Parashat Shemini
SERMON Parashat Shemini Honoring Founders and Presidents
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington, Vermont
In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini, Moses and Aaron are trying to get a new sanctuary up and running, and it is turning out to be more work than they bargained for. They have to organize volunteers, a bunch of donations, some fancy clothes, some clergy, and then get people to come and have everything go right just to get God to show up, and now finally it’s time to open and let' things don’t go as planned.
As I was reading our portion, I couldn’t help but think of the people who started Temple Sinai. Bless their hearts.
Remember Moses and Aaron have already been trying to organize this community for years, and all these people kept saying they really wanted it, they are on board, but then something happens and suddenly they are complaining and threatening to leave. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect something similar might have also happened here, too, maybe more than once.
And now, in the Torah, it’s finally the big opening of the building, and let’s just say, things don’t go as planned. Now, I don’t think God’s fiery wrath ever came down in our sanctuary and roasted the rabbi – I am praying it doesn’t happen tonight – but we have had some flooding here and there, some roof issues, we have had to put in a very expensive and complicated sprinkler system.
So maybe some of you have actually had the passing thought that a fire come down and roast the rabbi, or least get to the end of the sermon.
Also in this week’s portion, the clergy try to tell people that the kitchen needs to be kosher.
Let’s remember, by the time we get to this point of opening, Moses had already changed his mind about the entire project. He had tried to walk away, tried to get out. Unlike any of our founders ever did.
Also unlike any of our founders, Moses lost his temper a few times. He yelled at people. He hit a rock. He threw something bloody at his wife. He might have also broken some pretty important tablets and had a full meltdown.
Our founders were so much more patient than Moses. They were kind, patience, understanding. In contrast, Moses, only about ten years in, heard the people complain that they don’t like the caterer who keeps serving vegan food- they called it Manah - but Moses completely loses it.
He turns to God and says, “Why do I have to take care of all these people? Am I their mother that I need to carry them like babies? I beg you, kill me. Just let me die.”
I know none of our illustrious founders have ever gotten frustrated with people. You’re amazing!
So in the Torah, when Moses just said, “Kill me”, God invented Temple Presidents. Really! God says, “Gather for Me seventy of Israel’s elders of whom you have experience as officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and I will draw some of your spirit and energy and give it to them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone, but you will all feel a bit drained.
I added that last part. The point is that Moses is known as the most humble, patient man that ever led people, and I think that we can make a case that our founders and presidents give Moses and the Elders a run for their money.
And remember, Moses only had to deal with it for 40 years in the desert. You’ve already been at it for 60.
We have been so richly blessed by leaders who had a crazy idea, we’ll just start a Reform temple, and again and again, they were able to lead bring people along, to navigate through crises and hard times with a lot of patience, a blessed sense of humor, and with clarity that despite all the challenges, what they were doing mattered and had meaning, and we are all blessed by the work you have done.
You’ve shown over and over the qualities of leadership:
Generosity (Tzekadah)
Patience (Sovlanut) ;
and as much as anything, you’ve shown Hatmadah, or perseverance and persistence; the refusal to stop when things despite obstacles and tough times.
Hatmadah is the discipline to keep doing the work that needs to be done; doing the books, fixing what’s broken, tending to the community; listening when you aren’t feeling like it, even when you are fed up or exhausted, and our leaders have modeled this.
And Judaism teaches that this sort of resilience, this stick-to-it-ness, emerges from an even deeper quality – a spiritual quality, called Netzach, a deeply help conviction, a belief that this work is needed and important and will succeed because it must.
After the past few years we have all had, we all need an infusion of some of this Netzach spirit, the deep knowing that we will persevere and flourish even in the face of great challenges. You are all such an inspiration. You teach us that a small group of leaders with a clear goal and shared values, with patience, generosity, persistence, can create something beautiful and lasting and where the divine dwells in and among us. Without incinerating anyone. So far.
Near the end of his 40 years of leadership, Moses in his final speech to the people says this:
You stand this day, all of you, before the ETERNAL your God: your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials—the entire body of Israel— your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer, to enter into the covenant of the ETERNAL your God, which the ETERNAL your God is concluding with you this day…to be your God, as promised you and as sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the ETERNAL our God and with those who are not yet with us here this day.
In every generation, in every place we have gone, we have had been blessed with leaders who take on the crazy task of creating and building synagogues, temples, sanctuaries. These have been the heart of our communities, the beating heart of Jewish history, and how we have not only survived, but thrived.
You have brought so many of your gifts, and so much of your hearts and your spirits to create this holy place, and tonight we want you to know how much we admire you, and how profoundly grateful we are for what you have done to make this holy place.
Shabbat Shalom.
