Rabbi Josh Zweiback
September 25, 2004

The Jewish Depot

 I. The Metaphor

            After services, after the break-fast, I know exactly what I’m going to do when I get home. I’ve been waiting all day for this. I’ve been waiting all year for this.

            I’m going to start building my Sukkah. Just when you thought the Jewish Holy Days were finally coming to an end, that you were off the hook until Chanukah, the festival of Sukkot is upon us. Five short days after Yom Kippur and we’re knee deep in a big one—one of the three great pilgrimage holidays on which our ancestors in days of old trekked to Jerusalem to offer special sacrifices in the Temple. And it’s no one-day affair—it’s a full week of celebration.

            I love Sukkot—for a lot of reasons. It’s a beautiful time of the year. We call Sukkot, zman simchateinu, the season of our joy. It’s a time for singing, for being outdoors, for celebrating with friends. It’s the time of the grape harvest, a time of gladness.

            I also love Sukkot because it gives me a chance to build a Sukkah. For a few days each fall, I become “Yoshi the Builder”—and I love it. Ever since I was a kid I loved building things. When I was five, my parents redecorated our basement. (For you native Californians, by the way, a basement is an underground floor that many homes east of here have. It’s a great place to store toys and play floor hockey. And in the spring, the basement floods and subsequently smells like mildew the rest of the year.)

            I still remember following Larry, our carpenter, around the basement with my little toy tool belt, watching his every move.

            It wasn’t until my required 8^th grade wood-working class, however, that I realized that the other boys in my school lived in an entirely different world when it came to "shop." I loved building things and working with my hands, yet their level of competence around power tools put mine to shame.

            My best friend, Jim Simon, was the only other Jewish kid in a class of about 30 students. I vividly remember standing there with him when our teacher, Mr. Eastlack, went over the rules for using the band saw. “Now boys,” he instructed, “this here, of course, is an industrial band saw, not too different from the kind of home model your father has in his basement work room.” The other boys in the class nodded their heads in silent recognition.

            I looked at Jim. He looked back at me. We were stumped. Basement work room? Home band saw? Neither of our fathers had a basement work room. In my house, we had the tool drawer. Every tool my dad owned was in there. A few screwdrivers, a hammer, an assortment of nails and bolts, measuring tape, Crazy Glue, and a hemostat (my dad’s a surgeon). I was reasonably certain that the tool drawer did not include a band saw.

            Within a few days, it was clear to us—and even clearer to Mr. Eastlack—that wood shop presented a special danger to the Jewish minority in the class. For the rest of the semester, our teacher’s main preoccupation was protecting Simon and me from serious injury.

            It’s probably a good idea that these days my wood-working is pretty much limited to building a Sukkah each fall. No industrial band saws required. No power tools at all for that matter. Despite my childhood love for carpentry, today I have a tool drawer like my dad, filled with just enough gear to build a Sukkah: a couple of screwdrivers, a hammer, an assortment of nails and bolts.

            Now, for all of you Home Improvement types out there, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting that Jews are genetically incapable of being great builders. I lived in Alaska for two summers, OK. I know Jews who built their homes with their own two hands.

            But in general, our tradition has not made Home Improvement a fundamental value. The Sukkah itself is instructive in this regard. By definition it is a temporary shelter, flimsy, ephemeral, impermanent. The one structure every Jew traditionally builds for himself each year is, by design, a rather modest piece of work. It’s purposely not built to last.

            The fact is, our Jewish tradition has precious little to teach us about how to create a beautiful coffee table, or fix a broken shelf, or build a fine house. But it is filled with precious teachings about how to create beautiful relationships, fix the world around us, and build a meaningful life.

            And it doesn’t just teach us about these things in a theoretical, abstract way, it also provides us with the implements we need to get the job done. Judaism is our workshop, filled with precision crafted, industrial grade tools that enable us to live good, just, and meaningful lives. The fundamental value at the core of our Judaism is Life Improvement.

            On this Yom Kippur, I invite all of us to consider how our tradition can improve our lives and our world. I want us to think about the value of choosing to use Jewish tools to make these improvements. And I want us all to make the commitment in this New Year to enhance our skills.

II. Three Things

            Everyone in this room has personally experienced ways in which Jewish tradition and community enhance our lives and the lives of others.

            We feel it at the Passover Seder, the retelling of our people’s master story: We were slaves and God freed us for a purpose. Our job is to go out into the world and free others from bondage.

            We see it in the flickering lights of the Hanukiah, reminding us that there are some things worth fighting for, that a small band of believers can make a difference, that even during the darkest days of the year, we must never relinquish hope.

