Strengthening Faith
Rabbi Ron Shulman
Rosh HaShanah 5771
I think you’ll agree these are anxious days. Many of us and others we know are worried. We’re worried about events in the world. We’re worried about situations close to home. I could go from row to row, from seat to seat and prove the point.
Last year, I described it this way. “Reacting to a changing world, today it seems that almost everywhere we turn we hear and see people venting their emotions, expressing their fears, and most of all seeking validation. However things change around us, this is what we desire. We want to secure our personal places, and have our personal experiences honored.”
Another year older and wiser, I regret to say things are much the same. The economy is stalling, impacting so many of us. Public rhetoric is shrill. Most important, we’re not always sure what matters anymore, and we have little confidence in what may come next. When I was 29, the cliché was don’t trust anyone over 30. Today age doesn’t matter. It’s just don’t trust anyone.
There is a lot of cynicism out there. We feel disillusionment and distrust. For some this takes the form of hostility toward those with whom we’re less familiar. For others there are real doubts when Israel even tries to enter into peace talks. It is better to try for peace than to not. Still, we’re skeptical.
Cynicism comes into our homes when we go to sleep following the daily tragedy report that is local news. In the age of Facebook and You Tube, we discover that digital memory is forever, and unforgiving. We hear this doubt in the lyrics to popular music. “Yo’ whatever happened to the values of humanity. Whatever happened to the fairness in equality. Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity…There’s no wonder why sometimes I’m feeling under. Gotta keep my faith alive…” We lack confidence in the future.
Cynicism troubles me because it takes away possibility. Cynicism corrodes hope. A cynic doesn’t see what might be, something better or something right. A cynic says it doesn’t matter. We can’t do anything about whatever it is anyway. Cynicism is a corrosive attitude.
Innuendo often replaces information. Opinion is often confused for wisdom. Who shouts the loudest must be right. In my experience, who shouts the loudest has the weakest argument. Most of the time wisdom is a softer, calmer, deeper truth. As Jews gathered to celebrate our New Year, it is our responsibility to make sure that what we say and do is a counter balance to all that we don’t trust. We must remember how to find insight and understanding.
We’re Jews. We’ve seen this before. Ours is a history filled with hostility and despair. But in response, ours is an optimistic heritage of moral courage and redemptive promise. As we begin a new year, I still believe that we want to trust in all that is good, in the hopes and promises of our ideals and our dreams. That’s why we’re here in synagogue. We want to believe that God cares for us; that our families and friends care for us; that our neighbors and community care for us. We want to care.
But then we watch billions of gallons of oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico, and while many take responsibility for the cleaning, we find no one taking responsibility for making the mess.
Or we watch billions of dollars flow to banks and corporations, and while it’s probably true that things could be worse, we know too many people concerned about employment, retirement, and providing for their needs.
Or we watch millions of people suffer from earthquake, flood, or disease; from persecution, corruption, or the rule of despots, and while relief aid and compassion represent our best response, the lack of infrastructure and development that allows this to be so bad saddens us.
Or we watch Israel where our families and friends, our people work to bring light and decency to their part of the world, and while we rejoice in all that is strong and vibrant about Israel, and advocate for what more Israel can still become, we are angered by others’ efforts to de-legitimize Israel rather than co-exist with her in peace.
Or we watch ourselves, our loved ones and our friends challenged by illness or other personal circumstance, and while we express our love through prayer, cooking, running errands, spending time, and supporting them in every way we can, we feel inadequate, and maybe afraid.
Some of us live these current cynical days in frustration, disappointment, anger, and fear. Genuine trust seems hard to come by. So we ask.
Who and what are trustworthy in our lives? Upon what do we rely in this challenging and changing world? And if we can’t answer that question, are we prepared to live on with the cynicism that replaces trust?
To answer these questions, I want to tell you about a book.
Last spring Dr. Susan Vick, our museum curator, and Rabbi Menachem Youlous brought me an old text they found buried in our rich archives of books, Judaica, and historical documents. As far as we know, no one had ever heard of this book before, nor knew that we held it. Published in 1872, as soon as I looked at it I was intrigued.
After 140 years as a prominent Baltimore synagogue, I wondered. Was this book the answer to a simple but elusive question of our congregation’s history? Why is our name Chizuk Amuno Congregation?
We know that in April 1871 as a breakaway from Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, the founders of this synagogue selected the name Hebrew Chizuk Amuno Congregation. What we don’t know is why.
The working assumption is that they chose this name, “Strengthening Faith” to be a barb directed at the emerging reforms of their prior congregation. Jonas Friedenwald and his sons, along with Judah Rosewald, Henry S. Hartogensis and others wanted to create and maintain synagogue practice according to the stricter traditions with which they were more comfortable.
Fine. In and of itself this is hardly a unique occurrence in synagogue life. But why choose Chizuk Amuno? I mean if you were sitting around your living room with some friends to select a new synagogue’s name, is that what you would pick? It’s not a known phrase in any Biblical or Rabbinic literature. In an American setting it doesn’t come rolling off the tongue. Why not something more common, like Congregation Beth El or Beth Tefillah, or Beth Israel or Beth Jacob, or Etz Chaim, or Ner Tamid? Why Chizuk Amuno?
Today I have an answer to share with you. Well, more like a hunch. My instincts tell me this is correct, and with the help of Jan Schein, our congregational archivist and historian, some historical research supports the possibility of this educated guess.
One of our congregation’s founders, in fact the man who handwrote all of Chizuk Amuno's official documents and board minutes for the congregation's first nineteen years, Henry S. Hartogensis, was among the most renowned of Dutch Jewish immigrants to Baltimore. Strictly Orthodox in his upbringing and personal religious practice, Hartogensis’ father was a rabbi, Talmudic scholar, banker, and philanthropist.
