Reflections from Sinai Temple

A Note from Rabbi Shapiro

Over the last several years, we have developed a custom of preparing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur via special e-mail communications. We have done this by sending messages throughout the Hebrew month that culminates with Rosh Hashanah. This special month of preparation is called ELUL.

To see what was said in previous years or to follow the messages for the current year, please follow the links at the bottom of this page.

In order to be ready for the intensity of the High Holidays, Judaism proposes that we "warm up." We start to think holiday thoughts in the weeks leading up to the holidays. I hope these reflections help you start to get in the holiday mood.

1 Elul 5774
August 27, 2014

Dear Friends -

Do you remember how we did something quite extraordinary in 2011?

It began with a sermon I gave on Kol Nidre. I spoke about God and my faith, and I concluded by asking you what you felt about God, faith, and prayer. I asked if you would respond to me via a survey, which arrived in your homes the following Sunday morning.

No fewer than 338 of you completed the survey. The results were even published later in the national magazine of our Reform movement. Most importantly, you spoke from your hearts about issues that matter all year round, although they have special resonance on the High Holidays.
S0... my friends... Here is what I propose as the holidays approach.

During Elul (the final month of 5774), let's recall the God Survey.

Let me share with you some of what you told me about believing and not believing and not being sure what to believe.

I'm going to divide your God ideas into four sections.

As Elul unfolds and we move day by day towards the New Year, watch for a series of Elul Messages. They won't be the same as our regular Tuesday e-vents. These reflections for the New Year will come on Wednesdays and Fridays over the next four weeks.

I hope they help you begin to prepare you for the High Holidays.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts three years ago. I am now honored to bring them back to you.

Shalom,

Rabbi Shapiro

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FROM THE SINAI TEMPLE GOD SURVEY...

RESPONSES TO THE OPENING QUESTION...

I WONDER ABOUT GOD...

On a simple quantitative level, 26% of Sinai respondents said they wonder about God a lot. 51% said they wonder about God a little. 19% wonder rarely. 4% never wonder about God.

But... there was an open-ended option after answering this question about "wonder" that read as follows:

If you wish, you are welcome to elaborate here on your choice.

46 Sinai members had more to say about "wondering." Here are some of their thoughts...

*I believe in God so I don't wonder about it.

*It isn't so much that I wonder about God as much as I just wonder.

*I wonder about the meaning of our lives in our world & struggle to make sense of the challenges presented to us.

*I used to think about God much more in my 30's through my early 50's. Now, it seems as though I've come to a state of comfort with my formulation about what God has meant to me at varying times and stages in my life, so right now I'm less perplexed and intrigued and simply more accepting that I am part of God's plan for this earth, that I have a specific task to do, and I may not even know when I've completed it. And, that seems to be o.k. Right now. In another decade or two that may or may not be such a reassuring position.

*While I do consider myself Jewish I like the traditions and like the values of the religion. I do not personally believe in God. I believe we control our own future. I do not think anyone has created us, the world or anything. I believe science is how everything has evolved. I also believe people are bad because of how they are raised or because of something that happened to them in life. There is no one controlling our thoughts or actions but ourselves

*I am constantly in awe of the universe and of the universes within each of us, that we are all united with bits of stardust from the Big Bang of Creation. Each of us carries the divine seed within us with a need to get more fully in touch with it. Furthermore, there is an Intelligence that antedates the universe.

--------------------------

Now it's 2014.

We'll be together at the Temple in only a few weeks.

Lots of prayers will be coming our way.

I myself wonder how each of us will read and understand those prayers and the purposes of our High Holidays.

Watch for more Sinai congregants' ideas from the God Survey.

Do you wonder about God?

Do you wonder about life and its purposes?

We'll talk more as the month of ELUL progresses.

3 Elul 5774
August 29, 2014

Shabbat Shalom, Sinai Temple. It's Rabbi Shapiro... One of our members recently gave me a wonderful way of understanding how varied and fascinating our Jewish community can be. It came in the form of an advertisement welcoming the following Jews into synagogue life. Thinking about the holidays when we will all be together in a few weeks, I found myself wondering how many of these different Jews will be with us at Sinai. Are you one of these Jews? Are you a combination of these Jews? Enjoy the list. (I'm printing it in blue.) See where you fit. Consider where you might wish you fit. And after that...We will continue the presentation of the 2011 God Survey.

First, the list of Jews.....

