“The Empty Mezuzah”

July 28, 2007, Parashat Vaetchanan 5767
Rabbi Judith Schindler

“Please let me enter the Promised Land,” Moses pleaded with God in the opening verse of this week’s parashah. And his request was denied. The time is decreed for all of us to die.

That was the case this past week as Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the visionary leader of a movement called Humanistic Judaism, was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 79.

In a way, the philosophy of Rabbi Wine stands in sharp contrast to that of Moses.

On one hand stands Moses, who in this portion speaks of our covenant with God. The whole of the Torah is built upon the premise that God exists and that our relationship with God requires us to do Jewish acts, to do mitzvot.

And on the other hand, stands Humanistic Judaism, the movement that Rabbi Wine, of blessed memory, founded. It is a movement that embraces Jewish culture, history and identity without God. Rabbi Wine was dubbed the “atheist rabbi” by the American media. He created a movement of 35 congregations all of which keep their Torahs in their libraries rather than their arks and pray from siddurim that do not have God’s name.

Can one be Jewish and not believe in God? Yes.
Can you be a Reform synagogue without God? Apparently no. For our movement debated that question when a humanist congregation Beth Adam applied to be a member of our Union for Reform Judaism in 1994. They were rejected. The biggest concern was the omission of God in their liturgical life. I vividly remember the debate, “If they cannot pray with us, then how can they be part of us?’

Their request forced us as a movement to reevaluate what it means to be a Reform Jew. As Rabbi Gunther Plaut, author of liberal Torah Commentary remarked, “Reform Judaism cannot be everything, or it will be nothing.”

A friend mine here in Charlotte, Barry Bobrow was telling me about the gift shop in Rabbi Wine’s Humanistic Synagogue. Apparently they sell mezuzahs with nothing inside. To the Humanist Jew, a mezuzah is significant in and of itself. Placed on your doorpost, it is a sign of being Jewish.

But to me, what makes the mezuzah is not the artistic box - though it is very attractive – but the klaf, the parchment inside the mezuzah upon which the Shema and V’ahavta of this week’s portion are written. While most often I know if I have arrived at the right house of a congregant when I see a mezuzah on the doorpost, the mezuzah should not be a sign to others that we are Jewish but a sign for ourselves to remember our Judaism.

The teaching inside the mezuzah and the teaching of this week’s parashah are central to who we are. Both the mezuzah and Parashat Ve’etchanan contain the Shema, the blessing I utter with my kids each night and with so many congregants before they breathe their last breath and the V’ahavtah, the prayer that reminds us to keep God teachings in our hearts, upon our mouths, and in our actions everywhere that we go.

The human being is likened to the mezuzah. Yes, we can be Jewish on the outside, eating Jewish foods and singing Jewish songs, but to really be connected to Judaism, we need to be Jewish on the inside. We need to be filled with Jewish content, with Jewish words, with thoughts, with Jewish teachings and, most of all, with Jewish actions.