There is an excavation site a few minute walk from the old city of Jerusalem, known as Ir David, the city of David. It’s viewed as one of the most important archeological digs in a country filled with important archeological digs. Next time you’re in Israel, it’s worth the time to stop by and take a tour.
There is an archeological term known as a tell. It’s when you uncover one layer dating to a certain period of history and then you keep digging and find another layer underneath from an earlier period. And then you dig deeper and find yet another layer from an even earlier period. Ir David is a perfect example of this form of typography.
There is a new section of Ir David that is opening soon that goes back to the Roman Era, about a thousand years ago. This past week, Ir David was in the news as archeologists found a golden ring dating back 2000 years. When I took my family there over Pesach, the tour guide described stamps or seals that were found there, with names of government officials mentioned by Yirmiyahu, the prophet Jeremiah; he lived over 2500 years ago. And there are tunnels you could walk through that date back to the Bronze Age.
To some degree this is true throughout Jerusalem. Whenever I walk its streets, I wonder to myself who laid down the ground beneath me. Which battles took place on this road, which sages of the Mishan walked through these streets debating the fine points of Halacha, and which Judean kings were paraded down this boulevard.
This idea of a tell, of layered history, is true not only in space, it’s true in time. My wife and I sometimes play a little game where we trace our children’s attributes to each family. This child’s math brain is from this family (not mine), this child’s smile is from this family (that’s mine), and this child’s loud voice is from… well, both families.
Sometimes I wonder how much deeper we could go. Where did those analytical skills come from? They didn’t just come from this child’s grandmother, they go back and back, to ancestor to ancestor to ancestor, to thousands of years of nature and nurture.
What about all the prayers and tears shed for me to even exist? By my mother? By my grandparents? And by all those who came before them?
We are all archeological tells. Our entire identity is made up of layer after layer after layer, even though when we see a person all we see is what stands before us. We cannot see all the layers that are animating every thought and action.
What is true for an individual is certainly true for a community.
Today, we are officially inaugurating the Rabbi Chaim Landau Lounge. It is a beautiful, airy, light-filled space, with a gorgeous portrait of Rabbi Landau, that was made possible by your generosity. It’s part of our front lobby which was made possible, also by your generosity and the generous volunteerism of many of you here.
I’ve been wondering about the young boy or girl who walks through this lobby in thirty years. They’ll see the picture of Rabbi Landau, but they never would have met him. They’ll see the names Herbert Bearman, Rebbetzin Leibowitz, Lynora and Harold Berman, the Reitberger’s, the many names on the plaques, and they will have no idea who most of these people were.
But that’s also not entirely true. Because while they may never have met those people, the impact they made is layered into this institution. The volunteers who put in hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears, the donors who gave so generously, all of that is layered into the present.
One of the greatest Chassidic Rebbes, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter, otherwise known as the Sefas Emes used to share a story justifying how he was able to take over the Gerrer Chassidus at such a young age; he was 22. He spoke of a mountain climber who after years and years of training, climbed one of the highest mountains. After weeks of climbing through difficult terrain and climates, he reaches the summit. And when he gets there he sees a young scrawny boy on top of the mountain. “How in the world did you climb this mountain?!” he asks. And the young boy shrugs his shoulders and says, “I didn’t climb the mountain; I was born here.” We are all indebted to all those who came before us, all those who climbed before us, and allowed us to start our journey on top of a mountain.
What that means practically for us in this room is this: The fact that people in this shul associate the period of time between Pesach and Shavuos as a time of growth is because for two decades Rabbi Landau hosted Omer Lectures in our shul. The fact that this is such a warm shul is in part due to the fact that Rabbi Landau would spot a stranger walking into shul and run off this pulpit to greet them or the fact that he would visit new members in their home for a cup of tea. The fact that this shul is so staunchly Zionist and eager to discuss complicated topics that many other shuls would shy away from is a credit to the decades during which Rabbi Landau established those values. Selfishly, the fact that children in this shul are comfortable talking to rabbis is probably in part due to the many chocolate bars that Rabbi Landau distributed.
If you walk from my home to the shul, you could see the different stages of this building. The main building in red brick, the original front façade in browns and greys, the chapel addition in beige, and now the front lobby in white. Some have commented that it looks a little silly. We should just paint it all so it looks uniform. But it’s actually perfectly emblematic of the reality. This community is an archeological tell; our present is the sum total of all the many people and generations who came before us.
So yes, the boy or girl who walks through those halls in thirty years from now and thinks that they do not know who Rabbi Landau is, is mistaken. Rabbi Landau is coursing through the bloodstream of this shul. His values are animating our every decision. His persona is lifting up our shul culture. That boy or girl may look at that portrait of Rabbi Landau and think they’re looking at a relic of the past. What they don’t realize is that they are looking at a mirror, they are looking into a window of their own soul.