Ahz mah (So what)

Yom Kippur, 2015 After the murder of nine black people in a church in Charleston South Carolina earlier this year, the Sharon clergy hastily called for a vigil in the town center where we would be sure to have hundreds of witnesses driving through the intersection. I stood quietly, holding a small sign. A little white boy, around seven years old, stepped up to the curb and boldly introduced himself to me. His mom stood a distance apart from us. “I don’t understand how someone could kill other people,” he said to me with some agitation. I agreed that yes, it was difficult to understand. I asked him if he knew what the word racism meant, pointing to one of the signs someone was holding. Yes, he said, he had just learned it. “I hate racism,” he said. But he was concerned about the killer’s safety, also. “Someone might poison his food, I’ve heard that happens sometimes.” He’ll be safe in jail, I replied, until there is a trial. “Oh yes, a trial,” he said, relieved. And then a moment late...

Kol Nidrei, 2015 In the 1920s in Paris, a Jewish writer by the name of Edmond Fleg (originally Flegenheimer) wrote a book entitled Pourquoi Je Suis Juif – Why I am a Jew. While I am not familiar with the book, I am familiar with the one page of it which became famous, and some of you may be familiar with it also. On that one page, Fleg wrote a list of brief statements, each one beginning “Je suis juif parce que…” / “I am a Jew because….” A translation of most of Fleg’s list is reprinted in the Reform movement’s Shabbat prayerbook as a liturgical poem. The translation begins with these lines: “I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands no abdication of my mind. I am a Jew because the faith of Israel asks every possible sacrifice of my soul. I am a Jew because in all places where there are tears and suffering the Jew weeps. I am a Jew because in every age when the cry of despair is heard the Jew hopes….” This holiday season I have been holding up the question, Who are we Jews? I h...

Rosh Hashanah 2015 Who are we? This is the question I am holding up to the light this year, to explore from different angles. When we say we are Jewish, what does it mean? When our children ask us what it means to be Jewish, what can we say to them? How much are we able to articulate, even to ourselves, this aspect of our identity? Who are we Jews? This is not merely an academic question. I have been thinking a lot of about this question of Jewish identity all year, as a new generation of civil rights activists holds up a mirror to this country’s soul. Who are we Jews? Last night I spoke about our tribal identity. This morning I want to go in a different direction: Another way to explore our identity is to ask, what are the mythic stories we tell ourselves about who we are? One story that we Jews have been telling ourselves for thousands of years is that we were chosen to be in a special relationship with God. Or, as some people would put it, that we are the “chosen people.” click ...

 Erev Rosh Hashanah 2015 Who are we? When we say we are Jewish, what are we saying? When our children ask us what it means to be Jewish, what can we say to them? How much are we able to articulate, even to ourselves, this aspect of our identity? And for those in our community who are not Jewish, but who have chosen to join us by marriage, what does it mean to them? Who are we? It is my impression that it is getting more and more difficult to answer this question, which suggests that this is the ideal time to consider it anew. Some of the difficulty in answering this question lies in our own sense of inadequacy or ignorance or anxiety about our Jewishness, and some of the difficulty lies in the changing nature of identity in our culture in general. click here for complete sermon