Rosh Hashanah 2005

We Jews have a rich and textured sense of culture. We Jews have a strong and vibrant sense of peoplehood. We Jews, however, have a weak and tepid sense of religion—and it’s killing us. According to the studies, we’re losing Jews to the “spiritual” religions. While we add up to little more than two percent of the American population, we Jews represent nine percent of the members of the Church of Scientology and at least fifteen percent of the devotees of Hare Krishna. Approximately twenty percent of all cult members are Jewish. Jews constitute at least forty percent of the membership of Eastern meditation groups in major urban centers. It is estimated that as many as seventy-five percent of the devotees in some ashrams are Jewish.

In another study, there were in-depth interviews conducted with one hundred Jews aged twenty to thirty-five, who were all actively involved in another religion. All of their comments point to a need that wasn’t met. There was a spiritual need that was not met in their Jewish homes or in any of their Jewish institutions. The question was asked of them, “Why did you abandon Judaism for another religion?” Here are some of the replies that resonate. “I was always looking for a living religion and Judaism seemed dead.” Another reply, “My brother and I would always ask ourselves the ‘big’ questions: Where did we come from? What is behind the universe and what happens when you get there? But, these questions never came up in my Jewish circles. I found the answers in Krishna Consciousness.” Another response: “Judaism was so cultural and so nationalistic, and it was barely even a religion.”

Here is a group of people in search of fulfillment, convinced that Judaism can offer them nothing. The subjects of the research are not bizarre exceptions or maladjusted freaks. They represent us—you and me and our children, our grandchildren—our family and our friends. We have needs that are not being met. We have spiritual impulses with no outlets within a Jewish framework. We have questions that Judaism simply isn’t answering. The subjects in the studies were intelligent, idealistic young people, who were involved in Jewish families, involved in educational institutions and involved in congregations. And they were never exposed to a Judaism with any substance or any depth. They were never exposed to a Judaism with any religiosity. It’s a tragedy because we’re losing Jews quickly. The numbers in our population studies don’t look good. The numbers in our families don’t look good. Friends, you know that I’m doing what I can for the Jewish population. We’re expecting our fourth child any moment—my wife is four centimeters dilated. But, we’re tired and we have our limits. So, finally, in order to ensure Jewish continuity, I’m suddenly forced to look outside my own progeny. We simply can’t sustain those kinds of numbers!

An older Jewish woman calls an ashram in Tibet and says, “Hello? This is Mrs. Schwatzenheimer from Long Island. I would like to meet with your master. So, when can I come?” “Well,” the monk says, “It’s not that simple. We can schedule you a pilgrimage in three months time. You must fly into Tibet, hire transport, and reside in our monastery for a two-week retreat of meditative silence. Then, a guide and a mule will take you up to the sacred monastery on the mountain’s top. You will then speak three words to the master, no less and no more. And so, that’s what Mrs. Schwatzenheimer does. She flies into Tibet, rents a car, stays in the monastery for the two-week retreat of silence, which by the way, almost killed her. She receives her guide and mule and hikes for five miles up to the mountain’s top. And behold, the magnificent sacred monastery. She enters the monastery, removes her shoes, and approaches the master. The guide reminds her gently that she will now speak three words to the master, no less and no more. She nods and approaches the master, and comes up close to his face. And says, “Irving, come home!”

Friends, we are losing our children, we’re losing our friends, and we’re losing our religion. I think I know where we went wrong and I think I know how to fix it. How ‘bout that?

A long time ago, there was a fork in the road and normative Judaism took a wrong turn. When Rabbinic Judaism was still in its formation, around the year 0, there was a raging debate for the soul of Judaism. There was a disagreement about the spiritual nature of Judaism and the legislation of kavannah. The term kavannah is usually translated as “concentration” or “focus.” Given its Hebrew root, which means “to direct,” I translate it as “directed consciousness.” The debate surfaces in several places in the Talmud over whether ritual action requires intention or if ritual action does not require intention. Is it good enough to do an action even if it’s done by rote? Or should intention be a legal requirement? Mitzvot tzrichot kavannah o mitzvot lo tzrichot kavannah—and the Rabbis of the Talmud are split. Some hold that kavannah should be legally required and others hold that it should not. Even after the Talmud was completed and codified, the debate still raged on.

In the end, mainstream, normative Judaism decided that mitzvot do not require kavannah. Normative Judaism chose not to legally require intention and we did so for practical reasons and ideological reasons. Practically speaking, it is difficult to legalize spirituality. How does one measure intent? How does one prescribe focus? Our legalistic Rabbis could not justify legislating kavannah. And ideologically, the Rabbis chose not to require kavannah because they taught that “if a mitzvah is performed without kavannah, it can lead one to proper kavannah.” If you require action even without intention, perhaps intention will follow later. I hear the argument, but I still think we backed a loser. When we made the decision that one could fulfill a mitzvah without any intention whatsoever, we sapped the spirituality out of Judaism. We submerged mystical and spiritual practice. We enabled legalistic and pedantic ritual practice. For certain, we are forever grateful for the wisdom of our ancient Rabbis who have guided us to reach this point, but a new era is dawning and the results are in: young Jews in search of ‘spirituality and meaning’ have fled.

As a people, our ethnicity is strong, our nationhood is strong, but we’re doing a poor job with religion. But that’s all going to change. There is a spiritual reawakening that has begun, and it’s all about exploring the depths of Jewish prayer.

Jewish prayer is designed to help us reach a spiritual state of consciousness. In order to have kavannah in worship, we simply have to allow the words to direct our consciousness. We have to be willing to be carried by prayer to a deeper level of holiness. This deeper state of consciousness is well within our grasp—in fact, nothing could be simpler.

