We came together for the first Erev Shabbat since the tragedy in Florida, reeling from the loss and suffering. ย Rabbi Ben offered a tremendous sermon, which we are sharing for all who could not be present.
Rabbi Benjamin H. Spratt
Parshat Terumah
2.16.18 / 2 Adar 5778
Insanity
Insanity.
We have many definitions for it, and we toss around the term sometimes pejoratively, sometimes humorously. But surely one of our most familiar definitions of insanity, typically misattributed to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results.
This weekโs horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was the 8th school shooting in 2018, and the 30th mass shooting in six weeks. There is so much of late that feels insane. When we have 14 year olds gunned down in our halls of learning on a regular basis, we face such an abomination of our communal and national ideals I struggle to find a more soul-shattering illustration of insanity. The conversations Iโve had over the past two days, with our middle schoolers, with my 9 year old daughter, remind me of just how far the insanity spreads.
But it is actually our response to such tragedy that I want to focus on tonight.
In the immediate moments after hearing of horror, our psyche begins to reel and spin. And so begins the centripetal force moving responsibility outward onto the world around us. Before the screams have stopped echoing, before funerals have taken place, before our collective hearts have fully broken open, the soapboxes are placed, and the clarion calls for change fill our screens and airwaves. Gun control. Mental health support. Violent video games. Social media. We rage at politicians, at classmates or teachers who should have seen the signs, at parents, at psychologists. We fill our conversations with the rhetoric of what others should have done to prevent this, and what others need to do to stop it from ever happening again.
And then it happens again. And the same words are offered. The same messages delivered. The same conversations started and concluded. Again. And again. And again. And even as we grow weary, even as we despair, we play our part in the same cycle of moving out responsibility onto the shoulders of others, and embrace the insanity of doing the same thing and expecting different results. The blood of children cries out to us this week, and I at least have done a fabulous job at redirecting the horror, the shame, the rage onto the shoulders of things and people beyond myself. But I have done this before, and perhaps itโs time for a new path.
Over the past two weeks we’ve read of the Israeliteโs revelation at Mount Sinai; when God charges this redeemed clan of slaves to become a holy nation.ย We can imagine the Israeliteโs shock, having faced a string of supernatural terrors; walking through a split sea, wandering in the desert and relying on manna from heaven, standing at the base of a mountain surrounded with smoke and fire and hearing ethereal shofar blasts. They are threatened with divinely-ordained death, trembling in fear and uncertainty.
And then we open to this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Terumah, as God invites each and every Israelite to bring gifts of gold, silver, bronze, and many other materials.ย โVโasu li mikdash vโshachanti bitocham, let the Israelites build Me a tabernacle so that I might dwell within themโ (Exodus 25:8).ย And in response to this invitation, the entire community joins together in building a sanctuary for God. But the Hebrew is important here – the purpose of building the tabernacle was not for God to dwell within it, but b’tocham, within them – within the people.ย As a midrash offers, it was not the Tabernacle that brought God into the people, but the act of each and every person feeling needed and necessary, and engaging in the collective work of building.[1] This, suggest our sages, is what allowed the Israelites to stand in the face of fear and uncertainty, and take the long and winding journey forward – they built together, and stood together, in a way in which each person was needed.ย And in so doing, God came to be within them.
This week I read the reflection of Glennon Doyle Melton, who learned of a remarkable practice of her sonโs teacher:
Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom theyโd like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who canโt think of anyone to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
You see, [my child]โs teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or โexceptional citizens.โ She is looking for lonely children. Sheโs looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. Sheโs identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the classโs social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And sheโs pinning downโright awayโwhoโs being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord.
This brilliant teacher watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness.
That is a plague the reaches into the corners of every neighborhood and city. That is a disease for which we all bear responsibility. And the statistics of solitude may be more important for us to ponder than the number of guns, the number of mass murders, or the national budget for mental health support.
Over the past 8 years, teen suicide has increased by 25%, and horrifically has nearly tripled in tween girls.[2] Over the past 20 years, social isolationism in adults has nearly quadrupled,[3] and now 1 in 3 adults in the US say they feel alone in the world. Bullying in schools has doubled in the 21st Century. And the fastest rising demographic of violence in America are socially-isolated teen boys.[4]
Even as I pray we will create legal pathways to better control access to guns while expanding access to mental health support, there is work to be done right here, right now. In our city, in our neighborhood, in our apartment buildings, in our congregation.
