Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Yom Kippur 5779

Here Come Moses’ Children

YOM KIPPUR 5779

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

On a hot day in June of 1964 Rabbi Richard Levy relates that, 

I was at a convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis when Martin Luther King sent a telegram asking for rabbis to join him in a demonstration in St. Augustine, FL…. So I went with fifteen other rabbis. We were ushered into a [room] where King was speaking and as we came in he said, ‘Here come Moses’ children’.

Here come Moses’s children. How about that? How striking… Which led me to ponder: What does it mean to be Moses’s children today? Thus this sermon… which is Part Two of my exploration of the legacy of the Sixties that I began last night.

Some of you know that one of those Augustine sixteen was my own rabbi, from Temple Israel in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, Rabbi Michael Robinson, of blessed memory. Another was my late professor at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Eugene Borowitz. These brave souls spent all night in a sweltering jail. At 3:00 AM, by the light of a single naked light bulb in the corridor outside their overcrowded cell they wrote a letter, Why We Went.

The Augustine Sixteen declared, 

We came because we could not stand quietly by our brother’s blood. Here in St. Augustine we have seen… the deep implacable hatred. What disturbs us more deeply is the large number of decent citizens who have stood aside, unable to bring themselves to act, yet knowing in their hearts that this cause is right and that it must inevitably triumph.

The Augustine Sixteen were telling us that when we stand idly by we are not innocent; we are part of the problem.

King himself said in his famous Letter from Birmingham City Jail that, 

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

King said,

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.

King said,

We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate… who is more devoted to “order” than to justice… and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

The man who spoke at the famous March on Washington just before King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” was a rabbi. His name was Joachim Prinz. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he led a congregation in Newark, and he helped lead the Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. Rabbi Prinz said that day,

The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.

Yet another great rabbi from the civil rights movement, Abraham Joshua Heschel, perhaps said it best,

In a free society; some are guilty, all are responsible.

Fast forward fifty years: She was not a rabbi or a minister, but I am still haunted by the words of Heather Heyer. Do you recognize that name? She was the young woman killed in Charlottesville, when she was rammed by a car driven into the crowd by an avowed racist.

Heather Heyer wrote that day in what would be her final Facebook post:

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

Are we outraged? Are we paying attention? Are we standing up or are we standing by?

In the spirit of King and the Rabbis and Heather Heyer: What does it mean to be Moses’ children today?

What does it mean to be Moses’ children in the wake of the racist violence of Charlottesville and Charleston?

The police violence of East St. Louis, Staten Island, Baltimore, Baton Rouge?

The mass shooting violence of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Sutherland Springs, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland?

What does it mean to be Moses’ children in a time of #black lives matter and #me too and #march for our lives?

What does it mean to be Moses’s children in a time of zero tolerance of migrants and the separation of children from parents?

In the spirit of our revolutionary ancestor, allow me to respond that to be Moses’s children means, if nothing else: Opening our Eyes and Voting with Our Feet.

Opening our Eyes:

When he was a young man the Torah says that Moses “went out to his people and witnessed their toil.” (Ex.2) Then he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen, and he acted.

Later on Moses opens his eyes again. “He gazed and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. Moses said, ‘I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight.’” (Ex.3) God too opens His eyes, as it were, as the Torah says, “God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.”  
 
Deep into the civil rights struggle, during his Poor People’s Campaign near the end of his life, King said,

We must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. Negroes generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North schools are more segregated than they were in 1954…. The unemployment rate among Negroes is [worse]; twice that of whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50% less than whites.

If we open our eyes today, what do we see 50 years after the Civil Rights movement?

Black kids are three times as likely to be poor as white kids. 

Black unemployment is twice that of white unemployment. 

Homeownership is 40% for African Americans; 70% for whites.

Four in ten black and Latino students attends schools that are 90% minority. In NYC it’s five in ten.

Latinos actually are now the largest minority in the country. Poverty rates have declined for all Americans except Latinos. One out of four Hispanic adults lives below the poverty line; one out of three children. Millions more, who cut our lawns; clean our pools, wash our dishes, and pick our fruit live just above it.

And did you see this last week: In 2016 net worth among white middle-income families in America was 19% below 2007 levels (adjusted for inflation). But among blacks, it was 40% below, and for Hispanics 46% below.

