Good. Better. Boca.
I’m sure many of you have seen that car magnet as you make your way around town, and my guess is that you had a chuckle similar to the one I did the first time you saw it. There are many great things about being part of the Boca Raton community, and folks who like it here are not afraid to tell you.
I had a conversation earlier this week, over lunch with someone who grew up in Boca and just returned with his family, about the joys and blessings of living in Boca, especially for the Jewish community. We enjoy a sense of safety and security – physical, emotional, and spiritual – that many of our brethren in other communities do not. This reality is even more true now than before October 7, but it was many years ago that the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, declared Boca to be the new Garden of Eden. He was a frequent visitor, and I had the pleasure of learning with him several times, and each time he remarked what a remarkable community this is.
Sometimes it is hard to remember what our blessings are, especially if we feel and experience them on a regular basis. The everyday miracles of life, (God willing) good health, nourishment, and a safe roof over our heads easily can become commonplace. It is not surprising, then, that over and over again our tradition challenges us to remind ourselves of those blessings, and gives us prompts and opportunities to express our appreciation for them.
There is a series of blessings to be said each morning for those everyday miracles. Shabbat each week comes to remind us of the miracle of our creation and our continued relationship with God and our tradition. Our holidays remind us to be grateful for our bountiful harvests, our freedoms, the beauty of our Torah and tradition, even as we have at times faced the challenges of natural disaster, oppression, persecution, and fates even worse. But through all of that, appreciation for our blessings and the compulsion to cherish and care for things that bring us joy and satisfaction have consistently been core components of what has sustained us through those difficulties.
Perhaps the Holy One was preparing us to face those difficulties in this week’s Torah portion, and God guided us to build the Tabernacle, the beautifully-adorned worship tent the Israelites constructed in the desert. Made of gold, silver and copper, fine linens, wood, and animals skins prepared by artisans, the Mishkan was visually stunning and spiritually impressive, meant to evoke the presence of the Holy One, literally and within everyone who came to it.
Interestingly, the Tabernacle had three coverings. The inner layer was adorned to be viewed from within the tent, made of linen, azure, purple and red wool, with the designs of angels sewn into it. It was beautiful and evocative. On top of it though, only visible from outside the tent, were layers of goats’ hair and animal skins, unadorned and extra big. They served a different, more practical purpose, of protecting the inner layer, and all the fixtures of the tent, from the elements – wind, sand, and even the occasional rain.
The great Medieval Torah commentator and wine-maker Rashi noted that the multilayered covering, and especially the practicality of the outer layer, was Torah to teach us a rule of life, that people should take care of beautiful things. The beautiful innermost layer, with its precious materials and fine artisanal work, would be ruined if we didn’t keep it protected and cared for.
How true that is for the beautiful things in our life. Those can be the relationships we have with our friends and loved ones, relationships that need to be nurtured for them to continue to bring us fulfillment and satisfaction. The work that we do can be a source of beauty, especially when we know that our work makes the lives of someone else easier or better through our efforts and our labors. Our physical places, our homes and businesses, our community’s institutions, museums, music halls, restaurants, and libraries, need to be cared for and maintained for them to continue to inspire us and deepen our soulful connections through their beauty as well.
What Rashi really wanted us to know is that as we make our way in life, there will be moments to admire and appreciate the beautiful things, and moments that our attention needs to be paid elsewhere. But, we cannot leave the things we love and appreciate unattended to just because we cannot attend to them. We need to protect them, maintain them, and enhance them as necessary for them to continue to radiate their beauty for us and those who will come after. Perhaps the best way we can show our appreciation for a blessing is to pass it down to the next generations, that they may enjoy it too.
What makes the “Good. Better. Boca.” sticker true are not the buildings, parks, neighborhoods, or manicured golf courses of our community, as beautiful as many of them are. What makes this community great are the people who infuse it with their care and their love. The people who live here and work to make our synagogues and houses of worship, our schools, and our gathering places venues of meaningful interactions and relationship building. People who look out for the well-being of others alongside their own, and share generously of their time and resource. People who know they are blessed to live in a beautiful place and ask “how can I make it even better?”
In each generation we are given the chance to take our blessings, take care of them and prepare to pass them down, just as our ancestors did with the beautiful Mishkan. As they did, so may we, and those who come after us as well.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg Weisman