About fifty years ago, in an essay called โThe Vocation of the Cantor,โ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asked the question โWhat does a person expect to attain when entering a synagogue? In the pursuit of learning one goes to a library; for aesthetic enrichment one goes to the art museum; for pure music to the concert hall. What then is the purpose of going to the synagogue?โ[5] Heschelโs response is that in a synagogue we should cultivate a sense of humanity. It is here that we teach compassion; it is here that we cultivate conscience. It is here that we elevate being a mentsch as our most prestigious aspiration. But most important of all, in Heschelโs words: โTo attain a degree of spiritual security one cannot rely upon oneโs own resources. One needs an atmosphere, where the concern for the spirit is shared by a community.โ A community in which each person is needed, every person is necessary, and together we build a sanctuary of divinity. That community of concern, that community of spirit is right here. The world needs this synagogue. And we need you. Each and every one of you.
The late Pete Seeger, reflecting on his life and career, said, โMy main purpose as a musician is to get people singing and to get them to make music themselvesโฆ[itโs a simple message:] I want to show people โฆwhat it is to [come] together.ย Revolutionists as well as religionists forget that heaven doesnโt come in one big bang.ย It comes in many steps.ย Brick by brick.ย Building togetherโฆI have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.โ[6] In order for the song to be complete, we need every voice, and we need to make it together.
So we need to be more than rage. It is time we reverse our direction of energy, not the centripetal force that casts responsibility away, but a movement of feeling our sacred role in knitting this world together. We are called to be builders of belonging. In a congregation of this diversity, filled with lives and stories and unique souls each created in the image of God, we need to boldly say that every person here is needed. Each of us is necessary. And that you, no matter how you feel, who you are, and what you are grappling with, you are not alone.
You who have had your life shattered with the loss of a spouse, you are not alone.
You who face the heartbreak of infertility and miscarriage, you are not alone.
You who suffer with disease and pain, you are not alone.
You who hurt in the depths of depression or anxiety, you are not alone.
You who have been abandoned and forever misunderstood, you are not alone.
You who struggle with finances amidst so many people of prosperity, you are not alone.
You who are trapped in relationships and jobs that sap your soul, you are not alone.
You who are searching to find your identity, in gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, you are not alone.
This community must begin with belonging. Let this be our collective pledge this Shabbat โ if you feel alone, come and sit with me. Tell me your story, and I will tell you mine. Whatever the struggle, whatever the circumstance, in this community you are not alone. You are needed. You are necessary. You are not alone.
And so, let these be the words that bind this community together: When I was out of work and was feeling low, you were with me. When I had problems in my marriage; when my wife was sick; when my mother was dying; when our son was in trouble; when I lost my partner; when I was worried about my sister, you were there for me to lean on. When I was new in town and feeling alone; when I received a terrible diagnosis; when I was tired and hopeless; when we lost our baby and my heart was breaking, you gave me your hand.
As Seeger said, redemption comes when we gather together, connecting one to another.ย Brick by brick walls are torn down, and sanctuaries built back up.ย We, through small acts of connection, bring God into this world.ย Like our ancestors long ago, we can build the very thing we seek, and fulfill the very purpose of this synagogue:
a sanctuary of security,
a place of peace,
a community of compassion.
One person at a time.
Shabbat shalom.
[1] See Exodus Rabbah 33:6, as each person bringing forth offerings of their own volition is reread as each person using God as an offering, as a pathway for connectedness and relationship. The act of building the Tabernacle (a medium for sacrifice) is then understood as a model of divine-human relationship: as humanity offers up divine offerings, the offering itself is God, and so the act of creation indeed becomes the tangible form of humanity and divinity coming together.
