- In the Talmud, Taanit 26b, it suggests that for Jews, Yom Kippur is like a symbolic wedding day with God. Like a married couple, we affirm that this is whom we wish to be in relationship with. And there is fasting beforehand, and there is wearing white, and there is prayer -- and when it's done, we celebrate. The holiday Sukkot comes after Yom Kippur, think of it like our week-long honeymoon.
- One of my teachers, Rabbi Bill Kurry (z"l), told me "a wedding is the most Jewish experience most people will have". And it's not just a cultural thing. It's a religious thing.
- Circling seven times, a nod to Jewish numerology (and not the only one)
- Kiddush, the Hebrew wine blessing, thanking God for the fruit of the vine
- Most men in America don't wear a kippah. But there will be often be a bubbe, savta or abuela who will practically stable it to your head if you don't have it on. It doesn't matter if there's shrimp at the reception hall, put the yarmulke on your head, she says!
- The lashon hakodesh, the holy Hebrew language, said not just by me, but by the participants! The couple marrying says Hebrew vows. The friends and family respond to the sheva brachot by saying "ken yehi ratzon -- may it be so!" And of course, that silly glass breaks and people yell MAZAL TOV!
- When I officiate a wedding, I ask the couple a series of questions about themselves and their relationship. I ask them separately, and ask them not to share their answers with their partner. I take those stories, quotes, poingnant moments, and I put them together in what I call The Personal Story. Instead of a sermon during a wedding (which I consider poor taste -- it's like holding the wedding hostage to Judaism) I tell the couple's story.
- Most couples love this. After all, I'm making the wedding about them, and not about the weekly Torah portion or my religious perspective.
- But some couples don't want this. They just want some newly manufactured non-theistic rituals, some readings in English that everyone has read on Instagram, and for me to leave as fast as possible. "We don't have customs. We don't have traditions. Just marry us and that's that". And I will do that, if they ask.
- But in nearly a decade as a rabbi, I have yet to have a wedding party cry and thank me for such a wonderful experience when the Personal Story is missing. The personal story element matters. And oddly enough, no one ever thanks me for telling a particular part of it, or appreciating a story or a quote. No one ever talks to me about something I said about the couple.
- Instead, the guests come up to me and tell me THEIR wedding story. I hear (for better or worse) about their marriages, their families, what their lives have been like. There is something inspirational about the particularity, the uniqueness of the wedding and its story, that makes it somehow MORE relatable to everyone. The more I strip down the ceremony, the more I universalize it, (dare I say the more inclusive I make it) the more ambivalent people are. No one is inspired by a story that everyone perfectly relates to. But everyone is inspired by a unique story that highlights a particular human experience.
- A Jewish wedding is a Jewish thing. In that way, it's not very inclusive -- but love, fidelity, two families coming together, celebration, and the hope of a golden future, (and yes, wedding stress) are universal. In other words, the more space the couple makes for Judaism in their ceremony, the more the ceremony transcends religion entirely.
- I have taken this High Holy Days to ask "what do we owe each other?" What do we owe God, ourselves, the people in our lives...and now tonight I ask the question, what do we owe the Jewish people. And if you haven't guessed yet, my answer is very simple: we owe it to the Jewish people to be Jewish.
- There are many days of the year when we can feel contrition about the bad things we have done. We can have a discussion about developing our humanity anytime. We can ask neuroscience, evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology or sociology about how to be better people. So why do we bother to come here? It's because we know that through the uniqueness of the Kol Nidre service, that we will be able to draw inward and pull out those parts of ourselves we wish to greater contemplate. For Jews to be better humans, we must become better Jews. That's the formula for the whole thing. Through Jewish particularism, we tap parts of ourselves that attune us to the vastness of the universe and to the entirety of the human experience.
- We owe it...for millions of Jews have been murdered, even in our own times, for wanting nothing more than to live Jewish lives.
- We owe it...for every young person who's told "you can't skip school for synagogue. We have football practice" and every worker who has been told "you can't have your Jewish holiday and a job, which one is it going to be?"
- We owe it...for every righteous person who has dedicated their lives to building us up as a people, as a culture, as a religion, as a nation, asking nothing in return
- The result of coming out as Jewish and living a Jewish life is something everyone benefits from. Imagine telling your boss you need time off to build a hut in your yard. Trust me, you'll probably seem unusual (by the way it's called Sukkot). That may not be something you're prepared for, but I promise that if its known that you are taking Sukkot off, then that coworker who wants to take off Dewali, or leave early during Ramadan, might suddenly feel a tremendous solidarity. with you. Through YOUR particularism, you help others express THEIR particularism, and that gives us all the universal brotherhood our liberal Jewish tradition prays for.
- Am I suggesting that you feel guilty about not being Jewish enough. No, not at all. I know Kol Nidre is unfortunately tied with the idea guilt. It shouldn't be. After all, tonight's the wedding. Tonight begins what should be a joyous day. Today is a celebration of hope -- of gratitude that we made it through the last year, and that with God's help we'll make it through this next year. And we'll do so in our own, particular way.
- May you be signed and sealed in the Book of Life. Gmar tov.
Kol Nidre: What Do We Owe the Jewish People? (4 of 5) To Be Jews