Beginning Anew on America’s 250th
My friends, this is an auspicious weekend indeed. I am so gratified and happy to begin my tenure as the rabbi of the Jewish Community of Lincoln, and it takes on special significance because it is happening on America's 250th birthday.
On one hand, two hundred and fifty years is a not a long time in the life of a nation. As a civilization, Egypt is over 5,000 years old. On the other hand, the modern state of Israel is only seventy-eight years old, so two hundred fifty years is not insignificant. It is long enough for triumphs and failures, courage and conflict, gratitude and disappointment, ideals proclaimed, and ideals still waiting to be fully realized. A milestone birthday invites us to look backward with honesty, forward with hope, and inward with responsibility.
And that is exactly where the Torah brings us when Moses prepares the people of Israel for a new beginning.
Moses knows that he will not lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. He has brought them out of Egypt. He has stood before Pharaoh. He has received Torah at Sinai. He has carried the burdens of the people through forty years in the wilderness. But now the time has come for a transition.
And what does Moses do?
He does not make the moment about himself. He does not say, 'After me, there can be no future.' He does not ask God to protect his legacy or preserve his honor. Instead, he thinks about the people.
In the Book of Numbers, Moses says to God: 'Let the Eternal, God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint someone over the congregation, who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Eternal may not be like sheep without a shepherd.'
That is one of the most beautiful prayers in the Torah. Moses asks God to make sure the people have someone to guide them into their next chapter.
God tells Moses to take Joshua, 'a man in whom there is spirit,' and place his hand upon him. Joshua is then commissioned before Eleazar the priest and before the whole community.
This is not merely an administrative transition. It is a sacred moment. It teaches us that new beginnings are not interruptions in the story of our people. They are part of the story of our people.
Joshua is not Moses. He is not supposed to be Moses. Moses led the people out of slavery. Joshua would lead them into responsibility. Moses led them through the wilderness. Joshua would lead them into the land. Moses taught them how to survive as a liberated people. Joshua would have to help them learn how to live as a covenantal people.
Every new beginning carries both memory and possibility. We honor what came before, but we cannot remain frozen in what came before. The Torah does not allow us to live only in nostalgia. It calls us to move forward.
That is true for the Jewish people. That is true for America. And, in a very personal way, it is true for me as I begin my role as the new rabbi of the Jewish Community of Lincoln.
I come here with deep respect for what has already been built. Every congregation is the result of years of devotion: prayers offered, children taught, holidays celebrated, meals shared, losses mourned, simchas rejoiced in, committees convened, volunteers exhausted, and generations of people who decided that Jewish life mattered enough to sustain it.
A new rabbi does not begin by pretending that nothing existed before he arrived. Quite the opposite. A new rabbi begins by listening, learning, honoring, and then joining the community in asking: What is God calling us to build next?
That is the Torah's model. But unlike God’s instruction to Moses to place a hand on Joshua, Moses goes a step further. Instead of one hand, he places both hands on Joshua’s shoulders. One generation blesses the next. Leadership changes, but the covenant continues. The people move forward, but they do not move forward alone.
What a special moment for me as a rabbi and, I hope, for the Jewish Community of Lincoln. We begin our journey together as our nation celebrates turning 250 years old.
The American story, like the Torah's story, is a story of beginnings. It is a story of people who imagined a future that did not yet exist. It is a story of liberty, responsibility, argument, aspiration, and renewal. It is also a story that has always required moral work. The founding of America was not the completion of America. It was the beginning of a long and unfinished task.
The Torah teaches us that freedom is not the same as chaos. Freedom requires law. Freedom requires memory. Freedom requires moral discipline. The Israelites were freed from Egypt, but they were not simply told, 'Go wherever you want and do whatever you please.' They were brought to Sinai. They were given Torah. They were taught that a free people must become a responsible people. And this meshes perfectly with the famous quote from John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Our government was created to be secular, but our population was regarded as religious.
That is a lesson America still needs. Freedom is precious, but freedom cannot sustain itself without character. A nation cannot endure on rights alone. It also needs duties. It needs citizens who understand gratitude, service, restraint, compassion, and responsibility.
And a Jewish community cannot endure on memory alone. It needs learning. It needs prayer. It needs kindness. It needs children who know they belong. It needs adults who continue to grow. It needs people who show up for one another. It needs the courage to preserve tradition and the imagination to renew it.
The appointment of Joshua reminds us that leadership is not about replacing the past. It is about carrying the past forward into the future.
That is what I hope we will do together here in Lincoln.
We will carry forward the Torah that has sustained our people for thousands of years. We will carry forward the memories and commitments of those who built this community before us. We will carry forward the Jewish values of learning, worship, acts of kindness, justice, humility, and reverence for God.
And we will also begin something new.
Not new because the past was lacking. New because every generation must receive Torah again. Every community must ask again what Jewish life requires of us now. Every person must decide again what kind of human being he or she wants to become.
The Torah ends with Moses, but the story does not end with Moses. The people still have to enter the land. They still have to build a society. They still have to live the covenant.
America's founding was a beginning, but the story did not end in 1776. The nation still has to live up to its ideals. It still has to teach freedom with responsibility. It still has to renew its commitment to the common good.
And this community's story did not begin with me, and it will not end with me. But I am honored and grateful to begin this next chapter with you. May our new beginning be blessed.
May America's 250th birthday remind us to be grateful for the blessings of this country and responsible for its future.
May the appointment of Joshua remind us that change can be sacred when it is guided by Torah, humility, and faith.
And may our new beginning together as rabbi and community be filled with learning, kindness, courage, joy, and a renewed commitment to Jewish life.
The Israelites needed Joshua because the journey was not over.
America's journey is not over.
And our journey together is just beginning.
Shabbat shalom.
