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Like many of you, I can be found wandering about the streets of the Marais, savoring its special sights and sounds. At this time of the year, perhaps especially at this season, the neighborhood is filled with Jews from all over Paris and her suburbs —and even Jews from around the world— all lazily strolling up and down the rue des Rosiers.

As part of this colorful street scene, there are several young yeshiva students, dressed in their obligatory uniforms of black suits and white shirts –many of them are here studying for the year from the United States. As the weekend tourists pass by, they will go up to them and ask, “are you Jewish”. To the men, their aim is to propose putting on tefiline, and for the women, they will offer a brochure on the importance of lighting candles for Shabbat.

I enjoy watching the reactions of different people, as these eager students ask their question with a French that is laden with a thick American accent, which is even more dreadful then mine – if you can imagine that!

Some people immediately side step them without a word, or simply stare back with incomprehension. Others answered back with what I perceived to be an almost palpable fear... or at the very least, a touch of civic horror or anti-religious hostility at the very notion of being asked such a personal question in such a public way. Still others can be seen in the next moment letting the young yeshiva students place the straps on their arms or stuffing the distributed pamphlets into their purse.

Tonight, it is not my aim to discuss neither the validity nor efficiency of such spiritual street guerilla tactics, rather I want to share with you some of my thoughts and observations that these scenes have elicited. Certainly, these insights have once again confirmed to me that we Jews truly are a funny people!

Think about it. Ask a Catholic if they are Catholic and you get a straight answer: yes, no... lapsed, or “just recovering”.

Ask a Protestant and you'll get not only their denomination but also whether it is evangelical, charismatic or blue blood high Church.

However ask a Jew and more than likely, you'll just get a dissertation!

It reminds me of a certain truism that I recount in my Cours de Judaïsme class on Tuesday nights that is a bit tongue-in-check: I explain how every time that I am in a teaching situation outside of the community, I ask members of the audience what is their religious tradition.

From that question, I know that I am in front of a Catholic, because he or she will say, “I am a Catholic”. I know that I am in front of Protestants because they’ll say they are Protestant. However, anytime someone gets up and says, "well, you see, my family wasn't really that religious, although there were some traditions as a child, yet I am more in truth a libre penseur, a free thinker”… at that moment, I know that I am in front of someone Jewish.

While we have come to think of it as a joke, there is something to the idea that Jews tend to answer a question with another question. Think again to the tefilline-plying kid who asks, "Are you Jewish?"

• “What do you mean by that?”
• “How exactly do you define being Jewish?”
• "Hey buddy, what about you, are you Jewish?"
• “In any case, why do you want to know!”

The seemingly uncomplicated answer, “I am Jewish” can be so complicated. The fact that it is so complex is, to me, at once fascinating, and quite telling about us as a group.

Moreover, Christians, as a group, can pretty well explain to you what it basically means to be a Christian. Muslims can also tell you what it generally means to be Muslim. The same can be said for Buddhists, etc. And though there will be a variety of opinions in every group, being Jewish seems somehow quintessentially “the question in search of an answer”.

We are a people whose definitions get cloudy, get personal, become vague and often seem contradictory and almost always quirky. We are “very Jewish” in some things, “not so Jewish” in others.

When someone asks “are you Jewish” we instinctively react depending on the questioner: friend or foe? Do they ask in a friendly way, as in “gee, I didn't know you were also a member of the tribe” or do they ask in an antagonistic way, as if to say “are you really one of them?”

We answer with a sigh, or a guilty shrug, or a defensive glance, or a laugh. Woody Allen answered “guilty...with an explanation!” When Henry Kissinger was being chastised by Golda Meir for not being “Jewish enough,” he said to her, “Mrs. Meir I am an American Jew” and she replied, “Mr. Kissinger, here in Israel we read right to left.”

"Are you Jewish?" can mean a host of things.

To the nonobservant Jew, questioned by the practicing Jew, its the “are” emphasized: ARE you Jewish?

To the Jew of Chinese origins questioned by the white Ashkenazi Jew, it's the “you” pronounced strongly: are YOU Jewish?

And to the proud Jew questioned by the well meaning but often uninformed world, its the “Jewish” spoken as an adjective that seems somehow disembodied from the person: are you JEWISH?

And when we answer “I am Jewish,” what do those seemingly simple words really mean to us? In most cases, I'd venture that it is not “I practice Judaism” or “I believe in the Jewish faith” or even “I feel Jewish” but “I AM Jewish?”

Being Jewish, as in “I am Jewish,” it is not an action verb; it’s an existential verb. Really though, I wonder, what does it mean to BE Jewish?

I would wager that some of us ask this question, and simply, answer “nothing.” I'm guessing that if there is anyone here tonight who answers that way, he or she was brought here – maybe even dragged here - by someone else… and I apologize in advance for carrying on as much as I do.

But whether you were brought here or whether you came here out of your own freewill, I'm sure that you've asked yourself this question at different times in your life. Sometimes we ask it when we leave home for university. We may ask it again when we start looking for a mate or when we get married, and then again when we begin a family. Sometimes we ask it after a life-changing event or maybe when we are close to the end of life. But it's such a big question.  And what if we don't like the answers we come up with?

But being here this day and this coming next week demands that each of us must ask ourselves whether being Jewish is some sort of “birthmark” with which we are burdened, or blessed, in life.  Is it a genetic accident, and if so, can one be proud of a genetic accident? Is it religious beliefs? If so, which ones? An ethnic loyalty -to a group or to a kind of food- after all, I know people whose Jewish loyalty ends with a schwarma on rue des Rosiers, or a bagel and lox and the New York Times on a Sunday morning in Manhattan.  Or is it a collection of sweet childhood memories? What about the wonderful converts I know who don't have those memories? Is it the ethical force of the Bible? Hey, what about those folks who are ethical without the Jewish or Christian Bibles?  