In the days of Henry’s youth, Amsterdam was the center of Jewish publishing. Henry was likely educated in Holland in a traditional Hebrew environment where the greater and lesser known works of Jewish scholarship were available to him, his father, and his teachers.
The Hebrew book Susan Vick and Menachem Youlous brought me dates to the late 16th century. Its author was Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham of Troki. The book is a polemic against Christian faith. It argues against weakening Jewish beliefs and ideas in a world that either persecutes Jews or lures them to assimilate. Reprints of this book for Jewish use appeared in Amsterdam in 1705. Translations of the book into Yiddish came out in 1717, into English in 1851, and into German in 1865.
Our guess is that Henry Hartogensis was familiar with this book, perhaps even studied it. Maybe he brought it with him to America in 1848. Perhaps he or someone else purchased the revised Hebrew/German edition from 1872 that we still hold.
The name of this book is Sefer Hizuk Emunah. In the early days of Baltimore’s Jewish communal life, if you were breaking away from a congregation because you felt it was weakening the fabric of religious tradition and belief you valued, and you were familiar with a book, had even studied a book, whose very title and premise opposes what you see happening right before your eyes and supports what you are trying to do, you might have the namesake for your new congregation: Chizuk Amuno Congregation.
Rabbi Isaac Troki begins Sefer Hizuk Emunah with these words. “My religious zeal was aroused, on finding that the name of God was being dishonored, and our Holy Law profaned, by the very people who had been appointed to be the guardians of faith and the witnesses of those grand truths which make the simple man wise, the sorrowing heart glad, and the dim eyes bright.”
We translate emunah as faith. But faith is an English term. It’s not really a Jewish concept. The word faith comes to us from translations of the Christian Bible, the New Testament, from Greek to Latin to English.
In Greek or Latin this sense of trustworthiness became loyalty. Translations of the Bible into English, change loyalty to belief. But the Hebrew term meant, and still means, trust. We can also say emunah means commitment and fidelity. What it doesn’t mean is cynically to believe something we don’t know to be true.
I suspect, in part, that in Sefer Hizuk Emunah Rabbi Isaac Troki was explaining this, as well. Emunah is trust. It is the security we gain from those we trust, or from lessons and values learned through personal experience. We ground our faith in congregation and community. As Jews, we hold to some common beliefs because of shared experiences and memories. When we speak of faith in God, this is what we mean. Not imagined or convenient faith, but experienced individual and collective truths on which we depend.
Such deep and abiding trust is hard to come by these days. After 140 years, at Chizuk Amuno, strengthening faith is a crucial thing. Who and what is trustworthy in our lives? Upon what do we rely in a challenging and changing world? Can we reclaim the original, the truly Jewish meaning of faith for our lives?
Two people meet. One declares himself a pessimist. The other declares himself an optimist. The pessimist looks at his friend and says, “If you are an optimist, why are you so glum?” The optimist sighs, “These days, do you think it’s easy to be an optimist?”
We counter cynicism with faith, emunah. To believe in God is to trust in the moral potential of people, created in God’s image. Through humanity God’s presence comes into the world. Our emunah does not fold its hands. We do not sit back, passive, waiting for God to solve our problems. We express ourselves. We do what’s right. We band together. We get to work. Our trust, our faith is a grounded idealism. Our faith gives hope because emunah means trust. Faith is trust, and the confidence to live our ideals.
The first time the word emunah appears in the Torah, it describes Moses’ hands as trustworthy or steady, “vayehi yadav emunah,” as Moses raises them up to lead Israel.
We strengthen faith; we develop such emunah, such trust, through communication. As Moses signals to Israel their direction, so must we hear each other and talk with one another at home and in community. We trust when we understand.
At the Torah’s end, Moses describes God as, “El emunah,” a trustworthy God, “v’ein avel,” never false, but truly reliable.
We strengthen faith; we develop such emunah, such trust, through relationships. As Moses teaches Israel to see God as a dependable source for inspiration on their journey, so do we have to be present for each other. We trust the people we like, whom we know.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks about people who do justice and are m’vakesh emunah, those who seek integrity.
We strengthen faith; we develop such emunah, such trust, through integrity. As Jeremiah demands that people hold themselves up to a high and proper standard, so do we have to be trustworthy and honest with ourselves and all of the people in our lives.
Finally, in rabbinic usage, a person who was amanah was someone upon whose word or signature you could rely.
We strengthen faith; we develop such emunah, such trust through delivering what we promise. The rabbis believed in the sacred power of a person’s word. As must we. If I trust you, I know you’ll do what I ask. When we build a track record of trying to do, and accomplishing what we said we would do for each other, we learn to trust.
Here at Chizuk Amuno, this is how we are going to respond to this cynical and confusing environment during which we greet a new year. Throughout our 140th year, we will offer opportunities to strengthen faith. We’ll communicate with each other in candid conversations and explorations about our beliefs and our world. We’ll build personal relationships in many settings. We’ll study and celebrate. We’ll act on our emunah, the ideas and ideals in which we trust.
Take this to heart. Every time you celebrate a sacred moment, light a candle for Shabbat or Yom Tov, every time you make Kiddush over wine, every act of tzedakah, every gesture of kindness and compassion, every time you enter the synagogue to pray, to learn, and to connect, every conscious expression of your Jewish self is a demonstration of hope and goodness. These you need. This our world needs.
Our history and our heritage teach us. We must learn again to trust the people in our lives. In family and in community, the more open we are to one another and our best values, the better we, our children and our grandchildren, will learn how to live effectively with others.
Says the Psalm for these Days of Awe: “Mine is the faith, lulei he’e-manti lir-ot b’tuv Adonai, that I surely shall see the Eternal God’s goodness in the land of the living.”
© 2010 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman
