I’m reminded at this moment of an iconic Jewish story, but I am going to tell it a little differently than you may have heard it before. I call it “Back to the Future: starring Honi haMa’agel.” Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. But…actually...don’t stop me. I’m going to tell it anyway.
There once was a man named Honi HaMa’agel. One day, as he was strolling through the countryside, he saw a family eating apples from a tree. Next to their tree there was a big house with a beautiful, window-filled extension built on it. And a giant tent sat on the lawn packed with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, and guests. Honi wondered about that tree. Who planted it? What did the planter expect the fruit would taste like? Who did the planter think would play under its branches?
Honi joined with them to celebrate. After dancing, singing, and eating too many desserts from the family cookbook, he laid down for a much-needed nap.
When he woke up, he looked around and the scene looked different, yet still familiar. It was 50 years earlier. The tent full of scores of people was gone. The house looked much smaller. And instead of the large tree with ample branches and fruit, Honi saw a small family planting a sapling. He heard them talk about the tree they hoped it would grow into and the future generations that would eat its fruit.
And, as Honi listened, he realized that in some ways the tree grew just as they had hoped. But, in other ways, the tree and all that surrounded it surpassed what they could have possibly imagined. They didn’t know how the fruit would taste, or what it would look like, but they planted knowing that future generations would pick the fruit and enjoy its sweetness.
Honi got to see what was planted and what has been harvested. And he celebrated both.
I feel a bit like Honi. I get to walk in at this most recent moment in Woodlands’ history, and reflect back to you on the sweetness of the fruit of our tree. I get to ask you about what you envisioned when you planted the tree. I get to ask you what you hoped for when you watered it. I get to ask you what you are going to do with the seeds that come from the tree. I get to learn what this community planted and enjoy the bounty of its harvests.
And together we will do that this year. We will celebrate our 50th anniversary. For our jubilee year, we will consider what we planted and celebrate what we harvested.
וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּ֗ם אֵ֣ת שְׁנַ֤ת הַחֲמִשִּׁים֙ שָׁנָ֔ה וּקְרָאתֶ֥ם דְּר֛וֹר בָּאָ֖רֶץ לְכָל־יֹשְׁבֶ֑יהָ יוֹבֵ֥ל הִוא֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם
And you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you. (Leviticus 25:10)
But what should that mean to us?
But, even by the time of the 2nd Temple and the Maccabees, the laws for the jubilee were explicitly not in practice. In fact, scholars believe that it is unlikely that the laws were ever enacted. [1] Why have it then? What values can we draw from the laws of the jubilee even as we don’t practice them fully?
The idea of a jubilee gives us a small glimpse into the idealistic worldview of the Torah and the biblical writers. The jubilee is a time when slaves are freed, debts remitted, and property returned to its ancestral holders. The idea of a jubilee argues: Our stuff isn’t our stuff. It belongs to something greater. At least once in every generation, we need a reminder. We need to be reminded of the “something bigger” so we can ground ourselves and refocus on the community over the individual. The very notion of a jubilee argues for a world where we pause to let go of the self and take stock as a community.
And it’s not like the Jewish calendar is devoid of opportunities for reflection. On Shabbat, we reflect on the week; on Rosh Hashanah, we look back on the year. We have cycles of seven years to do some more reminiscing, but this is the big kahuna. After seven cycles of seven years, the Torah demands a whole extra year to do a deep, serious, and meaningful dive into what we as a people have done together, and to imagine and vision our hopes for the future. We look at what we planted, we take joy in the harvest, and look at our soil to see what we will sow for each coming Shabbat and each coming Rosh HaShanah until the next jubilee.
I realize that I enter at just this latest chapter of Woodlands’ story. But, I am also fortunate to join an impressive legacy of Woodlands interns who, together, have seen a great deal of Woodlands’ over the last 50 years. We eat the fruit, taste its sweetness, and go off to prune and tend to other trees (except for Billy and Mara who seem to be caught up in these branches in perpetuity).
So, this summer, I contacted the last 50 years of Woodlands interns. I asked them about memories from their time here, for some reflections on what they learned, and how that learning has impacted their career.
Here is some of the fruit picked from the Woodlands tree. Notice how for many of these interns, their experience at Woodlands continues to shape their work as rabbis (I’ll share with you chronologically from the founding up until now):
“Every person should be treated as an individual and no one should ever be treated as a generic ‘congregant.’ The Woodlands experience always felt so personal--personal and never institutional. That was always a key.”
