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by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar
While we live in a world in which there is a never-ending stream of news — stories from around the globe that could consume our attention — a stream that can numb us to what is taking place around us, it is important that we not allow ourselves to feel that sense of numbness; that we call out developments that should not become normal. Hasidic rabbis, for example, make the observation that we eat bitter herbs on Passover because feeling bitterness (or whatever feeling may be relevant) is actually a sign of redemption, the first glimmer of freedom. Indeed, the worst slavery is when we grow so accustomed to it that we accommodate ourselves to it.
On the one hand, we have become numb to such incidents. On the other hand, we shouldn’t. In addition to the individual life threatened, a climate in which political violence is countenanced contributes to a society in which democratic norms are eradicated, freedoms are constrained, and scapegoats are sought.
The power of the ballot box has long been the sacred way citizens of this country negotiate our differences. I pray for a day where the will of the people is peacefully stewarded through the electoral process, when the institutions of this country empower the will of the people — through equitably drawn congressional districts, a Congress that proportionally represents the population, and an Electoral College that reflects the national will. Political violence is never the answer.
A related seismic shift this week was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that took a further step in undermining the central premise of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed as a cornerstone achievement of the Civil Rights movement. The central premise of this act was that the history of racial discrimination in this country, through Black voter disenfranchisement in particular, required affirmative steps to ensure Black people are fairly represented in Congress. In striking down a district drawn to ensure such representation, the majority of the Supreme Court has effectively declared that such affirmative repair is no longer necessary.
No one knows better than Jews how stubborn centuries-old ethnic animus can be. Jews today still face a culture in which antisemitism — often unconscious in the psyches of those wielding it — is widespread. We know that, despite the fact that some are unwilling to admit it, antisemitic prejudice is a part of the fabric of Western civilization and can’t be wished away with denials; it takes far more conscientiousness to eradicate it.
So, too, for anti-Black prejudice in the United States. The notion that the key features of the Voting Rights Act are no longer needed, a mere 60 years after its passage, which had been in response to centuries of anti-Black racism, is as farfetched as the notion that antisemitism is a distant memory.
We pray for a day when these prejudices are a distant memory. Unfortunately, today is not yet that day.
What follows is the D’var Torah I delivered this past Friday night at our Shabbat Honoring New Members.
We have three remaining Friday night services this season. (Our Saturday morning services will continue throughout the summer.) We hope you’ll join us!
At our Open House Shabbat every year, which is one of the entry points into this community for our New Members whom we are honoring tonight, we talk about the sacred act of hakhnasat orhim, welcoming guests. The Jewish act of making sure fellow human beings feel welcome in the spaces where we feel some ownership is so sacred and important, that there is even a midrash where Abraham asks God to wait so that Abraham can run to greet a few wanderers in the wilderness! Abraham is communicating with God, but he sees the wanderers and asks if God will wait to continue the conversation until after he returns from tending to these guests in his midst.
=We talk about the story of the rabbi who has a guest over for Shabbat dinner, a guest who proceeds to accidentally spill a glass of wine all over the rabbi’s beautiful white Shabbat tablecloth, a rabbi whose response is not to wring his hands worrying about his tablecloth, but rather to “accidentally” knock over his own wine glass, and to muse that there must be something wrong with the table in order to ease the mind of his poor, worried guest.
We talk about how it’s our responsibility as members of Society Hill Synagogue, to notice when someone is seeming a little lost, lingering on the periphery, maybe looking around the Social Hall for an open seat, to turn to them with a smile and say “pull up a chair.” We have all found ourselves on the periphery before, so we have the obligation to connect with that part of ourselves that has been there before and, through it, to connect to those in our midst in need of an open arm and a warm welcome, and to fulfill a mitzvah. That’s the Torah of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming guests in our midst.
On one level, this Torah still applies to tonight — certainly new members are still finding their bearings; it can take years before someone feels right at home in community, so that mitzvah of hakhnasat orhim, of welcoming those who are new, remains incumbent on all of us during this Shabbat and every Shabbat at Society Hill Synagogue. We need to feel conscientious about who might be lingering on the periphery, in need of a welcoming spirit or a welcoming act.
And on another level, the word “orhim” means “guests,” and the thing about New Member Shabbat, is that, while it might take each of us some time to find our way into community — I can certainly relate to that experience — this is a Shabbat honoring new members. You’re not guests anymore. You’re members. You’ve taken the step to say, “this is my community, too.” And we are so grateful for that. Jewish community is reliant upon each of us saying, “I want to be a part of community, too.”
I received an email the other day from a relatively new member who was invited to take on a new leadership role in the community, and they said they had some initial trepidation about it, but, they wrote, “it really does seem like we at Society Hill Synagogue are doing something healthy and special that must be protected, stewarded and — thoughtfully — expanded, and that I must participate in this effort.”
I 
told them that I had a favorite word in their response, and that word was “We.”
Only a few years into this person’s experience here, and they wrote “we at Society Hill Synagogue.” They saw a sense in which Jewish community is not like a vending machine, where you’re purchasing a particular service; it’s about an invitation which says, my presence matters: whether that’s once a year, once a month, once a week. My presence here strengthens this community.
It’s not necessarily easy to get there, and yet, that’s the goal.
Life is difficult. Am I breaking news with that statement? No. And yet, here at Society Hill Synagogue, and in many other Jewish communities, the challenges in life are eased and made more meaningful, the joys made more holy, the regular rhythms deepened, when we immerse ourselves in community and develop a sense of connectedness; of, if you will, we-ness.
As I say, it’s not easy. Just as it takes conscientiousness to fulfill the mitzvah of hakhnasat orhim, of attuning ourselves to the guests in our midst to make sure they feel welcome and included, it takes conscientiousness to allow ourselves to feel immersed in community, to feel a sense of ownership with respect to the community that we’ve joined.
On our Shabbat Honoring New Members, I like to share the rabbinic teaching which is commentary on the verse from Proverbs which says: “גֹמֵל נַפְשׁוֹ אִישׁ חָסֶד” — a person of piety takes care of their soul. One person this verse refers to, the rabbinic teaching says, is Hillel the Elder, who would walk home from the Beit Midrash, the study hall, with his disciples, before taking his leave from them.
His disciples said to him: “Our teacher, where are you going?”
He said to them: “To perform an act of kindness with the guest inside the house.”
They said to him: “You seem to have a guest every day.”
He said to them: “Is my soul not a guest inside the body; one day it is here, the next day it is not here.”
That is all of us. One day we are here, the next we aren’t. Hillel’s insight is that we’re called upon to extend ourselves acts of welcome during our time in this life.
My goal is to reflect on how we might do that within Jewish community. We know that social ties are among life’s most nourishing forces. We know that Jewish wisdom, the rhythm of Jewish living, has endured, has shown resilience for generation upon generation.
And so part of our belief, at Society Hill Synagogue, is that by immersing ourselves more deeply in Jewish community, by taking on more of a sense of ownership for this community, we tap into these timeless resources, buoying us as life’s sometimes rough waters can knock us to and fro.
My prayer is that, by inviting ourselves to feel present here — by feeling that sense of we-ness that can strengthen the ties we so need — we are swept up in a wave that has nourished the Jewish people for generation upon generation.
May you each experience that sense of nourishment, this Shabbat and always.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi K.