            We experience it through Jewish learning: a Torah study class, an inspiring teacher, a great study-partner, a text that resonates deep in your soul, a teaching that changes the way you see the world, that helps you be more loving, more supportive, more compassionate to those around you.

            It’s the way our tradition helps magnify our simchas. A two-hundred year-old wedding song magically connecting us under the Huppah to great-grandparents who are here no more. Watching our child chant words of Torah as she celebrates becoming Bat Mitzvah, adding her link to the Goldena Keit, the Golden Chain of Tradition. It’s the joy of a baby naming. It’s watching those adorable kindergarteners receive their little Torah scrolls. Hearing one of our teenagers at Confirmation explain why Judaism matters to him.

            It’s the way the wisdom of our people comforts us during times of tzuris, reminding us that the whole world is a narrow bridge: the important thing is not to be afraid. It’s the rabbi’s eulogy at a funeral for a beloved friend or relative, linking our private moment of mourning to something larger, something eternal. It’s the community standing with us, supporting us through our darkest days with hugs, letters of condolence, and platters of cookies. It’s the rhythm of shiva, then sh’loshim, then yahrtzeit, showing us the way to remember, to grieve, to slowly, painfully heal.

            One of the particular pleasures of being a congregational rabbi is the opportunity I have to witness personally how Judaism brings meaning, comfort, and joy to so many families in this community. I want to tell you about a few people sitting in this room with you today.

            A few years back, one of our congregants discovered for the first time his love of Torah learning. Before he knew it, he was a regular at one of our weekly text study classes, his family was learning together in Shabbaton, and he was studying Jewish history in our Heritage program. One afternoon his wife dropped by my office to tell me how much this learning community had changed her husband’s life. “He’s a different person,” she said. “More focused somehow on what really matters. He’s a better father. A better husband. A better man.”

            Another congregant told me that, after an Asilomar weekend devoted to learning more about Shabbat, she’d decided to change the way she observed Shabbat at home. She made a commitment to stop working on Shabbat, just for a few months to try it out, to see what it might do for her. No email, no business calls, no shopping, no running errands. One day each week to be with friends, to study Torah, to listen to music, to take long walks with her husband. “Now I can’t remember how I used to live any other way,” she told me recently. “Shabbat centers me. It energizes me. I’m happier now.”

            Last year in our Shabbaton program we studied Jewish teachings on tzedakah and compared them with American and Christian notions of charity. We looked at the challenging Jewish notion that we are responsible for others, friends and strangers alike. We studied a text about the requirement to give tzedakah to beggars, even when we suspect that they are frauds. One of our congregants who works in San Francisco made a commitment to try to live out this teaching, giving tzedakah to each beggar he saw. He told me that this costs him about $25 a week. But it has changed his life profoundly. “It’s amazing how much you see when you open your eyes,” he told me. “Before I started giving, I would walk past the beggars on the street and literally not see them. Now I look for them and marvel that so many walk past without seeing, just as I used to.” He told me that these encounters with homeless people, mentally ill people, drug-addicts, disabled people—these encounters changed him and changed the way he thinks about money, about giving, about the inherent humanity inside of every person.

            A young widow told me one Shabbat morning on the first yahrtzeit of her husband’s death that without the community she’d found at Beth Am, she never would have gotten through that awful year. Just being with others who had stood where she stood, who had said kaddish for a dear one, helped her heal and gave her strength.

            There are kids in our programs at Beth Am who have found a home here, a place where they feel loved and supported and safe. One father told me that during a particularly difficult time for his son at school, Beth Am was the only place other than home where this boy felt loved and supported. And I know that this community has literally saved some of our kids’ lives. There are teens who have told us that without their friends at Beth Am, without the support of their rabbis and teachers, they wouldn’t be here, they wouldn’t have been able to hang on, to maintain their grasp on life.

            B. Value of using Jewish tools in particular: They’re ours; they’re excellent; using them insures Jewish continuity

            Why then hold on to traditions rooted in an ancient past, whispered in a foreign language? Why not upgrade to something more contemporary? Why, ultimately, look to Jewish wisdom for guidance? Three reasons:

            First of all, it’s practical. This tradition belongs to us. We already own it. No need to go poking around someone else’s basement. Everything is right here. It’s really quite convenient.

            Our Torah portion for this morning makes this very point: “Hamitzvah ha-zot, lo bashamayim hee! The Torah is not in heaven… nor is it beyond the sea… No! Karov eileichah… m’od. It is very near to you. It’s in your mouth and in your heart and you can do it.” (Deut. 30:11-14)

            It’s our inheritance. It’s our birthright. We own it.

