Categories
Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan: A Fork in the Road for the Next Generation’s Engagement with Israel

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet has created a monthly forum where rabbis share their thoughts on teaching and preaching about Israel in the month ahead. For Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, Rabbi Allie Fischman shares her perspective on teaching and learning about Israel at Reform Jewish summer camps.

We are sitting at a fork in the road in terms of Israel engagement with the next generation of URJ leaders. Overall, we had a fantastic summer at URJ Camp Newman, where I serve as director. We also received multiple emails from Newman alum who are calling upon us to shift our Israel education to “share a more true and wider narrative about the land of Israel, the people of Israel, and the evolution of the current State of Israel.”

Since 2016, we have been working with The iCenter in Chicago to find a model that feels like the holy grail of Israel education in a camp setting (spoiler alert: no one has discovered it yet). How do we teach a “balanced” narrative, as some folks ask for, when we only have two to three hours during a two-week camp session to focus on Israel? How do we teach campers and staff to understand the nuances that young adults can handle? How do we convey the importance of the teachings of the movie Inside Out: that we can hold multiple truths and narratives at once, and feel compassion and love for multiple groups of people at once?  

This summer, we saw a handful of our fifteen- to seventeen-year-old campers and eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old staff members unwilling to embrace the concept of holding multiple truths about Israel. Rather than criticizing the Israeli government’s choices in the war, but still loving the Jewish homeland, they instead choose to forge a Reform Jewish life that simply does not include Israel as a main component. They feel comfortable singing Israeli or Hebrew songs but not ever stepping foot on the land. My heart hurt to speak with these campers and staff members. Israel remains such an important component of my Judaism, and these young future leaders of the Reform Movement want to create Reform Jewish life without Israel. Though this was a small percentage of 175 staff members, their stance reveals a shift from alumni before them. 

We need to come together as a Movement to consider the path ahead for Israel education. Congregations, youth groups, URJ camps, Reform Jewish parents—we could all be stronger together by creating a more unified plan of Israel education across all Reform Jewish platforms. No single religious school, no single camp, no single Reform Jewish parent or mentor should bear the entire weight of teaching our children about Israel and its complexities. I imagine a future where we work together across different areas of engagement to ensure that we teach our young leaders that understanding, holding, and embracing multiple truths and narratives displays strength, humility, empathy, and compassion.  

Though we encountered difficult conversations around Israel from some of these young folks this summer, our URJ camps also provided a vital haven for campers, staff, and faculty across the country. We provided another safe space to come together and be joyfully Jewish. We did everything we could to hold with care and love the hearts and souls of our visiting Israeli staff members and campers. Ultimately, I wonder how and if we can come together as the teachers of our future generations to find ways to teach about the nuances and complexities of Israel, while also passing on the importance of embracing and holding multiple truths. 

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet asks that if you choose to respond to this author, you do so only with kavod harav—respect for the rabbi sharing their wisdom, experience, time, and talent.  

Rabbi Allie Fischman has served as URJ Camp Newman Associate Camp Director from 2014 to 2018 and as Camp Director since 2018. 

Categories
Inclusion Rabbinic Reflections

Evolving My Position on Jewish Interfaith Marriage

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 1987. The place was a classroom at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, and we were having a critical discussion about the question of intermarriage, whether we would officiate and why. My position was adamant. I would only officiate at unions between two Jews. 

I felt that my role as m’sader kiddushin was to create Jewish families. And for the first eight years of my rabbinate, that was my steadfast policy. 

Then, in 1995, a dear friend shared his recent adoption of a new policy regarding intermarriage. If the non-Jewish partner was not actively practicing the religion of their birth, if the couple agreed to spend a year studying Judaism, and they agreed to have Judaism be the only religion in their home, and to rear Jewish children, he would marry them. 

By that time, I had noticed intermarried families in my congregation who were creating amazingly wonderful Jewish homes and whose kids were solid and secure in their Jewish identity and, more often than not, were among the most active teens in my religious school and youth group. 

It was a seminal moment for me. I was all in. My temple leadership, which had only hired me one year earlier, was concerned about my “flip flop,” but I assured them this represented a seachange for me in how I viewed the path to achieving the very same mission I had signed onto years earlier, namely creating Jewish families. The evidence was demonstrating that there was more than one way to achieve that. 

