I’m delighted to welcome here Leo and all of your family, particularly your grandparents.  It has been a pleasure having you on the bimah with me this morning and you have made everyone very proud.

Leo, I wonder if you have ever made new year’s resolutions.  If you have you’re definitely not alone. We all do it.  Why do you think on television the commercials are full of health and fitness videos after New Years Day?  It happens again around this time of year because everyone is worried how they will look on the beach in the Summer.  As I’m sure you can all tell, that’s been my main concern for the last few weeks – thanks for all your comments.

Seriously though, we make promises to ourselves all the time: how we’ll behave, what we’ll do/learn/think about, stay in touch with family, cope with our emotions.  The difficulty is these promises are often made at the wrong time – in the heat of the moment or because of some kind of psychological/emotional pressure…“I promise I’m never going to do that again” we futilely utter.

My favourite type, and I’m assured I’m not alone in this by someone who worked in the gym business, is ‘If I go to the gym four times a week then it’s only costing me £4 a visit’.  Of course, what normally happens is a very keen couple of weeks and then nothing – which means each visit is actually costing about £100 a time.  Learning to see the reality and make good judgements is much more difficult and occasionally comes with personal growth and is much healthier, even if it means we have to acknowledge our weaknesses.

Of course, most of the time we do this, it is for an imagined benefit – for the good of our health, so the motives are generally good.  Vanity aside, we hope that the gym membership, the new diet routine, the pop-psychology will improve our well being.  The industry which sells us the self-help, health improvement regimes, knows that we are all susceptible to the promises we make to ourselves – the vows.  Of course, with the hint of cynicism which I’m afraid I suffer from, I know full well that the industry depends on us failing – otherwise when the next fad comes along we won’t buy into it.

But what if the promise we make to ourselves is a religious one – a vow?  Leo, in some respects you made a promise to yourself in accomplishing all that you have today.  And you have achieved it – weekly attending lessons, daily practicing, coming to services, coming to classes on Sunday mornings – most of these done with a reasonable degree of regularity.  Certainly a better record than gym membership for most of the adults here I can tell you – no offense.  And your commitment has not only been to yourself, it has been to our community, to your family and to a deeper and more profound sense of the importance of Judaism.

But I wonder, Leo, what if the religious commitment, the vows, become extreme.  Certainly I know people who have become, what I would consider, religiously extreme – though in their minds they are not and they have whole communities built up around them which reinforce that view.  An unhealthy commitment to religious practice, to the exclusion of all other life and people – often having very little to do with one’s self and everything to do with a belief in what God demands. A disproportionate critique of their current lives leads to a disproportionate reaction against it. And this is, more often than not, accompanied by a belief in their superior religious commitment when compared to others around them.

This is really the vow of the Nazirite which you read so brilliantly for us today.  The Nazirite makes a vow to devote him or herself to God and consequently becomes bound to certain laws, including not cutting one’s hair, not coming into contact with any wine or grape products used to make wine and not coming into contact with death.  The Nazirite effectively strives to remove him or herself from the community.  Seeking holiness and superior religious observance by leaving the world.  The Nazirite abstains in the extreme in an effort to become holy and serve God.

As you can probably tell, I remain unconvinced by this mode of life.  In some ways, though the commitment is admirable it feels to me as much self-gratification as the narcissism we accuse the modern world to be guilty of.  It is not an easy path, but isolating oneself from one’s community feels somehow like an escape not facing up to the problem.

A close reading of the Torah echoes a note of caution.  As noted by my teacher Rabbi Chaim Weiner, in the portion as a whole, we have the case of the Princes of the tribes, the rich and wealthy, who, when bringing offerings, all have to bring offerings identical to each other.  Whilst the Nazirite is obligated to bring a sin offering at the end of his or her service.

In other words, we have the rich, self-important Princes who, would they be permitted, could, through their riches, one-up those less wealthy.  On the other hand, we have the denial of the Nazirite, abstaining, self-centred removal from the world.  Whereas the Princes are forced to bring a standardised  offering – forbidding their demonstration of wealth, the Nazirite brings a sin-offering at the end of his or her term to reflect a voice of disapproval.  “You can do it, and we accept the reality of both worlds, but be cautious”, says the Torah.

