Living in New York City, as I did many years ago, you see a lot of strange things. In addition to the usual people in every imaginable kind of outfit walking down the streets of Manhattan, you see musicians, and street performers, beggars and sometimes if you are lucky a rare sighting of a Hollywood star. It is hard not to revel in the sheer beauty of of all of these people wandering through their day, living out their lives, one person at a time, one soul in millions. During the two years that Sarah and I lived in the city when I was in graduate school, we rarely went to movies, since we could easily sit on a park bench for hours and be entertained by the constantly changing cycle of people making their way past us. At least once every few days, there was a moment of surprise or some kind of chance encounter which left us amazed at the shocking beauty of wandering through this web of city life.
I recently was told about the group Improv Everywhere, who took this idea of surprise seriously and turned the weirdness of New York into a magical and profoundly healing experience. A group of actors and volunteers, they have brought people together to watch and participate in interactive performances and flash mob style gatherings. They put together surreal mp3 experiments, where hundreds of strangers listen to a set of synchronized audio instructions which has them walking in circles, singing strange sounds as one massive choir, and doing any number of playful and entirely purposeless actions. They have happily convinced hundreds of New Yorkers to ride the subway at one time in their underwear, or put on surprise performances of famous movie scenes from Rambo, to Jurassic Park or Back to the Future all in the middle of regular neighborhoods. They have turned subways into time machines and created a magical porta potty that when opened by an unsuspecting visitor surprises them with a full 10 piece mariachi band who marches out playing a song.
The videos of these amazing experiences are quite addictive, but what is most incredible is how much joy they bring to those who experience them in person. People laugh and hug, and total strangers find themselves starting conversations about the strange scenes they have seen. Especially in New York, a city known for people who are experts at ignoring each other, flash mobs and this kind of street improv have an almost surreal power to bring people together–to take them out of their individual bubbles, and in a surprisingly deep way connect them to others for a brief but shared purpose. People cooperate through these elaborate crafted experiences, and through the surprise and joy of these moments, they somehow also participate in true interactions with a community of strangers. For some, these brief interactions act as life saving therapy and are often healing experiences that last for days. It’s no wonder that these videos so easily go viral–they remind us what happens we can snap out of the normalcy of life, and show us that spontaneous joy and play simply makes people happy.
Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat, Yom Kippur. Spontaneity, surprise and improvisation. These are not usually words that we use to describe a synagogue service. What is most familiar to us synagogue goers, is a primarily structured experience, a few hours of prayers read from a page, familiar melodies mixed in with a few important instructions–please rise, please sit, turn to page 56. We like to think that we dwell in a place of order, and that too much difference and too much surprise and innovation is straying too far from tradition. I know from experience as your rabbi to always walk a delicate balance between change and new ideas, and keeping and honoring the old ways. Words on the page, familiar melodies, and just a taste of newness. Thankfully Judaism believes that there needs to be a mix.
At a recent retreat for the Clergy Leadership Incubator program of which I was a part for the past two years, I took part in a fascinating liturgical experiment, not quite a religious flash mob, but something just as powerful. Dr. Janet Walton, Professor of Worship and Liturgy at Union Theological Seminary in New York had spoken to us about the importance of creativity in prayer and ritual, speaking about the many levels of prayer that are found in different faiths–words, music, movement and meditation. She described how in the liberal Christian seminary where she worked there was a “creative prayer” day where students were invited to creatively examine and “play” with a certain element of prayer, weaving in anything that felt appropriate–theology, activism, dance or movement. Students and faculty would never know what to expect on these days. One day the community might find the chairs set up as usual for a traditional prayer service, or there could be no chairs at all and everyone is made to stand in a line. Sometimes the usual prayers would be used, and other times there would be no prayers at all. There might be traditional hymns or loud experimental hip hop. These experiences could create an emotional journey which would lead to anywhere from peace or communal connection, to sometimes even frustration or anger. Issues of language, politics, gender and racism were dynamically woven into these experiences, and the prayer experiments could be as much a kind of activism as moments of spirituality. You never knew what to expect, and the effect on each person was entirely unique.
