A friend of ours tells the story of when his son, Kevin, was in the first grade. One day his teacher asked the class “What is the color of apples?” Most of the children answered red. A few said green. But Kevin raised is hand and said, “white.” The teacher tried to explain that apples can be red, and apples can be green and apples can sometimes even be golden, but never white. Kevin, however, was quite insistent that apples were white. After a rather exasperating “discussion” with the teacher, Kevin finally shrugged and simply said, “Look inside.”

Either way, Gore chose and the next day the front page of the New York Post read in giant letters: IT’S A MIRACLE, and Joe Lieberman suddenly became the most famous Jew in America.

Yet Lieberman’s barrier-shattering nomination has been like a collective wake-up call, allowing us to look around the American social landscape and realize that the evidence of our full arrival in American life has already been everywhere – right before our eyes. In business, the media, the arts, medicine, science, academia, the justice system and every level of local, state and national politics.

And as we celebrate 50 years of Kehillat Israel this year, we need to take Kevin’s advice to heart, and we need to “look inside.” We need to have the courage to ask ourselves what difference it makes whether or not we are practicing Jews, or for that matter practicing Christians, or practicing any form of spiritual discipline?

Will it make us a better human being? Will it give us guidance or inspiration to be better parents? Better friends? Better colleagues? Better spouses or loving partners?

I spent four months on sabbatical this year away from our congregation and community. Nine countries and forty-five books later, I had spent a lot of time thinking about what gives meaning to my life. I want to share with you a few of the lessons I learned on this personal spiritual journey and what they taught me about the spiritual direction toward which I want to lead Kehillat Israel as well.

There I was leading a Shabbat morning service with a room full of Spanish speaking Jews who form this growing, vibrant Central American Jewish community. And as Eduardo chanted from the Torah that morning in Costa Rica, I knew that one of our B’nai Mitzvah was chanting the exact same portion here in Pacific Palisades.

In Kevin’s words – “Look inside.” Find Holiness and a sense of belonging in rituals of our people – the songs, the prayers, the teachings, the values – in Hebrew, or Spanish, or English – the voice of the sacred echoing for yet another generation. And then I learned from small children in Amboseli, Kenya, in a tiny village with huts made of mud and straw and dung, that happiness is not a function of what you have, but of who you have. Having someone in your life that makes you feel loved, important, valuable transcends physical things. These kids were literally dirt poor, but they smiled, they laughed, and they played in the dirt with joy as Didi sang them silly songs incorporating their hard-to-pronounce Maasai names.

Flies in their faces, filth on their scant clothing, but joy and laughter in their hearts and lives. The adults as well, smiling, welcoming us into their homes, their tiny mud huts, their very lives. At one with the world, in harmony with their surroundings – “look inside,” “look inside,” - we who had so much could learn so much.

“Because,” they answered, “ most people don’t even speak to us, other than to order. We’re invisible to most of the guests, most of the time. But not to you.”

To really experience being seen by another human being – feeling profoundly that who you are matters to someone else is one of the most precious gifts we can give to another human being. That is what making a synagogue holy is all about as well. For I’m not the synagogue and neither is Rabbi Lewart or Cantor Frenkel or the rest of the professional staff.

That is what this season is all about. To look inside, to see what we are really made of; to let go of our past failures, our unfulfilled promises; our forgotten vows. To ask ourselves the hard questions that really matter. What does it mean to “be holy?” And then to participate in synagogue life, or Jewish communal life because this is a place where holiness matters – where what we do really can make a difference – in our lives, in other’s lives.

So let’s “look inside” this year – the 50th Anniversary Year of Kehillat Israel. Kevin had it right all along. KI at 50 isn’t about our award winning building, as spectacular as that is. Look inside – it’s the sum total of hundreds of individual lives touched in thousands of individual ways large and small.

On the first day of our new Sunday program a mother said to me, “My son Michael is going to a new private school this year which he really likes. But I couldn’t believe how incredibly excited he was to be coming here to religious school this morning. He was literally jumping out of his skin with the excitement of being back with his Jewish friends again. This is really his most important community.”

Moving closer, the tallest figure gently grasps the old man’s hand and replies, “Yes, we are your best and oldest friends, but long ago you abandoned us. For we are the unfulfilled promises of your youth. We are the unrealized hopes, dreams and plans that you once felt deeply in your heart, but never pursued. We are the unique talents that you never developed, the special gifts you never discovered. Old friend, I am afraid that we have not come to comfort you, but to die with you.” Find your own passions this year. Discover your own talents this year. Choose to make a difference this year. Find your own path to holiness this year. Be part of something grander, something nobler, something more inspiring than you ever have before this year. And all you really have to do to find it, is look