Rabbi Nancy Flam, co-director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality tells a delightful story: “I know a woman who celebrates any New Year she can find: January 1st; Rosh HaShanah; the Chinese New Year; Tu B’Shevat (the Jewish New Year of the Trees); the 1st of Nissan at the beginning of spring; the new academic year; her own birthday.  Why her insistence on celebrating so many new years, asked the Rabbi? Answered her friend: “I can’t bare to pass up an opportunity to begin anew.”

Dear Friends,
There is, is there not, something markedly different about this day, this 1st day of Tishrei, compared with any other New Year’s Day.  For one, we don’t stay up all night counting down to that magic moment when the ball begins to drop, the seconds tick by, the champagne bottles burst their bubbly and a strange sounding song from a far-away land is sung.

No, on this New Year’s Day, fashionably dressed yet with an ancient text in hand, we habitually make our way to the house of worship to offer up a memorable liturgy that, if we pay very close attention, disturbs us; a litany of confessions and exhortations that, if taken seriously, compel us; time-hallowed melodies that, if we are attuned to, inspire us and, if and when all else fails, the piercing, recognizable shrills from an animal’s horn that finally wakes us up from our indifference, our absence, our irreverence, our disinterest, our failure.
“Uru yeshanim mi’shnatchem…”

“Awake from your slumber and rouse yourself from your lethargy. Scrutinize your deeds and return in repentance.  Carefully examine your souls; mend your ways and your actions; forsake the evil path and unworthy purposes.”
If that isn’t a wake up call of the highest order, I don’t know what is!  It’s a time-sensitive, soul-searching, gut-wrenching, heart-stopping cry to each and every one of us, no matter our fortune or misfortune in life.

Rosh HaShanah, my friends, is that annual wake up call that stirs our restless, rebellious soul and hopefully gives flight to imaginations of the spirit; a call that knows of nothing even remotely comparable. It is a New Year’s declaration of intent that is without equal. 
Whoever said, by the way, that “Shanah Tovah” means “Happy New Year”?  It most certainly doesn’t! It has little if anything to do with “happiness” although, granted, would we not want at least some if not all the days and nights of our lives to be “happy”? How realistic is that, though? Strictly speaking, “Shanah Tovah” means a “Good New Year”.  Therein lies the essential difference between, for example, January 1st on the secular calendar and 1st of Tishrei on the Jewish calendar.

We have to be very careful to make and understand the distinction between the two.
Rosh HaShanah, my fellow Beth Amniks, is all about waking up to what is most important, most critical, in life. 

God bless these United States of ours, a land overflowing not exactly with milk and honey, but rather with rampant materialism and excessive hedonism. That’s not to say that we are any different from other nationalities that boast as much if not more of their shamelessly and recklessly excessive lifestyles.   It’s not my intent this morning, on this Great Sabbath of the Soul, to castigate such greed, such behavior for, truth be told, we are all complicit in such matters to one extent or another.  My brief is not to pontificate about the levity of the States but rather to preach about the life of the spirit.  And I can only do that, my friends, through the prism of the synagogue that, to all intents and purposes, lies at the very heart of contemporary Jewish life, at the very core of the American Jewish experience.

Last week marked my 20th Anniversary at Beth Am and many of you who have been members here for that length of time or even longer will surely concur that the OYRT-BA of yesteryear, of 1989, is most certainly not the OYRT-BA of today, of 2009.
It isn’t nor should it be.  Many of us have witnessed, firsthand, a synagogue that has undergone a significant transformation in it’s ability to meet the multi-faceted needs of an ever more diverse, complex, heterogeneous population but a synagogue that I very much hope and pray has not abandoned nor forsaken it’s central, core values: religious pluralism; liturgical innovation; ritual expansion; intellectual stimulation; educational enhancement; textual conversation; pastoral attention; social action; personal inclusion.  I’m only too well aware of the fact that while we strenuously adhere to these and other important values, we still do have a long way to go before what Dr. Amy Sales, a preeminent scholar of synagogue life and change, has articulated; namely, that the synagogue is “…not just an operational system. It is also a deeply human system whose primary concern is its members; their Jewish lives, learning, and aspirations; and their connections to one another.”

