President's Drash 5769

It is the custom at Keddem Congregation for the president to give the drash on Erev Rosh Hashanah. I did that this year as the new president. It was my first time ever giving a drash but not speaking before a large audience. I was asked to share this here. Picture if you will, it being spoken by a short, round, late-middle-aged woman with some purple in her hair. Esther A. Heller

L’shana Tovah! It is with a great deal of joy that I stand here as President of Keddem Congregation to welcome all of our members and guests who have come to worship and be a Jewish community together.

We are living in a time where there is much discussion of change in the air. Or should I say, on the airwaves? We, too, at Keddem are looking at change and transition. Our current Board took office in July and our wonderful, new, rabbi Elisheva Salamo, whom you’ve heard tonight, officially joined us in August. We have begun our work as a leadership team, work which requires balancing the needs of the present with our goals for the future.

As the new President, I have already shared with the congregation the three themes which will influence our work this year. I call them the three Ms so that we can all remember them: Membership, Money and Message. You will hear others speak throughout these services about membership and money. For now I just ask that you listen to them with open minds, open hearts and after the holy days, open checkbooks.

Tonight, I’m going to elaborate on message because it is a topic that is bigger than our congregation and all of us here tonight. We live in a society that has developed what linguist Deborah Tannen refers to as "the Argument Culture." It results in our elected officials paying more attention to beating the opposition and laying blame than to running the government in collaboration and joint responsibility. The media fuels this culture by looking for areas of disagreement, which produces lots of negatives. I recommend Tannen’s book which goes into depth on this topic. As technology advances, it seems that if anybody says anything controversial or that someone else just doesn’t like, it is immediately torn apart on blogs or posted on Youtube and linked to Myspace or Facebook or other internet sites. The dialogue gets lost, the positive gets lost, hope gets lost.

Now, we are here, come together, away for a while from the argument culture, to reflect on our past year, individually and collectively and resolve to do better in the next year. We’re resolving to be more true to our intentions, more positive in our actions, more hopeful for our futures. The work I’ve done over the past decade has taught me to emphasize positive messages. I believe you can better affect change with positives than with negatives. Keddem’s five guiding values easily reflect and support that belief.

We at Keddem often refer, usually together, to our first two values - being Inclusive and Egalitarian. As it happens, reading about them on our website was one of the things that drew me to this congregation. We are inclusive in that everyone who supports our goals is welcome as a member, regardless of background, family, household structure or Jewish education. We strive to be inclusive in our activities and our policies, wanting all members to feel comfortable as members. As you will see throughout these services, we are egalitarian in our liturgy and leadership roles believing that God transcends gender. But we are also egalitarian socio-economically in our approach to dues and donations and fees. You will see during Torah services that we are given the first aliyah all together because we are a community where everyone is important.

Our third value is being Participatory. These services are led by three technology professionals, a professional artist and a professional rabbi, all of them members. Our events are organized by volunteer members of the congregation. Now, here’s where we can get a positive message challenge! Because our membership is made up of creative, people who like to think and act for themselves, we don’t always have consensus on how events should be run. So sometimes, we forget to allow our organizers to enjoy the fruits of their labor before offering feedback. Sometimes, we have to train ourselves to make that feedback use the three Ps: Positive, Polite and Pertinent. After all, we are a community and as such, we have responsibility for each other. That includes encouraging and allowing each other to take on new challenges within the community in, yes, a positive environment.

Keddem’s fourth value is being Questioning. That means we are dedicated to continuing Jewish education through study of Torah and text, by reading books or by viewing movies, always discussing. We know that our members possess an amazing depth of knowledge and a diverse range of experiences. We sometimes have to work harder at listening to and respecting each other’s opinions but we are a community and know we are stronger for that diversity and that listening.

Finally Keddem Congregation is Reconstructionist. We are affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF.) As you’ll see again in our liturgy, we honor Jewish traditions while adapting them to modern life. At Keddem, we say “infusing tradition with new meaning” Now, how is that for a positive message? Engaging in the work of deciding how to actually adapt our Jewish traditions and what meaning we want to infuse can be challenging. So Reconstructionists have developed a saying that guides us: "the past has a vote, not a veto." But think how powerful a guide that can be for our own personal lives as well. We are all products of our backgrounds. As we begin these Days of Awe and the New Year, our personal pasts should inform, not veto, our future actions. We can foster that by delivering positive messages to ourselves and each other.

A quick review of President Esther’s mnemonics. We start with the three Ms: growing and nurturing our members, raising and managing our money and delivering our messages. Our messages are most effective using the three Ps: positive, polite and pertinent. Hmm, I’m missing something. Oh, yes - what makes it all worthwhile? The three F’s of course: good food, caring friends and having fun. I’ll tell you about opportunities for them during the announcements.

I’m a pragmatic optimist. I know what I’ve been talking about requires hard work. But I believe we can as individuals and as a community make the changes we seek.

L’shana Tova Tikateivu! May you and yours all be written for a good New Year!