For the next twenty-seven years, I officiated at weddings between two Jews or one Jew and one non-practicing non-Jew who studied and promised to make a Jewish home. As the years went by, I watched with great satisfaction as these families grew and enriched Jewish life for themselves and for our community. Often, the non-Jewish partner became active in temple leadership, and in more than a few cases, eventually formally chose Judaism for themselves. Their kids were incredibly Jewish models for their younger peers, and I no longer heard self-disparaging comments about feeling like “a half-Jew.” 

Then the sea changed again. 

In 2022, a temple kid reached out to me to say she was engaged to be married and wanted her old childhood rabbi to officiate. The kicker? Her fiancé was Hindu and loved being so. 

By the policy I’d held for so many years, I should have said no. In fact, I did say no. But something about this didn’t sit well with me. It had little to do with the couple itself, except that I liked them and probably wanted to make sure this was really what I wanted to tell them, and that the family they would be creating would not fit the model to which I had long ago subscribed. They would have two religions at home and their children would be reared in both. Everything I had learned about such marriages waved the red flag. 

Except for one major, and as it turned out, decisive difference: the world of 2022 had changed greatly from that of 1995. 

Nowadays, there are so many pronounced, ugly divisions across our country, with so much anger and outright hatred flooding our daily lives. Politics have become personal vendettas, and the internet has offered anyone and everyone a nearly uncensored, unhampered platform to amplify and disperse every distorted, uncaring, and even unhinged remark that people “care” to put out there. 

As I thought about the mess we’re all living through, with so much discord pushing people further and further apart, I couldn’t have been more surprised to find myself thinking, “How can I tell this couple, who only want to love each other and share their love with others, that I won’t marry them?” In a world that knows far more callousness and hostility than I can remember, I reached back out to them and said, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” 

And just recently, that’s what I did, with immense gratitude to them for reminding me of the preciousness and virtue of love, that it outshines whatever else we may think is important in our lives. 

Will this couple make a Jewish home? Will they raise Jewish children? Will they secure the future of Jewish life? 

I don’t know. Maybe not. 

But they’ll make a loving home, one in which their children benefit from watching two adults who care about the spiritual paths they’ve chosen for themselves. And while yes, they’ll be raised in two religions, and they’ll have to sort out which religion to choose for themselves, or they’ll create some amalgamation of the two, or they’ll choose no religion at all, I believe with all my heart that something beautiful is going to happen inside that home that is profoundly needed in a world gone crazy. Where it’s become commonplace to see national leaders rip one another apart for the basest of reasons, this home will serve as an incubator for the values of two religions that teach us what is perhaps life’s most important instruction: Be good to one another. 

How can that be a bad thing? 

As I recently observed Elul, which propels us toward the High Holy Days, I found myself thinking about the symbols and rituals of my own religion and the symbols and rituals of other religions. When they do their jobs, their purpose is to prepare us, like Elul, for our upcoming lives. 

These symbols all speak to Judaism’s big plans for them, its grand hopes for their happiness, and its loving reminder of the role they have yet to play in bettering the world around them. Just as Hinduism’s symbols do. And Islam’s symbols. And Christianity’s too. 

And while they may look very different from one religion to the next, their underlying messages are remarkably similar. For this wedding couple, their chuppah symbolizes the protection from life’s storms that they will give to one another. Their kiddush cup symbolizes the bounty of sweetness that they will share with each other. Their rings symbolize the unending promise that they will care for one another. And the glass that they broke symbolizes their leaving behind what has been, and their forging together a new future. 

I love Judaism. And I want it to continue to exist. The world needs it to continue to exist. But in this time of schism and toxic dissent, I love love even more so. And while I will always celebrate when two Jews marry, I won’t ever again stand in the way of two human beings promising to love and care for each other forever. In fact, I will respond to their request for officiation with a wholehearted and grateful, “Yes!” 

Billy Dreskin is Rabbi Emeritus of Woodlands Community Temple in White Plains, New York. These days, he spends most of his time making music, which you can check out at jonahmac.org/billys-music. 

Categories
Books CCAR Press Inclusion

Ushpizot—Don’t Forget the Female Sukkah Guests!

Rabbi Dalia Marx, PhD, is the author of From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar, now available from CCAR Press. In this excerpt, she discusses the tradition of inviting guests to the sukkah and how many families are renewing it today.

