Becoming our Best Selves –
|
As the rabbi and spiritual leader of a new model for Jewish community, I continue to seek deep and meaningful ways to engage 'seekers' with Judaism. Most recently, I have felt the need to encourage each and every person to flourish as a human being, and to use Judaism as the vehicle for flourishing. This sermon is an open door into that process.
|
Yom Kippur 2017 / 5778
Makom NY: A New Kind of Jewish Community
Recently, I attended a B’nai Mitzvah of twins. At the service, the mother was speaking to her children, giving them a charge, a blessing for life. She said to one of them: what I love most about you is that you help people to be the best they can be.
I loved that quote, and it stuck with me for the days afterward. What does it mean to be the best you can be? As a parent, I am constantly reminding my two children that they are very different personalities (any of you who know Sam and Sophie know this to be very true), with very different strengths, and so what I may ask of Sam is very different than what I will ask of Sophie, because their ‘best’ looks different. If Sophie is able to figure out a little something in the area of computer programming, she feels a great sense of success and accomplishment, because that is out of her comfort zone. If Sam were to figure out the same thing, it wouldn’t really mean anything to him, because he does that every day. And if Sam was able to say, make himself some eggs, he would feel a great accomplishment, because he typically stays far away from the kitchen, where as Sophie would need to bake a four-layer chocolate cake with ganache in the middle to feel a sense of accomplishment in the kitchen. They each have a ‘best’, but each one is different.
The landscape of our time is such that we are seeing a complete display of good and bad behaviors and actions on a daily basis. We are regularly exposed to the very best sides of human nature, and the very worst sides of it. In my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon, I referenced some of the worst sides of human nature. This morning, I would like to focus on the better sides of human behavior.
We need not look any further than current events to see some incredible and heroic behaviors. Look at the stories coming out of Texas and Florida since the hurricanes hit there several weeks ago. Look at the stories in Puerto Rico, despite the horrific conditions still in existence, of human beings doing what they can to help others, even when they have very little for themselves.
I have been following the FaceBook posts of my colleague in St. Thomas, where the synagogue and much of what was in it was nearly destroyed, as well as many people’s homes, but people have rallied and done good in the face of horror. People are finding ways to get food to this community, unofficially, because it is taking some time for official help. They even are hoping to have a visitor who will be there in time for Yom Kippur, today, and is expected to bring bagles, babka, whitefish and other New York delicacies for break-fast. All things we may take for granted, but not the folks in St. Thomas. Not this year. And someone was kind enough to go above and beyond in getting these items to them.
I’m sure many of us can think of actions we have seen, either personally or globally, that remind us that there is much good being done in the world. But that is not the question for this day. On THIS day, this Yom Kippur, we must ask ourselves – what is OUR better nature? How do we find it? What does our best look like?
I have come to love the CNN series that occurs each year about Heroes. It shows how every day people are finding ways to be their best self, and are able to help others at the same time. One man created an organization that offers therapies, educational services and healthy meals to young people in Columbia living with a range of disabilities. Another woman works with refugees in Georgia, one woman is helping women in Nashville who are marginalized to have housing and therapies. And the list goes on and on. If you have never seen this series, it is worth watching.
These people are clearly figuring out how to be their best, however, these actions are quite grandiose, and perhaps feel a bit too ‘big’ for where to start. Perhaps we can start by thinking about a particular moment where we felt we were really being great. Not necessarily the moment when we got a job promotion and a raise, nor the moment where we got a great score on a test. Dig deeper. Perhaps it was the moment that no one else really knew about, but it stood out for you.
One of the many things I love about FaceBook is that I observe, typically from afar, some of these great moments. Often people post them just as a matter of – this is what I did today, and those are the moments I especially like. Whether it is a picture of a mother and daughter at a Call-Bank, reaching out to people to help them understand and take action about health care for all. Or it is a teacher sharing a sweet story about a student who just needed a certain embrace in that moment. Or the doctor who posts pictures with her staff having fun and enjoying what they do, because she gave them permission to have fun each and every day at work.
I actually keep a mental list when I hear a story or see something that I think shows people being their best at any moment. For me, these are the stories that counter-balance the many horrible stories we hear on the news about hatred, ignorance, apathy and greed. The story told by a wife about her husband, with no sense of bragging but just stating how he was helping a senior to pick up the pieces and get their lives back together after a loss. The Bar Mitzvah student who shares, innocently, how he tried to include a new student at school who seemed to be a bit lonely and left out. I believe many people have moments of being their best, whether consciously or sub-consciously, and it reminds me that good, ultimately, will outweigh evil in this world.
What I am suggesting today, however, is that each of us, very intentionally, should strive to be our best selves. Imagine what this world COULD look like it we were all to step up to the plate, in our actions, our words, our beliefs, and ultimately, in our legacy that we leave to the future generations.
We are all different individuals. We have different strengths, different characteristics, different abilities. How do we figure out what our best self looks like? How do we access where we need to grow, to change, to adapt? Many of you have heard me talk about the area of Positive Psychology that focuses on personal character strengths. We all have many, many strengths; we actually all have a taste of all the strengths that are out there, but some of them are what we call our signature strengths. This means, if we know what our signature strengths are, and we focus on them, and even enhance them, they are probably among the best ways we can do good in this world. Focusing on our own signature strengths gives us, perhaps, the best chance to be our best ME.