I'm guessing you answered “yes” to some of these and “no” to others. In some cases you may have answered “yes, but,” as in “Yes, that's part of being Jewish, but I don't do that, so I'm not a very good Jew,” or “Yes, that's what other people think is part of being Jewish, but I don't really agree.”

Moreover, I know that there will always be someone else who, with an almost sickening gleefulness, will remind us of who we are. But my concern is more than that. My concern is “what determines our own accepted self-value?” Are we forever to be reactive and not proactive about our self-definition as Jews? Are we only Jewish when its hard to be Jewish, when its dangerous to be Jewish? No -- let the words "I am Jewish" not be spoken only at the point of a knife, like an Isaac at the altar.

So this sermon is a little different from other years. I'm usually suggesting a new way of doing things. Tonight I'm asking you to think differently; to not just act reflexively but to think about what it is that makes you Jewish, to be able to articulate to someone else what being Jewish means to you in a deeper way than just “well, I was born Jewish...” or “I just feel Jewish...”

For me, being a Jew is a montage of memories and experiences, it consists of the smells of my grandparent's kitchen and the sharp intellectual questioning from mother. It is the clang of the knife on the wine glass as one of my two grandfathers called us to Passover order, and it is the freezing air in the cold of the night on the 24th of December, delivering food to the needy with my father so as to let our neighbors celebrate their festival. It is also the journey I have traveled to become a rabbi, and it is these past thirteen years sharing with you my doubts, concerns, my joys, my discoveries, and yes, even my times of sadness — like now, as many of you know.

While my personal level of observance has undergone constant change and personal scrutiny since I was a teen: Keeping Shabbat or not, praying daily or not… certainly my level of keeping kosher has also fluctuated (up and down), etc., nonetheless, my desire to explain my Jewish identity has only increased over the years.

I am a Jew, not because of what I am willing to die for so much as what I want to live for.  I am a Jew because I believe that Judaism is the moral and ethical-shaping language that gives me voice to be heard in this world.

For me, I am a Jew because I truly believe in choosing a destiny and the ability to shape that destiny.  I am a Jew by accident of birth and by deliberate daily choice.

I studied for ordination through the Conservative movement, yet I have always found certain ideas and actions in each of the other tendencies of Judaism both vital and compelling. Personally, I don't really define myself, or others for that matter, by Traditional labels... nor do I use adjectives like “good” or “bad” Jew. I consider myself to be a serious Jew. This is a term that I borrowed from Dennis Prager. Prager defines a serious Jew as a person who wrestles with their Judaism. To his definition, I add the word "actively" wrestling with their Judaism. Actively involves actions and not just thoughts.

In 1927, almost 80 years ago before the establishment of the modern state of Israel, the French writer and philosopher, Edmond Fleg, wrote a short book, dedicated to his unborn grandson, “Why I am a Jew,” setting forth an agenda for all Jews.  

In the introduction to his book, Fleg wrote to his unborn grandson: “People say to me:  You are a Jew because you were born a Jew.  You did not will to be one; you cannot change that.  Will this explanation suffice for you, if, born a Jew, you no longer feel that you are a Jew? …That which happened to me may happen to you also, my child.  If you believe that the flame of Judaism has been extinguished within you, pay heed and wait, someday it will be rekindled.  It is a very old story, which begins anew each century.  Israel has had a thousand opportunities to die; a thousand times it has been reborn. I want to tell you how it died and was reborn in me, so that if it die in you, you in turn may experience its rebirth…” (Fleg, pp. xix-xx).

So what brought Edmond Fleg back into the fold? What made him become an open ba’al teshuva – a “returnee” to Judaism and the Jewish people.  What can his journey say to us today?

Tonight we start our own teshuva: A word meaning at once, “a day of turning back,” and “an answer”. This is the day we consider our own lives, as well as the lives of the entire Jewish people – ask the question, which will define our answer. As we gather with our family, our friends, and our community, we ourselves what we can do to be part of the rebirth of a living Jewish tradition and bring about a strong, healthy, tolerant and open Judaism for our future generations. Now is the time to consider what it means to you to be a Jew.

Listen once again to the immortal words of Edmond Fleg, as he answered that question:

I am a Jew because, born of Israel and having lost her, I have felt her live again in me, more living than myself.

I am a Jew because, born of Israel and having regained her, I wish her to live after me, more living than in myself.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of the mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires of me all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because in every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because at every time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the word of Israel is the oldest and the newest.

I am a Jew because the promise of Israel is the universal promise.

I am a Jew because, for Israel, the world is not yet completed; humanity is completing it.

I am a Jew because above all the nations and Israel, Israel places Man and his unity.

I am a Jew because above humanity, image of the Divine Unity, Israel places the Divine Unity and its Divinity.

As grandparents, parents, young adults, teenagers, or children, whether we have stayed with the community or strayed and drifted away, we are all Jews and have a lot to be proud of.  As Edmond Fleg said to his unborn grandson, Israel has died and has been reborn many times. Her fate is to survive. We can be part of her death or part of her rebirth. That choice is ours. We are all like Edmond Fleg, ordinary Jews trying to make sense of our Jewish identity.

The voice is calling out tonight: “are you Jewish?” – listen closely to within yourself… How will you respond?