Wandering Jews

Questioning Jews

Cultural Jews

Mixed Marriage Jews

Mixed up Jews

Non-Jews

LGBT Jews

Creative Jews

Jew BU's

Searching Jews

Passionate Jews

Intellectual Jews

High Holiday Jews

Artistic Jews

Agnostic Jews

Haven't Been In Shul Since My Bar Mitzvah Jews

AND NOW BACK TO THE SINAI TEMPLE GOD SURVEY...

72 CONGREGANTS COMPLETED THE SENTENCE "I have felt close to God when..."

HERE ARE SOME OF THEIR THOUGHTS. (LOTS OF VARIETY HERE. I GUESS THERE MUST LOTS OF KINDS OF "BELIEVERS" IN OUR COMMUNITY.)

**When I meditate...When I do yoga or tai chi.

**Being with family members when they passed away. When the Sinai community gave my family so much unsolicited support during the illness and the death of family members

**When I have been on the edge of despair (due to circumstances of life), often something has happened the next day or the next little while, that has helped me back from the edge and keep going. This has only happened a few times that I am aware of.

**I don't know that it's God...But on Yom Kippur looking at the Eternal Light... I felt overwhelmed with the feeling God was with me.

**I think "God" whatever that means, does not exist separate from our searching and thoughts about God so my feeling close has to do most often with a community thinking about "God."

**When I was in second grade, coming home from school, the sky looked so beautiful. It was the only beautiful thing in Brooklyn. And I stood outside my door staring up at the sky and I felt such joy, such a rapturous feeling. I knew that God was there. And when I felt disturbed by something, I knew that God knew what was going on inside me, and I knew that he loved me and that he accepted me.

**I used to be religious, but I am not anymore. It's not that I stopped believing, or that I became opposed to religion. I just couldn't stand the stricture of the rules, constantly limiting my behavior. It's just more fun to be secular. So I am not really sure what I think about God anymore.

**I would say I do not know what it means to be close to God. I would say I am agnostic, because I do not believe in God with any certainty, but I also do not foreclose the possibility. But there have been experiences that force me to conclude there either is or was a Creator, and I will check to reflect them.

**I do not know what it means to feel close to God.

**I feel close to God in my daily life; by watching and playing with my nephew, by remembering my grandfather, his love, support, and lessons I have learned from him. I feel close to God by being in nature, observing the universe in all its glory...the stars...moon...the bees...and the blades of grass.

**I am an atheist. While I may occasionally have a sense of spirituality, I do not believe in any organized religion. I actually feel that spirituality and organized religion do not overlap as much as one may expect. Being within a house of worship actually makes me less likely to feel a moment of spirituality, as opposed to sitting in a far off land and watching a beautiful sunset, for instance. When the congregation reads responsibly in monotone voices, I feel that nobody understands or truly feels the words, but instead, they are just going through the motions. I see people attend services to relieve their massive sense of guilt, and I see religious leaders using guilt to achieve their goals.

**God sometimes is a feeling, a sense of total fulfillment, like you are going to overflow with emotion. A sense of joy that exceeds more than one person can handle.

8 Elul 5774
September 3, 2014

Dear Sinai Temple,

Our journey towards the High Holidays continues.

During ELUL, the month preceding the holidays, I'm sharing some of the results from our 2011 God Survey. As you know, I am fascinated with matters of belief and worship. During the last few days, I read an article entitled Between Godliness and Godlessness in which the author explored the different meanings of religion and spirituality. Is God and a fixed idea of God "necessary"for spirituality? What does it mean to ask questions about faith while trying to be a member of a congregation that is praying?

Fascinating questions and I can tell you from reading the results of our God Survey that many Sinai members ask these questions.

Last week I shared responses from the Survey that came from those who felt quite "close" to God. Today I want to share some of the ways people described feeling DISTANT from God.

Where do you find yourself in the words the follow? By the way, out of the 338 people who responded to the survey, 103 offered their thoughts on feeling "distant" from God.

HERE ARE SOME OF THEIR WORDS IN RESPONSE TO AN OPEN-ENDED SENTENCE...I have felt distant from God...

