60th Anniversary Shabbat
SERMON SHAVUOT 5786 Temple Sinai’s 60th Anniversary
May 22, 2026 7 Sivan 5786
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington, Vermont
KEHILLA KEDOSHA
The other day, I was preparing for a baby naming, and I went to find something in the rabbi’s manual. Now, today’s Reform Rabbi’s Manual is very different than the one I got when I was ordained, and I think the difference is somehow representative of one of the blessings and frustrations of Judaism.
Here is the manual I was gifted upon ordination (hold up small black manual) and here is today’s manual (hold up thick ringed binder).
This tracks with the prayer book. Here is the prayer book of the Reform movement when Sinai was founded (hold up small Union Prayer Book); here is today’s siddur (hold up Mishkan Tefila). Jews are very good at adding, but not so skilled at subtracting.
At any rate, I couldn’t find what I was looking for in the new manual, so I picked up the old one. When I opened it which I rarely do anymore, I noticed it was signed by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, who the President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the URJ, the Union of Reform Judaism) in 1990 when I was ordained. Most of you likely don’t know who Rabbi Schindler was or much about him, but tonight, on this anniversary of our founding as the first Reform congregation in Vermont, I think it makes sense to learn a bit about this tower of leadership in our movement.
Schindler served as President from 1973 to 1996. Before that, he was the Vice President from 1967 – 1973, two pivotal years in recent Jewish history, and before that, he was the National Director of Education from 1963-1967. He was in that position when he came for a Shabbaton to Temple Sinai the year it was founded.
Schindler was born in Munich in 1925, to a mother who owned her own business, and to a father who was a noted Yiddish poet. When the Nazi’s came first came to power, his family fled to Switzerland and then immigrated to the US where they settled in Washington Heights in Manhattan. Schindler was 12.
In college, Schindler studied engineering until the start of World War II, when he joined the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division Alpine Ski Patrol in Europe as a corporal. He was decorated with three combat ribbons for bravery and earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
When the war ended, he traveled to the Dachau Concentration Camp, and seeing the state of the Jews emerging from there, and what they faced onced they were out of the camps changed his life. He decided to devote his life not to engineering but to serving the Jewish community. He went to both the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College where he was ordained in Cincinnate in 1953.
Schindler’s presidency oversaw some of the largest growth in the Reform movement, with member congregations more than doubling from around 400 to 875. This was in large part driven by Schindler’s new approach to “Outreach,” practices today we take for granted in Reform Judaism. He spearheaded outreach to interfaith families, explicitly welcoming and including non-Jewish spouses and making sure the Reform movement institutions embraced those families.
He also agressively fought for and won the Reform movement’s adoption of his proposal for Patrilineal Descent, an extremely controversial move in the Jewish world, recognizing as Jewish any child with a Jewish parent who is raised as a Jew.
Schindler also championed the inclusion of feminist and LGBT Jews and Jews of color. Sound familiar?
All these initiatives were the work of Rabbi Schindler, as was his insistence that the Reform movement be Zionist, be active in Israel and that Reform Rabbis should study in Israel for at least a year.
We are who we are because of Alexander Schindler, and so tonight on this night of our founding, Ginny and I wanted to honor him, to highlight his leadership and his heart.
So this is the man that came to our brand new, baby temple in Vermont to offer support and to teach why Reform Judaism was important and why it mattered that there was a Reform congregation in Vermont. Perhaps his greatest act was to inspire Ginny Greenblatt and the other founders to continue building this community and to be proud of being part of the Reform movement which is still growing in large part because of Schindler’s visionary leadership.
We still are. I have been so proud of our movement in the past years as it has navigated very difficult times with complexity, honesty, and a willingness to stand up for our beliefs even when they do not align with our allies in other communities. Today Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the URJ and Rabbi Hara Person of the CCAR continue to carry the mantle of Rabbi Schindler and I am very proudly Reform, not because it is less strict, but because it is firmly rooted in a value system that sees all humans as “b’tselem Elohim,” while also valuing Jewish particularity and peoplehood.