Do you call that an economic recovery?

Praying with our Feet:

God said to Moses to get up and start marching back to Egypt to speak truth to power. Later God told Moses to get up and start marching out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land.

Professor Michael Walzer of Princeton writes in a powerful verse that we often read from our prayerbook,

Standing on the parted shores of history we still believe what we were taught before we ever stood at Sinai’s foot; 

that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt; 

that there is a better place, a promised land; 

that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness; 

that there is no way to get from here to there except by joining hands, marching together.

When Rabbi Heschel marched with King at Selma he remarked afterwards, “I felt as if my legs were praying.”

Praying with our feet means marching and lobbying. I was so proud when young people across America led the way last spring in the March for our Lives and the national school walk-outs. 

I was so proud when I found out that our own Leonia high schoolers Maddie Raciatti and Isabel Raskin were among the student leaders here in Leonia. 

I was so proud last year when I went to a Leonia Town Council meeting to advocate for the Leonia sanctuary city resolution that our own Sandy Pecht had made a special trip back from college to do the same. 

The year before last I had the privilege of meeting civil rights icon John Lewis, still feisty after all these years. I shook his hand and told him that I was the head of The Jewish Publication Society that had published the work of Rabbi Heschel. He recalled marching with Heschel and how much that meant. He said to us rabbis: 

Keep marching. Raise your voices. Make some noise!

I know that if Dr. King was here, if Rabbi Heschel was here, if Rabbi Prinz was here, if Rabbi Borowitz was here, if Rabbi Robinson was here… they would all say the same thing as Jon Lewis.

They would remind us that the Torah commands (Lev. 18):“You shall not stand idly by.”

They would remind us that the Torah commands (Ex. 23): “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

They would remind us that the Torah commands (Deut. 16): “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

They would remind us, “Open your eyes and vote with your feet.”

They would remind us that so much is at stake in American today.

We are fighting for freedom of the press right now.

We are fighting for oppressed refugees right now.

We are fighting for traumatized children right now.

We are fighting for victimized women right now.

We are fighting for the future of our very democracy right now.

We are fighting for the future of our gasping planet right now.

They would say at this New Year: Remember who you are!

They would say, as we enter the room:

Here come Moses’ children. 

Here come Moses’ children. 

Make way for the children of Moses.

7 Reasons Why Einstein Should be Considered One of the Prophets

We are pleased to share the following op-ed by Adas Emuno president, Lance Strate, which was published on March 9th in the Jewish Standard.  The title it was published under was, Seven Reasons Why Albert Einstein is a Prophet, and here it is:

The number 139 is not one we are likely to pay attention to, so this anniversary may not get a great deal of attention. We tend to sit up and take notice when the anniversary is a multiple of 100, or 50, or 10, or even 5.


At the very least, we have a psychological bent toward even numbers, and 139 is decidedly odd. But if Einstein were still with us, he might point out that 139 is more than odd; that it is, in fact, a prime number, which makes it quite significant in its own right. He also no doubt would point to the arbitrary nature of anniversaries, and of calendars for that matter. Einstein’s date of birth on the Hebrew calendar was the 19th of Adar in the year 5639. This year, Adar 19 corresponded to March 6, last year it was March 17, next year is a leap year so it will be February 24 for Adar 1, and March 26 for Adar 2.

I suspect that the differences between the solar calendar of secular society and the lunar calendar of Jewish tradition had some influence on Einstein’s thinking. After all, when we say, for example, that Chanukah is coming late in a given year, it is just as true to say that Christmas and New Year’s are early. The experience of living with two so very different calendars could not help but point to the relativity of time.

And as we remember Einstein, we do so, along with the rest of the world, for his contributions to science, as the recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics, and the person named in 1999 as Time magazine’s Person of the Century. More than anyone else, Einstein was the person responsible for the paradigm shift in science that replaced Newton’s mechanistic view of the universe with a relativistic understanding of space and time.

And we also remember him as an especially noteworthy member of the Jewish people, one of our many gifts to the world, a prime example of what we sometimes refer to as yiddishe kop, intelligence born out of a tradition of literacy and learning, one in which teachers and sages are seen as heroic. And we may also recall that as a Jew, Einstein was forced to flee Nazi Germany as a refugee, and that he was a supporter of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.


