We Are All Amateur Jews - Yom Kippur Day Sermon
I wish I could do anything, with the self-confidence and gusto that my three-year has when pretending to lead a Shabbat service. It’s an amazing sight to behold and I want you to imagine the scene. He’s standing there is dinosaur pajamas. On his shoulders he wearing he “tallis” which is really just a red elastic exercise band that we never returned to our physical therapist. He’s aggressively strumming his guitar, a toy ukulele which we never bothered to tune. He’s never been to an orthodox shul, yet he somehow knows how to shuckle. And he is belting out Cantor Meri’s greatest hits, into an microphone without batteries with painted on characters from the movie Frozen. He’s mixing up Hebrew phrases left and right, but he’s proud and he wants you to be as well.
If we are honest with ourselves, it’s been a long time since we have acted with abandon like that. Especially when it comes to Judaism, we have lost that youthful spirit, that utter delight, that innate love. How many of us can really say we heed the word of the psalmists “ivdu et adonai b’simcha,” “service God with joy?”
In my career I rarely encounter an adult with that kind of passion. It’s everywhere in the halls of Shoresh, and in our religious school. But more often than not, I hear the opposite when I sit down with grown-ups and we speak about Judaism.
Rather than enthusiastic fervor and passion, I hear self-doubt. How many of us have ever uttered the words, “I’m not a particularly good Jew” or “I’m not that religious" or “I don’t know enough?”
When I meet with members and we get onto the topic of their Jewish connection, they don’t bubble over with enthusiasm. Instead, most grow a little sheepish, and begin telling me what’s wrong with their Jewish practice. They focus on what’s missing rather than what’s right.
They confess that they get lost in services. They don’t know Hebrew. They forgot how to chant Torah. They are afraid to host a Passover seder. They don’t keep Kosher and wouldn’t know how to start. They can’t articulate their feelings on Israel. They don’t have the language to describe what they believe about God.
What they are expressing is a familiar feeling, and something I’ve felt and continue to feel. Despite the fact that I’m a Rabbi, despite the fact that Judaism is my profession, I’ve never felt like a fully adequate Jew.
As a kid I felt like had my synagogue practices down. I graduated High School able to navigate every aspect of Jewish life at Temple Habonim in Barrington, RI. I led services at my camp and youth group. I was one of the most knowledgeable Jews in my small New England town. Then I got to college, and I sat through a conservative service and was absolutely humbled. There was a whole world of Jewish knowledge I had never encountered. I may have mastered the Judaism of my upbringing, but I was far from a master at all facets of my tradition.
And the more I’ve learned, the more I feel that way. A fourth grader in Crown Heights will have studied more Rashi than I ever will. I’m an adjunt professor in Talmud at Hebrew Union College and I’m not nearly as good at navigating the Aramaic as a seventh grader in B’nei Brak. And even with all my learning, I will encounter texts and ideas that I can’t make heads or tails of. One of the most famous sections in the Zohar, the classic work of Kabbalah, includes a lengthy analysis of the mystical significance of God’s chin hairs. I spent two months on that tract and I can’t tell you much more than that.
Judaism and Jewish knowledge is vast. You won’t conquer it all. And I’ve struggled in my career to accept that. I was once at a wedding and was asked by the maid of honor a question about the upcoming ceremony. It was a relatively straightforward, basic question, but somehow, I had never learned it. I tried to guess, but gave her the wrong answer. Standing there was Ayelet, my wife and then girlfriend, who quickly corrected me. She had grown up Orthodox and knew the answer. I got defensive. I couldn’t deal. Wasn’t I supposed to know how to respond to these questions? Isn’t that what they hired me for?
I’m now better at letting myself be stumped. And I realize now that it’s OK to show yourself to be vulnerable enough to say “I don’t know.” There is a purpose to Jewish living, and it’s not finding and knowing all the answers. I can be a good Jew, without being an expert.
This summer, I came across a teaching in a lecture on Christain philosophy of all place, that helped me contextualize the struggle that many of us face when we consider who we are as Jews. The lecturer, Charles Mathewes, who teaches at UVA, reminded us that the root of the word amatuer, is amator, or love in Latin.
We often use the word amateur in a derogatory way. Most of us, for example, would be offended if you called our High Holy Day services amateur hour. When we hear the term, we think of someone who is inept, someone who bumbles around. No one seeks to be an amateur. Our dreams, whether is sport, in music, in theatre, is to go pro, to make it, to reach the highest pinnacle of success, to leave those amateurs in the dust.
But that’s not what it means to be an amateur. To be amateur is to start from a place of love, of passion, of fervor. Not for money, not for prestige, not even to be the best. Simply because it gives us joy.
Think about times when you would label yourself an amateur.
I am an amateur runner. I’m not bad but will usually finish in the middle of the pack. But when I get into a rhythm on a training run, usually on a cool fall afternoon, I have felt in partnership with the road. I turn on trashy pop music, dancing a little as I go, and I lose myself. Miles melt away and I’m sad when I'm done. During those times I rarely pay attention to my watch.
