The True Sanctuary of the Jewish People, Then and Now

Sermon, Shabbat Tetzaveh 5782

This Shabbat, as Carol has told you so eloquently, we receive the commandments regarding the lighting of the Ner Tamid, the eternal light.  That light was kindled in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and later the Temple in Jerusalem, and it was kept burning perpetually through the efforts of the priests.  It is symbolized today in every synagogue in the world, our unique Ner Tamid representing God’s presence as every Ner Tamid in every temple in the world does as well.  It is a reminder that the Shechinah is always available right here, in our congregation and every other one that worships God.

Which brings up an important question about synagogues today.  I’ve been thinking the last few weeks about the situation of the Jewish community of America in the wake of the Coronavirus shutdown and the remote experiences that have prevailed in its wake.  At heart, I am always optimistic about Judaism in the United States and believe that the synagogue as an institution remains vital for the future of Jews as a people and Judaism as a religion in this incredibly important American Jewish community.  But there will be changes in how we “do Jewish,” and it’s valuable to explore what those changes are likely to be.

There are somewhere around 6 million Jews in America today, depending on how you count us and who thinks they are Jewish.  That makes this the second largest Jewish community in the world, and nearly equal to the population of Jews in Israel, which passed the US in total Jewish numbers only a few years ago.  The American Jewish community remains one of, if not the most successful Jewish community in all of world history, with incredible accomplishments in every field of endeavor, and an infrastructure of synagogues, schools, Jewish community centers and Jewish institutions of every kind are spread across this huge nation. There are Jewish communities of importance in every major and minor city, and there are genuinely significant Jewish organizations in every state. 

Rabbis, cantors, educators, and Jewish administrators are trained in respected institutions of higher Jewish learning, and good Jewish camps for children and teens exist in every region of the country.  There is a strong Jewish presence on every major college campus, often led and supported by two or even three different national institutions.  Support for Israel, one of the central pillars of the American Jewish community’s efforts for 75 years, has reached historic highs, at least among the larger, non-Jewish American population.  In spite of rising Antisemitism, individual Jews are accepted and important at every level of American society, from politics to business to entertainment and culture.  All should be well.  

So why does it feel like we are at an important crossroads, and that all this evident success hides a more serious problem underneath it all? And why do the events of the last couple of years point to underlying weaknesses in our national Jewish communities that illustrate that a kind of hollowing out, an undermining of the entire enterprise may be afoot?

Of course, we Jews, with our long history of tsoris, of persecutions and disasters, always can find the black cloud surrounding every silver lining.  Still, there are three areas where the challenges facing the American Jewish community have become evident: aging, assimilation, and the diminishing of the central institution of Judaism, the synagogue.

There have been many efforts in recent years to focus attention on the aging of the American Jewish world.  Americans in general are getting older, on average, since we have fewer children and allow fewer immigrants into the country, many of whom do tend to have more children.  Jews are, in fact, one of the oldest religious demographics in America.  Part of this is simply the graying of the Baby Boom generation, the fact that for non-Orthodox Jews—you could say for non-ultra-Orthodox Jews—having more than one or perhaps two children is just something that doesn’t happen much.  The math is simple: there are fewer Reform and Conservative Jewish kids to replenish the Jewish community.  And while there are more Orthodox kids, proportionally, most of them are born to ultra-Orthodox families.  They are certainly Jews, and very active within their own ultra-religious sphere, but their involvement in the larger Jewish community is quite limited.  You don’t typically find ultra-Orthodox Jews participating in larger Jewish causes or organizations.   

After aging, the second issue is the one we have been dealing with for, oh, 40 years or so: it’s that many Jews are choosing not to affiliate with the Jewish community in any specific way or are simply walking away from their Jewish identity in every way.  Assimilation has been a grave concern for American Jewish leaders for better than a generation.  We used to focus on the dangers of intermarriage.  But with the Jewish-non-Jewish marriage rate for non-Orthodox Jews now around 70%, as it has been for a decade, we have also discovered that it is possible to raise committed Jews in intermarried homes.  It turns out that two Jews married to one another have the capacity not to join synagogues or support Jewish institutions, while a couple with one Jew and one non-Jew can become highly active pillars of the Jewish community.  There is no particular consistency to this.