 

We do not remember Einstein in a religious context, however; he was not a rabbi or talmudic scholar or theologian. I want to suggest, however, that we should remember him as a prophet. Admittedly, in our tradition we consider the age of the prophets to have ended long ago, but we cannot rule out the possibility of modern prophets altogether. And while we would tend to be suspicious of anyone claiming to be a prophet today, Einstein never made any such claim, so he cannot be rejected as a false prophet.

But I do think a case can be made, and I hope you will consider the possibility as I put forth seven reasons for naming Albert Einstein as a modern-day prophet.

1. Einstein’s name has become synonymous with genius. We typically say that a given individual “is” a genius, but everyone who truly fits the description will more accurately refer to “a stroke of genius” in the sense of something coming from outside of themselves. The word “genius” originates from ancient Rome, and refers to a guiding spirit or deity, a supernatural source, like a guardian angel. (Prophets are the recipients of divine revelation, some form of communication, or we may call it inspiration, which literally means, “to breathe into,” which is how God brings Adam to life in the Book of Genesis.)

2. As a teenager, Einstein imagined himself chasing after a beam of light, which led to his understanding that light cannot be slowed or stopped, that the speed of light is constant, and that it is time, instead, that must vary. This thought experiment was the foundation that led to his special theory of relativity. Other thought experiments followed, notably the difference in what we  would observe when standing on a train vs. standing on a platform as bolts of lightning strike the train. (Prophets are known to receive revelation via visions, as in Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s dreams, the chariot of fire that appeared to Elijah, and Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel.)

 


3. One of Einstein’s most significant achievements was determining the nature of light as consisting of quanta, aka photons, and that light has a dual nature, as both waves and particles. Clearly, he had a unique relationship to the phenomenon of light. (Prophets are closely associated with light and enlightenment, Genesis famously says that light was the first of God’s creations, Moses has a halo when he descends from Mount Sinai after speaking to God face-to- face, a direct encounter with the divine countenance that we pray may shine upon us.)

4. Einstein gave us a new way of understanding the universe, of space and time as a single phenomenon, spacetime. (Prophets teach us about the nature of Creation to better understand the Creator, and our place in the world.)

 

5. Einstein invoked the philosophy of the Enlightenment founder Baruch Spinoza in explaining his own view of a pantheistic God. That is a view that traditionally has been seen as heretical, but is consistent with some approaches to Kabbalah, God as the Ein Sof, and certainly is acceptable within Reform Judaism. Above all, it is a view consistent with science; as Einstein famously remarked, “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” His resistance to the uncertainty principle of quantum theory was famously expressed in the quote, “God does not play dice with the universe,” asserts that Creation is governed by laws that are rational and ultimately discernible, as well as based on an underlying monotheism, as God would have no one to play dice with. (Prophets often have been critics of established religious authority, in favor of a direct encounter with God via nature.)

6. Einstein spoke out for social justice. He did so on behalf of his own people, in opposition to Nazi Germany, and in favor of Zionism and the State of Israel, but also as a strong critic of racism and supporter of the civil rights movement in the United States. He also was quite critical of capitalism, arguing on behalf of socialism and advocating for a democratic world government and pacifism after the conclusion of World War II. (Social justice is one of the primary themes of the Prophets section of the Tanach.)




 

7. Einstein warned President Roosevelt of the danger of Nazi research into the development of the atomic bomb, leading to the Manhattan Project. He later became an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons. His warnings largely have fallen on deaf ears, at least as far as governments are concerned. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists introduced the image of the Doomsday Clock, setting it to seven minutes before midnight. On January 25 of this year, the minute hand was moved up to two minutes before midnight, the closest it has ever been, mainly because of North Korea and our president’s threatening remarks, and not taking into account Putin’s recent statements about Russian nuclear missile capability, and his animated image of the bombardment of Florida. (The biblical prophets issued warnings about the destruction of Israel and Judea, and the name Jeremiah has become synonymous with pronouncements of doom.)




 

Einstein’s predictions in the realm of physics continue to be supported by astronomical observation and experimental evidence. Perhaps his predictions about society and politics ought to be taken seriously as well?

