Rabbi’s Report to the Congregation
7 June 2015 - Shabbat Sh’lach L’cha 5775
In this week’s Torah portion, Sh’lach L’cha, we value the minority report. In the narrative, God has decided that our ancestors were ready to conquer the Promised Land. God authorized Moses to send out a representative of each tribe as scouts to report back on what they might find. Although all agree that the land is flowing with milk and honey, ten report back that the inhabitants are giants and will be impossible to overcome. Two scouts - Joshua and Caleb - report that they believe it will be possible. The people, however, despair, and God decides that they will need to wait until the next generation to finish their wanderings. The people change their minds, but it is too late.
It may seem like it took a generation to relocate our congregation from Plainfield to our new home in Scotch Plains , but it was only eleven years. Certainly, that was a generational change in our congregation - a decade of b’nei mitzvah, of confirmands, of members who never knew the building in Plainfield and thought things in the Fanwood Presbyterian Church were just fine enough. But, perhaps in the minority, we still have those members of the congregation who met with us in Plainfield at a meeting similar to this, and voted to sell our then home, and risk everything on a move to a new Promised Land.
In a sense, there is nothing to report this year - no important votes about land purchase or mortgage, no Bonim appeal (although we still do need donations to retire our second mortgage and make a dent in the first), no promises that “next year, really, we will be in our new building”. Next year, God willing, we will still be in this building, our “old” building. Last year, I tried to avoid the metaphor of Moses on Mount Nebo, when God shows him the land that the Israelites will inherit, but also tells him he will not be able to enter. That is where the Torah ends - then we cycle back to creation and begin again. The conquest of the land, the fulfillment of God’s promise is carried out in the book of Joshua, in the Prophets. We do not read this book every year, so who even knows what the end of the book of Joshua is?
I am happy to share that with you. At the end of the book of Joshua, after the people cross the Jordan on dry land, shatter the walls of Jericho and inherit the Promised Land, Joshua gathers them together and says, basically, this is the point. All of the exciting stories that led up to this day are not what it was all about, that was the journey to bring us here, where we are now expected to live together and fulfill our part of the covenant with God.
So, this is our challenge, for the upcoming first full year in our new building. Less and less people will enter and say, “Wow, this is such a lovely new building”, because it will no longer be their first time here. Everyone who came in for a service or an event, will be returning - not to satisfy their curiosity in our new building, but because what they experienced here was compelling and made them want to return. Our job is not to bask in the creation that we have made, but to dig in and use this new home to its maximum capacity. Weekday nights, there are Temple meetings, and Judaic classes, and yoga, and outside groups, and improv classes, and activities we never had space for before - but there is still more room. Sundays were are often overflowing. This building - our home - is the center of our community - bring in what you want to do, inside our walls, and let us fill this place with shared purpose, with joy, with social interaction, with food, and with people.
Of the twelve scouts, ten were pessimistic; two were not. Each one of us can find someone else to share our optimism and make this building our Promised Land for that specific purpose that burns within in you and needs to be expressed in our Temple home. Do you want to house the homeless? Do you want to learn Hebrew? Do you want to knit clothing or blankets for those in need? Do you want to create and share your art? Do you want to make music together? Worship together? Or even just sit together and watch a movie? This is your home - your living room, your kitchen, your den, your classroom, and your sanctuary. It will flow with the milk and honey of Judaism, as long as you help to tend it.
This past year, our community has lost a few of those who have tended to it in the past. Ruth Rutenberg was an active member of the Temple and passionate about publicizing our adult learning opportunities. Her husband Mort created a fund for that education in her memory. Mort, a past president and ever present voice of reason and forethought, the perennial think tank of Temple Sholom, was memorialized by his son Joel asking what he could give to provide for the most urgent need of the congregation - and our new kitchen is a testament to that care. Paul Aron was a dedicated member of our Social Action Committee. Mildred Taylor was a regular attendee of almost every Temple event, a supporter of Women on Our Own and the Sisterhood. Barbara Halberstadter gave most of her time to the Jewish Family Service, but also found a home here at Temple Sholom. Blanche Saltzman came to enjoy the home that her son Steven helped to nurture and build, and was glad to find a home here as well.
We celebrated new members this past year - and marked the weddings of Dana and Darren Lav, and Raphael and Rebecca Kasen. Maya Yael Friedman did her part not only to grow the family of Jake, Julie and Lily Friedman, but the Temple Sholom family as well.
We have much to celebrate in our 102nd year - a centennial of Confirmation, a new home, new families, new members, new programs - but the core remains the same. Each year at this time, we peer into our Jewish future and imagine the Promised Land that we can create, and we look on the optimistic side - we move forward on our journey, and we send ourselves into that future.
As Moses said to Joshua - Chazak v’ameitz - strength and courage.
