Choice and Purpose | Kol Nidrei 5783

Jew by choice. Jew on purpose. Jew with purpose

In America, writes Rabbi Lee Buckman, we are Jews by consent, not descent. We choose: No one forces us to be or remain a Jew.

Buckman continues, The greatest challenge we face as Jews is to be tammim, faithful, wholehearted with Adonai our God, to be sincere in our relationships with others, to do the right thing even if no one else is present, and to follow a path of life on which God walks too.

If that is our purpose as Jews, we have a lot of work to do! Especially, figuring out what it all means and how we go about it!

Are we up to the task? Most of us do what we can, even if it often feels as though what we can do can never be enough.

And sometimes, we want to cry out to God, “The world is such a mess! Everything seems wrong. There’s anger, fear, selfishness, divisiveness, war, calamity, hate. Send us someone who can help, who can change the world.”

But we don’t cry out. Because we know that God’s answer will be “I sent you.”

What an awesome responsibility, this tikkun olam, repairing the world.

When Adonai our God summoned Moshe, our teacher and leader, at the burning bush, Moshe, without even knowing the task he was about to take on, responded: HINEINI, here I am!

If only each of us would / could respond likewise when called to action: HINEINI, here I am!

Our purpose as a people.

What has kept us connected to one another, whether in personal ways as we live our Judaism or in a collective way as others may view us, for better or worse?

Adam Sutcliffe, a professor of European history at King’s College London, wrote a book titled: WHAT ARE JEWS FOR? history, peoplehood and purpose

In an interview, he said

“Jews have repeatedly been regarded as playing a special role in the political, philosophical, economic, sociological and cultural transformation of the world… Jewish purpose … is fundamental … to how we approach thinking about the role and purpose of all of us—Jewish or not—in the building of a better future.”

He continues,

… Hope for the future is essential for any sense of meaning in human life. The Jewish purpose question, in insistently prompting reflection on how a people can and must contribute to bringing about a better world, keeps collective hope to the fore.

What are Jews for? To reflect on the purpose of the Jews?

It’s not surprising that he cannot answer his own provocative question, since the imperative we’re given in our founding document, Torah, really speaks only to following the rules set by Adonai our God.

Over time, many Jews have raised the question: We are a living thriving challenging people/religion with ancestry that goes back millennia. How is it that we are still here?!

For centuries, scholars have weighed in. Traditionalists turn to Torah and covenant and the rules and laws ascribed to Adonai our God and expected of us.

Other scholars consider various ratios of culture, oppression, religious fervor, national aspiration when they conjure up recipes for our survival. It should not be a surprise that in seeking ways for his people to survive in exile, the Dalai Lama turned to the Jews.

But on this Yom Kippur, I’m not speaking of the grand purpose of the Jewish people, as in why did Adonai our God offer a covenant to us, why did we say yes, and now for what are we responsible?

I’d rather get personal, and invite each of us to consider this: how purposefully Jewish a life am I living?

Our daughter Stephanie, married to our daughter Devora, was not born into the Jewish covenant; her family was headed by two Presbyterian ministers. As she matured, though, she sought a different spiritual path and was attracted to Judaism. In college, she noticed Devora who was actively and publicly living Jewishly — and doing so as a little fish in a large pond of non-Jewishness.

How was Devora visibly Jewish?

• She wore a kippah. Always.
• On Shabbat and other Jewish holy days, rather than swipe her key card to electronically unlock the dormitory entrance, she would wait for someone to enter or leave so she could access the building.
• With dining services, Devora worked out a voucher system so she could use her meal plan on Shabbat…in the kosher/halal dining hall!
• And being a member of the ice hockey club sometimes meant making separate advance travel plans so she could be with the team for games scheduled on Shabbat.

In short, she figured out ways to stay true to her beliefs while participating in the wider world. (Devora, Steph and family continue to find ways to integrate their Jewish practice with the likes of girl scouts and sports.)

A year after graduating, Stephanie took the name Davida Shlomit bat Avraham v’Sarah as she ritually immersed in a very cold pond in western Massachusetts.

For Stephanie, identifying as a “Jew by choice” didn’t fit her perceptions. Rather than being a Jew by choice, she says, I am a Jew on purpose.

Stephanie is an intentional Jew, purposefully living Jewishly, building a Jewish family, all the while being creative. She seeks out, the learning and adventure inherent in Judaism — or she makes it — as her family navigates the greater world of multiple communities.

Stephanie often reflects on the essay she presented to the beit din, the religious court that certified her conversion process. A visualization of her intentionality, she described, can be seen in our religious choreography: before we recite the amida — we take three steps back and three forward.

Stepping away, she says, gives us space to reflect on where we are and what has been, and to size up the task ahead of us. (Prayer done right is not necessarily easy!) The movement forward physically indicates our intention to enter an ancient and vital prayer ritual.

Given the busy-ness of a family of five — (almost) six, God willing — with two working parents, Stephanie also thinks about time. Rather than seeing time as something that could be wasted, killed, spent, or merely filled, she treasures time as a way to give space to important things, such as Shabbat or, as today, this final 25 hours of asseret y’mey teshuva, the Ten Days of Repentance.