A few years ago, we bought a nice new sukkah, on the cloth walls of which are inscribed the names of the ushpizin, the seven historical guests we invite to our sukkah—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. I was industrious; I bought a set of permanent markers and added to those seven names the names of women I wanted to greet as ushpizot in my sukkah.

In recent years, an increasing number of women have sought to take a more active part in the Jewish religious experience, and indeed almost all streams of Judaism are now involved with the inclusion of women. As part of those efforts, many people have brought to the fore female role models from the Jewish tradition. We are learning that it is not enough to be engaged only with the figures of our three Patriarchs; we also need to take a deep dive into the figures of the four Matriarchs. When the liturgy includes the Song at the Sea, sung by Moses and the Israelites as they passed through the sea on dry land, some now add the Song of Miriam (Exodus 15:20–21). The purpose of including women is to present female role models (even if they are not always perfect, since the mothers of the nation—like the fathers—were human, with all that entails). In this context, suggestions have been made to add seven female guests to the seven ushpizin invited into the sukkah on Sukkot.

Since this suggestion was first made, it has attracted many supporters; little by little, in many parts of the Jewish world, people have begun to include seven female guests alongside their male counterparts. As opposed to the traditionally established list of the male ushpizin, active choices must be made for the seven ushpizot.

Who are the seven female guests we would like to bring inside the sukkah with us? The need to choose seven ancient female role models has resulted in some interesting answers.

One suggestion was to add the female partner of each of the male ushpizin. Abraham, then, would be joined by Sarah, Isaac by Rebekah, and Jacob by Leah, while Rachel would join her son Joseph; Zipporah would join Moses, Miriam would join her brother Aaron, and with David would come one of his wives (Bathsheba, Michal, or Abigail—with no illusion about that being a fraught decision) or with his great-grandmother, that paragon of faith, Ruth.

Dr. Anat Yisraeli has suggested including the seven female prophets that arose among the people Israel: “‘Seven female prophets [prophesied for Israel].’ Who were these? Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther” (Babylonian Talmud, M’gillah 14a). Yisraeli ascribes to each of the seven female prophets a beneficent quality and suggests embracing that quality during that day: Sarah had endurance and an ability to protect and shield others. Miriam had vitality and exuberance. Deborah modeled leadership and bravery; Hannah—faith and willpower; Abigail—resourcefulness and mercy; Huldah—powers of prophecy and rebuke; and Esther—self-sacrifice and courage.

Other interesting suggestions have been offered for including the ushpizot, such as that of the Dov Abramson Studio, a Jerusalem graphic design firm, which produced a series of twenty-six posters (and little flags and magnets) of ushpizot from the Bible through today. In this case, it is precisely the absence of women from an ancient tradition that makes it possible to exercise some measure of contemporary creativity. And when we seek to bring our ancient female forebears into traditions we are creating, we are invited to answer some fascinating questions.

Rabbi Dalia Marx, PhD, is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Jerusalem. She is the chief editor of T’filat HaAdam, the Israeli Reform prayer book (MaRaM, 2020). From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar was first published in Israel in 2018 as Bazman and has been translated into German, Spanish, and now English.

Categories
Israel Rabbinic Reflections

‘The Wheat Is Growing Again’: Rabbi Tamir Nir on Communal Spiritual Regrowth After October 7

Rabbi Tamir Nir is an Israeli Reform rabbi and the founder of the Israeli Reform congregation Achva Ba’Kerem in Jerusalem. Here, he shares his hope for regrowth and renewal even in tragic, trying times, and he shares how his Reform congregation, which includes a community garden, has provided a spiritual refuge during the war.

_____

“It’s not the same old house now; it’s not the same old valley
You’re gone and never can return again.
The path, the boulevard, a skyward eagle tarries…
And yet the wheat still grows again.”

Dorit Tzameret wrote this song after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In it, she wonders how wheat can grow again after everything has gone and is simultaneously amazed and excited by nature’s regenerative capacity.

This is how I have found encouragement, hope, and motivation since the beginning of the war and even today.

These days, the squill is the only plant that grows and blooms in Israel after a long and dry summer. It emerges from the dry and barren land without leaves or branches, an upright, white, proud inflorescence like the phoenix. It renews itself, like the new year, which comes out of the void, and the moon, which is covered and then shows the ability of renewal.

