Shabbat shalom everyone and it is a great honor to speak to our united Jewish community this Friday evening here at Temple Israel. While not the first time I have been here at this pulpit with my dear colleague Rabbi Cohn (both of us have been together on several occasions, most notably last week at the Yom Hashoa/Holocaust Remembrance Day service), this is the first time on Shabbat, our most sacred and holy day.
I want to thank Rabbi Cohn not just for his graciousness and understanding as we worked on this service together, but also for his constant friendship and kindness.
Tomorrow is the one of the richest, most revered and most beloved sections of the Torah (Parshat Kedoshim Leviticus 19-20). While only 64 sentences in total length, it contains some of the most sublime and most noble expressions of our faith:
"Love Your Neighbor as yourself." (Leviticus 19:34)
"Before a blind man do not place a stumbling block." (Lev.19:14)
"You shall rise before the elderly." (Lev. 19"32)
"Love the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt." (Lev. 19:34)
And it all starts with the words:
''You shall be holy, for I, the L-rd your G-d, am holy." (Lev. 19:2)
Holiness is usually understood in our faith as meaning "separate"; we sanctify and we make holy by setting things apart. G-d is holy because G-d is different, set apart from human beings and everything in the universe. Holy.
And so when G-d tells us as Jews to be holy, we are really commanded to be different, unique among all the nations of the world. Whether it be in how we eat (our dietary laws which are concluded with the command "you shall be holy"), how we mark time (the Shabbat "remember the Shabbat to keep it holy"), we as Jews understand holiness as separateness, the ability to elevate moment, acts, and ourselves. The ethical laws in tomorrow's portion separate us from the often times cruel world we encounter. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a commandment to be holy, different from what we sadly see is the norm.
But one of the greatest thinkers of 20th century, Jewish philosopher and Zionist Martin Buber understood holiness a little differently. He saw holiness through the prism of relationships. For him, holiness is in recognizing the latent sanctity in other human beings. Just as G-d recognizes the inherent holiness of us when G-d declares us to be holy, G-d is also commanding us to recognize the beauty, the inherent holiness of each other.
For Martin Buber, holiness is not just the ability to be separate as it is to learn how build relationships with each other. And we do that by recognizing not each other differences but respecting the diversity we see and celebrating that holiness found in others. "You shall be holy because I the L-rd your G-d am holy" means: I recognize the holiness in you. Be holy now like Me and strive to love and recognize the holiness of each other.
Let me be as honest and as open as I can with you. Tonight's service is what we hope is the first of many programs and worship celebrations together in the months and years to come. As I have said earlier, this is not the first time B'nai Jacob and Temple Israel have been together, but this is clearly the most expansive, the most impressive and the most significant one we have ever done. Our next one will be, please G-d, at our synagogue on Shabbat morning with a Kiddush luncheon. Whether this moment will one day be looked upon as the pivotal event that helped create the momentum to be together in one building as a united community or not, what we are ultimately doing tonight, and I hope will continue regardless, is what Martin Buber is teaching: recognizing each other's holiness.
As many Temple Israel regulars see, this service is not at all different from the Friday worship at this congregation. This is significantly different from B'nai Jacob's Kabbalat Shabbat service at 5:45. When we will invite you to join us at our Shabbat morning service, I am fairly confident it will be significantly different from the monthly Temple Shabbat morning experience.
What we are doing tonight, and I think you will see this as the months unfold, is saying to each other: We love, respect, and admire each other's holiness.
And here is where I want to be as open as I can. As wonderful and as a hauntingly lovely as the music and singing we are experiencing tonight, this service offers a serious challenge to me and my traditional leanings. Even the wording of some of the cherished prayers at this service are difficult for me (if you didn't notice those significant changes in the text, with all due respect, you need to be at more services at both congregations. The prayers here are philosophically composed to reflect a modern approach to issues such as afterlife, the messiah, and reward and punishment. And they are jarring and challenging to tradition Jewish understanding and theology). This is over and above the more noticeable practices here that give my own traditional religious thinking pause. Honestly, at times tonight, the spiritual fingers of my soul struggled to find purchase to grab and hold onto.
The fault does not lie, G-d forbid, with you, nor Rabbi Cohn, nor Reform Judaism but solely with me. And, actually, there is no fault. I suspect this same experience will occur for Rabbi Cohn and many of you at the Temple when you are with us.
But tonight, and that is why this is so beautiful and so wonderful and so important, is that it is a celebration of holiness as Martin Buber understood it. We are all here together on Shabbat and by being here and celebrating together, despite the different ideas and ways we express and cherish Shabbat, we are recognizing the importance of our relationship and acknowledging the holiness of each other.
What we are trying to do tonight, when we are together again for a Shabbat morning at B'nai Jacob is to say we recognize that there is intrinsic holiness in what we each do. And tonight, we celebrate that diversity of the divinity found in each of us.
I speak from the heart. This is so hard for Marilyn and me (and not because we have a lot longer walk home tonight than if this was at B'nai Jacob!). Believe me, I cannot express to Rabbi Cohn, to the Temple sisterhood and to the Temple membership how grateful I am to them for how hard they worked to make this Shabbat as warm and as comfortable as possible. I mean that. In fact, Rabbi wanted to make significant changes to make this completely the type of Shabbat experience that myself and members of B'nai Jacob are used to. I appreciate that in ways I cannot express.
But that is not what we were trying to accomplish. We are trying to find a way forward, a unique way, a holy way, to recognize each other's spirituality and declare we want to be united in our diversity. To paraphrase Martin Buber, we are going to try in the years to come to not just learn to be with each other, but to learn to live with each other's holiness.
And that is why I am so happy to be here with you this Shabbat, learning to find holiness by experience holiness as you do.
And I thank you for allowing me into this sacred space.
I am so happy to be celebrating Shabbat with all of you today at Temple Israel. In your traditions. In your customs. In this sanctuary. For us to be together, for us to be a united community is to fulfill the words of the Torah tomorrow: You shall be holy for I, the L-rd your G-d, am holy.
May G-d continue to be with us and prosper the work of our hands.
Amen
