Why Do We Need a Sanctuary?
Sermon Vayakhel-Pekudei 5783
Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha
Ayelet Claire Cohon’s Babynaming
What a special night this is for our family, and for our congregation, and I am so grateful for all the many gifts that we have received from all of you. It is such a blessing to have my father Rabbi Baruch and son Boaz and grandson Ezra, Boaz’s family Catherine and Valentina and Isaac, and through the magic of Facebook broadcasting our son Gabriel and daughter Cipora, and my siblings, Rachel the amazingly helpful Deborah, as well as friends spread about the country here tonight online as well. My friend Alan Lieban, who has shared so many life-cycle events with me over our friendship since high school days is here from Los Angeles, too. Such a simcha here at Beit Simcha!
I am also so grateful to Sophie’s wonderful family, and the way they have jumped in completely helpfully during Ayelet’s early life: Kathy and SD Khalsa, and Ester and Jay Leutenberg have been rocks in our sometimes unsteady and definitely unslept weeks.
The only objection I have is that in spite of my many invitations they have chosen to skip coming over for the 2am-6am shifts at night…
Speaking of late nights, I haven’t done this in a while, but I was watching Saturday Night Live during one of Ayelet Claire’s late evening, um, concerts recently. Saturday Night Live has become one of the longest-running television shows in American history, headed for its 50th Anniversary soon. That’s remarkable to think about, since it began as a subversive, counter-cultural comedic program that aired in the middle of the night when no one was supposed to be watching. Lorne Michaels, who created it, of course is Jewish, and he’s still producing it as the conclusion of season 48 comes up.
While Saturday Night Live hasn’t always been great, a few of its routines have become part of our permanent cultural memory. Weekend Update’s smarmy take on the week’s news, John Belushi’s various Samurai routines, Eddie Murphy’s Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, and Adam Sandler’s Operaman sketch—and of course his Hanukkah Song started on SNL. And, in keeping with the theme of babynaming tonight, can anyone who saw it ever forget the amazing fake commercial for a car whose ride was so smooth that a mohel was brought in to perform a bris in the back seat while it was rolling along? A great moment in popular culture as Jews became more and more mainstream in America.
Now I recall, in particular, a comedic routine from a fake Catholic priest on SNL, the remarkable Father Guido Sarducci, that he called the five-minute university. The idea, he said, was to teach you in five minutes what the average college graduate remembers five years after he or she graduates. For example, at the 5 minute university if you studied Spanish he would teach you the question, “Como Esta Usted?” and the answer was “Muy Bien.” As he said, if you took two years of college Spanish that’s all you’d remember five years later.
For Economics, he would teach you the phrase, “Supply and Demand.” That’s it, all you’d remember five years after you graduate.
And of course, fake Priest Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University would have a Theology Department. There he would teach the answer to the question: Where is God? The answer: “God is everywhere.” Why? Because “God likes You.” A combination of religious theology and Disney.
Now that routine comes to mind whenever we read a Torah portion focused on the creation of a central shrine for worshipping God. I mean, if God is truly everywhere, why do we need a Tabernacle at all?
I mean if God is everywhere, which all monotheistic religions believe, why is it better to come to some building or shrine to offer up our prayers? Why can’t we just go for a hike or walk on a beach or just say what we need to say wherever we happen to be?
It’s a valid question. The truth is, we can of course pray to God anywhere we are, and at any time of day or night. If God exists, and God is listening, what premium is placed on going to a temple, shul or synagogue and offering up prayers there instead of in our kitchen or den or in our cars?
The answer is that of course we can pray to God anywhere and at any time. The purpose of a sanctuary, a place dedicated to prayer and service to God, is to provide a beautiful, unique location for the community to gather in prayer. It is also the way we give those who wish to seek God, and holiness a special place to join their voices with others who are also looking for meaning and purpose.
Assemble the people, Moses is told in our Torah portion of Vayakhel-Pekudei, gather them together so that they might worship Me. And so it happens.
You know, that first Tabernacle in the Wilderness, we are told, was built from the Terumah, the freewill offerings of the multitude of Israelites, gifts they gave in order to create a magnificently special place for God’s spirit to connect with us. Both the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem were regarded as the most fabulous buildings that existed in their day in the world. But what made them so special was not the gold and silver, not the elegantly embroidered fabrics, not the giant bronze and copper basins or the magnificent altar or the huge pillars. What made these sanctuaries central to the life of our people was the simple fact that in these holy places, created through the best efforts of the most talented carpenters, jewelers, metalworkers, artists, craftspeople and weavers to create a gorgeous place, what made them special after all that incredible work was that the divine presence, the Shechinah, the literal sense of God being there, was clear to all.
This was where you could find God most intensely, and most consistently. This was the place to connect to the holy One, to unify with what is eternal and sacred and ineffably magnificent. This was where you went to apologize for your mistakes, to celebrate wonderful festivals, to join in true community with other people like you, and unlike you, in holiness and purpose.
Of course, you could talk to God in your kitchen, or barn, or in the fields or orchards, or on a city street somewhere. But if you really wanted to sense God’s presence the Temple was where you needed to be.
That same truth exists for us today. Yes, we can pray to God anywhere—at home, at work, in a restaurant, in a car, on a bus or plane or even on a bicycle. But if we want to feel that presence of God, to experience true holiness, we must do so in community in a sacred place.
And the very best of these places help raise our hearts and minds and lives to a newer, higher level. That’s what a great synagogue can do, at its best. And its best is what we must always strive for—our ancestors certainly did, as we see in the Torah portions. But it’s also what we must do, for now it’s on us to try to accomplish what they did.
Asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham we were told recently in the Torah portion of Terumah, build Me a sanctuary and I will dwell among you—that’s a pledge that things can always be made good, that we are always able to come into grace and blessing, if we build that temple. God will be in our midst, always, and that we can find God best in community in a holy place. In our own temple, our sanctuary, our place for the Shechinah to dwell.
Of course, God is everywhere; thank you, Father Sarducci. But if you want to access the spirit of Divine blessing, if you have the desire to experience true community of purpose, and prayer, to reach to the highest level that exists—well then you need a true sanctuary. To pray together; to mourn together; to learn together; and perhaps most of all, to join together in life-cycle celebrations like tonight.
As our Torah portions affirm, and as the long sweep of Jewish history attests, and as we hope to be able to confirm soon for our own congregation: we need a temple of our own.
May we find that place of holiness and blessing, and join together there, always, in community and in prayers of thanksgiving and peace and, especially, great joy.
Ken Yehi Ratson.