Sermon: Building Together- Ci Tisa 2008

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 25 February 2008

If you click on the top right hand corner of the front page of the new Synagogue website where it says “Alyth at 75” then click again it will open up a page which tells you about what is planned for our Shul’s 75th anniversary. It also shows you photographs taken by David Baker of the houses where North Western Reform Synagogue’s founding meetings and services were held in 1933.

At the foot of the page is a charcoal drawn picture of the proposed “Building to be erected in a garden setting, which is our original 1936 Synagogue”.  Then below that picture is another taken by camera from exactly the same vantage point a week ago.   Spot the difference?  Not a car to be seen in the 1936 picture, luxuriant trees rather than over pollarded stumps, and the building of course not quite the same – partly due to the rebuilding that we did in 2004 but also for one very major difference.

In the 1936 picture the people are just walking in and out of the Synagogue – no gates, no barriers.  In 2008 Alyth is enclosed with electronically openable gates with CCTV and a security system.  Circumstances change.  At the moment we are glad that these gates are there as in these weeks there is a security priority for all Diaspora communities due to recent Hezollah threats similar in tone to those which led up to the bombing of the Amia building in Beunos Aires, 13 years ago.  It means that it you are on the security rota this is not a time to fail to turn up, it is a time to stand up and do your duty by the whole community so that we are seen to have a strong security presence.

Security is not the only thing which has changed since 1936.  The way in which we use our Synagogue has also changed and developed.  Those who have been part of this community for many decades know that we don’t stand still – we hold onto our traditions with one hand but at the same time reach our with the other hand and move forwards in order that our Judaism is true to the world in which we live.   Where you are in our Bet Tefillah, our House of Prayer, might appear to be the least changed part of this building.  But where we sit has changed over the past seventy five years.  First the ark was on the north wall of this room – only in 1948, under Rabbi Van Der Zyl’s leadership was it moved to the East wall.  In 1959 the Ark and Bimah were moved backwards to their current position as the building grew to meet the needs of the community.

In 2004 Alyth came together as a community to build a new Alyth in our Tekiah project.  At that time, I am told, the building works did not extend in any major way to this Bet Tefillah.   Now four years on it is time to think together what we want to build here.  Everyone who would like to hear some of the ideas which a small group has been developing, share their ideas and express their preferences for how this Bet Tefillah should develop for the future is invited to come here to Alyth for a meeting to discuss proposals for alterations to the Ark, Bimah and Bet Tefillah of Alyth.  It takes place on March 19th at 8.00pm with full details in the March edition of “Around Alyth.”

Why do we build?  Why don’t we just leave things the same?  That is a question addressed in the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations, Sir Jonathan Sacks latest thought provoking book “The Home we Build Together”.  Before I share with you how Rabbi Sacks has answered that question I want  to share an insight which he brought to a meeting which I attended at the launch of his book.

He asked how long in Torah does it take for God to create the entire universe?  The answer: 34 verses – just Genesis Chapter 1 and three verses of Chapter 2 in Parashat Bereshit. Okay – so how long does is take for the Jews to plan and build the Mishcan, the desert tabernacle, which you could say was the first shul building project – after all its not much larger than the size of the site which Alyth occupies?  The answer:  600 verses – the whole of the Torah portions Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ci Tissa, Vayakhel and Pekudei.

Why does it in Torah terms take twenty times as long for a group of people to build a Tent than it does for God to create the entire universe?  Shul politics?  Or is it that whilst it not so difficult for the Divine Creator to make a home fit for humanity, it is extremely difficult for humanity to make a home fit for God.

Or is it something else: that while we are building we stay out of trouble – we are literally constructively engaged as a society?

Rabbi Sacks’s book spins upon three modern mashals or parables to talk about how societies work (pp13-15):

“In the first, a hundred strangers have been wandering around the countryside in search of a place to stay. Eventually they arrive at the gate of a large country house. The owner comes to the gate, sees the strangers and asks them who they are. They tell him their story. He gives them a warm smile. ‘How good to see you,’ he says. ‘As you can see, I have an enormous home. Far too big for me, actually. There are hundreds of empty rooms. Please feel free to stay here as long as you like. I look forward to your company. From now on con¬sider yourself my guests.’

A lovely story. But not entirely so for the strangers in the long run. They have a place to live, and yes, their host is exactly as he seemed at first, welcoming, hospitable, capable of apparently endless generosity. There is only one thing wrong as far as they are concerned. However generous their host, he remains the host, and they are guests. It is his home, not theirs. The place belongs to someone else. That is society as country house.

