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Sermon: Vayikra, 3/19/21

03/21/2021 04:22:55 PM

Mar21

Rabbi Charlie

Shabbat Shalom!

Leading up to Pesach – which is just over a week away – I’ve been focusing on various aspects of freedom. Tonight’s teaching and invitation has been inspired by the opportunity to spend a week learning with over 350 Reform rabbis at an online CCAR conference. I studied with great teachers, I reconnected with friends, and we had more than one session that gave people the opportunity to share just how overwhelming this past year has been.

My colleagues talked openly about times of depression and despair, times of being pushed to the limit and beyond, and times of challenge and more challenge and more challenge – one on top of the other. There was great vulnerability and compassion. We needed to be able to offer such support and understanding to each other.

We also talked about lessons learned, silver linings, and discovered blessings. We shared moments of inspiration and creativity. We affirmed our commitment to the Jewish people. We talked about what was, what is, and what will be.

When we look to this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra – the opening chapters of the book of Leviticus – we see a Judaism that is completely foreign to us. We see what was – a Judaism that revolved around animal sacrifice, complete with detailed instructions. After trauma and tragedy – the destruction of the Temple and the devastating war associated with it – Judaism could no longer be what it was.

Time and again we have experienced collective trauma – sometimes worldwide, sometimes specific to the Jewish people – and each time, we’ve found ways to adapt to our new reality. So now we’re still going through this challenging time and it’s our turn to adapt. To help that along we had a session at the conference with a consulting group called Trepwise focused on visioning and we were supposed to “ideate” and be “transformative leaders.” And I sat there in my Zoom breakout room with my group of 8-10 colleagues and we just kind of looked at each other.

We didn’t know what things would look like in a month or two. And because we had big congregations and small congregations and rabbis who weren’t in congregations and we literally lived all over the map – East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, Colorado, and of course, Texas, all of our situations were so different. We had no idea – we could only come up with a great list about all the things we didn’t know. It was beautiful and humbling and human.

And it was thought-provoking in the best of ways. It drove home the lessons from another session. Dr. Betsy Stone is like a therapist to the rabbis and she was amazing. She described resilience as bouncing back – a reset, back to how things were before. She explained that the lifespan of uncomplicated grief is about 18 months for people to reset. She argued that everything we’ve been going through for more than a year is more than uncomplicated grief. For that reason, she didn’t think that we were just going to be able to go back to “normal.”

In contrast to resilience, she talked instead about post traumatic growth. Most of us have heard of post-traumatic stress – where we get stuck and can’t get past what we’ve experienced. Post-traumatic growth is change – the kind of change where our place in the world has been challenged in an uncomfortable way. Such growth could be about discovering personal strength, rethinking how we prioritize our values; or increasing our compassion towards others. It could be about gratitude, creativity, or spiritual change – the sense that there’s something bigger, beyond ourselves.

Where such change leads us helps us to grow as people and as a community. We have been through and are still experiencing trauma… Knowing that we’re not stuck in this place – stuck in our homes, living in fear – that we won’t be here forever, that change will come – there’s a freedom to that. And it made me realize that the reason why I had a hard time doing vision work with other colleagues. It’s because they aren’t my community. The people I need to ideate with and imagine with and grow with is you. And together, we have the freedom to create our community where we all can live the mission of CBI and find a profound sense of belonging. That’s our aspiration.

If you are interested in working with Mike, the Board, and I towards accomplishing that goal, please reach out. We need you!

Shabbat Shalom.

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784