            But wait, that’s not all! It’s not enough that Judaism is our heritage, that it already belongs to us. It so happens that our tradition is of very the finest quality. And while there are other great traditions out there, from other great civilizations and peoples, Judaism’s approach to the world is the best one for many of us.

            Judaism is open to questions, focused on this world, committed to doing the sacred work required to bring about redemption: to make peace a reality, to put an end to hunger, poverty, and war. Judaism emphasizes learning above all else. To be a Jew is to grow continually, to commit yourself to ongoing reflection and transformation.

            And in a world challenged by the triumphant claims of religious fundamentalism of various kinds, our tradition is somewhat unique in not claiming that our path is the only path to goodness, the only way to live a rewarding life or gain entrance to Heaven. The sages of the Talmud emphasize that there is a place in the World to Come for non-Jews as well. I’m proud to be the inheritor of a tradition of tolerance.

            And liberal Judaism, the Reform Judaism we practice at Beth Am, provides a particularly helpful framework for building a meaningful life, for connecting deeply with others, and for going about the sacred business of making the world a better place. It is a religious tradition that is egalitarian, inclusive, and democratic. It is intellectually honest, willing—even eager—to confront the most difficult questions head-on. How do we balance personal autonomy with a tradition that is based on communal norms? How do we hear God’s call in a secular world? How do we live meaningful Jewish lives without separating ourselves completely from the rest of humanity? Our Reform Judaism grapples with these tough questions, provides meaningful answers, and invites us to add our voices to the conversation.

            As Professor Arnie Eisen of Stanford University puts it: “There is a place for saying, as I often do, ‘This is part of your history, your tradition; make it part of the treasury out of which you furnish your mind and stir your heart. It should at least be on your shelf of consciousness beside George Eliot, Paul Cezanne, and Sigmund Freud.’… But there is also a need to say…: ‘Look: you are a human being, and the business of life as we all well know is very difficult, often painful, never certain. You owe it to yourself…to the soul in you, to encounter the norms and wisdom stored up in this Torah, unsurpassed in the history of human civilization, and closer to you than you know.’”[1]

            But there is a third reason to use Judaism to improve our lives and the lives of others. A reason of existential proportions. A reason for not just using these tools but for keeping them sharp, maintaining them, and always being on the look out for new gadgets from the Jewish tool-box that will make us better craftspeople.

            You see, while improving our lives and the lives of others can be accomplished through a variety of means, Jewish continuity is only assured when Jewish communities practice Judaism, when Jews employ Jewish wisdom to the sacred work of living good and meaningful lives. Jewish continuity is assured when parents pass Judaism on to their children.

            My dad (may he live and be well) and my  mom (may her memory be a blessing) gave me the extraordinary, generative gifts of an appreciation of Jewish community, a love of Torah, a hunger for interesting questions, a feeling of responsibility for others, and a commitment to share these gifts with my own children. What did your parents or grandparents give you? What will be your legacy to the next generation?

            Beth Am’s educational theme this year, in honor of our 50^th birthday, is “L’dor VaDor: From Generation to Generation.” But Judaism will end with our generation if it’s not lived by the next. Jewish continuity happens when Jews live meaningful Jewish lives and then inspire the next generation to embrace Judaism and to make it its own. If you don’t use it, if you don’t live it, it dies. None of us wants that to happen. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.

            And everyone gathered here today has something important to contribute—as this morning’s Torah reading would have it: “All of us—leaders, elders, officers, men, women, and children, non-Jews who have chosen to join their destiny to ours, from the one who cuts the wood to the one who draws the water, we all stand together today.” As Professor Eisen puts it: “Judaism needs you…for what you and you alone, if you become a serious Jew, can add to the repertoire of Jewish possibilities that your friends can then draw upon and that we will collectively pass on to the next generation of learners.”[2]

              C. Sharpening the Saw

            And since these are all so important, it’s appropriate to think about how we can do better as individuals and as a community. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. It’s important so we want to be good at this.

            What does it mean to be a “good Jew”? Elie Wiesel says: “A good Jew is a Jew who wants to be a better Jew.” Wherever we are, whatever our practice or belief, we can go deeper, we can do more.

            What will it be for you in 5765? What do you want to learn this year? What skills do you want to focus on? Hebrew? Maybe it’s learning the aleph-bet, decoding a prayer. Maybe it’s speaking modern Hebrew so you can visit Israel and have a conversation with a long-lost cousin. Maybe it’s studying Torah, seeing the world through the lens of the weekly Torah portion. Maybe it’s Jewish history or poetry or philosophy.