Tonight and tomorrow, instead of thinking, say, about how long is this service going to run, consider dedicating this time, making moments for important personal work, i.e., investing in yourself, your heart, your soul. (With some great melodies as a sound track!)

Stephanie terms herself a Jew on purpose. She is also a Jew with purpose. What about us? Most of us were born

into Jewish families. Is our Judaism purposeful? If so, how?

Is our purpose:

• To take our place in the chain of connection to an ancient tradition.
• To make that place our own, preserving the core rituals
  — learn how! — while adapting and creating new rituals, melodies, stories, explanations, prayers, recipes and art that reflects us, today.
• To embody values of Torah and our prophetic literature: pursuing justice for all, feeding the hungry, sustaining the needy, and salving the wounds of victims of abuse.

How do we go about fulfilling our purpose? With purpose! (AVOIDING THE MUD, a Hasidic tale)

Some time ago, in the old country, two friends were preparing to take a journey, each in a separate wagon. The one had a simple cart drawn by a scrawny nag. The other drove a handsome coach with four strong horses.

The second looked at the first and remarked, “I always travel with four strong horses. Should my coach become stuck in the mud, they will quickly pull it out of the muck. But, my friend, your horse seems barely able to manage you and your cart. How will you deal with the mud?”

Replied the friend, “Because I travel with just this one tired old horse, I am very careful to avoid the mud in the first place. You, my friend, are certain you can get free if stuck, and thus do not watch where you are going.”

It’s the difference between a scattershot approach and an intentional focused journey.

Is Shabbat something we do some of the time, when it happens to be convenient, or can we be consistent so that Shabbat becomes a foundation of our week?

Do we show up at morning minyan for a yahrzeit and expect others to be there for us, even if we’ve never been there for others, or do we choose a day-a-month, a day-a- week, to regularly show up in support of others?

“We are Jews by consent, not descent.” And we Jews choose all the time: No one forces us to be or remain

Jews, nor are we coerced into expressing our Judaism in a particular way.

Many of us find direction and purpose, ways to avoid the mud, in our observance of Jewish practice which is rooted in Torah. Prof. Louis Finkelstein: “The Torah endures in human life and must partake of the vitality, the adaptability, and fluidity of all living organisms.” (xvi)

Halachah, is the term used for Jewish religious law derived from Torah and developed by the rabbis. Halacha means “the way, the path; more literally, the walking, the going.” In short, halacha is HOW we are expected to DO Jewish.

Rabbi Martin S Cohen notes that Halacha lives in two different [and overlapping] realms: the personal and the communal.

The personal halachic decisions we make about observance of kashrut, of Shabbat, of burial and mourning, should lead us to “feel the presence of God” in our lives. For example, being together erev Shabbat, Friday evenings, — to light candles, bless our children if we’re so blessed, engage in other timeless rituals and, without distractions, share a meal — is a way of welcoming a divine presence into ours.

In a communal setting, in the society at large in which we live, halacha encourages us to aspire to holiness in larger aspects of our daily lives. How we interact socially, how we seek equity in justice or housing, what ethical and moral considerations we give to what we buy or watch, how we vote, the ways we relate to others, whether personally or, for example, in employee/employer relations, the decisions we make about our finances.

Halacha as we apply it to Jewish practice, and an awareness of our timeless views of justice and ethics, can offer us a grounding, a framework that can help us maintain our consistency and constancy against the multiple and fickle headwinds and seductions of social media and short-lived trends.

Purpose. What do you think? Torah states over and over that our purpose is to follow God’s ways. The millennia have distilled “God’s ways” into halacha. Being Jews, we have competing views of the development and binding nature of halacha. We have widely divergent views on our obligations to practice and observe.

But whatever we choose to do as Jews, we should do it with purpose, with intention.

Some years back, I read a piece written by a Jewish woman who was in a relationship with a German man. At one point, the German mentioned that his grandfather had been a Nazi. The woman was aghast, and was torn about continuing the relationship, implying that the grandfather’s affiliation had tainted his descendants. The man replied, “Your grandfather was an observant Jew. Why would I think that you are, too?” The woman began learning more about her grandfather’s Judaism.

What is your Jewish purpose?

Make it your purpose to honor our tradition while being creative within it in ways that are meaningful and consistent for you. A little a time, there’s no rush.

Tell your family stories around the table; choose your restaurant menu selections more thoughtfully; try a class at Shirat Hayam or elsewhere; look online for some new Jewish music; sign up the grandkids (and yourself) for PJ library; attend a service and tell us what did or didn’t work for you — what would make you want to come back?

Maybe you have an aspirational purpose, l’takken olam, to repair the world. Many organizations would appreciate your help, and it’s a big enough task that you’ll be busy for a lifetime!

Technology has blessed us with astounding access to massive amounts of innovation in music, learning, art, prayer. A little searching will yield many different approaches to Jewish practice and pleasure.

It isn’t easy to be more purposefully Jewish. You may need to consider changes in how you manage your meals, family gatherings, vacations, expectations. I repeat, take your time.

I believe that more Jewish intention, awareness and sense of purpose will reward you with a life more connected to time and place, a life with a framework for expressing gratitude, seeking forgiveness, or asking for help — a life imbued with holiness.

You can choose to be a Jew with purpose.