Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

In the summer of 2010, my father and I led our respective synagogues on a trip to Israel. Besides the typical tours of Masada, Golan Heights, and Old City of Jerusalem, we searched for the local stories that were not in the headlines at the time. Day after day, we witnessed a small crowd of people under a white tent, set up in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. We saw a man in a black t-shirt and jeans greeting all those who approached him. His name was Noam Shalit, and his son Gilad Shalit, had been help captive by Hamas for the last few years. Noam was a father, not only praying for his son’s return, but actively pursuing a way for his son to sit again at the family Shabbat table.

The minute the megillah concludes, we focus our attention on the next book, the Haggadah. With Passover just three weeks away, the to do list seems longer than ever. Matzah is already on the supermarket shelves. We know that spring cleaning is before us, but how ready are we to engage in that task? Fortunately, we know the prize at the conclusion of cleaning is a meal with our families and friends: The Passover Seder.

Twenty faith organizations gathered in the Main Sanctuary this past Tuesday to come together in prayer. Children across Los Angeles sang songs of peace as we concluded the evening with the words of "Lean On Me."

Before we begin celebrating Purim this coming week, we pause to remember. This Shabbat is called Zachor. We will take out a second Torah scroll and read how the tribe of Amalek attacked the Israelite people from behind. Rashi attempts to reconcile the mitzvah of blotting out the name of Amalek with the mitzvah of remembering who they were. This week in Kohn Chapel, we will celebrate a bar mitzvah, the great-grandson of Holocaust survivors. He will read his Torah portion from that second scroll, but not just any scroll.

Each year, thousands of Jews gather in Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashana. Uman is a city in the Ukraine, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. One of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings has become a popular song in Jewish schools and camps. Kol haolam kulo gesher tzar meod: The entire world is a narrow bridge. V’haikar lo lfached klal: “What is essential is to not be afraid.” When I hear this prayer, I am reminded of my rabbinical school classmate, Rabbi Reuven Stamov. Reuven was born in the Crimean region of the Ukraine in a secular Jewish family where practicing Judaism was forbidden. In the 1990s, while other families were leaving, Rabbi Stamov stayed in the Ukraine and became involved in Jewish and Zionist activities, including the Ramah-Yachad Camp for Jewish Children in Ukraine. I will never forget sitting next to Reuven in Talmud class while we studied together in Jerusalem. Our paths were completely different. I was a Rabbi’s son who grew up surrounded by a loving Jewish community who would return to the United States and build upon an already thriving Jewish world. Reuven knew what he wanted. He was going to start the Conservative Jewish community in Ukraine after finishing his studies in Israel. I have watched from afar the work of Reuven and his family. Yet, this week, I have watched up close as Jewish monuments and Jewish communities were dispersed and destroyed in an instant.

I must admit, I fear holding a paintbrush or pen in my hand. Send me a song, and I can play it on the keyboard by ear, but ask me to draw, and it is difficult for me to go beyond drawing a stick figure.

As Jews, we count numbers. I will never forget the first time I counted for a minyan after my bar mitzvah. While nothing changed besides one day on the calendar, everything changed. As our good friend Rabbi Jason Fruithandler would often say to our b'nai mitzvah, “You will now be an adult in the eyes of God, not in the eyes of your parents.” The daily minyan is a place where numbers count most. During the last few months, as the minyan has returned to our sacred Kohn Chapel, we have struggled to get the required 10 people to say the prayers of the barchu, kedusha, and the blessings of the Torah. This morning, we reached the number 10. As one of our daily minyan attendees looked at me and said, “Rabbi, we always make it!” This optimistic approach does not happen by itself—it is a partnership between us and God. In an ironic twist, Jewish tradition sees human beings as being too sacred to be counted like sheep. We count dollars and cents, we count a flock, but we do not count human beings. So when do we count? We count when we are present, we count when we show up, we count when we add the quality to our families and communities.

Yesterday, I had the honor of being in conversation with Father Gil Martinez, of St. Paul the Apostle, in Los Angeles.

A UCLA sociology student interviewed me recently about the sustainability of synagogue life. She asked how our community lives out the Jewish values of sustainability. My answer came from this week’s parsha, Terumah: “Let them make Me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.” The Torah does not tell us that God will dwell within the actual sanctuary. Rather, God will dwell among us. God does not need a sanctuary; we need one. Jewish sustainability begins when we create a sanctuary for our community to dwell within. I explained to this college student that we are obligated to pray within a community, and only then do we create a sanctuary of souls.

On my three trips to Poland in the early 2000s, I walked through the gates of Auschwitz for a historical tour. It was difficult to fathom the amount of hate that was in the world to consciously build a place like that.