What goes in the boxes?
We last moved home almost 4 years ago. This was the sermon I gave that shabbat (at a Bar Mitzvah - I've removed the boys name). We are moving home again next week, and so much of it is still true... what do you put in your boxes and what is essential to your Judaism?
On Thursday I did what someone in Kiddush told me a few
months ago is more stressful than getting divorced! I moved house! This has indeed been a slow, stressful, long project. But over the
last few weeks, as the sorting and packing and chucking out intensified, it
struck me, that what I was doing was very similar to what you X are now
being asked to do as a Bar Mitzvah, and what we Progressive Jews take upon
ourselves as an integral part of our Judaism.
Every Pesach, Gary and I work hard to clean and refresh the
house. This year, we were also making an effort to cleanse the house of all the
excess things that we didn't need. A friend advised that for each item one must
honestly ask oneself ‘Do I really need it? Do I love it?’ if the answer is no
to both of these questions, it is definitely heading for the charity shop or
freecycle. As a habitual hoarder, this was quite a painful task, but it was
also very freeing. Deciding what is truly essential in ones life is a difficult
challenge, not only to the home buyer who is downsizing, but to each and every
one of us as modern Jews. As I sorted
and cleared I found myself wondering what you, X, will choose to put in
the box in your life labelled ‘Judaism’ and what are the guiding questions that
will help you, and each of us, choose?
Critics of Reform Judaism often challenge our ideal of
informed decision making as ‘the thin end of the wedge’- where do we draw the
line in terms of what is acceptable. One of our starting points must always be
ethics and morality – a central Jewish concept anyway, but of course one that
shifts and changes. So for example, the traditional Jewish marriage document,
was designed to protect a Jewish woman’s rights so that she would have her
property protected should divorce occur. However, as it is an early medieval
document, the way it protects her was an incredibly forward thinking
methodology in it’s time, but one which today seems very one sided and
unbalanced. So we have taken the ethical ideal of the ketubah – that a woman’s
rights should be protected, but applied them in a way that fits modern
relationships and weddings, as well as applying the principal in a more general
sense. Ethics of many sorts guide our thinking, but they are not ethics that
are external to Judaism, rather they are integral to it. The Talmud[1],
for example, asks why the school of Hillel always won out over the school of
Shammai in debate, even though both were considered words of Torah. The answer given is that the school
of Hillel
I know that to X, and I suspect many of us, family and
tradition also form a key aspect of our decision making process. We cannot dismiss those things that form security
blankets for us because of their repetition and familiarity, although we must
also challenge ourselves to occasionally push our comfort levels and not
consider ourselves ‘reformED’ but Reform – a work in progress. When the new
siddur was under development, my mum would grumble and complain about the
addition of the mothers into the amidah, and how she didn't like change in such
a central prayer, it didn't feel comfortable. Yet the amidah she had become used to was already a changed
prayer to what she had grown up with, being the product of a siddur from the
1970’s, and today, when she is asked to pray without the mothers, she stumbles
and forgets. We quickly adjust to changes, although the process can be painful
at times. We must remember that no change is rootless, and that we also have
that tradition of family inheritance and community minhag to guide our decision
making and help us fulfill our potential as Jews, and navigate our way through
that change.
For me, returning again to Rabbi Hillel, I find that at the
centre of my decision making compass is his maxim from Pirkei Avot 1:14:
"If
I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am
I? And if not now, when"
Our Judaism has to make us happy, it has to be for us, and X I hope that from today onward your Judaism will be something that
brings meaning and happiness to your life. But it also has to be about reaching
out, about human contact, support, community, and changing the broken world we
find ourselves in – and we can’t wait – we must use the gift of each day to
it’s maximum. Keeping these three in mind has helped me navigate how to apply
Judaism, but the reality is, we will all apply it in a different way, and this
too is very Jewish! The many voices of our Rabbis ring out to us through the
ages offering a Judaism that has always been varied, that has always had
diversity, and that has always created space for a diversity of voices. I hope
that I can create a little more space in my life by continuing to sort through
boxes and establish what truly is essential, but perhaps it will always be a
work in progress, and maybe this is as it should be.
Shortly before my ordination I managed to make this deeply
spiritual experience into an opportunity to be a consumer, and in a wonderful workshop
in the old city of Jerusalem
Cain Yehi Ratzon, may this be God’s will.
Venomar Amen.
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