Yes, I fully admit that from that point of view, and even after 62 years since its founding, Beth Am is still very much a work-in-progress!  Substantive, meaningful, incremental change has taken place in certain key areas of synagogue life but I would be the first to admit that, once again, we have a ways to go before becoming the successful synagogue of the future; namely, what Dr. Sales describes as a “...desire for a sense of community…confronting the inarticulateness of belief and ideology…reinventing worship...and certainly building relationships within the congregational network that ward off the “fear of sitting alone.” ”

The fact that American Jewish identity today is characterized by American individualism, the so-called “sovereign self” and by freedom of choice, doesn’t exactly help matters either but it does provide us with an invaluable means by which to fashion the successful Temple of tomorrow.

Dr. Sales does not shy away from the fact that “pervasive personalism” is rampant and that synagogues, whether they like it or not, cannot afford to ignore such an ethos yet must, at the same time, maintain its core value of community.  Listen to her words: “…the synagogue might reconceptualize itself not as a singular congregation that gathers together a few times a year but as a network in which members attach to and connect with their own niche group in the organization on a regular basis.”

Beth Am, I believe that we have been diligent in offering such choices (otherwise referred to in social research circles as “network nodes”) for those of our members who want more and expect more for their shekel, you should excuse me!  Long gone are the days when everybody was expected to conform to a take-it-or-leave-it approach to worship and ritual.  We have at last begun to establish sacred networks that maximize opportunities for real, serious engagement. 

This Temple of yours allows for a multiplicity of entry points that run the gamut from the profound to the prosaic and everything in between: whether singing in the sanctuary; studying the weekly Torah portion in the chapel; articulating prayer goals in the religious school classroom; learning an aleph from a bet in the pre-school classroom; participating in a blood drive in the auditorium; preparing food-for-friends in the kitchen; purchasing an exquisite tallit from the gift shop; buying from BAFTY’s bake sale in the main lobby; shmoozing and sipping from your favorite latte while accessing your emails in the coffee bar; getting down and dirty by tending the garden out front; familiarizing yourself with the different species of plants in the Saltzman Family Biblical Garden out back; strolling silently and reverently through the soon-to-be-completed Sara Burke Memorial Garden in the inner courtyard; attending or leading a shiva minyan in a house of mourning; entertaining residents at the Abramson Center for Jewish Life; participating in an interfaith Habitat For Humanity program at a local church; driving a congregant to a worship service or medical appointment; crashing an adult learning class on a Sunday morning or, if you insist, just sitting quietly reading a good book in our new library location or joining in on an impromptu conversation with fellow congregants.  And yes, even playing bridge or mah jongg! The list is endless….

I would argue that each and every one of these points of entry into our community are authentic and valid – admittedly, some more than others - but they all point to an incontrovertible fact: that we are all in search of healing and wholeness; that we are all in need of a genuine community that addresses the most sublime questions and, yes, even the most mundane realities of everyday life.

Dear friends: we have to begin articulating a common terminology that addresses the most fundamental issues of the day.  Rabbi Dr. Larry Hoffman, arguably the Reform movement’s most recognized and acclaimed proponent of transformational change in congregational life today (and who will, incidentally, be returning to Beth Am next spring to facilitate a fundamentally different Scholar-in-Residence weekend), believes that we need to be in sync with what’s happening in, of all places, America’s most successful churches: the need, in other words, to be purpose-driven, not by statistical data but by elevated principles; not by material culture but by theological purpose.  We must establish a climate, he contends, that fosters “sacred intentionality.” In other words, what he once overheard a pastor imploring his parishioners: “We are here to do one thing; to change lives by and through the presence of God.”

Rabbi Hoffman believes that we are at a crossroads and facing a perfect storm.  How we convert a crisis of the moment into an intentional message of deliberate collaboration will determine whether we sink or swim.  He warns us that the next generation is just around the corner and that we had better be ready for them! Baby boomers (and we know who we are!) want and expect the big picture; namely, that experiential spirituality is “in” and established religion is “out”. There’s a threat to my job if ever there was one! They are interested in a message that is both excellent and authentic at the same time. They are more interested in ritual than their parents were and yearn for informal connections. They shun judgmentalism and embrace individualism.