God doesn't make bad things happen. We are not talking about Zeus.
I do not always understand when illness is so much part of my life. I deal with pain everyday. Never a day without pain. I can't walk away from it.
Sometimes I question why innocent people suffer. One time, I was upset because I heard a story about how an oil truck had crashed into a picnic grove, and people perished in indescribable horror. I wept because I did not understand why God would allow such a horrendous thing to happen, and why didn't God protect those people. When I woke, I looked through the Bible to find comfort, and I opened up to a Psalm that read "Weeping may endure for the night, but Joy cometh in the morning..." I did not have an answer, but I knew that God was listening, and I did feel a sense of elation.
Because I believe God is a spirit greater than all of us, and all around us, I cannot feel a disconnect.
I've experienced these negative feelings in the past. Now, I don't think God is responsible for these disasters, I just pray God to help me deal with them in the most humanly way possible.
All the wars, famines, seemingly unnecessary suffering that is present every day - causes one to want to either hide one's eyes, weep in despair, or become angry that it occurs (and who can we get angry at - it makes sense it would be God). In comparison to this suffering I think we all feel so powerless and insignificant to make it better, so we (I) tend to give up trying (and then just feel guilty). Being angry at God is easier than trying to take some responsibility for the suffering we see, I think.
When good people die way too young, I struggle with "Why?" and wonder if there is a God, how could he let these things happen...like the loss of my brother at age 25 and my niece at age 12. Then I think that God can't prevent tragedies but he can help us through them; he can help us see the wonders that are still with us.
When I realize that everything I have read and studied about Cosmology, Medicine, Evolution, Anthropology and Primate Behavior belies the existence of the sort of God we are taught about in our Churches and Synagogues. When I think of the Holocaust.

15 Elul 5774
September 10, 2014

Do You Have a Child in College?
A Message from Rabbi Shapiro
Dear Friends - If you have a child in college (freshmen to senior), you should be receiving a letter addressed to your child c/o of your home address. The letter contains materials I have prepared about the recent Gaza War and Israel. Please FORWARD the envelope to your college student. Anti-Israel fever is very high on many college campuses. I hope the Q&A materials I've prepared will give your student strength and knowledge in a very tough situation. Thank you for FORWARDING my letter to your child ASAP.

"Why is this Rosh Hashanah evening different from all other Rosh Hashanah evenings?"
A Message from Cantor Levson
OK, that's from Pesach, at the opposite end of the Jewish year, but it's still an appropriate question to ask this year at Sinai Temple.
For a number of years now, Rabbi Shapiro and I have been aware that the least attended High Holiday service (other than Yom Kippur afternoon before Yizkor) is the Erev Rosh Hashanah Service. While we can easily have 800+ people here at Rosh Hashanah morning or Kol Nidre evening, in recent years our numbers for Rosh Hashanah evening have been around 350-400 people.
I think there are many reasons for this, but I suspect one reason is that friends and family gather for a festive Rosh Hashanah dinner that evening and then relax after the big meal and don't make it to services.
So we have been considering doing something... different for a few years now.
This year, we will be opening up our service on Rosh Hashanah evening to non-members, and will be offering free tickets to people who would like to attend that service! (A number of congregations around the country do similar sorts of things as an outreach effort.)
And, to paraphrase the old Oldsmobile commercial, this will not be your grandfather's Rosh Hashanah service!
The service will feature a visual tefilah - NO prayerbooks; all the liturgy and reading projected on a huge new video screen with beautiful accompanying images. We will be incorporating some of the wonderful new readings from the NEW Machzor (High Holiday prayerbook) that will be published next fall. Musically, the service will feature some of the beloved High Holiday "classic" melodies, but will be accompanied by a "Friday Night Live" style band.
The entire service will take about 75 minutes (That is NOT a typo! A Rosh Hashanah service in an hour and 15 minutes!) and then... there will be an ONEG after the service, so we can greet each other, welcome our guests, and have a little nosh after the service!
Rabbi Shapiro and I are VERY excited about this experimental Rosh Hashanah evening experience, and we hope that it will attract not only our congregants, but also many unaffiliated Jews as well. If you know of friends or neighbors who do not belong to a synagogue, please encourage then to take advantage of this exciting opportunity! Let them see for themselves just how warm and wonderful a place Sinai Temple of Springfield can be! Shana Tova!
Cantor Martin Levson

