This morning, I am going to finish a sermon that I began 11 years ago. On the second day of Rosh Hashana, 1994, I delivered a sermon on the subject of adolescence. I wanted to stress the importance of Synagogue programming for Middle School and High School ages but, more importantly, I wanted to encourage us to increase our awareness and commitment to teenagers both in the Jewish community and in the general community. I called on the Congregation to stop running and hiding from relating with young people in these difficult and awkward years but to embrace them and find the good in this age as we do in every other.

I based my sermon that day on two ideas. First, I noted that the second day of Rosh Hashana sometimes leaves us all feeling like adolescents. We're not as excited on the second day as we were the day before when we were like children finding even the simplest aspect of the holiday to be a source of wonder. Anticipating Yom Kippur, we find ourselves on the second day like teenagers who know something more important lies ahead and while we can't wait for it to come, we're not really sure we'll be ready for it. I urge you to remember this metaphor tomorrow when the newness of Rosh Hashana wears off.

The other basis of the sermon was a great story of adolescence: the story of sixteen year old Keron Thomas. Remember him? He pulled off one of the greatest adolescent pranks in the history of the world when he took all of the knowledge that he had acquired by riding the New York Subways for fun and, masquerading as a transit worker whom he knew had called in sick, stood in line with other drivers, picked up the keys and drove an A train full of passengers from Brooklyn through Manhattan. It was only when he went a little too fast past a signal that an investigation turned up the truth.

It was terribly dangerous prank and he was punished and deservedly so. But, he became a folk hero especially after a New York Times columnist, Michael Kaufman, wrote a brilliant piece in which he gave Mr. Thomas a stern parental lecture criticizing him for endangering the passengers while, at the same time, praising his creativity and curiosity and his chutzpah. The writer spoke of adolescence as a time of dreams and schemes and encouraged parents to give their kids a pat on the back even while proverbially kicking them in the pants when they showed some misguided and potentially dangerous creativity.

I spoke that day about adolescence and ended my sermon with the following words dedicated to Keron Thomas and to every teenage who had tried in creative but less hopefully less dangerous ways to make their mark on the world: "Today and everyday, somewhere deep inside, we are all struggling with the issues of growth and change, with the disappointments of failure, with the awkwardness of being a human being. Today and everyday, we have great dreams that we can't quite seem to fulfill, but oh how we love to try. Today, and everyday, somewhere deep inside, we are all adolescents."

Today, 11 years later, I want to start from that thought. So I'm going to pick up where I left off.

"Today and every day, somewhere deep inside, we are all adolescents."

And that fact is critical for us as Jews. It's good we've grown up from childhood because Judaism is not a religion for kids. Of course, we have to teach our children about Judaism and help them see its importance but in the end, kids just don't get it.

But, it is also clear to me that Judaism is not a religion for grown ups either. When we stop growing, when we reach a point where we're not interested in change any more, when we have stopped struggling with the world and stopped dreaming greater things, when we stop wanting to scream out: "Hineni", here I am, by being ourselves, Judaism begins to lose its purpose.

So, no matter whether we're celebrating the 1st anniversary of our bar or bat mitzvah, the 37th anniversary as I did this year (you do the math), or the 107th, Judaism demands of us that we still see ourselves as growing, changing, struggling, developing, learning and, oh yes, rebelling.

In short, Judaism is the perfect religion for all of us adolescents. It is a faith for those who find the world to be a frustrating, perplexing place: so large at times that we seek a place to hide, so small at times that we seek a way to stretch our wings. It is a faith for those who feel so independent at times that we scoff at the idea of needing anyone or anything to guide us, and so dependent at times that we'd gladly go back to Kindergarten if they'd let us in. It is a faith for those who are willing to dream, knowing that all will not be achieved. It is a faith for those with more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty, who believe tomorrow will be better but seems so far off. It is a faith for growing, changing human beings. It is a faith for all of us who are doing what adults should do, continuing to confront growth and daring to do a bit more than others or even we ourselves think is possible in this best of all possible worlds. It is a religion for all of us adolescents.

This year, focused on thoughts about our being adolescents deep inside, aided by some wonderful inspiration I received this summer at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and driven by our desire to make sure that we fulfill our mission as a Synagogue, a spiritual center, I want to share with you four presentations on four aspects of our lives as Jews. Some of what I say might be familiar to those who have been here for a while as you've heard ideas like them before. Other things that I will say are slightly or radically different from ideas I have shared before. It has been a year of rethinking for me, as every year should be, and I am glad to share my thoughts with you and look forward to discussing these ideas, formally or informally, as the year goes along. There will be some references to some contemporary "relevant" issues but mainly my thoughts are more general, more foundational, less concerned with the events of the day.

