Parashat Shoftim

My friends, I am honored…so very honored to see that we have a minyan…on a night that the Redskins are playing. I am very happy to finally be with you this Shabbat. When I was getting ready to leave Buffalo, in diligent advance preparation for the inevitable arrival of this very night, I sat at my computer and wrote the best sermon I've ever written. The best sermon I'll ever write. Actually, it was the best sermon that's ever been written. And I got it all ready, and put it in a box…

It was a wonderful feeling for Julie and I to drive down here—even with two very verbal boys and a three-week old baby girl, knowing, nevertheless, that on this particular trip to Washington…we were coming home. We're starting to settle in, although those of you who have seen either our home or my study know that we're not quite set up. There are many things I am not sure about yet, many answers I don' t have, but I am sure about one thing, which is that I never want to see another box. Any of you remember that Seinfeld routine about boxes—when you're moving, all the world becomes a search for boxes, there, pass by a store, got any boxes; meet a new friend—hi, how are you by way of boxes? So we're surrounded by boxes. And we are beginning to learn about our new home.

Two weeks ago we dealt with what Rabbi Bob Alper calls the most compelling question asked by all Jewish couples coming to a new area: at which Chinese restaurant should we eat? It's not as if we lacked for choices. I have noticed something about the area that is a bit different than when I left at age eighteen, twenty-two years ago. Every single shopping center, every strip of stores, every single one, has at least one Asian restaurant. I looked it up. It's actually a zoning ordinance in Montgomery County now, for all new construction.

So many different kinds of faces, a community that is indeed a reflection of the world. A coming together of different and familiar, of "other" and "neighbor." I look around and see all faces and facets of humanity, and that, too, makes me feel at home.

We went to the mall the other day. Not that mall. The Mall. (I'm reminded of the prayer in the beginning of the Shabbat morning service, which teaches about the great virtues of life, and informs us with great solemnity that the study of Torah leads to them all…but which my B'nei Mitzvah students in Buffalo insisted on reading "the study of Torah leads to the Mall.") On the way downtown we got into a…discussion about the route. Get close to a river and you can get in trouble, an image to which I will return in a moment. In a city of bridges, being in the wrong lane can land you in another state.

Well, at least it's easy to get back. In Buffalo, go over the wrong bridge, come across customs, and presto, you've accidentally left the country.

My friends, I am glad to be here. And glad to be settling in, however slowly. Just as it has been a long and gradual process of adjustment and farewells here, I, too, feel as if I have been living in transit these past several months. Always thinking about someplace else. Being there, and thinking here. Always looking at life from the other side.

But I am not the first one in Jewish history to spend time in transit. And I am not the first one to look at things from the other side of life. We are in the midst of reading the Book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, in Hebrew, which on the day after we left Buffalo opened with the following words: "Eleh had'varim," we read a few weeks ago, "Eleh had'varim asher dibber Moshe el-kol Yisraiel, believe haYarden; these are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel…on the other side of the Jordan."

This is one of the strangest verses in the Torah. Moses spoke these words on the other side of the Jordan? But, if Moses wrote these words, wouldn't he be on his own side? Wouldn't the people be on the other side? This certainly seems to have been written by someone…other than Moses.

Do these words undermine the traditional claim of the Mosaic origin of the Torah? Was this phrase added by a later generation? Is asking this question the equivalent of heresy in traditional circles? Is this a clue that what we are dealing with is what Rabbi Kahn for years has called the "sacred myth" of our people?

For me, however, the power of this phrase lies elsewhere. "Bleiver haYarden; on the other side of the Jordan." It is a spiritual description, as much as a physical one. These words are a lesson. A reminder. That life is lived in transition. And, that we should never forget to look at things from the outside in, from a different perspective, to remember that we are, all and always, on a journey, a quest, from this side to that, to a distant shore we can envision and approach but strain to reach.