17 Elul 5774
September 12, 2014

Dear Friends -
Have you seen the moon lately?
It's been at its peak over the last few nights. Full and round. During the next two weeks, the moon will wane, disappear from sight, and then reappear as a sliver in the sky. We call that the New Moon. In this case, it will be the New Moon for the month of Tishri. Rosh Hashanah will have arrived.
Meanwhile, the month of Elul is still with us.
Time to think about synagogue, family, and life's purpose.
Has it been a good year? Have you accomplished what you intended when we last met for the Days of Awe?
Have you sorted out any of the challenges you face in life?
Here's an invitation: If you want to "sort out" some of your Jewish questions, how about signing up for the Adult Confirmation Class I am offering this year? We will meet Saturday mornings starting in October. You can learn more by visiting our website or contacting me. markdov@sinai-temple.org
When it comes to "sorting out" life's questions, I'm pleased to share more responses from our 2011 God Survey.
Question #9 read as follows: IF GOD WAS ACCEPTING QUESTIONS, I WOULD ASK….
206 people responded.
Here are some of their questions for God. My hunch would be that the following questions capture the kinds of concerns all of us have when it comes to God and life.
**Why do bad things happen to good people?
**Why do innocent people suffer?
**I don't believe God is capable of answering questions; God is not a concrete being.
**Honestly, God, what ARE you thinking?!
**Is there anything after death?
**Is there life after death?? Will I see those I loved on earth after death?
**What is it that You want me to do with the rest of my life?
**What is it like after death? Is there something or just an absence of things?
**Why do I have to die?
**How can I best serve humanity?
**God is not someone, or something that can accept questions. This is a ridiculous concept.
**Why does it appear that life seem easy for people and so hard to move through it for others?
**I don't believe that God is a noun. It is not something that I could direct a question to. That said, my question would be "Why?"
**How can I help the greatest number of people in my lifetime?
**Am I pleasing to you?
**Why were we created, what is the purpose of us living here?
**How can I find peace and acceptance amidst the uncertainty of life
**How can you use me best?
**What small changes can each person make to create a closer community?
**Why is redemption taking so long and will the world ever be redeemed.
**Why are some souls so troubled?

27 Elul 5774
September 22, 2014

Dear Friends -

Let's imagine that someone said the following to me, "I belong to Sinai. I'm a Reform Jew. Are there guidelines for me in observing the High Holiday?"

Here is my vision for giving the holidays Jewish meaning this year.

***First, use the home services that are on our Temple website. You should recite the blessings before the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur meals because Judaism begins in the home and because Jews ought to welcome great occasions with gracious thanks for life.

***Secondly, attend all the services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Although you may not believe it, I really don't take attendance during the rest of the year. However, when it comes to the holidays, I think attendance is required. It's like going to Tanglewood. You wouldn't arrive for the second movement of the symphony, and you also wouldn't skip the third movement. You wouldn't do so because you know that a piece of music is an organic whole. Missing part of it means missing its meaning.

Dear friends, the same holds true for High Holiday services. Although I do understand why some people may stay home with family on Erev Rosh Hashanah, every other service is crucial. The whole of the services is what makes the holidays whole.

***And while I'm offering commentary, you may have forgotten the custom of lighting a yahrzeit/memorial candle before coming to Temple for Kol Nidre. Just as the Yom Kippur Yizkor service is a critical part of entering the New Year, Jews prepare for Yizkor by lighting that small 24-hour candle at home when Yom Kippur begins.

***Fasting is also a necessity on Yom Kippur. I do assume that almost every Sinai congregant fasts, but just in case that's not so, let me remind you that fasting is important because it truly makes the day different, because it reminds us how much we usually take for granted, and because fasting is a small form of deprivation that goes along with the day of introspection. Fasting is also important because it requires discipline and challenges us in one small way to overcome our body's needs and reach for something beyond.

***There is one more Sinai necessity. Everyone needs to bring food to the Yom Kippur Food Van. It's not hard to do. It's actually an opportunity for goodness which the congregation drops in your lap. While you're not eating voluntarily all you need to do is bring some food for those who go hungry daily.

***Finally, I suggest following the link below to a website designed by the Union for Reform Judaism. Great resource for everyone from 3 to 93 years of age. URJ High Holidays Site

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So you get to services and then encounter the words of our prayers. You encounter the prayerbook's metaphors for God.

For Your Information, here are the top TEN ways in which Sinai members described their ideas about God in our 2011 God Survey. Read. Consider. Print the list and bring it to Temple. It might be a nice to sustain yourself as the service unfolds.

God is hope

God is love

God comforts.

Justice is Godly.

We are partners with God.

God is a presence in the universe supporting us to do our best.

God is the power behind nature.

God is the order behind nature.

God is my conscience.

God is a force working for good in the universe.

Previous years' reflections