Recent Sermons

Sacred Community

Kol Nidre 5786
Congregation B’nai Jacob

Thinking about the complexities of synagogue life today, my mother recently asked me if I believed that there is such a thing as Kehilla Kedosha — holy or sacred community. It is a good question. In fact the traditional initials designating a synagogue are ק׳׳ק standing for kehilla kedosha or sacred community. A synagogue is, or at least aspires to be, by definition, a holy place.

I want to explore what we mean by sacred community, but before we do that I want to be clear about what kehilla kedosha is not. It is not a building, even one in which holy rites are performed. Both of our Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, and the Jewish people persevered and flourished. Sacred community is not a building nor is it an endowment, a bank account, or a balance sheet. Turns out holiness can’t be banked or bought.

But what about community? Is community in and of itself holy? We are all, after all, most of us, part of many communities. The Woodbridge community; the New Haven community; the pool club; the JCC; the community of our kids’ soccer team or Amity High. These are all communities in the sense that people are connected and share some sense of reciprocal responsibility. Many of these communities are wonderful, even life-giving, but today I am asking if they are sacred communities? To be a sacred community, I think, means that in addition to connection and mutual responsibility, we share a sense of sacred purpose. Some of these communities do.

When God redeemed us from Egypt, He said we would be a mamlechet cohanim and a goy kadosh — a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Some people understand these words as descriptive — by virtue of God’s choice, by virtue of our redemption from Egypt — we are a holy nation. We don’t have to do anything else. No need for striving or learning, no self-examination, no exhortations to do better, to open our hearts. We’re just automatically holy.

Most commentators do not read the words that way. Instead, these words are understood as aspirational — we have the possibility of becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, if we act with kindness and mercy, if we make our communities places in which people are welcomed in their full selves, places in which we show up for one another, places in which we set an example of goodness such that one might feel that God dwells here.

The clearest example we have of the creation of such a community is in the building of the mishkan, the sacred tabernacle in the desert, which stretches over a full 2/5 of the entire Torah. God commands the building of a portable sanctuary in the desert in which he will dwell and the people respond, bringing gifts — gold, silver, copper, crimson, blue and purple threads, jewels, skins — weaving, dying, soldering, sewing, building — whatever each could contribute to create this holy place. According to the Torah, the people brought so much that Moses had to say, “Stop. Enough.” They had more than they needed.

Did God need a golden ark and cherubim or richly embroidered tapestries to have a fitting home? Doubtful. God says, Make me a mikdash — a holy place — and I will dwell within you. עשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם. The purpose of building a mishkan seems to be that the people will be the ones who are transformed by its creation. By building a holy sanctuary, we and not it will become holy vessels in which God can dwell.

The Torah says that each person brought asher yidvenu libo — what their heart moved them to bring. What made these gifts gifts of the heart? Each person brought what they could, or what they felt moved to bring. Each person brought a unique gift, each contributed what they could, and the result was a beautiful and sacred whole. Somehow it was not a potluck dinner to which everyone brought lasagna. Each gift was valued; each was necessary. The communal project literally depended on each person donating in his or her own way, just as the splendor of the natural world depends on the infinite variety of its creatures, flora, and fauna. In a similar way, according to the Sfat Emet, each Jew is associated with a particular portion of the Torah and the Torah becomes whole when we are joined in all of our resplendent difference.

Rebbe Nachman takes this idea a little further suggesting that what the Torah means by asher yidvenu libo is not that they brought what their heart moved them to bring, but rather they brought their hearts themselves, that is their essential goodness, the unique inner point of each heart. The mishkan was built and made sacred not from the goodness of the gift but rather from the goodness of each person.

What made these gifts holy? Everyone contributed; everyone gave a gifts from their heart, what they could uniquely contribute and all contributions were valued. They gave the best of themselves. And finally, what they made from these gifts — a place where God could dwell — was more than the sum of its parts.

So how are we doing? Are we bringing the best of ourselves to build our sacred community?