The movie character Buckaroo Banzai said: "Wherever you going, there you are." Jewish tradition responds: "Wherever you're going, you're not there yet." We remain "on the other side." There is a gap between where we are and where we want to be, between the "is" and the "ought"
.
On the occasion of his retirement from public service several years ago, Senator Bill Bradley said, "There have always been two Americas, the flawed one we live in day by day, and the better one we dream of when our spirits soar." These two worlds…they are a Jewish notion as well, as we have for centuries spoken of the land across a river—not Canada, but Canaan. A city on a hill.

Yerushalayim shel ma'alah, the heavenly Jerusalem…and Yerushalayim shel matah, Jerusalem on earth, the city that still mingles dreams and ancient plumbing, prayers and pita bread, and blood and bombs.

Somewhere there is a way. Somewhere there is a bridge between the two worlds, the world we describe, and the world we prescribe. Between the reality of today…and the promise of tomorrow.

When confronted with bodies of water they could not wade through, our tradition teaches that Moses used rather radical means to get across. For us, when we want to get to the other side of life, we need something different. We need a bridge.

We live in a city of traffic jams…and bridges. But we cross over a different kind of bridge in coming to this place. The on ramp remains the here and now, but we are launched into an endless journey when entering any synagogue. For our religion, our spiritual tradition, our Judaism, is a bridge to both past and future, whose span begins at one end at a lonely mountain long ago, and whose other end stretches farther than any eye can see, unfolding even now, like so many of the highways of our everyday lives, eternally "under construction."

I want to share with you one view from that bridge of time, one spire among the many that stretch out across the horizon I want to share with you part of my own Jewish journey that has brought me, in this new span of my life, together here with you.

I grew up, as most of you know, practically around the corner from here. In Silver Spring. The synagogue my family joined when I was five or six was Temple Sinai. And the spiritual leader of Temple Sinai at that time was Rabbi Eugene Lipman, of blessed memory, a classic rabbinic figure; brilliant, passionate and, above all, involved. He was not a pastor in quite the sense we think of the word today; he suffered fools poorly, he was so straightforward as to border on blunt. But he was a powerful presence—in need and in deed.

Sometimes that presence was felt even in his absence. I remember services in my youth, asking my parents where the rabbi was. He was in jail, I remember being told. I remember the pride in my parents' voices as they told me our rabbi was behind bars again, marching again, somewhere down South again, one of the leading Jewish figures in the civil rights movement.

Gene Lipman did not walk, but strode across that bridge from the "is" to the "ought," and demanded that others come with him. And he infected me with his vision of right and wrong, his commitment to quality and standards, integrity and justice and, always, his fierce pride in Jewish life. This man touched my life; I miss him beyond words.

By high school, however, it was no rabbi who held my interest in Judaism firm. No, it was something else. You see, I was born on January 1st. Many of my father's friends teased him and told him he was a lousy economist, and all I can say in his and my defense is that I was due on January 14th , and I tried. But January 1st was the cut-off day for schools in Montgomery County, and in those days no respectable Jewish parent would have held their child back. So I was always the youngest one in my class. For whatever reason, when my parents enrolled me in Hebrew school, then, and there, she decided to hold me back. It was a fateful decision. Always the oldest one in my synagogue school, what held my interest in Judaism, what shaped a firm and deep connection to my people was the plain and simple fact…that all my girlfriends came from youth group. It was my social life that kept me committed.

It took until my undergraduate years at Haverford College to discover a deeper dimension to Jewish life. And this lesson came in a strange place. I decided there was a spiritual side to Judaism…in the middle of a Quaker worship service.

On another occasion, perhaps, I'll tell you what I was doing there in the first place. But there I was, sitting in a religious service as different from my Jewish experience as it could possibly be—are you familiar with Quaker services? Basically, its one long silent prayer…interrupted by anyone who wants to say anything on any subject at any time. In Judaism, we don't call that prayer—we call it a committee meeting.

