The Oldest Building

Building a Sukkah reminds us that community is something we make (and re-make).

Shabbat / 1^st Day Yom Tov Sukkot 5770

What is the oldest building in human history that is still standing intact today? Is it the Greek Parthenon? Is it the Roman Coliseum? The Great Pyramid of Giza? Machu Picchu? The great civilizations of world history have all engaged in grandiose building projects. The emperors and kings who commissioned these great buildings intended these massive monuments to stand as symbols of their power and the endurance of the great civilizations over which they ruled. Well, all of these great building lie in some stage of ruin today. Their walls have crumbled, their bricks are broken. The kings who commanded their construction are long-since dead and the enormous empires that built them are the stuff of history books. At one time, we too had a great monument. The Temple in Jerusalem was God’s palace and the center of our religious and national life. It too was destroyed, and yet we as a people have survived the tests of time. We continue to practice our religion and customs more-or-less as our ancient ancestors did. So, what’s the difference? Why are we here, while the Romans – who destroyed our Temple – are not? I would submit to you that we have survived precisely because we learned a valuable lesson following the destruction of our Temple. We learned that stones and bricks don’t make a civilization strong. Instead we have a building that has stood through the ages and sustained us as a civilization for thousands of years. That building is right outside those doors and it might even be in your back yard. The oldest building in human history is the Sukkah.

The sukkah, the little hut we build year after year at the festival of sukkot, is the most stable structure in history precisely because it is not permanent. The Sukkah endures because it isn’t made out of stones and bricks. And Judaism – like the Sukkah – endures because it is a structure that can be reassembled everywhere that history has taken us. Its wobbly walls remain standing because they bend with the winds of changing times. The sukkah’s roof hovers over our heads precisely because it is permeable – letting in new ideas. And, like the Sukkah itself – when we as a people get knocked down, we pick up the pieces and rebuild. What has made it possible for us to survive, where other civilizations did not, is that we have a culture and a religion that is portable and flexible.

But there is yet another lesson to be learned from the Sukkah. The lesson we learned after the destruction of our Temple is that what makes us endure as a people is not the edifices we construct, but rather the process of building them. Impressive structures and magnificent monuments don’t, in themselves, create community. What creates community is the energy of building. This week my family built our sukkah at home. My brother happened to be in town, so he helped me construct the frame on Tuesday. Being an engineer, he had some good ideas that helped improve the sukkah. Melanie helped put up the walls and the schach. Koby hung decorations. Even Hannah and Micah got into the building: as we worked, they looked on with fascination and pretended to build.

There is a wonderful energy in building things – especially when you don’t know exactly how your efforts will turn out. It’s fun to plan and measure and imagine what you want the the project to look like. It’s exciting to gather the materials. There are interesting challenges to solve that you didn’t anticipate at the outset. The act of building is also so gratifying. It feels good to work with our hands. There’s a certain satisfaction in standing back and looking at what you’ve built.

What makes the sukkah such a powerful project is that it brings people together and draws out our collective energy and creativity. It can only do this, precisely because it is a temporary structure. It has this power because we are never done building it. We build it over and over again – and, in doing so, we are able to improve it, to change it, to grow it. Even if it collapses in the middle of the week, it’s still fun to build and it still brings us together. It is this energy that has made us strong as a Jewish community for all these many ages.