Why bother arguing for Einstein as a prophet?

• Because American culture always has had a strain of anti-intellectualism, one that includes resistance to many aspects of science, notably Darwinian evolution.

• Because climate change is at least as great a threat as nuclear war, and is being met with denial, dismissal, or disinterest from significant portions of the population, and all too many in leadership positions.

• Because facts and logic are under assault by religious fundamentalists, cynical political opportunists, and corporate executives with eyes only for short term profits.

As Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz makes clear in his recently published book, Paths of the Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life, our prophetic tradition is of vital importance, one that always has and always will be relevant for us.

 
Naming Albert Einstein a prophet should not detract from this tradition, but rather enhance it, by adding a dimension that we need now more than ever: the truth that ethics cannot be divorced from an understanding of the world, of reality, in all its complexity, and glory.

Faith Leaders on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Religious Legacy

This past April 4th marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the religious legacy of the civil rights leader was the subject of an article published on April 2nd in the Deseret News, which identifies itself as, "first news organization and the longest continuously-operating business in the state of Utah," and is owned by the Mormon Church. What does this have to do with Congregation Adas Emuno of Bergen County, New Jersey, you may ask? The answer is clear enough: Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, our spiritual leader.

The article, entitled, Faith leaders Reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Religious Legacy, and written by Kelsey Dallas, begins with the pastor of a Baptist Church in Salt Lake City:

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is a silent participant in every meeting held in Calvary Baptist Church's conference room. He stares down at those gathered from three of the room's four walls.

The Rev. France Davis, Calvary's longtime pastor, chose this repetitive decor, in part, to honor the Rev. King's role in his life. His ministry career, which spans more than four decades, grew out of his experiences fighting for a better world alongside the Rev. King.

"That's what I've been doing all my life: trying to change laws, to make sure all people are treated equally," the Rev. Davis said.

But the portraits and pictures of the pastor and civil rights leader in the conference room don't just acknowledge the past. They remind church members to dream big dreams for the future, presenting the Rev. King as a symbol of what's possible when faith is put into action.

"He's an example of how to bring about positive change," the Rev. Davis said.

It's not just religious Americans who see the Rev. King this way. Fifty years after his assassination on April 4, 1968, he's hailed as an American hero, held up as someone whom all political activists should emulate.

The Rev. King's broad appeal sometimes troubles the faith leaders who knew him and continue to draw inspiration from him. They see his quotes used to support secular political goals or hear his voice during a truck commercial and worry Americans are forgetting the deep faith that anchored his activism.

This is where Rabbi Schwartz is first mentioned:

"It's legitimate to quote him in the most general of ways, but I don't think we should forget that he was an example of religious faith at its best," said Rabbi Barry Schwartz, author of Path of Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life, which was published on March 1.

A nice plug for our rabbi's new book!

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The article now returns to Reverend Davis:

The Rev. King brought the Bible alive for participants in the civil rights movement, never ceasing to be a pastor even as he took on other roles, the Rev. Davis said.

"He was trying to get people to put feet to their beliefs, to make their beliefs practical in terms of the way they went about their daily lives," he said.

The Rev. Davis first heard about the Rev. King's work when he was 15 or 16. He knew Christians were called to serve their neighbors, but his energy was lacking.

"I understood that to be the need, but I didn't feel empowered to do it," said the Rev. Davis, who grew up in rural Georgia.

The Rev. King's impassioned speeches brought about a change of heart. The Rev. Davis began to see his belief in God as a reason to take action, not just to pray and sit in church on Sunday.

"They were inspirational in every way. They caused those who heard them, me included, to want to act," the Rev. Davis said.

At this point, the article moves into a new topic, the social gospel, which parallels our own emphasis on social justice and tikkun olam:

The Rev. King wasn't preaching something new. He was continuing the work of others who'd emphasized the social gospel, or the belief that people of faith should try to build a more just society, not just save people's souls, said Clayborne Carson, founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

"The social gospel really had its roots in the United States … in the late 19th and early 20th century," he said.

Members of the early social gospel movement sought to protect workers during the rapid industrialization of the U.S. They fought for better working conditions and fair pay, turning to the Bible for spiritual nourishment and the motivation to act.