By the way, it was at this point in my first draft of today’s sermon that Randy sat down at the computer, read my remarks, turned around and said: “Okay, so what’s your point?!”
Listen to Rabbi Hoffman’s own words: “The only thing we can do, the only thing we should do, the only thing we must do, is provide a significant search for the sacred.”  That, in a nutshell, is the point!

My point is that while Beth Am, like the vast majority of synagogues, has been defined historically as a “functional” entity categorized by consumerism, passivity, detachment, resistance to change and non-reflective leadership, our charge, our obligation is to transform our community into a “visionary” congregation that demonstrates sacred purpose, a participatory culture, meaningful engagement, innovative disposition and reflective leadership.

That’s the point. Granted, it’s a case of much easier said than done but what alternative do we have if we want to engage one another in a uniquely defined journey that is wholesome, purposeful and intentional at one and the same time?
Don’t tell me that you’ll find the purity of faith, the sanctity of human life, the nobility of ethical conduct, at the country club or the fitness club and don’t embarrass yourself (never mind insulting me) by ever trying to equate either one with synagogue membership!

I don’t wish to begrudge any one of you from having an impressive handicap on the golf course or a great workout at the gym (I should be so lucky!) but I’d be the happiest rabbi in the world if I knew that the drive, enthusiasm and determination shown by so many on the fairway or the tennis court or the treadmill could be exercised here (figuratively speaking that is!) by exploring with us the unsurpassed grandeur of Jewish thought, by discovering with us the unparalleled beauty of our Jewish heritage and by journeying with us as we unlock the doors into the Jewish world of tomorrow.

Past.  Present.  Future:    Together!
My point is that eternal values are nurtured not with a golf club or a tennis racket in your hands but with the dreams, the aspirations, the promise of the generations of our people who came before us, standing on our shoulders.  That’s the difference between driving and davening, between playing and praying, between scoring and shvitizing on the one hand and studying and shocheling on the other!  That’s the difference between placing an inverted baseball cap on your head and balancing a kippah above your “punim”.  That’s the difference between cladding yourself in the latest, fashionable, aerobic outfit on the one hand and slowly, thoughtfully enveloping yourself in your beloved, late grandfather’s tallis on the other hand that has, despite all else, withstood the test of time!  That’s the difference between carrying a neat scorecard in your pocket and opening up the well worn, slightly torn, tear-soaked, wine-stained pages of a siddur entrusted into your care by those who came before you.

So, what’s my point?  Just this: it doesn’t have to be either or!  Whoever said that you couldn’t belong to a club and identify with a synagogue at one and the same time?  You absolutely can!  Again, just be very careful not to confuse the one enterprise with the other. 

You “belong” to a club but you “identify” with a congregation.
All I ask is that you understand the essential nature of each and the difference between them. I’d be the first to admit that they can successfully coexist one alongside the other so long as you don’t confuse the temporal individualism of the one with the sanctified communalism of the other.

Game! Set! Match!  ~  Br’chu! Amen! Selah!
Let me tell you a dirty, little secret of which I’m not particularly proud: I hardly ever use my fitness club membership.  Whose fault is that?  Mine and mine alone.
The facility offers everything I could wish for. I’m just never there and I’m the poorer for it. I’m to blame, nobody else. It’s my responsibility to change that behavior.  Period.

