When the German-Amerika Society in Bad Segeberg asked me to address them on the History of American Jewish Life and prospects for the future, I responded:

I can do a credible job of reviewing the history of Jewish life in America, but the future comes with a question mark.

The official outlook—as the widely publicized two-year-old Pew Study makes clear—is bleak.

While Orthodoxy is growing, and while Orthodox families are producing lots of babies to fuel that growth, non-Orthodox movements—with birthrates at or barely above replacement are shrinking.

The fastest growing “movement” among Americans born Jewish is the “nones,” those who claim no specific religious affiliation.

Change has marked Jewish life since biblical times. I would argue that our ability to change is what has allowed us to survive.

Rabbinic Judaism looked very different from biblical “Judaism” (if that word were even appropriate to describe biblical Israelite religion), Medieval Judaism was different than in the rabbinic period, and the modern period has seen sea changes in the ways Jews live and practice.

The Reform Jewish services that I have witnessed in the past four years in my visits to more than 70 communities in the United States and around the world bears very little resemblance to the Reform Jewish services I attended as a boy in New Jersey.

There is also no doubt that the pace of change is accelerating at comparative warp speed due to the Internet speed at which people can exchange ideas and adapt innovations.

The sociological changes in recent years in non-Orthodox Jewish movements have been huge as well.

The first female rabbi in the American Reform movement, Sally Priesand, was ordained in 1972. I remember not long thereafter a very prominent member of the Hebrew Union college faculty said to me, “No one will ever allow a female rabbi to conduct a funeral.” Now it will not be long before half of our spiritual leaders are female, and they occupy top positions of leadership in non-Orthodox movements and congregations.

The open embrace of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender Jews into the community has been for me a very welcome development. The head of the Reconstructionist movement and the President of the (Reform) Central Conference of American Rabbis are both lesbians. At last we have proclaimed our understanding and acceptance of the fundamental principle on which all of Jewish life stands:

All of us are created ”in the image of God,” and that only our ability should determine our suitability for leadership roles.

Today most Reform Jews in the United States who marry, marry someone who was not born Jewish. In general people are marrying much later (My average first time bride over the last twenty years has been 31 years old) and having fewer children.

Outreach to attract and welcome non-Jewish partners to our synagogues has been very successful.

Still it is hard to deny (though some try) that the likelihood of raising a Jewish family is far less for a Jew and a non-Jew than it is for two Jews.

Recently the Reconstructionist movement opened its rabbinical school to Jews partnered with non-Jews. The Reform movement also considered this idea, but it has rejected it, at least for the time being. Only ten years ago, such a notion would have been unthinkable.

For the present, one thing is clear, non-Orthodox Jews are staying away from their synagogues.

High Holy Day attendance—once an almost universal given for American Jews—is down markedly nationwide.

Rabbis, Cantors, Educators and Program Directors are striving energetically to create enticing programs and activities. Despite the occasional “special event” that draws a crowd, attendance at “regular” services is far lower than it used to be. As a result many predict—some gleefully—that non-Orthodox Judaism is doomed.

I believe they are wrong.

Surely had their been a “Pew Study” at the time the Romans destroyed the Second Temple or at many junctures in Jewish history our future has looked very bleak.

As recently as the ‘60s LOOK Magazine predicted our demise. As many have noted LOOK is gone, but we have endured. True, the challenges we have overcome in the past are the challenges of oppression. The challenge we face today is one of assimilation and apathy. Everyone prays that it will not take a serious dose of anti-Semitism for us to shake off our lethargy.

What of the future? I have two predictions:

• The practice of Judaism 50 years from now will be very different than it is today for the reasons I have cited above. It may not be the Judaism that nurtured my peers, and me but we will no longer matter.
• Non-Orthodox Judaism will survive and thrive. I   believe that the creative minds so hard at work to find the direction for Jewish life that will attract the younger generation will eventually find formulae that work. The younger generation of Jewish leaders is too smart, too committed and too creative for Judaism to ultimately fail.

History is on our side.

On a fundamental level, I believe that the Eternal One still wants us around. The Covenant that launched the way of life that developed into what we now know as Judaism is 4000 years old. If we continue to do all we can to uphold our part, God will not let us down.

One of my fondest childhood memories is of my mother’s father being in synagogue with me on Simchat Torah. The rabbi always called the hakafot (processions around the synagogue with people carrying Torah scrolls) by age and my grandfather, Benjamin Goldstein, who was born in Russia, was in the first one. I don’t remember him as a particularly religious man (he died when I was 10), but I will never forget the joy on his face when he carried the Torah around the synagogue.

Simchat Torah was (as it still is in many places) the occasion for the Consecration ceremony for students beginning their religious school studies. We were all called up to the bimah for a blessing, and then we each received a miniature Torah. The small gold or blue boxes containing the small scrolls were piled up on the steps to the bimah.

