Embracing Our Roots
Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon 5765 (2004) by Rabbi Julie Schwartz
It is a moment of incredible intimacy between father and son. It is a moment of intense struggle and search and wonder. It is a terrifying moment and it is a moment that holds our own hope for redemption hidden deep within it. We read the story of Abraham, Isaac and the near sacrifice each year and we listen to the words that are written in the sacred text. Yet in our heart of hearts, we know that there are other words, those not in the scroll and those that are written only in our Jewish collective unconscious. Tradition encourages us to add our own words to the story. I share with you this morning, Rosh Hashanah 5765 some of the words that I see possible there.
As his father stood over him, with knife in hand and Isaac lay bound on the altar his body unable to mount a physical protest, Isaac spoke softy, intently. Father, father, wait a moment, reflect for a moment. Is this the action that our people will need? Is this the only picture that will reach them? Must they see us in this cruel posture for generations upon generations? Will our people be so stiff necked and difficult that only a knife at my throat will teach them? Father, please, there must be another way. Father please call upon our God and help us find another way. May it be God's will, dear father, that this threat of death is never needed again.
And so here we are, once again. We are focused on that same story and on the sorry recognition that we, a people so honored with brilliant teachings, so rich in ethics and morals, so gifted by our heritage and our history, we Jews are best taught by this ancient threat, the Isaac threat, the threat of extinction. I am often asked if there is an official list of sermon topics that is advised for rabbis - some sort of shared system of preparing for the holidays. Indeed there is not and yet often we rabbis find ourselves drawn to similar themes - based upon the current events of the time, based upon the fact that we have similar training and, of course, we do return to the very same Torah texts each year. But this year, we rabbis actually do have a theme that will most likely find its way into sermons across the country during this Holy Day season. This year marks the 350th anniversary of Jews in North America. This year we recognize the remarkable journey that our people have taken in the New World that has become our world. And this year, as we reflect upon the past 350 years of Jewish American history, we must face squarely the question about our future years. This is indeed a time to embrace our roots and to look back over the achievements and challenges that our American Jewish experiences have handed us. And this is indeed a year to question ourselves, not just who are we - as I discussed sermonically last evening but where are we? Where are we in our journey and if we hear Isaac's plea from between the words of Torah, have our years here in America placed a knife at our throat?
Personally let me admit that American Jewish history was once the least interesting and compelling of subjects for me. Although I was a history major as an undergraduate and even wrote my rabbinic thesis in the field of modern Jewish history, I was never particularly impressed by American Jewish history. It was, for me, simply too brief. It felt more like the gossip of previous generations rather than the schema of events that might refocus the future. So I was a reluctant student of American Jewish history and while I took the required classes and wrote the required papers, I never got too involved. Now, suddenly, and not just because I am expected to be inspired by this 350th anniversary, I have found myself returning to this history because it is my story. I need to know this history because it is not just gossip - it is the diary that will tell me who I am. It doesn't yet have the grandeur of hundreds of centuries but I cannot know who I am until I take stock of what my American Jewish forebears have already accomplished for me.
There are hallmark events in our people's entry and dissemination in this land. I cannot share many of these with you in one sermon and depending upon the particular focus that you might choose, so too you would choose those signal occasions. I find myself moved by three different historical interations between the American experience and our Jewish people and I will tell these stories this morning.
If you have been to the Touro synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island then you have enjoyed a precious gem of Jewish architecture and history. Steven and I had the privilege of praying there on several Shabbatot during the summer that we were chaplain candidates in training at the Naval Chaplains School in Norfolk, Rhode Island. Our enjoyment of that building is a memory that I can return to with pleasure and ease. That lovely building, dedicated in 1763 is the oldest synagogue still surviving in North America. A congregation of merely 15-20 families erected the synagogue facility and it has been in use since that time. Within the building, in a place of honor is the historic correspondence between the leaders of that congregation circa 1790 and the new leader of the United States, George Washington. The synagogue's board of trustees sent words of welcome and congratulations to President Washington in preparation for his visit to their city. His written response is well known and establishes an astonishing and revolutionary attitude towards our people. As you may remember, in Washington's return correspondence he describes the new government as one that (and I quote) "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." He speaks with Biblical imagery and promises that for the Jewish people, this new country would be a place that they would (a quote again) "merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." Thus in America, Jews were not to be merely tolerated or even protected, Jews would be full and equal unquestioned citizens. To see that letter from Washington, to know that it set the tone for our current lives as Americans, brings words of blessing to one's lips.
