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Rosh Hashanah Evening 5765- Whose Election is it Anyway?

Tonight begins the holiest season of the Jewish year. Not a time for me to speak about the Presidential candidates and their respective platforms or to divulge my own political leanings. Instead I shall follow the timeless wisdom of General George Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan, who was once asked by his chauffeur when he thought the war would come to an end. General Marshall leaned in close to the ear of his driver and whispered, "Can you keep a secret?" The chauffeur nodded eagerly. And then the general said to him, "So can I."

Indeed, tonight is neither the time or place for me to relive the party conventions with you, or to reveal the secret of whom I will vote for on November 2^nd or to prophesy who will win. Tonight is the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the night when the Book of Life is opened for us and we pray our names will be signed and sealed in it for another year of life.

As on election day, when it is the duty of each one of us with the privilege of suffrage to judge the candidates based on their platforms and past records, tonight, we stand in judgement before God and before ourselves. You see, we are all candidates. And for the next ten days, we are called upon to examine our merits and our shortcomings in the life.s tasks we have undertaken. The votes we tally are our deeds, which this time of year calls us to examine with great care and honesty.

In order to judge the merits of our candidacy fairly, we have to examine our ideals, the platforms on which we have stood. The word platform indicates something that is raised, that gives a person greater height and broader view. In Hebrew, it is called a bima. In our sanctuaries, the bima is the special place from which we read Torah and a person who is called to the bima is said to have an aliyah -from the Hebrew word for ascend - because he must go up, not only physically, but spiritually. As candidates, our life's platforms should elevate us spiritually and morally. The ideals and the values upon which we stand should make us gain greater height and broader view. And they should embody the most sacred messages of our lives.

Think about it: no structure can be built unless the ground beneath it is carefully prepared to support it. Simple construction demands that the first thing a builder do- before walls, before a roof, before windows or rooms- is to create the firm foundation, which serves as the platform for the rest of building. We must do the same- build lives based on such platforms, otherwise when we are exposed to the elements, we will be vulnerable to failure and decay. Remember in Death of a Salesman, the two sons of Willy Loman stand at the grave side of their father, analyzing the reason for his failure. One of them remarks, "He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have - to come out number-one." The other son had already summed up his father's life by saying, "He never knew who he was." The truth is that both sons were right. Their father was both ambitious and unclear about his goals in life. Tasks without purpose, ambition without beliefs and ideals, leads to the tragedy of a Willy Loman, who never knew who he was.

We come to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah each year because deep down we remember who we are. In our hearts, we know that our Jewish heritage provides us with a lofty place upon which we can stand with dignity and pride. It is a platform which elevates our lives and gives us a sense of belonging and rootedness in an ancient tradition and people. If the winds of change and uncertainty blow out there, we know that here we can find something fortified and eternal. Here in our sanctuary, we know who we are and what we stand for.

But just as it is not enough only to know what a candidate stands for, we have to know her record, so, too, it is with us. We know from experience that in the heat of campaigning, in the frenzied attempts to win votes, a candidate will stand tall on a platform of promises, many of which are forgotten once his victory is secure. So it is with us at this time of year. If we have the courage to look, we may see a big difference between what we believe and the record of how we've acted. And the great irony is that we may come here, go through the prescribed ritual requirements and come out the other side unchanged. The majority of us would say we stand for the ideals of social justice, for freedom of expression, equality, opportunity and sacred obligation. We stand on lofty platforms.

But like political candidates, we do not necessarily take our own platforms seriously by making them part of our daily living. "The weakness of Jewish life," as Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz once said, "is not that Jews do not accept the great ideals of their faith. To the contrary...The problem is that once having declared themselves for the great precepts and principles of Judaism, they live as if all that did not matter... Judaism is no more a way of living, but a way of talking." A businessman known for his unethical dealings once told Mark Twain: "Before I die, I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I want to climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud." "I have a better idea," suggested Mark Twain, "why don't you stay right at home in Boston and keep them." At this time of year, we reunite in this sanctuary to not only remember our Jewish platform, upon which there is room for all of us to stand, but to remember the promises that we must keep to live in accordance with those ideals. We are the candidates who hope to be inscribed in the Book of Life, to be elected by the votes of our deeds.

