From the Rabbi
Sustaining Community
(Adapted from message delivered at the Beit Tikvah Annual General Meeting, June 5, 2005)

Have you ever participated in a demonstration, one of those large ones that marshals forces from near and far, that somehow coalesces into an organized force. You may have spent hours or a day traveling to the site in a large city not your own, and may have had some anxiety about how to march, how to find your group or stay with them

In the Torah portion Bemidbar, or "in the desert," when the traveling tribes of Israel are instructed about their camping and marching locations, and they employ the kind of technique often used for one of those rallies you've participated in. We don't have explicit reports in Torah about the mood of those gatherings, but perhaps can extrapolate from our experience about the effective, and impact, about the gathering-in tools, such as colorful banners, or others visual aid indicating blocks of adjacent groups.

In the parshah, the tribes assemble under a degel, flag or standard, adorned with otot, signs or symbols of their clan. It helps them know where to go, how to relocate, how to find their buddies when the crowd shifts. Certain tribes were set to camp by each other by directions, so that between their assigned site, and all the means of orientation, everyone knew where they belonged.

And once you know where you belong, and can find your way back, you can shift around, maybe get to know the folks marching under the other banners.

So this ancient method may be likened to the Jewish community at large, to our experience in our wider spheres, and even to our little shul.

One of the most amazing wonderments of the past six years of serving and being a part of this community is the witnessing of the webs that are woven, because we have set our standard, our degel.

I witness the following:

Folks who get to know each other; folks whose children get to know each other. Adults who study together, watch each other learn, stretch and grow. Social times to enjoy, Chance meetings at an oneg that lead to jobs, to socializing, to support. Affirmation. Challenge. And I see the hints of many encounters I just never know about, but I know is happening because we are here, because we have declared that we are here, and do the work to hold our banner.

I have tremendous respect and appreciation for anyone who joins a synagogue in our option-heavy, autonomy-heavy culture. I deeply appreciate those who do the work of holding our banner high, and invite all of you to do the same, in ways that are possible for you right now, in your way! Invite someone to a service that you have always wanted to try. Take a class. Visit our Kesher school. Bring your tikkun olam/social justice initiative under our banner.

Join me in thinking and talking about the function of liberal religion in our religion-crazed public discourse. This is a seriously necessary enterprise for non-fundamentalists of all kinds. We need to be "out there" defining the terms, and declaring not just to those who would join us that we are here!

A story told recently by a colleague serving a JRF affiliate in Michigan:

"Shortly after announcing to my family that I had decided to apply to
rabbinical school, an older cousin I hadn't seen for over 20 years approached me as soon as I walked into a family seder, and greeted me with "Why do you want to become a rabbi? Why can't you be something useful like a forest ranger?" At the moment I was too taken aback to tell her that I had long ruled out forestry because I'm afraid of heights; but the challenge has stayed with me. And especially nowadays when religion seems to be at the core of everything that is wrong with American society and is fueling the deadly fanaticism plaguing the world at large.

As the world is now constituted, we can't fight AGAINST religion, but we can fight THROUGH religion. As long as people need something to believe in, as long as they find strength and support in the heritage of their ancestors, and as long as these needs become crucial in times of crisis or transition, I believe we are serving a useful and even, I dare say, important function by meeting their needs
without corroding their values (and occasionally even uplifting their values)."

The American Jewish enterprise - indeed, the liberal religious enterprise - is profoundly necessary. To each of us personally, to the next generation, and to honor the memory of those who came before us. Certainly, our challenge of living in two civilizations is very different that the one that spurred Mordecai M. Kaplan to conceptualize Reconstructionism, living as he did in close proximity to Europe, which was not only his place of birth but also the style and content of his upbringing.

Author Anita Diamant has observed that "In close knit Jewish communities of the past, most people participated in life cycle rituals as a matter of course … As we move from one milestone to the next, many of us find ourselves rediscovering and reconstructing Jewish practice. While she may have been referring to specific rituals such as brises or huppahs, her message is relevant to the entirety of the contemporary American Jewish enterprise.

We are living in an era of tremendous tension - between origins and identity, between rights and responsibilities, between the meaning of "heritage" and the experience of "home." As we all meet up, periodically over the summer, and then more intensively in the fall, I hope that we can challenge each other to more intentionally to link the inherited and chosen, private and public aspects of our shared identities, as Jews and as Americans.

Through the holy work of community building, study, prayer, teaching and learning; through the more private encounters of listening, supporting, and comforting that you allow me to offer - may we all deepen our capacity to sustain the ground under our banner, that our little shul continue to grow and flourish for ourselves, our children, and those who would find us.

Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton