Shabbat Shalom. Thank you, Rabbi Stahl, for that wonderful introduction. You know, it’s nice to receive an introduction like that but there’s always something to bring you down to earth. I was speaking at a community meeting in Kansas City not long ago. There were problems with the mike; someone in the back yelled, “Could you speak louder? I can’t hear back here.” A lady in the front row yelled out, “I can hear him just fine; I’ll change seats with you.”

My favorite introduction came at a sisterhood convention in Des Moines. The chairman got up, very excited, said to the group, “We have someone here from the national office to give you all the latest information, and now for the latest dope from New York, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.” That’s the same day that I walked out behind two ladies who didn't know that I was there and one said, "Well, that Rabbi could have been worse.” The other one said, “Yeah, if he had more time.”

The arrangements for this evening were really made a long time ago. Rabbi Stahl called me, oh, I don’t even remember when it was and said, “Do you believe in free speech?” and I said, “Absolutely.” He said, “Good, you’re giving one in San Antonio on May 14.”

I’m really honored to be at Temple Beth-El and to be part of your 125th anniversary celebration. One hundred and twenty-five years is not so very long in the history of the Jewish people, but it’s a very long time for an American synagogue.

In 1874, the year that you were founded, Reform Judaism was just coming into being on this continent. The American Jewish community then numbered fewer than 250,000 people. We were an immigrant community, and a poor community, struggling to establish ourselves in America. It’s interesting to see how far we have all come since 1874. Today, in 1999, our Jewish world has changed beyond recognition. We are a community of nearly six million Jews, affluent and influential beyond our wildest dreams. Eleven Jews sit in the United States Senate. Two Jews sit on the Supreme Court. Some of our most prestigious universities and corporations are headed by Jews, and, in fact, that’s now such a commonplace occurrence that hardly anybody notices. When it turned out that the Secretary of State was born Jewish and didn’t know it, it was more of an advantage for her than a disadvantage.

A year and a half ago, during Hanukkah, the President of the United States hosted a Hanukkah party for 14 Jewish children in the Oval Office, sons and daughters of his Jewish staffers. The President played holiday games with the children and explained to them the meaning of the Hanukkah story. When the party was over, one little girl said to a reporter, “The President has definitely played dreidle before.” And a week ago, at a dinner that we gave in Washington in honor of Rabbi David Saperstein, President Clinton came to speak at the dinner. I told that story to him as I introduced him.

In the year 1874, would it have been possible for the founders of Temple Beth-El to imagine such a scene in their wildest dreams? Would it have been possible even to contemplate such complete acceptance of Jews into American society? Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the internal agenda of the American Jewish community has changed dramatically, particularly in recent years. For most of the last century and a quarter, our community has focused on those issues that the founders of Temple Beth-El confronted in 1874. They have focused on anti-Semitism, which restricted Jewish opportunity in employment, and housing, and education. They focused on the need to provide social services to the Jewish poor, because we are a people which has always taken care of its own. They focused on the need to generate political support for vulnerable Jewish communities abroad, and they focused on the need to integrate American Jews as quickly as possible into the social and cultural life of this great country of ours.

But, today, we find that these needs no longer exist; at least, not in the pressing way that they did before. You and I know, of course, that anti-Semitism never disappears from the human heart, but you and I know, as well, that, in America, it is no longer a major factor in our lives. Let’s give ourselves some credit. We American Jews have learned pretty well how to handle external needs. We know how to combat discrimination and how to help Ethiopian Jews, and Russian Jews, and Israeli Jews, and all manner of Jews in trouble. And, let’s acknowledge the good news. Despite the tsoris in the world today, there is not a single Jewish community whose physical survival is in question – something that we have not been able to say for a very long time.

Israel remains terribly important to us, as it should, as it must, but Israel today is a strong and secure country with a per capita income comparable to that of Great Britain. Think what you want about Hamas and Arafat (and I don’t think much of them), but the fact is that neither has the ability to threaten Israel’s physical existence. What all this means is that our agenda has changed because it must, because the problems that have consumed us have been substantially, if not totally, resolved. And, because we have come to understand the perils of vicarious experience, we American Jews cannot derive values and identity from events that are essentially foreign to our daily experience.

And so, what is our agenda now? It is an agenda based on a new and very different Jewish reality – the reality of religious revival, the reality that Jews are all of a sudden trying to retrieve the Jewish soul from oblivion, and to unveil life’s fundamental holiness. And it is an agenda based on the challenge of responding to elemental needs – to birth and death, to illness and ecstasy, to pain and disruption of family. For much of the last century and a quarter, we did not have time for these matters, but now they are the very heart of our concern.