When I was six, I must confess, I came back into the empty sanctuary after the service was over and helped myself to as many of the remaining miniature Torahs as I could carry. I cannot remember how I hid this larcenous deed from my parents, but I stashed the contraband in the bottom draw of my bedroom night table where they remained for many years.

When I pilfered those scrolls, Torah study was not what I had in mind as a professional pursuit (I planned to be the Catcher for the New York Yankees), but I hope the Almighty will consider my rabbinical career to be suitable penance.

The scrolls certainly came in handy in later years.

During the meal at the first communal Seder I conducted at my congregation in Columbia, MD, I remembered to my horror that I had forgotten (and no one on the committee had thought of it either) to buy a prize for the young person who found the afikomen (the piece of matzah hidden and looked for after the meal by the children present). While everyone ate, I quickly drove the mile to our house and grabbed a miniature scroll to give to the winner. I don’t think I have ever revealed that I was making a young boy or girl party to my trafficking in stolen goods.

On Simchat Torah we read the last verses of the book of Deuteronomy and then immediately begin again to read the opening lines of Genesis. Even when I was six the message came through: the study of Torah never ends.

As years have gone by I consider it increasingly remarkable that we have a special celebration just to honour study and learning!

While meeting to prepare for our celebration here in Bad Segeberg this year, the make up of the planning committee necessitated translating our respective ideas into German, Russian and English!

Much of our discussion revolved around how to honor members of the local Christian community who raised funds to purchase the Torah scroll from which we shall read and did so much in other ways to help the Bad Segeberg Reform congregation re-establish itself.

As we worship in freedom in the beautiful synagogue that sits proudly not far from the center of town, I will give thanks for the opportunity to help to replant the love and learning of Torah in the land of my father’s birth where evil forces sought to uproot our precious heritage.

I will also rejoice that a sizeable number of Russian Jews have found freedom here in Germany to practice our faith that the communists tried to stamp out.

Yes, a celebration conducted in Hebrew, English, German and Russian seems such a wonderful way to honor the Torah and all of the ideals for which it stands!

Oft fragen mich Leute: Warum erlaubt Gott Mose nicht, in das verheißene Land einzuziehen?

Tatsächlich betritt niemand von uns das verheißene Land. Wir alle sterben mit nicht verwirklichten Träumen und unerfüllten Hoffnungen.

Aber Mose braucht uns nicht Leid zu tun. Er starb in hohem Alter, aber in voller Kraft. Er konnte das verheißene Land von ferne sehen und hatte die Ehre vom EwigEinen selbst beerdigt zu werden. Und darüberinaus lesen wir: Nie wieder wird sich ein Prophet erheben, dem der EwigEine פנים אל פנים begegnet, wörtlich “von Angesicht zu Angesicht” (Deuteronomium 34,10).

“Von Angesicht zu Angesicht” lässt sich verstehen als: direkter als jemals jemand bevor.

Aber bei all seiner Größe offenbart Mose menschliche Schwächen. Sein Temperament konnte explodieren, und seine Geduld schwinden.

Spätere jüdische Traidtionen kritisieren ihn, weil er die ersten beiden Bundes-Tafeln zerbrochen hat, und weil er Wasser für die durstigen Menschen hervorbrachte, indem er mit dem Stab gegen einen Felsen schlug anstatt ihn anzusprechen, wie Gott es gesagt hatte.

Aber ich stimme überein mit denen, die meinen, dass, wie ernst diese Eigenwilligkeiten auch waren, sie nicht ausreichenten um ihn davon abzuhalten, den Jordan zu überqueren. Vielmehr erinnert uns der Tod des Mose daran, dass das Leben auch ohne uns weitergeht, egal wie wichtig wir sind. Darum ist es unsere Aufgabe so viel Gutes zu tun, wie wir können, im begrenzten Zeitraum, der uns zugedacht ist. Welch wunderbare Einsicht am Ende der Tora.

Aber wir schließen nur um sofort die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Genesis zu bedenken und die Verantwortung, die uns verliehen ist als Geschöpfe geschaffen im אלהים בצלם in Gottes Bild.

Translationn: with thanks to Pastor Ursula Sieg

Das zu tun mit dem Bild des Mose in unserem Rückspiegel befeuert unsere Leidenschaft zu werden,waser r wa עבד ה׳, “Diener des EwigEinen”, der seine Gaben nutz eine gerechtere, solidarischere und mitfühlendere Gesellschaft zu schaffen.

Often people ask, why did God not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land?

In reality none of us enter the Promised Land. We all die with dreams unfulfilled and hopes unrealized.

