviate from their own political orthodoxies. We all need to be vigilant to ensure that our internal divisions don't consume us, which is why rabbis usually seek to avoid discussing politics from the pulpit.

And yet, rabbis should feel empowered to address the universal values rooted in our Torah that bind us together as Jews.

One of our most deeply-held Jewish values concerns caring for the stranger.  The Torah reminds us repeatedly (especially in the Exodus story) that we are to "Love the stranger; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt".  The principle of welcoming the stranger is ultimately repeated 35 times in the Torah -- more than any other commandment.

The Jewish people can be rightfully proud of such eternal values that have guided and sustained us throughout the millennia. And it is praiseworthy that we continue to be strong advocates for those principles which are so near and dear to us. We should love the stranger, pursue justice and care for the poor, as it is these values which have shaped us as a people. Yet even while we agree on the goals, sometimes we will remain divided on how best to achieve them -- but that's all part of the process.  Nobody would suggest, for example, that all our country's borders should be torn down; yet neither do we accept that an innocent refugee should be neglected in their hour of need.

As Jews, we are particularly sensitive to the plight of refugees. We know from painful, historical experience what it is like to flee oppression and to find no welcoming door. This is why we can be proud that the various arms of the Conservative Movement came together to issue a resolution in response to President Trump's executive order barring refugees and immigrants from entering the United States. You can find the text of that resolution here:

www.rabbinicalassembly.org/story/conservative-movement-condemns-president-trumps-executive-order-immigration-and-refugees

In fact, in a rare show of unity, both orthodox and liberal denominations came together to voice their concerns regarding the ban:

www.jta.org/2017/01/30/news-opinion/united-states/in-rare-unity-orthodox-and-liberal-denominations-are-critical-of-trump-refugee-ban

We may not always agree on a whole host of issues, or be uncertain about how best to advance those principles which are sacred to us.  Nevertheless, we must work to put away the daggers that threaten to tear us apart, and work to sow the seeds of respect and tolerance among ourselves and among all the peoples of our great country.

May we strive to uphold our cherished Jewish values; moving from divisiveness to healing, from despair to hope, and from fear to faith.  And in doing so let us help build a world that is true to the principle of Tikkun Olam, repairing our fragmented and often polarized world.

L'Shalom,
Rabbi Mark

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Rabbi Mark Zimmerman
Congregation Beth Shalom
Atlanta, Georgia  (770) 399-5300
www.bethshalomatlanta.org