I founded the Achva Beit HaKerem—a Reform congregation in the Keram community in Jerusalem—in 2007 because I understood the acute need to build communities for secular Israeli urban society. The necessity of fostering identity and belonging and creating frameworks for support and mutual responsibility to build personal and community resilience. We need to achieve political power to make a difference in the neighborhood, the city, and even the country.

The reality in Israel proves that the traditional synagogue is not suitable for most of the Israeli society: Secular Israelis want to contribute and immerse themselves in acts, in tikkun olam.

We built a community garden with the understanding that this is the place where the community can grow. The garden is where trees and vegetables grow, and people create a community. It is a gathering space open to all, without fences or definitions—a synagogue without walls. Since it is an open public space, the garden invites residents from all sectors and genders so everyone can feel welcome and significant.

Our garden calls for an endless and continuing encounter with the cycle of nature. Working in the garden requires faith, even in the simple act of sowing: “Those who sow with tears will reap with Joy” (Psalms 126:1). We need faith that the seed will sprout, grow, and bear fruit. This action encourages faith and hope and a call for action that leads to social action. This act proves our ability to repair and create with nature, with the help of rain and the sun, in partnership with God.

I want to share two new projects that have grown in our community this past summer.

  1. During the war, we started holding carpentry workshops in the garden, focused on repairing old and broken furniture and recycling wood. Here, too, we witness our ability to mend what is broken, despite the brokenness. Many of the participants in the workshops today are reservists who left Gaza, as well as their spouses.
  2. “Beer Garden” has become a regular weekly event lately, attracting hundreds of people. We learned that sitting with neighbors over a glass of beer opens hearts and creates closeness, as well as new interactions between people. Sometimes, it even leads to new initiatives and projects.

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.” Genesis 28:17

The services held in the garden on Shabbat and holidays call us to pause, rest, admire our joint effort, and enjoy “the fruit of our labor.” We connect to each other and God. This profound experience of joining together offers spiritual renewal and strength, which is needed in these difficult days.

In prayer for good days, peace, growth, and peace.

Rabbi Tamir Nir is an ordained Reform rabbi who serves as the congregational rabbi for Congregation Achva Ba’Kerem, which he founded in 2007. Rabbi Nir teaches Jewish and Islamic thought in a high school for religious and secular Israelis. He recently served as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, where he bridged differences between the many diverse communities that make up the city, as the head of the BINA Secular Yeshiva, and as chair of the Heschel Center for Sustainability. He has an MA in Jewish Education and a BA in Architecture and Urban Planning. 

Categories
CCAR Press Israel Poetry Prayer

El Malei Rachamim for October 7

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar shares this poem to commemorate one year since the October 7 attacks. It is entitled El Malei Rachamim (“Merciful God”) after the traditional Jewish memorial prayer. CCAR Press has also put together a full collection of poems, prayers, and readings to mark one year since October 7. Download the collection here.

El Malei Rachamim

In blessed memory of you

hiding in the fields and bushes,
and the joggers out for a run,
and the moms and dads making breakfast for their toddlers in their kitchens,
and the parents in their safe rooms, holding the door handles for hours,
and the babies—innocent infants—and the grandfathers, and the grandmothers,
and entire families, parents watching their children die, children watching their parents,
and entire neighborhoods of young adults who were waiting to begin their lives,
and you, the brave, throwing hand grenades back out of the shelters without doors
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,
and you, the courageous, who ran towards the carnage to save who you could over again,
and you who were trapped in hundreds of incinerated cars,
and the fathers who frantically drove from the north to find their children
who cried, Abba, they are near, and I’ve been shot, find me,
and the friends who escaped but returned to rescue their friends and were killed,
and you who were raped and maimed and mutilated,
and you, who danced as the sun rose and will never see another sunrise and never dance again,
and the hostages stolen, beaten, tortured, starved, kept in dark tunnels and family homes,
and killed cruelly in captivity,
and the young women who stood guard on the towers over Gaza and who watched from screens
in darkened rooms showing us, warning us, and were ignored, and were slaughtered,
and the civilian guard who held the line to the last bullet without help for hours,
and the brave police who fought to the end, and the superheroes of the Israel Defense Forces,
valiant, brave lions of Judah…

Your lives were brutally taken on October 7, 2023 and in the relentless aftermath.
El malei rachmim, have compassion upon your souls,
El malei rachmim, have compassion upon our broken hearts.