My sermons will be structured around four wishes that you allow me to say to all of our physical adolescents, the b'nai and b'not mitzvah who stand on this bima. For each Bar and Bat mitzvah, I say the mishebayrach blessing and in that blessing we express the hope that this new adolescent/adult will direct her heart in four different ways: to be shalaym eem adonai elohav, wholehearted in her faith, lalechet bidrachav, to walk in God's ways, lishmor mitzvotav, to observe God's commandments and lihagot bitorato, to repeat words of Torah. Thank you for letting me say these words to your children. They are the basic foundation of what it means to be a Jew and each of my four sermons will focus on one of these phrases because I believe that to be a Jew means to come to terms with each of these elements and each of these hopes: a relationship with God, with Torah and with the mitzvot and a direction on a proper path through life.

Agree or disagree or somewhere in between, I hope you will find my words thought provoking as a way to start your thinking in this New Year.

First of these hopes, is the hope to be shalaym with God and it is with that that I will begin. The word shalaym, root of the word shalom, means complete and it is translated in our siddur as: May she be wholehearted in her faith.

I love the phrase but I do not like the translation. I need a new one. And that is my subject for this morning: what I believe we should be telling our young people when we express the hope that they be shalaym, complete, with God.

There is no doubt that in some of the sources in which this phrase occurs, it means just what it appears to mean: complete, wholehearted, unshaken, clearly defined and unchanging faith in God. But, in the struggles of our daily lives, amidst the nagging questions that arise, in the adolescent type wavering between being all powerful and completely impotent, such permanent faith is hard to come by and is, in the long run, I believe, detrimental to our lives. We need a new definition.

There is a phrase in the Torah which seems to have particularly inspired this line in the blessing. Vayaytzay Ya'akov Shaleym: Jacob left his long period of living with his father in law Lavan, and left his wrestling match with the angel who gave him the name Yisrael, and left his reunion with his brother Esau, shalaym, whole, complete.

Some of the Rabbis had problems with this phrase because Jacob seemed so incomplete in so many ways but many others, Rashi, for example, says it means exactly what it appears to mean.

Rashi says that Jacob was shaleym begufo, shalaym bitorato, shalaym bimamono, complete in body, complete in Torah, complete in possessions.

This is strange because Jacob had reason to have big gaps in all three. Complete in body? He had injured his thigh in his wrestling match with the angel. Complete in Torah? He had, according to the Rabbis, not studied Torah for all the years he lived under Lavan's roof. Complete in possessions? He had just given Esau many of his own possessions as a gift in order to appease him.

Rashi knew these questions and he had answers: Jacob was complete in body because his injury had healed. He was complete in Torah, because he suddenly remembered all of the Torah he had forgotten. He was complete in his possessions because even though he had given the gifts, he somehow magically found his possessions to be complete.

And, I humbly disagree completely with Rashi.

Shalaym bigufo? Complete in body? As we grow, we learn that some wounds never heal completely. We go through life the best we can and, God willing, do quite well, but the deepest wounds never completely heal.

Shalaym Bitorato? Complete in Torah? As we grow, we learn that the time which we have "wasted on the way", can not be made up by snapping our fingers.

Shalaym Bimamono? Complete in possessions? As we grow, we learn that we do not always get in return that which we give and the most important gifts are the gifts that do not come back to us.

Thus, I am uncomfortable with Rashi's claim that Jacob walked away from these critical moments of his life unchanged, unshaken and unburdened by any sense of regret or pain or loss.

And so, I believe that it is unreasonable for our tradition to ask of us that we be shalaym with God if shalaym means forgetting everything that ever was negative or lacking in our relationship with God.

Jacob, the wrestler, the schemer, the dreamer, the great visionary, was once the prototypical adolescent. And, as he limps away from his interactions with his father in law with his brother and with the angel, having grown tremendously, having matured greatly, to assume that he has left behind all of his doubts, his pain, his struggles is unrealistic because how boring we would be and how meaningless our lives if all of our problems, all of our issues could be solved this easily.

Of course, each of us, and some more than others, can easily find an experience or two in our lives which we would dearly love to have never experienced. I understand that and do not mean to glorify or gloss over or even find a higher purpose in pain or loss. But, a human life without a reasonable amount of conflict and loss and disappointment is not a real human life, at least not the life that our tradition envisioned and certainly is not a life that needs a relationship with God.

And so, I have to disagree with Rashi and I do not want our Bar and Bar mitzvah celebrants or the rest of us adolescents to think that being shalaym means wholehearted in our faith because for much of our lives, some or all of our heart will find it difficult to approach God with faith and with serenity.

It happens to all of us and it certainly happens to Rabbis. There are days I wake up in the morning and say: "How can I really believe all of this?" You might think that this especially happens when things in life seem unfair, when bad things happen to good people. I would be dishonest if I didn't say that facing these types of circumstances never cause me to question God. Of course they do. But, I find great comfort in my theology at those moments.

It is precisely when life seems so unfair that I find a belief in God to be most important. I never assumed that God has control over the events of our daily lives so when these things happen, whether they be horrible illnesses or tsunamis or tragic hurricanes, I look to God to soften the blow with Divine comfort and encourage us to do God like things.

