Lynn Asinof ROSH HASHANAH 2010/5771
Shanah Tova. Happy New Year. At Temple Isaiah, as you know, it is our tradition for the president to speak to the congregation on Rosh Hashanah.
Well, actually, that’s not quite right. It used to be that the president spoke to the congregation on Yom Kippur. But we changed that a few years back. So it might be more accurate to say the tradition is for the president to address the congregation at sometime during the High Holidays.
Traditions are interesting things. Once established, they take on the weight of history. It seems not only that they have always been, but that they will always be. Then, too, we invest them with great meaning. Too often, however, we don’t stop to think about where our traditions come from, how they developed or their relevance to us today.
Consider the story of the brisket recipe—which you may know. It was passed from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter. The recipe went something like this. Take a nice brisket, cut off the ends, season it liberally, surround it with vegetables, and cook it in the oven until fork tender.
The daughter dutifully learned the recipe while helping her mother cook for the holidays, and then followed it when she established her own home. She in turn taught it to her daughter. But when that granddaughter was cooking her first brisket in her own home, she called her mom with a question. “Mom, why do you cut the ends off the brisket,” she asked.
“That’s how grandma always did it,” was the answer. “Perhaps it helps the meat cook more evenly.” But the granddaughter wasn’t satisfied, so she called her grandmother.
“Grandma,” she asked, “Why does your recipe start by telling you to cut the ends off the brisket?” Grandma responded—“The recipe doesn’t tell you to cut the ends off the brisket. But I had to cut the ends off. My pan was too small.”
And so a family tradition was born.
So, why all this talk about tradition on this beautiful Rosh Hashanah morning? Because as we move on from our 50th anniversary year into our 51st and 52nd year, there is going to be change. And given that fact, I think it is important to talk about the value of tradition, the importance of change, and the lessons that we can learn by exploring the tension between the two.
Let me start by talking about a change that will take place next week. On Yom Kippur morning when I step into the sanctuary carrying the Kolin Torah—holocaust scroll that is on permanent loan to Temple Isaiah, I will be taking a different route to the bima. I will enter from the chapel side of the sanctuary, make my way to the center aisle and then proceed directly to the bima. In short, I will be messing with a tradition—albeit a fairly new one—and that may be a bit uncomfortable for some of you. So let me explain the thinking that went into this change.
When my family joined the temple in 1992, the tradition was to have the temple president carry the Torah into the sanctuary –walking from the lobby to the center aisle and then directly to the bima. Then, about 6 years ago, an informal survey of the congregation asked if people wanted more contact with the Kolin scroll on Yom Kippur. Many responded positively, and the route of the torah was changed, winding through the congregation in order to come close to as many people as possible.
But that created problems. The length of time needed for the scroll to travel from the lobby to the bima expanded to 15 or 20 minutes. Standing for that long was hard for some of our congregants, particularly on a fast day. The number of people fainting increased, while some felt the solemnity of the occasion decreased.
So this year we are going to try something new. We will be returning to a shorter and more direct route. And we are going to be making some other changes, too. In trying to come up with a better path for the Kolin Torah, we started thinking about other ways to make this unique scroll more accessible to members of the congregation. And once we started thinking about the possibilities, we came up with idea after idea after idea for ways to create meaningful programming and establish new traditions with our holocaust scroll.
There is a lot we can learn from our Kolin scroll. In preparation for this talk, I figured I should do a little research. I was amazed at both the amount of information available and all the things I simply didn’t know. So let me tell you what I have learned so far.
I learned, for example, that our scroll was written in 1720, which means it predates both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. It came from the town of Kolin, located in the Czech Republic about 34 miles east of Prague. Kolin’s Jewish community, once one the oldest and most important in the Czech lands, was all but wiped out by the ravages of World War II. When the war ended, only a handful of survivors returned. The community struggled on for a few years, but eventually succumbed under the weight of Communism.
How did the Kolin scroll find its way to Lexington, Mass? The torah was among those gathered during the war by a small group of Jews in Prague determined to preserve Jewish religious artifacts in hopes that they might one day be returned to their original homes. That did not happen. In 1964, it was one of 1,564 torah scrolls purchased by London’s Westminster Synagogue from the Czechoslovakia Communist State. Once at Westminster, the scrolls were examined, catalogued, and repaired as best possible. Then many were put on permanent loan to congregations around the world. We are one of them.
Our Kolin Torah arrived in Lexington in 1972. It spends most of its time in a glass case in the lobby. We only read from the scroll once a year because it is considered pasul—which means it has been damaged so badly that one letter might be mistaken for another or may not be recognizable at all. As such it is not considered kosher. But we read from it every year on Yom Kippur as a way of remembering and commemorating the Jews of Kolin who disappeared in the holocaust.
So, what are some of the possibilities for building a more meaningful relationship with The Kolin Torah? This fall, a father and son team of scribes will be visiting the temple to assess the condition of all our Torah scolls. At that time, we hope to have them examine the Kolin scroll, assess the possibilities for restoring it and create some opportunities for the congregation to learn about the care, creation and restoration of Torah scrolls.
This year, we will begin use the Kolin scroll in our high school curriculum, which includes a course on the holocaust. We can certainly reach out to other communities that have Kolin scrolls—yes there are others—and perhaps contact those that have scrolls from other Czech communities as well. And there is the possibility of actually traveling to Kolin, as other congregations already do, to see the synagogue there and help tend the town’s Jewish cemetery. And those ideas are just the beginning.
So what have I learned from our efforts embrace the congregation’s traditions surrounding Kolin Torah and yet change them to meet needs today? Quite a lot, actually.
For one thing, I have come to realize that a person’s view of tradition depends a great deal upon when they enter the conversation.
If you entered the Jewish narrative before the destruction of the temple, tradition would have been built around an intercessional priestly religion based on animal sacrifice.
If you entered the narrative in the 1950s as a Reform Jew, tradition would have been a holiday service conducted largely in English and with nary a tallit or kippah in sight.
At Temple Isaiah, we, too, have arrived at different times. To some, Rabbi Jaffe has always been the rabbi, to others, he’s the new guy. And if asked, many might say that we’ve always had a cantor. We haven’t.
I have also come to see that problems aren’t always problems. Rather, they can instead be opportunities that allow us to deepen our understanding of our roots, challenge us to examine our practices, and perhaps provide the impetus for establishing new traditions.
In the next few years, there will be change at Temple Isaiah as together we face a variety of challenges, wrestle with problems and look for answers.
As we celebrate the beginning of the year 5771, I can hardly wait to see what we will come up with.
I wish you and all your loved ones a happy, healthy and sweet New Year.
