Why We Need A Synagogue; Why We Need Conservative Jews & Conservative Judaism

First Day Rosh HaShanah - 5766 
October 4th, 2005 
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor 

There are many imperative issues facing us today, as Jews, as Americans, as individuals. There are many things I want to talk about with you. Three of them are most current: the genocide of Darfur last night; tomorrow's sermon on Israel; and, Kol Nidrei - to die with dignity. Tonight's three vignettes and my Yizkor sermon address our human condition. 

This morning I am addressing two subjects in one sermon. They are: 
Why do we need a synagogue? 
Why pay these dues? 
Why stay members "after our kids are done with Hebrew School?" 
Why come to services on Shabbat and weekdays? 

This leads me directly into a second subject: 
Why are we specifically a Conservative Congregation, a member of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism? 
What is the uniqueness of Conservative Judaism? 
Why do America Jewry and particularly Israel, where it is called Masorati, need Conservative Judaism? Why do we? 

Because of many discussions this past year, I decided to directly address the essence of our identity. I need to speak to all of you. It will also be sent out on the listsev and archived on the website for those not here or to allow for a slow, studied reading. Though I have much more to say, I have written concisely. I speak and write from my heart to yours. 

My opening statement: we are all Jews by choice. While this is a term usually applied to those who convert, it is true about all of us. You choose to identify as a Jew. You choose to live as a Jew. You choose -how you live as a Jew. You choose whether to become a member of a synagogue. You choose in which synagogue to become a member. You choose to stay. You choose to leave. America has bestowed us with autonomy and imbued us with individualism. The locus of authority is centered in ourselves. 

So why, for our personal lives, do we need the synagogue? My short list has five answers.

1. The synagogue provides community. Recently during the Maccabi Games, we had people from Rochester, New York and Detroit, Michigan just drop in to services. They knew that there was a community waiting for them. I receive phone calls from all over the country from people considering moving to Richmond. They call the synagogue - because - using a phrase made famous by an old Pittsburgh Pirate team - we are family. We are the most mobile generation in history. Companies like Genworth, Philip Morris and Capitol One. They are constantly bringing strangers to live among strangers. Here, in this place, they are welcomed, embraced, invited to Kiddush and oneg Shabbat, and treated like a long lost relative. The synagogue is family. It is community par excellence. It defines our uniqueness.
2. The synagogue provides us a way to observe the cycles of life. Through rituals provided by our faith, moments that connect the journey from birth to death are imbued with transcendent meaning. We celebrate the birth of a baby with naming and brit, growth and learning through bar/bat mitzvah, love through marriage, untimely endings with get, sickness and illness and death with companionship, prayer and rituals that reflect our eternal holiness. Only the synagogue community connects the dots of our lives with lines of purpose and the weave of ultimate significance. Personal celebration and sadness are shared in context. There are more smiles, hugs and kisses in celebration; more shoulders to lean on in times of need. Automatically. Without question. Whether we are young or old. We have instant parents, siblings, children and grandchildren. They have instant grandparents, aunts and uncles. We are never too young or too old. This is not just a beautiful building. This is our home. In it we have the rituals, in the context of an instant family, to live, feel, celebrate and commemorate the ebb and flow of our lives. It defines our lives.
3. The synagogue provides us through Torah, our source of ethics and morality. The Jewish point of view on end-of-life issues, stem cell research, abortion, the Ten Commandments in public space, personal morality, is unique. It has been developed, tried and tested, augmented and updated for nearly three thousand years. It is different. It is not synonymous with Christianity, humanism, deism or secularism. We have much to say and to do in the public domain about poverty and violence. The Torah, Talmud and Tradition are NOT ancient artifacts. The synagogue is a living voice for our lives. It message is more modern and insightful because of its roots and antiquity. It defines our personal content.
4. The synagogue provides us through Torah our sense of self-discipline. Besides the intrinsic reasons for observing Shabbat, Yom Tov and kashrut, they teach me/us to control ourselves. As the synagogue is a society in microcosm, we learn here the good or harm that the lack of control does to the world. There is a direct line in our moral fiber that leads from the self discipline taught by our faith here in the synagogue to not using drugs, not smoking, not engaging in promiscuous sex, not cheating on our spouses, not cheating our customers, on our tests or on our taxes.  Reaches from our prayers here to what kind of video games, some filled an unbroken line with violence and personal degradation that our children play. By its existence, the synagogue proclaims a different world wherein we learn how, where, when and why we are to live as human beings created in the image of God. This place is like no other. It defines our message to others and ourselves.
5. Lastly, the synagogue represents holiness, in time and space. The synagogue represents God's presence among us. This is not a stage. You are not an audience. We are not putting on a show. We are a holy community, gathered in hallowed space, expressing ultimate desires, fears, and dreams in sacred time. That occurs only here. There is no place like this place; no time like holy time; no group like a holy society. Being here and part of this elevates us, ennobles us, and enables us to transcend the mundane and limitedness of our lives. Here we grasp eternity. Here we meet the voice of God. It defines our essence and our vision. 
   

