“I was no prophet, nor
was I the son of a prophet,” Amos says to Amatziah in chapter 7,
verse 14 of the book that bears his name. Yet prophetic messages
are being delivered to each one of us all the time. Why then do
we want to claim that the opposite is true — that God stopped
addressing humanity long ago? Actually, I don’t believe that at
a certain juncture, God suddenly stopped talking. It’s just that
we’ve stopped listening. We’re no longer attuned to the messages
that God constantly broadcasts and delivers via the feelings
that He generates from deep within our hearts, minds and
spirits.
A few weeks
ago, I received one of these dramatic messages from within. It
came as a shock to me, once it arrived. But then, as I looked
back upon it, I realized that the message actually had been
coming through for quite some time. I just hadn’t been willing
to take it seriously. As is so often the case with truth, it
revealed an uncomfortable reality, and it seemed far more
convenient to keep filing it somewhere below the threshold of
consciousness.
As you know,
lately there have been many, many deaths in our community. At
times like these, it seems as if the Synagogue is deluged with
tears and sadness. Death seems to stalk its hallways and dog our
footsteps.
It was against
this rather intense backdrop that Shaarey Zedek was fortunate
enough to host the students of the Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate
for a Shabbat morning. They ran the Shabbat service, including
all davening, teaching and Torah and Haftarah reading, superbly
well. That Shabbat was a tribute to the high level of Jewish
achievement of our Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate students. However,
for me, this beautiful experience mainly served to underline a
sad, harsh fact of Jewish life in Winnipeg at the turn of the 21st
century: that we never, ever see these kids in Synagogue.
Then, this
realization hit me like a truck on Route 90. To put it bluntly:
we are in the process of burying a generation, but without any
assurance that a new generation will rise to take its place.
Suddenly, I “saw” the demise of our community, looming large
before my eyes. Why? Because if nothing changes and current
trends remain in place who will be left to live a Jewish life in
Winnipeg 30 years from now? With the ever-widening gap between
Jews and Jewish observance, who will be the next generation to
observe Shabbat and the holidays in Winnipeg? Who will support
Jewish theatre, read Jewish books or study Torah in Winnipeg?
This sense of
impending doom gripped me so powerfully that I went into a state
of deep mourning from which I have only recently begun to
emerge. My mourning has lessened, but not because anything
changed externally. Regarding Shabbat, the L’cha Dodi
prayer tells us, Sof Ma’a-seh B’mach-sha-vah T’chilah:
the end of a physical process is born while still a thought. The
realization that we may be significantly failing our community,
in spite of our best intentions, will hopefully spur us to be
creative enough to forge a different and much more fortunate
destiny.
And forge that
destiny, we must. For if we only continue to do what we’ve
always done, we cannot expect results that will differ
significantly from those we’ve always experienced. Now, many
people may think that these results are just fine and that we
shouldn’t tamper with them.
I agree that we reap
many wonderful results here at Shaarey Zedek. And if the process
of Jewish life, learning and socialization were really meant to
cease after the age of 13; and if it were really normal and
acceptable for regular Synagogue attendance to be limited to
those age 55 and older, we could pat ourselves on the back, say
that we are doing a terrific job with the Jewish education of
our young people, and really mean it.
But Jewish survival in
this community and throughout the Diaspora demands that we sit
down together, think, decide and resolve to do much more than we
have been doing lately. The question is: are we, as a community
and as a congregation, up to meeting this critical challenge?
What might we be willing to change about ourselves and the way
we do things to create the kind of Jewish future that we truly
desire for our children and grandchildren?
I would
genuinely appreciate hearing your thoughts and feelings relating
to this difficult area of our communal life. Feel free to e-mail
me at
rabbi@shaareyzedek.mb.ca
I would also be glad to meet with people face to face. Please
don’t hesitate to slot yourself into my calendar by calling
Clare Whiteman at 452 3711 ext. 452.
With all best
wishes for a very happy, fulfilling secular New Year,
Rabbi Green
