The Pieces of Us:
How the Jewish Community Cultivates Love for Human Fullness
How many of us did puzzles during the COVID lockdown? Let's be honest here. Raise your hands. That was one of the big trends when we were all stuck at home along with sourdough starters and a crash course onto Zoom. Puzzles were the perfect entertainment because we had to slow down and notice how every individual piece connected. The wonder of a puzzle is that the fullness of the end result cannot be determined without each unique piece coming together in harmony. This also served as a perfect metaphor during a time of instability. In the uncertainty of 2020, we only held pieces of fear, disease, and isolation, which made for an anxious year. But then we received new, hopeful segments: vaccines, masks, and virtual gatherings. Once we could piece together our lives, we remembered that COVID was more than just the days and months in lockdown; the union of all the pieces helped us complete an image of the ups and downs of the pandemic.
Now, I want you to imagine your identity as an assortment of puzzle pieces. As you spread them out before you, how do you arrange the elements that make you - you? There are core memories from childhood on the edges. Your hobbies, life-changing travel, and favorite holiday treat interconnect with ease. There are also pieces with many knobs; these are your hopes, fears, and ambitions. Those are more difficult to fit in, but there is always a place for them. When the myriad of pieces come together, we complete an authentic and honest self-portrait. In its completeness, we encounter a story that speaks to our unique and divinely inspired gifts.
As citizens of the twenty-first century, we have nuanced identities composed of many different pieces. From the political to the spiritual, each of us assembles a different image of our lives. Each a unique illustration. But we don’t keep it to ourselves. Just like a puzzle, we like to show off our completed work. Our personal story deserves to be seen and appreciated. When someone receives our story in its fullness, we let them know our innermost selves, strengthening our relationship and building mutual trust. We are social creatures who desire spaces that make us feel whole.
That is why our Jewish home always celebrates our individuality. Each of us is created בצלם אלוהים (b’tzelem Elohim), in the image of God, a unique stamp that reflects our divine spark. And together, we represent the fullness of humanity. Just look at us here:
Some of us were born Jewish.
Some converted.
Some of us are Jewish-adjacent, supporting our loved ones during their sacred days.
Some of us are proud, ardent believers in God.
Some of us are staunch atheists.
Some of us are here for our children.
And some of us are here for ourselves.
Some of us attend every holiday.
Some of us go for book clubs and mahjong.
For the first night of Rosh haShanah, Fenway Park was a sanctuary for some of us.
And some among us might even root for the Yankees.
We encourage you to bring your entirety into our space. There's no right or wrong in how we connect with our Jewish community, as long as those pieces speak to our soul, and we fit them into our puzzle. That is why the synagogue as an institution continues to play an important role in the landscape of our country. Because being part of a Jewish community, from its very conception, invites us to assemble enough puzzle pieces of identity and inspiration to formulate the picture of our lives. It’s why we pride ourselves on being your Reform Jewish home. Because just like at home, you are free to be your most authentic self.
But unfortunately, Temple Tiferet Shalom stands apart from many institutions nowadays. I have noticed a worrying trend that inclusion and acceptance into many factions of society, be professional, political, or social, are predicated on uniformity of belief and practice. For this to be true, we must dismantle our identities and exist only as the pieces. Only the pieces that fit into the matrix of cohesive identity are accepted and praised. All other elements of ourselves are discarded as archaic remnants of hegemonic control. The danger of cherry-picking pieces of collective identity is that it reduces our individual mosaic down to a simple caricature. So when we are required to have the orthodoxy of opinion under the guise of connection, it breaks down the bonds that unite us.
There are spaces where we can no longer bring our full selves because all the pieces that make us confident members of the Jewish community will not be accepted. Rabbi Danny Zemel warns:
“If you only thought of [the Jewish community] as one thing - one song, or one experience, or one idea - [...] you would have a very limited picture.”
In political campaign ads and on TikTok, in classrooms and boardrooms alike, when it comes to the Jewish community, only a diluted sense of identity is acceptable. The myth of monolithic identity cannot fathom the complexity of the Jewish community and transforms Jewish pride into a badge of shame. And it happens in the smallest of ways. We wear a hat instead of a kippah on the T. We tuck our Jewish star necklace into our shirts. We stop posting holiday wishes online because the hate is real.
And it isn’t just us. Jews at every level of society need to squeeze ourselves into constrictive and often demeaning positions, fitting into a box that cannot and will not contain every piece. Politicians in San Francisco and Brooklyn were booed out of community gatherings despite campaigning on anti-Zionism, simply because they are Jewish. Rabbi Mara Nathan sued her home state of Texas because, in her words:
“No one faith should be canonized as more holy than others. Yet Texas legislators are imposing the Ten Commandments on public-school children. [...] Children's religious beliefs should be instilled by parents and faith communities, not politicians and public schools.”