But we need not feel sorry for Moses. He dies at a ripe old age in full vigor. He has the privilege of viewing the land from afar and has the honor of burial by the Eternal One. Moreover, we read: “Never again has there arisen a prophet whom the Eternal One encountered פנים אל פנים, literally ‘face to face.'” (Deuteronomy 34:10)

We understand “face to face” to mean more directly than anyone before or since.

 But for all his greatness Moses displayed human foibles. His temper could explode, and his patience could wear thin.

Later Jewish tradition criticizes him for breaking the first set of Tablets of the Covenant and bringing forth water for the thirsty people by banging his staff against the rock instead of addressing it as God had instructed.

But I agree with those who claim that, serious though they were these transgressions were not sufficient to keep him from crossing the Jordan. Rather, Moses death reminds us that no matter how important we are, life will go on without us. Therefore our task is to do the most good that we can in the finite amount of time allotted to us.

What a wonderful lesson to close the Torah!

But we conclude only to immediately ponder Genesis’ creation story and the responsibilities imposed upon us as creatures created אלהים בצלם in the image of God. As we do Moses’ reflection in our rear view mirror fuels our passion to become, as he was ה׳ עבד, “servants of the Eternal One,” who use our talents to create a more just, caring and compassionate society.

When we sit in the sukkah, we have no protection from the sun, the wind, the heat or the cold. Our Sages encourage us to leave the sukkah to escape a driving rain, and we are wise to do so. But far too many people in our world do not have dry warm-in-winter, cool-in-summer homes to which they can retreat.

The sukkah teaches us to feel the pain of these people and care for them.

Today, untold thousands are fleeing Syria in fear of their lives. Germany is opening its doors.  Israel is not.

Yes, I know the dangers and the problems, but Israel should be up to the challenge especially when the reward is the saving of many lives.

What  a powerful message to the world Israel could send  about its values an ideals by taking in—after appropriate vetting—a number of those fleeing for their lives from an enemy country.

More than any other commandment, the Torah emphasises our obligation to care for and protect the stranger. I am sad that Israel seems to be forgetting this cardinal principle of its heritage.

ופרוס עלינו סוכת שלומיך — Spread over us the sukkah of Your Peace!

Julie Goldstein looked forward each year to the time she and her family built the sukkah.

“Can I invite Sharon to help us,” she asked her mother. “Her family never builds a sukkah, and I know she would love it.”

“Of course,” her mother said.

Sharon and Julie worked hard to build the sukkah with Mr. And Mrs. Goldstein. They carried the boards from the garage, helped hammer the nails. They drove into the country where Julie’s mother had arranged with Mr. and Mrs. O‘Brien to pick some of their corn left standing. They cut down sheaves of corn and loaded them into the trunk of the family car. They drove back and used the stalks for the roof of the sukkah and to help decorate the sides. Then they decorated the sukkah with pumpkins, gourds and all sort of other vegetables. They set up a table in the sukkah, and they sat down.

Mr. Goldstein brought out a plate of cookies and juice. “You girls worked so hard to build the sukkah,” he said. “You deserve some refreshments.” He left he cookies and juice on the table and went inside.

The two girls sat in the newly built sukkah and enjoyed the warm breeze that flowed through it.

“That was fun,” Sharon said, “but why do you build the sukkah in the first place?”

”Well,” said Julie, “lots of reasons. First of all it says in the Torah that God wants us to build it to remind us of the temporary huts our people lived in when we left slavery in Egypt and wandered in the Promised Land.”

“But don’t we celebrate that at Passover,” Sharon asked?

“Yes, but then we think about what it is like to be slaves. On Sukkot we think about how hard it is to move from place to place and have very little. There are lots of people who live like that, and Sukkot reminds us how we can help them.”

“Last week,” Sharon said, “my family and I helped build a house for people who don’t have one. That sounds like one of the reasons we build the sukkah.”

“It sure does,” Julie agreed. “You must have felt great when you finished.”

“It was wonderful,” Sharon answered. “The family was so happy when they moved in. I can still see the expression on the children’s faces. Are there any other reasons to build the sukkah?”

“Many,” said Julie. “Sukkot celebrates the harvest. It reminds us that there are so many people who do not have a harvest—who do not have enough to eat.”

“Didn’t we think of them at our food drive at Yom Kippur?”

“Sure,” answered Julie, “but we could have a food drive everyday, and people would still be hungry. Sukkot reminds us how lucky we are.”

As the day gave way to night Julie and Sharon noticed how beautiful the almost full moon looked. “The moon will be completely full on the first night of Sukkot tomorrow,” Julie said.

“When I sit in the sukkah,” she continued, “and look up at the stars I feel closer to God. It makes me feel like a partner with God in trying to make the world a better place. At Temple the rabbi taught us that God wants us all to use our talents to make a better world. Sukkot makes me think about that.”

“Maybe,” Sharon answered, “that’s the best reason of all to build the sukkah,” as the two girls looked at the stars together.