We also used to worry that we Jews would be loved to death because of the ease with which we had come to be part of American society in the absence of the prevailing antisemitism of earlier generations.  But it turns out that the larger issue is the fact that we haven’t done a great job of making Judaism integral to the lives of non-Orthodox Jews.  There is so much meaning, purpose and joy in living a Jewish life.  But both within our families, and in our institutions, we haven’t succeeded in making the case that it’s at least as important to be actively Jewish as it is to be, say, a big fan of your sports team, or a fan of a rock band, or up to date on the latest streaming TV shows.  And that means we have to up our Jewish game, if you will, and work creatively to compete—not with other synagogues of Jewish organizations, but with the larger culture.

And finally, the gravest danger to the American Jewish community today does not come from rising Antisemitism—Antisemitism is real, and dangerous, and of course distressing, but not truly damaging in any larger sense.  It must be resisted and responded to forcefully, whether it is in the form of an Amnesty International report or a congressperson’s hostile remarks.  But, if we are honest about it, in today’s America it is no more than a frustrating irritant for the vast majority of us.

No, the greater danger to the future of American Judaism comes from the erosion of support and involvement in American Jewish synagogues.  There has been a long process devaluing the central institution of Judaism for the past 2000 years, insisting that we don’t need temples to be Jewish, that every idea and Jewish cause supersedes the need for synagogues.  There are Jews who believe that Jewish values without Jewish practice or study is the future for all Jews.  There are many Jews who are so closely attached to supporting Israel that they don’t do anything else Jewish—not Shabbat, not festival observances, not Jewish study or ritual or even tzedakah, Jewish charity, in any form.  And there are some Jews who are so focused on remembering the Holocaust that they don’t have time to go temple or pray.

There are even some Jews so enamored of Jewish ideals that they believe that their principal mission as Jews is to attack Jewish institutions and causes that don’t live up to the highest Jewish ideals and ideas—that is, that it’s more important to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians than it is to belong to a synagogue or support help for the Jewish needy.  I have always believed that in order to criticize a Jewish institution you should be part of it first, have an investment in its mission and only then seek to improve it.

And of course there are a variety of Jewish organizations that insist that they represent the best way to be Jewish nowadays: by giving to a philanthropy, or a hospital, or a university, or attending a conference, or participating in an online forum or social media interest group.  That’s the best way to be Jewish—not by attending or supporting an old-fashioned organization like a synagogue.

Look, there are many ways to express your Judaism.  But the only way to do so in a genuine community of belief and practice, of prayer, study, communal spirit and social justice work, is through a synagogue.  I have said it before, but I’ll say it again: if you had all the many forms of Jewish expression available in this nation, all the many fine American Jewish organizations and interest groups, all the pro-Israel and anti-Antisemitism institutions and causes, but no synagogues at all—well then, in one generation Judaism would disappear here.  And if you took away all those great organizations, all those valuable interest groups and social media platforms and political action groups and only had synagogues—well, then Judaism would still continue in a vital way in future generations.

But I also believe that those synagogues cannot just be virtual.

I have heard people—rabbis—express the grave concern that since COVID-19 hit congregants have come to realize that they can attend services online while they eat dinner in their sweatpants, and this means, in part, that a lot of them will never come back to services.  And that since they can attend glamorous, over-publicized synagogue services in New York or Los Angeles online, they won’t come back to their local shuls.

That may prove to be true for some folks.  But I’m just as certain that we human beings need actual live contact with other actual live human beings, that virtual community is not the same as living community, and that the ways that synagogues can continue to flourish is for us to be the warm, welcoming places we like to say that we really are. 

Sure, we’ll need to be better at technology—but that’s getting easier, not harder, every day.  And being online provides a great service—no pun intended—for people who are housebound or traveling or don’t have such a congregational community in their own locations.  But there is no substitute for attending a good temple, and if we wish Judaism to continue to matter in America, we need to shift resources from the cluttered cornucopia of Jewish organizations and institutions and support the only one that really guarantees the future vitality of Jewish life in America—the synagogues. 

And I don’t mean the ultra-Orthodox ones, where women are devalued and involvement in the Jewish community means supporting only their own organizations and institutions.  I mean the synagogue communities that truly reflect contemporary Jewish values of openness, acceptance, and commitment to social action, that are egalitarian and warm and creative, that respect serious contemporary scholarship, that teach everyone, and that have music that connects modern Jews to our amazing heritage.

The ones that truly keep that Ner Tamid burning in this world. 

May our commitment as a community to the vitality and purpose of the synagogue be replenished in the post-pandemic world.  And may we all participate in keeping the flame of divine presence and promise, of justice and holiness, of spirit and meaning, burning brightly.