Now let us move a century forward and consider another event in American Jewish life that is again truly revolutionary. For you born southerners, I will be making reference to what I was taught was called the American Civil War. In this case, to offend everyone equally, the bad guys will be the leaders of the North's army. I refer to the action by General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, now known as General Order #11. In this incident, Grant's command, based in Oxford Mississippi, blamed the resident Jews for the speculation, smuggling, and illegal trade of cotton and other necessities. Grant ordered the Jews expelled from the military command, from the entire area under Grant's control including Mississippi and Kentucky, and it stipulates that anyone who did not immediately leave would be imprisoned. The facts behind Jewish participation in speculation were that Jews were no more or less guilty of such activities than any other citizens. My favorite trivia fact is that a group of Cincinnati Jewish traders were actually in a cotton speculating partnership with Grant's own father. Reactions by the Jewish community to the order were immediate and substantive. One Jew from Paducah Kentucky who had been evicted from his home made his way to Washington DC for a personal visit with Abraham Lincoln. It is said that this individual, Cesar Kaskel, spoke to the president using the biblical imagery of Father Abraham granting protection to the children of Israel who had been driven from Canaan. Lincoln sent an immediate order to the general in chief of the Army, Henry Halleck and the infamous General Order # 11 was rescinded. From this story, obviously one can first see that anti-semitism was present in American life. This country was not then a utopia of brotherhood and automatic acceptance. However and I believe most importantly, the fact that Jewish citizens had the access, the know-how, and the faith to use their government to remedy an injustice speaks of our place in American society then and our expectations for the future.
Finally I move you ahead one more. This final example I offer is not exactly history - it is a personal anecdote that is part of the fabric of our past. While I will share it from the perspective of one individual, I would imagine that many here may have a similar story that they could share. This incident that I am introducing is, at essence, the basic story of our American Jewish experience. And I tell it not from the perspective of a Jewish American but from the voice of a young man who came from Virginia, a devoutly Christian country boy. He is the grandfather of a congregant here and he has retold the story many times - including once to me. He joined the army as a young man during World War II. His life immediately changed from one of relative safety and security to the dangers and horrors of combat. But his world changed on an interpersonal level as well. His best friend during the war became a fellow soldier, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn. He had never met such a creature before life threw them together. He jokes that he thought damn Yankee was one word before he met his new brother. And besides recognizing that all of their differences in background did not prevent them becoming lifelong friends, he owes his life to that man. The Jew saved the Christian under fire. And I am certain that there are many stories wherein the Christian saved the Jew as well. The gift of religious freedom in this country created the opportunity for friendships, relationships that we had never before even imagined.
From these three snippets of history, we have the promise of the American Jewish experience: we have freedom to fully participate in the life of the country, we have full access to our government and all that it promises, we can become as close to our fellow citizens as brother and sister. We are not just permitted, we are included. We are not dependent on others' largesse, we can control our own destiny. We can be known and understood and included and assimilated. We can be intensely involved in our own Jewish community or we can be intensely uninvolved. This is America - we mean it when we quote our own Bible and say, "let freedom ring."
And this country has been more than a safe place for us. It has been a place of tremendous growth and development for our people, our culture, our theology, our scholarship. In this free society, we have not just done well as individuals, we have done well as Jews. During the 1950s, our community had its highest voluntary synagogue affiliation rate. That means that in this country where no Jewish community could demand a formal relationship, especially one that required a financial obligation rather than a simple answer on a telephone survey, 60% of the Jewish population belonged to a synagogue. That means that 60% of the Jewish population had some access to Jewish education. That rate of affiliation has not again been reached. But the very values that led to the affiliation rate have also challenged our community. Sociologists tell us that Jews belonged to synagogues easily and happily because it was acceptable, even necessary to have a religious affiliation in the 1950s. Everyone did it - at the least to avoid the charge of godless communist that might attach itself to someone who did not profess a religious faith. And because everyone did it and everyone's religion was legally acceptable, then the next dangerously logical step was coming to understand that every religion was essentially the same. And if everyone's religion was essentially the same, then why struggle to be Jewish. It is the beauty of America: we are all equal, we are all brothers and sisters so why not be just the same, why worry about the things that make us different and make it difficult to simply melt together. Add in the American premium on individualism and the authority of the individual and you have an atmosphere that works directly against the Jewish values of family, communal responsibility, and the authority of the tradition itself. The magic of this country that saved us as a people is the very same magic that can, that already has, to some significant degree, poisoned us. We all know the reality: we have had tremendous success becoming part of America but America may have been too good to us.