Today in the Jewish community, however, we face difficult times. Affiliation with the grand institutions we have built is at an all-time low. We have, perhaps, as a Jewish community, fallen victim to our own success. For the last few generations (in the period following the Shoah) Jews in America spent a lot of time and resources building wonderful institutions. We erected magnificent houses of worship and communal organizations. Our community was animated by the energy of building. And, our people flocked to these buildings when we opened the doors. Now we have these beautiful buildings and we are witnessing a dwindling in the number of people who step inside. Synagogues, which once served as the backbone of Jewish community, are no longer the centers they used to be. There are many reasons that we’ve seen a steady decline in the Jewish community as of late. I don’t mean to explain the entire problem with my metaphor, and I might be overstating the case to make my point, but I propose that one of the reasons we’re seeing this decline is that we, as a community, have built these wonderful structures and we’ve forgotten that what made them so great was not the architecture and decor, but the energy and creativity and the sweat of countless individuals that went into building them. I think this also explains, in part, why the latest hot trend in Jewish communal life is the emergence of independent minyanim and havurot all over the country. Groups like Qohelet or Minyan Na’aleh here in Denver meet in people’s homes, in rented spaces, in converted churches, and in JCCs. They don’t have a lot of money, they often are not lead by ordained rabbis or trained cantors; but, they are animated by the energy of volunteers and invigorated by the excitement of building something new. The lesson of the sukkah is that what really matters is not the strength of the walls, but what happens within those walls. A sukkah with no people in it is no better than the ruins of an ancient fortress.

But, despite how successful some of these small independent groups have been, and how much buzz they have generated, I don’t think these groups represent the future of Jewish community. I think they are an outgrowth of the problem itself – a symptom. Building is exciting, but the answer isn’t to abandon established institutions and start from scratch every 20 years. The problem is that the established institutions of the Jewish community have forgotten their own roots. We have forgotten that we too started out as little shteiblach and grassroots organizations driven by volunteer energy. We were once energized by the excitement of starting something new. And, now that we are established, we have fallen victim to our own success. We are stuck admiring the powerful institutions we built. We think we’ve arrive – that the work is done. The solution isn’t to form new little groups. The solution for the Jewish community is to revitalize the energy and excitement of the building process.

One of the values we find in the celebration of Sukkot is the idea of getting back to basics. By its nature, a sukkah isn’t fancy or elaborate. The sukkah is what it is – three walls and an incomplete roof. It is simultaneously good, but never good enough. It continually calls out to us to do more and do it a little better next time. By its nature, building a sukkah requires people to work together… to connect with one another. That’s what we, in the Jewish community, need right now. We need to get back to basics.

The basic building block of community is human connection. Community is built like a sukkah – by connecting scattered pieces together. This might sound like a continuation of my Rosh Hashanah sermon – that’s because I think it’s that important and it bears repeating. The more we connect with one another, the more we will continue to build our community, the more we will re-energize our community.

One of the interesting aspects of the laws of sukkot is that every individual Jew is required, by halakhah, to build a sukkah. But, you can fulfill the mitzvah of making a sukkah by simply participating in even the smallest way in helping to build a sukkah. If you drive even one nail, turn just one screw, carry one piece of wood, or hang just one decoration, you’ve fulfilled the mitzvah of making a sukkah. My challenge to us all in the coming year is that each of us will take responsibility for building a small part of this sukkah we call the HEA. It can be as simple as sitting with someone you don’t know at Kiddush, inviting someone to your home for Shabbat, being friendly to someone who walks in off the street for the first time, contributing to the Kiddush fund, attending a program you’ve never been to… the list goes on and on. Let’s remember that the mitzvah of is not just to sit in the sukkah, but also to build it.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Same’ach.

Hineini!

The High Holy Days call up on us – both as individuals and as a community – to rediscover the treasures within ourselves that allow us to be the best we can be.

Rosh Hashanah 5770 / September 20, 2009

Less than 2 weeks ago, a reporter from the Inter-Mountain Jewish News called me – she asked me if I had time to be interviewed for a feature piece. So I thought to myself: it’s 9 days before Rosh Hashanah, I haven’t written my sermon, I’m kind of losing my mind – sure, what else do I have to do?

So the reporter, Andrea Jacobs, came over that very afternoon and spent about an hour interviewing me. It actually turned out to be a very pleasant conversation, because she asked some really thoughtful questions.