My dear friends: it is now common knowledge that I will be on a 3 month sabbatical from January 1st to March 31st of next year.  I would be dishonest if I told you that I’m not excited at the prospect of taking some much needed time for myself.  I’m extremely grateful to our professional staff and our Executive Officers for granting me this privilege.  Many of you know that because of domestic circumstances surrounding my oldest daughter, Hayley’s health, I might well be prevented from traveling afar. However, the women of Leib have given me their blessing and encouraged me to apply for admission into an 18 month intensive study and retreat program that begins mid January with the first of four, 5-day retreats at the American Jewish University’s Brandeis-Bardin campus in Los Angeles.  No, I will not be away for months at a time!  In fact, other than the four winter and summer retreats, 20 days in all, my participation in this special rabbinic leadership program will be locally based. As I wrote at the conclusion of my application (which was accepted, by the way): “...my hope is that my participation will invigorate my intellectual and inter-personal commitment to the highest standards of professional life; allow me access to hitherto unchartered texts; establish new and deep friendships; motivate me to establish daily patterns of meditative practice and renew my relationships to those I love.”  Needless to say, I fully expect that, over the course of time, I will share the fruits of my newly acquired learning and practices with those of you who, like myself, seek spiritual growth and insight and have expressed a yearning to cultivate the inner life as an essential component of our Jewish journey.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs of Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY tells the following story:  “A few years back, a woman who had been an active lay leader wanted to meet to talk about worship at the temple.  I knew she was from a classical Reform background, so I was nervous about the meeting because I knew she wasn’t fulfilled with our ritual experiments.  “I hate all the worship changes”, she told me. “But I came to SharingShabbat with my grandson, and now I get what is going on.  I don’t love it. It’s not for me, but I saw the light in my grandson’s eyes, and now I won’t stand in the way as I had done before.”  She understood what was behind the changes, Rabbi Jacobs wrote.  This was one of the best moments of my rabbinate.  She confirmed that we were on the right road to our Jewish future.”

My dear friends, at the end of the day, I can only hope that you, too, get what is going on.
That when all is said and done, you too won’t stand in the way as you might have before: the way to purposeful Jewish living and to a meaningful Jewish way of life.

Will you also confirm that we are on the right road to our Jewish future?

Rabbi Leib's 2009/5770 Rosh Hashanah Sermon - second day
Many of you, I’m sure, have paid a visit to Israel’s most famous medical facility otherwise known throughout the world as Hadassah University Medical Center.

It’s a sobering, fascinating and highly revealing experience for any visitor for it remains one of the Jewish State’s most prized and watched litmus tests regarding the dispensation of excellent, affordable, accessible and, most especially, equitable medical care to Jews and Muslims, to Israelis and Palestinians, alike.
If there is one institution in Israel today that can, on a daily basis, attest to healing, teaching and research transcending any and all religious, ethnic and cultural divisions, it has to be “Hadassah”. 

It is, to all intents and purposes, a grand, stunningly successful experiment transcending the limitations, the setbacks and the inadequacies of Middle East politics.  Indeed, this trail blazing facility embodies the philosophy that, ultimately, medicine serves as a bridge to peace.
No visit to Hadassah hospital would be complete, however, without visiting its famed Abbell synagogue distinguished for its stained glass windows depicting the 12 ancient tribes of Israel designed by the incomparable Marc Chagall.

Some of you might know that one of those universally-recognized windows, the tribe of Issachar, remains incomplete – deliberately so – having sustained a bullet hole from Jordanian shelling during the 1967 “Six Day War”.  It was decided to leave the window that way.
I think that there’s something extremely symbolic about a magnificent, multi-colored, Chagall window, located in the very heart of a famous hospital no less, that has been irreparably damaged by the hideous consequences of war.

It’s as if to say that, within an American context, (again, symbolically speaking that is), that despite breath-taking advancements in medical technology; innovative surgical procedures; cutting-edge research and unparalleled standards of patient care, there still remains a gaping “hole”; there still remains a glaring deficiency in an otherwise vast, complicated, inefficient, inadequate and prohibitively expensive health care system.
Here, at least, are some of the facts: no less than 46.6 million Americans (15.9% of the population) do not have health insurance coverage.  To put this in perspective, 46.6 million is greater than the populations of the 24 smallest states, combined.  This number, by the way, highlights a 5 year increase in the numbers of uninsured from 41.2 million in 2001.  The average cost of a family health plan rose from $6,300 in 2000 to over $10,000 in 2004 and currently exceeds $11,000.  Strange, then why, pray tell, am I paying much more than double that figure??!!

Interestingly, the U.S. is one of only two fully industrialized countries, along with South Africa, that do not ensure that all citizens have health insurance, either through a national, universal health care program or by forcing employers to pay for health insurance for their employees.

Needless to say, minority populations lack health insurance at a much greater rate than the general population. In addition, a staggering 8.3 million children, in this country, are currently uninsured.

