"God-wrestling in a Conscious Community"

This drash was delivered by Rabbi Maurice during Kol Nidre services, on Erev Yom Kippur, 5765 (2004).

On Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Yitzhak spoke about how together we create a kehilat kodesh, a conscious community, a community that serves a higher purpose. He talked about the ways in which people in a conscious community do things to tend the eternal flame - often behind the scenes - by supporting one another and forging caring connections. He reminded us that it’s in those moments of caring for each other that we reveal God’s presence in the world. And he talked about how a conscious community is a place where people are encouraged to examine the stories that have defined their lives and turn those stories into engines of meaning within the life of the group.

He started, as each of us does, by telling his own story, and how it motivated him to help build a conscious Jewish community here in Eugene. The same is true for countless others at TBI, who bring their stories into this community as motivating guides. Maintaining our conscious community - or, as many in our congregation are beginning to say, nurturing our culture of citizenship - here at TBI is something that is very important, and it’s a process that thrives when each of us draws on our personal stories in ways that help build the community.

Tonight, I am going to follow Rabbi Yitzhak’s lead and share some of the story that I bring with me, the story I hope I can draw on to contribute to this kehilat kodesh, this community striving for holiness. But before I do that, I want to say a few more things about the subject of conscious community and culture of citizenship here at TBI.

In many ways, TBI is already a conscious community, and, over the past year, many members of the congregation have worked hard to bring it even closer to the kehillat kodesh ideal. This year, in particular, during a series of remarkable meetings, Board and committee members, informal leaders, and staff have spent hours identifying some of the hundreds of ways in which our congregants routinely act as caring citizens. They’ve taken that information and used it to update the way TBI is organized, so that the holy energy people bring into the congregation gets routed in ways that build even stronger and more sustainable connections and relationships. During these meetings people have looked for answers to practical questions like: How can we present a more welcoming face to people who first contact us? And once someone joins our community, and they write down on a form what their specific interests are, how can we make sure someone on the right committee calls them within a few weeks and invites them to get involved? How do we invite members who don’t feel all that connected to let us know how we might make the connection? And how should we open this discussion to the community at large so that everyone has a chance to get involved?

Paying attention to how we are organized is just one of the ways TBI is trying to advance its culture of citizenship. Maintaining and growing that culture is deeply important, because a conscious community, a kehilat kodesh, is not an easy thing to find in American culture. We live in a consumer-oriented society that has lost many of its original instincts for building meaningful communal ties. Synagogues and other spiritual centers are among the few places where we come looking for something different, something that matters. We don’t want our religious community to be one more gym membership, one more subscription. We want real community - conscious community - where we can bring our whole selves and our stories, share with others, learn from a 5,000 year old wisdom tradition, question and participate in the evolution of that tradition, and build something together that makes the world around us better. Because that’s what Judaism can be. Indeed, that’s what our sages had in mind when they said, "Kol Yisrael Aravim Zeh l’zeh" - everyone in the community is responsible for everyone else.

As I said, in so many ways, TBI already is a conscious community, a congregation full of people who look out for one another and create a loving web of connection. But the challenges of having grown so much over the last years have led the Board and many other members to start some of the work that I described. Now that that work has begun, and we want you to join in as it continues.

In the year ahead, we are hoping every member will join in, in at least one particular way. We are planning a series of facilitated parlor meetings in peoples’ homes, designed to gather more input from our entire congregation and create new opportunities for people to weave their stories and their passions into this community. Every TBI member will be invited to attend a parlor meeting. I hope you’ll all be able to attend one of those meetings.

So - I promised to tell you part of my story - of how I came to play a role as a citizen in this Jewish community. I hope my story will demonstrate how the vision of a conscious Jewish community is magnetic enough to draw in a wide range of people, including people you might not expect to take on a serious commitment to Jewish life. Because believe it or not, I am one of those people.

You see, I became a rabbi because I couldn’t stop wrestling with Judaism. Not because I found uninterrupted joy in Judaism, not because it always felt like home, and not because I was drawn like a moth to its spiritual flame. For me, it was the path of Jacob - of Ya’akov - our biblical ancestor who wrestled with God. For those of you who don’t remember the story, one night while Jacob was alone by the Ya-bok River, a mysterious man appeared, and they wrestled throughout the night. Jacob won the contest, and later discovered that he had been wrestling with a Divine being, possibly God, Godself. For many Jews, Jacob is the ancestor who symbolizes the experience of struggling with God - and also of struggling with Judaism. Or, to mix religious metaphors, Jacob is the patron saint of those who see the path of wrestling with one’s tradition as a holy path.