And what will be the vehicle for revitalizing our religious faith and strengthening our families? It will be the synagogue, of course, because it is the synagogue which can remind us of what we have too often forgotten – how to celebrate, how to feel, how to laugh, how to cry. It is the synagogue to which we come for study and for prayer, for ritual and for celebration, and also to reinvigorate our families and to satisfy our quest for personal meaning. Still, there is nothing automatic here. A heavy burden has been placed on the synagogue and not all will respond. The synagogue will succeed only if it appreciates that new ways are needed to take the old sanctities – God, Torah, and Israel – and make them relevant to the personal lives of our members.

The synagogue will succeed when it sees the Jew not only as a dues-paying member, not only as an element in the collective set of a people, but as an individual and family member who yearns for spirituality and support in an increasingly impersonal pressuring society. A number of years ago, we in the Reform movement did an exhaustive survey of our membership. We asked people about their religious needs and about what they wanted from their congregations. The answer was unequivocal and overwhelming. Reform Jews wanted community. Religious school, Bar Mitzvah, adult education were all important, but such programs were only meaningful when combined with a sense of community.

Our people were equally clear about what they did not want. They were alienated by the synagogue which was cold, which failed to welcome newcomers, and which saw itself primarily as a purveyor of services. We also did research on why people joined our synagogues and the results were not surprising. On the one hand, many people joined synagogues for reasons that had nothing to do with the synagogue itself – because it’s convenient, or because they happen to know somebody else who belongs, or because there’s no other synagogue around. However, we discovered that when people have a choice, they almost always decide on the basis of which temple is going to care about them as people.

Now, this brings me to Temple Beth-El. Preparing for my visit as you heard, I spoke to many of your leaders, both lay and professional, and I asked them to tell me about your congregation and the meaning of this anniversary. And I was profoundly impressed by what I heard. I was impressed first of all by the vision of Jewish life that was expressed. It was a vision based upon the notion of community that I discussed before. It was a vision that begins with the premise that the Jews of this synagogue want to live as members of a community, a sacred community, and that it is the responsibility of Temple Beth-El to make this possible. It was a vision that sees the Beth-El community as nurturing, and as sustaining, and as comforting and inspiring.

When I said tell me about your Temple, everyone that I spoke to talked about this congregation as a warm, family-oriented place – as a place where new members are included and appreciated, where strangers are greeted on Friday nights, where Jews-by-choice and non-Jewish spouses are warmly embraced. This is not the kind of synagogue where members join to have a Bar Mitzvah and then move on. The norm here is to really feel a part of this place. Members join when they are young and stay on long after their children have completed their education.

In fact, I was delighted to hear that you feel so strongly about these matters that you have a full-time membership coordinator whose sole task is not only to recruit members, but to welcome them and to integrate them into Temple life. You are one of the only synagogues in the entire country that has created such a position. And even though this congregation is growing at a rapid pace, and it’s not quite so easy to do these things as it once was, I know that retaining and strengthening this family feeling is one of your highest priorities. In other words, what I heard from you was a vision that said our task in this Temple is not to issue high-minded pronouncements. Our task is to attend to the pain of our members, to celebrate their successes, and to help create for them a welcoming community.

Now as important as this message is, it was not the only message that I heard from your leaders. They shared with me several other themes which they felt are particularly central to the life of Temple Beth-El at this time. And the first was the profound commitment of your congregation to education in general, and to the education of your children in particular. Now, as you might imagine, this was a source of particular interest to me. In my nearly three years as President, I’ve given special emphasis to the study of Torah, and to Jewish education, as the key to the Jewish future.

At our last Biennial convention, which was held in Dallas, I suggested that the most critical crisis that we face in the Jewish world right now is the crisis of Jewish literacy. I reminded our leadership that ours is a uniquely ignorant generation – that while we are wonderfully educated in the ways of the world, we are abysmally ignorant in the ways of our people, and I challenged our synagogue leaders to lift up a whole generation of Reform Jews from the stifling ignorance that is too often their companion, and to help them become competent and literate Jews. And the place for them to begin, I said, is with themselves and with their children. Education for our kids is especially important, of course, and for this I’ve suggested to our movement a three-pronged strategy.

In the first instance, I have made the case as strongly as I know how for the value of Jewish camps. It is my contention that dollar for dollar, and hour for hour, the most effective educational program in Jewish life is Reform Jewish summer camping. Camps, like Greene Family Camp, are the places where our children stretch both their Jewish muscles and their Jewish minds. A Jewish camping experience will usually do more to connect young Jews to their birthright than even the best formal education program. And that is why we are in the process of dramatically expanding not only Greene, but our entire Reform camping system.

