On Religious Leadership

Goldstein was pulled over by the police one night around two in the morning. After checking over his ID and noting his advanced age, the policeman asked Goldstein exactly where he was headed at that time of night. Goldstein replied, “I am on my way to a lecture about the abuses of alcohol, its toxic impact on the human body, and the harmful side effects of smoking and late nights.” The officer responded, “Really? And who exactly is giving that lecture at this time of night?” To which Goldstein replied, “Mrs. Goldstein.”

Our world, broadly speaking, may be divided in two: the world as it is, and the world as it could or should be. Take any issue, whether it’s global, like the environment, or personal, like how we treat our bodies. There is the descriptive, the state of affairs on the ground, and there is the prescriptive, the unrealized condition of how things “ought” to be. On one side is how Mr. Goldstein behaves, and on the other is how Mrs. Goldstein tells him he should behave. In philosophic terms it is what John Dewey identified as the gap between the real and the ideal. The most interesting element is not the recognition of the two worlds, and not even the awareness of the discrepancy between them – that who or where we are is not who and where we should be. The most interesting part is the interplay between the two – in other words, that Mr. Goldstein has chosen to come home at all! He knows what he is doing, he knows what his missus is going to say, he knows they are not one and the same thing, and yet embedded in him must be not only a moral compass to show him the way home, but a gravitational pull that brings him there every night even if he knows that upon walking in the door he will only be reminded of how he has fallen short. A combination of guilt and loyalty tugs at him, and maybe an unspoken hope that while he knows he falls short and may even continue to do so, he can always come home and one day perhaps that gap will narrow, and who he is and who he knows he can be will one day become one and the same.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote that “Faith is a blush in the presence of God.” (Man is Not Alone, p. 91). If I understand Heschel correctly, he is signaling that the purpose of this building, or any house of worship for that matter, is to alert us to the gap between who we are and who we know we can be, an awareness that induces us to blush. Like the mishkan, the desert tabernacle of this week’s Torah reading, the goals of this house of God are both to draw you in and welcome you home, and paradoxically, to remind you of the work that still needs to be done – in this world and within ourselves. Lest we forget, the Hebrew word meaning “to pray” is a reflexive verb, l’hitpallel, literally “to judge oneself.” Not to affirm who you are, but to remind you that there is often a gap between who you are and who you can be. Reminding you to mind the gap, mind you, is only the first goal. The second and far important role of this institution is to provide the path and the motivation by which that chasm can be bridged, so that we can mend ourselves and in doing so, let the radiance of this place mend this world in which we live.

All of this makes the job of a rabbi really, really, really interesting. Because if the project of religion is to inform, inspire or admonish people towards bettering ourselves and the world in which we live, then it follows that my task must be the same. I am not here to describe the world as it is, or you as you are. For that you can read a newspaper or see a therapist. My job, no different than Mrs. Goldstein, is to tell you how you should be! Do you treat each other kindly? I don’t know, but I know we should. Do you give charitably? Some of us may, some may not, but I am here to remind you of our obligation to do so. Are you faithful to your spouse? Statistically speaking, odds are that not everyone in this room is. But as a teacher of our tradition I can tell you unequivocally that we should be. Do you have kosher homes? I have no intention now or ever of checking cupboards, but … You get the idea. We live in an age of radical autonomy and permeable social boundaries. You know that I know that you know that at the end of the day your choices are – yours. Ever since the Enlightenment, rabbis have no longer possessed the political authority, inclination and in my case, the time to check up on what Jews are and aren’t doing. The only thing a rabbi or any religious leader can command in this day and age is respect. But just because the dynamics of the playing field have changed, doesn’t mean the values have. I want you to be kind, I want you to be faithful to your spouse, I want you to be charitable, I want you to keep kashrut and shabbat. As your rabbi, I want and expect you to do all sorts of things. I believe that the role of the rabbi is, as the saying goes, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And you know what I think? I think you want me to want you to do those things! You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. You may or may not actually do these things, and in most cases only you and God will know. But even in modernity, especially in modernity, sound religious leadership demands not that I parrot the choices you would otherwise make, but rather that I inspire you to a life that you may not otherwise lead. The explicit or implicit social contract between the rabbi and the modern Jew is not to describe the world as it is, but the world as it could be. We enter this space precisely because it calls on us to reach beyond what everyone else, everywhere else, tells us is inevitable and unavoidable.

I think very carefully about what I do and don’t state as values. You may agree with some and disagree with others. I believe that that men and women stand equally before God, at the Torah and in prayer and everywhere. I believe that homosexual relationships should be sanctified no differently than heterosexual ones. I believe that to live in this moment of American Jewish history and not advocate on behalf of the miracle of the modern State of Israel is to abdicate your responsibility as a Jew. I believe that we should all be sending our kids to Jewish summer camp. And yes, as long as I am your rabbi, I will be preaching the paramount importance of endogamy – one Jew marrying another Jew. I preach these things because I believe them, because I believe they are justified by the tradition and because I believe that each of these behaviors, among others, offers the greatest possibility for the growth, strengthening and defense of the Jewish people. I am aware, well aware, that many in this community, many in this room have chosen and will continue to choose otherwise. But stating a Jewish value can never be contingent on the assent of the Jew in the pew. As a former member of Congress recently reflected: “Real leadership is not about telling your opponents what they need but don’t want to hear but telling your supporters.” Or as Rabbi Israel Salanter stated: “A rabbi whose community does not disagree with him is no rabbi.” Sitting in this room you should be challenged, you should be forced you to revisit your assumptions; this space should, at one and the same time, embrace you like your home and prompt you to grow.

All said, however, the most critical element in any discussion on religious leadership has nothing to do with where you are, nor with the Jewish values preached from this pulpit. The most important thing you need to know is about me: that I struggle too. You need to know that long before I was a rabbi, I was just a Jew – just like you. I have no idea who my children will marry. I have no idea how long I can keep bringing my kids to shul and sending them to Jewish day school and Jewish summer camp before they hit system overload. I can’t even claim to know for sure what combination of Jewish experiences holds the greatest promise for their Jewish future. I have stayed up more nights than I can count wondering if in this day and age if it is conscionable for me to live anywhere but the State of Israel. There are a lot of ideals that I believe should be held sacred, and I will be the first to admit that I myself don’t live up to all of them. And while some may call that hypocrisy, the words I would choose are authenticity and integrity. The most honest and effective form of religious leadership I can provide for you is not to pontificate, but to share my struggles with you, to let you know even rabbis don’t have it all figured out and so I don’t expect you to have it figured out either. When I walk into this building, I am trying to traverse that gap between the person I am and the person I should or could be just like you are. That, incidentally, is what it means to be one of the Children of Israel. Not a promise to have it all figured out, but a commitment to wrestle with God’s will – today, tomorrow and every day of our lives.

One of the most moving passages offered by our tradition comes towards the end of the Torah when Moses enjoins his people to live a life of mitzvot. “It is not in the heavens … neither is it beyond the sea … no, it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.” (Deuteronomy 30:12-13) Our faith, our tradition, our Torah and our tomorrows are not meant to mirror our today. We do not live in the world as it ought to be and this place reminds of that fact. But this place also inspires us towards leading that life and it reminds us that it is not as distant as we think; the drive is not so far and the door is open if we are willing to enter it. It is altogether doable. Most of all, here in this space, we acknowledge and embrace that we are all engaged in this struggle together, every one of us reaching out even as we admit to being unsure of what it is we seek to grasp, all of us humbly seeking to know and make real God’s will here on earth.