Yom Kippur Morning 5781
Monday, September 28, 2020
Temple Beth Zion, Buffalo, New York
by Rabbi Jonathan Freirich

What a year.

2020, 5780 the year just past going into 5781.

It doesn’t look like it will let up any time soon.

Look at our world, our country, our city, our community, our Temple family.

You have risen to the occasion. You called everyone in our community multiple times when we first started this shut down journey on Friday, March 13. Do you remember? You organized yourselves in making sure that every TBZ member heard from someone more than once.

Knowing that we entered uncharted territory the people of our Temple Beth Zion family have over and over again come together to support the synagogue and each other. Just listen to a few of the amazing volunteer-initiated efforts that have started during this time, and this list is in no way exhaustive:

Chiavetta’s chicken fundraisers; a new initiative this year.
The innovation of lending out prayer books for the High Holy Days.
Special gifts for every member in honor of the High Holy Days.
The whole Sunday Palooza, including food drive and recycling drive.
Distributing individual Religious School packages to each and every religious school student and family.
Feast Before the Fast just yesterday.
A High Holy Days brought to you through an amazing production team led by our volunteers, and coordinated by the Ritual Committee of volunteers who manage every aspect of honors and service lay out and came here in advance to record Torah and Haftarah readings and blessings and English readings and the Kol Nidrei message and announcements.
Creating and participating in a whole new way of worshiping and connecting, many of us are now more connected than ever before because we have overcome mobility obstacles and figured out how to Zoom across generations and distances.
Broadcasting Jewish music today on WNED Classical - again led by the efforts of volunteers.
Joyful occasions and commemorations, B’nei Mitzvah and celebrations of life, ways to build community and family that we had never explored before, all while navigating the challenges facing all of us as individuals and a world, supported by all of you who continue to show up with kindness and compassion and support TBZ more enthusiastically than ever. This past Shabbat was our first Saturday morning since August 1 without a Bat or Bar Mitzvah or Rosh Hashanah - all of you have been participating to support all of these celebrations.
Sisterhood, Brotherhood, Gift Shop, Sukkah, Task Forces and our constantly devoted Board of Trustees, committees overseeing our finances, and always innovating on how we will enter a new future as an organization in our Jewish community, preserving and improving our wonderful buildings, seeking new models of collaboration, and so much more - most of you have no idea how many hours our volunteer leaders devote to TBZ and there’s no way to list all of them or all that they do.
Generosity in these difficult times - all of you continue to figure out ways to give of your time, talent, and treasure to make TBZ into the warm, welcoming, and hamishe place that so many depend upon.
Patience and enthusiasm with our team as we figure out technology and remote gathering and innovate and improvise, building the plane as we fly it - thank you all so much for sticking with us. You have comforted each other and found new ways of “being there” for each other even when we can’t actually share space and time and hugs.

In all these ways and so many more, you have shown every member of Temple Beth Zion that we are first and foremost a community of caring people, compassionately engaged with each other to build and maintain the fabric of interconnectedness that is Judaism, that improves and maintains our lives through all the principles of our ancestors applied with love and care.

In all of this, you volunteers and leaders of Temple Beth Zion, you embody the teachings of our tradition. The way we behave at Temple Beth Zion follows the first teaching of the Torah about building community - we model ourselves after Abraham, the first of our ancestors, who demonstrated that caring and compassion are expressed first of all through hospitality. When all of you have led through welcome, you have followed Abraham’s model.

Here is a story emphatically showing just this from the Talmud, discussing what we are allowed to do for the sake of hospitality.

The Talmud starts:

One may move baskets of produce on Shabbat for guests and in order to prevent the suspension of Torah study in the academy.
Rabbi Yocĥanan said: Hospitality towards guests is as great as rising early to go to study.
And Rabbi Dimi from Neharde’a says: Hospitality towards guests is greater than rising early to study, as it teaches: For guests, and only afterward: to prevent suspension of Torah study.
Rabbi Yehuda said that Rav said on a related note: Hospitality towards guests is greater than receiving the Presence of God, as when Abraham invited his guests it is written…

And here is the full story from Genesis, chapter 18:
1 Now God was seen by [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre as he was sitting at the entrance to his tent at the heat of the day.
2 [Abraham] lifted up his eyes and saw: here, three men standing over against him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the entrance of his tent and bowed to the earth
3 and said: My lords, pray if I have found favor in your eyes, pray do not pass by your servant!

