So often, with our focus on building larger edifices or increasing synagogue membership or cultivating contributions for a deserving charity, we forget the original purpose for Jewish identity. We were not called to be Jews in order to spread borscht-belt humor, or to convince everybody to eat bagels or to provide a voice for the Federation to call once each year. We were called -- and are enjoined still -- to be a holy nation, a people of priests. Our mission to the world is to embody a communal life of holiness, sensitivity, learning and justice -- and in this manner, to testify to the One God who made the heavens and the earth.
In short, we are summoned to be, in the words of the Shabbat morning prayer, "servants of the Holy Blessed One." How does a Jew serve God when our leaders and teachers are so uncomfortable talking about God? How many times have you heard that "the Torah commands . . ." and "our tradition teaches . . . ," as if a book could give an order, or an inheritance could conduct a class!
We are more comfortable talking about the latest political outrage, or a point of interesting history than we are with ultimate issues at the core of our communal existence.
Who are we? What is our role in the world? What are our ultimate values? Those questions, so essential to a meaningful identity as bearers of God's brit (covenant), are rarely discussed by modern Jews. Consequently, many of our people look elsewhere, associating Jewishness with history and heritage, and eastern religions or cults with ultimate questions and a relationship with ultimate reality.
Joseph provides a role model of a different, more complete type of Jew. After being sold into slavery in the household of Pharaoh, we are told that "the Lord was with Joseph." The ancient Rabbis were puzzled by this strange phrase. After all, we would assume that God was with Joseph all the time! Being the son of one of the Patriarchs, a hero of his own biblical tale, Joseph is obviously one of God's intimates. Why else would he be in the Torah? Evidently, the phrase, "the Lord was with Joseph" must mean something else.
One possible meaning is provided in Midrash Beresheet Rabbah, where Rabbi Huna interprets it to mean that, "Joseph whispered God's name whenever he came in and whenever he went out." What the phrase means, therefore, is not that Joseph received the special attention of God, but that Joseph cultivated his own consciousness of God's presence. By continually repeating God's name to himself, by regularly invoking God's love and involvement, Joseph trained himself to perceive the miraculous in the ordinary, to experience wonder in the mundane.
Significantly, according to Rabbi Huna, Joseph whispered God's name. He kept quiet about his own religiosity. Not one to preach incessantly to others, Joseph taught the love and power of God not through words but through deeds. By performing 'mitzvot' and acts of love, Joseph testified to God's love with his own example.
Rashi provides an alternate way to read our phrase. According to that medieval commentator, "the name of God was frequent in his mouth." In other words, Joseph did speak often about God, not merely to God. A willingness to share his ardent love of God, an eagerness to serve God and to let others know that he was serving God functioned to force those around him to consider their own relationship to God, to morality, and to the 'mitzvot.'
By speaking about God without discomfort or insensitivity, Joseph challenged the conventions of those around him, forcing others to rethink their own preconceptions. Both interpretations, one of quiet piety and another of a willingness to speak of God openly, have their place in Jewish religion. Sometimes, we best testify to God's loving care simply by embodying that love and involvement.
By visiting the sick or caring for the homeless, we demonstrate God's faithfulness far better than any sermon could. A hospital bed is no place for a theology debate, and a homeless shelter is not the occasion for a lesson in morality. In such instances, our hands can speak more eloquently than our mouths.
But there is a time for speaking about God. Inside our synagogues, Torah study groups, adult education classes, and our religious schools, we need to think together about how we conceive of the Holy Blessed One, and how our Judaism can vivify and concretize our ancestral love affair with our Creator and our Liberator. "Ana avda de-Kud'sha b'rich hu." "We are the servants of the Holy Blessed One."
Shabbat Shalom.