Well after our session which had men and women fully participating, I attended a session by Rabbi Cardoza who has become a household name at Limmud. His talk “Should I take my Kippah off?” was fascinating and expressed in words the very experience we had been trying to facilitate in our session. Explained Rabbi Cardoza there is a basic paradox to religious observance. If I observe the Halacha then it easily becomes habit and I lose the excitement of living in God’s presence. So perhaps I should remove my Kippah, so that I can put it back on again at significant moments in order that it regains its religious meaning once again! On the other hand if I do take off my Kippa there is the inherent risk I will not put it back on again. This question can be applied to every aspect of observance but none more so than prayer in our synagogues. For those of us that know the prayers and can rattle through them; do they move or transform us from our mundane consciousness? Can you imagine Kol Nidrei every night of the year? Of course not. It would lose its uniqueness, its special quality. Familiarity breeds … ! So maybe we should stop praying - in order that when we do return to prayer we can feel the uneasiness of living in the presence of the divine, of feeling the enigma of life once more. Perhaps we could even experiment today by going straight to Kiddush after the sermon… and postpone Mussaf until next week! But I have my suspicions that the reaction would be “rabbi you can’t do that it is against Halacha or against tradition. We have to daven Mussaf”.

 

But is such thinking outside of our tradition? Let me explain. Well the night I came home from Limmud I was studying Mishnayot Brachot with Tzvi and I stumbled across a fascinating debate. In chapter 4 Mishnah 3of Brachot, there is a three way dispute over ones obligation to recite the “Shmonah Esrei” every day. According to Rabban Gamliel (the first president of the Sanhedrin after the destruction of the second Temple) one is obligated to recite the Amidah each day. Rabbi Yehoshuah held that one is only obligated to recite a concatenated version of the Amidah. Rabbi Akiva took a compromise position and held that one is obligated to recite the Amidah each day but in an emergency (e.g. lack of time) one recites that concatenated version. Then in Mishnah 4, there is a fascinating statement by Rabbi Eliezer : “Haoseh Tefilato Keva ein Teffilato Tachanunim” It translates something like this    “A person who makes his teffilah “a fixed obligation” his Teffilah is not a form of supplication”.  If I only prayer because I am obligated and in order to “relieve” my obligation then my prayer lacks authenticity.

But some commentators explain that Rabbi Eliezer is not just making a statement about the spiritual quality of prayer that is mechanical and not directed to heaven. He is in fact adding a 4th voice to a debate that raged in the previous Mishnah regarding the obligation to pray Shemonah Esrei each day.

 

Rabbi Eliezer argued that one should not pray the Shemonah Esrei every day in order that one’s prayers should not become habitual and thus be rendered meaningless. In Rabbi Eliezer’s view prayer that lacks an awareness that I am in the presence of God is NOT prayer at all. So like Rabbi Cardoza’s dilemma Rabbi Eliezer would say “don’t pray today so that when you do pray tomorrow it is really prayer!” Now of course we must understand that in practice Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion was rejected in favour of Rabbi Akiva’s view of a daily obligation. But nevertheless the underpinning philosophy of Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion remains a part of the oral tradition.

I would like to speculate that the Halacha was decided like Rabbi Akivah because of the other side of our dilemma – that if we stop praying because we feel inauthentic then who knows if we will ever pray again. Rabbi Eliezer’s concern for authenticity must be weighed against other important values such as the standardisation of Halachic practice that creates a community and sense of belonging. As I mentioned last week we sometimes need to act “as if” so that one day we will practice and live Halacha as a response to living in the presence of the Divine.

 

If we want the united synagogue to survive in the next 20 years then we must move away from the old view that we are some sort of middle ground that looks over our shoulders for legitimacy and instead we must articulate our own vibrant modern orthodox vision of Judaism that stands on its own two feet. We need to have the courage of our convictions like Joseph who lived his days in Egypt and did not isolate himself in the enclave of Goshen as his brothers did. We need to recapture the grand vision of what Judaism is really about, a message for the world and not just ourselves. With the internet today we have the technology and the means to send the right messages to the world (unlike the messages we saw broadcast this week) in a way no other Jewish generation of the past could have imagined. 

Never mind where the brothers of Joseph lived and their world view. Vayechi opens up with the statement “and Jacob lived within the LAND of Egypt”. Comments Rabbi Meir Simcha Cohen known as the Meshah Chochma “that is; Yaacov lived not only for himself, not only for the land of Goshen- Yaacov lived for the entire nation of Egypt. “

 

But to be able to achieve this we need to bring Jewish living to life so that it excites us more than the materialistic culture around us. Limmud has been doing this brilliantly for the past 20 years. It is time we started taking notice and incorporating some of its ideas into traditional synagogue/communal life. As Rabbi of Pinner I am privileged to be on this spiritual journey together with you.  I want to create a dynamic conversation about our future. As with all Jewish conversations they turn into vehement debate but that is the richness of our Jewish tradition as expressed in the Talmud – “arguments  for the sake of heaven”.

 

Shabbat Shalom