Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Morning, Beth Israel Synagogue, 1 Tishrei 5776

This building, as it stands today, in 1969, represents the efforts of a legion of selfless people dating back to the beginnings of the Wallingford Jewish Community.

How many of you recognize those words? They are displayed prominently in the foyer of this synagogue. I have been been staring at these words and contemplating their meaning for some time now. This building, as it stands today, in 1969. The plastic plaque, dyed to look like wood, just as much as the words themselves, is an anachronism. So too is so much else in this shul: the porcelain water fountain; the metal railing around rabbi's lectern; the paneling in the social hall; the books in our library.

What really gets me are all the signs. For some time, my favorite was the one that read “Cloak Room.” As I was only six, my memories of 1969 are not very clear, so others will have to remind me: did men back then wear cloaks over their sansabelt slacks? Did women wear cloaks over their mini-skirts?

My fascination with the cloak room, though, gave way as I tried to decipher the meaning of the kitchen doors. The two doors to our kitchen display four signs in total, and figuring out the particular meaning of each has proved a task requiring all the textual skills I developed studying Talmud. Each door is topped with a sign that says Kitchen. These I have concluded are for identification purposes. The door on the left also has a sign that says “Kitchen, Donated by the Sisterhood of Beth Israel.” Since this door already has a sign that identifies it as being the kitchen, I have decided that the word “Kitchen” on this sign is to indicate what precisely the Sisterhood has donated. The difficulty comes when you get to the second sign on the door on the right. This one says merely “Donated by the Sisterhood of Beth Israel.” To what could this possibly be referring? At first I thought it might be the kitchen, but surely this cannot be for the other door already has a sign to tell us that the kitchen was donated by the Sisterhood of Beth Israel. Then I thought, well maybe its the door. But since there is already a sign on it that says Kitchen, thus making it a part of the Kitchen, and since I already know that the Kitchen was donated by the Sisterhood, this cannot be the case either. The conclusion I drew is that the sign that says “Donated by the Sisterhood of Beth Israel,” refers to the sign itself.

This building, as it stand today, in 1969 . . .

When I first got here eight years ago, the building made only a modest impression on me. I was forty-four-year-old, and a third year rabbinic student. I felt very lucky to have this job. I was more interested in proving myself competent to you then critiquing the facilities. In the years that followed, an amazing thing happened. I fell in love with this place and the people in it. You have all always treated me with such kindness and patience. You have always acted toward me is if I were doing you a favor by being here, when in fact, it is quite the other way round.

It is hard, when a place becomes so warm, welcoming and beloved in your mind to look at it with fresh eyes. Fond memories are like beautiful garments that highlight our best features while hiding our flaws. And yet the lifeblood of any community is its ability to bring new people into its fold. And when someone walks into this place for the first time and sees it galeh b'ervatah, we might say – uncovered in its nakedness, unadorned by the memory's finery – what do they see?

This building, as it stands today, in 1969, represents the efforts of a legion of selfless people dating back to the beginnings of the Wallingford Jewish Community. For the people who dedicated that plaque on the occasion of their rebuilding of this synagogue, there is an unspoken pride in that declaration. It recognizes a history of generosity and commitment that was their inheritance, and proclaims that the work that they have done to renew and reinvigorate this place was worthy of what they were given. So now ask yourselves this. Imagine we were given the charge of dedicated our own plaque for the lobby. It will begin with these words:

This building, as it stands today, in 2015, represents . . .

How will we complete that sentiment?

Last year, on this very day, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, this congregation delivered to me a wake-up call. My sermon topic was a very personal statement of how I came to love Israel. I hoped such a statement would kindle in all of you a passion for the beleaguered Jewish homeland. When we adjourned to our social hall for our lunch & learn, I discovered that your passions were indeed inflamed – but not over Israel. You were incensed, and understandably so, about this town's callousness in scheduling its Celebrate Wallingford festival on Yom Kippur. It was as though you were saying to me, “Wake up, Rabbi. We live here, not there.”

So shaken was I by your message that I tossed my planned Yom Kippur sermon and wrote a new one. Forget about getting the recognition you seek from this town, I told you. We are a small minority here and we are afforded tolerance and nothing more. We should not look for more, nor should we feel ourselves victimized by not getting more. Instead, we should tend to our own house. And our own house is in need of repair. We need to build it anew.

Many of you thought I was speaking metaphorically. Certainly that's what David Stein, our resident architect thought when I approached him a few days later. “Well,” I asked him, “are you ready to rebuild this place?” “I always wanted to design a synagogue,” he replied.

