Sermons
Erev Rosh HaShanah 5771
by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
I want to take this Rosh HaShanah to really have a conversation, albeit a one-sided conversation. I’m not a “stand behind the podium” kind of person, and I’ve come to understand that I do much better as I walk around and can look at your faces. This way I don’t feel like I am preaching, but that I am here to talk with you. I wanted a way for us to talk about things that have been difficult in the world…complicated, really.
Just a few weeks ago in Amsterdam, the tree that Anne Frank looked at from her attic window fell over during a storm. Everyone knew that it was weak and was going to die one day, but no one believed that it was that fragile at this time, or that it was going to fall. What happened is that we lost a tree of hope. That tree has seen a lot of horrific things. Yet even in the midst of a life that ended in a premature death, that tree was a tree of hope for Anne Frank, and has stood as a tree of hope for all of us as well.
As the tree was growing old and ready to die, people decided that they were going to take seedlings, or saplings, to give to a park in Amsterdam and allow them to take root. Eleven other saplings were shipped over here to the United States. One was given to Ground Zero. It is to be planted at the memorial that will eventually be built there.
Ground Zero has been the center of a lot of debate lately…and I am not here to debate Park 51. It is a controversial reality, and thoughtful people have differing opinions. My sermon is not about who is right and who is wrong. But it is about the lessons that I see coming out of that controversy that I’d like to share with you tonight.
First is intra-faith conversation. Conversations around Ground Zero have affected our Jewish community…and I am concerned. There is also the reality of our relationships to other religions and racial and ethnic groups that, too, have been affected. And thirdly I will talk about the leadership that we need today, to look forward.
Our Jewish community is interesting, we’ve changed. Today, I heard someone mention that he misses hearing the song “God is in His Holy Temple.” We don’t sing it anymore at Temple Israel. I think it’s always in the walls and in the carpet somewhere, but we’ve changed. Religiously and looking at the world, you can no longer assume that there’s a monolithic perspective in the Jewish community. Even at Temple Israel, there are varying perspectives. What I’ve seen is that people can talk one-to-one about these differences, across the table. They have family and friends who disagree with them and they remain connected and in relationship. Where I find the fear is in a public conversation…people shut down in public conversation. Even leaders in the community say they won’t sit at the table with somebody publicly for fear of ridicule, for fear of being, in some way, misunderstood and for fear of breaking alliances that they hold so important.
In this coming year, I want to find a way to have public conversations about issues like Park 51, Israel and the fission between our movements around issues that are complicated, like intermarriage. I want to find a way to have a commitment to public discourse.
The community-wide S’lichot service took place at Temple Israel on Saturday night and we began with a rabbinic panel on derech eretz, on civility. It was a wonderful evening, and my colleagues came to the table prepared and were truly wonderful. But they only started the beginning of that conversation…we have so far to go. For Anne Frank’s sapling to take root, we need to have these hard conversations in a public arena. I’m not sure how we’re going to get there, but I know that many of us are trying to have those conversations. I believe it is up to the rabbinic community to model how to have conversations when you disagree publicly…to walk away from the table as friends and to know we will never truly walk away from each other, but always be connected.
The interfaith relationships are interesting. As you know, our Emerson doors face Hennepin Avenue for a reason. Rabbi Minda decided long ago, in 1928, that we needed to make a statement with our building. That statement was to model the front doors and the pillars after the Lincoln Memorial. They tell us that we stand for religious freedom, and that the Jewish community, despite the anti-Semitism of Minneapolis in the 1920’s and 30’s, was here to stay. The Jewish community was a part of the larger whole. These doors remind the community every day of that fact.
Rabbi Minda understood the lines that divided Jews. That is why he founded the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and the Minnesota Rabbinical Association. He understood that we had to work toward a common goal in order for us to diffuse any kind of difference, any kind of misunderstanding. The Silvershirts, some of you might remember them, was the northern equivalent to the Ku Klux Klan. The Silvershirts were a presence here in Minneapolis, and as an antidote Rabbi Minda began the table of Christian-Jewish dialogue. He understood that as an antidote to hate and bigotry, we needed to talk. As early as the 1930’s, before Vatican II, he came to the table as a Jew… and there were many Christians who came as well.
When 911 hit, it was the downtown congregations and the mosque on the North side that held an interfaith service at the Basilica of St. Mary. When the bridge collapsed, the interfaith service was held here at Temple Israel. So here again we have the lessons and the wisdom of Rabbi Minda being passed down. They’ve been passed down to every senior rabbi since Rabbi Minda; Rabbi Shapiro, Rabbi Pinsky, Rabbi Edelheit…and now that responsibility has fallen on me. We have done a lot of work in interfaith relations and dialogue.