An estimated 11 million non-elderly families and 12 million elderly families have inadequate health care coverage, spending more than 10% of their annual income on health care.  These Americans face the toughest challenge because the government does not consider them at risk but because of high premiums and co-pays, many under-insured Americans are forced to choose between feeding their family or taking their medicine.  That incontrovertible fact, alone, is a terrible blight on this country. 
It is simply incomprehensible, it is unconscionable,  that in America, arguably the richest and most technologically advanced country in the world today, fellow Americans are still forced to choose, on a daily basis, whether to feed their loved ones or take their medicine. That is nothing short of scandalous.
Dear friends, medical care is not simply another commodity. It’s not just about dollars and cents but is a profound moral issue of life and death. It is fundamentally about whether we are a community that values the life of each person – poor, rich or middle class.

Medical care is about saving and improving the quality of lives.  And I know that more than just a few of you in the sanctuary today are professionally committed to that noble and illustrious calling.      I unreservedly doff my kipah to each and every one of Beth Am’s innumerable health care professionals who go about their careers, each and every day, with a sense of pride, excellence, care and sensitivity.  God bless each and every one of you for bringing restorative healing, renewed hope and, please God, revitalized health to so many.
Dear friends, I’m not in a position to argue the merits of the current national debate regarding health care reform from a political, economic or medical point of view.  I don’t have the clout or the knowledge to do so but I can argue the case, from a Jewish textual and historical perspective, for comprehensive, affordable and sustainable health care reform from a religious point of view.

The Torah does not outline specific public policies around the provisions of health care but it does make it clear that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith.  Throughout the Torah, God shows a special concern for the vulnerable and sick and acts to lift them up.  It teaches that society organize in such a way that all members have genuine access to the resources needed to live a dignified life, as well as provide for those who are unable to care for themselves.

It is for this reason that Maimonides, himself, the great 12th century medieval legal scholar, philosopher and physician, codifies no less than ten communal service requirements for a town so that a talmid chacham, a wise person, can live there (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot 4:23).  First on that list is none other than a doctor – fundamentally, a society must provide health care for its citizens before any other work can begin.  Without the physical health of a society, there is no productivity.  Furthermore, almost all self-governing Jewish communities throughout history set up systems to ensure that all their citizens had access to health care.  Doctors were required to reduce their rates for poor patients and when that was insufficient, communal subsidies were established.  (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 249:16)

In Judaism, we are taught that all humanity was created B’tzelem Elohim, in the divine image.  God did not divide creation between the sick and the well; between those who can afford health care and those who cannot; between those who are entitled to health care and those who are not.  Rather, God created us all, endowed us all with equal rights, and charged us with the responsibility to be partners in the act of healing.

Our religious tradition teaches us that an individual human life is of infinite value and that pikuach nefesh, the preservation of life, supersedes almost all other considerations.  By assuring that everyone has access to quality and affordable health care, we are affirming the dignity of each human being and enabling each person to regain health and enjoy the dignity of productive work.  How, then, can we even doubt that protecting health is nothing less than a sacred obligation for the individual and the community?

Dear friends, I don’t like preaching politics from the High Holyday pulpit but I beg to differ with those who feel that the issue of health care is just that.  No, it is fundamentally human. It is fundamentally Jewish.  But even more than that, the quest for health care is a Godly issue.  The rabbis of the Talmud (Sotah 14a) struggled to explicate the verse: “Acharei Adonai Eloheychem Telechu”, “You shall walk after the Lord your God.” How, exactly, does one walk after God?!  What does that mean?  Just as God clothes the naked, so you clothe the naked.  Just as God visits the sick, so you visit the sick.  Just as God comforts the mourners, so you comfort the mourners.  Protecting those most vulnerable in society is a tangible way to understand God’s role in the world.  Staring people in the face, we instantly see reflections of ourselves and of God.

When President Obama addressed no less than a 1000 rabbis via a conference call just one month ago, he affirmed that health care reform should not be viewed as strictly partisan in nature, nor should the debate be seen as a Republican or Democratic one.  It is, fundamentally, a personal one.
Can anyone in this sanctuary today say that he or she does not know somebody who has been adversely affected in some way by an issue with health insurance?  Does anyone not know someone who has been crippled by the cost of health insurance?