            What do you want to make this year? Shabbos? Havdallah? A Pesach seder? A kippah? Maybe a tallis? Try on a new tradition. See how it feels. See what it does for you, for your family, for this community.

            What do you want to build this year? A better marriage? A stronger relationship with your kids or your parents? A deeper connection to your community? A better world? A sukkah? This is the place where it can happen. Now is the time—right now—to dedicate ourselves to going deeper.

            We don’t have to do it all at once. We can start small. We can go slowly. But we can’t stand still. A community needs to grow to be alive. We need to keep learning. We need to keep exploring and reinventing or we’ll die. Our tools will rust over and we’ll find ourselves at our neighbor’s house, sheepishly asking to borrow a hammer wondering what the heck happened to ours.

            For those of you who have a hard time relating to the tool metaphor, here’s another way of thinking about it: Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a giant of our generation, talks about the “road” of Judaism. He writes: “I try to walk the road of Judaism. Embedded in that road are many jewels. One is marked ‘Shabbat’ and one ‘Civil rights’ and one ‘Kashrut’ and one ‘Honor your parents’ and one ‘study Torah’ and one ‘You shall be holy.’ There are at least 613 of them, and they are of different shapes and sizes and weights. Some are light and easy for me to pick up, and I pick them up. Some are too deeply embedded for me—so far at least, though I get a little stronger by trying to extricate the jewels as I walk the street. Some perhaps, I shall never be able to pick up. I believe that God expects me to keep on walking Judaism Street and to carry away whatever I can...”[3]

            During the remaining hours of your fast today, I invite you to think about one jewel from Judaism Street that you’d like to pick up this year. As Rabbi Wolf says, some of these jewels are heavy. Comforting a mourner in a world anxious for closure; holding onto to an idealistic, prophetic vision for the future in an increasingly cynical culture; celebrating Shabbat in a world that refuses to slow down. It can be a challenge. But think about one jewel you want to pick up. One tool you want learn how to use. And then commit yourself to giving it a try.

            Here’s our commitment to you. You don’t have to do it alone. Your Beth Am community will help you. Your rabbis and teachers will help you. Call us. Email us. Come to a class. Come to a service. Come away with us for a weekend of study at Asilomar. We’re here to help. But know this: You can do it. It’s in your mouth. It’s in your heart. Karov eilecha hadavar m’od—It’s very near to you and you can do it.

            I’m going to take a break from building my Sukkah tomorrow to go to the Home Depot in East Palo Alto. Not to get more supplies—I’ve already got what I need. I’m going to help Rabbi Lippe and other Beth Am congregants put on a special “Learn to Build a Sukkah” workshop. I hope you’ll consider joining us from 10:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

            This particular jewel from Judaism Street was one I picked up when I moved to Palo Alto. For the first time in my adult life, I had a balcony on which to build a Sukkah. Then we moved and now I’ve got a back yard so my Sukkah has grown a bit.

            I love this jewel, this tradition, and not just because it’s fun to build a Sukkah. I love what it does for my life and for my family and our friends.

            I love the idea of carving out time to build a flimsy shelter that will be taken apart a week later. It reminds me—every year—what really matters. Not the structures we build. Oh sure, we need shelter from the rain. We need a roof over our heads. But the homes we build won’t last. In the grand sweep of time, they’re just as impermanent as a Sukkah.

            What really matters are the relationships we create and nurture. What really matters is how we fix the world around us. What really matters is building a meaningful life. It’s not about Home Improvement. It’s about Life Improvement. And the very best place to get all you need for building that meaningful life is the Jewish Depot, and it’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even on Shabbat—especially on Shabbat. And there’s an outlet right nearby. You can find one in your childhood memories, in your parents’ dreams for you, in your hopes for your children, in your Beth Am community, and even in your own back yard.

            My whole family works on the Sukkah together. Jacqueline makes sure I don’t fall off the ladder when I attach the cross beams to the corner posts. And should the need arise, she’s standing by with a first aid kit. Isa and Ariela help each other drag 2 X 4s into the back yard. Naomi’s only one so her job this year is to crawl around, smile, and be cute. As I watch my kids working together, I wonder if they would feel at home in shop class. Probably not.

            But it really doesn’t matter to me if they feel at home in shop class. I want them to feel at home sitting in the Sukkah. I want them to see in Judaism the tools for living a good, just, and meaningful life. I want them to treasure those tools. I want them to use those tools. I want them to create new ones and then I want them to pass them on to my grandchildren.

            I want them to want to walk Judaism Street all the days of their lives, picking up jewels as they go. I want it for them. I want it for me. I want it for you. I want it for all of us.

            May your fast be meaningful and may, for at least a week, your Sukkah stay standing.