Noah 5770

Dating has become a bit more complex since the days of Noah’s Ark. Two-by-two they entered, male and female: the birds, the cattle, the creeping things – two of each to stay alive. While none of us would wish the circumstances of our parasha to be repeated, in retrospect, the numbers certainly took the guesswork out of choosing the right mate. In fact, all the narratives preceding the Flood have a certain mathematical charm. Adam and Eve stand together in the Garden of Eden, one fashioned from the rib of the other, their entire dating period – from courtship to consummation – consisting of a first and final date involving one piece of fruit, a snake, and just the right mixture of human shame and sexuality. When it comes to finding your bashert, the Book of Genesis has left little room for error.

If you are single, or if you have single friends or children, then you know that we have long ago left Eden. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Despite the growth of social networks, a liberalization of sexual mores, a leveling of historic gender imbalances, and an ever-increasing sense of geographic mobility, it is harder, not easier, to get married today than it has ever been. The availability of choices, it would seem, for both men and women, has not resulted in an increase in marital commitment, but just the opposite. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, marriage rates are dropping across the country. Those who are getting married, are getting married later in life; in 2006 the median age for males was 27 and for females, 25.

When we turn to the data about the Jewish community, the landscape has changed even more dramatically. Far removed from Eden, generations from the shtetl matchmakers, American Jews tend to marry later than Americans in general. In fact, according to the Jewish Federations of North America’s last National Jewish Population Survey, proportionally fewer Jews than all Americans have ever married, especially those aged 25-34. Jewish women, the studies indicate, put off having children until later years, and then approach, but do not meet, fertility levels of all U.S. women. Jewish fertility is too low to replace the Jewish population. The data is rather stark, and while people may debate how this came to be and what to do about it, the facts are incontrovertible. What we don’t know from surveys we know anecdotally. I imagine you, like I, can identify a world of single friends – Andrews and Michaels, Steves and Davids, but more often than not, Marnis and Jens, Sarahs and Emilys – bright, successful, attractive Jewish men and women who are failing to do what Adam and Eve accomplished in spite of themselves, what the couples on the Ark could not help but doing: to find each other, to commit to each other, and to create homes and families together.

This is a very sensitive topic, and it is worthy of a discussion far longer than a sermon will permit. So this morning, let me be clear both as to what I am saying and as to what I am not saying. First, what I am not saying: I am not saying that young people should be bullied into marriage against their best interest. Looking back on myself at 18 years of age, I remain astounded that I allowed that young man of such poor judgment to make decisions that still haunt the grown man that I am today. People in their post-college years are young, perhaps younger than they ever have been, and marriage is a decision of vast consequence. As important as Jewish reproductive rates are, so are happy families. So too, I am not talking about divorce rates; that is also a sermon for another day. But in my line of work, I know of enough instances of people making the difficult, but important, decision to end a dysfunctional marriage. We would all do well to remember that divorce, however painful, has been an option for many, including some in this room, who are very thankful for it. I also want to make clear, that while I do believe marriage is a value that should be preached and encouraged, our community, both here at Park Avenue Synagogue and beyond, must be a community that validates the integrity of our unmarried members. The organized Jewish community has an unfortunate proclivity to run roughshod over unmarrieds, to make single Jews feel they have a lesser status than their partnered contemporaries. From our membership forms to our programming, I expect our synagogue to model a religious life that embraces all of its members equally regardless of marital status.

What I am asking you to consider is that right now we are living through a perfect storm of sociological factors that have collectively resulted in a state of affairs in which two Jews who, in principle, favor the institution of marriage are disinclined to take that step. Let me list a few of the elements: American Jewish women stand out for their high level of educational attainment. Our daughters, mine included, are extended the same professional training, opportunities, and advancement as their male counterparts. While we can take rightful joy in this development, unheard of in previous generations, there are also consequences to the choice of postponing marriage
and childbearing due to graduate school and professional development. Another element: Jewish men and women, once excluded from fully blending into the melting pot of America, now find themselves taken in with open arms by willing non-Jewish partners. The libidinal anxieties surrounding the Jewish-Gentile encounters of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, or Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, seem totally passé to young Jews of today. If you put this all together, and throw in the implications of the birth control pill… well, it doesn’t take a genius to reflect on how different the world is now than it was fifty years ago.

Each of these factors – educational achievement, acceptance in secular society, and reproductive choice – is cause for celebrating, and to speak very directly, worthy of vigorous defense. But we can’t act as if the playing field is the same as it was fifty years ago. We can’t feign surprise when Jews in their late 30’s and older find themselves wondering when their bashert will arrive. Our problem, quite simply, is that in our excitement over advancing a series of agendas we have forgotten to consider the hidden implications of these changes. I am reminded of the decision of the Jewish Theological Seminary to ordain women as Rabbis and Cantors after months and years of politicking and debate. Women students arrived and only then did anyone realize that with all the deliberations and planning, nobody had thought to build new women’s bathrooms. Our intent has been admirable; our failure has merely been one of not thinking everything through.