This is the most compelling case for the everlasting place of this synagogue in our lives. From our birth to our death, perpetually and consistently our lives need what the synagogue provides, even if we don't realize it. 

What does it mean to be a Conservative synagogue and a Conservative Jew?

1. It means that we take Jewish law and tradition seriously. That is what our names mean. In English, Conservative is to conserve the best of tradition, in Hebrew, Masorati, which means traditional.  We live in a creative tension between the three thousand years of its development and our current condition. It is to Judaism like the bone structure to our bodies. It is the instrument through which I/we portray what God wants from us. It is a living, pulsating corpus of Jewish understanding and thinking. Specifically in the world of personal autonomy to which I referred before, through it, Judaism makes demands upon us and asks us to respond: to make concrete the covenant between us as Jews and God.
2. It means that we struggle with new issues and do not have easy answers. We critically study our tradition. We are open to modern scholarship while not rejecting Jewish law. Women have become Rabbis and Cantors, Torah readers and service leaders inside Jewish tradition and not despite it. I was at the Jewish Theological Seminary in the years of the great disputes. We argued them in class. We cited modern studies of society and the insights of the Rabbis in the same breath. That dialectic is uniquely and singularly ours. 
   Based on halachic foundation, Conservative Judaism pioneered the way and is the only movement to deal with religious divorce and recalcitrant husbands from within Jewish tradition. 
   Homosexuality in terms of personal sexual orientation, secular laws about civil unions, and their acceptance into synagogue context has been an ongoing debate and dialogue between our modern understandings and the view of classical Judaism. Ten years ago, I preached a series of sermons reflecting our unique position. Our son Menachem has joined with other Conservative Rabbis who are faithful to Jewish law and take tradition seriously to further their role and place in the synagogue and society. That integration is singularly that of Conservative Judaism. 
   We work diligently to formulate a path to welcome couples where one spouse is Jewish and the other not. Judaism is founded on the concept of the unique covenant made between God and Abraham, renewed and ratified at Sinai. It is our definition. We maintain this covenant. Without it we cease to exist. It creates borders and boundaries. Conservative Judaism also recognizes the dynamics in society. I have personally worked exceedingly arduously and assiduously to welcome, respect and embrace interfaith couples, lovingly present Judaism in class, from the pulpit and in personal, private conversation. I have done that while respecting them as well as the borders and definitions that are our covenantal parameters. It is not easy- because I treat it seriously, and know that I do not make everyone happy. Using the Rabbinic idiom, I have threaded an elephant through the eye of a needle countless times, in deciding how to handle life cycle celebrations, after much study and contemplation. I believe that I have created here the best presentation of Conservative Judaism, respecting people's right to personal decisions, and Jewish tradition and law at the same time, while doing so in a loving light.

1. Conservative Judaism means to respect the individual Jew as living on a religious continuum, never satisfied where we are, yet with a vision to always rise higher. Jewish life does not have to be an all or nothing affair. I began my life quite differently from the Jew I have become. It was and is a process of learning and growth that specifically Conservative Judaism nurtured. It encouraged me - us - to grow, seek, embrace, and question. And it does so with humility, respect and deference for those who do more and those who do less. With utmost respect and admiration to Orthodoxy I say, my family and I are Conservative Jews, and not Orthodox.
2. Conservative Judaism welcomes and embraces those who seek Judaism no matter how they find us. Distinctly being a Conservative Rabbi means that I interface with other faiths. I have preached from the pulpit of a Catholic Church and taught in a mosque with my kippah on, without diminishing my/our faith.
3. Conservative Judaism expresses hopes for either or both Messiah or Messianic times, redemption and salvation for Israel, peace for our State, and indeed for all humanity, without claiming to know who it is and when it is coming.
4. Lastly, yet with much more left to say, Israel's internal turmoil is much worse, because our movement there is so weak, because we here don't feel part of the movement there, and don't support it. There is no moderating voice between the left and right of the political spectrum. There is no articulation of any place between the very religious and the non-religious. We do not seek to blow up the mosque of Omar in order to build a third Temple. That is a critical statement. When I went to two secularist high schools in Emek Hefer and talked about you and me, our synagogue, men and women reading Torah, they looked at me as if I was from Mars. There is an enormous chasm within the Israeli population, and our formulation of Judaism and Jewish identity is the only bridge between the two sides. They need our enunciation of Judaism in the struggle to define what is Jewish about a Jewish State.

Conclusion

I have two main goals in delivering this sermon: 

To articulate why you should be proud, participating, supportive, engaged and dedicated members of a synagogue, and particularly this one; and to remain a member for as long as you live. I say that simply and proudly. Today I choose to speak for the synagogue, for our synagogue, for our honored and unique presentation of Judaism. I hope that you will leave here today with a deeper appreciation and dedication to both. Like any human organization, we have politics. Leave it at the door, and come in to find God, to find faith, to find community, in joy, celebration, friendship and love. 

Besides the subject of any sermon delivered in these days, I believe that every one should conclude with a prayer beseeching God for protection for Medinat Yisrael, that they should live in tranquility and serenity. May the insanity that has griped this world cease. May peace come soon, in our lifetime, and let us say,

Amen.