Energizing the Jewish Power Grid

On the night the lights went out, one tearful eyed Cleveland woman was heard to say, “I don’t mind not being able to use my microwave, but do you have any idea what it’s like to manage without a hair dryer?” The woman’s plaintive cry is recorded in the ruminations of humorist Melvin Durai on the anxiety we all felt during this summer’s blackout.

The blackout, he writes, was particularly agonizing for many female office workers, who were forced to trek several miles in high-heeled shoes. Their cries could be heard as far away as mainland China. “My feet are killing me,” one woman complained. “I almost considered going barefoot. But you never know whom you might run into.” “I know what you mean,” added her friend, also wearing heels. “A guy on the street tried to sell me a pair of sneakers. But just my luck, they were the wrong brand. What a horrible day!”

One New Jersey man described his desperate struggle to exercise. “I like to jog every morning,” he said. “But without electricity, I can’t use my treadmill.” I don’t know what to do. I asked my neighbors, but none of them owns a generator.

Many were upset cell phones stopped working. One New York executive griped, “I can’t call anyone. What am I supposed to do while I drive?”

Finally, while many complained about their suffering, an Ohio man helped put the blackout in perspective. “My grandfather lived through the Great Depression,” he said. “But even he had electricity. Lucky bum.”

The truth is, of course, that the blackout this summer was little more than an inconvenience and a lively topic of conversation. We all managed to last just fine for the 16 hours or so without power and water. It was a good reminder that we can get by with less than we think.

The lesson of the Blackout of 2003 was not found in the inconveniences themselves. Rather, it was found in the realization that we are all connected to each other. It did not matter whether you lived in Cleveland or Detroit, Toronto or New York City, for those 16 hours we all had something in common. In fact, the real lesson we learned was that we had something in common before the Blackout. Though few of us knew it, and even those who did seldom stopped to give it a second thought – 50 million people scattered over 4 states and one province were linked together by a massive power grid that connected our lives to each other. This is more than just a symbolic connection. Every time you flick a light switch or turn on a TV you are drawing electricity from Pennsylvania or Ontario. Every time someone in Indiana or New York blows their hair dry, you and I are sending them the power to do it.

You see, this is how the Mid-West Power Grid works: Generators in the cities surrounding the Great Lakes and stretching down to Manhattan all send electricity into the grid, where it circulates through the system until it is needed. When demand for electricity rises in a given area, the electricity surges in that direction filling the moment’s need. In this way each community contributes its share to the whole so that when they have a greater need there will be a supply of electricity available to them.

An amazing system. The Midwest power grid is a modern day technological example of a basic life truth: We are strongest when we are bound together. This truth was expressed three thousand years ago by King Solomon in the book of Kohelet – Ecclesiastes – when he wrote: “Ha-chut ha-meshulash lo vimheyrah yinatek –a three fold cord is not quickly broken.” The same idea finds expression in our Rosh Hashanah liturgy which we chant today. There, in the Amidah, we petition God: “Ve-yei-asu chulam agudah echat – May God bind us together and unite us as one.” The Hebrew phrase agudah means a “bundle.” Picking up on this, one commentary suggests individual reeds can be easily broken, but a bundle of reeds together is much stronger.

Being a Californian, one of my favorite places on earth is Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These Sequoia trees are mammoth. The amazing thing about these Sequoias is that, as big as they are, their shallow roots spread out just barely below the surface of the earth. Most trees depend upon deep roots to anchor them and protect them against blowing over in strong winds. Not so with sequoia trees. Instead, they grow only in groves and their roots intertwine under the surface of the earth. When the strong winds come, they hold each other up.

You and I – we are just like those Sequoia trees. The great modern Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig wrote that “None of us has solid ground under his feet; each of us is only held up by the neighborly hands holding him by the scruff, with the result that we are each held up by the next [person], and often, indeed most of the time, hold each other up mutually.”

Indeed, our need for each other was recently documented in a scientific study carried out by the Commission on Children at Risk. The study found evidence that the mechanisms by which we become and stay attached to others have a biological basis that is increasingly discernible in the basic structure of the brain. It also found that nurturing environments, or the lack of them, influence the development of brain circuitry which in turn helps shape our personality and behavior.

We need each other. But in the last half century those roots that have been “mutually holding us up” have been eroding away. In his book Bowling Alone, sociologist Robert Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another. In a nutshell, Putnam argues that our society is breaking down as Americans become more disconnected from their families, neighbors, communities, and government.

In response to this reality, Putnam and Harvard University have created Better Together, an organization devoted to teaching people the significance of interdependence and to reweaving the social fabric that once tied us together. In Bowling Alone, Putnam predicted that it might take a major national crisis to bring us all back together. Last year in an interview Putnam suggested that September 11 may have been that crisis. After September 11 this country pulled together as never before. We are, he says, rediscovering the meaning of interdependence.

If Robert Putnam were Jewish, his book might have been called Davening Alone, or Being Jewish Alone. The Jewish community has been suffering from that same disintegration of communitarianism that plagues the general population. Over the past decades there has been a gradual move away from community and toward more individualistic expressions of our Jewish selves. Jews ask themselves, “Why should I belong to a synagogue when I can explore Jewish topics online, or attend any number of community events without belonging. And if I belong, why should I get involved? What do I get back on my investment? What is in it for me?”

There is so very much to be gained from involvement in synagogue life. But to ask what will I gain is to ask the wrong question. The right questions are what can I give, and how does my synagogue family gain? To belong to a synagogue is to ensure that there is a spiritual home, a center of Torah, a foundation for Jewish life, a safe harbor in times of trouble, a place to seek guidance and support for all those in need whenever they need it. And if the synagogue is there for others when they need it most, then it will also be there for you when you need it most. You see, there is no greater symbol of our Jewish interdependence than the synagogue, the great power grid of Jewish life.

