The sky takes on a crystalline quality, temperatures gradually slip down from the 80s, to the 70s and 60s, and daylight fades earlier each evening. Summer has vanished and our thoughts turn to the Days of Awe.
While most Jews remember holidays past, anticipate family gatherings and, hopefully, begin to reflect on questions of the spirit, our rabbis are hard at work composing the words they will say to their largest audiences of the year.
For most of them that means at least four major sermons, a word several area rabbis agreed is synonymous with d’var Torah.
All four of the rabbis interviewed said they start thinking about and writing these important sermons long before summer melts into fall and prepare much more extensively than they do for a regular Shabbat. Both of Wisconsin’s Reconstructionist rabbis were unavailable for interviews.
Rabbi Dena A. Feingold, spiritual leader of the Reform Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha said that she takes a number of weeks off in the summer and does things that she doesn’t have time to do during the rest of the year.
Exactly when she starts preparing her sermons is “sort of nebulous, but looking back, all summer, whatever I am reading and experiencing” comes into play, she said.
“It tends to be a fertile time, unconsciously. Then six to eight weeks before Rosh HaShanah, I start to try to concretize the main issues I want to talk about,” she said.
And with the highest percentage of congregants attending services during this period, Rabbi Shmaya Shmotkin, the spiritual leader of Bayside’s The Shul, an affiliate of Lubavitch of Wisconsin, said, “There is a unique opportunity [to speak to] many people coming together — some who come only at that time.
“It’s up to the person that’s speaking to make the most of the moment; to give them something to feed their souls and to help them connect with who they are.”
Torah-based teaching
While there is much discussion of the various roles of rabbis in Jewish texts, “rabbi” is usually said to mean “teacher.” And all of the rabbis that spoke to The Chronicle for this article consciously take on the role of teacher as they formulate and deliver weekly Shabbat and holiday sermons.
Rabbi Yizchak Evan Berman, who recently assumed the spiritual leadership of the Conservative Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue in Mequon, said, “A sermon is meant to connect Jews to each other, the greater community, the federation and Israel.
“Another thing a rabbi does [through sermons] is to try to stimulate in [his congregants] a passion for Judaism and the Torah [as well as] a commitment to each other and to help deepen their relationship with God.
“The connection to the greater community is considered tikkun olam (repairing the world) but it’s also very important that a rabbi speak about tikkun adam (repairing oneself), becoming a better human being.”
Rabbis Feingold and Shmotkin both stated specifically that sermons should be rooted in and draw inspiration from the Torah. “It’s not just saying whatever you feel like,” Feingold said.
And like Berman, Shmotkin tries to empower his congregants with the desire to be more involved Jewishly and communally and to grow and connect with their Jewishness. He wants to give people something “uplifting and tangible to walk away with, not just a fleeting moment [of inspiration],” he said.
“The most important thing is to speak from the heart,” Shmotkin said.
“At the seminary we were told, ‘You should never write a sermon that is not a sermon to yourself,’” Feingold said. But interestingly, people often tell her that they are certain she wrote a particular sermon for them, she said.
“I want to try to figure out the issues that a lot of people might be concerned about. And I assume others are struggling with the same things I am. It’s usually a mix of personal and communal issues, but usually more personal,” Feingold said.|
For Rabbi Shlomo Levin, spiritual leader of Milwaukee’s Orthodox Lake Park Synagogue, raising questions is a crucial element of the sermon. And each sermon is part of a longer-term body of thought and message.
“The most important thing about writing and delivering a sermon is the chance to communicate with a group over a long time frame.” That gives him a chance to repeat his thoughts, he said.
“I don’t believe in the power of one 10-minute speech, but the d’var Torah is cumulative. I try to be conscious that what I’m communicating over time is important.
[My congregants] will come to understand that there are certain types of questions I keep raising and [that] I understand it’s important to ask.”
Levin chooses his subjects carefully. “There are some topics I think it’s important to raise in a d’var Torah, for example, domestic abuse. Regardless of what I say about it, just raising the topic tells people I think it’s important and I’m willing to talk about it.
“It may open the door to someone feeling comfortable coming to me to talk about it,” he said.
“Last Shabbat, the topic was divorce. I chose to speak about a Jewish attitude toward divorce to guide our behavior as we relate to people going through a divorce,” he said. “It’s important because it’s practical.”
Topics for these holy days
During these High Holy Days, Levin knows that he has the opportunity to reach more people and raise questions “that we don’t have the time and energy to raise during the rest of the year.
Levin said he wants to share some of his own questions “without necessarily answering them. I want to show that it’s important and natural to ask questions,” he said.
“The holiday sermon is a good means of encouraging learning rather than trying to inspire or exhort and to try to learn something together. I may encourage [my congregants] to look something up or reflect on something,” Levin said.
Berman plans to focus on “Israel on the front lines, followed by an Israel Bonds appeal, on the first day of Rosh HaShanah. My goal is to make people strengthen their connection and commitment to Israel and to understand Israel’s needs in this time of conflict.”
“Yom Kippur,” he said, “is about being a better person. That is why on Kol Nidre I will speak about ‘Who are the true heroes?’ They are those individuals that consistently and generously give of themselves and exchange themselves for others.”
Feingold, who said she often tries to have a unifying theme, will talk about struggle during the Days of Awe. On Erev Rosh HaShanah she plans to talk about struggling to become a spiritual people and, she said, she will tie this sermon in with the Reform movement’s new siddur, the “Mishkan T’filah,” which is expected to be shipped on Oct. 1.
On Rosh HaShanah morning she will speak about Israel’s current struggles, the moral struggle and test of faith she is going through. That will be followed, on Kol Nidre by a sermon on the struggle to confront the issues of justice and mercy in the voting booth and specifically the death penalty and marriage amendment referenda on this fall’s ballot.
Finally, on Yom Kippur morning, Feingold will talk about “dealing with the inner struggles of other people and ourselves, about being kind to people you meet and to yourself, because everyone is dealing with difficult stuff.”
Shmotkin plans to discuss the Jewish woman in one of his sermons and will likely also speak during the High Holy Days about current events, Israel and the uneasiness people are feeling, he said.
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