I should also note that our present discussion is not altogether new. I recall one of the first pages of Talmud I ever studied contained a debate on the recommended order of events when it comes to Torah study and marriage. One opinion holds that one should study Torah first and then get married. After all, how could one possibly be focused on one’s intellectual development while occupied with the concerns and burdens of family life. The other side argues that one should first get married and only then commit oneself to Torah study, because how on earth, Rashi asks, can one be devoted to professional development while absorbed and distracted by thoughts of finding a mate. (B.T. Kiddushin 29b) While our sages only ever discussed the issue vis-à-vis the men’s choice, the debate – as we all know – is far more intense for women, when it comes to juggling career and family. As a female friend of mine pointed out to me this week, when it comes to family and career, there is an inescapable difference between men and women. As she put it, while men may live their lives simultaneously, women more often than not, lead their lives sequentially.

Since arriving at Park Avenue Synagogue, I have tried to raise the big issues, the conversations that will shape the future of our immediate community and of American Jewry: Congregational School, Shabbat Services, and Israel, to name a few. But to state the obvious, all these conversations are only relevant with the first operating assumption in place – the presence of Jews. If there are no Jews being born into this world, everything else is – as they say – gravy.

There are, just a few blocks east of here, more unaffiliated young Jews than you can shake a stick at. Park Avenue Synagogue, rightly so, has primary responsibilities to its membership. I do believe, however, that when it comes to outreach vs. inreach, it is not an either/or proposition. To be a forward-looking synagogue, we need either to create programs for these unaffiliated young Jews or to partner with the organizations best-positioned to ensure a Jewish future. I want the names and email addresses of every post-Birthright twenty-something on the East Side. I want the alumni associations of Brandeis, Penn, Michigan, Harvard – any college with a strong Jewish alumni base in New York City – to know that the doors of this synagogue are open to their members. I want young adults to feel that there is a place in the Jewish world for them to meet, to socialize, to learn, to pray, and maybe even find a mate. I want them to feel like this synagogue is a place where that can happen. It is a discussion to which I am committed and I look for your ideas and support towards making it happen.

Even more than in the synagogue, it is in our own homes that we need to give careful attention to this issue. We need to find the vocabulary to communicate to our children the inestimable value of creating a Jewish family. We need to communicate that while we prize academic and professional achievement, while we value the integrity of every person as an individual, we also are encouraging and proud of their choice to get married. We need to be honest with our children about the internal contradiction of sending them off to liberal arts colleges, telling them to study whatever they want, become whoever they want to be, make friendships with as diverse a circle as possible, but when it comes to bringing someone home, he or she better be Jewish. Even with internal contradictions we should be candid about our expectations, and calculated in our planning. We need to use language that lets our children know that while every human being is created equally in God’s image, the importance of creating a Jewish home, with two Jewish partners, by birth or by conversion, is the starting point for a discussion of a Jewish future. I readily admit that as a father, I myself am working on what this conversation should look like, but as a Rabbi, I can think of no conversation more important to cultivate within each of our households.

There is a wonderful midrash that tells of a conversation between Rabbi Yossi and a Roman matron. The Roman matron asked Rabbi Yossi what God has been doing since creating the world. She was astounded when Rabbi Yossi told her that ever since Creation, God was preoccupied with matchmaking. “Why, how could that be so difficult?” she remarked, “I myself could do it.” The Roman matron turned Yenta and lined up a thousand male servants opposite a thousand maidservants – “You marry her, you marry him” – matching them all up in one night. The next morning, disaster was evident all around – a bruise here, a cut there, broken limbs and black eyes. She asked them, “What happened?” This one said, “I don’t want him” and that one said, “I don’t want her.” The matron had to admit that there was no God like the God of Israel for truth. (Gen. Rab. 68:4)The punchline of the story: “It is as difficult for God to match a couple as it was to split the Red Sea.”

It isn’t easy being a matchmaker. It probably never was. It is a challenge for God, and it is certainly a challenge for us. But it is the task on which all other Jewish conversations depend. We are not the first to have this conversation, but if we want to make sure that we are not the last, then we must have it, and have it honestly. We need to look at the landscape of the wider community and provide a response in tune with our age. We need to define our synagogue’s responsibilities beyond the borders of present membership with an eye towards our future membership. Most importantly, each of us in our own home needs to engage in the ‘Godlike’ task of creating Jewish couples, two by two, sailing bravely towards our Jewish future.