Yet, whatever emotions were brought up were just the point. The vision of these experiences was to remind the participants that prayer, the so called formal expression of religion should never become static–prayer should take us out of the normalcy of our lives, and should awaken us to a reality beyond ourselves. At the retreat, to show us how this worked, our group was brought through an interactive prayer experience which involved a slow walk through a darkened room, being interrogated by someone who asked about our fears, and a brief meditation in a room filled with candles and strange voices echoing from the walls. I will admit as we were guided through this experience, I felt deeply connected with the others around me, but I was also made to feel uncomfortable, a bit angry and oddly nervous during this strange half hour of prayer. So clearly the experiment worked.
Don’t worry, I am not going to march anyone around the sanctuary while screaming at you today. I am saving that for Yom Kippur. But I will ask you this as we sit together filling this space with songs and prayer: How often are we brought to these challenges places in our religious services? The words and melodies that we have heard today gain so much of their strength by their familiarity. Especially if you have been coming here for years, the words flow easily and the sounds settle calmly into our minds and souls without much effort. Yet, have they ever brought you to tears? Have they made you angry, and confused? Have they made you stand up and dance with joy? Hopefully they have, but I would assume is not something that happens every day.
Two words are often thrown around when analyzing the experience of prayer in Judaism–keva and kavanna. Keva is usually described at the order the form of prayer, the framework of words, and the liturgical map which gives us the siddur and the prescribed prayers that we say when we gather together. We say the prayers written down by the rabbis, sharing in the language and ideas of our ancestors and all those people who pray along with us.
Yet Kavanna, the intention, the spirit of prayer, is what brings meaning and purpose to these words–it is the act of putting our own heart into the experience. To both connect with the words and also find a way to say our own, to bring our own heart into prayer is the essence of kavanah. To have the fullest experience of prayer, we need both of these keys–order and spirit, structure and those moments of sheer surprise, awe and joy. Abraham Joshua Heschel puts it well when he reminds us that prayer must involve our own agada, our own story. He says:
Prayer becomes trivial when ceasing to be an act in the soul. The essence of prayer is agada, inwardness. Yet it would be a tragic failure not to appreciate what the spirit of halacha does for it, raising it from the level of an individual act to that of an eternal conversation between the people Israel and God; from the level of an occasional experience to that of a permanent covenant. (A. J. Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, pg, 68)
Maimonides too reminds us that while the oral tradition and the rabbis give us the siddur, that this is not the ultimate goal of prayer. He says: The number of prayers is not prescribed in the Torah. No form of prayer is prescribed in the Torah. Nor does the Torah prescribes a fixed time for prayer … The obligation in this precept is that every person should daily, according to his ability, offer up supplication and prayer…” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer, 1:1-2).
What this brings to light is the very nature of ritual in Jewish life. Ritual gains its power by two seemingly contrasting purposes—it can both stay the same throughout the generations to connect us to the past, and it also can and should evolve and change to fit the needs and values of the times. We light Shabbat candles as people have been doing since the days of the Talmud, but many of us also eat traditional foods and sing songs which none of ansestors would have known. On Pesach we put out our seder plates with the usual mix of symbolic foods, but some of us also put an orange on the seder plate to remember the inclusion of women and LGBT members of our community. We raise the Torah high on Saturday mornings as we have done for thousands of years to remember Sinai, but now we also now thankfully let all people in our community read from that holy text. Ritual is ritual because it both changes and stays the same.
There is a saying among us rabbis that “one generation’s kavanah is the next generation’s keva.” What one generation finds something to be deeply meaningful and inspirational, it tends to become fixed ordinary for the next generation. As a people, our prayer practices and the way we offer public worship is in constant dialogue with those who came before us, our own deep desires and needs, and what we imagine might be just around the corner.
Jewish community and practice gains so much of its strength from what has stayed the same through the generations. Our core text, the Torah holds its power by it’s stability. Even as our world and our values have changed, we do not change the text of the Torah. Each scroll, in every synagogue maintains the sanctity of the text, and of course no matter liberal our values may be, no matter how creative our services, we will never walk into the ark and scrape out those sections of the Torah scroll that might bother us the most. As I often mention in my Saturday morning Torah class, the Torah is like our most sacred family heirloom that has been passed down through the generations, an ancient story that roots our soul in history and place. And if there are parts of this story that might not be as clear or as relevant when seen through a modern lens, we wouldn’t get rid of it any more than we would get rid of our grandmother’s old kiddush cup. It is part of who we are, and we hold onto it, wrestle with it and do our best to make it our own. As the literal and spiritual centerpiece of our Jewish lives, the Torah centers our Judaism and ensures that whatever we do, and whatever changes we make we do it as part of the evolution of Jewish life.
