Jews Take Millennial Inventory

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year celebrated last week, and Yom Kippur, the day of fasting and prayer that begins Sunday at sundown, are traditionally times reserved for introspection. For worshipers, that often entails an assessment and spiritual inventory of the year.

For rabbis, the holidays provide a chance to speak to the biggest crowd of the year on the most critical spiritual and political topics. “I do feel a need to say something important,” said Rabbi Elie Spitz of Congregation B’nai Israel in Tustin.

With a new millennium fast approaching--in terms of the secular calendar, at least--many Orange County rabbis are taking an inventory of Judaism and using their sermons to speak about its past and future.

“The Jewish millennium is 240 years away, in the year 6000,” said Rabbi Mark Miller of Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach. Nevertheless, Miller and other rabbis say they still feel compelled to speak about the hallmark year.

“The year 2000 doesn’t have religious significance for us, but it does have profound cultural significance,” Spitz said.

Among topics addressed by many rabbis this season is the paradoxical nature of Jewish life in America. Unlike their European ancestors, American Jews enjoy lives well integrated into the dominant society. And in a remarkable development from this century, setting today’s Jews apart from those of the previous 2,000 years, they have a security obtained from the existence of Israel, the Jewish homeland.

But Miller said the Jewish people have been caught off guard by the freedom they enjoy. For with that freedom has come a new threat of extinction by assimilation. A 1990 survey found that 50% of Jews marrying from 1985 to 1990 married non-Jews, said Jim Schwartz of the United Jewish Communities.

“Freedom is a double-edged sword. We’ve dreamed of it for so many centuries. Now that it’s here, it’s taken its toll,” Miller mused.

Even the Orthodox Jewish community struggles to retain Jewish spiritual values in America’s secular environment, said Rabbi Aron David Berkowitz of Congregation Adat Israel in Huntington Beach.

For Berkowitz, educating children in Jewish ethical and moral values is critical. “The value systems of traditional religion and that on the streets are further and further apart.” Berkowitz advocates that his congregants send their children to Jewish day schools.

Many rabbis are struggling in other ways to persuade their congregants to remain engaged and active in Judaism through the next millennium.

“The Jewish people have given the world many gifts,” said Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark of Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada. Before Judaism, he said, it was only the lives of royalty that mattered. “Judaism taught that everyone is created in the image of God. It was this concept that gave the individual human being value.”

Goldmark said that because many key Jewish concepts have been taken over by the larger society, Jews often struggle with finding other reasons to stay involved.

But Goldmark and Miller, as well as other rabbis, insist that Judaism has many more gifts to offer its followers. They said that the answer to finding the gifts, and thereby keeping Judaism alive, lies in the study and practice of Judaism.

“The chances are high that people who see their parents living and practicing Jewish values will replicate that kind of life and pass it on,” Miller said.

During this Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur season, rabbis are encouraging their congregations to practice the mitzvot, or commandments of Jewish law. They point out that Shabbat, the day of rest, still has relevance in the modern world, offering relief from an environment where busyness is the norm.

“Shabbat is meant to be a weekly therapy session. All of us to a certain extent are control freaks. The goal of Shabbat is to relinquish that control and let the world function without man’s influence,” said Rabbi Joel Landau of Beth Jacob Congregation in Irvine.

Stephen Einstein of Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Fountain Valley adds that the ancient idea of creating a caring community also has its place in modern Judaism. “In such an alienating time, people need community,” he said.

In addition to the traditional values of Judaism, some rabbis say that Judaism must adapt to the new millennium and all the changes it will bring.

“Judaism has to make sense to us. It has to be relevant to our world and not be stagnant,” said Rabbi Shelton Donnell of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana.

Donnell said that if Judaism is not relevant, then people may not choose to live as Jews. To find that relevance, Donnell again repeats the mantra of study as a way of salvation. “In order to be a Jew, you have to know what it is to be a Jew.”