"Coming Home to a New Place" (Download PDF)
I have called many places ‘home’ throughout my life. There was the first floor of the two family house in Brooklyn during pre-school, Brubacher Hall at SUNY Albany during freshman year and then the tenement in the student ghetto for the rest of my years in Albany. I called Maiersdorf Dorm at Hebrew University and my apartment in East Talpiyot ‘home’ in Jerusalem. I had the studio in Kew Gardens Queens when I started rabbinic school. Barbara and I lived in a Frank Llyod Wright inspired home in Usonia Pleasantville NY. We brought Aviva and Ilana ‘home’ to a lofty A-frame in North White Plains, New York, and Micah ‘home’ to an expansive modern federal style home in Franklin, Massachusetts an old apple orchard called Cook’s Farm. Now, when I say ‘home’ I am talking about our contemporary home in Monroeville.
While I found satisfaction in each of those places and couldn’t be more satisfied than I am now… While I transformed each of those structures into my ‘home’ by putting my mark on it, even the tenement where I built a loft bed in my 8ft x 8ft bedroom, when I think about ‘home’ deep down inside I picture the cape style house with raised dormers at 70 Piccadilly Downs Lynbrook, NY 11563 516.887.9704…. The house in which I grew up.
Home for me is where I was nourished by my Mom’s great cooking. It is where I cut my teeth so that my cooking nourishes Barbara, Aviva, Ilana and Micah. Home for me is where my Dad and I built an aluminum shed from Sears long before we knew what a screw gun was and long before the blisters healed. Home for me is where Andrew and I would pile our stuff up on the stairs heading up to our rooms. It was a great skill: no matter how high the piles got we always managed to climb over them without actually taking the stuff upstairs. Home for me is my childhood bedroom decorated in browns and oranges with Indian design wallpaper even on the ceiling (I later covered every inch of it with posters) and 2 inch nap shag carpeting. I had a carpet rake. You do know I grew up in the 70s.
When I think of home, even five years after the house on Piccadilly Downs has been sold… when I think of home, even with all the satisfaction I have had in crafting a nurturing home with my wife and children… when I think of home, even after all the travels in the years since I left home… I think of 70 Piccadilly Downs because that is where is all began.
As I begin this journey of a new year, I am thinking back to my beginnings, the sweet and the sour, the joyous and the sad, the uplifting and the downtrodden, because eternal Jewish wisdom teaches us that in order to go forward on your journey you need to go home first. That is what Teshuvah, repentance, is all about.
The Monarch Butterfly is a magnificent creature in God’s world. Its wings are a beautiful deep orange speckled with white dots outlined in black. It is royal in appearance. Monarch butterflies are known for the incredible mass migration that brings millions of them to California and Mexico each winter. North American monarchs are the only butterflies that make such a massive journey—up to 3,000 miles around 2 months of flying. It is an impressive journey in and of itself. It is an inspirational journey, when you consider that the butterfly will only live for about 7 months. No butterfly, not one, makes a round trip journey. The only journey of its life begins by going home to a place it has never been before. The only journey of its life begins by going home to a place it has never been before.
Standing here at the beginning of our annual migration, we too are beginning a journey home to a place where we have never been before.
Let me tell you about 3 journeys home.
I went home to Israel in June. Over the course of these 18 years in the rabbinate and for a decade before that, I have gone home to Israel often. I have traveled to and from Israel around 18 times, including living in Jerusalem for two years of undergraduate and then rabbinic studies.
I remember being on the plane that first time, a high school senior en route to visit my older brother at the Hebrew University. I prepared by studying in an evening Hebrew immersion class and was so proud of myself for asking the flight attendant for ‘mayim im kerach’, water with ice. She answered, ‘Sure, I’ll get that for you.’ I spent 30 minutes preparing that question and she answered me in English.
Those of us who have been to Israel, those of us who have spoken with others who have been to Israel, know that many people do feel a sense of homecoming when they land in Israel for the very first time. I know that there are those who do not and I am not intending to discount their emotional reaction to being in Israel. However, for many, despite the unfamiliarity of climate and language, culture and driving norms, food and drink, going to Israel for the first time is like going home to a place where we have never been before.
There is always something new for me when I go home to Israel. This year, only after a 3 year hiatus since my last trip, I was overwhelmed by the functioning electric trains running up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Boy would King David be surprised.
While I want you to go to Israel soon, this message is not about going to Israel… although you are welcome to join Rabbi Gibson in a group of around 30 traveling this December to be at Rabbi Ezra and Abigail Ende’s oldest’s bar mitzvah in Jerusalem. You are also welcome to travel with our Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh on our Centennial Mega Mission in June with Rabbi Gibson. By the way, please join us when we honor our beloved Harold Marcus at an Israel Bonds event on October 17 and this Sunday when we host Alan Dershowitz at the 92Y broadcast, “Turning Point for The Middle East.”
