I am less familiar with the purposes of the Sermon in religions outside of Judaism. But I can imagine that all of the great religions use some form of an address to speak to their congregants… something meant to in some way move us. Religions are different… but the “sermon”? In abstract, probably cut from pretty much the same cloth.
For Jews, particularly Reform Jews, the Rabbis will address the major portion of his or her Congregation twice a year. On our High Holidays… Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s not like there are not weekly Services on Friday Evening or Saturday Morning. And during the course of the year, folks will attend services here and there (or perhaps not)… but even for the most detached member of a Congregation… attending Services on the High Holidays is most common.
Rabbis know that the High Holidays are the time when the unique opportunity is presented to address the “complete” Congregation… to make an impact. Therefore the Sermons, four in number over the High Holidays… Rosh Hashanah Eve & Day and Yom Kippur Eve & Day… become very important. The topics and nature of the Sermons are carefully planned and selected.
Often, Rabbis select a theme… and in some way try to link the four Sermons together. Rabbis will usually draw from our sacred texts and try to find contemporary applications to the words of our Sages and how it relates to our lives. The Sermons are meant to uplift, define issues and in some way contribute to our spiritual well being.
This is not an easy task.
And maybe the hardest part is to find the theme. You know… maybe an idea or theme would be good for 2, maybe 3 Sermons… but what do you do with the other Sermon(s)?
The topic for today’s Sermon is “For more than 2000 years people have tried to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth… It didn’t work. Why do we think we can do it to the Palestinians?”… Talk amongst yourselves…
Years after he left the pulpit, I had a conversation with Bob Goldburg… that would be Rabbi Robert Goldburg of Temple Mishkhan Israel. And the conversation dealt with Sermons… selection of topics and themes. My point was that I felt that I rarely found the sense of trying to bind 4 addresses to each other.
Bob agreed that it was a mistake that many Rabbis made. Well, of course he would agree! In my years of attending Services at Mishkan Israel, he never sought a theme to define his addresses… rather he used his Sermons as the opportunity to speak to the Congregation on the issues of the day, regardless of how they related to one another. The issues that were important to us as men and women, issues that affected our daily lives, perhaps less spiritual than temporal… and he challenged us as a people, a people steeped in prophetic traditions, to respond to the issues of the day, to rise against the apathy.
I grew up in the time of Viet Nam and Martin Luther King… at time when social upheaval in the country was thick in the air… Rabbi Goldburg’s Sermons focused on social injustices, the plight of the Blacks and the poor in this Country, the senselessness of our policy in Viet Nam…
And in speaking to us, he drew examples not only from our Sacred Texts; but from Maimonides, Spinoza, Baruch… and also from Shakespeare, Brecht, Whitman… from the breadth of great thinkers of this age, and from great thinkers of the past.
It was said in those days that Temple Mishkhan Israel was the only Jewish house of worship to have a declared foreign policy.
Rabbi Goldburg demanded that we look around us… that we should speak out against those things that were clearly wrong… that it was our responsibility as Jews, raised in a humanitarian tradition, to act… to vote, to talk, to write.
To make a difference.
Bob Goldburg lived a life of making a difference. Whether it was being jailed with Martin Luther King in an Alabama march, turning his pulpit over to Wayne Morse, the only Senator to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that got us so deeply involved in Viet Nam… or in other small ways, like catching the ear and mind of a Jim Winston.
But we do not live by intellect alone. We are people of heart and soul… people who can laugh or cry with equal gusto.
And there are those addresses, those Sermons that can strike an inner emotional chord. That these addresses can occur when we mark the passing of a loved one is understandable (and to be expected); but that we should be so moved in the more neutral terrain of a High Holiday Sermon caught me completely off guard.
In this case the Sermon was delivered by Rabbi Daniel Syme at Temple Shalom. I no longer remember the context of the following extract. It seems logical that it would deal with the subject of aging, how we responded to it… or perhaps how we responded to the aging of our parents & older relatives…
As Rabbi Syme noted… This piece appeared when an old lady died in the geriatrics ward of Ashludie Hospital, near Dundee, Ireland… she had nothing left of value; but the nurse who was asked to go thru her possessions found a poem… “Look Closer… See Me!”
What do you see , people, what do you see?
Are you thinking when you are looking at me,
A crabbit old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with far away eyes…
Who dribbles her food and makes no reply,
When you say in a loud voice —
“I do wish you’d try.”
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or a shoe.
Who unresisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.
Is that what you are thinking,
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,
As I use at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a child of ten with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters, who love one another.
A young girl of sixteen with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon a new lover she’ll meet.
A bride soon at twenty — my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five now I have young of my own,
Who need me to build a secure, happy home.
A woman of thirty, my young now grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons have grown & are gone,
But my man’s beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty once more babies ’round my knee’,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,
I look at the future, I shutter with dread,
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years & love that I’ve known.
I’m an old woman now and nature is cruel,
‘Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where once I had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years all to few — done too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people, open and see,
Not a crabbit old woman…
Look closer… see ME!
When Daniel Syme concluded his Sermon, the Congregation remained still, silent and frozen in time. Slowly you could feel the collective response opening… the muffled sniffles, the sighs… and a few had to leave the Sanctuary to better compose themselves.
I had a catch in my throat & tears traced a quiet path down my cheek.
Bob Goldburg stirred my intellect, Daniel Syme touched my heart.
And I think that sort of sums up Sermons… of any stripe.