On the occasion of the installation of Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

Thank you.  I am so happy to be here, especially because of the great honor of helping to install here in this wonderful synagogue my dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg.   But it is also such a pleasure to see other friends and colleagues here, Rabbis Jerry Klein (emeritus), David Stern (and Nancy Kasden), Rabbi Debbie Robbins, Rabbi Mark Kaiserman, Cantor Annie Bornstein, Rabbi Lou Siegel, Rabbi Irwin Goldenberg (50TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BAR  MITZVAH) and Joyce Goldenberg, and of course, Jim Talbott.   

I am struck by how astonishing it often is to set a date far into the future, as when deciding when I could come to Dallas, and find that the Torah portion of the week is as though made to order for the occasion.  Can it be mere coincidence that matches this occasion with the portion, VaYetze, about a young man leaving home to follow his own dreams?  

vbrj lkhu gca rtcn cegh tmhu  VaYetze Yaakov meBeer Shava, va-yelekh Harana Jacob left from Beer Sheva and went toward Haran.  Or, as we might say tonight, Rachel left from Brooklyn and went toward Dallas.    

But for Jacob, and for this Rachel, the place left and the destination are both less important than the journey itself and the reasons for it.  The central action in Jacob¹s story is his famous dream.  And because I think a rabbi¹s dream is what moves her to leave home and set out for places unknown, I want to talk tonight about dreams.

Let me start with mine.    The story begins with eight people around Kathryn and my dining room table, invited in January 1993 to sit and talk about a new possibility.     Why were we there?   I was working for MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and speaking in synagogues all over the east coast.  What I found, I am sorry to say, with few exceptions, was dull, even dead worship.  (I wasn¹t speaking here, obviously).  Those leading seemed not to care about the words they were speaking, and those in the pews were barely attending; some even slept.  BUT after the service, whether Friday night or Saturday morning, when you put some cake and coffee or gefilte fish and wine into people¹s hands, they came to life!  They talked and connected and the enthusiasm, the energy, was contagious.  So I thought, ³Why not eat first?  Why not do the eating and socializing first, and that enthusiasm will continue into the prayer or study that follows.²  After all, there is no better way to connect with people than to eat together, and Jews have a long history of connecting eating and ritual ­ think Shabbat dinners, Pesakh seders, a rebbe¹s tisch.

We talked early of cafes and old Jewish cafeterias, of brands of coffee and dreams of our own café.  But the meaning was not in the food.  The food was a symbol for community, for connection, for a yearning for spiritual, emotional and material sustenance.  So when it came time to choose a name, we debated many names that had to do with feasting and celebrating, before one member reminded us that our point was to form a community that would encompass all of people¹s lives and that the eating was the way we were forming the community.  Hence the name Kolot Chayeinu / Voices of Our Lives.

And now?  Now we number 180, and have many services and classes and school and events, with Shabbat morning services at the core.  We begin Shabbat morning services each week with breakfast, provided by members.  And guess what?  We schmooze, we learn about each other¹s lives, we check up on people who¹ve been ill, or had great joys, we make new friends and deepen older friendships.   And we bring all of it into our prayer.  It was into this mix that Rachel Goldenberg and Jim Talbott came now 6 years ago, and quickly danced their way into the heart of things.   

So we are a community that eats together every chance we get.  And we have become a community whose members care for one another.  It isn¹t perfect, but very often we get to a funeral or a shiva minyan or a bris or baby-naming, or gather to help someone put up a mezuzah.  Members have become deep friends, but they needn¹t be friends to offer this kind of care:  One of my mantras is, ³I don¹t care if you know So-and-So or not, you should be at the shiva.²   Another, which may strike you as odd, is ³Never use the word Œwelcoming.¹²  To say ³we welcome you² ­ whether you are a Jew of color or a gay or lesbian Jew or a couple in which one member is not Jewish ­ to say we welcome you is to say ³there is an Œus¹ and there is a Œyou,¹ and they are different.²  Here is what Kolot Chayeinu¹s Mission Statement says in this regard:  ³As individuals of varying sexual orientations, races, family arrangements and Jewish identities and backgrounds, we share a commitment to the search for meaningful expressions of our Judaism in today¹s uncertain world.²

We have become a community known for speaking out on social or political issues, but are only recently developing a real social justice committee.  We are known for our school and its experimental curriculum that includes retreats on things like Jewish tradition and economic justice.  I hope we will become known for our level of adult learning.  We have much to learn and much to do, and I know how much we could learn from this congregation.   I also think we have some lessons to share.  

