“Living in a Jewish Reality”

Yom Kippur Morning 5766/2005
Rabbi Jeremy Barras

The following is a true story. In the late nineties, a tourist named Erwin Kreuz, arrived at the Bangor, Maine airport on a charter flight from Europe. The plane was headed to San Francisco and stopped over in Bangor to refuel and to permit passengers to go through customs. Kreuz, however, who was from Germany and spoke no English, thought he had arrived in California. He left the airport, checked into a hotel, and for a couple of days walked around Bangor thinking he was in San Francisco, until someone he met discovered the confusion. Can you imagine those few days as Kreuz walked around Bangor thinking he was in San Francisco? As he walked past the local Chinese restaurant he must have thought, “Chinatown is not as large as described in the guide book.” Eventually he was interviewed by a reporter from the Bangor Daily News with the help of an interpreter, and became something of a local hero. In the interview he was asked, “Wasn’t there any moment when you suspected that you were not in San Francisco?” “Well,” he replied, “I was a bit disappointed in the bridge.”

Any one of us is susceptible to the same problem as this befuddled tourist. When we confuse what is with our preconceptions of reality we find ourselves in this tourist’s predicament of thinking we are in San Francisco when in reality we are really in Bangor.
 
So often I speak to people about the role of Judaism in their lives. I ask them about their own Jewish practices and about their performance of the mitzvoth of our tradition. Usually they are not sure how to answer, because they do not have a handle on the precise definition of “mitzvah in a liberal context.” Mitzvah means commandment, and there are 613 of them that are enumerated in the Torah. A mitzvah is not any Jewish activity that we do. A Mitzvah is not working out at the “J” instead of the “Y.” It is not a mitzvah to eat a bagel instead of a piece of white bread. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of our Reform movement, argues that, “mitzvah cannot become an all-purpose term for any Jewish action that we choose to do, for virtually any reason. We need to beware of taking religious categories that are absolutely unique and reducing them to other categories that have no application.” In this regard, Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan [founder of Reconstructionist Judaism] should be our teacher: Kaplan called upon us to do acts for historical, ethnic, and naturalist reasons, but he realized that acts so undertaken are not mitzvot and should not be so called.” Leading an ethical life while fundamentally sound in and of itself will not foster a uniquely Jewish relationship with G-d. One can be a good person without being a good Jew, but one cannot be a good Jew without being a good person.

This question of how we view the mitzvot is the essence of what Reform Judaism is all about. How do we look at tradition and make it meaningful for our lives. Our liberal approach affords us the ability to look critically at the mitzvot and make informed decisions, but as fore-thinkers like Rabbi Yoffie and Rabbi Kaplan have taught, if we do not understand the nature of the mitzvot, then we are missing an essential element in our Jewish existence, and we lose sight of our spiritual reality.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, “Breakfast of Champions,” Kilgor Trout is having a drink in a bar when suddenly he feels that an awesome presence is about to enter. He begins to sweat.
In walks the author, Kurt Vonnegut himself, and the character finds himself face to face with his creator. Kilgor’s perception of his world is changed forever. He realizes that he does not exist independently, that every moment of life requires a new stroke of the author’s pen. Without the author, he ceases to exist.
He grasps that there is a higher dimension more real than the world of the novel. His entire universe is an expression of Kurt Vonnegut, who is the source of that world.
Our world as well is an expression of a higher being, a master programmer – and our universe is that being’s program. As Jews, we have been given a blueprint in our Torah on how to relate to that Creator. And as Reform Jews we have been given the authority to interpret the mitvot according to our own ideas and perceptions. But if we stumble through our world without any connection to our Creator, to our G-d, we will proceed through life just like Vonnegut’s character did before he met Vonnegut – totally unaware of the reality in which he was living.

Many of us feel that we connect to our spiritual reality through our performance of Tikkun Olam. Unfortunately many Jews do not have a handle on what Tikkun Olam really means, and erroneously equate it as only social action. Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to define the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution and spiritualization of the cosmos. Luria teaches us that God introduced His presence into the world in the form of a Divine Light. G-d poured this light, symbolizing His presence into sacred vessels. However, the vessels were not capable of containing the awesome presence of the Lord. Accordingly the vessels shattered into countless shards and tumbled downward into our world.

Our goal, according to Luria, is to metaphorically reconstruct the vessels enabling the Divine Light to permeate our world. Through the performance of social action we make great strides towards repairing the world. But social action alone is not enough. The kabbalistic notion that we can fix the world only comes to fruition through the performance of a wide variety of mitzvoth, not only the mitzvah of social action. When we perform mitzvoth such as coming to Temple Beth El to pray with our friends and family, when we teach our children about our rich and sacred traditions, when we participate in ritual events like Passover Seders, when we light candles on the Eve of Shabbat, when we take advantage of Temple Beth El’s educational program and engage in the study of Torah, then we are performing mitzvoth that impart a sense of holiness, a sense of spirituality, and a sense of the Divine in our lives.