The critical issue of American health care is Jewish precisely because it is human – it affects every person sitting here, today.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if practically every single household in our congregation has been touched by the problems of our health care system.

Make no mistake about it: it raises the most central moral values resonant in our tradition.
The President told us on that conference call that “we should be affirming fairness and justice in our health care system along with common sense values.  Yet the fact of the matter is that at any given time one fifth of the population is vulnerable in this the richest nation on earth.”

It’s hardly surprising that a disproportionately large number of Jewish men and women have devoted their careers to medicine and the healing professions.  It is surely one of the great anomalies of this world that despite our relatively small numbers, despite public opinion that suggests – so erroneously, so egregiously – that Jews are basically selfish and that they think only of and for themselves; yet nothing can be further from the truth.  The Jewish historical tradition has always and consistently been towards helping others and alleviating their plight, their misery, their distress.

“Our Rabbis taught: we sustain the non-Jewish poor with the Jewish poor; visit the non-Jewish sick with the Jewish sick and bury the non-Jewish dead with the Jewish dead, “mipnei darchei shalom”, for the sake of peace. (Gittin 61b)

Jewish lives are innately tied up with those of the general population – it is a privilege and responsibility.
“Have we become so fearful and self-centered”, President Obama asked us, “that we’re not able to help our fellow Americans?  Hope and generosity must trump self-interest and cynicism.”

There is no doubt that modern public policy is inherently a political animal but the issue at hand right now – sweeping across the American landscape – is so central to our very humanity.  More than politics alone, the very cause of health care in America, much like the call of the shofar, is an ethical siren to us all.
In no other industrialized country do 20,000 people die each year because they can’t afford to see a doctor; nowhere else do 700,000 a year go bankrupt because of their medical bills. When it comes to health care policy, the U.S. is the bogeyman of the world.  When considering whether a government has a moral obligation to provide access to health care for all its citizens, every developed country except the United States has reached the same conclusion.

In the words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Medicine is prayer in the form of a deed…The body is a sanctuary, the doctor is a priest…The act of healing is the highest form of imitation of God.”
My wife Randy and I understand the power of these words from personal experience; they resonate loudly even if not always, triumphantly.  As many of you know, our oldest daughter, Hayley, is beset with a number of very complicated and chronic illnesses that have left her neurological and autonomic systems severely compromised and suppressed.

I simply cannot begin to imagine what our lives would be like if we didn’t have access to quality health care and the benefits of comprehensive health insurance.  Yet, with all those advantages in place, we have still endured the trappings of bureaucratic red tape and the indignities of one petition of another: prolonged hospital stays because of a denial of specific medical equipment for the home; denial of medications; initial denial of home nursing which was thankfully reversed due to a formal letter of intent submitted to the Chief Counsel of our insurance company by none other than our President.  (moral of the story: you don’t mess with Joanne Levin!) Hayley will, please God, be 21 in November but the attainment of that age will no longer entitle us to automatic nursing care that has been a veritable godsend these past many months.  And so we still await the required waiver…

The battle is far from over: the politicians scramble for cover, the bureaucrats protest loudly, the lobbyists pull no punches, the pharmaceuticals call the shots, the physicians are exhausted, the nurses are over-extended while the patients lick their wounds.

There’s a well-known though curious Talmudic story (Sanhedrin 98a) about the Messiah’s return to earth.
People, naturally, are anxious yet excited to want to catch a glimpse of the world’s savior.  But the Messiah is not to be found anywhere.  Word eventually gets out that he’s to be found at the gate of the city.  How will it be possible to identify him?  Replies Elijah the prophet: “He sits among paupers afflicted with disease.”  What’s the Messiah doing among them?  “He unties and ties their bandages, one by one.”

While, admittedly, this is simply an allegory it points to the indisputable notion that God’s presence is best felt among those who are in need of healing; refuat hanefesh u’refuat haguf, a healing of both soul and of body.
May this great nation of ours find its moral compass as it seeks to redefine, amidst the cacophony of hateful speech, loud voices and angry tongues, one of the most important if not the most important issue of our day.

America: find your pulse and take heart!