For the rest of the sermon, please download below.
Makom NY: A New Kind of Jewish Community
Recently, I attended a B’nai Mitzvah of twins. At the service, the mother was speaking to her children, giving them a charge, a blessing for life. She said to one of them: what I love most about you is that you help people to be the best they can be.
I loved that quote, and it stuck with me for the days afterward. What does it mean to be the best you can be? As a parent, I am constantly reminding my two children that they are very different personalities (any of you who know Sam and Sophie know this to be very true), with very different strengths, and so what I may ask of Sam is very different than what I will ask of Sophie, because their ‘best’ looks different. If Sophie is able to figure out a little something in the area of computer programming, she feels a great sense of success and accomplishment, because that is out of her comfort zone. If Sam were to figure out the same thing, it wouldn’t really mean anything to him, because he does that every day. And if Sam was able to say, make himself some eggs, he would feel a great accomplishment, because he typically stays far away from the kitchen, where as Sophie would need to bake a four-layer chocolate cake with ganache in the middle to feel a sense of accomplishment in the kitchen. They each have a ‘best’, but each one is different.
The landscape of our time is such that we are seeing a complete display of good and bad behaviors and actions on a daily basis. We are regularly exposed to the very best sides of human nature, and the very worst sides of it. In my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon, I referenced some of the worst sides of human nature. This morning, I would like to focus on the better sides of human behavior.
We need not look any further than current events to see some incredible and heroic behaviors. Look at the stories coming out of Texas and Florida since the hurricanes hit there several weeks ago. Look at the stories in Puerto Rico, despite the horrific conditions still in existence, of human beings doing what they can to help others, even when they have very little for themselves.
I have been following the FaceBook posts of my colleague in St. Thomas, where the synagogue and much of what was in it was nearly destroyed, as well as many people’s homes, but people have rallied and done good in the face of horror. People are finding ways to get food to this community, unofficially, because it is taking some time for official help. They even are hoping to have a visitor who will be there in time for Yom Kippur, today, and is expected to bring bagles, babka, whitefish and other New York delicacies for break-fast. All things we may take for granted, but not the folks in St. Thomas. Not this year. And someone was kind enough to go above and beyond in getting these items to them.
I’m sure many of us can think of actions we have seen, either personally or globally, that remind us that there is much good being done in the world. But that is not the question for this day. On THIS day, this Yom Kippur, we must ask ourselves – what is OUR better nature? How do we find it? What does our best look like?
I have come to love the CNN series that occurs each year about Heroes. It shows how every day people are finding ways to be their best self, and are able to help others at the same time. One man created an organization that offers therapies, educational services and healthy meals to young people in Columbia living with a range of disabilities. Another woman works with refugees in Georgia, one woman is helping women in Nashville who are marginalized to have housing and therapies. And the list goes on and on. If you have never seen this series, it is worth watching.
These people are clearly figuring out how to be their best, however, these actions are quite grandiose, and perhaps feel a bit too ‘big’ for where to start. Perhaps we can start by thinking about a particular moment where we felt we were really being great. Not necessarily the moment when we got a job promotion and a raise, nor the moment where we got a great score on a test. Dig deeper. Perhaps it was the moment that no one else really knew about, but it stood out for you.
One of the many things I love about FaceBook is that I observe, typically from afar, some of these great moments. Often people post them just as a matter of – this is what I did today, and those are the moments I especially like. Whether it is a picture of a mother and daughter at a Call-Bank, reaching out to people to help them understand and take action about health care for all. Or it is a teacher sharing a sweet story about a student who just needed a certain embrace in that moment. Or the doctor who posts pictures with her staff having fun and enjoying what they do, because she gave them permission to have fun each and every day at work.
I actually keep a mental list when I hear a story or see something that I think shows people being their best at any moment. For me, these are the stories that counter-balance the many horrible stories we hear on the news about hatred, ignorance, apathy and greed. The story told by a wife about her husband, with no sense of bragging but just stating how he was helping a senior to pick up the pieces and get their lives back together after a loss. The Bar Mitzvah student who shares, innocently, how he tried to include a new student at school who seemed to be a bit lonely and left out. I believe many people have moments of being their best, whether consciously or sub-consciously, and it reminds me that good, ultimately, will outweigh evil in this world.
What I am suggesting today, however, is that each of us, very intentionally, should strive to be our best selves. Imagine what this world COULD look like it we were all to step up to the plate, in our actions, our words, our beliefs, and ultimately, in our legacy that we leave to the future generations.
We are all different individuals. We have different strengths, different characteristics, different abilities. How do we figure out what our best self looks like? How do we access where we need to grow, to change, to adapt? Many of you have heard me talk about the area of Positive Psychology that focuses on personal character strengths. We all have many, many strengths; we actually all have a taste of all the strengths that are out there, but some of them are what we call our signature strengths. This means, if we know what our signature strengths are, and we focus on them, and even enhance them, they are probably among the best ways we can do good in this world. Focusing on our own signature strengths gives us, perhaps, the best chance to be our best ME.
For the rest of the sermon, please download below.

yk_morning_sermon_2017_-_for_publication_pdf.pdf | |
File Size: | 1346 kb |
File Type: |