But Leo, there is one other aspect of the Nazirite which worries me.  It is that which I hinted at earlier.  You see, the Sages from 2000 years ago were also worried about the Nazirite and there are voices of caution within the rabbinic literature.  These voices of caution reflect both a broader concern for not making vows that are unattainable, remember our gym membership.  But they also develop caution from the sin-offering of the Nazir.  In Judaism there is a general emphasis found on a middle way – avoiding the excesses of either extreme asceticism or materialism.  Normative Judaism, as it has developed, has rarely encouraged escape from this world – rather it places an emphasis on changing the world.

This caution, I think must continue to be voiced today.  Though the specific practice of being a Nazirite has discontinued, there are still groups which attempt to delineate ever more excessive forms of religious observance.  They tend not to be ascetic like the Nazirite, but they still attempt to be ‘better’ Jews than the rest of the community.  Going to extremes and regarding their co-religionists as inadequate.

Rabbi Richard Hirsch of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation writes about this modern phenomena that resembles naziriteship:

"While the inclination towards religious devotion is admirable, it also carries with it the risk of creating a hierarchy of devotees, whose scrupulousness suggests that lesser observance is inadequate. Within the observant Jewish community today there exists a fringe element devoted to discovering ever more rigorous levels of observance, and having found them, this element seeks to discover even more ways in which they can refine their religious performance…"

Regrettably, what often starts out as a quest to strengthen one's own religious identity can result in the adoption of a severe lifestyle which in fact separates one from one's community or family. The ceaseless quest in some quarters of our community to discover ever more restrictive decisors with regard to kashrut, for example, suggests not merely a devotion to the dietary regulations, but a desire to "rise above" those who would settle for "merely acceptable" levels of supervision… "

For better or worse, the tradition seems to have sanctioned the desire on the part of some to achieve a special status, but this desire was circumscribed in ways that minimized the possibility of creating a caste of "Superjews" whose devotion might have suggested their superiority."

I would go slightly further than Rabbi Hirsch though.  I would suggest that this form of religious devotion reinforces a hierarchy of Jews.  From the worst type to the best.  With only the upper tiers reflecting authentic Judaism.  By the way, from this perspective, progressive Judaism is probably the worst because whereas a secular Jew rejects everything, as Liberal Jews we ‘claim’ to be religious and teach heresy.

From my point of view, as you might expect, this hierarchical vision of Judaism is inadequate in appreciating true expressions of it.  I am deliberately avoiding the use of the word authentic because it is so problematic, but if you like “Eilu ve’eilu divrei elohim chayim” – these and these are authentic expressions of interpretation of the words of the living God.

A vision of diverse and profoundly meaningful expressions of Judaism is surely more positive than one that has a hierarchy with only the most extreme considered to be ‘the best’.

This was reflected in a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Israel, which only last week rule in a ground breaking case brought by the Israel Religious Action Centre that the government must allocate funds to conversion programmes for the Progressive and Conservative movements arguing that:

“The duty of the State to pluralism is not only a passive duty, but an active one as well.” And that “Jews in Israel cannot be seen as only one religious sect.”

Judaism is not defined by one religious denomination and this ruling reinforces the rightful place of progressive Judaism in Israel (and the world) along side other denominations and even those that tend towards the extremes of Naziriteship.

Leo, what you have accomplished today is part of the rich and diverse world of Judaism.  Becoming Bar Mitzvah is an accomplishment, the first step on a journey of commitment to what it means to be Jewish, with your Kabbalat Torah service in two years as a class.  This is a marvelous opportunity to celebrate a truly meaningful and significant rite of passage for you and your community. I know it has been quite a journey for you and your family and it was one that you chose, like the Nazirite of your Torah portion.  You have shown to us all today that authentic Judaism is not about ever more extreme practices, but a genuine and real commitment to explore your heritage and learn from the wisdom of our ancestors.  But there is more to it, yet to come.  Leo, my wish for you is that the learning will never stop.  That your commitment to Judaism will not cease, that you will discover its potential to be profoundly meaningful and sustaining for your sense of self.  Judaism, at least as expressed in Liberal Judaism, is not about the elevating the ritualistic elements – abstinence or excess – above the moral imperative to make the world a better place.  Quite the opposite.  Our rituals may enhance our lives, they may focus our minds on what is important, they may sustain us and give us courage or challenge us to be different.  But they are never more important than leading a life in the pursuit of justice and peace in the world.  In the words of the prophet Micah (6:8):

It has been told to you what is good, and what the Eternal One requires of you: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

So Leo, may you take these lessons with you in your life and may you always make your family and friends and your community as proud of you as they are today.  May this be God’s will, and let us say: Amen.