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar is Rabbi Emerita at Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, Illinois. She is the author of Omer: A Counting and Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry, and Mindfulness Practice, both from CCAR Press.

Categories
Books CCAR Press Poetry

Looking Forward, Looking Backward: Meditation on the Eve of a New Year

Alden Solovy is the author of Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, now available from CCAR Press. As Rosh HaShanah approaches, we share one of Alden’s poems from the book for the new year.

Meditation on the Eve of a New Year

God,
We stand at the cusp of a new year,
Looking forward, looking backward,
So much accomplished,
So much neglected,
Gains and losses,
Joys and sorrows,
Victories and defeats.
A life.
My life.

You,
God of Old,
You are Steadfast Witness,
Source and Shelter.
I bend my heart to You,
Recalling all of Your gifts.

God,
For consolation in my grief,
For sunlight and midnight,
For hope in my celebrations,
For warmth and for shelter,
For current and tide,
For family and for friends,
For the flow of beauty and grace,
I bend my life back to You,
As the New Year descends,
In love and in service,
My offering
To Your holy name.

—
Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, and Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, all published by CCAR Press.

Categories
CCAR Press Israel

October 7, One Year Later: Readings for Commemoration

CCAR Press has compiled a collection of prayers, readings, and poems, many written by CCAR members, to mark one year since the life-changing events of October 7, 2023. Here, we share the introduction to this collection:

October 7 has indelibly left its mark in our hearts and memories. We remember where we were, what we were doing, and the sinking sense of horror and loss on what should have been a day of celebration and joy in our Torah. Too many Israeli lives were lost; too many hostages were taken; too many families were displaced. The aftermath has unleashed one horror after another: rising waves of antisemitism in the Diaspora, widespread evacuations in Israel’s north, hundreds of Israeli soldiers fallen in battle, and tens of thousands of innocent Gazans killed because of Hamas’s actions and Israel’s response.

There are times to address each of these horrors—to demand hostages be returned home, to reckon with antisemitism at home and abroad, to soothe the divisions within the Jewish community. There will be a time for healing and rebuilding—God willing, speedily. But today, on the anniversary of the worst violence against Jews since the Holocaust, our task is to bear witness, to remember, and to mourn.

These readings may be shared as part of services and ceremonies with attribution of the authors and the CCAR. We hope these readings, prayers, and poems will provide support, meaning, and connection as you commemorate the anniversary of October 7, 2023.

Download the free collection.

Categories
Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Rosh Chodesh Elul: Two Reform Rabbinic Perspectives on Teaching About Israel and Finding Ourselves in the Wilderness

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet has created a monthly forum where two rabbis will share with Reform rabbis their thoughts on teaching and preaching about Israel in the month ahead. For Rosh Chodesh Elul, Rabbi Melissa Simon has shared her thoughts, and Rabbi Dan Moskovitz has shared a Davar Acheir, a second perspective. 

Writing About Israel in Advance, by Rabbi Melissa Simon 

When I was asked to write this piece, my first question was “How late can I submit it?” This was not just because I have a tendency to procrastinate, but rather because every passing hour seems to see shifts and changes in the reality on the ground in the Middle East. So how can someone write about Israel in advance?  Writing about Israel in advance requires flexibility, an awareness of the possibility of a last-minute edit or rewrite, and creativity. It means identifying goals or themes and then ideating around them. Sometimes these initiatives can lead to meaningful adaptations and ideas.  

Over the first seven months of 2024, I organized and led three trips of Hillel campus staff from the United States, Canada, and Poland to Israel to better understand the post-October 7 reality. We painstakingly crafted a journal full of poetry, songs, prayers, and art. But then we faced a challenge: we desperately wanted to believe that our hostages wouldn’t still be held captive by the time the trip took place, yet it was a possibility (and sadly a reality throughout each trip). What did we do? We found an image that resembled a torn piece of tape, like the one Rachel Goldberg—the mother of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin—has been wearing attached to her clothing, what she calls “an emblem of pain,” marking the days of captivity of her beloved son, who was tragically murdered by Hamas. In solidarity, many of us around the world have been wearing the torn tape with the unbelievably increasing total number of days. We printed the blank tape image at the top of each day’s journal page and invited the participants to fill out the number of days each morning. It became a painful yet powerful ritual each day, as we marked the difficult passage of time. It centered the people of Israel and their reality at the forefront of our minds and hearts. 