Toward the end of the interview, Ms. Jacobs threw me a curveball. She asked me if I think the High Holy Days wipe the slate clean for us. I hesitated when she asked me that. My first reaction was to say, “Of course. Yeah – a tabula rasa.” But, I stopped myself, because I realized that I didn’t really believe it. I mean, I want to believe it. It seems like that’s what a rabbi is supposed to say, right? Isn’t that the party line – Yom Kippur atones for our sins? Scrub, rinse, repeat – right? But I couldn’t say that. I’m just not sure it’s true… it certainly hasn’t been my experience.

For years, I have gone to shul on the Yamim Nora’im desperately searching for that cleansing – wishing more than anything else that this time the slate will be wiped clean. I think: maybe this time, if I say all the prayers… if I have just enough remorse for the sins I’ve committed… if I just pound my chest hard enough, maybe this time I’ll walk out of here a different person – a clean slate. I don’t want to say that nothing ever changes, but every year, I walk out of shul disappointed to discover that I’m still more or less the same person I was when I walked in. I still face the same weaknesses. I still have the same challenges. I still have the same temptations.

But this year, after thinking hard about Andrea Jacob’s question, I’ve come to a better understanding of how teshuvah (repentence) really works. The first thing we have to do is liberate ourselves of this idea of a clean slate. There’s no such thing. It’s too much to expect. The truth is we all have “luggage”… I prefer the word luggage rather than baggage. “Baggage” has so many negative connotations. Baggage is the burden you can’t wait to unload. Luggage, on the other hand – that’s just the stuff we travel with. There’s the stuff we’re born with and the stuff we picked up along the way. There’s the stuff we worked hard to acquire, and the stuff that was given to us. There’s the stuff we use often and the stuff that is hidden in the little pockets and crevices that we’ve forgotten about. Most of the stuff is necessary and good, some of it weighs us down.

That’s life. And the challenge is: how do we go about improving, growing, changing, moving, and – yes – repenting, when we’ve got all this luggage? How do we decide what to hold on to, and what to leave on the side of the road? Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not about wiping the slate clean. Instead, these days are about opening up our luggage and rummaging around inside for a while. They are about being honest about the stuff we travel around with.

These days are about standing before God in the fullness of who we are and saying “Here I am!” “Here I am, God, with all my luggage. Here I am, God, with all my good deeds and my sins, with all my smallness and with all my greatness.” It’s about being fully present and accountable. Hebrew has a beautiful word for this: “hineini” – Hineini means, “here I am.” And this word – hineini – appears prominently on Rosh Hashanah.

In the Torah portion we just read this morning – the story of the binding of Isaac – Avraham, says this word, Hineini, three times in the course of a few verses. The traditional commentaries all understand hineini as an expression of Avraham’s readiness to listen and obey. But there’s no indication of Avraham’s tone of voice or body language. Is it “hineni!” like a soldier coming to attention? Or is there perhaps more ambivalence, more hesitation, more self-doubt. He may be saying, “here I am, ready to serve.” But, at the same time Avraham might be saying, “Hineini – here I am, God, a willing, but imperfect vessel for your will.” “Hineini – Here I am, scared and unsure” “Hineni – Here I am. I cannot possibly hide from you.” “Hineini - Accept me as I am.”

That is how we stand here today on Rosh Hashanah. Hineini – here I am God – a mere human being. Hineini – here I am willing to improve my life but unsure about how. Hineini – here I am with my successes and triumphs. Hineini – here I am with my weaknesses and my failures. Hineini – here I am with all my virtues and strengths. Hineini – here I am with my bad habits and vices, that I promised to change last year, and the year before, and the year before that. Hineini – here I am, trying to be truthful when I say I’ll do better this time. Hineini.

