Sukkat Shalom Reform Synagogue

It may seem strange for a fifty something year old Rabbi to begin his first article to his new congregation with the traditional opening of a Bar Mitzvah speech but in many ways the thoughts and emotions of a Bar Mitzvah are appropriate.

Like a Bar Mitzvah I have more people to thank than time, space or your patience would allow. These would include not only my biological family and all those who have shared their lives with me until now but also the family of the congregation, those who have founded, maintained and supported the inheritance of this congregation and all those who contribute to it’s life. It is only through them that we are able to share our fellowship today.

Like a Bar Mitzvah I need to acknowledge and thank the teachers within Israel of all generations who have developed and passed down the Torah is its widest sense. The Rabbis who precede me in this post and the teachers of every type who have generously shared, and I hope will continue to share their legacy of knowledge and learning. They have provided a legacy of immense value.

Perhaps most importantly like every Bar Mitzvah I recognise that though I am the same person today that I was yesterday my life is today transformed. Not by any change to my nature or abilities but rather by my willing and eager acceptance of new and deeper responsibilities. But I differ from many Bnei Mitzvah by having a clearer picture of the yoke of heaven whose burdens I shoulder, its beauties, its joys and its weight. I recognise that from this time on much of this weight will come from the expectations of those I seek to serve.

There will be those who demand of me more knowledge than I possess, more wisdom than anyone possesses. There will be those who project onto me their own images and their own experiences. I will be given more honour than I deserve and more blame than is my due. While this is more than a little intimidating it does not frighten me. So long as I strive to fulfil my duty to the best of my ability and retain a perspective of my real strengths and real weaknesses I am confident that I will be able in the end stand before God unashamed.

What does frighten me is that I also know that there will be those who see me as God’s representative to the community rather than as one of many representatives of the community to God. More than this there will be those who will demand to see within me the spark of divine presence. This is truly frightening. As the divine spark is in each of us surely this expectation is not unreasonable, but can I actually find and show this to myself let alone to others?

To find out I performed a little experiment. I stared into a mirror at home a hundred times to try and see the divine spark within myself. The experiment was both a success and a failure. It was a success in that the mirror failed to crack under the strain but it was a failure in that every time I peered into the glass all I saw was the face of a confused twelve-year-old boy with a grey beard staring back at me.

But then I looked into the eyes of my family, my friends, my colleagues and my students. And as I gazed into their eyes I saw not only the light of the Divine that shone within them, but I also saw within their eyes the divine spark within me. The spark that it is my duty to nurture.

It is only together as the congregation of Israel and as a congregation within Israel, joining our strengths and weaknesses, our wisdom and our foolishness, our insights and our blindness can we fulfil our task. Only then will we be able to lift the yoke high and spread it above our heads until it forms a chuppah.

For if today is much like a Bar Mitzvah, I hope that the relationship between my Rabbinate and the congregation will in many ways be like a marriage. Full of happiness, sorrow, kindness and cruelty, comfort and pain. But despite our too human frailties we will be able to see the path ahead only if we strive to feed within each other and ourselves the spark that can become a flame to light our way. As the Eternal said through Hosea “I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in judgement, and in grace, and in mercies. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord”. May this be our communal blessing.