As I said many times when I served Conservative or mixed congregations: “I am Reform on purpose.” I think perhaps it is time to change that to “I am Reform with purpose.” We are Reform with purpose.
Our purpose put most simply is to be a sacred community, what in Hebrew is known as a Kahal Kadosh or Kehilla Kadosha.
Did you know that many of the earliest synagogues in the United States were called Kahal Kadosh? Some were Sephardic and many were Reform. For example, there is:
Kahal Kadosh Mickve Israel: Organized in 1733 by Jewish settlers (mostly Sephardic) just months after the founding of Savannah, Georgia. It is the third oldest congregation in the U.S., and one of the early Reform congregations.
Kahal Kadosh Mikveh Israel: Founded in 1740, and is known as the "Synagogue of the American Revolution," it is the oldest continuous Jewish congregation in Philadelphia and among the oldest in the US.
Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE): Established in 1749 in Charleston, South Carolina, this is the fourth oldest Jewish congregation in the country and a birthplace of American Reform Judaism.
We, too, are a kahal kadosh, a sacred community, but in modern Hebrew, we would be called a kehillah kadosha. It means the same thing but is more intimate, a community that supports one another and worships together.
Kehilla Kadosha. What we do here is holy, not in some other wordly way, but in a very this-wordly way.
In Judaism, having fun is holy.
Joy is holy.
Debate and argument is holy.
Learning and teaching are holy.
So are supporting one another in tough times, at times of loss, and dancing with one another at celebrations.
Praying is holy.
Running a synagogue in a caring, respectful and thoughtful way is both rare and holy.
So is standing up for being Jewish and standing in solidarity with each other and other Jews around the world.
Temple Sinai does all these things, and in such times as these, we are very blessed that our founding generation did the hard work of creating this place, and we are blessing with the opportunity to have such a community and to be part of shaping and ensuring its future.
The day before Moses dies, knowing he won’t be leading the people into the Promised Land, he gathers the people to say:
אַתֶּ֨ם נִצָּבִ֤ים הַיּוֹם֙ כֻּלְּכֶ֔ם לִפְנֵ֖י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֑ם רָאשֵׁיכֶ֣ם שִׁבְטֵיכֶ֗ם זִקְנֵיכֶם֙ וְשֹׁ֣טְרֵיכֶ֔ם כֹּ֖ל אִ֥ישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
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, with its sanctions; in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order 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 with us here this day. (Deut 29)
Atem Nitzavim - The translation said “You Stand” but nitzavim means more than stand, and there is a very common word for to simply stand. It means more “to be stationed” or even better, “to
take a stand.”
Atem Nitzavim. Today on our 60th year, on this Shavuot, we stand again at Sinai to commit ourselves to being a sacred community, to take our stand a Jewish community, a Reform-with-purpose community, as a Kehilla Kedosha.
After finishing his charge to the community, Moses goes up to the top of Mount Nebo from where he can look out into the promised land that he will never see. I always thought it was a bit cruel of God to show Moses what he couldn’t have, but perhaps it is really just a poignant illustration of the human condition.
We all look out at a future we can imagine but won’t be part of. We plant seeds for the future, with faith they will grow. We know it will be up to future generations to carry the work forward, to build on what we have done.
So it is with great gratitude and humility that tonight, we dedicate ourselves to the work of carrying this community into its future, it’s promised land. We do that in so many ways, from teaching our children at our outstanding religious school to working hard to raise $3,000,000 in our capital campaign, aptly named DOROT - generations. We are almost there, only around $200,000 from our goal, so if any of you feel moved to make a generous donation in honor of our 60th, it would be deeply appreciated, and as we said in the south growing up, “a star in your crown in heaven.” With this money comes, yes, a roof that won’t leak and a nicer kitchen, but also more scholarships for our kids to go to Jewish camp, and for our teens and members to go on Sinai trips to Israel, and for us to hire another clergy person to support for our growing congregation.
Moses lived to be 120. With your help, love, and generosity, we will grow from strength to strength, ad mea v’esrim – To 120.
Shabbat Shalom.