The take-away I have from this experience is that however difficult it is, we must talk about Israel, we must write about Israel, we must engage in the work of Israel education—even when it is hard, even if our old systems and plans have failed us, even if we fear we will make a mistake. 

We need to center Israeli voices in our work, and we need to travel to Israel to experience the changed realities. We need to read books and articles, listen to podcasts, and watch TV and movies in order to add to our knowledge. We need to be creative with how we engage with Israel, and we need to be expansive in how we understand the people, land, and State of Israel. 

The greatest danger is the silence. The fear of getting it wrong causes some people to freeze and to fail to act. Our Jewish communities need prophetic and strong voices. They need sermons that make sense of what is hard to understand. They need classes that explain history and how present realities have come to be.   

Yes, sometimes you might need to edit that sermon right before services because something has shifted in world events. Yes, sometimes you might need to throw out the lesson plan to hold space to deal with a challenging reality. Yes, sometimes we can confess that we too are confused or scared or challenged. 

But even when it is hard—perhaps precisely because it is hard—we need to write, speak, and teach about Israel today and every day. 

Davar Acheir / Another Perspective: Always in the Wilderness, by Rabbi Dan Moskovitz 

Thank you, Rabbi Simon, for your thought-provoking and honest reflections on the challenges of writing about Israel amidst the daily uncertainty and dynamism of a post-October 7 world.

I too have been putting off my High Holy Day sermon topic selection let alone outlining and drafting, which by Elul is usually at least in my head if not on paper. Shabbat sermons and divrei Torah have been similarly “eleventh hour” as events impact perspective on a daily basis.  

And yet some things about Israel and the experience of Jews in the diaspora never change, even as they appear new to us as twenty-first-century Jews. For over seventy-five years, the miraculous existence of the State of Israel, to say nothing of Jews in the West in general; the nature, character, and acceptance among the community of nations of both the Jewish State and the Jewish People has been fragile and under attack from enemies “foreign and domestic.” The fantasy we tell ourselves is that the forces unleashed on October 7 are new and different, rather than revealing something that has been there all along, and that our people have faced for millennia.  

Franklin Foer’s piece in the Atlantic, “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending,” makes the point that what we are experiencing now is not the exception but rather normative of attitudes toward Jews and becoming normative toward Israel. I draw some degree of strength from that sad reality. We have been here before and are still here.  

I think of the tens of thousands of sermons and articles written by our rabbinic predecessors in their own precarious times; the strength (koach) and wisdom they gave their communities in dire moments such as these that guided our people through the wilderness. Maybe that is the burden and the blessing of being a Jew or a Jewish State—we are always in the wilderness striving toward a promised land, a promised time, but we never quite get there. In the striving, in the wilderness journey, our true character is formed and the dangers to our survival are revealed so we can confront them.  

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet asks that if you choose to respond to these authors, you do so only with kavod harav—respect for the rabbi sharing their wisdom, experience, time, and talent. 

Rabbi Melissa B. Simon is the director of Israel education for Hillel International and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz is the senior rabbi of Temple Sholom in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

Categories
Books CCAR Press High Holy Days Poetry

Vulnerability During the Days of Awe: Alden Solovy on ‘Enter These Gates’

Alden Solovy is the author of Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, now available from CCAR Press. In this excerpt from the introduction, he reflects on the meaning of the High Holy Days and how his book can deepen our experiences of this season.

What a strange thing we do each year at the High Holy Days: We put our own humanity on trial. We take an accounting of our souls precisely at the moment we celebrate the creation of the world and lift up the sovereignty of God. We take accounting of our own souls because the world needs us each at our best, because part of perfecting God’s world is healing ourselves. Even though we know that the world will offer us moments of challenge—like September 11 and October 7—we choose to look deeply at our lives again and again, year after year.

The High Holy Days can lift us on words of Torah and prayer to the heights of our best selves. The days also call forth the deepest moments of our vulnerability and pain. Our memories—joyous and painful—meet our hopes for the future. These are the days of our most intimate self- assessment. By design, our liturgy brings out our sorrows, our fears, and our vulnerabilities. Yet the intent—far from punishment or retribution—is to lift us toward our best selves. Repentance. Prayer. Charity. Confession. Forgiveness. We ask a lot of ourselves and our liturgy. Our liturgy and our tradition ask a lot from us.

