From President Bruce Leshine

Remarks Delivered at the Morning Service
Rosh Hashanah 5776, September 14, 2015

Shalom, Gut Yontiff. Just twelve days ago, halfway through an adventure to celebrate the anniversary of our wedding--- which occurred right here in this sanctuary in Sinai Temple some thirty years ago last month--- Liz and I found ourselves on Corfu, a Greek island in the Adriatic Sea.

After lunch, we were exploring a little bit, wandering through the narrow streets of the old town, until we came upon the Jewish synagogue. No signs pointed you there, and unless you noticed the Star of David above the wooden door, you might walk right by it. But we did notice the Star of David, above the wooden door of a small two-story stucco building, which was 200 hundred years old if it was a day. And we knocked on that wooden door, and a man magically appeared from around the corner of the building, and opened a door for us into a world that I never imagined I might see on a tiny island off the western coast of Greece. Never was something so seemingly ordinary, so breathtaking for me…

The man told us that the Jewish community on Corfu was born in the 1500’s with the Jews fleeing from Spain. In 1890, Corfu numbered some 7000 Jews in four different synagogues within the island’s Jewish quarter, before the murder of a young Jewish girl, mistakenly reported by the local press to be a Christian, caused mass riots, mayhem and destruction of Jewish homes and businesses, and forcing many of the Jews of Corfu to leave the island. And then in 1944, all of the 2000 Jews still living on Corfu were stolen from their homes and taken by the Nazis to the concentration camps of eastern Europe--- only 150 of the 2000 returned after the war. Today, only 60 Jews live on Corfu, but all of them will be in the synagogue on Corfu on Rosh Hashanah morning… Unexpectedly standing in the sanctuary of a 200-year old synagogue on a tiny Greek island in the Adriatic Sea, and imagining what it would sound like in that sanctuary on this very morning, I wondered what is “it” that links us here in our sanctuary to the Jews of Corfu in theirs--- what, exactly, makes all of us Jews?

Of course, many would say that Jews all practice the same religion, and that this religion, Judaism, is a set of ideas about the world and the way we should live our lives. However, many people who would identify themselves as Jews do not believe in or practice much of this “religion” at all! Indeed, over half of all Jews in Israel today see themselves as "secular," and don't generally follow any of the “religious beliefs” of Judaism. And over half of all Jews in the United States don't belong to a synagogue. They may practice some of the rituals of Judaism and celebrate some of the holidays, but they don't necessarily think of these actions as religious activities. But I would guess that most of us here in this sanctuary this morning feel that these “secular” individuals are still Jews, regardless of the degree of their religious beliefs and practices. So there must be more to Judaism than it’s merely being a religion?

Indeed, orthodox and conservative Judaism maintain that a person is a Jew if his or her mother is a Jew, regardless of who his father is. Reform Judaism allows Jewish “status” to pass through the mother or the father if the child identifies as being Jewish. Except for someone who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism, being a Jew technically has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism. And a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the Orthodox.

In this sense, Judaism is more like a "people" or a “nation” than anything else. Indeed, the Torah proclaims that the Jews are like a “nation”--- not in the modern sense denoting a geographic or political entity, but rather, in the ancient sense meaning a group of people with a common history, a common destiny, and a sense that we are all connected to each other. That comes close for me, but I still think that there’s more to it than that--- there has to be.

Throughout the Bible and Jewish literature, the Jewish people are referred to as "the Children of Israel," a reference to the fact that we are all the physical or spiritual descendants of the Patriarch Jacob, who was later called Israel. As such, all Jews are all part of Jacob’s “very extended family.” Like a family, we don't always agree with each other. We expect the most of each other, because the failings of any member of the family may be held against all of us. We also come together in defense of those who attack us, and when members of our Jewish family suffer or are persecuted, we all feel their pain.

And when a member of our Jewish "family" does something really significant, we are all quite proud, and we collectively delight in the accomplishments of our “fellow Jews” and in their being Jewish: scientists like Albert Einstein, political leaders like Joe Lieberman, and athletes like Sandy Koufax. Even Jews who know little else about Sandy Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his time, know that this Brooklyn kid would not play in a World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur--- what chutzpah!

So is Judaism primarily a religion or are we a giant family, all descendants of Jacob and his sons and their sons? Or are the Jews a nation…a people, finally led by Moses out of Egypt to settle in the Promised Land, and now spread across the Earth, in places as far apart as Springfield, Massachusetts and Corfu, Greece, and worlds away from another in so many ways?

Throughout our lives as Jews, we are first “swaddled” in our religion and we are taught of the nation of Israel. And we become part of this universal Jewish family. Through our religion and our being part of this universal Jewish family, we participate in Jewish relationships without which we could not survive. Our tradition is emphatic: From our first moments to our last, we Jews value life among other human beings, life made richer by our belonging to a community.

Twelve days after standing in that small sanctuary, with the sun streaming in through the glass of its old narrow windows and dancing across the Ark holding Corfu’s Torah, I believe that Judaism is all of these, plus one more that I’ll add: community. A long time ago, I remember being a child at High Holiday services with my mother’s parents. My grandmother Sophie grew up on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, but was not particularly religious or observant. However, I remember her crying, pleasantly, during one part of the service. I asked her why she was crying--- was it something in that particular prayer. She said, “No--- I don’t even know what this prayer is about. I just like being here in temple with all of our family and our friends.”

And in that statement by Grandma Sophie lies one of our greatest opportunities, and I believe one of our goals for Sinai Temple; not only to make our temple a house of worship and a place of learning for our children, but also to create a greater and more dynamic Jewish community for us and all of our family and friends.

L’Shanah Tovah, my friends. And my very best wishes for a sweet New Year for you and all of your families…