Our Shared Jewish Home-Kol Nidre 9/20/2026
Our Shared Jewish Home
On Rosh Hashanah, I introduced a theme to tie together these sermons for the High Holy Days: I’m speaking about the concept of home. On erev Rosh Hashanah, I spoke about the idea of home and also about how I experience that day as a homecoming. The next morning, I talked about how the United States is my home, even with all of the challenges it faces. Both of those sermons are now on Temple’s website. Tomorrow morning, I will speak about the State of Israel as another place that feels like home to me. Tonight, I am speaking about how Judaism offers all of us a home.
I will now proceed to torture this “home” metaphor in many different ways. I apologize in advance, and hope that on this Kol Nidre you’re in a forgiving mood. I believe that all Jews feel that Judaism is a home, but that our sense of home is very different depending on the individual. There are some who experience Judaism as a vacation home. That home has been lovingly furnished and is full of treasured keepsakes. But it is a house to visit—not a place to live. The rooms are probably a little on the small side, the kitchen isn’t well-equipped, and it may not even be heated. You return from time to time—some years more often, and some years rarely depending on what else is going on. But there is something very reassuring about knowing that it’s always there, just waiting for you to come and visit.
Others feel that Judaism is more like their childhood home. You open the door, and you have an instant warm, fuzzy sense of familiarity. This place is a tremendous source of comfort; you know each piece of furniture, each book, and each knickknack by heart. You may visit your childhood home just a few times a year, or you may come by every week. There is something very reassuring about knowing that it is always going to be exactly the same as it’s always been.
Some people experience Judaism as someone else’s home. You feel like welcome guests as you enter, but you know deep down that this house doesn’t belong to you. The home has its own customs, even its own language, and, although you’re embarrassed to admit it, you don’t understand either enough to feel truly at home. You wonder how everyone else learned their way around this strange house, with its unusual design and furniture that doesn’t seem to fit you. You try to imagine a time when you too might feel at home in this place, but you don’t know how that might happen.
When I started thinking through this metaphor, I thought I would culminate by declaring that Judaism was a palace. But that doesn’t work for me, because the last place I’d want to live is a palace. Every time I’d enter a room I’d worry that there was some priceless object that I might break, or at least dent. Living in a palace would, no doubt, require a suitable wardrobe. I suppose King Charles occasionally pads around in a bathrobe and slippers, but we never see him dressed that way. To me, living in a palace means one must always be playing a role. It’s impossible just to be myself there.
Instead, I’ve come to think of Judaism as an old mansion—full of mysteries, and yet utterly inviting. There are so many rooms, that I can spend years exploring it and still stumble across secret passageways and perhaps even a whole additional wing. But that’s okay, because I was born into this house, and I’ll live here for the rest of my life.
I’m often asked to describe what it’s like to become a rabbi. The truth is it was utterly terrifying. Nearly every professor reminded me how enormous the body of Jewish knowledge was, and how little I had learned even by the end of each individual course. After six years, and just when I had come to the point when I fully appreciated how ignorant I truly was, I was ordained a rabbi and tossed out into the world.
At the same time, rabbinical school opened me up to the mansion that is Judaism. When I started my studies, I was more or less operating out of a seventh grade understanding of Judaism. I knew that Hanukkah lasted for 8 days because that’s how long the oil burned. I knew that Rosh Hashanah was marked with the sounding of the shofar and Yom Kippur with prayers of repentance. I knew that Shabbat was the day of rest, punctuated with candle lighting, kiddush, and motzi. I arrived at seminary absolutely convinced that the story in which Abraham trashed his father’s idol shop was in the Torah, and I was shocked—shocked!--to learn that it is actually rabbinic midrash. I was very fortunate that, as a student of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, I was assigned to the preparatory year to become more grounded in the richness of Jewish culture.
That was the year that Judaism began to unfold before me like a flower with unending petals. I had been going to Friday evening services for much of my life, but for the first time I learned about the philosophy and theology that determined its structure. I was introduced to rituals that were new to me. Some of them immediately clicked, like the Tu B’Shvat seder and different kinds of trope for different parts of the Bible and at various times of the year. Other rituals just never worked for me. As a first-year student, I diligently laid tefillin at our weekday morning services, but more often than not I ended up literally tied in knots. At the end of the year, I closed the door of that room and never looked back. But that was okay, because an unending number of other rooms stretched before me. Most of all, what I came to understand in that year and the many years that have followed was that every single aspect of Judaism, from the simple kissing of a mezuzah to wearing a tallit to celebrating Shabbat to visiting a shiva house, all of it was so much richer and more meaningful as I delved into its depths.
And then, I headed off to my first congregation and eventually on to my second, and I learned a hard truth: the vast majority of my members were very content with the little bit of Jewish knowledge they had picked up prior to age 13. I had so much to teach them about, well, everything. But they were happy with the Judaism of their childhood and saw no need to learn more. When I came to Temple Beth-El, I was delighted to find a community dedicated to learning, with a monthly book group and women’s Torah study. But I also noticed the same people turning up and a lot more who were not joining.
As for me, once I was no longer in seminary, I was free to learn at my own pace, wandering happily from room to room in the vast Jewish mansion. I have no illusions that I’ll ever study everything, but that doesn’t stop me from trying little by little. Torah study is a mitzvah that is meant to be performed every day, not just occasionally. And so, every day, I hope to find a new nook or cranny I haven’t explored yet in this mansion. Every once and a while, I’ll uncover an entirely new room. There will always be something to find.
In recent decades, synagogues have rebranded their adult and children’s education programs as “lifelong learning.” I am deeply touched by that concept. We know that it is the job of children to be learners; after all, that’s what they do with much of their days. But learning is not something that we should give up on once we’ve finished our formal education. Framing ourselves as lifelong learners means cultivating a keen sense of curiosity about the world and, hopefully, especially about our Jewish mansion and the treasures that it contains. The morning prayerbook praises God who renews the works of creation every day. If we continue to learn, to discover, and to grow, our world will be new each day.
It’s the beginning of the new year. In this coming year, there will continue to be book club, women’s Torah study, monthly Torah study, and weekly Lunch and Learn. But I have an additional proposal as well: starting in October, I’ll be offering a survey course of Judaism that will last the remainder of the school year. I’ve taught this class many times before, and it’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ll advertise the curriculum and then will publicize the content of each particular class so you can attend the ones that especially interest you. It will meet on Wednesday evenings on Zoom so that you can participate whether you’re close by in Granger or as far away as Florida or beyond. At any point in the year, if we come upon an area of study that is especially interesting to you, you can let me know, and I’ll plan to shape a stand-alone class dedicated to that subject. If, as often happens, it’s a topic that I don’t know too much about, that will be an opportunity for me to become acquainted with a new room in the mansion.
We are early on in our journey together through Yom Kippur. In the coming hours, we will sit together in what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called the Holiest of Holies. I invite you to explore this particular room over the next day. Our Yom Kippur prayerbook contains riches upon riches in the poems and prayers on the opposite side of the page and in the notes at the bottom. May we all emerge from this day enriched and renewed, and may we find many opportunities to continue exploring our splendid Jewish mansion together. Wishing us all an easy fast, and be we all be sealed for a year of sweetness and joy, good health and contentment, curiosity and discover. Shana tova!