Yet, as liberal Jews, we also do not shy away from making changes when necessary. From our siddur, our prayer book, to the openness to cultural Jews, and creativity theology, the joy that we gain from playing with language and music, to the inclusion of women, interfaith families, LGBTQ people and so much more. Reconstructionist Judaism and in our own special way, our community, has made creative and thoughtful change as important to Jewish life as the Torah itself. As I often say, we take the words and the ideas of our texts and our traditions, and through conscious change and creativity, we make them dance.
Rabbi Norman Lamm, a well known Modern Orthodox scholar wrote that , “human creativity is an expression of [humanity]’s Godlikeness. Certainly one ought not see in this capacity of [humankind] a challenge to divine creativity; this, indeed, was the error of the builders of the Tower of Babel. When primitive [people] rubbed two stones together and produced a spark, [they were] not displacing God’s creation of light and fire; [they were] exercising [their] divinely ordained vocation of creativity for enhancing the material world by use of [their] talents, and were thereby imitating God who said, ‘Let there be light.’ The invention of the scissors was a creative extension of the human hand, the automobile of the human foot, and the computer of the human brain. (Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld and Prof. Avraham Wyler, “Technology and Jewish Life,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Spring 2006)
While our theologies might not match up perfectly with Rabbi Lamm’s view, it is easy to see how creativity, using what he would say are God’s gifts to move ourselves and our community forward is not only allowed but necessary for survival. This idea is why Jews, even the most Othodox among us, had never headed the way of the Amish. Innovation, technology and creativity that is used ethically and within the so called “fence of Torah” can be a way of building on the “original act of creation, and can actually bring good to the world. We are commanded to live seriously Jewish lives, but also take seriously making sure that it is never static or stale. When you get down to it, we are not only commanded to be creative in our ritual and practice, but to also always have a bit of fun.
Just think of the wonderful creativity and play that is found in the experience of the Passover seder. In this annual retelling of the story of the Exodus, the entire experience has been created to ensure that even in the most traditional of seders, there will always be moments of joy, of humor, of song, and of course of good eating. We sing, we tell stories and jokes, we snack, and at least in my family we follow the ancient spehardic tradition of beating each other on our heads with green onions. Depending on where in the world and with which family you have your seder, your might find yourself doing one of countless wonderful traditions: acting out a skit, being tapped on the head with the seder plate to keep you awake, eating charoset made with real ground up bricks as they do in Gibraltar, or taking part in one of a multitude of silly games used to hide the afikoman. Pesach seders were built to be fun, and they were meant to be ruled by play and creativity as much as the text of the haggadah, As the talmud tells us, reminding us of the source of hiding the afikoman: “It is said that Rabbi Akiva would give out nuts on Erev Pesach so that the children should not fall asleep, but would ask questions. Rabbi Eliezer stated, “One grabs [and hides] the matzah on the night of Pesach in order that the children should not lose interest.” Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud), Pesachim 109a
Or as the Rambam says: “He or she should make changes on this night so that the children will see and will [be motivated to] ask: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” until he or she replies to them: “This and this occurred; this and this took place.” What changes should be made? Give them roasted seeds and nuts; the table should be taken away before they eat; matzot should be snatched from each other and the like.” (Rambam, Hilchot Chametz U’Matzah 7:3)
Now let me ask you something. If this is how we are meant to take care of our traditions during Passover, what has happened to the rest of Jewish practice? Where is the surprise and play in our Shabbat services, or in so much of the rest of Jewish ritual?
As those of you who are regulars at our Shabbat services know, change is a delicate topic. Introducing something as simple as a new melody, or changing a familiar word or idea can shock our sense of comfort. As your rabbi, I have walked this delicate line, knowing that there have been times when I have moved to fast, and at least in my mind times when I haven’t moved us forward enough. A core value of our denomination is that Judaism is the “evolving civilization of the Jewish people”, and we accept that contrary to what the Orthodox might say, Judaism has always been changing, always evolving. We have learned to be flexible to fit the needs of each generation, and through sensitive and compassionate change we have made sure that our tradition remains relevant. I will continue to do my best to push you to reexamine your beliefs and practices, suggesting some new ideas and here and there leaving behind old ones. But it is up to you to do the same.