And so I return to that picture of Isaac and Abraham. And I imagine Isaac's words once again. Can this people, our people, only survive, if not thrive when there is a knife held to our throats? Do we only continue as a community due to our own fear, a fear for our future? From my heart, I tell you that I cannot have that as my people's ongoing theme. I cannot tolerate a future based on fear and on the need to be threatened. From my head, I worry. There is a clever rhythm to this point/counterpoint of our history. We have never yet survived our own success. But from my head, I also know that there is always more than one answer, more than one good choice, and more than one way to understand a pattern, a history, a process. And so with my heart and my head joined, I pray that you will join me in affirming the ways that we will take these 350 years of life in America and triumph with it. We have the dream reality of Israel in our midst and that must always be a primary focus. But we have remarkable opportunities here in America to create our future as well. It requires of us both a new heart and a new head - some changes in our thinking as well as our feelings.
First, we must expand on the promise that is present in this sanctuary this very day. We are all here - from the youngest to the oldest we have filled this building. And not just for this service but for a second one (earlier) as well. Because we are here, we prove the reality of our promise. Yet it will take more than our being here today or last evening or next week for the next holiday. Each us must do a new sort of cheshbon nefesh - accounting in our souls -- and determine the tangible ways that we will be part of the Jewish future tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Each of us must make the personal commitment that we will fulfill our personal roles as part of the Jewish future. Not only by this important act of attending holy day services and supporting the synagogue at this season but by attending Jewish services, functions, classes throughout the year and seeing that these are part of our regular life, not special events. Add to the list, regular financial support of Jewish institutions, regular participation in acts of social justice, and on and on. If you wear a Jewish star around your neck, now is the time to let others know that it truly stands for something more than a good investment in jewelry! Next we must take a look at our good old fashioned American values and recognize those that truly do not and cannot integrate with Jewish values. In America, personal choice and freedom of choice are paramount. But even as a card carrying Reform Jew, whose very structure emphasizes personal choice, I must tell you that this is not the most important Jewish value. For Jews, an equally compelling value is the need of the community, the power of the community and communal authority. We cannot immediately make our Jewish decisions based on what is best for me, the individual. Rather we must mix into the process, a much more basic Jewish concern - what is best for us as a community, how will my actions support and better my people. We defer some element of our individual rights to the needs of our community and to the authority of the community. I know that this could be a frightening idea here in the land of "if it doesn't hurt anybody else, then it must be ok." I tell you that even the act of considering the needs of our people first will be a positive step towards our positive future.
Finally we must make it easier to be Jewish. And I am not suggesting fewer rituals, removing the Hebrew, or less religious school. Instead, I want us to be make our community more than superficially accessible. Through the costs of participation, we close the door on people. Through our busy schedules - mine included - we close the door on people. Through our subtle remarks that keep some feeling like outsiders, we close the door on people. Many have commented that we need to increase the size of the Jewish family in order to sustain the Jewish community. But others have rightly responded that due to the expense of Jewish involvement, having a large active Jewish family can become financially prohibitive. If what we want is a dynamic, involved, growing Jewish community, then it is our burden and our joy to share our means so that this can happen for everyone. All of us must search for ways to make the financial struggle less of a struggle. Rabbis and cantors must be available and accessible. Religious experiences must be available and accessible. The Jewish community must belong to all Jews.
Next week, during Yom Kippur services, we will read the stirring Torah portion that urges us to choose life. In fact, as I return to the unwritten words in this morning's Torah portion, I can hear those same words on the lips of Abraham in answer to his son Isaac. When Isaac asks, must we be threatened in order to survive, I hear Abraham speaking directly to God. God, he says, in the unwritten text, God, is this the commitment that you want from your people? Do you find more meaning in our death or in our life? Do you want my proof of allegiance through the sacrifice of my son or through the commitment of his life and the lives of all of our descendents? Shall we be a faith which celebrates your creation through our actions in this world, can we prove our commitment through our lives? And of course, God's answer is so very clear - God speaks not only to Abraham but to each of us this very moment, God says, "My dear, beloved children, what I want is your ongoing life filled with vitality and energy, filled with choices and change, filled with astonishing accomplishments and remarkable history - that is the commitment that I want from you. And God prays with us at this moment also, God prays words that we can feel within our souls, God says now within each of our hearts, "May it be that my people never need a knife at their throats to find the power that I have implanted within them. May my people always choose life."