The Rev. King carried the spirit of this activism into the civil rights movement, presenting the fight for racial equality as a deeply spiritual pursuit. He faced pushback for this approach, including from within the National Baptist Convention, which his grandfather helped found, Carson said.

"The elected leader of the National Baptist Convention opposed King and felt that the role of the pastor is to try to achieve salvation for members of the congregation and that the church shouldn't really be focused on social issues," he said.

And now, the article brings Rabbi Schwartz back into the conversation, and Congregation Adas Emuno with him:

However, many others, including Jews and other non-Christians, were receptive to his message. The Rev. King energized old teachings, inspiring believers like the Rev. Davis to live out their faith in new ways.

For some Jewish leaders, this meant proclaiming God's calls for justice all the way to jail, said Rabbi Schwartz, who leads Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, New Jersey. His own rabbi was one of 16 arrested in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after joining the Rev. King there to rally for racial equality.

"There was a history of activism" in many religious traditions, he said. "But King was the singular figure who could galvanize their social-justice work."

And speaking of the relationship of rabbis to Dr. King, it is not surprising to see the name of Heschel come up:

The Rev. King drew on the Old and New Testaments in his sermons and public addresses, which helped him unite Jews and Christians, said Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.

"If you look at his major speeches, he quotes (the prophet) Amos more often than Jesus," she said.

He learned this approach in the black churches of his childhood, she added. African-Americans took comfort in and felt empowered by the Old Testament stories of prophets seeking justice and the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt.

Heschel's father, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, also influenced the Rev. King's biblical engagement. The Rev. King carried a copy of Rabbi Heschel's book, The Prophets, in his pocket during marches, and it gave him strength to bring a prophetic voice to racial conflict.

"The prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible," Rabbi Heschel wrote. "To a person endowed with prophetic sight, everyone else appears blind."

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The article now returns to Reverend Davis and a Christian emphasis:

The Rev. King wed the prophets' radical acts of service with Jesus Christ's teachings in the New Testament, the Rev. Davis said.

"His message was clearly one about love based on New Testament theology and teachings, but his examples of showing love were from the Old Testament," he said. "He was masterful in weaving the two."

But this mastery often goes unnoticed in contemporary celebrations of the Rev. King, the Rev. Davis added. People are content to applaud his charisma, rather than understand the theological and historical claims anchoring his speeches.

"We gravitate toward the rhythm and the sound as opposed to the message being communicated," he said.

For example, most Americans are familiar with the Rev. King's dreams in his "I have a dream" speech from the March on Washington. He dreams that his children will be judged for their characters, not the color of their skin. He dreams that white children and black children will one day be able to join hands in Alabama.

Fewer people can recall earlier parts of the speech, when the Rev. King recounted unfulfilled promises made to black Americans when the country was founded and assured his followers that "unearned suffering is redemptive."

"With 'I have a dream,' everybody knows the last part of that speech, but earlier is where the meat is," the Rev. Davis said.

And now back to Rabbi Schwartz one more time:

To truly understand the Rev. King's revolutionary work, you have to grasp how central the Bible was to his activism, Rabbi Schwartz said.

"He was motivated by general ideas of justice, but, at the same time, he was coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective," he said.

Rabbi Schwartz is followed by a testimony from Susannah Heschel:

Heschel was active in the Jewish community throughout her childhood, attending Hebrew school classes and learning to interpret the Bible. Like the Rev. Davis, she knew what she was supposed to be doing, but she wasn't particularly excited to be doing it.

“I didn’t like Hebrew school. I found the way the Bible was taught to us to be very dull," she said.

The Rev. King's friendship with her father changed everything. He brought the words of the biblical prophets alive, showing Heschel the value of learning them.

“King changed my life and gave me a love of the Hebrew Bible and a love of the prophets," she said, crediting the Rev. King with inspiring her to become a professor of religion.

And the article gives Reverend Davis the last word:

The Rev. Davis offered similar praise, explaining that he's modeled his ministry after the Rev. King's work. Each week in his sermon at Calvary Baptist, he urges his congregation to go out into the world and improve it. He preaches on the importance of serving others and tries to lead by example, promoting policies like fair housing and Medicaid expansion.

