USCJ Review - Fall 2006
I Have Worked Hard and I have Succeeded - My Passion for the Center
My parents sent me to an Orthodox day school, where my kindergarten teacher taught us not to wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur. We made custom slippers out of construction paper and brought them home.
My parents were not impressed. At that time, the rabbi, the cantor, and all of the members of our Conservative synagogue wore leather shoes on Yom Kippur.
They sat me down for a little talk. "Your teacher's Orthodox and that's why she wears sneakers to synagogue on Yom Kippur," my parents explained. "But we're not Orthodox. We're Con" - and they waited for me to complete the sentence, "We're Con." I was sure I knew where they were going, and so I completed their sentence. "We're Con-" "fused!"
In more than a few ways, our position as Conservative Jews is extremely confusing. We live in a world that doesn't like nuance. We live in a world that doesn't respect the notion of tradition and change. Many people prefer to speak about "tradition or change." The numbers suggest a movement in decline.
The second century sage Rabbi Yitzhak, reminds us, however, that the real world requires due diligence:
If a person tells you, "I worked but I did not succeed," you should not believe him. If he says "I did not work hard but I succeeded," you should not believe him. Only if he says, "I worked hard and finally I succeeded," then you should believe him.
To create inspiration for the center out of confusion, we must work hard, passionately living our unique values, the most important of which are intellectual honesty, dedication to tradition, and a commitment to spiritual growth. (The value of Israel, which is central to our movement and to my personal religious identity is no longer (or should not be) unique to the center. Israel is a community value and challenge religiously, culturally, and politically.)
Intellectual Honesty
Conservative Judaism calls upon us to find truth in both religion and science. In the words of Albert Einstein, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." This is a central Jewish belief. That said, the Torah does not teach biology. The Torah's accounts of Creation teach a value that science alone cannot impart: human beings are created b'tzelem elohim, in the image of God. Created in the image of God, we have an obligation to partner with God - through gemilut hasadim, acts of kindness - in the pursuit of perfection.
Still, with all that religion offers, we can never ignore the most powerful teachings of science. Science explains how the world works. Scientific knowledge about the origin of the universe and the biological progressions of the past give us tools we need as God's partners in the present.
Scientific methods help us better understand Judaism itself. The Judaism of the Bible was different from the Judaism of the Talmud, which was different from that of the Middle Ages and certainly different from today. The Torah is not a fundamentalist manual of simplistic stories or commandments. It is the basis for a living and evolving tradition, which is continually reinterpreted using the tools of both religion and science.
Balancing religion and science is a difficult and imperfect process. But with hard work, we will come to understand both how we came to be and what we must do as creations of God.
Dedication to Tradition
An old joke has a rabbi arriving in a community and being advised by the president to avoid such uncomfortable or controversial topics as Shabbat and kashrut observance, Israel, and other forms of commitment. When asked what the rabbi should speak about, the president explains, "You know, speak about Judaism!"
Serious Judaism cannot ignore the importance of mitzvot. Our movement developed as a response to those who believed ritual commandments were no longer binding or relevant.
My mother explains why kashrut is important for her. "I don't pray three times a day," she says. "But I do eat three times a day. And every time I eat, by virtue of the foods I put into my mouth, I am reminded that I am Jewish." Our actions, our dedication to mitzvoth, identify us as Jews and imbue our lives with holiness.
All of the changes that our movement has introduced - from egalitarianism to bioethics to riding to the synagogue on Shabbat - have one thing in common. They make it possible for more people to participate in traditional Jewish life.
As Conservative Jews, we must work hard to demonstrate the importance of faithful dedication to the tradition.
Commitment to Spiritual Growth
For this critical value, the middle is the best place to be. In the middle, we need neither despair of our inability to observe commandments nor become comfortable with our level of commitment. The middle is the location of continuous development. It is only through hard work that success can be achieved. Our institutions exist to help each of us along the way.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins reminds us that real change is a long and difficult process:
"Picture an egg just sitting there. No one pays much attention until, one day, the egg cracks open and out jumps a chicken! All the major magazines and newspapers jump on the event, writing feature stories - 'The Transformation of Egg to Chicken!' 'The Remarkable Revolution of the Egg!' 'Stunning Turnaround at Egg!' - as if the egg had undergone some overnight metamorphosis, radically altering itself into a chicken.
But what does it look like from the chicken's point of view? It's a completely different story... From the chicken's point of view, cracking the egg is simply one more step in a long chain of steps - a big step, to be sure, but hardly the radical, single-step transformation it looks like to those watching from outside the egg."
Jewish growth works in a similar way.
When it comes to Shabbat, first make the commitment to light Shabbat candles, even if it's not always at the right time; commit to have a Shabbat meal with your family, even if you can't do it every week; begin to attend synagogue on a more regular basis.
When it comes to kashrut, commit first to observing kashrut when celebrating lifecycle events, even if you do not yet keep a kosher home; buy kosher meat even if you don't own separate dishes. And remember that keeping a kosher home and eating unkosher food out of the house is not hypocritical. It is a significant step of growth towards observance.
Our tradition teaches mitzvah goreret mitzvah - one mitzvah leads to another. As stewards of the middle, we must sanctify the value of incremental growth.
The greatest of all Jewish scholars, Moses Maimonides, taught that the straightest path in life is the midah beinonit, the middle way. Intuitively we know that the center is the place to be. But experience tells us that the center is also very confusing.
As institutions and as individuals, may we be inspired by the values of Conservative Judaism. May God guide us to the point when we can say, "I have worked hard, and through my persistence, dedication, and commitment I have found fulfillment."
Michael J. Safra is rabbi of B'nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland.
