Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

NOTE: Originally emailed on November 22, 2023.

“I feel like now, when I look out at the congregation, I’ll feel more connected.”

These words make me so happy. They were spoken off-handedly, as we walked down the hotel hallway on Sunday morning of our Am Tikvah Retreat, but they were one of the most memorable things I heard all weekend. I have a privileged position in the community; I get to see and get to know many of you, but I realize that you might not always get to know each other beyond the set groups of friends or services-goers or religious school parents. The retreat brought fifty of us together across those gaps and the result was magical. [Note: If you weren’t able to go this year, keep it in mind next year, and if the barrier was financial, come talk to me and we’ll figure it out.]

On Shabbat morning, I spoke about how Jacob’s name forecasted his wiliness in stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing, but how our name, Am Tikvah, “People of Hope,” also predicted our optimism and commitment to hope and unity. I felt that hope and unity as we concluded our retreat, and my personal hope is that we will turn our learning into action. We learned what makes a ritual: it must be done with intentionality, have an indescribable factor, have symbolic value that goes beyond the practical, and must evolve over time to suit new people and contexts. Rituals get stronger through repetition, but if repetition leads to roteness then the ritual has become a habit or a tradition.

This weekend, we will participate in many rituals, both national and personal. All of our Thanksgiving rituals can be connected, in some way, to gratitude - if nothing else, we try to be grateful for some aspect of the moment. Alan Morinis, a leader in modern Mussar (the Jewish practice of self-improvement), writes that Judaism asks each person to be sameach b’chelko, happy with their portion, because, “If you are happy with your portion, you can live sanely within your means and according to your true and deepest priorities.” (With Heart in Mind, p. 146) Gratitude and appreciation for everything life has to offer - the blessings, the hidden blessings, the challenges and the growth - helps us live lives permeated by our values. May we, this Thanksgiving, find gratitude and contentment, and, as the Passover Haggadah says, may all who are hungry come eat.