Second, I have suggested that Jewish teenagers of high-school age need to be a subject of special concern to us. I do not accept, as some have claimed, that these kids are a lost generation. What I see when I look at them is something else – the beginning of a thirst for the noble and the spiritual. What I see is a desperate search for credible values and a personal center – a strong desire for a sense of coherence, for a sense of how their lives fit into the big picture. What I see are kids who need Jewish education and meaningful and rich worship – kids who need, above all, to join in the intense creative process of Jewish tradition. And for that reason, I have proposed a comprehensive plan for partnership between our Union and our congregations in rebuilding the Reform Jewish youth movement in America.

And thirdly, I have argued against the fatalism that so often infects our approach to religious school. Many have argued that our religious schools are doomed to failure, that kids have always been bored in Sunday school and always will be, that kids will drop out after Bar and Bat Mitzvah, no matter what we do. But I’ve suggested that fate is a Greek concept and not a Jewish one; that when it comes to religious school, there is nothing inevitable about the educational crisis that we face; that we must believe in the transforming power of leadership and the transforming power of Torah; and that Jewish education has not failed in America – it has simply never been tried.

By and large, our congregational leadership has responded. It has begun to accept the argument that you can’t be a conscientious objector in the war against Jewish ignorance. It has begun to embrace our call for a revolution in Jewish education. But my point is that Temple Beth-El did not require convincing or a national initiative from on high. It is already doing all of those things that are needed to advance the cause of Jewish learning and Jewish life. This congregation provides what, I believe, is the largest single delegation of children to Greene Family Camp. It has an active and deeply committed youth group. Together with its Sisterhood and Brotherhood, it provides an unparalleled amount of scholarship funding for your kids to participate in camp, and in NFTY conclaves, and in trips to Israel. You produce beautifully prepared Bar and Bat Mitzvah children and virtually 100% of these children continue beyond Bar and Bat Mitzvah to Confirmation, an extraordinary accomplishment, unprecedented anywhere in North America. And you maintain a religious school of the old-fashioned sort where Temple leaders teach, not just members but leaders, and see it as a privilege to do so – where no tuition is charged, where annual retreats draw the children together and create a sense of community.

Is there more to be done? Of course. Your adult education program is strong and growing. I know tomorrow you’re having a luncheon program on the UAHC book, Finding God. But with all this, your Rabbis tell me they’re not satisfied. This is a program that needs to be better. But I can only be enormously encouraged by the work that you do and the example that you have set. For more than a century, Torah study has been in exile. For more than a century, we have been neglecting the instruction of our children. For more than a century, we have been casting aside Jewish memory, but this generation of Reform Jews, as Temple Beth-El has shown us, is prepared to take it back.

Now, there was one other theme that your leaders mentioned to me when they were describing the synagogue, and that was its relationship to the world around us. From its earliest days, Temple Beth-El has rejected an inward turning, self-indulgent Judaism – a Judaism that claims stupidly that there is a dichotomy between faith and justice. This is a congregation that understands what is happening in America. Look around. It sometimes seems that America has splintered into a host of ethnic and religious enclaves, each exalting its own identities while demonizing others. In our cities and on campus, racial and ethnic isolation intensifies, and builders of bridges are increasingly displaced by those who construct barricades and bunkers. Increasingly disparate communities are unable even to talk to each other. In reacting to this, even some American Jews have been infected by the separatist virus. We’re surrounded by enemies, they say, so let’s dig in our own garden, let’s go it alone; nobody will fend for us.

But Temple Beth-El has been a champion of the opposite view – that separatism is bad for the Jews and that Jewish tradition imposes upon us a duty to care for all humankind. This congregation has said that, yes, Jews must embrace ritual and prayer and ceremony and study, but God is also concerned about the everyday, and the blights of society do not give way to the mysteries of heaven. By your actions, you have reminded us that if we take care only of our own, we forget the meaning of this country, which has embraced us like no other country in our long history. Here groups can retain their culture and their space but they do not surround themselves with impenetrable walls. In other words, to close us off to the needs of others is not only a betrayal of Judaism; it is a betrayal of America.

And you have seen to it that your beliefs are translated into practice. This elegant building in a sense is a symbol of who you are. It remains here in the heart of San Antonio, an indication that you are rooted in the city and committed to its welfare. Since your earliest days, your members have been prominent in civic affairs, involved in the community and maintaining its moral tone. Your Rabbis have led the way, of course: Rabbi Jacobson, working to peacefully desegregate San Antonio; and Rabbi Stahl, a constant and devoted champion of intergroup harmony and interfaith relations. But they have not been the only activists, not at all. A long list of Temple members has followed their lead. So, I congratulate you for understanding what Reform Judaism is all about and what our tradition demands – that we must be fixers, healers, helpers, and menders. This is our mission and this must be our way because if it is not, we forsake our God, we betray our past, and we subvert our future.