[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/22/474888854/suicide-rates-climb-in-u-s-especially-among-adolescent-girls
[3] https://happierhuman.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/P13.-Social-Isolation-in-America-Changes-in-Core-Discussion-Networks-over-Two-Decades.pdf
[4] https://news.psu.edu/story/323147/2014/08/18/research/neglected-boys-may-turn-violent-adolescents; https://qz.com/1095247/the-sociological-explanation-for-why-men-in-america-turn-to-gun-violence/
[5] https://www.hebrewcollege.edu/sites/default/files/Heschel%20-%20The%20Vocation%20of%20the%20Cantor.pdf
[6] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5417854
Justin Callis (he/him), our Cantorial Intern, is a fourth-year student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. He is the recipient of the Reuben Peretz Abelson Prize for dedication to Yiddish Song, the Temple Israel of Boston Cantorial Prize, and the Lee Gura Memorial Prize for Aptitude in Synagogue Choral Music.
Sarah Adams, viola, performs locally with the New York Chamber Ensemble, theย Claring Chamber Players, the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, the Friends of Mozart, and the Saratoga Chamber Players.
Violinist Michael Roth is a native of Scarsdale, NY and received his early musical training with Frances Magnes at the Hoff-Barthelson Music School. He attended Oberlin College and Conservatory, continuing his studies with Marilyn McDonald. At Oberlin, he won the Kaufman Prize for violin and First Prize in the Ohio String Teacher’s Association Competition. He completed his Master of Music degree at the University of Massachusetts where he worked with the distinguished American violinist and pedagogue Charles Treger and was a recipient of the Julian Olevsky Award.ย Mr. Roth is currently associate concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and has appeared in chamber music and as a soloist with the company, most recently in the debut of “Slice Too Sharp”, a ballet of Biber and Vivaldi violin concerti, and “After the Rain”, violin music of Arvo Part. In addition he is a member of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Principal 2nd violin of the Westchester Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra and the New York Pops. He was concertmaster of the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra for many years and often appeared as soloist there, as well as at the Caramoor and Bard Music Festivals. He has played and toured internationally with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York Chamber Soloists.
Known for his sweet and โsumptuousโ (New York Times) tone, American-born Doori Na took up violin at the age of four and began his studies with Li Lin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He quickly made his first performance with orchestra at age seven with the Peninsula Youth Symphony as the first prize winner of the concerto competition. Thereafter Mr. Na went on to win top prizes in The Sound of Music Festival, The Korea Times Youth Music Competition, the Chinese Music Teacherโs Association, The Menuhin Dowling Young Artist Competition, The Junior Bach Festival, VOCE of the Music Teacherโs Association of California, and The Pacific Musical Society. Receiving full scholarships to private high school Crossroads School of Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, he moved to Los Angeles to study with renown violin teacher, Robert Lipsett, at The Colburn Music School. There he appeared as soloist with the Palisades Symphony, Brentwood Symphony, and Torrance Symphony. During that time, the summer of 2004 was Mr. Naโs first time at the Perlman Music Program where his expression and musical identity were greatly influenced. He has been a part of the program ever since and participated in many of their special residencies in Florida, Vermont, New York, and Israel.
Alan Goodis is a touring Jewish musician playing over 150 events a year. Born and raised in Toronto, Alan is a proud product of URJ Goldman Union Camp Institute. Noted for his dedication to building relationships and community through music, Alan tours throughout the US to serve as an Artist-In-Residence and performer at Temples, Youth Conventions and Jewish summer camps.
Julie Silver is one of the most celebrated and beloved performers in the world of contemporary Jewish music today. She tours throughout the world, and has been engaging audiences with her gorgeous compositions and liturgical settings, her lyrical guitar playing, her dynamic stage presence, and her megawatt smile for over 25 years.
Dan is a product of the URJ Jewish camping movement. He has toured Jewish summer camps across North America for the last 15 years. A classically trained singer, Dan received his Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance at the University of North Carolina. In 1995, realizing the potential of music to make powerful connections with Jewish youth, Dan established the Jewish rock band Eighteen. Since that time, Dan and Eighteen have released 13 albums. Songs like, Lโtakein, Bโtzelem Elo-him, Kehillah Kedoshah, Chazak, Sweet As Honey, and Asher Yatzar have become Jewish communal anthems throughout North America.