The Torah uses very few words, so let’s expand them a little. God is seen by Abraham while Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent. Then, Abraham looks up and sees three men, and leaves God’s presence in order to greet the new visitors and offer them hospitality.

This is the interpretation that the rabbis of the Talmud use as they continue:
Abraham requested that God, the Divine Presence, wait for him while he tended to his guests appropriately.
Rabbi Elazar said: Come and see that the attribute of the Holy One, Blessed be God, is not like that of flesh and blood. The attribute of flesh and blood people is such that a less significant person is unable to say to a more significant person: Wait until I come to you.
While with regard to the Holy One, Blessed be God, it is written:
“And Abraham said: Adonai, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please pass not from Your servant.”
Abraham requested that God wait for him due to his guests.
[BT Shabbat 127a, Koren Talmud Bavli, The Noe Edition, Shabbat Part Two, Commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, page 249]

When we are dealing with people, it is difficult to ask a more important person to wait while we go and attend to the needs of a less important person. It’s the right thing to do, but it is difficult. With God it is different. When hospitality and taking care of the needs of others arise, even if God is right there talking to us, then God will wait while we take care of other people.

The Talmud tells this story about Abraham to make sure that we understand just how important it is to welcome the stranger and attend to the needs of those around us.

And all of you at Temple Beth Zion understood this even before I brought forward this story. You understand that the life of a community is about the people in our community. You understand that we don’t communicate that by telling people how important all of you are, we communicate that by showing up for each other, by making it clear that we know that caring actions speak clearly. You have spoken clearly this year. The plans you continue to make for the months to come, with all the uncertainty around us show that you will continue to speak clearly through your actions that the people of Temple Beth Zion, the Jews of our community, and the people of Western New York are so important, that sometimes we have to ask others to hold on while we welcome and care for one another.

Thank you.

And of course, thank you to our whole TBZ team.

The whole team of us who work with and for you so appreciate the Temple Beth Zion mission. When we partner like we have, we become so much more than the sum of our parts. We accomplish something truly holy - we build a community that cares.

In the early 1970’s “Do it yourself” Judaism was made a big thing by the publication of “The Jewish Catalog” by the founders of the Havurah movement - empowered Jews who felt that formal Jewish life was lacking for participation and doing by Jews. The 2020 update, nearly fifty years later is that Judaism is “Do it ourselves”. Each and every one of you has taken up the banner of doing Jewishly together, taking an action that makes a difference for more than an individual, putting our community’s well-being first.

We may speak of the number of families who belong to Temple Beth Zion, but we don’t really act like we are multiple families. We are one Temple Beth Zion family, and we have been doing Judaism for ourselves for a long time. The crisis our society has encountered over the last six months has only brought forward the spirit that has inspired Temple Beth Zion for generations: we build a “do it ourselves” Judaism every day of the year.

On this day, as we are re-energized and reminded by the words of our sages and our prophets, that empty fasts and rote rituals are not what God demands of us. All of you at Temple Beth Zion can be inspired by your “do it ourselves” energy that you have already exerted - you are the people who will help make 5781 a better year. You are the community that will continue to care for each other. We do for ourselves because, in these words inspired by Hillel the Sage:

“If we are not for ourselves, who will be for us?

If we are only for ourselves, what are we?

If not now, when?”

We are the ones who will make the improvements we need.

We will confess and atone, remember and re-energize, and take up the task again as we enter a new year ready to continue caring for one another and doing Judaism for ourselves.

May we all inscribe ourselves for a better year in the Book of Life that we all write together.

L’shanah tovah.