Often we are. There are countless times over these last twelve years when I have witnessed us manifest sacred community. When I feared that we would not have enough people for a shiva minyan, and I sent out a call, and fifty people showed up. When congregants show up every morning for minyan, conscious of the fact that someone is saying kaddish, someone has a yahrzeit, they know that they are needed and they come. When I pick up the phone and ask that a meal be delivered to a home where someone is ill or to a house of mourning, and without further ado the person on the other end says, “Consider it done.” When we bring our bags of food for Isaiah’s Fast and volunteers lovingly sort, weigh, and deliver them to the food pantry, so that others can eat. When our amazing CBJ Cooks prepare another delicious Shabbat meal, and you can taste the love that went into it. When I visit a sick congregant, and they tell me with great joy about all the other congregants who have come to visit them. When we host another refugee family and provide them with clothing and furniture, take them to doctor’s appointments, play with their kids, help them navigate the bureaucracy and make a home in America as our ancestors did a hundred years ago.

I have experienced sacred community in our synagogue in moments of prayer — when Ken Sperling was dying and there was a shir hadash service that morning, and we prayed and sang and cried together; each time Tzvi led us so movingly in Hallel, putting his whole heart on the table as he faced down death, and invited us to do the same. When we show up time and time again for one another when there has been a loss and bring cakes to eat and shoulders to cry on. When, during the pandemic, over 80 of our elders had buddies who checked in on them regularly, helping them get online and access zoom; at the zoom minyans and the plethora of classes and activities we sponsored during that difficult time. And in moments of tragedy like the Tree of Life massacre or October 7 when we held one another in prayer and love.

I think of transcendent moments of learning together, like when Tamar Elad Appelbaum was our scholar in residence for the Elm City Kallah and her sacred presence and holy teaching lifted us up and wove us together. I think of the week to week Torah of Bread and Torah and Monday night classes, and the community we have formed over many years learning together, each of us bringing our particular insights and proclivities, to forge a sacred whole. I think of the times when a child who belongs to the community, a child who frequents the synagogue, a child whom we have all watched grow, celebrates their bar mitzvah and how proud we all are, as if they were our own kids.

These are the gifts we bring to build a holy place. And I hope that we all feel their reverberations, the unique gifts of each person, woven into a charged and sacred whole. It is the cast of a show when the last curtain comes down on a breathtaking performance, the momentary silence at the end of a concert before the applause begins, the moments when we know that we have created something sacred and that it only could have happened because we created it together.

But I am fearful sometimes that we are loyal to the institution of Congregation B’nai Jacob, but not its mission, to its building and legacy but not to the things we do to make this a holy place, a place where God can dwell. One of the most intriguing of God’s many names in our tradition is Hamakom — the place. The name suggests that God, who is singularly not of this place or any place, nevertheless makes a place for Himself here when we build it. Are we building that place?

I am not in any way suggesting that everyone needs to pray all the time or keep kosher or take a class — although all those things would certainly be nice. There is no one right way to be Jewish and, as the story of the Mishkan suggests, each of brings our own unique gifts to this place. The question I am asking is, “does the mission of sacred community reverberate in everything we do?”

Are we a welcoming community, where newcomers are warmly welcomed, greeted at the door, invited into people’s homes and lives so that they too can make a home here? Are we a caring community in which our sense of care extends not only to our friends but to everyone, even people we might find annoying, or people who are not part of our synagogue but are in need of support? Do we make sure that people have a place for the holidays in our pews and at our tables, and do we make it easy for them to access?Are our values expressed in everything we do? In how we make decisions? In how we speak to one another? In how we treat employees? In how we spend our money? In how we value other people’s perspectives and ideas? Can we welcome people into our community who hold views we may abhor — who are antiZionist? or who will not countenance any criticism of the government of Israel — accepting all of them because they are part of our family? Do we have a thick ethical culture, a place where we value things that are often undervalued in our world, values like respect, holiness, love and loyalty? Are we an inclusive community where people who might feel different, who are gay, or single, or less wealthy, or intermarried, or new residents in our town or struggling, feel welcome? Are we growing in virtues and encouraging one another to grow in those virtues: of patience? compassion? lovingkindness? generosity?

Are people welcome to bring their full selves here— their pain, their tears, their fears, the things they hide - knowing they will be received in love?