We are blessed with a wonderful, vibrant synagogue. Within these walls are a myriad of opportunities for our children to learn and grow, to develop strong Jewish identities grounded in the values of Torah and Jewish peoplehood. Ours is a congregation that is really like family, where there is a real reaching out between members; a congregation with a steadfast commitment to Israel and to Social Action; a congregation that shares your values and seeks to pass them on to the next generation.

This past year our synagogue embarked on a process which culminated in the creation of an ambitious strategic plan designed to lead B’nai Jeshurun into the 21st century. That plan calls for us to work together as one family to ensure the flourishing of Jewish life through educational, social and Conservative Jewish religious experiences in a warm and dynamic community. The plan sets forth several keys areas to be addressed in order to ensure the future of our shul. They include enhanced education and service to young people; keeping and attracting members through enhanced communications, strengthening leadership and staffing and fiscal soundness. But the number one key area to be addressed in this plan is broader and deeper congregational involvement.

Broader and deeper congregational involvement: I say this area is the most important because, in the end, we cannot achieve all of this without your help. That help comes in three forms. The first of these is financial support. Synagogues across the country have learned that dues alone cannot underwrite the level of programming and services that keeps our Jewish community strong. Our future – the future of B’nai Jeshurun and our collective Jewish future – depends upon each of you. That is why the synagogue has launched the Machar campaign, the campaign for Tomorrow, because we need your help to help this synagogue sustain the level of excellence that ensures our future.

The second way in which you can help strengthen B’nai Jeshurun is through voluntarism: through the giving of your time, talents, and expertise. Many in the synagogue do not realize how much here depends daily on individuals who walk through the door to give of themselves. There are hundreds of volunteers who help make the magic of B’nai Jeshurun happen, but the truth is we need hundreds more.

The third way you can help B’nai Jeshurun grow strong is by strengthening your own Jewish neshamah. Choose a new area in which to grow Jewishly. Immerse yourself in Jewish learning, become a regular at minyan, become an enthusiastic member of our affiliates, serve on a committee or volunteer your time. Become an active member of your synagogue family.

You and I, we share the responsibility for ensuring the vitality of Jewish life. No one can do it for us. Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of South Africa, wrote that the whole lesson of Jewish responsibility can be summed up in three words found in the Passover Haggadah: Ani v’lo ha-shaliach. I and not a messenger, says God. It is I who redeemed you from Egypt. It is I who sent you Moses, I who brought about the plagues, I who hardened Pharaohs heart so that he would be judged, I who took you out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. I did all this. I did not send a messenger. I did it myself, says God, because when something is really important to you, you don’t leave it to others. Ani v’lo ha-shaliach – I and not a messenger.

The lesson in these three words is the importance of personal and not vicarious participation. Rabbi Rabinowitz goes on to say: “It has been said that the most serious problem [facing the Jewish people] today lies in vicarious [Jews] – the all too large number of those who are content with passive membership in the community and its organizations. These vicarious Jews leave to others the actual conduct of the religious and communal life. But no religious life can flourish by delegation. The Jew has never believed in vicariousness in matters of faith. In opposition to the principle of vicariousness he has fought and suffered, and it is certain that there will be a real rebirth of spiritual power and glory for the Jew only when we have returned on a large scale to the principle of personal participation in all that the synagogue and the congregation stand for.”

The 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Study shows that we are now experiencing that real rebirth that Rabbi Rabinowitz only dreamed about. The rebirth of Jewish life is here – and it is coming about because of people like you who have stood up and said Judaism is central to my life. People like you who have chosen to make time in your life to engage in Jewish learning and in ritual practice, who choose coming to shul over the theater or sports, who place a premium on prayer, study an d community; who volunteer their time to work on projects, whether it be stuffing a mailing, running a program or serving on a committee, people like you who have given of their own resources to ensure the synagogue has the wherewithal to succeed in its mission.

Think of all the times that you have relied upon this synagogue to be there for you; the times you know it has been there for others. This synagogue is like a giant power grid energizing Jewish life and nurturing Jewish souls. But in the end the success of the synagogue depends upon you. That power is generated by you. You see, in the end, the synagogue – just like that power grid – has no power of its own, only the power generated by those connected to it. We collectively must generate that power.

In a mountain village in Europe many years ago, there was a nobleman who was concerned about the legacy he would leave to the people of his town. The man spent a great deal of time contemplating his dilemma, and at last, decided to build a synagogue.

In the course of his planning, he decided no one would see the plans for the building until it was finished. The construction took a long time – much longer than he’d anticipated. But at long last, the project was completed. The townspeople were excited and curious about what they would find upon entering their new synagogue. When the people came for the first time they marveled at the synagogue’s magnificence. No one could ever remember so beautiful a synagogue anywhere in the world.

Then, noticing a seemingly obvious flaw in the design, one of the townspeople asked, “Where are the lamps? The windows will provide light in the day, but what about at night? What will provide the lighting?”

The proud nobleman pointed to brackets which were strategically placed all along the walls throughout the synagogue. He then gave each family a lamp as he explained, “When  you come to the synagogue on the eve of a Shabbat or holiday, I want you to bring your lamp, and light it. But, each time you are not here,” he said, “a part of the synagogue will be dark. This lamp will remind you that whenever you are absent, some part of God’s house will be dark. Your community is relying on you for light.”

I say to you today that your community – your synagogue – is relying upon you for light: the light of Torah, the light of God’s presence, the light of comfort and strength and guidance in time of need, the light of Jewish renewal that serves as a beacon guiding us to our Jewish future, guiding us to Machar, to our tomorrow. As we begin this New Year, I ask you to join me, and do your part to keep the light burning, to keep our Jewish power grid strong.