Rosh Hashanah Sermon, 2026/5787
Club Paradise is a movie that has shaped my life. Sure, the 1986 Robin Williams movie has its problems to be sure. First off, a 10 year old probably shouldn’t have been watching it. Also, 40 years on, a lot of the humor is not just corny but borderline offensive - sexist, racist, it has a white guy show up to a Caribbean island and he saves it, as if Jimmy Cliff (who costars) isn’t cool enough to do that for himself. it’s an 80s movie, you get it. But the arc of one supporting character, and his final scene, (again, leaving aside the colonialism), still gives me goosebumps and inspires me whenever I think of it. It’s
Now I usually prefer to share personality over personal stories, but this one may be worth hearing - if you’ve ever wrestled with how Judaism, with all its rules and customs, some seemingly arcane or obsolete or lacking in utility, are actually invaluable to what a human life needs, what I learned from this film is something you may want to learn, too.
So - Club Paradise. Robin Williams’ character comes into a bunch of money. He decides to reinvent himself as owner of the titular resort on the fictional island of St. Nicolas, a British territory in the Caribbean. It’s a simple place, a little rundown, a little impoverished, a little corrupt. The bad guy, the island’s native prime minister, is trying to make a deal with some foreign investors to exploit the island’s resources. In the supporting cast is Peter O’Toole, not in his greatest role, playing Anthony C. Hayes the island’s governor representing Queen and Commonwealth but who, when we meet him, is washed up, drunk in a bar, of no value, no meaning, no purpose to himself or anyone.
Yet, when the evil prime minister stages a coup to realize his plan and seems to have prevailed over our heroes Williams, Jimmy Cliff and Twiggy, what happens? The Governor finally sees that the people of the island are suffering, are in need, and only he can save them. But not just he himself, all he stands for, all he represents (and again, it’s problematic from today’s understandings of imperialism and European dominance - but stick with me, I’m trying to make a point). He stands for a system, the British Empire, that is - supposed to anyway - help and protect its subjects. And so it is only as its representative, it is only when bedecked with all the symbols and trappings of his office - red uniform, sash, white pith helmet with plume, saber and horse - that he rediscovers his purpose, and rallies all the islanders to save the day!
His uniform, which could easily seem silly - who wears a plume - becomes the expression of something bigger and greater, something that inspires.
And that, my friends, is the power of tradition! I think - again, without it being the point of the movie - that character inspired me to choose a career, a calling, where even I, a person with all sorts of faults and shortcomings can nevertheless, lift up others. But it is only with the trappings, the symbols, the special words and the proper actions, that the lifting can happen.
As a clergy person, it is my humbling responsibility and honor to “wear” as it were Judaism’s “uniform.” And to become, when I do my job right, Judaism’s representative, and every so often, when I do my job really well, to represent its Creator, too.
In those moments our traditions transform me and by extension the people I’m interacting with:
The person in the hospital feels better in a way nothing else may heal them, because of that black rabbi’s manual with those ancient words in it.
The robes grant a majesty to a setting, elevating it, showing us that there can be transcendence in a world that sorely lacks for such awe and wonder.
The three-piece suit and tie and fedora at the funeral, the prayers and words, let people know their loved one, whoever they were, is worthy of the utmost signs of respect and honor.
The kippah at the gas station lets people know that pride in who you are cannot be cowed.
And the message I want you to hear is that Judaism, our traditions, can transform all of us into vessels that comfort and inspire, that demonstrate God's wisdom and goodness are present here.
Visit a shivah house and see if it’s not true about you. But for it to work there has to be such a thing as a shivah observance, and a shivah house to observe in, and a shared expectation that even people I don’t know will come and make manifest human kindness and empathy that in the face of great loss one might also experience a great outpouring of love - but we need the tradition to make all that happen!
The greatest betrayal would be to think we can do it all on our own - without the shared past and without the community that shares the lessons of that past and what they mean today. To look at all Judaism is and say:
Those old prayers? That old book?
That strange language? Those ancient rituals?
Those dietary laws? That tallit? Those candles?
That thing on the doorpost?
What possible use could those things have in the world we live in now?
We sometimes ask whether Judaism is "relevant." But maybe that's the wrong question.
Because "relevant" usually means: Does this fit comfortably into the world as it presently exists?
Tradition has a much more important job.
Tradition remembers things the present has forgotten.
It preserves habits we may someday need again.
It keeps words available for moments when our own vocabulary fails us.
It keeps alive standards that may seem quaint until the culture around us loses them.
It preserves identities that we may not fully appreciate until history suddenly calls upon us to inhabit them.
And that is why an old uniform can matter. Not a costume. A uniform.
A costume allows us to pretend to be somebody else. A uniform reminds us who we already are.
And perhaps that is the distinction to end with.
Being a rabbi is not Jewish dress-up. Tradition is not nostalgia. It is not an attempt to pretend that we still live in the world of our grandparents, or the shtetl, or the rabbis of the Talmud.
Tradition is the uniform that each of us can wear and proudly proclaim: You belong to something. People wore this before you. People stood here before you. People carried these words through circumstances you cannot imagine. And now it is your turn.
Governor Hayes puts on the uniform as a sign of his transformation. As the symbol that conveys he is now ready to be the leader the people of the island need in a desperate moment.
Maybe that is what our traditions are waiting to do for us. Not to drag us backward. But to call us forward.
To provide us with something we may not even know we possess until the moment comes when the world desperately needs us to remember where we came from and who we are.
Shanah Tovah!
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