The second: A hundred strangers in search of a home find them¬selves in the middle of a big city. There they find a hotel. It is large, comfortable, and has every amenity. The visitors have money enough to pay the hotel bills. They book their rooms, unpack, and stay.  The rules are simple. They are free to do what they like, so long as they don’t disturb the other guests. Their relationship with the hotel is purely contractual. They pay money in return for certain services. They may look at other hotels to see whether they charge less or offer more amenities, but by and large they are satisfied where they are. The hotel offers the newcomers a freedom and equality they did not have on the first model. They are guests, but so is everyone else. There is only one problem. A hotel is where you stay, not where you belong. You feel no loyalty to a hotel. You don’t put down roots there. It doesn’t become part of your identity. A hotel is a gathering of strangers who have no reason to become anything other than strangers. Yes, after a while you recognize your fellow guests. You bid them good morning. You discuss the weather and the football. But it remains a place where everyone is, in the biblical phrase, ‘a stranger and sojourner’. That is society as hotel.

The third: A hundred strangers arrive at a town. There they are met by the mayor, councillors and local residents. The mayor says: ‘Friends, we welcome you. It is good to have you among us. Sadly, as you can see, there is no country house where we might accommodate you. Nor do we have a hotel. There is, though, something we can offer you. ‘We have a patch of empty land: large enough to accommodate homes for all of you. We have bricks and building materials. We have experts here who can help you design your homes, and we will help you build them. Meanwhile we will offer you hospitality while the homes are being built. Let us do this together.’ So it happens. Unlike the country house, the newcomers have to build their own long-term accommodation. Unlike the hotel, they do not merely pay. They invest their energies in what they build. Their relationship with the place is not purely contractual. They helped build it; it is their achievement; it is of their making. That means they can never be entirely detached from it. What we build embodies something of us.

At the same time, the people of the town have made it clear that the houses they build must be, in some broad sense, congruent with the architectural character of the town as it is. So the homes they build are recognizably of the place where they are, not the place they have come from. Not only have they made a home; they have made them¬selves at home, in this landscape, this setting, this place. This is a more demanding model than the previous two. But it also yields more. The newcomers feel – as they did not on the country¬ house model – that they have earned their place in this, their new home. They have a self-respect that was not available to them as guests. And unlike the hotel model, they have a real relationship with the people of the town. They have worked together on the plans. They have laboured together in the act of building. They have the sense of being part of a team that comes when any group, friends or strangers, work together for an extended period on a constructive project. In fact, when the houses are finished, the new arrivals and the people of the town celebrate together. That too is a symbolic act, a ceremony of bonding, a ritual of belonging.

By working together, the locals and the newcomers have meshed as part of what is now an enlarged community. The erstwhile strangers have achieved something their counterparts in the other two narratives did not. They have given as well as received. They have created some¬thing for themselves. We are what we build. The best way of feeling at home is to be able to point to some feature of the landscape and say to your child or grandchild: ‘I helped build that.’ They have added something to the town, and the townspeople know it.

The newcomers still occasionally seem strange. They speak and act and dress differently from the locals. But those long sessions of working together have had their effect. The locals know the newcomers are serious, committed, dedicated. They have their own ways; but they have also learned the ways of the people of the town, and they have worked out a modus vivendi, a rough and ready friendship. The two groups respect one another with that unspoken regard that comes when you work with others on a shared project to which each brings his or her own special gifts. Making something together breaks down walls of suspicion and misunderstanding, even though that is not the aim of the project at all. That is society as the home we build together.”

In Jonathan Sacks’s book he looks at how the changing society of Britain and other Western democracies has followed the country house model, in the early to mid 20th centuries all immigrants were asked effectively to assimilate – to become ‘Englishmen of the Mosaic persuasion.’ Then in the later twentieth century and still now Britain has followed the hotel model-– multicultural where every choice is valid and equal – attractive perhaps but now turning our society towards tribalism and fragmentation – hence the need for security here at Alyth. He writes the 21st Century has got to become a century of these multi ethnic societies learning to build their home together if they are not to become societies of ethnic and religious segregation and separateness, spilling over into inter-ethnic violence.

For us reading the portion of the Golden Calf and the Haftarah portion in which with the Temple built, King Jeroboam offers the Israelite people a Golden Calf again, we can see why God brought our spiritual ancestors to dedicate their energies to building the Mischan.  Building together was the task that created a people with a shared heritage – even with the Ten Commandments given they still worshipped the Golden Calf – but with the Mishcan built they crossed the wilderness together.

And that is why as our Alyth community as it heads towards its century needs to continue to build together, physically as well as communally.  It is the most proven and effective way to integrate newcomers to Alyth with those who have been in this shul for three quarters of a century, to unite the generations and people with differing inclinations towards meaningful Jewish worship.  Let us build together with our Eternal God a Bet Tefillah where God can continue to dwell amongst us and, in the words above our ark where we can “worship the Eternal God with simcha – joy.”