SERMON    Bar Mitzvah of Max Gurtman    May 3, 2024

Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai S. Burlington, Vermont

It is always such a pleasure, a naches, to celebrate the b’nei mitzvah of our amazing students here.   To see them start to grow into the adults they are becoming, to think for themselves, to wrestle with big questions, and to do that with a group of friends that can support them is just a beautiful part of synagogue life and my work.  

But while this is a simcha, a joy, we are also living through some very difficult times as a Jewish community.  The trauma of October 7, the mass protests against Israel weeks before there was any military response, the 400% rise in antisemitism that our community has experienced since then, and now the protests that are roiling colleges and country -   this is a lot for adults to deal with and process, much less teens.  

As I’ve said in the past, I decided not to become a cantor because I didn’t want to spend most of my job working with 12- and 13-year-olds, only to discover now that it is probably my favorite part of this job.   I have been deeply impressed by how our students are wrestling with these issues, staying committed to justice and to Jewish pride.  They have been learning firsthand that antisemitism is not a thing of the past or previous generations but is very much alive and woven into so much of the rhetoric that we are hearing.  Add to that some just blatantly antisemitic things that other students are saying or chanting in our schools – it’s a lot to deal with, but they have been smart, reasonable, ask amazing questions and have shown such commitment to community.   

I know it is a hard time, and especially so close after COVID, we are understandably worried about how our young people are doing.  But I want to suggest that going through times like this shapes who we are and teaches us some very important skills as we go through life, skills like critical thinking, questioning what we hear on TV or from others, and balancing conflicting goods and values in our lives.

Also, we know from a lot of research that going through challenging times and dealing with difficult things actually has a very positive side-effect - it makes us more resilient.  It makes us stronger. 

A recent study about resilience by Dr. Philip Riris and published in the journal Nature, confirms this.   Looking at 30,000 years of history, Dr. Riris found that getting through hard times and rebounding is what makes people and societies resilient, and the more they go through this, the more adaptable and resilient they are.

Max, as Jews, we are part of a society, a culture that has gone through many many hard times, and yet we not only persevered, we rebounded and became stronger.  We are an incredibly resilient people.  Resilience is probably the Jewish superpower.

Earlier, we sang Lecha Dodi.  The person who wrote that had been through one of the worst periods in our history, the Spanish expulsion and inquisition, but these people despite hardship and trauma, not only survived, but found ways to create new forms of prayer and new ideas about the world.  They flourished. Landing in an area that was poor, diseased, falling apart, they could have just given in to despair. 

But instead, where we might see tragedy, they saw what could be.  They were inspired with hope.  In that song, they call out to us to “Lift ourselves up and Shake off the dust and robe ourselves in beauty.”

After the horrors of the Holocaust, our people not only survived, but built two of the largest, strongest, and most vibrant Jewish communities the world has known.  One here in North America and one in Israel.  Instead of giving up, we revived the Hebrew language so that it is spoken by millions of Jews today.  Instead of giving up, we built a new country and learned to defend ourselves from attacks.  Instead of giving up, we built a diverse, vibrant Jewish community and culture here in America.  We built institutions of civil society, tzedakah, and religious innovation and spiritual flourishing.  

Max, you are part of a resilient people, and you, too, are resilient.   You have been through your own challenges and hard times, whether it was lockdown during COVID, or what is going on around us right now, and while no one wants to go through these times, they make us stronger and more adaptable as the world changes around us.   

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav also lived through very difficult times and difficult personal tragedies, but he was also one of the most joyful, positive Jewish leaders in our history.   One of his most famous sayings is, “In everyone’s life, we come to a very narrow bridge we must cross;  the essential thing is not to make ourselves afraid.”  In a very Jewish way, that saying is now a very beloved song, and given all that’s going on, I thought it would be good for us to sing it together tonight, to remind ourselves that we are ok, we are resilient, and we have been through much worse and came out stronger.  Ken Y’hi Ratson.

GESHER TZAR M’OD