Things are going well. Erev Rosh Hashana 5776

Erev Rosh Hashana

Temple Beth Jacob of Newburgh

Rosh Hashana 5776

Rabbi Larry Freedman

I come to you today a pretty happy rabbi.  The atmosphere of Temple Beth Jacob is energetic and upbeat.  More committees are spinning up.  More people are volunteering for things.  More creativity is coming to build upon positive changes introduced these last few years.  And the Kol Yisrael project is a huge success.

So I’m feeling pretty good which means this may very well turn out to be an upbeat sermon and that is sure to disappoint those who are looking for something more dour, something more guilt producing.  Fair enough.  I’ll bring a little guilt later on.

Let’s review what’s been happening.  Our erev Sukkot dinner is a hit.  First year, 70 people.  Last year 90 so we’re doing it again.  Just to review, pot luck.  No services, just socializing in the sukkah and shaking the lulav.  And we have a new sukkah this year.  Great thanks to the designers of the former sukkah but it’s time for something even bigger.  We have a mah jong group now.  We have pickle ball which technically isn’t our program but I’m very excited about it.  If you don’t know, it’s a fun game popular with all ages which is code for “of a certain age” which is code for, “I’m going to get myself in trouble.”  Suffice to say it’s a terrible name but a fun paddle sport.  Talk to Gail Oliver.  

Back to holidays, we restructured family Shabbat which is successful when we promote it well.  Families have busy lives so we’ll do better to help you plan.  Our Pesach seder is a joy but the feedback was that it was too costly.  Two things about that.  One:  Folks, we’re not making any money on this thing.  There are costs to putting on a seder!  Two: we’ll do better.  We’re trying to figure out if we can bring it inside this building.  One of the principle rules of KY is that no partner organization is allowed to do something that prevents another partner from fully expressing itself.  The kosher for Pesach laws are more complicated than the standard kosher laws.  This is a topic for an entirely different sermon but the point is, it’s complicated and we’re working on that.

Now, Shavuot, that is my proudest holiday moment of last year.  We returned Confirmation to a Friday night and held, on erev Shavuot, our first Tikkun Leil Shavuot.  This is an ancient custom revived in the last 20 years or so.  Traditionally it involved Torah study all night long until dawn.  We aren’t that ambitious.  We started at 7:00 PM, went until 11:00 PM, had food at the breaks and featured lay people teaching something.  Different people took a 30 minute slot and taught whatever they wanted that was either directly or not so directly connected to Judaism.  Forty-six people came out over Memorial day weekend.  That, for a first time program, is a hit.  It was fun, interesting, social.  It was a lovely evening.  We’ll do it again so come join us and… what would you like to teach?

Then, in the middle of summer, we and Agudas Israel came together for Tisha b’Av but we did something different.  Instead of the traditional liturgy, we watched a movie about the rise of Israel hatred and anti-Semitism on college campuses.   Now, I’m not a fan of spotting anti-Semites under every rock but if ever there is a day to acknowledge people hating us, Tisha b’Av would be it.

What’s next?  I’m very excited to try an experiment this November 14.  For years I’ve been hearing how people would like to come out for Shabbat services but, you know…  You tell me you’re tired after a week of work.  You tell me it’s rough timing if you’re also trying to have a Shabbat dinner.  You tell me that once you get in the house it’s just so hard to go out again.  You tell me you don’t drive at night.  You don’t drive in snow.  You don’t drive in rain.  You don’t drive in rain or snow at night.  And I hear you.  I totally understand all those reasons.  I feel particularly for those folks who don’t drive at night anymore.  They loved joining their community for Shabbat and now they’re stuck at home. 

So.  Now.  As I said, I totally understand all those excuses and I believe you.  I really do.  Of course, you could just be making up excuses to be polite.  Maybe you just don’t want to go.  That’s possible.  Or maybe there’s something about our Shabbat tefillot you don’t like.  To that I say this.  If you’re being polite, if you would like to go but you don’t like something, like for example, the sermon, tell me.  Tell somebody to tell me.  I’m flexible.  Cantor Amy and I have shortened the evening and we constantly tinker with the music to develop a repertoire that is familiar and joyful but not stagnant.  Tell me.  Don’t just murmur to your buddy.  Tell me.

But if you’re not being just being polite then November 14 is for you.  We are moving our weekly Shabbat tefillot to the morning.  We’ll cancel Friday night and meet in the morning.  Torah study will be first from 9:00 to 10:00 for those interested and then tefillot itself from 10:00 to 11:30.  I really hope you’ll give it a try.  I’m hoping for a good turnout so that I can get good feedback.  Was the time right?  Should we have lunch afterwards or is a simple Kiddush sufficient?  Should we build Torah study into the morning instead of separate?  We can create something really meaningful and important and spiritual for so many people.  All we need is for you to be the person to give it a try.  I need you to at least try.

Ah!  Good.  Now I’m at the guilt part.  I am aware that synagogues everywhere have large numbers of supporters and then a dedicated but smaller group that takes advantage of the place year round.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m thrilled that you are here today.  Truly I am.  I stopped giving that finger-wagging sermon about how you shouldn’t come just twice a year, blah blah blah like, 20 years ago.  Hey, if you only want to darken our doors twice a year, so be it.