In the past few months, I have been meeting with a small group of board members and others in our congregation to help me flesh out this idea. That group includes Alida Cella, our president and her husband David whom you all know is a builder; David Stein, of course, and my cousin Jay Alpert who is also an architect and is currently overseeing the rebuild of the Woodmont Synagogue. And Dick Caplan and Bob Gross, both long time members and leaders of this community whose wise counsel and thoughtful actions have kept both this building and this community standing through some difficult times. Most of them came to our first meeting out of respect for me and a willingness to indulge my fantasies for an hour. But as we walked around this place, imaginations opened up, and dreams became wonderful possibilities. Climbing a rickety ladder, Dick peered up into the crawl space and reported that our cracked, stained sanctuary ceiling conceals a vaulted roof supported by beautiful truss-work. Peeking through the shuttered blinds, David imagined opening up our social hall to our new lot – bringing in air and light and creating a gathering place that connects inside and outside. Walking across that lawn Alida pointed out to me where the entryway to our new mikvah should go. All agree that a new entrance to the building – one that welcomes people in with light and color and beauty and warmth is an absolute must. I know in my imagination, this space we are now in combines the new with the old: our beautiful stained-glass windows shed light on the rich colors of our new carpet and upholstery; a magnificent ark soars all the way to the vaulted ceiling, chairs circle a central lectern big enough for Nancy and me to share and not dozens but hundreds of congregants raise their voices to beg zochreinu l'chayim – remember us for life.

So take a moment. Look around with your own eyes. Imagine this synagogue as if it were new again. Imagine it beautiful again. Imagine it vital again. Most importantly, imagine it filled with people all the time; people who want to call this place their own because they built it and its beautiful and its filled with singing and learning and praying, and eating and arguing, and laughing and caring about one another in good times and in bad. Imagine it – not as the inheritance passed down to you, but as the legacy you are building for the next generation. Can we – a small and struggling group actually make this happen? We are no poorer in resources or spirit then those who built these walls originally. We need only the vision and the will to do it.

So what is that vision? And what is that will? The will is our collective commitment and hard work. This project will require the active participation of every member of this community. We are going to need a building committee, a decorating committee, a fund raising committee. We are going to need a committee to document and preserve the history of this place so that everything that makes it precious and meaningful to so many remains an integral part of it. We are going to need schleppers and sorters and even a few critics. We are going to need people to ease the pain and trial of the loss and dislocation a project like this inevitably entails. And we are going to need people to step in and do jobs that we won't even know need to be done until we start doing them. This is the will that we require in order to make such a project a reality. It is your will, for only you can make this happen.

The vision, however, is something entirely different. And here I need to be frank with you about the costs. Thanks to the hard work and commitment of this synagogue's lay leadership, Beth Israel has achieved a measure of economic stability. Not a lot of money is coming in, but it doesn't take much to run the place. You are looking at your biggest expense, and frankly, I work cheap. To engage in a project of rebuilding would be to put that stability in jeopardy. If our efforts fail – it we add to our expenses without growing our membership – this place will not survive. The course I am encouraging for this shul can be summed up in five words: Go big, or go home.

So let me speak with you very personally. I mentioned already my falling in love with this place and its people. That was not the intention. When I first came here, I did so as an employee. I had a contract with minimal but defined responsibilities. I had hopes of staying on for at least a couple of years to fulfill my requirements for a student pulpit. But that was it. I didn't come here looking for a spiritual home.

That all began to change when I started teaching Torah here; first once a month, then, tentatively, more frequently. And you came out and supported me – at times in large numbers. As we learned more Torah together, our spiritual needs began to grow – yours for more learning, mine to make a bigger difference. There have been days this past year when I have had our children and their parents in this sanctuary for Shabbat services, while my good friend Rabbi Hesch Sommer – who volunteers his time here out of love and friendship for me – has led a crowd in Torah study in our social hall. Fifty people being led by two rabbis in this tiny little shul, and I have thought to myself al ha-nisim sheh-asitah – Oh, for the miracles that You have done!

I did not come to this place looking for a spiritual home, but for me, the miracle of Beth Israel Synagogue is that I found one anyway. I want to see this miracle grow and I believe in my heart we can do it. I have already seen it happen here time and time again and I have seen it happen in my own life. My own spiritual journey from my father's atheism to the rabbinate has taught me how hard can be the struggle with what we believe and how we should behave. Many people refer to converts to Judaism as Jews by Choice. I think in this day and age – when the price of disbelief is so low, and the cost of belief so high – every Jew is a Jew by Choice. But there are so many Jews out there – and perhaps even a few in here – who are looking for permission to make that choice. Every Jew who finds her way to a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, or peaks furtively around a sanctuary at a nephew's Bar Mitzvah, or just pauses when she passes a shul long enough to wonder what its all about – in every one of those Jews, the ember of belief is still flickering, longing for the air that will make it flame up anew. My vision of this synagogue is of a place that fans the flame of meaning and purpose and community and caring and love and insight in people's lives. Such a life affirming vision must itself be affirmed by the space it inhabits. It can be modest or bold, traditional or modern, outgoing or reflective, but it must be vital. It cannot be a living relic to the aspirations of a generation now gone. It must be alive with the needs and dreams of those who love walking in here. We can make this happen. We have to make it happen.

So here is my suggestion for our own plaque in our welcoming, beautiful new shul:

This building, as it stands today, in 5778, represents the commitment of a new generation of Jews to honor the inheritance passed onto us by our ancestors by keeping it fresh and vital. As we say of them today, so may it be said of us a Jubilee hence: they left us something worthy of making new again.