Danny Zemel, Woodlands’ first intern is now the senior rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, DC, and, as a former member of that synagogue, I can tell you firsthand that he has carried on that legacy.
Next, from the Editor of the Mishkan Tefilah, the Reform Movement’s prayer book companion to our new makhzor, Rabbi Elyse Frishman: “worship is owned by the worshipper not the clergy — passive experience is not nearly as powerful as full engagement.”
Rabbi Elka Abrahamson, now the President of the Wexner Foundation and a renowned speaker on a number of topics, including change management and dynamic leadership, had this to say about her time here during a rabbinic transition:
“I learned about…the unique spirit that can be created within a community of Jewish families that were invested in the congregation’s success and most of all its character.”
She added: “I also learned about expensive cheeses, how to prepare healthy bulgar, that it was okay not to wear a suit to conduct services and how to survive meaningful high holidays even in leaky tent.”
Here is one from a rabbi you might know. To this day, he thinks very intentionally about what it means to have holy space and how best to honor and sanctify community. Rabbi Billy recalled a Board of Trustees conversation about using the sanctuary to house homeless people in Westchester. He wrote: “Some said, "That's our holy space. Not appropriate." While others, "That's precisely what makes that space holy!"”
Rabbi Fred Greene, who just helped his congregation in Boulder, CO celebrate their 50th anniversary, wrote to me about learning to journey with congregants as they grow instead of try to proscribe a path for them.
Rabbi Leora Kaye, who is now Director of Programs for the Union for Reform Judaism, spoke to me about learning to honor the history and commitments of the people she met and always leaving space for other people in the room, whether there is one other person or two hundred.
Rabbi Erin Glazer, who is the Senior Engagement Officer for Mazon, told me about inspired by Woodlands teens’ passion for social justice and Judaism and the acceptance of innovation as a communal practice.
And then, the most recent intern-turned-full-time-Woodlands-rabbi, Rabbi Mara Young reflected that, even when we are in the deepest depths as individuals and a community, the synagogue is a place for honestly, tenderness, and “is an essential touchstone of our lives where life is dealt with frankly and meaningfully.”
This is just a small taste of what they shared. They spoke about Academy, worship, and wanting to invest in this community, because the community gives so much back.
These amazing lessons about building Jewish community and sanctifying each individual, this is what has come from 50 years of love, hard work, mistakes, experiments, prayer, teaching, learning, and, of course, more love. We get to learn and grow because you share your gifts and share your selves.
Think about what you sowed, and look and what this chain of interns has reaped.
We are just at the beginning of our jubilee year, and we get to celebrate those gifts and that legacy. But we don’t stop there. We aren’t just going to slap a 50 on all of our brochures and call it a day. We aren’t going to rest during this jubilee. Surely, we will pause to take stock of what we planted and what we harvested. AND, we will think together on how, during the next 50 years, we hope to grow, to deepen relationships, to enhance worship, to ever-renew commitments to learning and tikkun olam.
And, Woodlands will continue to be a place where every individual matters.
So, I’ll close the way I began. Who better to start off the jubilee than the person who has been here for the least amount of time? An individual who feels embraced by the community, who can look at our tree and tell you how sweet its fruit tastes.
Shanah Tovah.
Closing words:
I am a bit of a sentimental romantic. Each time an anniversary for Gavi and me rolls around, I make my way to hallmark.com to learn about traditional and modern anniversary gifts. For year one, traditionally the paper anniversary, we got a subscription to the NYT. For year three, the modern gift is glass, so we bought tumblers with etchings of the cities we have lived in together.
As for Woodlands, traditionalists and modernists agree: the 50th anniversary is the gold anniversary. But during this 50th year, it is not just about bringing gifts of gold. There are times that call for specific gifts and moments where you can bring whatever gifts you have: time, skills, expertise, energy, love. Each moment calls for its own anniversary gift.
This community is as vibrant as it is because of the immeasurable gifts brought by each individual in the Woodlands family.
Eloheinu v’elohei imoteinu v’avoteinu. Our God and God of our foremothers and forefathers: As we begin our gold anniversary, our jubilee year, I pray that we continue to recognize the gifts that each of us has to bring and that we find a way to offer and use them here. If we plant together, just imagine what we will harvest.
Shanah Tovah.
[1] The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition, p. 856.
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