Naomi Less is an internationally celebrated singer/songwriter, ritualist and educator. Beloved for her warm smile and inviting presence, communities celebrate her imagination and innovation, tenderness and pizzazz! Her original music is sung in worship communities worldwide. Naomi serves as Co-Founder, Ritual Leader and Associate Director of Lab/Shul and is a leader in amplifying women’s voices through her work at Songleader Boot Camp and her Jewish Women Rock show on Jewish Rock Radio. Naomiadvocates for people struggling with fertility journeys as a performance artist and speaker for Uprooted: A Jewish Response to Fertility Challenges. Fun fact: Naomi and her husband wrote the song shine/Yivarech’cha, a Friday night blessing, specifically composed for URJ Crane Lake Camp, sung every Friday night in the dining hall.
Her destiny became obvious to Joanie Leedsโ parents when, at the tender age of 2, Joanie grabbed the performerโs mic at a party and belted out the entire songโTomorrowโ from Annie. Jaws dropped! No one could remember ever hearing a big voice like that coming from one so tiny and certainly no one would have thought she would one day earn a GRAMMYยฎ Award for her original music.
A composer, multi-instrumentalist, and prayer leader, Elana Arian is one of the leading voices in contemporary Jewish music. Elanaโs music is part of Jewish life across the globe, and her compositions are sung in spiritual communities, summer camps, and synagogues from Louisville to London, from Chicago to the CzechRepublic, and everywhere in between. Elana just released her fourth album of original music, The Other Side of Fear, and her compositions have been published in countless Transcontinental Music collections. Elana serves proudly on the faculty of Hava Nashira (Oconomowoc, WI), the Wexner Heritage Foundation (Aspen, CO), Shirei Chagiga (London, England), and as an instructor at the Hebrew Union College in New York, where she teaches in the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. Elana has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood, and perhaps most memorably, five separate appearances at the (Obama) White House. She lives in New York with her wife, Julia, and their two daughters, Maya and Acadia.
Known for his unique, engaging, and deeply soulful approach, Noah Aronson is considered one of the most sought after Jewish musicians in North America, making over 65 community appearances each year.
There is a reason why Time Magazine has listed Michelle in their Top Ten list of Jewish rock stars.
Kol BโSeder has been composing and performing contemporary Jewish music since the early1970s. Rabbi Dan Freelander and Cantor Jeff Klepper met as college students; over the past 50years they have released numerous CDs and songbooks. With Debbie Friedman (z”l) and others, they forged a new musical sound for American Jewish camps, schools and synagogues. Their songs, such as “Shalom Rav,โ โModeh Ani,โ and “Lo Alecha,” have become traditionalJewish melodies around the world. They are delighted to be inaugurating their fiftieth anniversary celebration by appearing in support of URJ camps, where they first composed and incubated many of their early songs.
Rabbi Mira Weller (she/her) received her ordination at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles in May 2022. She studied Culture and Politics at Georgetown Universityโs School of Foreign Service and received her Masterโs in Jewish Education at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at HUC-JIR. She is the proud recipient of awards for her studies in rabbinic literature, her work in Jewish education, and she was granted the Myrtle Lorch Pfaelzer-Monroe Pfaelzer Award for an Outstanding Female Rabbinical School Student (2022). Rabbi Mira speaks Hebrew and Spanish (so please practice with her!). She has a passion for uncovering new possibilities in the great wealth of our tradition and for making music inspired by Judaismโs many cultures. Her guilty pleasures include cupcakes, classical music, and philosophy.
New York bassist Roger Wagner enjoys a long and diverse career. As soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral bassist, Mr. Wagner has appeared on many of the world’s great concert stages.
Sarah Adams 
Leonard Bernstein described 
Praised by the New York Times as โirresistible in both music and performance.โ flutist, 
Margaret Kampmeier, 
Michael Roth
Our initiative for young children and their grown-ups provides a slate of offerings including Shabbat and holiday celebrations, music, classroom readiness programs, and new parent experiences. During the pandemic, we have leaned on $1m of seed funding for Sholom Sprouts established through this campaign as we offer age-appropriate virtual programs for our families with young children, who are the future of our community. We look forward to welcoming our littlest members and their grown-ups back to our new fifth floor, as well as hiring a Program Assistant to increase the capacity of Sholom Sprouts to grow. This program provides a crucial entry-point to the congregation and membership for young families.
