I would be grateful for your reactions to the above.”

He asked this question last May!  Seven months ago.  What greater testimony can there be to the tension which exists for us as Jews, and especially for us as Reform Jews, as we struggle to live in this predominantly Christian society?

Tonight we are gathered to celebrate Shabbat, but how can we forget that it is Christmas Eve?  Next week, we will gather to celebrate Shabbat, but how practical is it to expect us to ignore the fact that it will be New Year’s Eve, nevertheless the millennial New Year’s Eve?  Tonight and tomorrow, more than any other time in the course of the year, we feel what it means to be an outsider in American society.  Next Shabbat, more than most other times of the year, we will feel the strain of two forces pulling at us - Shabbat - New Year’s; celebrate our Judaism - celebrate our secularity.  Of course, there will be many in our Jewish community who will not feel that tug, that strain.  After all, they do not feel it on any given Shabbat, nevertheless on the Shabbat which also happens to be New Year’s Eve.  But the fact that they don’t feel it is not something for us as a community to be proud of.  They have not successfully balanced their two identities - their Jewish identity and their American identity.  Rather they have surrendered their Jewish identity, or at least a greater part of their Jewish identity, in their search for a comfort level within American society.  Choosing to live Jewishly only when it is convenient and when it doesn’t get in the way is not, by any stretch of the imagination, successful Jewish living.

This is not a new issue for our people.  It seems that throughout our history, more often than not, we have been forced to walk this treacherous tightrope stretched between the culture that surrounds us and our own Jewish culture.  For the last few weeks in the Torah we have been reading the story of Joseph.  He is a perfect example.  Living in Egypt, as right hand man to Pharaoh, he became so Egyptian that he even changed his Hebrew name to an Egyptian name, Tsafnat Paneach; he became so Egyptian that his brothers could not even recognize him -there was no longer anything Jewish about him, not even a physical family resemblance.

Yes, this is a recurring story in the life of our people.  And we have always been left with the same three options: (1) to permit ourselves to be absorbed totally into the host society,  (2) to actively, and sometimes physically, resist any of the influences of the host society, or (3) to struggle within ourselves to create of our lives a healthy and dynamic balance between the two worlds.

It is believed that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were actually lost to the first option.  The Assyrians who conquered and exiled them did not hide them in some remote corner of the world.  Rather, they scattered them among other peoples, and eventually they were totally assimilated by those people.

Though we don’t like to talk about it, the story of Hanukkah, the holiday which we so love to celebrate, is really a story about the second option.  The villain, Antiochus Eppiphanes was an Hellenist, someone who evangelically believed in the superiority of Greek culture.  He did everything in his power to spread that culture throughout his empire.  And many, many people, including many, many Jews, gladly accepted it.  They took on Greek names, Greek clothes, Greek customs.  There were many who stopped circumcising their sons, and even had their own foreskins surgically reconstructed because according to the Greeks, the body is perfect and circumcision - the sign of the Jewish covenant with God - destroys that perfection.  Even Mattathias’ parents gave their son a Greek name, for “Mattathias” is Greek, not Hebrew.  It was this wholesale assimilation which Mattathias, his sons and his followers opposed.  This is what they fought about.  We sanitize it when we call it a battle for religious freedom, but it really was a war waged against assimilation.  There was not that much difference in mentality between our beloved Mattathias and the Ayatollah Khoumeini, or at least between Mattathias and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

The story of our own movement, Reform Judaism, is truly the story of the third option.  In the beginning of the 19^th century, as Napoleon swept through Europe, like Antiochus, Napoleon was also a cultural evangelist.  The culture he was promoting was the culture of the French Revolution; a culture founded upon the principle that all people, regardless of birth or faith, are equal - “Liberty!  Equality!  Fraternity!”  As an expression of those beliefs, he tore down the walls of the ghettos in which the Jews had been confined and isolated from their Christian neighbors, and he welcomed the Jews into general European society.  The transition into European society was not an easy one for our people.  It was the desire of most Jews to fit in and be welcomed.  However, for many, the practices of traditional Judaism represented significant barriers to that goal.  Such customs as kashrut made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Jews to successfully socially interact with non-Jews.  As a result of these tensions, many Jews converted to Christianity.  It was under these conditions that Reform Judaism arose.  It was unashamedly an attempt to create a form of Judaism which would permit its people to live in both worlds; the world of their Jewish religion and the world of their secular society.  As we gather here tonight in this synagogue, as Reform Jews, we are the heirs to their religious revolution.