And Tsion Cafe, the only restaurant in America serving Ethiopian Jewish food, pivoted to private events only because of harassment and vandalism. So the pieces that once held meaning are now considered worthless trinkets that we hide for the possibility of acceptance. Nathaniel Hawthorne warned us in 1850 when he wrote:
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
We cannot sustain holding different constellations of our core pieces in order to find acceptance. When we are spoken about instead of with, our stories and our character are stripped of their complexity and depth. Without the full embrace of every piece, our spirits are broken and we question what was once special.
When we are only pieces of ourselves, we surrender our autonomy for the sake of something larger. This mentality shuts the door on diversity and fosters isolation and division. No matter how hard one tries, if one element is countercultural, then our entire being is considered problematic. This attitude threatens the pluralism built into our societal framework, asking us, in the words of Becky Voorwinde, to choose between:
“becom[ing] more insular within the Jewish community or becom[ing] more assimilated and distanc[ing] [our]selves from that community.”
But that doesn’t have to be the case. Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone believes that only “identifying ourselves as victims freezes our focus on the past, and therefore forecloses our future.” So instead, we need to declare that contemporary Jewish identity will not accept anything less than full acceptance. When our ancestors felt adrift, they leaned into their personal stories to illustrate that we are people who have wandered and wondered, and always found our way back home. The remedy to countering the false dichotomy that the pieces of the Jewish puzzle are incompatible with modernity is to prove our fullness is integral to progress. We will not be pushed to the side for the comfort of others. Our acceptance is non-negotiable.
Our ancestors looked at a world rife with antisemitism and cultivated a story that withstood the test of time. They believed in the American promise that we never have to give up ourselves for acceptance. Rabbi Deborah Waxman looks back on our history and realizes that "we have found ways to cultivate resilience, both individually and collectively.” It’s the foundation for all of our rituals and gatherings. It’s why, for example, we put our menorahs in the window: to share the miracle of living not by our fears, but by our dreams. When we’ve lived with our light shining brightly, we ignite an acceptance and appreciation of others that truly changes the world.
When the leaders of the Reform Movement penned the draft of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the office of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, their use of our history of oppression was not put to a moral litmus test in order to end legalized segregation in our country. When President Barack Obama addressed the URJ Biennial in 2011, no one questioned why a sitting head of state would attend a national investment in American Judaism. There were no protests when the city of Peabody granted some families the right to reimagine farmland into a Temple, becoming our home for the holidays and every day in between. Since we’ve done it before, we know we can do it again.
That is my New Year’s wish for all of us. To own our story with confidence and faith. We are the beneficiaries of a rich history where we can integrate our stories into the collective mindset, without discarding elements along the way. There is no right or wrong way to be part of the Jewish community. There is no such thing as a good or bad Jew. The role of the Temple is to provide you with the space to share that story with others, to uplift every piece of your puzzle, and to have the privilege of seeing others in their entirety. By doing this here, we gain the courage to bring our authentic selves with us everywhere we go.
I’m not going to stand up here asking you to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. So here are some of the pieces that define my story and make me - me:
My great-grandparents' names.
My Bubbe’s mandel bread recipe that I anticipate at every holiday.
Meeting my wife at UMass Hillel, which so happens to be the place where my parents met 30 years prior.
A year living in Jerusalem, with missiles exploding over my head and High Holy Day services overlooking the Old City.
Four years planning Levi Leap in NFTY where, at the time, over five hundred Jewish teens gathered for community and connection.
It’s learning how to be a virtual rabbi as COVID broke out six months after I was ordained.
It's building a sukkah in my shared yard with our neighbors and giving gifts to my kids on Chanukkah.
It's having Amos Oz and Joan Nathan next to Dan Brown and Emily Dickinson on my bookshelf.
It is, as comedian Antonia Lastar jokes, grounding myself in the weekly Torah reading and never forgetting how to contact my representatives in Congress.
All of these are just a handful of the pieces that illustrate my story. How could you possibly know me and what I stand for without seeing how all these pieces fit together?
Rabbi Donniel Hartman teaches that “We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.” To know a community is to hear its stories. The more stories we hear, the more connected we become. In this time when Judaism and Jewish Pride are looked upon with disdain, our stories offer a counterbalance. It's recognizing that to be Jewish and part of a Jewish community is to sanctify the story that will refuse to remain silent. We will not demote ourselves to be good or bad Jews in anyone's eyes, especially our own. Today we sanctify the many pieces we have in our own mosaic. Today we affirm that we are not just the sum of all our parts. We are more beautiful and special than the puzzle itself.
So I ask you: How are you going to tell your story this year? With pride? Resilience? Connection? Or my wish for you: All 3! Shanah Tovah!