Rosh Hashanah 5769 / 2008

West End Synagogue

 

I must admit something. I don’t have a page on Facebook.  In fact, I’ve never even been to anyone’s page on Facebook.  I use email obsessively, I have a blackberry, a cell phone, and I use the internet as if I never lived without it.  But I admit that the “social networking phenomenon” has escaped me – at least until very recently.  I think it’s because I feel so overly connected sometimes, I am at risk for disconnecting with the people and things that really matter to me.

 

Nine years ago my RH sermon was about this very concern.  Having read an op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman about an Israeli man pulled over by police because he was driving with his elbows while holding a cell phone on each ear, I understood that “over-connectedness” and therefore by extension – disconnectedness -- might be the social disease of the next millennium.

 

Well, here we are, 8 years into this millennium, and while I accept that we have become even more able to connect with people we don’t even know on superficial levels – I admit to learning something important recently about social networking that applies to the very important, meaningful, and often difficult work of building and sustaining sacred community.

 

I have been rather preoccupied since returning from sabbatical with the interconnectedness of the community of WES.  I have been trying in a number of ways – not alone of course – but with the help of lay leaders and staff, to pull back on my view of the congregation, something like a “spiritual google earth” and see the invisible lines of connection, that are strong, those that need strengthening, and areas where connection has seemed hard to cultivate.

 

Rosh Hashanah is indeed the time to have the “google earth” perspective on our lives, bother personally and communally, and I want to share some thoughts with you this morning on the ongoing connections we create and nurture at WES, and which bring us to these Days of Awe as a community.  I want this RH to suggest a different perspective on perhaps something you already know.

 

In an article from the NY Times Magazine just a few weeks ago, Clive Thompson explores the brave new world of social intimacy.  In the article he traces the major shift in how Facebook operates – from being able to simply check pages of your contacts to see what is new, to having a constant “news feed” feature that allows you to always know what is new and different with your Facebook friends.  Although initially, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted up to the minute updates on what other people were doing, they ultimately found this omnipresent knowledge intriguing and addictive.

 

“In the world of social science, this kind of contact is called ambient awareness.  It is, they say, very much like being physically near to someone and picking up on their mood and person by the little things they do – body language, sighs, stray comments out of the corner of your eye.” (Thompson)  This awareness of the other person can and often does lead to a deeper understanding of the rhythm of others lives, what fills their day, their thoughts, and even their dreams.

 

The article shares both the advantages and pitfalls of this new awareness, but what intrigued me was the instinct to want that awareness and whether it can be translated into the life of a synagogue community.

 

Just take a minute and see who is sitting around you – Do you know them?  Do you know what brings them to the synagogue?  Do you know if they are engaged in the work of the synagogue, in lay leadership?  Do you know what matters for them Jewishly?

 

Take note of your answers to these questions.  If your answers are no, does it matter?  I would answer with a resounding yes.  The “stuff”-- if you will – ‘of creating a sacred community has to do with the embodiment of connections.  Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan understood that “a community might be defined as that form of social organization in which the welfare of each is the concern of all, and the life of the whole is of concern of each.” (FAJ, p. 325)

 

People advocate for one another, we sanctify time as well as experience, we work for a better existence for everyone – not just ourselves.  We try for the most respectful interactions possible, we are accepting of each other, but we challenge the status quo when necessary.  We appreciate the efforts of people, and we learn for the sake of learning. We push ourselves and one another to grow and learn on a higher level.  There is real joy in our celebrations, we weave connections that are real, and we support each other in need.  People feel valued and committed to each other.  We encourage the energy and vision necessary to grow, transform, and shape our future.

 

Of course, people join WES for many reasons: For spiritual sustenance, for a place to find Jewish life, for their children’s education or for their own.  But what is so clear to me is that ultimately, what we do as a whole is as important as why we came in the first place.  The integrated experience of synagogue life can and should be important to all of us.  How we live and work, play and pray at WES must be a sacred experience for the entire community for we are in relationship with one another.

 

Now the challenge of a sermon on the issues around the nurturance of an integrated community is that since there are several hundred people in the room, there are certainly at least as many approaches to this question.

 

Mordecai Kaplan’s appealing aphorism that “belonging comes prior to behaving, and behaving comes prior to believing,” may be instructive here.  Translated, this means that the community, and belonging to the community, is the foundation on which boundaries of behavior are built.

 

Let me turn to a familiar frame for this conversation, not from Rosh Hashanah but from Pesah, and even venture to ask – How is this community different from others?