Now, how do we account for all of this success? How did Temple Beth-El get where it is today? Through the dedication of your members; through the commitment of your presidents who do not fade away when their terms are complete, but who remain devoted to the synagogue for a lifetime; through the efforts of very talented professionals; and through a tradition of lay/professional cooperation, unusual for its closeness and deep mutual respect.

I should say, in passing, that over the years, you have also provided some wonderful national leadership to the Reform movement. I am delighted that Bob Rosow is here tonight. Bob is a dear friend and long-time national Board member of the UAHC, who has contributed to so many areas of Reform Jewish life; and also, Buddy Gardner, another past president, who is a member of our Board of Overseers of the Hebrew Union College, our seminary in Cincinnati.

But most important, of course, are your Rabbis. It seems almost unfair that a single congregation should have the benefit of all the rabbinical talents that have served in this pulpit over the years. And your Rabbis do not just pass through. They come and stay, making this community and this synagogue their home. Only five senior rabbis in this century – what an extraordinary record! I have already mentioned Rabbi Jacobson – more than sixty years in San Antonio, a hero of desegregation and advocate of the disadvantaged, who worked to bring social services to those in need. Helen, his life partner and helpmate has always been at his side, and we are so pleased that she is with us this evening. How fortunate you have been!

And Rabbi Block – a Rabbi of tremendous energy and creativity, committed to outreach and adult education and, above all else, the young people of this congregation. How blessed you have been!

But most of all, Rabbi Samuel Stahl, the driving force of this congregation for 23 years. What an amazing range of talents he brings to this pulpit! I have already mentioned his interfaith work and his role as civic spokesman and leader. I hope you appreciate Sam’s contribution in this area. Despite the rhetoric we hear, true cooperation between faith communities is very rare at this moment in American history. Rabbi Stahl has been a strong voice of sanity and reason and calm in this arena, and this because he deeply believes that only religious voices can offer a shared vision of an open and compassionate America. And therefore, he has helped the people of this city to grow out of their stereotypes into a joyous and nurturing celebration of differences, thereby enriching our common humanity. But that is not all. Rabbi Stahl is a deeply learned Jew, one of the very few Rabbis in our movement who has successfully combined congregational work with serious Jewish scholarship. And what a wonderful preacher he is! Not only does he deliver sermons that are a model of clarity and inspiration, but, so I’m told, he does it in twelve minutes or less. Such brevity is unheard of in our profession. There is serious talk of throwing him out of the rabbinical organization.

And this, too. Rabbi Stahl really understands the fundamental premise of synagogue life – that this is the one place in the Jewish community where everyone is unique and valued and a bearer of God’s image, no matter who you are or how much money you have. And so, when there is a life-cycle event, or someone is in the hospital or otherwise in need, he is always there – thoughtful, caring, warm and approachable. And this above all. He has somehow managed to walk that tightrope that every Rabbi must walk but only a few are able to walk so well. He has helped this congregation to remain true to its own traditions, while at the same time remaining open to change.

Beth-El is proud of its long-time commitment to the principles of Classical Reform Judaism, but, like in every Reform temple in the country, particularly one as large and as vibrant as Beth-El, one finds here voices from across the Reform spectrum. Rabbi Stahl’s genius has been to preserve this congregation’s unique heritage, while still offering innovative approaches to Jewish life. To talk about differences honestly and to open lines of communication among all parts of the Temple family. To promote constructive dialogue and avoid the divisiveness that, on occasion, has torn other congregations apart. How can you be Classically inclined, but open to change? How can you be respectful of congregational tradition, but still remain young and vibrant and forward looking? How can you hold together all the disparate threads that today make up Reform life? The answer is, you can be Sam Stahl – scholar, mensch supreme, and outstanding leader of our movement, who is Reform in the original and very best sense of that term.

So, what do we have here at Temple Beth-El? We have Jews who are hungry for the warmth and sympathetic intelligence of other Jews and who yearn for the values, ceremonies, and wisdom of the Jewish tradition. And we have a Senior Rabbi and Temple staff who devote their lives to helping them satisfy that hunger. And I believe that the first 125 years are only a beginning. I believe, as your leaders believe, that Temple Beth-El will continue to strengthen the faith of Israel and to provide a compassionate ear and responsive spirit to all who seek them. I believe, as your leaders believe, that it will continue to educate your children and to provide those sacred moments that bind you to your people. And I am certain that it will lead in the future, as it has in the past, an example to our movement, an inspiration to our youth, a model to all who cherish Torah. For Temple Beth-El, the best is yet to come.

Ken yehi ratzon – may it be God’s will. Shabbat Shalom.

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