Ode to a Synagogue

Rabbi Akiva was asked, “Since your God loves the needy, why doesn’t He care for them Himself?

The sage responded, “God, the father of rich and poor alike wants his children to help each other. The Lord desires a world of love.”

Our purpose is not merely to survive.  Survival itself is not noteworthy or even worthy of comment.

So what then is our purpose?

We celebrate life, those who preceded us and upon whose shoulders we stand. We celebrate marriages when we sweated under the chairs of the bride and groom. We celebrate the warm friendships on Shabbat morning.  The evening services where we come together to console the bereft at the house of death. We celebrate the countless baby namings and Brit Milahs. We remember the little ones who spilled wine on the carpet who now have children of their own. We relish the Passover Haggaddas whose pages are stained a dark hue. We remember Friday evening dinners. We revel in recalling High Holy Days and our precious relationships.  The loves, the tiffs and the forgiveness.

The Puritans called marriage “the little church within the church.” Every day without letup our synagogue functions as a sacred place where love and forgiveness are continually recycled. Just like marriage. That is what community is.

George Hallas, owner of the Chicago Bears, work well into his 80s.  He was once asked, “George, at your age what are you doing here working?” Halas responded, “It's only work if there's some place else you'd rather be.”

There is no other place we would rather be than standing shoulder to shoulder with devoted members of our sacred community. Our children have played together.  They have learned in the classrooms.  All of us have grown up together and fought for the sake of goodness throughout the years.  After all this, we still say, there is no place we rather be.

There is a reason we call the place where we pray a "Sanctuary."  It is a place of respite from harm, malcontent and soothing our roughest edges.  When we gather later this month to celebrate our freedom from bondage, remember that it is not our survival that brings us together.  We collect ourselves to remember that we must aid one another.  Our task is to bind the wounds of our sisters and brothers.

Invite someone new to your seder.
Focus on the lesson God wants you to learn from the Haggadda's narrative and then be that change.   Pay for someone you do not know to come to the congregational seder.  

Rabbi Akiva was right, “God, the father of rich and poor alike wants his children to help each other. The Lord desires a world of love. This is our charter.