So let us look at how we have acted toward one of our most sacred responsibilities, Israel. There was a time, not more than 15 years ago, when no matter the particulars of the challenges she faced, Jews stood united behind Israel. Today, for some of us our ambivalence about the complicated political situation which she faces, one which resembles our own country's struggle to deal with extremism and terrorism, has transformed what was once pride for Israel to frustration and apathy. The ideal of Israel, the vision of a Jewish homeland which expresses the highest values of our religious platform is still our dream as a people, even if the reality doesn't always live up to it. Until the last decade or so, American Jews were visiting Israel by the tens of thousands every year. Soaking up her history, basking in the light of her economic and spiritual productivity. Today, few American Jews are traveling there. Our ties have become tenuous, our bonds have become all but broken. But to cut away Israel from the Jewish body through our inaction, our cooling of the relationship with almost half of the world's Jewish population who live there, is like cutting out our heart. Both defending and criticizing Israel without practical deeds to stay in relationship with her, breaks our promise as Jews.

You may have heard the Presbyterian Church of America chose to begin a process of divesting their stock portfolio of companies that do business with Israel. As Jews, we don't have the luxury to divest any of our interests from Israel, economic or spiritual, because the truth is we are implicated and involved in everything she does and vice versa. The most practical way to engage in dialogue with Israel, to maintain a relationship that is meaningful, is to travel there. Next June, for the first time in 10 years, Temple Emanuel will be taking a congregational trip to Israel. If you can, join the already 20 people who are committed to making this sacred pilgrimage. We will visit our people's sacred sites as well as the security fence. We will engage in conversations with Israeli leaders who struggle with the issues of human rights and statehood for Palestinians. Emanuel is going to Israel next summer so we can act out the platform of Jewish responsibility to Israel. Each one of us will have a unique experience. Each one will bring a unique personality and insight so we can gain votes with our deeds, so we can be inscribed in the Book of Life.

Another place our ideals are not matched by our actions is in Jewish education. While the majority of Jews have come to understand Bar and Bat Mitzvah as a meaningful coming of age ritual, most of us rarely participate in virtually any other kind of Jewish educational experience. What happens is that our 13 year olds enter their Jewish adulthood, declaring a commitment to participation in a learning community in which they will continue to grow and be nourished spiritually and morally. And then, they quit. Bar Mitzvah means master of mitzvah. But what is the mitzvah of which they become the master? But the problem isn't just with the kids.

In the most recent Jewish population survey while adult education is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, it is still limited to a core elite.

Our congregation is a case in point. Each year, only a handful of new faces join our committed core of adult learners. We have no way to welcome our 13 year olds into a thoroughly functioning adult learning community. So among our young people, on average only a third of students who become Bar and Bat Mitzvah become confirmed just two years later.

Could this be because we suffer from carpool tunnel syndrome, of which a colleague of mine speaks, in which the message our children hear as we drop them off at synagogue but not walk through the doors ourselves is that this is something for them but not for us? The promise regarding Jewish learning we must redouble our efforts to fulfill is illustrated in the story of a merchant who took on an assistant because he wanted to begin to take vacations. The two worked in adjoining rooms. During the first year, the merchant sometimes overheard his assistant tell customers, "For such a low price, the owner would not let this go." The merchant didn't travel that year. During the second year he occasionally heard his assistant say, "For such a low price, we cannot let this go." And again, he postponed his journey. But in the third year he heard, "For such a low price I cannot let this go." And the merchant took his trip. As the merchant in the story, we cannot be satisfied until each one of us can speak meaningfully about our own continuing Jewish learning. Surely, being learned, is one of the platforms of a Jewish life. Surely, daily acts of study, reading Jewish books, weekly Torah study, attending lectures on Jewish history are the actions which are required, the votes which we need to collect to be inscribed in the Book of Life.

