Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Shemini Atzeret 2002

by Harold M. Schulweis

(The Temple Board installation took place on the evening of Shemini Atzeret.)

What an odd holiday is Shemini Atzeret. Does it belong to the festival of Sukkot or the festival one may eat and drink in the Sukkah, but no blessing "leshev basukka" is recited. It is a festival devoid of ritual objects: no lulav, no etrog, no hakafoth encirclings of the congregation with the Torah. What is Shemini Atzeret? The rabbis call it "regel mipnei atzmo" ⤳ "a festival of its own". And a imaginative Midrash the rabbis explain that God addresses the Jewish people after the Holy days and after Sukkot and says to them "Stay another day." Stay another day for companionship, for the joy of belonging, a festival that has nothing to do with any historical event. On Sukkot there are 70 bullocks which were sacrificed in the Temple for the 70 nations of the world. But on Shemini Atzeret there is just one bullock sacrificed and it's between us. Shemini Atzeret is the joy of belonging, the joy of peoplehood. Jews need Jews to be Jewish. Peoplehood is indispensable in Judaism. And this indispensability is dramatized in the Jewish focus on the "minyan", the indispensable ten Jews required for a quorum.

Without a minyan, there may be priests present in the synagogue, but no Birkat Kohanim, the priestly benediction, can be recited. No "kiddusha", no prayer of sanctification, so central in the services can be recited without a minyan. Without a minyan, there is no "barchu". Without a minyan, there is no public reading of the Torah and Haftorah. Without a minyan, no Shma and its blessings are recited. Without a minyan, no kaddish to be recited by the mourners. Without a minyan, the seven benedictions for the bridegroom and the bride are not recited. Something important is stated in these liturgical precepts. The people, the minyan, the community is the matrix of Judaism. Judaism is by, for, and of the Jewish people. Peoplehood is one of the three pillars of Judaism: belonging, behaving, believing. And who makes up the minyan? Who comprises the congregation? All and every kind of Jew. The believer and unbeliever, the right, center and left wing, the pious and impious. The congregation is not made up of saints. On Kol Nidre before we pray we declare that all those who have transgressed are part of our community and belong here with us. Indeed, you cannot pray in a minyan unless you have some transgressors among them.

The incense presented to God is made up of fragrant spices but it must include galbanum, an odoriferous smelling unpleasant odor, because the incense represents the entire people and the entire people includes all kinds of characters and personalities.

In the symbolism of the four species one must include in the willow, the aravah, which has no taste and has no smell and is the least significant of all of the species. But it must be present and must be held together with the lulav and ethrog and hada because we need each other, all of each other. Where is God to be found? Not in the Holy of Holies, not in the sanctum sanctorum. God declares "The heaven is My throne and the earth my footstool. Where is the house that you will build for Me?" And the resolution is found in God's declaration "I will be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel." This is an exceedingly important lesson that we learn from our history, especially in an age in which the community is crumbling and has given way to privatism. The erosion of the warmth and solidarity of community and the rise of the lonely individual self.

The synagogue is concerned with people, not just people in the abstract, but individual persons in their daily and yearly lifestyle: in the birth of a child, in the death of the parent, in the joy of growth and achievement and in the sadness of failure. In the synagogue no Jew is permitted to mourn alone or to grieve alone. And within the synagogue no Jew need celebrate by himself or herself.

Along with believing and behaving there is a sanctity in belonging. Many of us have come to the synagogue not knowing anybody. But in the course of our life in the synagogue, we have come to know other people through the havurah, through Living a Jewish Life, through attending seminars and lectures and joining in so many of the important agencies of the synagogue.

Friendship may not be one of the explicit goals of the synagogue but it is an absolutely important dimension of being a member of a synagogue. A friendless congregant points to the failure of the synagogue.

In Judaism more than in any other faith that I know peoplehood, the people, the family is sacred. So it is altogether proper that at our installation of the Temple Board, we celebrate the Day School which is the jewel of the synagogue. We celebrate the remarkable work of Tamar Raff, the gifted principle of the Judaic Studies in our Day School and of Joyce Black, head of our secular curricula and our newly elected Director of the Day School, Sheva Locke who has already brought into our synagogue vitality, competence, erudition and the passion which must attend our relationship with our young. Jews receive the first taste of communal Judaism in their youngest years and it is to them that we pay close attention.

It is told once that Rabbi Schnayer Zalman stayed at his son's home and was given his room upstairs. At night his grandchild slept next to his son's study in the floor below. The baby started to cry and the father seated only a few feet from the cradle was so immersed in his study that he paid no attention. The grandfather, Schnayer Zalman, descended the stairs and calmed the baby. He took his son aside and whispered to him "You cannot reach the ears of the Holy One until you hear the cry of a baby." This is the task of the synagogue of the Board of Directors, to hear the cry of our people, beginning with our children. Listen to that cry, find solutions to alleviate the pain, and calm those who are hurt, to give purpose to those who seek meaning in their life.

Elaine and David Gill are friends of decades. They met and fell in love at Brandeis Camp, and their musicality further intensified their commitment to the synagogue. Elaine and David are both veteran members of our VBS choir. David is a passionate leader in the causes of Israel, the Jewish Federation, the synagogue. Elaine has climbed the rungs of the synagogue ladder. Only last year, Elaine's dynamic leadership organized the synagogue's celebration of Bulgaria's astounding rescue of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews during the ominous Holocaust era. Largely through Elaine's initiative, VBS hosted the Princess of Bulgaria, the daughter of King Boris, along with the head clergyman of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

I know the Gill family and their lively progeny. I know that Elaine is mindful of the centrality of Jewish peoplehood and the significance of belonging.

We pledge ourselves to deepen the warmth and friendship between and among us. Mazel tov to Elaine and to the old and new members of our Board of Directors and Trustees.

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