With some frequency we get a letter at the shul, often scrawled in pen on the dues letter the person received. It reads, “As we no longer require the services of the synagogue, we are hereby resigning.” These letters make me so sad. Not just because a person is resigning, but because it’s so transactional. As if we are your dry cleaner or your gym and if you’re not using our services, then oh well. A sacred community is a community of care, a place where we care for others and are in turn cared for. Can we ground our synagogue in that deep ethic of caring, a kind of care that entails mutual obligation, a kind of care in which word spreads that this is a place where people care and are cared for, not just a commodity we may or may not need?

I want to share a story with you. I may have shared it here before; I know I have shared it in other contexts. It was written by Rabbi Jeffrey Newman.

A man was going from village to village, everywhere asking the same question, "where can I find God?" He journeyed from Rabbi to Rabbi, and nowhere was he satisfied with the answers he received, so quickly he would pack his bags, and hurry on to the next village. Some of the Rabbis replied, "Pray, my son, and you shall find Him". But the man had tried to pray, and knew that he could not.

And some replied, "Forget your quest, my child, God is within you". But the man had tried to find God within himself, and failed.

One day, the man arrived, very wearily, at a very small village set in the middle of an enormous forest. He went up to a woman who was minding some chickens, and she asked whom could he be looking for in such a small place, but she did not seem surprised when he told her that he was looking for God. She showed him to the Rabbi's house.

When he went in, the Rabbi was studying, so he waited a moment, but he was impatient to be off to the next village, if he could not be satisfied, so he interrupted, "Rabbi - how do I find God?"

The Rabbi paused, and the man wondered which of the many answers he had already received would he be told this time. But the Rabbi simply said, "You have come to the right place, my child. God is in this village. Why don't you stay a few days; you might meet [God]".

The man was puzzled. He did not understand what the Rabbi could mean. But the answer was unusual, and so he stayed. For two or three days, he strode round and round, asking all the villagers where God was that morning, but they would only smile, and ask him to have a meal with them. Gradually, he got to know them, and even helped with some of the village work. Every now and then he would see the Rabbi by chance, and the Rabbi would ask him, "Have you met God yet, my son?"

And the man would smile, and sometimes he understood and sometimes he did not understand. For months he stayed in the village, and then for years. He became part of the village and shared in all its life. He went with [them] to the synagogue on Friday and prayed with them, and sometimes he knew why he prayed, and sometimes he didn't. And sometimes he really said prayers, and sometimes only words. And then he would return with one of [them] for a Friday night meal, and when they talked about God, he was always assured that God was in the village, though he wasn't quite sure where or when [God] could be found. Gradually, too, he began to believe that God was in the village, though he wasn't quite sure where. He knew, however, that sometimes he had met [God].

One day, for the first time, the Rabbi came to him and said, "You have met God now, have you not?"

And the man said, "Thank you, Rabbi, I think that I have. But I am not sure why I met [God], or how or when. And why is [God] in this village only?"

So the Rabbi replied, "God is not a person, my child, nor a thing. You cannot meet [God] in that way. When you came to our village, you were so worried by your question that you could not recognize an answer when you heard it. Nor could you recognize when you met [God], because you were not really looking for [God]. Now that you have stopped persecuting God, you have found [God], and now you can return to your town if you wish".

So the man went back to his town, and God went with him. And the man enjoyed studying and praying, and he knew that God was within himself and within other people. And other people knew it too, and sometimes they would ask him, "Where can we find God?"

And the man would always answer, "You have come to the right spot: God is in this place".

Could we be such a place? A place where everyone knew that God dwelled here. Everyone would want to be in such a place! When our father Jacob awoke from his dream of the angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven, he exclaimed, המקום הזה“ נורא כִּ֚י !How awesome is this place”, ”מה זהֶ֗ אֵ֣ין אםִ־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזהֶ֖ שׁעַ֥רַ הַשּׁמָָֽיםִ׃ This is none other than the House of God and the Gate to Heaven!” Jacob, our father — remember we are Bnai Jacob, Jacob’s children — worked all his life to build a place like this, a place inspired by his original epiphany, a place where God surely dwells? Can we, his children, continue that project? Can we make this place a sacred place, a place of shared sacred purpose, a place of love and understanding, a place where all of our gifts are welcome and each of us is seen and loved for who we are? A place where everyone would want to be? Will we build this place together?