In the Talmud there is a conversation that takes place among the great sages in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple. The rabbis realized that without the Holy Temple sacrifices were no longer permitted. Until that point in Jewish history, sacrifices were the main form of communication between man and G-d. One rabbi stood up and proclaimed that from now on, the absence of sacrifices should be filled by Torah study. Another rabbi declared that acts of kindness should become the number one priority. Still another rabbi argued that only devout prayer could replace the sacrifices. After considering all of these divergent opinions, the Talmud explains: 1) that Torah study includes prayer and teaches about acts of kindness 2) that we know about acts of kindness because they are taught in the Torah and liturgy and 3) prayer is the emanation of Torah and inspires us to acts of kindness. In other words, all three are intricately bound up in each other and any single one of them cannot exist independently without the other two. As we chant every Shabbat during our Torah service, al shloshah devarim, al-HaTorah, v’al Havodah, v’al G’milut Chasadim – The world is sustained by three things, by Torah, by worship, and by act of loving kindness.
 
The Reform Movement through the course of its history has gained a sparkling reputation for its commitment to social action and the performance of loving acts of kindness. Our commitment to projects like Habitat for Humanity and Room in the Inn, our phenomenal mobilization in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help as many victims as possible, communicate to the outside world that we care for each and every individual and take quite seriously our obligation “to love our neighbors like ourselves.” I know a rabbi from Pennsylvania in a different movement who is quite dismayed that his congregation does not have the same fervor for social action that he has witnessed taking place in many Reform congregations. He once told me that his congregation’s idea of social action is voting for a Democrat. Nonetheless, an individual cannot claim that his/her commitment is fulfilled solely through genuine social action. We cannot take one aspect of our tradition, no matter how good we are at it, and substitute it as the entirety of our religion.

A logical person might conclude that once we recognize that there is a greater being in this world, and that as Jews we relate to that being through the performance of the mitzvoth, we can begin to take steps to allow Judaism to add meaning and purpose to our existence. But the truth is that the Jew only fulfills Divine expectations when he/she allows uniquely Jewish thought and action to become part and parcel of his life.

For me, I found a way to accomplish this goal 22 years ago. Of course once I became a rabbi, it was not that hard to find religious practices to express my Jewish spirituality. But I was not always a rabbi.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania my family always kept a kosher home and ate only kosher foods even in restaurants. When I was eight years old, my grandfather [the conservative rabbi in our synagogue and iconic figure in our family and city] passed away and my parents then decided that they would keep kosher only in the home. My brother, who was five at the time, decided to go along with them. I remember thinking that my grandfather’s passing seemed like a strange reason to change my eating habits, so I decided that I would continue eating kosher foods because my identity as a Jew was expressed in keeping the laws of kashrut. I think that was probably my first real profound thought in life.
As I got older and reached high school and college, I decided that I would continue keeping kosher because it was something that I could do on a daily basis that would remind me that I was Jewish. As a Reform rabbi I do not ask other Jews to keep kosher, but when I tell them why I keep kosher, I then ask them, “What do you do in your life that reminds you that you are a Jew on a daily basis?” When people cannot answer that question, I become concerned for their Jewish identity, for how they incorporate Jewish values into their lives.

There was once a young Talmud scholar who had left his home and family in Poland for America. After several years of living in America he returned home to the old country to see his family.
“But where is your beard?” asked his mother upon seeing him.
“Mama,” he replies, “In America, nobody wears a beard.”
“But at least you keep Shabbat?”
“Mama, business is business. In America, everybody works on Shabbat.”
“But kosher food you still eat?”
“Mama, in America it is very difficult to keep kosher.”
The old woman pondered this information, and then leaned over and whispered in her son’s ear, “Isaac, tell me – are you still circumcised?”

What the old woman was really asking was, “Isaac, have you lost your Jewish identity?” “Isaac, are you still a Jew?” Her greatest fear was realized once she understood that her son had lost touch with his Jewish reality.

Ultimately each one of us needs to determine how we relate to G-d and achieve spirituality. The role of the mitzvoth in Reform Judaism is an issue that scholars, clergy, and lay-people have debated and quarreled over since the birth of our movement. And at different times in our short history, we have shifted back and forth along the religious spectrum of observance. But no matter where we stand on specific mitzvoth, no matter how we interpret the teachings of our tradition, if we wish to preserve our Jewish heritage, if we wish to preserve our link to our fellow Jews, if we wish to preserve our religious spirituality, we must recommit ourselves to the performance of mitzvoth. Then, and only then, will we come to recognize our true Jewish reality. Al-shloshah devarim omed haolam, our Jewish world is sustained by three pillars – all Torah [on Jewish learning] all avodah [on the acknowledgement of our G-d, the G-d of our forefather and foremothers] v’all gemilut chasadim [on our commitment to performing acts of kindness].

In this coming new year, may our efforts at Tikkun Olam enrich our lives and bring us closer to our G-d.

Kein Yehi Ratzon.
May it be G-d’s will.
Amen.