For the last 2000 years, the place to discover one's Jewish identity has been the synagogue- a place of learning, prayer and community. However, nationwide, only 40% of Jewishly identified people are affiliated at a synagogue at any given time. The life span of synagogue affiliation is getting so short that I worry for the richness of the adult Jewish life my children's generation will experience. Will Baltimore still have 4 great Reform congregations from which our children will be able to choose or will there only be three, or two, or one? Not because there will be fewer Jews, but because many of us, even some of us sitting here tonight, have the idea that its ok to belong to the synagogue only until our last child's Bar/Bat Mitzvah or Confirmation, or until we've buried our parents, or until we retire... Certainly, if synagogue involvement is merely optional to most people most of the time, it will come down to dollar and cents that not all of our schuls will be able to survive. But there is no substitute for the experience of synagogue life. I've often said, our Temple is a place of connection, where sadness is halved and simchas are magnified.

Anita Diamant defined community best when she said, "Gauzy with nostalgia, the term seems a setup for disappointment, based on the idea that community is something we lost long ago, back in the good old days which occurred, in the suburbs of the 1950s when women chatted over the back fence; or in the old neighborhood, where people schmoozed over the pickle barrel, or in the shtetl, where Jews behaved like Tevye and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof....Who doesn't long for a place where everybody knows your name?....But that is not what [synagogue] community is all about....[A synagogue] community is the place with dozens of familiar faces that always smile back. It is where I am told what a great kid I have by strangers and [am] comforted on the anniversary of my father's death by acquaintances. It is where I feel connected to people I don't even like, but who are part of my life by virtue of membership and affiliation and accident...A community consists of many degrees of intimacy, and the cooler ones are just as essential and precious as the fast friendships." Tonight, we will take a few moments to honor all those people who have voluntarily given of themselves to make our community a vibrant and meaningful place to be.

Temple Emanuel has an extraordinary group of people who for decades have and continue still to give of themselves fully to the avodah, the service of this congregation. We will also honor those newer to this sacred commitment of giving of their time and talents to their synagogue family. There are many of us who do not have a long history with Temple, or who haven't connected in recent years. This season invites each one of you to become a participating partner in shaping the Temple's communal life.

This season urges each one of you to come regularly to schul: to work, to play, to pray, to learn and begin to one of the faces we recognize, so that we can wish you well when your children excel and comfort you in your grief. And so that you can have the nachas of wishing others well when their children excel and feel the depth of human experience which comes from comforting others who are mourning. The synagogue as community is one of the great platforms of ancient and modern Jewish life. When we leave here tonight, let it be with a renewed sense of commitment that the synagogue will always have an important place in our lives. That here we will not be strangers. That here, with others, we will seek wisdom, friendship, learning and God.

It is not merely a platform, but the deeds of our lives entwined with other lives in this community, that brings us the sense that we have earned the votes, our place in the Book of Life.

Let us be clear. Our Book of Life is not some heavenly God-inscribed ledger; some mystical tally of our good and bad deeds; the final determinant of whether we shall live or die in the next 365 days. The Book of Life is the next chapter of our lives that we write for ourselves. This season of the New Year is when we hand ourselves the pen and say to ourselves, what shall I write? How shall I live? This is when we decide what is truly important, and how we shall define ourselves. The rabbis taught each one of us is unique. We will each bring our special strengths and weakness to the tasks of living. We will each bring our acquired wisdom and life skills, we will each be bound by the constraints of time, of finances, of family responsibilities. But there is always some time, some energy, something left upon which to rise from the platforms, the ethical, spiritual values that our tradition has set for us. We are the candidates.

Our votes are the actions we take, the deeds we do. Perhaps this is the year that we will take that first trip to Israel or our second trip to Israel. Perhaps this year we study and learn more of the traditions and wisdom collected by our ancestors. This year, we will find new depth for our lives participating in the life of our synagogue community. The most important thing, is to be open to the possibility that we can bring a greater depth, that we can fill our pages with the most profound ideals in our hearts...and live.

Amen.

Rabbi Batsheva Meiri