We also are the heirs to the challenges of that revolution.  The first two options - total assimilation or total opposition to assimilation - are far easier choices than ours.  To just give up your Judaism or to close yourself off from the influences of the outside world, both choices conveniently paint the world as black or white.  Both choices offer obvious and clear cut decisions.

But not so with the balancing act which we have chosen to attempt.  We are constantly anguishing over the mix.  Rabbi Yoffie’s question of last May is but another example of that anguish.  The unaffiliated Jews of America are not struggling with that question.  They know where they are going to be on New Year’s Eve, and its not going to be in synagogue.  Likewise, the ultra Orthodox Jews are not struggling with it.  They, too, know what they are going to do next Shabbat, just as they know what they are going to do every Shabbat.  Only we, and our Conservative brothers and sisters, have trouble drawing the lines.

When I was in Confirmation Class, 35 years ago (now that the world knows that I am 50, you can all do the math for yourselves), the big debate was, “Are we American Jews or Jewish Americans?”  It all had to do with grammar.  Which is the noun?  And which is the adjective?  What is our essential identity, and what is the modifier of that identity?  Are we Jews who happen to be Americans, or Americans who happen to be Jews?

Back in 1973, when I was in rabbinical school, and when GATES OF PRAYER was first published, we were still asking that same question, but we framed our dialogue around the nature of the prayer book itself.  In each and every Reform synagogue, the debate was two fold.  First: Should we buy this prayer book with its increased tradition and Hebrew or should we continue to worship with the old Union Prayer Book and its primarily English service?  Second: If we choose to use GATES OF PRAYER, do we purchase the edition that opens in the English direction or the one that opens in the Hebrew direction?

The discussion continues today within our movement.  Just last year, we were heavily debating the text of the then proposed document, the “Ten Principles of Reform Judaism.”  We struggled, and still struggle, with such questions as: Kashrut, kipot, talitot, tefilin - what place, if any, do these practices have within our movement?  Patrilineal descent, matrilineal descent, Outreach, intermarriage, same sex marriage, how do we define “Who is a Jew?” and who is welcomed into our synagogues?  In other words, how do we strike that balance between living in a modern, secular world, with modern, secular values, while at the same time maintaining a 4,000 year old tradition of faith and peoplehood?

Our ambivalent feelings as we gather to celebrate Shabbat and our Jewish identity on this Christmas Eve, and all that will go into our decision making as to whether or not we will be here next Shabbat, on New Year’s Eve, are but pieces of the same debate playing themselves out in our lives.  How Jewish are we?  How American are we?  How can we effectively stand in both worlds?

You ought to know that Rabbi Yoffie’s question had a life of its own beyond the limited group who make up Rabbis On-Line.  On the Hebrew Union College Alumni list server - a forum for rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, Jewish social workers - the very same question was much debated.  Of course, there were those who were quick to point out that this is not our millennium - ours is yet another 240 years away - and therefore it should have no meaning at all for us.  There were plenty of those who said, “It’s Shabbat and nothing more.”  And all that sounded right and good, in theory.  But there were those, myself included, who held that we do not live in theory.  We live in practice.  And practically speaking, though the New Year has nothing to do with us as Jews, it has everything to do with us as Jews living in America.  We cannot ignore it but neither can we surrender to it.

In the true spirit of our movement, we need to find a balance.  We need to explore how it can be possible for us to live in both worlds.  To that end, ours will be one of the many congregations which will be holding earlier services next Shabbat, followed by more elaborate onegs.  We are encouraging our people to affirm the duality of our existence by observing Shabbat with their Jewish community before going on to celebrate New Year’s with their secular friends.  For we believe that it need not be an “either/or” situation.  We believe that people can do both.  For that is what our Reform Judaism teaches us - that we can live in two worlds, and we can do so successfully.

Amen

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