In a few minutes – just before we start the Musaf Amidah – the Chazzan is going to come down the isle chanting a prayer that also begins with the word Hineini. It is really a meditation the Chazzan says to prepare himself for his awesome task: “Hineini he-anni mi-ma’as, nir’ash v’nif’chad mi-pachad…” “Here I am! I stand here lacking in good deeds, agitated and frightened, in dread before God who sits in judgment. I have come to stand and to plead before You on behalf of Your people, Israel, who have appointed me as their messenger – even though I am not worthy or qualified for the task…” In this prayer he’s saying, “look God, here I am… a flawed vessel…” and, despite my deep resonant voice and stunning stage presence, I’m totally unqualified and humbled to stand before you as a conduit for the prayers of my people… but I’m going to do it anyway… as flawed as I am, here I am. I’m going to pray on behalf of this congregation!

That’s the yamim noraim in a nutshell… Hineni. Here we are unprepared but willing. We stand before God as we are – the good and the bad – and God sees all of it. And we too are supposed to take a long hard look at ourselves… not a fantasy of ourselves as perfect people – but who we are… only the best of who we are. And that’s where the opportunity lies. There’s no clean slate, but there is the possibility of teshuvah - repentence. The yamim noraim are about looking boldly at ourselves and become more aware. And the paradox of saying Hineini is that being honest about our shortcomings actually allows us to discover our greatness. When we look deep within ourselves we find the spark of the Divine that is at our core. Too often we think the answers our out there somewhere, if only we could find them. The lesson of hineini – of being fully present with ourselves – is that we already have what we need to improve.

And what is true for us as individuals is also true for us as a community. It isn’t surprising that this is the time of year when Jews make an extra effort to be in shul. The Yamim Noraim are about showing up and being counted. The Torah’s name for this day is Yom Ha-Zikaron, the day of Remembering. And, as Jews, we remember that this is our home. This is where we come to check in, to reconnect. This is the time of year when we turn to one another and say “hineni” – “here I am.” And just as this season is a moment for personal reflection and honesty, it is also an appropriate time of year for us, as a community, to take stock.

This is, indeed, a wonderful synagogue. This is a shul that has a reputation for being warm and welcoming. It is a community in which members care for one another. We come together in moments of celebration and in times of mourning. And for all of this, we have been very successful over the last many years.

But today we all find ourselves in a challenging environment. We all know from our own lives and from reading the paper that we can no longer take growth and success for granted. We all know from our own households and our own business that these difficult times have challenged us all to think about how we conduct ourselves. Most of us in our own homes and in our business are reevaluating what we are doing, and how we’re doing it. And, the Hebrew Educational Alliance is no exception.

But I’m here to tell you that there is a hidden treasure to be found. The gift we are given in challenging times is the gift of teshuvah. We are all looking at our lives and reprioritizing. We’re asking ourselves: what is important to us and what is luxury? What is the right balance of quantity and quality? We’re asking ourselves who we are and what are our core values?

This is a time for us as a community to begin our own teshuvah process. What is true for us as individuals at this time of year is true for us a shul. It is time to be honest with ourselves and rummage around in our luggage.

There is a well-known Jewish folk tale that I think illustrates my point. A long time ago, in the city of Cracow, lived a man named Avrom the son of Beril. Though he was a hard-working man, Avrom was very poor and always struggled to care for his family.

One night, he had an unusually vivid dream. In the dream, Avrom saw himself standing under a bridge. All around him were magnificent buildings, and on the road leading from the bridge there was a majestic palace. Suddenly a voice spoke to him: “Avrom, this is the great city of Prague. This is the bridge leading to the King’s castle. Dig a hole right where you are standing under the bridge and you will find a treasure.”

Avrom suddenly awoke and saw that it was morning. He thought to himself, “How can I go to Prague? I don’t even have enough to feed my family… besides, it’s just a dream.” But the next night, the dream came to him again. And, again, he dismissed it. But when he had the same dream a third time, he decided he had to make the trip to Prague.

It took him weeks to walk there, but when he finally arrived, he was stunned to find that this magnificent city looked exactly as it had in his dreams! There in front of him was the palace of the King, and here was the bridge leading to the palace. He started to head for the exact spot he had stood in his dreams, when he was approached by one of the palace guards, demanding to know what he was doing. Avrom was a very honest man, so he couldn’t bring himself to lie. Feeling foolish, he told the guard about his dream.

