Ilana Goldhaber-Gordon, Drash on minyanim

Start a Minyan Date or a Minyan Club
Consider inviting a friend, or a group of friends, to meet once a week at minyan. Every week, you and your friend could go to dinner, then head together to Kol Emeth. Just as a regular commitment to see each other is crucial for developing a deep relationship with another person, that same commitment is necessary to develop your connection with the divine.

The Privilege of Obligation
A sermon delivered by Ilana Goldhaber-Gordon on the second day of Shavuot.

Jewish men are obligated to pray three times every day: shaharit in the morning, minchah in the afternoon, ma’ariv in the evening. It is a tightly defined obligation: just saying the shma, or the grace after meals doesn’t count. He has to say the amidah, within three specific time-frames, every day.

Jewish women also have to pray. But, says Maimonides, so long as we speak some words to God once a day, that’s good enough. Don’t worry about doing it at a particular time, or with a particular set of words – you women have more important things to take care of!

I’d like to share with you a joke about this dichotomy. I first heard this joke when I was a student at Midreshet Lindenbaum, an Orthodox women’s yeshiva in Jerusalem. It plays on the concept of shalom bayit, peace in the home. It goes like this:

Do you know what shalom bayit is? It’s early in the morning, Mom’s bustling around serving breakfast, packing school bags, “Honey, the baby spilled her milk, can you clean it up?” “Sorry, dear, it’s time for shaharit – Shalom, Bayit!” The kids return home from school. Mom is helping the oldest one with his math home-work, the baby’s diaper needs changing, dinner is burning, “Honey, can you help?” “Sorry dear, I’m off to minhah. Shalom, Bayit!” Dinner is over. The kids are getting into pajamas. The baby is crying, “Honey, can you brush the kids’ teeth?” “Sorry dear, got to go to ma’ariv. Shalom, Bayit!”

But I’m not going to talk to you about feminism today. Thank God, for this particular audience, that feminist message is several decades out of date. (We already give women equal access to Jewish ritual.) I really just wanted to tell you that joke. Because I wanted to ask you, by a show of hands, how many had as an initial reaction: “Three time a day! That husband should stop praying so much and start paying more attention to his family.” And how many of you reacted with: “Why does the husband always get to go to services, why don’t they take turns?”

Those of you with your hands in the air now, I’m taking your names down so I can call you for minyan duty. Everyone who put up a hand the first time – I confess that I am in your camp. At this point in my life, I find it hard to get to shul. But I can remember when I first heard that joke, I and my fellow students, all of us Orthodox and feminist, we had the second reaction. We understood that an obligation to pray three times a day is a tremendous burden. But darn it, why do the men always get to be so burdened?

That’s what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the concept of ritual mitzvot, and about the concept of chiyuv -- religious obligation. I want to convince you, and re-convince myself – that a religious obligation is a privilege. A tremendous privilege.

Every mitzvah can be categorized as either ben adam la’makom – a mitzvah between a person and the makom, God – or ben adam l’chaveyro – a mitzvah about a person’s relationship with other people. Of the ten quintessential commandments, that we read yesterday, the last five are clearly ben adam l’chaveyro: Do not kill, Do not steal. The first four are pretty clearly ben adam la’makom, about people and God.

The fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, seems to be about human relationships. Yet traditionally, the rabbis categorized it as ben adam la’makom. We can learn many interesting lessons from this odd categorization. The lesson I would like to emphasize today is that the rabbis felt the ten commandments should be split down the middle: equal parts God and humanity. And, God comes first.

Our community has changed that emphasis. On a recent Yom Kippur, Rabbi Graff spoke about the meaning of the term mitzvah. In preparing for that sermon she interviewed members of our community. Almost everyone she spoke to – including myself – related to the concept of mitzvah primarily as good deeds that we do for one another. As Arnie Eisen mentioned in his parting talk to Kol Emeth, Conservative Jews are the most highly represented on Federation Boards and Jewish charities. I am proud to be a Conservative Jew, because we excel at mitsvot ben adam l’chaveyro. But what about mitzvot ben adam la’makom, between man and God?

Even in our publicity about daily minyan, we emphasize the ben adam l’chaveyroh aspect. And it is true, attending daily minyan is a great kindness to those in mourning. Many of you are here today especially for yizker. You understand the power of praying in community for a loved one. Imagine your frustration if you showed up for yizker and we announced that we are not saying that prayer today after-all. But that’s exactly what happens, when a person comes to us wanting say kaddish, and is unable to fulfill his mitzvah because we don’t get a minyan. I am personally ashamed, because I am usually not there to help him do it.

All of this is true, but it is not why we should be attending daily minyan! Fundamentally, minyan is not ben adam l’chaveyro. It is a mitzvah ben adam la’makom, a mitzvah between each of us and God.

Mitsvot ben adam l’chaveyro feel more compelling. It feels goods to help another person, and see your help appreciated. But God? Many of us not are not always sure God exists. It’s hard to feel compelled to connect with Him.

And yet, when you do feel compelled, when you do feel obligated, commanded, mechuyav in your relationship with God, something incredibly powerful happens. On weekdays, the nusach – the chant – and the words are weekdays words, and it feels right, it feels good. On Shabbat, the nusach and words are shabbat words, and it feels special. When you experience these sound reliably, they seep into your soul, changing you.

Daily prayer is not a momentous experience. It’s not going to grab you and shake you every time. It works its effects subtly, tenderly, instilling rhythm to the week and resilience to your being.

I speak from personal experience, because I was once a regular at daily minyan – before I lived in California. I did so out of a sense of chiyuv, obligation, but I was the one who benefited most. In those days, if I missed a service I felt it keenly, as a hole in my day. Nowadays, I find it hard to say “Shalom, Bayit”. We all find it hard to say shalom to our other responsibilities and come to minyan. We’re so busy. Many of our activities are mitsvot -- ben addam l’chaveyro. Many of our activities are necessary for survival. We have good reasons for not finding time to pray.

Maybe you also have trouble finding time to exercise. If you only got into a rhythm, doing the same exercises at the same times every week, soon they would become a pleasure. But getting started is hard. And it's much the same with prayer.

Shavuot is the holiday of momentous revelation, kolot u’brakim – thunder and lightening, God Himself coming down on the mountain. As we just read in the haftorah: Amad v’ymoded aretz . . .

God stands and shakes the land. The mountains and the rivers and the oceans trembled before Him. But the thunder fades, and the age prophecy is gone, and all that is left is the mitzvot, like invisible threads cradling us and securing us to God.

When developing a rhythm, you have to start with small commitments and build up. For myself, when I decided to pray again I started with just ten lines a day. I said them at the same time every day, reliably, until I began to expect the rhythm and soon wanted more.

Now, I am trying to get back into attending minyan. I am committing to attend the Wednesday evening minyan here at Kol Emeth. If you join me on Wednesday evenings, during a short break between minhah and ma’ariv we can study some Torah together. I am going to suggest the book of Samuel, because it’s a good story, and because I haven’t read it in a long time.

Kol Emeth is one of only two Conservative congregations in the entire bay area that supports a daily minyan. So don’t wait for your letter of the alphabet. Our shul gives us the opportunity to experience the privilege of commandment. Choose one day to make YOUR day, and beginning creating for yourself that rhythm that will connect you to God.