Last night a group of 19 of us from Temple Shalom went out
together. First we had dinner in a
Chinese restaurant then we attended a klezmer concert. It was a great evening!
Because of the size
of the group, I asked everybody to decide well in advance what they wanted to
eat. Then I sent the order to the
restaurant for them to organise the cooking beforehand. The wait-staff brought the food out a couple
of dishes at a time. They would tell me
what the dishes were, and I would direct them to the person at the table who
had ordered each specific dish.
As is usual
when a group eats Chinese, our members ordered a wide variety of dishes. But the restaurant did a reasonably good job
of filling our order, and with only a couple of delays everybody was soon
munching away on the tasty food. A
little exhausted from my role as ‘traffic cop,’ I looked at everybody eating
something different, but all enjoying Chinese food, before I sat down to eat my
own dinner.
Everybody
eating something different, but all enjoying Chinese food. It
reminded me a bit of this week’s Torah portion, and what it has to teach us.
Parashat
Terumah opens with a command to Moses: Speak to the Israelites and have them
bring me an offering. Take my offering
from everyone whose heart impels him to give.
And the offering that Moses was to take from the people Israel
consisted of the following: gold,
silver, copper, acacia wood, wool of various colours, goat skins, ram skins,
dolphin skins, oil, spices, incense, and various precious and semi-precious
stones.
Now please
don’t listen to me tonight and think that I’m asking you to donate dolphin
skins to Temple Shalom! Or even goat
skins! Gold and silver would probably be
welcome…but really, my message tonight is not about the substantive gifts we
give to the temple. Rather, my message
is about how we add to the totality that is Temple Shalom by the personal talents
and gifts that we bring to the table.
My colleague
and classmate Martha Bergadine, from Hong Kong, presented this principle so
well in her drash this week. Using a
delightful account of an annual kosher corned beef sandwich funder-raiser in
her former community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she illustrated how we create
community today. As Rabbi Bergadine said
so well: We do not seek to build a
Mikdash from acacia wood and ram skins. Rather,
our materials are the talents and skills, of our community members.
What I
bring to the table is quite obvious; much of what I do is highly visible. But there are gifts which others in the
community possess in far greater measure than I do. But because they’re less obvious, you in the
community often don’t give yourselves, or others, recognition for the gifts
that you bring to the table. So allow me
to offer a couple of examples.
The gift of
extroversion – that quality that distinguishes one as being an extrovert or an
outgoing personality – is a special gift.
I do not have it. When I took the
Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator years ago, it showed that I’m an introvert. More precisely, I am an ‘ISTJ.’ I envy those who are extroverts, who have the
self-confidence to walk up to strangers and just begin talking to them
naturally and comfortably. To be sure,
I’m not the only introvert at Temple Shalom. A number of our lay leaders share this
characteristic with me. Now let me be
clear; ‘introvert’ is not a character flaw! Those of us who are introverts, simply lack
the specific gift of extroversion.
But we do have
extroverts among our membership, and the gift they bring to the table – the
ability to unabashedly approach others and draw them in – is priceless. Tonight you will see the extroverts amongst
us, working the room and making people feel welcome and part of the our Temple
Shalom ‘family.’ Envy them is you must. But also, thank God for their presence in our
midst, and that they bring that gift to bear for our collective benefit.
Another gift
that some bring to the table is hospitality – a gift somewhat related to that
of extroversion, but not quite the same thing.
My colleague Rabbi Ruth Adar from the East Bay in California, who calls
herself ‘the Coffee Shop Rabbi,’ refers to this as ‘radical hospitality.’ And it is radical: the notion that we can offer hospitality to
others, with absolutely no expectation that it will be returned in kind. The radically hospitable person offers
his or her gift only in the hopes that the recipient will be somehow
uplifted by the experience.
We have one or
two members in this community, and you know who they are, who have this gift of
hospitality. They’re the ones who
automatically reach out to others in the community, inviting them home to a
Shabbat dinner on weeks when we have no Oneg Shabbat. Would that more of us, your sometimes-grumpy
rabbi included, had it. But thank God
for those of us who do have it.
There are
obviously other gifts and talents that others bring to the table, and they’re
all important and cherished. My message
to you tonight is that you should never feel that your unique gifts are
unwelcome. And that you should never
denigrate the gifts that others bring to the table. As we freely give of the specific gifts that
we have to offer, we take a shule and make it into a community. Let’s continue to do that, until it
becomes automatic. Shabbat shalom.
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