That’s been me for my whole adult life.

Before I go on with this story, I want to stop and plant a seed. Tonight is Yom Kippur - a day of thorough self-examination. It’s a time when each of us is called to think about our own stories. As I share some of mine with you, I’d like to ask you to think about your own stories too. Specifically, since Rabbi Yitzhak and I are focusing on community this year, I’d like to ask you to ask yourself, "What has my relationship to Judaism, to the Jewish community, been like over the years?" What have been the challenges, the highs, the lows, the questions that have dotted your path in connection to Judaism? Every person in this room can find answers to these questions - whether you’re a deeply involved Jew, an ambivalent Jew, or even if you’re a non-Jewish fellow traveler with the community.

So I ask you to reflect on your own Jewish journeys, and I add one more question for you to ponder. What have the turning points in your story been - or, as Shonna Husbands-Hankin calls them - your "teshuvah points?" Teshuvah, after all, means turning. What were your big teshuvah points – those "aha!" moments, those forks in the road that led you deeper into Jewish life, or farther away from it, or into a dance of ambivalence – whatever your Jewish journey has been so far?

Now that that seed is well planted, I’ll tell you how I came to identify my story with our ancestor, Jacob the God-wrestler. First, you’re going to have to picture me 17 years ago as a freshman in college. For those of you who’ve seen me when I’m not wearing my kippah, that means you’re going to have to picture me with hair. Lots of brown, curly hair.

My first two years of college, I was the kind of Jewish student who would go to Friday night services once or twice a month. I was looking for something in Judaism – there was something calling me to walk through the door – but I couldn’t name it. Sometimes the beauty of the tradition would fill me with joy and a sense of God’s presence, like when we would sing L’cha Dodi. But those moments of spiritual embrace would always give way to painful moments of disappointment and alienation. Mixed in with these sweet Shabbat songs were prayers that felt chauvinistic, that seemed to boast of the people Israel as God’s favorite children in the human family – something I didn’t believe in then and still do not now.

My junior year, I joined a havurah. I was still seeking something from Judaism, and still unable to name it. The same pattern unfolded. One moment I’d be inspired by the Torah’s compassion for the stranger, the next moment horrified by its stories justifying conquest and slaughter. And so, on it went. I’d draw near the fire and get warmed, and then somehow get burned. So then I’d walk away from the fire, and, after a little while, I’d feel cold. Then, you guessed it, I’d draw near the fire again, and the cycle would continue.

I talked to the campus rabbi about this, and she said that the wrestling had an integrity of its own. She would often say that the struggle with the tradition is Judaism, and she encouraged me to embrace it. Hearing that was significant for me, but I didn’t entirely buy it.

I didn’t want to spend my whole life being a wrestler. There was something I wanted from Judaism, and in the years that followed, I began to be able to name it. In fact, there were two things I wanted from Judaism: number one, that Judaism comfort and reassure me, and number two, that it inspire me and challenge me to be the best person I can possibly be. Put differently, first, I wanted Judaism to give me a God I could turn to in my deepest vulnerability, a God I could snuggle with. And second, I wanted Judaism to be a religion more focused on serving others than on protecting itself.

Now that I could name what I wanted, I wanted Judaism to deliver. Something deep inside me was telling me not to ignore this impulse, not to let Judaism off the hook and resign myself to a revolving door relationship with my religion. I took my inspiration from Abraham, who had the audacity to argue with God. "Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do what is just?" he asked. I decided that Judaism was strong enough, old enough, and tough enough to lend an ear to my demands, too.

So I shouted my demands to Judaism – "These are the two things I want from you!" and I named them. And Judaism replied. "But I already do both of those things for you, some of the time."

It was at that moment that I realized that I wanted … a third thing.

"And I also want you to be consistent!" I shouted, and waited for an answer.

To that demand, I got no reply. It reminds me of dear old Jacob. After the wrestling was over, Jacob asked the mysterious stranger to please tell him his name. The stranger refused. "Why do you ask my name?" was all he would say.

Gradually, I began to realize that the question for me was becoming one of whether I could embrace an inconsistent Judaism, a Judaism that would sometimes bring me God’s truth and other times bring me human misreading of the Divine will. I tried to work through this question by taking jobs with Jewish organizations that were trying to give expression to the aspects of Judaism that I found the most inspiring. In the course of that work, I met some remarkable rabbis – women rabbis, who, perhaps by their very presence as women in the rabbinate, had also had to wrestle profoundly with Judaism. Despite negative judgment from much of the traditional Jewish world, these women saw something in Judaism that they loved so much they decided to spend their careers working to build and nurture that potential. They were wrestlers of the first order.

Inspired by these rabbis, I finally gave in and went to rabbinical school.

I had one condition for going to rabbinical school. It had to be a place that would embrace the beauty and depth of Judaism, and yet it had to also be a place where it was completely okay to question anything and everything. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was just that place. More than anywhere else I think I could have gone for my rabbinic training, RRC welcomed me as I was – a lifelong wrestler with Judaism.

At RRC, I learned three ideas that had a huge impact on me.

The first is that Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. It sounds simplistic, but it’s actually a powerful statement. Judaism has been and will be what we make of it. In every era it has adapted and changed, and grown like a living organism. And who is the Jewish people today? Who will inherit our tradition’s wisdom and make choices about what Judaism brings to the world? Us. This first lesson taught me that Judaism is in our hands, and it will be what we make of it.

The second idea is that Judaism – like every other religion – is not perfect. I already had felt that way, but at RRC I realized that if I was going to hold out for Judaism – or for that matter, any religion – to come along and be perfect, I was going to chase my tail for a long, long time. I came to see my cycle of inspiration and alienation in a new light at RRC. Religions are our way of seeking for God, and when they connect with the Divine – pow – Justice rolls down like waters, and Righteousness like a mighty stream. But when religions miss the mark – when they misread the Divine – look out. They can be agents of hatred, division, and violence. The impact of the second lesson – that religions are imperfect - was to remind me that, once again, what we do with our tradition is up to us. Walking away from the debates within the Jewish community would be like giving up my right to vote. I just couldn’t do that.

The third lesson I learned was that Judaism – like other religions – has such amazing potential. The potential for Judaism to continue evolving, to continue its 5,000-year wrestling and seeking after God, to keep offering its ancient wisdom as a corrective to secular society’s failures, and to keep up its tradition of relentless hope, of dissent and even of self-criticism – this potential is something to be very excited about.

At RRC I realized that the reason my wrestling with Judaism resulted in my going to rabbinical school – and not in my relegating Judaism to a minor role in my life – was that I never stopped feeling excited about the potential of Judaism. And RRC made me realize that each of us has a voice to contribute to the shaping of Judaism today. Gandhi said, "be the change you want to see in the world." I realized that what was driving me to become a rabbi was a call to be the kind of Jew I wanted to see in the world, and to help build a Jewish community in which collectively we can be the kind of Judaism we want to see in the world.

What is the kind of Judaism I would like to help manifest in the world?

I’ll just say this much. The Judaism I want to see in the world is what I call a Judaism of service and humility. A Judaism whose heart is focused on service to others, and a Judaism that draws on the story of our liberation as an instrument of identifying with the Other, including our enemies. It’s a Judaism that shares with the world our tradition of debate, of seeing ethical questions from many different angles. It’s a Judaism that recognizes that the Unifying Mystery we call God goes by many names and by no name at all. And finally, it’s a Judaism that understands that all religions contain fragments of the ultimate truth, and that no religion holds a monopoly on the truth. All these values already exist in Judaism – indeed, much of what kept drawing me back to Judaism over and over again were these Jewish teachings. But in our Jewish world, often these values take a back seat to other agendas that, to me, seem either misguided, or at times, chauvinistic, and even dangerous.

I guess I realized that if I wanted to help create the Judaism whose potential I’m in love with, I needed to claim my citizenship, take my seat at the table, and vote with my heart.

And this is where my personal story connects back to TBI’s ongoing development as a conscious community, a place where God’s presence in the world continues to be revealed. The Judaism we build will be what we make of it. And on Yom Kippur, when we are individually and collectively doing cheshbon ha-nefesh – an examination of the soul – it’s fitting to be talking about what we want to make of our Judaism. If we make of it a tool for community joy, for peace-building, for service to others, it will be that. If we make of it a tool for worry, for fear of the outsider, for defensiveness and even of aggression, it will be that. It’s yours – it’s ours – we’re not just inheritors, we’re shapers and participants. The first step is to get involved.

So I invite you – we all invite you, Rabbi Yitzhak, the Board, the folks who’ve been sharing in this growing conversation about our future – to take ownership of your Judaism and take your seat at the table. Ask yourself what your story is and what it has taught you about the kind of conscious community you’d like to help build. Help us all keep moving, one small step at a time, towards creating a Jewish community we feel proud of, a community we are shaping in the brilliant light of our 5,000-year-old tradition and through the lens of contemporary insights.

Thank you and g’mar chatimah tovah – may we all be sealed for a good year.