I’m an amateur philosopher and lover of the classics of literature. If you’ve spent much time with me, I’ve likely mentioned to you that I’m doing a deep dive into learning the literary, philosophic, and historical classics I missed in school. However, what I don’t lead on, is that I don’t understand much of what I read. I’ll always try in the original, but I almost always couple my studies with podcasts, CliffsNotes, or some book with the words “for dummies” or “made easy” in the title. But that doesn’t matter. Because when I do understand something, I feel enlightened and emboldened. Certain ideas are so cogent, so provocative, so inviting, that I can’t wait to share them with the next person who will listen. Usually that means subjecting you to them in a sermon.
And despite the fact that I get paid to be your leader, I’m an amateur Jew. We all are. If we do things right we will learn to embrace that fact, engaging in Jewish living not out of obligation, not out of guilt, but simply because we love it.
For years, I ran a pick-up basketball league in Park Slope. I’m a horrible basketball player. I second guess myself. Even when I'm open I’ll pass the ball rather than take the shot. I have no sense of ball movement. All I can really do is dribble, which means I'm pretty good at finding a lane for a lay-up only to flub it at the end and miss the easy point. But that didn’t stop me. I came week after week, because it was fun. Because I loved it.
How many of us can say the same about Judaism?
Somehow, we think that we are supposed to get this thorny, complicated, knotty religion right, as if there is a test at the end of the year, as if anyone is watching. Even God doesn’t care how good you are at Judaism. According to our tradition God isn’t looking for perfection. As Midrash Vayikra Rabbah reads:
“Human beings are ashamed to use imperfect vessels. Not so with the Holy Blessed One. We are all broken, and we are all God’s vessels.”
I’ve watched too many people lose interest in prayer because they can’t master it. As if knowing all the words somehow makes prayer more worth it.
I’ve seen too many congregants lose faith in a God they cannot describe rather than turn to that vague notion of God when they need spiritual connection.
Our fears of messing up a shiva have kept us from fully mourning, our embarrassment about not knowing how a B’nei mitzvah works has kept us from being wholly present while watching our child embrace their rite of passage, our discomfort with all the things we don’t know about Shabbat have kept us from performing those that we do.
And I promise you that this feeling is not just you. And it’s not just twenty-first century Reform Judaism. That guilt you feel, that worry, that shame, it’s felt in its own way on the streets of Crown Heights and in the study houses of Monsey. Faced with such a vast tradition, we all feel inadequate.
Interestingly, there has only been one time in Jewish history where a group of people were able to shed these feelings and it was short lived. In the 18th century, Polish Jewry found a unique voice in Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, the father of Hasidic Judaism. The Ba’al Shem Tov grew up at a time where too much value was placed on intellectual achievement. To be a good Jew, one had to know the intricacies of the law by heart. They had to be experts at navigating the Talmud and its many commentaries. Judaism was elitist. Only those who went to the best schools could be the best Jews.
The Ba’al Shem Tov changed that. Judaism would transform from a religion of the head to one of the heart. No longer was it a tradition of scholars but of simple people, of amateurs, whose love for God could be found in the singing of simple wordless melodies call niggunim. In the Ba’al Shem Tov’s stories, the heroes were not the sages, they were not the experts. The highest prayer, as one folk story goes can be a simple shepherd who shows up to services, not knowing the words to the prayers, but who plays his flute with such passion and intention that it brings the rabbi to tears and breaks open the gates of heaven.
Sadly, the Hasidic world we know today is not the same as the Ba’al Shem Tov’s. The pendulum swung back many years ago, and it is once again a tradition of knowledge and of striving for mastery, for perfection. But for a brief instant, Judaism had embraced the amateurs.
And now the time is ripe for us amateurs to step back into the center.
Ask yourself, what do you love about Judaism?
Not what you should do more of, not what makes you feel guilty or bad, but what inspires you, what brings you joy, what fills you up? It may be something surprising.
Maybe it’s that Judaism is a vehicle for being with family?
Maybe it’s that Judaism provides a conduit to community?
Maybe it’s the deep intellectual engagement and questions that Judaism foster?
Maybe it’s that the holidays punctuate time and add a rhythm to your life?
A professional Jew doesn’t have room to specialize. They have to be good at everything. But an amateur, someone who participates simply out of love, they can carve out a Jewish practice that fosters joy, even if it means not excelling everywhere.
Find that thing about Judaism that brings you in, free of baggage, open to possibility. Then make this year about doing it. And lose yourself in it. Don’t look over your shoulder wondering who is doing it better. Own it and savor it.
It might mean you sing the prayers full throated, even if it means you get some words wrong.
It might mean you host a Passover seder and show a couple of YouTube videos in leu of prayers you might not have time to learn
It might mean you finish a Torah study having learned one new thing, gained one new perspective, without the expectation to have remembered everything.
Getting everything right doesn’t matter. What does is how you feel about doing it.
There really is nothing like watching a three-year-old play. Their enthusiasm, their imagination, their abandon, their intensity are all something I seek. But just because we are grown up doesn’t mean we need to lose it.
Let this be the year that you let go. Make Judaism your playground. Make mistakes and learn from them. If we are truly amateurs the stakes are pretty low. It leaves room for us to try things and fail, provided we act with love.