Don’t think that the old ways of being Jewish are all we got. Don’t think that religious services, or prayer is necessarily the highlight of what this synagogue or Judaism in general can offer, although it is an important part. Try the other holidays, take a class and have fun arguing with the rabbi. Leave time for play and joy, and know it all can be found in Jewish life. We need you to help us make Judaism relevant and filled with joy, we need your creative and unique vision to move us forward. In Jewish life and beyond, this creativity is what will keep us alive.
I’d like to offer a bit of a shmoozing break now.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, whose writings are well known to many of us, tells this story of Talmudic logic in his book Jewish Humor: What The Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews:
A young man in his mid-twenties knocks on the door of the noted Talmudic scholar Rabbi Shwartz. “My name is Sean Goldstein,” he says. “I’ve come to you because I wish to study the Talmud.”
“Do you know Aramaic?” the rabbi asks.
“No,” replies the young man.
“Hebrew?” asks the Rabbi.
“No,” replies the young man again.
“Have you studied Torah?” asks the Rabbi, growing a bit irritated.
“No, Rabbi. But don’t worry. I graduated Berkeley summa cum laude in philosophy, and just finished my doctoral dissertation at Harvard on Socratic logic. So now, I would just like to round out my education with a little study of the Talmud.”
“I seriously doubt,” the rabbi says, “that you are ready to study Talmud. It is the deepest book of our people. If you wish, however, I am willing to examine you in logic, and if you pass that test I will teach you Talmud.”
The young man agrees.
Rabbi Shwartz holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
The young man stares at the rabbi. “Is that the test in logic?”
The rabbi nods.
(The congregation has a few minutes to do “riddle hevruta” to try to figure out the answer.)
”The one with the dirty face washes his face,“ he answers wearily.
“Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the simple logic.The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So the one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Very clever,” Goldstein says. “Give me another test.”
The rabbi again holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“We have already established that. The one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So the one with the clean face washes his face. When the one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face wash his face, he also washes his face. So each one washes his face.”
“I didn’t think of that,” says Goldstein. It’s shocking to me that I could make an error in logic. Test me again.”
The rabbi holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Each one washes his face.”
“Wrong. Neither one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. But when the one with the clean face sees the one with the dirty face doesn’t wash his face, he also doesn’t wash his face. So neither one washes his face.”
Goldstein is desperate. “I am qualified to study Talmud. Please give me one more test.”
He groans, though, when the rabbi lifts two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Neither one washes his face.”
“Wrong. Do you now see, Sean, why Socratic logic is an insufficient basis for studying Talmud? Tell me, how is it possible for two men to come down the same chimney, and for one to come out with a clean face and the other with a dirty face? Don’t you see? The whole question is “narishkeit”, foolishness, and if you spend your whole life trying to answer foolish questions, all your answers will be foolish, too.”
Think for a moment about the experience that just took place. What did you think when I first asked your to turn to your neighbor and discuss?
Creativity and play need to be a part of every aspect of our Jewish experience, because in a very real way, like the child mentioned in the Talmud, it keeps us from falling asleep. Moments of surprise and inspiration, “flash mobs” of Jewish life, discussion which challenge and enlighten, and prayer that is not just from a book, but comes from what our hearts need most to express. An experience with is familiar but also challenging with moments of newness is more meaningful, and also connects us with each other.
In this New Year, I hope we can gain the strength to jump out of the familiar in our lives, and to never forget the power of play and joy. May the Torahs of our lives, the sense of stability and rootedness, the blessing of the familiar hold our core. Yet, may we also never forget to break from our old patterns, to open our hearts to creativity and play, and the deepest roots of learning that can only come from sometimes breaking with tradition. In this New Year, we can read the same words and sing the same songs, but will fail to heed the call of the season if we don’t also break from what has held us back. We need to chart our own paths, and creativity blend the Torah of our tradition with the most personal Torah of our souls. We need to have fun, we need to be challenged and bothered, and we need above all to do all that do with intention and with spirit.
Shanah Tova!
