October 2010 – Tishrei/Heshvan 5771

If you have not yet seen the movie “Letters to Juliet” I can wholeheartedly recommend it. I won’t give away the plot, but I will share with you part of the letter Sophie (the movie’s main character) writes to Claire (the second lead):

“ ‘What’ and ‘if’… two words as nonthreatening as words come. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: ‘What if…?’”

‘What if…?” Two words that can have a terrible power; taken together they have the power to deepen our worst fears, to dampen our hopes and dreams and, if we let them, to keep us from taking the action necessary to prevent what we fear from coming to pass. If we let them. That’s the key.

Our tradition teaches us that we can’t let our fears and our failures and our ‘what ifs’ keep us from living, from moving forward. I think that is one of the central lessons of the Akeidah, the Binding of Isaac. What happens during the story is terrifying, but Abraham’s response to it is telling – he moves on. Despite the loss of his beloved wife and his fractured relationship with his son, Abraham doesn’t give up. He goes on with his life and does what he needs to do to make his family stronger. He finds a wife for his son, he finds a new companion for himself. He doesn’t let his fear of the changes in his life keep him from building a better future.

I know that some of you have heard this lesson. I spoke about it on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, but I think it is a message that all of us at Temple Beth Sholom need to hear because many of us have become bogged down by our own ‘what ifs.’ Our congregation has faced challenges and seen changes in the last year; we will see more changes in the coming year. We as a community face our own set of what ifs and many of you have come to me with them. Rabbi, what if the state of our property keeps people away? What if we can’t have services, Shabbes Café, adult education and other events at the Temple?

All are reasonable fears. So we must do as Abraham did and not let our fears keep us from action – we need to change our ‘what ifs’ from helpless fear to an impetus for action.

What if a group of young men got together and worked hours over the summer to weed by hand our parking lot? I hope you noticed how much nicer it looked on the High Holidays as a result of the hours of work Daniel Raccuia, Zach Rader, Jeffrey Wickun, Ryan Furbush, Anthony Chabla, as well as Josh Strassmann put in to clean it up.

And what if a group of our members came together to plan events for the year? That’s what happened on August 23rd, and we now hove a schedule of events for the year with individuals to chair them. All that remains is for our congregation to agree to help, and to attend.

Of course, the biggest ‘what if’ is the one that is scariest of all. What if Temple Beth Sholom can’t continue? Accept that…expect that… and yes, it will come to pass. But what if each of us were to go to one unaffiliated Jewish friend in the area and explain what will happen without their support? Explain to them why we believe in supporting the Temple, why we’re a member here and why we think they should do the same. What if they came to our events and our services for a while, so they could see for themselves what a wonderful community this is? What if even a quarter of those people subsequently became members? What if we as a community stopped worrying about the future and instead took action to make the future of TBS a brighter one?

What if…? Two words that contain unlimited heartbreak… or unlimited possibility. Which direction they go begins – and ends – with us.

B’shalom,
Rabbi Yvonne Strassmann