SERMON      May 10, 2024     Eli Bart Bar Mitzvah

Rabbi David Edleson   Temple Sinai    South Burlington, VT

DO NOT SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE COMMUNITY

 

Well, I don’t know about you, but this past week I’ve been on the “struggle bus” about all the nastiness around us, whether it is what we are seeing unfold on campuses, or talking with our own students, or just having all sorts of feelings about the larger patterns in the world. There is, perhaps ironically, a great German word for this:  Weltshmertz (world hurt).    

 But I am also so glad that here at Temple Sinai, we are in a B’nei Mitzvah marathon, because the joy of celebrating these amazing young people, seeing them grow up, and seeing the families gathering around such milestones even during hard times is a great antidote to all the weltshmertz.

 Working with Eli has been a particular pleasure, because he quietly just gets his work done, thinks in complex ways about difficult issues, and plus he has done the work on his Hebrew reading. I told him this week it is time for him to start working on his conversation Hebrew. I hope his Israeli family can help him with that.  

 Because I’ve seen Eli’s d’var, I know he is going to mention Rabbi Hillel and so I was looking through the sayings of Hillel and I found one that I wanted the share tonight. 

 But as it happens, as I was reading through the text, just before the saying from Rabbi Hillel there is another saying from Rabbi Gamliel that caught my eye and it seemed topical, so I’ll share it without comment:

הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, שֶׁאֵין מְקָרְבִין לוֹ לָאָדָם אֶלָּא לְצֹרֶךְ עַצְמָן. נִרְאִין כְּאוֹהֲבִין בִּשְׁעַת הֲנָאָתָן, וְאֵין עוֹמְדִין לוֹ לָאָדָם בִּשְׁעַת דָּחְקוֹ:

Be careful [in your dealings] with the ruling authorities for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs; they seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress.

So those rabbis back then knew a little something about the world.

But back to Rabbi Hillel.   He said many things, but the one that struck me tonight is this: 

הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר

Hillel said: do not separate yourself from the community,

Do not separate yourself from the community.   Hillel, of course, meant the Jewish community of Jews and those that make community with us. 

 When I looked at the commentaries on this saying, they all stressed that it means when the Jewish community is in distress, when it is in times of trouble, do not distance yourself in the hope that you will be spared, and because when consolation comes to the community, you will not be able to enjoy it.   That’s in the Talmud, in Ta’anit; it’s what Ramban and Rashi say, and what the Hassidic masters also say.

Having each other’s backs, hold one another at times of trouble IS a core Jewish Value, and it would seem that we have somehow failed to teach that effectively to some of our young people.   Of course we are to support the vulnerable, the stranger, the poor  in our communities, in the societies we create where we must give them the same rights that belong to us. But just as important is to support one another when we are being attacked or when hatred is rising. 

I also want to make sure to say that it is fine to disagree, to see another point of view than what most of the community is saying, but disagreeing does not mean betraying, or distancing, or trying to say that you are the “good Jews” and not like those “bad Jews.” That is antithetical to Jewish values, values that always strive to balance the universal and the tribal, since there is profound human value in both.

 

Do not separate yourself from community. 

 

As the poet Marge Piercy wrote in her Passover Poem “Maggid,”

We honor only those Jews who changed

tonight, those who chose the desert over bondage,

who walked into the strange and became strangers

and gave birth to children who could look down

on them standing on their shoulders for having

been slaves. We honor those who let go of every-

thing but freedom, who ran, who revolted, who fought,

who became other by saving themselves.

We who are here are the descendants of those too stubborn to agree to disappear. Who refused to give in to what the larger culture demanded in exchange for acceptance. Who refused to kowtow, who refused to bend the knee at the altar of those who hate us.  

A Bar mitzvah is a celebration of thousands of years of refusing to separate from community. To argue, yes.  To disagree, yes.  To refuse to speak to except at Passover, yes. But with each bat or bar mitzvah, we celebrate being from a line of people who found a way to think for themselves while staying in community. 

I admire those who stretch our tent to make it bigger, more inclusive.  I’ve been one of those people.  Many of you have and will be. That’s what keeps us vibrant and healthy. Reform Judaism did this. Women’s Rights did this. Zionism did this.  Hassidism did this. All the great movements of Judaism pushed hard against the community’s assumptions but also made sure to claim their spot in the community, and to be there when the community was in distress.    

I hope Eli and all our young people will carry on this outstanding tradition that is the key to our survival, to be both a rebel and an ally.  We can hold both, and we must.  

Ken y’hi ratzon.