The woman on the other end of the phone was obviously upset:

"Rabbi," she complained, "my mother-in-law is driving me crazy. [Duh!] She says for my son's brit I have to bring him into the room on a silver tray surrounded by packets of sugar and sprigs of parsley. Do I really have to do that?"

"Only if you're planning on eating him," I replied.

This is a true story. It really happened.

If comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable is a good part of what a Rabbi is supposed to do, I was sure doing my job when I wrote about incidents like this one in a newspaper article and called them "mindless ritualism." A lot of people got very angry with me. But like Tammy Wynette who "stood by her man," I stand by that criticism and the phrase I used: mindless ritualism.

I'd like you to listen carefully so that you understand what I'm saying here. I am absolutely not opposed to all Jewish ritual behavior, which is what some misguided souls accused me of. Quite the contrary. I think ritual is an important, even crucial part of what it means to be a Jew. Rituals are one of the concrete expressions of our Jewish values, beliefs, and yearnings. They are a major conduit for transmitting our heritage to future generations. They are a religious necessity.

As a matter of fact, even doing rituals mindlessly is a very positive thing, if you're orthodox - with a small "o." How so? Because for orthodox people of any faith - Jewish, Christian, Moslem, whatever - there is only one reason for doing anything, including observing rituals: because God said so. Your personal opinion as to the beauty, efficacy, or meaningfulness of such acts is irrelevant. In such a system, mindlessness, doing what you're told without question because God said so, is a virtue.

But not for liberal Jews, or liberals of any religion. We don't do what we do and think what we think because God said so. Our understanding is that Judaism, like all other religions, is a human creation, open to change and growth and of course, fallibility. In our system, doing ritual mindlessly often leads to observing partially or half-heartedly. It leads to observance based on what the neighbors are doing, what we've heard somewhere, what Tante Feigeh, the ritual maven told us to do, or simply what we feel like doing at the moment.

Most dangerously, mindless ritualism also leads far too often to no ritual at all. How long are people going to do things they think are silly, or that they're just doing for the heck of it without any greater reason than that? Not very long. Hence the absolutely correct criticism of us by the Orthodox Jewish community that we don't observe very much. They're right, because mindless ritualism in a Reform context is not only useless but counterproductive. It kills observance of any kind.

What is obviously needed, then, is the opposite of mindless ritualism. Let's call it "mindful ritualism," observance that is done out of knowledge rather than ignorance, choice rather than conformity.

Let's also understand that all rituals begin for a reason - a human reason. Some of you have heard me tell the famous brisket story about…

… the recently-married man who was suddenly exposed to a ritual followed by his wife's family when she brought a brisket to the table one night with the ends cut off.

"Why did you cut the ends off?" the husband inquired.

"Gee, I don't know," the wife replied, "that's the way my mother always made it."

So he calls his mother-in-law (one of the rare families where the two of them were actually on speaking terms) and asks her the same question.

"Gee, I don't know," she answered, "that's the way my mother always made it."

Fortunately Grandma was still alive, and after tracking her down at her Tai Bo class at the clubhouse of the condominium complex in Boca, he asked her, "Grandma, why did you always make your brisket with the ends cut off?"

"Because that's the only way I could get it into my pot."

Sometimes the human reason for the origin of rituals is local and fairly trivial, as with the brisket story, for example. Other times it is far more universal and far more profound.

The actual reason for a ritual's existence, the events out of which it developed, we might call the "anthropologic explanation." Some of you may be aware of the custom of placing the wedding ring on the index rather than the ring finger. The anthropologic explanation seems to be that because of fear of persecution, our people kept their wealth as liquid as possible, often in the form of jewelry. That frequently meant rings: big, beautiful, gem-encrusted works of art, some weighing as much as half a pound, and though ring-like in form, not sized for anyone in particular. Putting them on the index finger was apparently because that finger's musculature is more developed than that of the ring finger, and the thumb is right there to keep the un-sized ring from falling to the ground. After the ceremony the ornamental ring went right back into hiding and a much plainer one took up residence in its usual place on the ring finger.

But we can't always find such reasons, such explanations. No great bell goes off in the cosmos saying "Pay attention. Here comes the creation of another ritual." Even when the explanation is known, it is not necessarily known to more than a small circle of scholars - and those of you lucky enough to have Rabbis who want to delve into these things. Often, as time passes and those who were around to see the anthropologic explanation pass away, such meanings are lost.