Coming home to Israel is much broader than going to Israel. Like the monarch butterfly, we are on a home bound journey we have never taken before. AIPAC, J-Street & the New Israel Fund, Palestinian Authority and a democratically elected Hamas, Arab Springs throughout the region and Israelis protesting unaffordable housing in the hundreds of thousands. Orthodox women segregated to the back of buses turning to our Reform Israel Religious Action Center for legal support in the fight against Orthodox sexism. Turkey expelling Israeli ambassadors, Israel’s embassy in Cairo under attack and flotillas going to Gaza. A Palestinian National Orchestra that isn’t made up of Jews playing HaTikvah – The Hope, as it was in the 1940s, but that is made up of Palestinians on the brink of statehood in the 21st century playing their own national anthem, Fida’i – My Redemption. The Palestinian Authority pressing for statehood in the community of nations. These are ‘new normals’ for us.
Wherever you sit politically, coming home to Israel for us in the 21st century can no longer be about the quaint kibbutz community and an Israeli society who looks to us in the diaspora as an exiled people just waiting to make aliyah. Coming home to Israel for us in the 21st century has to be about an engaged American Jewish community with vibrant opinions about what is going on in and around Israel. Most importantly, coming home to Israel for us in the 21st century has to be about a respectful conversation between us, lovers of Israel on the right and on the left, all standing in unified support of Israel without a demand for uniformity of opinion.
Standing here at the beginning of our annual migration, we too are beginning a journey home to a place where we have never been before. While the conversation might feel uncomfortable now, while we might feel that we are in a foreign land, we need to journey back to Israel in hopes of making this new reality as comfortable for each us as was that shag carpet in between my toes on Piccadilly Downs, as is the soft sand in between our toes on the Tel Aviv shore.
Another homecoming for me over the course of the years has been coming home to funeral homes. I grew up in a Reform Temple where funerals were community events. By the time I graduated from high school, I had probably attended a dozen funerals at Boulevard Riverside Chapel in Hewlett, NY. Each time I walked through those doors as a teen, I was as uncomfortable emotionally back then as I would be sitting in those un-cushioned wooden pews. But of course, as the years passed, each time I walked through those doors, or Fox’s Funeral Chapel in Larchmont NY, or Stanetsky’s Funeral Chapel in Boston, or Hirsch’s or Schugar’s here in Pittsburgh, my demeanor strengthened as I learned how to be fully present for families in need. Now a days, when I walk through the front door of a funeral home, I feel like I am coming home to a physical location, to an emotional way of being, and, most importantly, to a spiritual serenity where despite the pain of loss, I understand that death is a part of life and that life continues beyond death.
All of that has been true for me as I walked through the front door of funeral homes until about a year ago when I started walking through the back door of funeral homes. You see, I have been on a personal journey home to a place where I have never been before as a member of the New Community Chevra Kadisha, the burial society that prepares bodies for burial according to long standing Jewish traditions. I am the newest Temple Sinai member of this group, joining our members Ronnie Cooke Zuhlke, Lynn Cullen, Pat Cluss and others who serve in the women’s chevra.
I know how foreign this might sound to you tonight. Trust me, it was a foreign destination for me too.
The foundational value of taharah, the physical and ritual preparation before burial, is respect for the deceased. In the same way that we lovingly and respectfully care for each other during our lives, so does Jewish wisdom teach us to treat our deceased with love and respect. Those who prepare the deceased for burial are among the most faithful, caring and respectful people in our community. I know them well. They are pluralistic liberal Jews like us.
The process of preparing for burial includes mediation, prayer and washing with warmth, respect and dignity. The body is dressed in white shrouds, simple garments that represent the equality we all have in death.
I feel at home now, walking through the back door of funeral homes, even though it was a very difficult emotional entry for me.
I am sharing this homecoming with you, on this sacred evening, for two specific reasons. First, we need to raise up the very personal spiritual journeys each of us might be taking. I know that I am speaking very publicly about a very personal journey well aware that others will not speak as publicly about their own personal journeys. I am hopeful that my sharing empowers you to reflect on your personal spiritual journeys of all sorts and to appreciate them for the value they add to your life.
Second, I, we, want you to know that the mitzvah of taharah, the spiritual preparation of the dead, is among the many possibilities of engaged Reform Jewish living. We respect your decision to participate in it as much as we respect your decision to refrain from it. We simply want you to know that is possible and your vibrant Reform community at Temple Sinai offers it as a service. We want you to know that we do not shy away from life’s most challenging moments. All of them can be filled with Jewish wisdom. If you would like to learn more, we will be holding a session about it during our Yom Kippur Afternoon Beit Midrash.
Standing here at the beginning of our annual migration, we too are beginning a journey home to a place where we have never been before. While the conversation might feel uncomfortable now, while we might feel too young to have it, we need to journey back to the realization that each and every one us is mortal and each and every one is equal in death. For me, this particular homecoming is as comfortable now as was I nestled in the brown toned comforter on my twin sized bed at Piccadilly Downs, as comfortable as each of us can be when we know that our time has come.
If I may, I would like to share one last homecoming for this evening. It is a homecoming that happens around 30 times a year in this very room. You see, there is a misconception that bar/bat mitzvah is a life cycle ceremony for children. After all, it is the 13 year old who learns the prayers. It is the 13 year old who learns the Torah portion. It is the 13 year old who writes then delivers the d’var torah. It is the 13 year old who does the mitzvah project. While it seems like a childhood lifecycle event it is not.