This, by the way, is probably the original meaning of the phrase in the u'nataneh tokef prayer: U'tshuva, utefilla u'tzedaka ma'avirim et roa hagizayra", repentance, prayer and righteous deeds avert not "the evil decree" as our machzor says, but the "severity of the decree", that these three religious constructs help us to navigate in a world of pain, not to chart a course that removes pain altogether.

And, it also calls to mind, the brilliant comment of Rabbi Harold Kushner in his wonderful book on the 23rd psalm, The Lord is My Shepherd, in which he tells the story of the man whose English wasn't the best and who assumed that: "your rod and your staff do comfort me" implied that God had a staff of angels working for him who did the comforting. Rabbi Kushner reminds us that when we, inspired by God's concern, work to ease the pain of others, become members of God's staff.

So, if my significant crisis doesn't come when bad things happen, when does it happen? My crisis of faith comes when things are calm and it seems my life is just fine, thank you very much, without any thoughts of what lies beyond our world or what meaning my life might have or what is right and wrong or what some being I've never seen expects of me, moments when I am content to just plunk myself down on a chair and watch a ballgame during every free moment I might have and shut the rest of the world out.

This summer I had one of those moments, in Jerusalem of all places. I stopped as I walking to my hotel room after breakfast to gather my material for 8 hours of Torah study and it suddenly dawned on me: "What am I doing with my life? Does any of this really matter? Do I really believe in this God I talk about? Why not just take the bus up to Tel Aviv or into the Galil and do some hiking, or make the trip to Jordan I've always wanted to take? Why spend my day studying Torah?" I sat down in my chair in my hotel room, closed my eyes and thought and in a few minutes, I realized how to translate this phrase: being shalaym with God.

For in those few minutes, as I sat and thought about these questions, the loneliness that I felt being away from my family got so much stronger and so much more difficult. And, then I realized, there was a greater loneliness I was feeling, even in that brief time.

That is when the new translation of this phrase hit me. Lihyot Shalaym with God doesn't mean to be wholehearted in one's faith. But, it means to understand that my life is complete, it is only shalaym, with God. Without a creator, without a lawgiver, without a redeemer, my life is not complete. Alone, even among my beloved family and close friends, my life is not complete. My life is not complete without God to shake my fist at, to question, to ignore, to praise, to be inspired by, to be challenged by. My life is not complete unless I feel that there is someone for whom I, and all of those around me, are the ultimate tools of a yet unfinished dream.

Yes, many of those roles are filled by people already in my life. But, that's not enough. We need to reach beyond ourselves and those with whom we share our earthly lives if we expect to rise above our animal nature and be something greater.

And for me, that means faith in God.

But, my vision of God is different one day to the next. My opinion of God is different one day to the next. My job approval rating for God is different from one day to the next. The degree to which I need God is different from one moment to the next. And, I can even turn my back on God every once in a while and even for a long period of time, knowing that when I turn back, God will be there. But every moment in which I turn my back, I am subject to that terrible loneliness, lost in a world suddenly much too big- or much too small.

And, in return, I believe that what God wants from us is to be the best we can be as human beings and that means that we will be full of conflict and doubt and struggles and dreams and hopes and cynicism and the constant balance between being the center of the universe and a meaningless speck so far from the center that it can't even be seen.

We will settle some of those conflicts as we grow but, God forbid, if we ever think we've grown up enough to figure them all out, we're in deep, deep trouble because we won't need God anymore and how incomplete our lives would be.

As has been said many times by many people of many faiths, God is not there to answer all of the questions. God is there to remind us what the questions are. God is not there to make our lives easy. God is there to help us through the pain that is inevitable in life.

In conclusion, then, let me return the analogy of the adolescent.

There aren't parents in the world who can answer all of their adolescent's questions. All they can do is to be there, at times distant to allow for growth, at times as close as close can be for their child to hold on tight, with an assurance to their Bar or Bat mitzvah, their new adult still finding his or her way, that even though they may shed some tears, there is a better day coming. In the meantime, they tell them to enjoy their dreams, live to the best of their abilities, enliven their eyes through appropriately cautious creativity and try to make their dreams reality. That is what God tells us every day, grab on to this world, love it, enjoy it and find a way to make our mark.

Just like the adolescent who turns his back on his parents imagining he can do better without them but knowing deep inside that his life would not be complete without them, so do we, in our successes, in our struggles, in our doubts, in our questions, in our celebrations, in our being true b'nai Yisrael, children of Jacob, the wrestler with God, so do we know that, even if we stray, even if we become educated to the point at which it all seems silly, even if we turn to our peoplehood as the ultimate purpose of Judaism, even if we replace the Divine with every idea or action or commitment we can find, it is simple, our lives would not be shalaym without God.

And more importantly, I believe with perfect faith, that God's existence is not shalaym without each and every one of us, God's staff, God's angels, God's hands and feet and eyes and tongue, God's adolescents whom God loves so dearly and holds so tightly even as we squirm to get away.

Robert Dobrusin, Rabbi
Copyright © 2005, Robert Dobrusin.
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This message was originally posted on October 27, 2005.

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