A student once came to his rebbe, Reb Menachem Mendl of Rimanov, to seek advice about a problem he was having during prayer. “When I settle into my prayers,” the student said, “I am distracted by flaming Hebrew letters and words. Whole sentences seem to flash before my eyes. The words of the Sh’ma light up and become real. They distract me so much, it’s impossible for me to get through my prayers.”

“What you are seeing,” Reb Menachem Mendl said, “are the innermost meanings and the innermost spirit of the words of the sh’ma. Others would give almost anything for such a gift. Why are you complaining?

“But Rebbe,” the student said, “all I want to do is pray the words and mean what I say.”

True spirituality is the act of seeing what is. To see clearly, we must act simply. We are taught, mistakenly, that spirituality is a difficult and complex series of commitments and practices. Simplify and uncover our natural curiosity and wonder. Reb Menachem Mendl turned to his student and said, “Pray the words and accept your gift from God.”

Last week, as I was holding my daughter Maya, I learned a similar lesson about the nature of spirituality. She’s almost five. We were out in the backyard, and I was appreciating the trees with her—some looked happy and some looked sad. We started talking about God, as a Rabbi and his daughter might. Then she looked at me and in the sweetest voice she said, “How did we move and talk?” “What?” I asked. She repeated it again, this time with explanatory pantomime. “How did we move and talk?” A light bulb went off in my head. “You mean how are we able to move and talk and think?” She said, “Yeah.” She was asking a deeply spiritual question about how humans developed a uniquely human consciousness. Maybe I’m projecting, but I think that was what she was asking. We had just been talking about trees and grass and the natural world around her. And she noticed a difference between her own humanness and the natural world. We have musculature that allows us to consciously move our bodies. The other thing that she noted was the power of speech. The faculty of speech allows humans to think, communicate, and create in a uniquely reflective and intelligent way. Speech allows us a higher level of awareness and consciousness. Maya, like all four year olds, is in touch with her natural curiosity and her natural wonder. It is that curiosity and sense of wonder that allowed her to access her spirituality and ask such a beautiful and deep question. So, what was the answer? I thought about a few different ways to respond, and then I simplified. I said, “God made us. So, God helps us move and God made us so we can talk.” We grow spiritually by stripping away the layers of artificial complexity and returning to our authentic and simple selves. We are naturally filled with wonder and awe. We manufacture cynicism and skepticism on our own. Let us return to our holy and natural simple state standing as a community before our God.

There was once an illiterate cowherd who did not know how to pray, so instead he would say to God, “Master of the Universe, Ribono shel olam, … let’s say that you had cows and you gave them to me to look after, I would do it for nothing. I take wages from everyone else, but, for you, I would do it for nothing— because I love you.” A certain sage happened to overhear the cowherd praying this prayer. The sage said to him, “You, fool, you ignoramus, you mustn’t pray like that.” The cowherd asked him how he should pray, and the sage set about teaching him the order of prayers as they are found in the prayer book. After the sage went away, the cowherd soon forgot what he had been taught and so he did not pray at all. He was afraid to say his usual prayer about God’s cows because the sage had told him that it was wrong to say such things. On the other hand, he could not say what the sage had told him because it was all jumbled up in his mind. That night the sage was reprimanded in a dream and, he was told that unless the cowherd returned to his spontaneous prayer, great harm would befall the sage, for he had stolen something very precious away from God. The moment he awoke, the sage hurried back to the cowherd and asked him what he was praying. The cowherd told him that he was not praying at all since he had forgotten the prayers the sage had taught him, and he had been forbidden to tell God how he would look after his cows for free. The sage begged him to forget what he had told him and to go back to his real prayers—the prayers that he had recited, before ever he had met him.

The sage learned about the spirituality of simple, heartfelt prayer and the limitations of legalistic proscriptions. The truth is, of course, Judaism must remain legalistic and prescriptive. Judaism must also grow as a culture and a people. But, unless we succeed in revitalizing the religion of Judaism, we are doomed to failure. We’ve failed as a people if we survive as a nation and we survive as a culture, but we die as a religion. It says in the Talmud, tractate brachot, page 30b, “Rabbi Eliezer says, ‘If you are able to focus your heart and have kavannah, then you should pray. But, if not, you should not pray.’” He says, if you’re not praying like you mean it, then don’t even bother. It’s a minority opinion and a problematic opinion, but it’s an important voice. Jewish ethnicity and Jewish nationalism are both treasured components of our glorious and sophisticated Jewish civilization. But, if we leave God and spirituality out of the equation, we might as well close the doors.

This congregation, Brith Shalom has a spiritual energy. There are different kinds of spiritual energy in Kaballah. There’s earth, water, fire, and air. Which do you think Brith Shalom has? Fire! That’s right. Eish. There’s a fire smoldering underneath the surface. A fire of energy, of passion, of religiosity, and yearning. It’s a fire that burns. I’m still trying to understand about that fire. There’s a depth and a potential to the fire that provides, warmth and passion and passion. That’s why I’m here with you, to be with you, to do my best to help guide you. I’m here to serve God, Torah, and you, the people of Israel.  Can you guess how I perceive my own spiritual energy? Fire, water, air, or earth?

A closing prayer. I pray that in the coming year we grow closer together. I pray that you begin to understand me and that I begin to understand you. I’m on a quest to reenergize congregational life and reenergize Jewish practice. Please join me. May we have a year filled with collaboration, intensity, fire, and delight. And together let us all say: Amen.

© Ranon Teller