The guard started to laugh, and replied, “Foolish man! Dreams aren’t real. I, too, had a dream in which a voice spoke to me. It told me to go to Cracow, to the house of some Jew named Avrom the son of Beril. If I looked under the stove in his kitchen, I would find a treasure, the voice told me. Well, I’ve heard that half the Jews in Cracow are named Avrom and the other half are named Beril – and they all live in tiny cottages with stoves. So, even if I believed the dream, how would I find the right one?”

Avrom listened in amazement as the guard described Avrom’s own house. Avrom hurried back to Cracow and dug under his stove in the kitchen and yes, there he discovered the promised treasure. His dream had come true.[1]

How often do we go out searching for treasure – believing that it must be out there somewhere? We make ourselves crazy and run ourselves ragged looking far and wide. But the truth is – we often fail to look within ourselves – to discover the treasure in our own midst.

I’m not going to stand here and tell you what I think is working or not working at our shul. That isn’t the job of just one person. It isn’t for me – certainly not after have been here for only one year – to tell you. This task of communal teshuvah is greater than one person. It is incumbent on each and every one of us to do this work – it is a conversation we need to have. It is for each of us to stand up and say “hineini” – here I am. I am asking you to do for this community what we are called upon to do on these High Holy Days. Just as we have to look within ourselves to examine our strengths and weaknesses, so too with our community. And just as we do as individuals, when we look deep within this community, we will rediscover the greatness that is at our core. Just as it is with our own souls, we need to look at what we do well, and then do it better. We should dream. We should dream together about what this community can be, but I suspect that the answers aren’t out there somewhere. The moral of the story of Avrom is that the treasure we seek is in our midst. It’s been there all along – we just have to know where to look.

I came across an interesting statistic recently. A study of congregational life conducted by researchers at Brandeis University asked Jews to respond to the following statement: “my synagogue makes good use of my skills and abilities.” Before I tell you what they found… think about that statement for a moment, and ask yourself if you agree or disagree: “my synagogue makes good use of my skills and abilities” Well, in the Brandeis study a mere 34% of respondents agreed with the statement. They also discovered that nearly 2/3 of shul members reported that they were “not at all active” in their congregation.[2]

Those are shocking statistics – but, unfortunately, not surprising. I know we have a very active and vibrant community, but I imagine our numbers would be the same if we did that study here. Now imagine for a moment what our community would look like if the statistics were reversed. What if 66% of us could say, “The synagogue makes good use of my skills and abilities”? What if 2/3 of us could say we are actively involved in our community?

Our treasures are not out there somewhere under a bridge. They too are right here at home – in this room. Right now. Look around you. What you see – whom you see – these are our untapped resources. And to find them, we just have to be willing to say hineni – here I am. Hineini – these are my skills and talents. Hineini – these are my passions and my interests.

Do you have a passion for social justice – say Hineini – and join our Habitat for Humanity building crew. Do you love sports? Say Hineini – here I am to join the softball team. Do you enjoy parties? Say Hineini – and host a Shabbat dinner. Don’t know a lot of people? Say Hineini and introduce yourself to others. Do you have a talent you love to share? Say Hineini and volunteer your skills.

It isn’t about showing up in a building, and it isn’t about filling seats, and it isn’t about these walls. Hineni is adding to the conversation. It’s about presence. It’s about looking deep within ourselves as a community and being the best of who we are – with all of our strengths and challenges – and saying “here I am” – Hineini.

May the coming year encourage us to greater introspection. May we find treasures waiting to be discovered. And may we all be willing to say hineini.

L’shanah tovah tikkateivu ve’tihateimu – My we be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

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[1] My retelling of the story is based on a version found in Peninnah Schram’s Jewish Stories One General Tells Another.

[2] The findings I refer to are cited by Rabbi Hayim Herring on his blog – Tools for Shuls. The author of the study was Prof. Amy Sales of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis.