We are in the middle of Bar Mitzvah season here at TBT. Thank God, we are blessed with packs of families with 13 year olds. Last week, this week, next week – in fact, we have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah to celebrate every single Shabbat from now right through June.
They are always exhilarating. One of the things I love about them is that you get to see yourself through the eyes of others – family and friends, Jews and non-Jewish people too, who are visiting TBT for the first time. One of the nicest compliments that I receive after the service often goes like this: “Oh Rabbi, your synagogue is amazing. It is so warm and loving and intimate and accessible. If I lived here, I would join here. It is so warm, open, intimate and accessible.” That is why we are here today. We are here to celebrate that we are warm and open and intimate and accessible. And we are here because it is time to make sure that our building and our property and our bricks and mortar all reflect just those Jewish values that we so passionately embrace as a community.
It is time to make our building warmer, more open, more intimate and more accessible. We’ve earned that. We deserve that. And it is our responsibility to ensure that for the generations that come after us. Forty years is a long time. Our building is aging. It has cracks, some literal and some figurative. It is not easy to find from the road. It is not easy to drive up into the parking lot. It is not easy to walk from the parking lot to the building. It is not easy to open the front door. It is not easy to find your way, once inside, to the sanctuary, to the rabbi’s study, to the youth lounge.
Accessibility is a Jewish value. A Jewish imperative. We say: “Hamitzvah hazot lo ba’shamayim hi; hi karov aleycha me’od.” (Deut 30:12-14) “The mitzvah of Jewish practice is not up in the Heavens, we don’t make it hard, we place it close to you.” It is time to make coming to the synagogue easy. Picture an easy entrance right off the road. An easy drive into the parking lot. An Open Door and a Welcoming Entrance.
Hidur Mitzvah is also a Mitzvah. It is a Jewish value to beautify what we treasure. There are so many ways that we can beautify our synagogue. With art. With color. With height. With light. With windows.
The most exquisite piece of this synagogue building is what sits outside of its walls. The exquisite piece of nature that God created. The trees and the leaves and the sky and the sunshine. Let us take advantage of that! It is a requirement that a sanctuary have windows. (Mishnah Berurah) We can have windows that are big and wide and open to the world around us.
Our synagogue should be accessible. Not because the government requires accessibility, but because we are Jews and our tradition demands it. The Book of Psalms says of the aged: “Don’t cast me off as I age.” We are all aging, and without insulting our founders I can tell you for a fact that each and every one of them is precisely 40 years older than they were 40 years ago. Our bathrooms are not handicap accessible. It is a ‘bousha,’ (that’s Hebrew for ‘shonda’). But it need not be that way any longer. We can make our bathrooms handicap accessible. We can make our bima handicap accessible. We can make every square inch of our building easier to navigate and more spiritually uplifting to experience.
Our building is beautiful. Our founders created a space that has served us amazingly well for 40 years. It is time to re-envision. It is time to dream. It is time to build, to build upon that which has already been built, to build upon the shoulders of those who came before us, to build a synagogue that says “HERE WE ARE.” To build a synagogue that says “COME AND JOIN US.” To build a synagogue that is as warm and welcoming and traditional and contemporary and bold and conservative and beautiful and accessible as we are.
Rabbi Abraham Kook, the first rabbi of Palestine, as he contemplated the enterprise of building a state of Israel, famously said: HaYashen Tichadesh v’Ha Chadash Tikadesh. The old shall be renewed, and the new shall be made holy.
The time is now, for building and rebuilding together.
L'Shalom,
Rabbi Offner
(This column was excerpted from Rabbi Offner’s remarks at the Congregational Meeting on March 11, 2018)
Rabbi's Column - April 2018