by Rabbi Yossi Jacobson

The Siegel & Cooper department store sponsored an annual talent contest representing churches in New York City. Around the corner from George Burn's home was a Presbyterian church that had no one to enter the contest, so the minister asked the Pee Wees to represent his church.

The four Jewish kids sang in the competition and won first prize. The church received a purple velvet cloth, and each boy received an Ingersoll wristwatch worth 85 cents.

Nathan ran home to tell his mother. She was hanging out the wash as he rushed up and said, "Mama, I don't want to be Jewish anymore."

His mother looked at him and asked, "Why not?"

"I've been a Jew for seven years and got nothing for it; I was a Presbyterian for one day and got a watch!" he exclaimed, holding out his wrist.

His mother said, "Nathan, my bubbale, first help me hang up the wash, then you can be a Presbyterian."

George Burns concluded: “While hanging the wash, water dripped from the wet clothes, ran down my arm and penetrated my watch. It stopped working, so I decided to stay Jewish.”

Some may feel that Judaism doesn’t give success, health, money, love, power or enjoyment. How many of us have traded in our Judaism for "watches" and prizes that seem more exciting than a 4,000-year-old religion?

This country was good to George Burns, and to many of us as well. Never in our long exile have we felt as comfortable as on these blessed shores, in a country founded on the dignity of human life and liberty. American support of our eternal homeland Israel makes us proud to be citizens of this moral and kind country.

Over the past 150 years, we have successfully integrated into the great American Dream. The culture and lifestyle of the "goldene medinah" (the golden country), as the U.S. was described on the other side of the Atlantic, impacted our own lifestyles and self-definitions. We replaced our grandparents' humble Lower East Side carts and shops with prestigious careers in business, politics, academia and the arts.

But have we lost something in the process?

In "Avalon," Barry Levinson depicts the tragic disintegration of his Baltimore Jewish family when secular culture infiltrated a once unified, loving and vibrant family. In the gut-wrenching story, the outer temptation of American progress was more luring than, say, Sabbath gefilte fish. The full integration turned many away from the values and traditions that defined us for thousands of years. We’ve become alienated from that which once mattered most to us.

Going to the movies was more fun than celebrating the Sukkot holiday in a little hut. The Saturday morning baseball game was more exciting than the synagogue sermon. Running off to the gym and the therapist often seems more useful than tefillin and Torah.

Yet, as we get older and wiser, we may discover that the "watches" for which we gave up our Judaism are of little value. While enjoying the luxuries of modern life, have we not lost our compass, our inner wholesomeness, the deep sense of what it means to be human and Jewish?

We wonder: Have we not, at the expense of momentary needs and gratifications, deprived our children of an eternal foundation, from roots that could help them navigate a tumultuous world? Have we failed our loved ones in having them appreciate the sanctity of a Jewish home, the blessings of a wholesome marriage, the value of self sacrifice, the power of a mitzvah, the nobility of the Sabbath, the depth of thought, the quality of a life?

So we open Yom Kippur by declaring, "My promises are not promises, my prohibitions are not prohibitions and my vows are not vows." We recognize that the demands of the environment and our external instincts have lured us into committing to life patterns alien to our essence and to our profoundest priorities.

As we recall the moral and spiritual power that for thousands of years has sustained our people, and as we reclaim the fundamental idea of Judaism that ordinary people through their daily acts could establish heaven on planet Earth, we acknowledge that many of our "vows" we never really meant to make. We realize that we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones not to trade in our Judaism for a watch that will break when it rains.

Rabbi Yossi Jacobson is a renowned lecturer and editor of the Algemeiner Journal.