But we humans, with our incredible ability to think and our desire to be the masters of our fate, insist on explanations nonetheless. If the anthropologic explanation is unavailable, an explanation is still given -- an explanation that at least points to something the ritual might express. Even in traditional circles where a reason is not germane one is still often given, usually referred to as an "interpretation." This kind of after-the-fact reason we will call the "homiletic," or "sermonic" explanation. Since the anthropologic one is so often inaccessible, and the sermonic one so easily created, this is the kind of explanation we are more apt to hear.

In the case of the index finger custom, for example, many people will knowingly inform you that there is "something" (they're often not very clear whether it's a vein or an artery or a subway tunnel) that goes right from the index finger to the heart. If you know any biology at all, you know that the circulatory system is a closed loop that moves blood from the heart to the body's tissues and back to the heart again. All of our veins and arteries are "connected" to the heart. If one is not, that is probably a place on your body where you're developing gangrene.

Some homiletic explanations, like the one about the ring finger, are rather silly. Others, like the idea of the chuppa being open on all four sides to express the hope that the life of the couple will always be open to ever-deepening love, are far more profound. But scratch the surface of any ritual and you will find either an anthropologic or homiletic explanation, usually the latter.

Our rituals all begin for very human reasons, have two levels of explanation: anthropologic and homiletic, and their meaning and form changes over time. They must. Without such change, our observances stagnate and wither away.

In their original form and meaning many of our rituals are now simply obsolete, expressive of the realities of times in which we no longer live. Please don't feel badly about abandoning them. After all, the only form of worship our Torah stresses is the burning of animal and vegetable offerings on an altar. Even those who consider themselves devoutly traditional no longer do that any more.

In ritual behavior, change is actually the one constant. We can see this quite easily in the Torah itself. In one place, Passover is a shepherd's holiday celebrating the new animals that are born into the flocks each Spring. In another, it is a farmer's observance, celebrating the beginning of the wheat-growing season. Then the two festivals were merged into one. Elsewhere in the Torah another level of meaning is added: the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt. The seder, with its leaning and dipping, its prescribed order of events, is, a product of the Hellenistic age, and was added in the post-Biblical period. Even these High Holydays, which are so central to our Jewish observance, were far less important in Biblical times.

Reasons. Explanations. Change. Taken together they are an invitation to creativity. What we can do and should do is accept what we've said here as a starting place for a full and rich ritual life - and them's not just Rabbi words, neither.

Let me show you. You know that one of our most currently-used rituals is the lighting of Shabbat candles. But look what happens if you learn, as you're learning now, that in Jewish symbolism, the candle's flame often represents the human soul and the light of consciousness. During the work week with its stress and its demands, our light, our soul, gets a little besmirched, a little dim. On the eve of Shabbat we rekindle the spark, re-light our souls, begin a period of re-creation, which is exactly what recreation ought to be.

Having more of a reason for doing so, wouldn't this knowledge make it even more meaningful for the family to gather on Shabbat eve to light the candles? And please, as nice as it is to tie our observance to the natural cycles of the sun, give yourselves permission to make Shabbat when and where you can. Don't skip it just because some of you get home after the "official" time for the candle-lighting, or must leave, hopefully for Temple, before the appointed hour. Make Shabbat when it makes sense for you and your family. It is far more important to express your humanity than to worry about the clock.

This process can be done with any and all rituals with a minimal amount of effort that will provide a maximal amount of benefit.. Learn the available meanings, anthropologic and homiletic. Understand the values that existing rituals are already expressing. And be brave! Don't be afraid to add new meanings, to fill existing rituals with additional values. Don't hesitate to add to the form of the rituals themselves. I know one family that developed the custom of going around the dinner table each Shabbat eve and having everyone say what they called their "thankfuls," the things that happened in the week just past for which they were grateful. What a wonderful addition! Surely you can add some of your own.

Our rituals concretize the most important yearnings of our hearts and souls. The use of Jewish ritual opens up to us a four-thousand year old treasure house of tradition filled with symbols, meanings, and actions that beckon us to add our own creations to that stockpile. For us, mindless ritualism means little or no ritualism at all. Mindful, creative, evolving ritual, though, will allow us to more fully express the Judaism that we all so deeply love.

This New Year, may we all get down to the business of doing just that.