I was moved by these services, drawn to this spirit of sharing of oneself. Yet I felt a profound sense of something missing, something…well…Jewish…but I couldn't describe why I missed it…or what about it I missed. Beside the brownies at the Oneg.

I decided I had better learn more about my own background. I spent my junior year in Israel, at the Hebrew University, and it was there, surrounded by the starkness of the conflict between the problems and the possibilities, between the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem…it was there that I learned the power of standing on the bridge, and of service to one's own people. It was there that my journey through Judaism began all over again. As an adult. As a mature and consciously committed Jew. As I am and have been, so, too, is this congregation on its own journey through time.

One can learn a great deal about a community by the way it chooses to describe itself. The description might not always be completely accurate. But it's a statement of our highest hopes, a look at the other side, if not always the way we are, then, at least, that which we say we want to be.

As part of a rabbinical search process, congregations are asked to provide a brief description of themselves. As I shared with you part of my own journey, listen to the words your representatives chose to describe this congregation.

"Temple Shalom is an inclusive, friendly and unpretentious congregation…We speak of ourselves as being members of the 'Temple family.' As a family, we learn and grow together and offer support to each other…We believe that no congregation is more committed to creating an environment of inclusiveness and encouragement for all who are reaching out to find their place among the Jewish people." Or, from the congregation's own literature: "To join a synagogue is to become a member of a special community that celebrates, studies and prays together…that supports its members in time of need…that shares a commitment to just causes…and that respects the varied backgrounds we all bring into the sanctuary." And again: we assist members "in their personal quests towards a Reform Jewish wholeness of being."

These are words of a calling, of mission and of purpose. They might not be true at every moment. We might not live up to our highest goals in every encounter. But they are what we wish and try to be. They show an awareness of the journey, a determination to hold close to deep values even at a time of change.

For this congregation, this is, indeed, a time of change. And questions abound. What will the future hold? Will the spirit stay the same? Will it be, will it feel like, will it look like the Temple Shalom we knew and loved?

My friends, I have learned again over the past few months that it is hard to leave a congregation. Hard for a rabbi. Hard for the congregation. Even in the best of circumstances. Easier by far to come than it is to go, but that, too, is not so simple. Sometimes major, intentional changes are greeted with enthusiasm, while minor, even accidental ones cause no end of angst.

All I can promise is this: that the new faces you see here come with love for this place, attraction to its values, appreciation for its people, and a deep, deep desire to forge a lasting link together. The closeness of which you speak in describing yourselves is dear to my heart as well. I ask that you remember two things at this time of change.

1. That in a caring community, in a shul with a heart, every person counts, no matter what the total count may be.

2. And that if tomorrow feels different than yesterday, remember, please, the inevitability of change, and the possibility that what we remember of the past is shaped as well by who we are, and who we were. For, in words of wisdom I saw on a T-shirt years ago: "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."

At this time of change, give us the chance to grow to know each other. Give us that, and we will together shape a Shalom of which founders will still be proud, in which the sacred values of this community will thrive and flourish in the hearts of generations yet to come.

For me, to be here, with you, to stand here as your rabbi is one of the greatest honors of my life. Your journey and mine, your future, and mine, are now bound together.

As with America, as with Jerusalem, there are two Temple Shaloms, the one that is and has been, and the one that is becoming. And we, we stand at the fulcrum of the bridge, steadfast keepers of the pledges of the past, shapers—if only we will take on the task—of the promise of the future.

As we look across the bridge of time and the span of centuries, as we look into the bridge of spirit and the words of Torah, we see each other. And we see ourselves. There, on the other side of life, are the people we can be.
But the journey is long. And the job is hard. So let us, finally, remember one last thing. Let us remember to laugh and to love. To smile at each other—and ourselves—along the way.

"Kol HaOlam Kulo, Gesher Tzar Melo;" The whole world is a very narrow bridge. "V'ha'lkkar, Lo L'facheid Klal;" The most important thing…is not to be afraid."