Rachel, you and Jim have taken and given many lessons from and to Kolot Chayeinu.  Above all else, I value your showing up ­ your willingness to be part of the community in so many times and places.  But, also, we now do Torah study in dance every other month because you started it, and we are examining our central values in a way you began to suggest.  We have as an ideal a decent level of pay for all staff ­ now totaling five ‹ because Jim pushed on the issue.  I can¹t read commentary on the Ramban, Nachmanides, without thinking of Jim and his deep understanding of those commentaries.  And our current leader of b¹nai mitzvah students and parents¹ study sessions is working hard to fill your shoes.  

Here are some lessons I want to recommend to you, about what I think a synagogue should be and do, and thus what a rabbi might be and do.  First, be a community.  Take care of each other.  Treat each other with respect, even in the midst of the most passionate arguments.  Like a well-functioning couple, argue well and often.  And love each other, not as individual friends, though they may be there, but as equal members of a Jewish community.  You are in this together, and all your hands are needed.  Why not extend them with love and respect.     

Celebrate the highs ­ the holidays, the individual joys, the simchas recognized by Jewish tradition and those that aren¹t.  Comfort the sorrows, the deaths, the loss of jobs, the illness, the psychic pain and fear of living in today¹s world.  

Second, express doubt.  We say that in our community, ³Doubt is an act of faith.²  If you don¹t have doubts living in this world, then you may not be paying attention.  Allow, encourage others to express their doubts.  And nothing can substitute for a rabbi¹s being willing to express doubt publicly:  people will flock to respond!

Third, be deeply serious about the Judaism you practice and teach and model.  There is no room in a world like ours for a watered down Judaism that is intended for children or a lowest common denominator.  Study always as you do now, alone or with others.  Ask students of all ages to stretch, and watch them fly.    Create new rituals, change language, turn texts on their heads through interpretation; in other words, do as our ancient rabbis did, not as they said.   

Finally, dream big.  Don¹t put stumbling blocks in your way before you have to, and don¹t sell yourself short.  
ouenc gdphu VaYifgah ba-makom   Bump right into God, as Jacob did, and spend time in that Place, and dream big.

vnhnav ghdn uatru vmrt cmun okux vbvu oukjhu

uc ohsruhu ohkug ohvkt hftkn vbvu

VaYakhalom v'hinei!  Sulam mutzav artza v'rosho magiya ha-shamaimah
v'hinei!  Malakhei Elohim olim v'yordim bo.

Jacob dreamed and look, a ladder stood on the ground and its head reached toward heaven.  And look!  Angels of God went up and came down on it.

They go up and then come down?  asked many commentators.  Don¹t angels live in heaven, and shouldn¹t they therefore come down and then go up?   Rashi says the angels that accompanied Jacob while he was in the land of Israel couldn¹t go with him when he left, so they went up to heaven, and those that would accompany him outside the land came down.    So I might say that while Brooklyn is not really the holy land, though some would argue with me, perhaps you need new angels now that you are outside that land.  

But I see another explanation.  Jacob is on his way to Haran, but more than that, he is on the way to his new life.   The angels are there to show him that you don¹t have to do things in the usual way.  You can go up when most people go down, and you can descend as others rush past you in the opposite direction.   God will be with you, whether you know it or not.  In Leviticus Rabbah we learn that Jacob was very afraid when he saw the angels going up and down, and he said, oukau xj , Has v'shalom! what if just as I go up, I too must come down?!?!?!  God tells him not to worry, saying, If you go up, you won¹t have any worldly descent.  

There is risk in following your dreams, and in learning from the angels that you can do things in unexpected and untried ways.   Risks are real, and we and Jacob are right to be afraid.  But we have to listen to God¹s assurances:  if you go up in a new way, you won¹t descend into the tread-worn ways of the world.  

When Jacob awakes, he realizes he has experienced God.  But he doesn¹t exactly say what we all think he says, ³God was in this place and I did not know it.²  He doesn¹t say,
³vzv ouenc vhv vuvh² Adonai haya ba-makom ha-zeh ­ He says vzv ouenc vuvh ah Yesh Adonai ba-makom ha-zeh‹ There is something of God, a ³yesh-ness² of God in this place.   Try to remember that in whatever place God showed you, there is godliness, whether you know it at once or over time.  We rabbis are engaged in a holy enterprise, and we need all the divinity we can find to help us along.  

So be a dreamer.  Dream great dreams, see great visions.  Be as the ones who started us off in the first place.  For in the words of the great Jewish sages Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, ³You gotta have a dream. If you don¹t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?²