July 07, 2017 -- First Sermon at Congregation Emanu El
I think the first inklings that I wanted to be a rabbi came around the time of my bar mitzvah. Jewish life lit a fire inside of me, and I wanted to follow that flame to its source, and share that light with others. I discovered a Judaism that was the connective tissue that linked the story of my life to something greater and gave my story meaning and purpose. I wanted to help other people find these connections, too, and the rabbinate seemed the logical place to do it. So, for the two decades since my bar mitzvah, I’ve been studying and preparing.
Now I’ve wanted to be a rabbi for as long as I can remember, but I’ve been a rabbi for sixty-four days. Two months ago, I went from being “Josh, the guy who wants to be a rabbi” to being “Rabbi Josh Fixler.” It’s a very strange thing in your life to reach the horizon -- a strange but wonderful feeling to reach and then sail past it. Now, my real rabbinic education begins. Here, with you, I will learn what kind of rabbi I will be.
In the sixty-four days of my rabbinate, it feels like everything in my life has changed. We moved from New York. We bought a car. We found a house. And then, twenty-two days ago, everything changed again. On June 14, a bundle of wonderful named Ella Fixler joined our family. The blessings in the days that followed have been innumerable.
So, I have been a rabbi for sixty-four days, and a father for twenty-two. Both necessitate a lot of “on the job” training. I’m getting a crash course in diapers and bottles, and then I turn around I’m standing here on the bimah, addressing you for the first time. Both at home and here, I’m trying to find my feet – to understand what kind of rabbi I will be and at the same time understand what kind of father I will be. One flows into the other. Daily, I learn new things about myself that inform both my rabbinate any my parenthood.
With that in mind, tonight I thought I’d draw on my vast experience and share with you some of what I have learned in these past three weeks. So here are three lessons I have learned about being a rabbi from becoming a father.
Lesson 1: I don’t know what to call you.
It’s a very strange thing that one of your first tasks as a parent is to pick the kid’s name. That’s a lot of pressure. You must pick the thing that this person is going to be called for their whole life. I have a friend who says she has this special skill. If you tell her the name you are thinking of for your baby, she will think of all the ways it can be twisted into taunts by kids on the playground. I was just picking pretty names, now I have to think about that, too?!
But I also felt a lot of pressure because I didn’t know her yet. We chose the name Eleanor Judith, but I didn’t know if she was an Eleanor, or an Ella, or E.J. or something totally different. We had not even met when Annie and I picked that name. We had to hope she’d grow into it.
There is a midrash[i] that teaches:
There are three names by which a person is called: one which their parents call them, one which people call them, and one which they earn for themselves. The last is the best one of all.
I think that this midrash relieves me of some of the pressure I felt in picking a name. Annie and I get some early say over the name people will call her, but we will have to wait and see what name she earns for herself. We don’t get to weigh in on that one, but we get to watch as she grows up into it.
I know almost none of your names either. And I want to. But even more than that, I want to know your stories. I want to know the name your parents gave you, what people call you and also the name you are earning for yourself in this world. Now there are a lot of you, and the Talmud says that each of have three names, so this is going to take some time. I’m going to need you to be patient with me, especially since my retention of new information has dropped precipitously, perhaps its correlated to the number of hours I’m sleeping these days. But I want to know you, and I want to know you by your names. So please, keep sticking your hand out and sharing your name with me. I’m excited to know it.
Lesson 2: I don't know what you need because we haven't learned to communicate yet.
I’m sitting in the nursery, rocking a crying baby late at night. I’m shifting Ella from one shoulder to the other, and bouncing her, and singing to her, and nothing is relieving whatever tiny agony she is feeling. Then, she looks at me, here eyes widen, she burps loudly and immediately falls asleep in my arms. I think to myself, the hardest thing about babies is that they cannot talk. What’s nerve-wracking is that I can see that something is bothering her but she cannot tell me what it is. And sometimes it’s nothing at all. Sometimes she just needs to cry to stretch her lungs out. But all the while, I am doing an elaborate dance, trying this solution and that, to comfort her mysterious wails.
Sometimes, I have done something to upset her. Despite my best intentions, I have placed her in such a way that her arm is at an uncomfortable angle. Sometimes she just does not want to be on her belly and she does not have the ability yet to roll herself over. But she cannot tell me these things, and I am left to guess why she has started to cry all of a sudden.