"I'm one of his disciples in that sense," he said.

When the Rev. Davis learned of the Rev. King's assassination, he knew there were plenty of people like himself to continue proclaiming the Rev. King's prophetic message. However, he worried about the loss of a man who encapsulated the entire struggle for civil rights. The movement would persist in pieces, rather than a unified whole.

"I was concerned that it was piecemeal—one person talking about this and one person talking about that," the Rev. Davis said.

Reflecting on the state of faith-based activism today, the Rev. Davis said he's come to appreciate this piecemeal approach. He likes that some houses of worship specialize in feeding the hungry while others expertly lobby legislators for fairer policies.

The Rev. King's legacy is alive in many places at once, he said.

"When (this activism) was done by one person, it was localized to a particular area. … With a number of different people, it can be in several places," he said.

The Rev. Davis wants visitors to know that Calvary Baptist is one of those places, so he put a small model of the Rev. King's Washington, D.C., memorial on the church's reception desk. Arms crossed, the miniature Rev. King stares sternly out at new arrivals from under a large green plant.

"With Dr. King, you knew you were in the presence of greatness," the Rev. Davis said.

It is certainly an honor to have our rabbi, and our congregation, included in an interfaith article on so important a topic, published all the way out in Salt Lake City, Utah!

from the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

ISRAEL AT 70!

Some of us were alive to celebrate the birth of the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948.

All of us are alive to celebrate the 70th birthday of the modern state of Israel this spring (the actual date this year corresponding to the 5th of Iyar is April 19).

I am sorry that I was not yet born to witness the miracle of Israel’s founding. The ingathering of the exiles, the revival of a Jewish state, the rebirth of Hebrew: Is there a more astounding event in all of Jewish history? What a marvel, after twenty centuries, to be able to board an airplane and eleven hours later touch down in the holy land of a sovereign Jewish state. What a privilege to be able to support Israel wherever we may live.

I call Israel “my other country” or “my second home”. It’s not simply because I happen to have dual citizenship, and the fact that my family of five have ten passports. It’s not simply because I studied there, got married there, worked there, served in the army there… in fact all of that was decades ago.

It’s because I believe if you are Jewish, Israel is your spiritual homeland, if not your physical one.

It’s because you are a citizen of the United States and you are a citizen of the Jewish people.

It’s because I believe that if America is your mother and Israel is your father, you should love both your parents.

Israel is family. You love your family… and you criticize your family. As I have said before: unconditional love does not mean uncritical love. You love your spouse and children unconditionally; that does not mean that you look away when you think they are wrong. You speak up for their sake; precisely because you care. Yes, we need to work for a more just Israel, inside and out. There is a time for criticism… but not at the expense of celebration.

At this time, let’s reiterate our love and praise of Israel—that’s what families do at birthdays. And so I am asking every member of the congregation to send me a one sentence line, “What Israel Means to Me….” (rabbiblschwartz at gmail.com)

We will read every response at our special Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) Shabbat service on April 27. Our goal is 70 statements for Israel’s 70 th birthday! We’re throwing a party… Join the Celebration!

 From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

We Were Nomads

Passover is coming, and with it comes our annual celebration of the exodus from Egypt. We tend to think of it as a liberation from slavery, the first step on a journey to the promised land, with a very significant stopover at Mount Sinai. But we also tend to discount the journey itself, the forty years of wandering in the desert. We may think of it as a punishment for losing faith. Or we may even joke about it, saying that we got lost in the desert because the men refused to ask for directions.

We tend to think of wandering in negative terms, often as "wandering aimlessly," losing our way, being rootless or fickle. Maybe that's because, in the modern world, we tend to be so very goal driven, so fixated on getting from point A to point B, on making progress, proceeding towards a predetermined end.

We lose sight of the fact that wandering can also mean meandering, taking our time for the pure pleasure of it. It can also mean exploring, delighting in the joy of discovery. And it can also mean roaming, traveling from place to place in a deliberate fashion. This last form of wandering is characteristic of the nomadic way of life, the way of life that we associate with the origins of our people, and our faith.