 

Many of us can remember the four children of the seder – each one presenting a different face and a different way to ask about the rituals and the meaning of the holiday.

 

I am not going to label them in the same way as the Haggadah, but in terms of communal life, let’s imagine them as: One who is engaged, one who is skeptical, one who is passive and one who is silent.

 

How might these be defined?  To be engaged means to be fully connected to the community, it means searching for answers to the Jewish questions you don’t know.  At different points in our lives we have all been this child – eager to participate, to learn, to understand – inquisitive and caring, empowered and hopeful.

 

To be skeptical means to need “proof” that the synagogue community needs you.  In means sometimes standing apart from the congregation, maybe feeling alienated or alone, not convinced the synagogue is on target.  At different points in our lives we have all been this child – challenging, somewhat detached, and waiting for a sign to get involved.

 

To be passive means to see only the surface level of meaning and purpose to sacred community, to ask the most basic of questions, and not necessarily wait for the complexity of answers.  At different points in our lives we have all been this child – curious but not too deeply, about the nature of the community, and what role if any is for us.

 

And finally, to be silent can mean to never enter the conversation, to think we have nothing to contribute or alternatively, it could mean to hear something deeper than words, and we just don’t think others will understand. Either way, the silence prevents the inclusion of new voices.  At different points in our lives we have all been this child – reserved, possibly insecure, and ultimately outside of the heart of community.

 

Only you know where you are right now in relation to our synagogue life,

but make no mistake, as different as each of us is, for a synagogue to nurture all of us and at the same time grow and change and meet the needs of the community, all of us must have more than a little bit of awareness about each other – we need ways to establish a kind of “ambient awareness” – a connection that is beyond our personal needs.

 

Not only that, but we need to know how these patterns of engagement, skepticism, passivity and silence work in tandem and in conflict when seeking a common vision of a community of life long learners who share in the experience of Jewish living and learning.

 

What is in fact the mission of WES?  Our mission is to develop, nurture and transmit a Reconstructionist approach to Judaism by building an intellectually challenging, spiritually vibrant, and mutually supportive community.

 

From where you sit, can you see yourself and your needs reflected in this mission?  Can you see what you have to offer to deepen the reality of this mission and this community?

 

We know that WES is a community that grapples with what it means to be a Jew living in 2 civilizations, that we respect and encourage multiple access points to Jewish observance and study, and we find nourishment in the connection with our past while seeking meaning in our lives today.

 

But the need to strengthen our awareness of one another and the community as a whole cannot be underestimated.  “It is a topic which can energize, over which we agonize, and occasionally even compromise.” (Richard Hirsh) And, when confronted with questions of how to be connected and dialogue with each other, and rely on one another, it is crucial to the conversation.

 

“We have been called to create sacred community, for our own good, and for the good of the world.  All of the other things spiritual awakening, intellectual wisdom, a sense of identity and of knowing right from wrong, working to repair the world, all of those wonderful aspects of Judaism can only happen if we can further our connections to one another and make this thing called "community" work. 

 

The words from Pirke Avot, Insights of the Ancestors, formerly known as Chapters of the Fathers, are familiar to many of us: al shlosha dvarim haolam omed: the world – and therefore Jewish community stands on three things: Torah/study, Avodah/prayer, Gemilut Hasadim/right action, but what is CRITICAL about this statement, and perhaps not often acknowledged – is that these 3 pillars are RELATIONAL.  They inform each other even as they are important on their own.  This is the Jewish way. (Rabbi Steve Booth)

 

This Rosh Hashanah I ask you, how do you think that the synagogue can help you grow as a Jew, as a human being, as yourself?  In what ways can you be more aware of day to day happenings at WES, of the lives of those in our community, of the needs of the larger world as well?  I cannot promise you a live “news feed” of the activities and programs happening and changing all the time, but perhaps there is something you can do for yourself to know more about those who are sitting near you today.  What are their interests?  What matters for them Jewishly?  What keeps them up at night?

What do they hope for the future?

 

On this Rosh Hashanah, when we celebrate the ongoing creation of the world, and pray for renewal and return, we must ask ourselves, who are we and what are we called to be?  This question must not only be asked internally.  No, it must be asked with the understanding that sacred communities can be the “social networking device” of choice.

 

In the dizzying spin of the 21^st century, may we be able to envision our own communal future based on our deepest values. May our time spent with our loved ones be real and meaningful, and may we always have the courage to transform our lives, and raise our community to new spiritual heights.

           Shanah Tovah Tikatevu v’tichateimu.
May we all we inscribed for a good New Year!