In this week’s Torah portion, Balaam beats his donkey because the donkey refuses to go forward. Balaam cannot see what the donkey sees, that there is an angel in the road, blocking the way. The donkey pulls to the side of the lane, scraping Balaam’s foot on a fence, and Balaam lashes out in his frustration. Finally, the angel grants the donkey the ability to speak, just so the donkey can say “hey, dude, there’s an angel right there. Stop hitting me.” Their failure of communication leaves both parties bruised and it is only when they finally talk to each other that they can move forward.
There will be times that you and I will rub each other the wrong way. I am not so naive to think it will always be a smooth ride. I will miss the mark. I will not know things that my predecessor knew. I will still be learning. And we will have to learn how to talk to each other. We do not know yet how to say “ouch” or “hey, I can see something you cannot see.” But we will learn. And I will need your faith and your patience as we do. When I am in my patient moments with Ella, I can see that she too is teaching me her language. She cannot speak but I am learning what she likes and what she does not like, why she cries and how she wants to be laid down to sleep. More than I am teaching her to be my child, she is teaching me to be her parent. And I am learning to listen. I will need you to teach me to be your rabbi.
Lesson 3: It is never enough… and it’s enough.
This week I had to say goodbye to Ella as I got ready for my first day in the office. I didn’t cry when I left, but I did cry when I came home and saw her beautiful little face. I swear she got bigger in the few hours I was gone. My heart cracked open with the thought of the number of moments I will miss, the number of days I will not be home with her. As incredibly happy as I was to start my work here at Emanu El, I also felt like I could never do enough for her.
But it is enough, and I must keep reminding myself of that. I will read to her, I will care for her, I will try to keep her safe -- and she will have this community to grow up in. A community that is warm and compassionate, that will care for her and accept her. A community that will give her strong roots so that she might learn to stretch her branches towards the sky. I will teach her that she is loved and it will, of course, be enough.
In this Shabbat’s haftarah, the Prophet Micah comforts people who are feeling a similar kind of inadequacy. They feared their sacrifices were not enough. An Israelite cries “would the Eternal be pleased with thousands of rams and myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for my sins?”[ii] Would that be enough? “No” Micah says, “all you need is to do justice, love goodness and walk humbly with your God.”[iii] That is enough for God. It is not about the sacrifices you bring. You, yourself, are enough for God.
Micah reminds us that it is what we all need to learn. We all sometimes feel like it is never enough, like WE are never enough. But I look at Ella and I think that I will love her through all her challenges and her frustrating moments, and we will remind each other -- she and I -- that we are each enough.
That’s the kind of rabbi that I want to be. The kind that reminds you that you are enough. The kind that reminds you that when you bring your gifts to this place, the sacrifices you bring of you time and your talent, that they are enough. The kind of rabbi who reminds you that this synagogue appreciates you for the fullness of who you are, and not just for your shiniest, most instagramable moments. And I hope that sometimes, when I am feeling like I am not enough, like I could stay for one more meeting or plan one more program, that you will remind me that I am enough, too.
So that’s it. I don’t know much about being a parent. I’m twenty-two days in and I’m no expert. I’m sure many of you have lots to teach me. And I don’t know much about being your rabbi yet either. I know lots of the stuff that you learn in classes over five years of rabbinical school, but they cannot teach you how to be a rabbi at Congregation Emanu El, any more than the book What to Expect When You Are Expecting could teach me how to be Ella’s daddy. But I know that this is the kind of rabbi I want to be. The kind of rabbi who helps us find the connections between the stories of our lives and the stories of our people. And the rest we will learn. I will offer my hand and ask for your name, even if we have already met, because I’d rather know your name than pretend to. And when we misstep, we will approach each other with kindness and curiosity as we seek to learn to do better next time. And we will remind each other that we are enough.
When the sorcerer Balaam blesses the Israelite people, he says, “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel.” That’s what I’ve come to Houston for -- to be a builder of beautiful tents. Just as I want to make a home for Ella that is beautiful and loving and warm, I want to work with Rabbis Hayon and Silk and Cantor Simmons and the rest of the amazing staff to continue to make this community dwelling place for the Divine. In the last two months, I have embarked on two incredible journeys. I know that along the way, one story will continue to inform the other. Oh Source of Life, bless all these dwellings that we will build together. May they always be reflections of your divine light.
Shabbat shalom
[i] Midrash Tanhuma, Parshat Vayakhel 1
[ii] Micah 6:7
[iii] Micah 6:8