The story of the Jewish people begins with Abraham in the city of Ur, who is commanded by God to leave the city and journey to the land of Canaan to become a nomad. He becomes a shepherd, roaming the land in search of green pastures and the water that sustains them. In other words, Abraham cannot become holy by remaining in the city. He is sanctified through an exodus of his own, and later witnesses how two other cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, have become the sites of sin and corruption, and are destroyed by God.

When periodic drought strikes the land, Jacob and his sons travel down to Egypt, and as we tell the story, they went down to Egypt to sojourn and not to settle. In other words, as nomads, that move was meant to be temporary. But their descendants are enslaved and forced to build cities for Pharaoh, specifically the cities of Pithom and Rameses, according to the Torah.

The exodus then was an escape from Egyptian cities and slave settlements, and a return to nomadic life. And as nomads, the Israelites would not have been wandering aimlessly in the desert, but rather following a circuit in conjunction with the changing seasons. Not a straight line from departure to destination, but making the rounds repeatedly, in harmony with their environment. It is during this period that the words of the Ma Tovu are uttered, classically rendered as, "How goodly are thy tents."

And the story of the return to the promised land begins with Joshua bringing down the walls of the city of Jericho. Jerusalem itself was not built by the Israelites, but rather conquered by King David to serve as the capital of his kingdom, and the site of the Temple built by Solomon. And without discounting the singular importance of Jerusalem, I want to suggest that we recall the lessons we learned from our experience as nomads:

As nomads, we learned that God, or if you prefer, the holy, the divine, or the spiritual dimension of existence, is not confined to any one place. There are no geographical limits to the encounter with the sacred. Transcendence can happen anywhere.

As nomads, we learned that the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line. That travelling in circles is not a bad thing. That the real world has curves, just as we later discovered that the planet is round, just as Albert Einstein later discovered that all of space is curved.

As nomads, we learned that lines and boundaries are creations of frail and fallible human minds, not commandments from God. That walls are meant to be torn down, to be shattered by the rippling resonances of sound waves. That houses and buildings, settlements and cities, and even nations, are not as permanent as they may seem. That what really matters are people, family, community, and beyond, to teach our children diligently, to honor our parents, to love our neighbors, and to love the stranger, for we too once were strangers.

As nomads, we learned that any given place is not all that important, that it is temporary, transitory. That our religion is not so much about space, but rather about time. We can pray anywhere, we can observe Shabbat, the festivals, and the High Holy Days anywhere, what matters is that we observe them according to the calendar, not the map. We learned that to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.

As nomads, we learned that flexibility is better than fixity and rigidity. That being a seeker and a searcher is better than becoming too settled in our opinions.

As nomads, we learned to live in harmony with our world, and not be overly proud of our own inventions and constructions.

As nomads, we learned to be cautious about our circumstances, not to take things for granted, to know that situations can change suddenly, precipitously, catastrophically. To always keep one bag packed.

As nomads, we learned what it means to be free, what it means to be a people, and what it means to have faith.

This is the legacy we share, together, as a congregation. Wishing you a very wanderful Passover holiday!

 From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Exclusively Inclusive

Adas Emuno is a small congregation, as we all know, and that means that membership in our shul is something of an exclusive club. Of course, the final word on exclusivity was uttered by Groucho Marx, who famously said, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." This harkens back to a time when many private clubs had a policy of deliberately excluding Jews and other minorities from membership.

Marx's mocking aside, over the past century and a half, our congregation has never aspired to be one of those big, impersonal temples with many hundreds or even thousands of members. We embraced the approach so well expressed by the British economist, E. F. Schumacher, small is beautiful. I hasten to add that we do have room to grow, and we wouldn't mind a few more members.

In keeping things on a human scale, we don't force congregants to fit into predetermined molds. We remain flexible, able to tailor our expressions of faith, learning, and action to the needs and desires of our members. Ours is a shul that is personal, custom-made for our members.

In this sense, we are also an inclusive congregation, open to all who want to join together with us in the practice of our Reform Jewish faith. We are open to all who seek to worship, learn, and work together to heal our world.

We are exclusively inclusive, or maybe it's inclusively exclusive? Either way, if you think there are any ways we can do better, that we can improve in being open and intimate, warm and welcoming, inclusive and exclusive, please let us know. Let's make sure this is a club that we all want to belong to, that we all are proud to be members of, that even Groucho would be happy to join.