But, you know, we have so much more for you.  Your community has so much more.  Our holidays and our traditions and just the comfort of connecting to something larger than yourself.  This place can touch your soul if you’ll let it.  I just don’t know how to get you to let your soul be touched.  I’m working on it.  Everyone in leadership is working on it but honestly, we need some help.  Give me a call.  Let me take you out for cup of coffee.  I’ll come to you!  What does Temple Beth Jacob mean to you?  What does it offer you and what would you like it to offer?  Maybe there’s some adult learning topic.  Maybe.  But I suspect there’s something else that you yearn for.  That’s right.  Yearn.  It’s something in your soul, deep down, that is just not being reached.  You all are here which means this place, Judaism itself means something to you. Help me help you identify what your soul is seeking and then, help me help you connect more deeply. 

We are partners, you and I.  We are partners in crafting a place we can call home, a place that connects us through the ages.  We are partners in promoting the notion that we Jews and our Jewish families have a purpose in life, a sacred task passed down for thousands of years.  Our mission is to make the world a better place and make ourselves better people.  That is our task and we accomplish that sacred task through the structure of Torah and mitzvot and community and holidays and customs and rituals and lifecycle moments.  And we do all that together.

We are partners here.  You, me, the leadership, Cantor Amy, our teachers, the support staff.  We are all partners in this enterprise.  Temple Beth Jacob means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to you.  I know that because you are here.  I know that because you offer your time and energy.  You volunteer or you attend events or you buy gift cards or you join in conversations on our Face Book page and, let’s face it, you donate money.  You do all that because this place is meaningful to you. 

Of course, because it’s meaningful, sometimes problems arise.

It seems that synagogues have lived a life with a split personality.  There is the spiritual side providing for your spiritual and emotional needs.  And then there is the business side which for decades, centuries was… let’s agree that it was lacking in caring about your spiritual and emotional needs.  In attempt to pay the bills, synagogues had dues, building funds, mandatory fees, turning over your 1040, having to explain financial straits.  There are stories from the old country to the new world where if a man didn’t support his synagogue the rabbi directed the kosher butcher not to sell him chickens!  Now that’s putting on the pressure.  Truth is, these approaches worked for a time and truth is they hurt a lot of feelings.  Everyone understands the spiritual mission and everyone understands how a synagogue needs to pay bills but when the two sides draw near, there is an explosion.  I hear just about every other month another story of someone humiliated, embarrassed, insulted because the synagogue, any synagogue, asked for money in not such a nice way.  The stories usually boil down to this: how can a place that is supposed to be caring be so cold? 

It shouldn’t be.  There has to be a way to treat people better. 

Our new partnership support model in place of the old dues model is one of those attempts.  It’s not about money.  Truly it is not.  It is about treating you with more respect.  It is a shift from us telling you to a partnership where we talk to each other and support each other.

The key to our new approach is simply an answer to this question:  What is it that makes you love this place?  And what would you miss if it were gone?

Here are some details.  Our budget is $330,000.  Leaving out school fees and fundraising of all sorts, it costs around $2000 per household to keep us running.  By the way, I hasten to remind you that our gift card program brings in $15000 a year to our operating funds so please support it as best you can.

The partnership support plan asks this:  think of what Temple Beth Jacob means to you and then do your very best to support your community according to your finances.  Some people will contribute more, some less, doesn’t matter.  Do your best to keep us going.  You don’t have to show a W-2.  You don’t have to talk to a vice-president, you don’t have to justify your contribution.  Just do the best you can.  No one will question that.

Now, people will say, well then, what if everyone just donates ten bucks?  And I say, that’s fine and we’ll close down in a week.  Yes, people can take advantage of this approach but partnership support isn’t about finding a deal.  It’s about being a partner in your community and doing your best, according to your finances, to keep us going because we don’t want to lose this place.

Back in the summer I had a conversation with a person who told this story.  On Yom Kippur, as she came in to the synagogue she was taken aside into an office and asked to pay her bill.  That was her welcome to Temple Beth Jacob on Yom Kippur.  When did this happen?  Sixteen years ago and she’s still insulted and she won’t come back.  I don’t want that to happen ever again.  Partnership support means it won’t.  Just do your best to keep us going. 

Another story.  Last year I had five conversations with five different families who refused, refused, to join Temple Beth Jacob because they couldn’t afford the dues.  I said, you know, all you have to do is ask and the Board makes adjustments.  No, they responded.  Some of the families said they were not going to go before someone and plead poverty and some of the families said, and this is the interesting one, they felt an obligation to support the community to the amount requested and if they couldn’t swing it, they didn’t want to feel like freeloaders. 

Never mind the money; we lost five families.  Five Jewish families who want to be here aren’t and all that energy and enthusiasm is lost because our dues system wasn’t working.  Partnership support will solve that problem.

The bottom line, the real bottom line, is that we need people.  We need to inspire the souls of Jews and Jewish families in the Hudson Valley.  We need the energy and enthusiasm of more people.  If we had $10 million but no people, what would that get us?  People are our priority.  Money is just the tool to keep this place going so we have a place for the people to gather but people are the priority. 

We have a four thousand year unbroken heritage of connecting with God, living out our ethics and values through our holidays and turning to Torah to find a pathway to making the world a better place and making ourselves better people.  We can’t let the necessary but less spiritual business of business become an impediment.  Of course we need the money.  We have a very tight budget and we worry about it dearly because that budget allows us to focus on our primary mission: the spiritual and emotional care of you.  That’s what we’re all about.  You.  Partnership support reminds us of that.  It’s really not about revenue streams.  It’s really all about you, appreciating you, respecting you. 

Thank you for doing the best you can do.  Thank you for being a partner in the continuation of Temple Beth Jacob and all we stand for.  There is so much going on here.  Join with your community for all or for some of what is going on.  Your choice.  Just join in for something.  I will always be happy to see you, my partner in the life of Temple Beth Jacob.