That is why here at Temple Sinai, bar/bat mitzvah training begins with families joining with me on 4 Shabbat mornings and an entire Shabbat get away the year before bar/bat mitzvah. Bar/bat mitzvah is a family lifecycle event wherein one member of the family has the opportunity to emulate how older members live their lives. It is a homecoming of sorts to the child who, because of all her preparation, feels like she is at home here on the bimah even without ever having led services before. But more importantly, it is a homecoming for the parent who often realizes that personal role modeling should include responsible sacred living through mitzvoth on this bimah, in this sanctuary, and throughout our community.
They find themselves comfortable in the sanctuary and the social hall, the classroom and the hallway, in ways they might have never imagined before. “It’s not the way I was taught bar mitzvah.” “If only I grew up in Temple Sinai the way it is now.” “We are so lucky to be learning about bar/bat mitzvah in this way.”
Parents, both Jewish and non-Jewish, often feel a sense of coming home to a place they have never been before after we spend a year learning about mitzvot. This journey home has been well described by one of the most influential Reform Rabbis of the 20th century. Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf of Chicago was known as a theologian and philosopher, a radical and a protester, a doer in all regards. He wrote:
“I try to walk the road of Judaism. Embedded in that road there are many jewels. One is marked “Sabbath” and one “Civil Rights” and one “Kashrut” and one “Honor Your Parents” and one “Study of Torah” and one “You Shall be Holy.” There are at least 613 of them and they are of different shapes and sizes and weights.”
Traveling along that road, picking up a gem here and there, we often look into the gem and realize that while it is new to me on this day, it reflects deep down inside our people’s heritage for thousands of years. Despite its newness, it is an old familiar friend that has been in our neighborhood for years.
It is this journey of familiarity that inspired us to declare this year “The Year of 613 Mitzvot” at Temple Sinai. With close to 60 different types of mitzvah opportunities from which you can choose, I am confident that everyone in Temple Sinai who chooses will find a familiar place of doing. Whether you are feeding the hungry at EECM or greeting people for services here at Temple, visiting at our Jewish Nursing Home Charles Morris or cleaning our rivers through Allegheny Cleanways, packing surplus medical supplies for needy South American communities through Global Links, baking for an oneg or leading services here at Temple… there is a place for everyone to do something, for each of us to put Temple Sinai into action.
With the doing of mitzvoth comes the opportunity to reflect on the good you have done. And so, with every mitzvah completed we ask you to complete a journal page so that we can record your success on our Mitzvah-mometer as we strive to record 613 mitzvot, a Torah-full, the number of commandments we are taught in the Torah, of responsible Jewish living.
In this 65th year of Temple Sinai, we intend to make every day of this year, not just one day in the spring, into a mitzvah day. The impact of Temple Sinai will be felt in all the corners of Greater Pittsburgh: from the wealthiest to the poorest neighborhoods, from the youngest to the oldest, from the Jewish to the Christian to Moslem. It all begins this Sunday at 10 with our mitzvah fair when we will be joined by a hoard of college students from Hillel Jewish University Center and 17 different community organizations trying to get you to volunteer with them.
Standing here at the beginning of our annual migration, we too are beginning a journey home to a place where we have never been before. While we might think all that talk of mitzvah doing is just for the kids, we know that each and every one us has the potential to live an engaged Jewish life, a life of sacred Jewish responsibility. It was the morning of Sunday, February 3, 1980, the day after I became bar mitzvah, when I sat in my brown director’s chair in my room on Piccadilly Downs, realizing that even with the accomplishment of having become bar mitzvah my migration was just beginning. Who knew it would be joined with yours some 30 years later. How blessed we are for being together in this place at this time.
Those butterflies really know quite a lot. While we might have butterflies about the new realities we will call home during the year 5772…Will the State of Israel thrive even if a Palestinian state is founded? Which of my loved ones and friends will I have to escort to their eternal home in the months to come and how will I live beyond their death? How will I stretch beyond my comfort zone to engage in mitzvot I never thought I would do before? It is as if the butterflies collectively say, ‘This is the time to come home’ even though not one of them has been home before. It is as if the butterflies know instinctively that which takes us humans a lifetime or more, some 6,000 years tonight since the beginning humanity’s sacred journey home, to figure out: there is no homecoming without sacred community, there is no homecoming without sacred place there is no homecoming without sacred actions.
Just as the butterflies’ journey is a communal migration back to their home, so may this Temple Sinai family of families come home to realities we have never known before. We will come home to new places together.
With all of this as our sacred task, with so many of us on this journey home together, I am confident that God will bless this house and God will bless this place. Our days will be renewed for good. We will answer when God calls. The work of our hands will show that we know that his house, that God’s house, has no walls. All who come within this space will go forth in joy and in peace God will bless us all in time to come. And because of all the each one of us will do, God will surely bless this house.
Anthem:
GOD BLESS THIS HOUSE
By Marshall Portnoy, Arr. by Andrew Heller