Let me tell you a number of real “outcomes,” from that interfaith dialogue. In a documentary that was created when the downtown congregations went to Jerusalem, Galilee and Bethlehem, Imam Makram El-Amin cried. He cried, and he had to explain to his son that those who flew the planes through the World Trade Center were not the Muslims that he was connected to; they did not read the Qur’an the same way. This Imam disassociated himself from those acts, and from those people, publicly in this documentary. It’s called “Footsteps,” and it is aired on Channel 2 several times in a season.
When the Gaza war broke out, there was an interfaith breakfast, which we have once a month. People asked me what I thought of the conflict. My two daughters were studying in Israel at the time. I told them of my cousin who lived near the Gaza border in the south, and of the trauma that her daughter has felt. My colleagues on the Downtown Council decided not go out from their church on Hennepin Avenue to protest, as they had previously been planning. Instead, because of our dialogue, they weren’t pro or anti anything, other than pro-peace.
The flotilla incident…that too, is an interesting conversation. We had another breakfast very close to the occurrence of that situation. One of the Imams said to me, “Are you having a hard time, because I am. People want me to say certain things publicly, and I don’t want to.” None of us heard an Imam speak out publicly, locally, against the flotilla incident. These outcomes happen because we have relationships and interfaith dialogue. Rabbi Minda understood this.
A more poignant example took place when the Presbyterian Church held its General Assembly here in Minneapolis this past summer. Because of our relationship, a challenging situation improved. A report was presented to the assembly that was horrible toward the Jews, toward us, toward Israel. By the end of the week, entire sections of the report were removed. The historical perspective that gave one voice, one side of the story, was taken out and was replaced with a more balanced view. The theological section was removed and they did not call for divestment from Israel, as they had originally planned. So relationships are really what the doors on Hennepin are all about.
And now, let’s talk about leadership. There have been violent acts against American Muslims, against their places of worship. Terry Jones in Florida, says that on Saturday, September 11th he is going to burn the Qur’an. General Petraeus has had to ask him not to, because of our own security and because it might put our soldiers at risk.
There is an ever-changing reality in our world, and I worry about it. I assume all of you do too. So what do we do? We have to understand that we cannot remain silent at this time. Remaining silent recalls for us those that did not speak when we needed them. We cannot accept bigotry in any form, because when any religious tradition is threatened, we all are threatened.
There was a Times poll that says 75% of Americans view Judaism positively… just above Presbyterians, or Protestant communities, and the Catholics. I thought that was pretty funny, actually. It is closer to 50% of Americans who have a positive response to the Mormon community, and 44% have a positive reaction to the Muslim community. 62% of Americans have never personally met a person of the Muslim faith. That, I think, is upsetting and concerning.
When I went to Morocco with our trip from Temple, the Moroccan community, which was once 200,000 Jews and today is 2,000, was concerned that their Muslim brothers and sisters would never know a Jewish neighbor again, and therefore there would be a rise in anti-Semitism. That is an important worry. The Moroccan King has participated in an amazing endeavor. He is walking in the footsteps of his grandfather who saved Jews from the Nazis. When the Nazis asked him to identify the Jews, he said “We have no Jews here, we only have my subjects.” The current Moroccan King is trying to teach the Holocaust to the Muslim world. He’s participating in a project called the “Aladdin Project.” I thought Disney would kind of like that. The “Aladdin Project” has translated Anne Frank’s diary into Farsi and into Arabic. Hopefully one day, the children in Muslim communities and in Muslim countries will be reading that great work. That is leadership. The King of Morocco understands that he is combating Iran and others who will not teach this. He has made a statement, he has not kept quiet. That, I think, is a model for all of us.
There is a Talmudic story of a man who is wandering in the desert and comes upon a tree. He says to the tree “Oh my goodness, I am thirsty and I am hungry.” The tree offers this man its fruit and its shade…and there is a stream of water running by it, so that he can quench his thirst. As the man feels stronger and is ready to continue on his journey, he turns to the tree and says “Tree, how can I bless you? I can’t say to you, ‘may your fruit be sweet;’ your fruit is incredibly sweet as it is. I can’t say ‘may your leaves create shade;’ your leaves have created a shade I will never forget. I can’t say ‘may you have water running next to you to feed you;’ because you already do. The blessing that I can give you is, ‘May your saplings reflect what is most valuable to you, may your seedlings be exactly like you.”
And so I conclude by asking that Anne Frank’s tree’s saplings never see the horror that the chestnut tree that sat outside her window saw. May they always give hope; hope for conversation, hope for a better world to leave to our children and to our grandchildren. May Anne Frank’s saplings be like the tree that guided her in her darkest days. May those tree saplings give root; root to an America that we can be proud of…an America that understands that those doors facing Hennepin Avenue are doors representing the freedom of every faith tradition, not just our own.
L’Shanah Tovah.