These challenges led to the genesis of my new book, Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe. The volume has two purposes. The first is to serve as a source of new meditations for private use, a path to deepening our individual experiences of the Days of Awe. The second is as a new liturgical supplement to Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe, which has been in use for more than a decade. Central to this book is the goal of helping clergy and congregations bring refreshed vigor and new voices into High Holy Day worship. Enter These Gates can also be used in conjunction with Mishkan HaLev: Prayers for S’lichot and the Month of Elul.

This volume offers more than one hundred new readings based on the core thematic elements of the High Holy Day liturgy. Some of the works are traditional in form and language, recognizable as riffs on particular prayers. Other prayer poems offered here blend traditional themes with storytelling, music-like interlude, or liturgical reframing.

My hopes are that:

▪ Rabbis and other clergy incorporate some of this work into High Holy Day worship, including S’lichot and Tashlich.

▪ Congregations place copies of Enter These Gates in their pews and prayer bookshelves so that congregants and participants can encounter this work in private prayer during services.

▪ Individuals use this volume during the month of Elul and the Days of Awe as part of their own personal journeys of High Holy Day preparation.

▪ Educators use this volume for supplemental prayer in religious school worship in the weeks leading up to the High Holy Days, as well as for teaching High Holy Day themes.

▪ Rabbis, clergy, and educators use Enter These Gates to teach about the High Holy Days in adult education and conversion classes.

The introduction to Mishkan HaNefesh asks, “Opening a prayer book on the High Holy Days, what do we hope to find?” If a machzor (High Holy Day prayer book) is successful, it goes on to say, “It leads us on a path across rough terrain.” Soul searching. Introspection. Mortality. Our shortcomings. Our beliefs. “It tests our spiritual stamina, and we do well to make use of imagination and memory.”

Although Enter These Gates is a book of prayers and meditations for the High Holy Days, don’t be fooled. It is really a mirror. A dream. A doorway. It is a book of imagination and memory, a book of challenges and warnings, a book of hopes and aspirations. It is a descent into fire and an ascent into secrets that rise to heaven.

Bless you on your journey.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist based in Jerusalem. He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine in Poetry and Prayer, These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah, and Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe, all published by CCAR Press.

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Israel Rabbinic Reflections

Rosh Chodesh Av: Two Reform Rabbinic Perspectives on Embracing Conversations about Israel

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet has created a monthly forum featuring the thoughts of two Reform rabbis on Israel. This content provides Reform rabbis with material for teaching and preaching about Israel in the month ahead. For Rosh Chodesh Av, Rabbi Jeremy Barras has been invited to share his perspective, and Rabbi Keren Gorban shares a Davar Acheir, a second perspective.

The Many Faces of Zionism, by Rabbi Jeremy Barras

A few days after this year’s CCAR Convention in Philadelphia, I wrote a note to my colleagues urging us to respect each other’s views on Israel. For many years, as someone who stands to the right of many in the Conference on such issues, I have been frustrated by what I perceived as a lack of support for Israel amongst our colleagues. In the past I would spend parts of the workday debating with one colleague or another. Over time, I realized these exchanges were not productive. On the contrary, they often unnecessarily caused hurt feelings.

For the past few years, and especially since October 7, I have softened my approach even further. It became perfectly clear to me after October 7 that we each care deeply about what happens in Israel, and we each share equally in the pain and suffering that October 7 and its aftermath have caused. I will admit that I felt a tinge of resentment when the war began, and many of us called on the Biden Administration to support Israel in her time of need. For the past twenty years, some of us—including myself—have been criticized for being so active in AIPAC. Now that we have seen such incredible support from our government for Israel, I resented that some of us have been working tirelessly on Capitol Hill to build these relationships that have produced such incredible results, all the while taking criticism for being “too right wing.”

That is how I felt in the days immediately following October 7. I no longer feel that way. As the war drags on, I feel that each one of us brings an important approach to support for Israel. What is important is that we each feel like we are fulfilling our responsibility to support Israel in the way we best see fit.

Recently, I finished reading Yehudah Mirsky’s excellent biography of Rav Kook. I have always been drawn to Rav Kook and his willingness to open the bounds of traditional Judaism to the innovations of modern Zionism. Mirsky beautifully describes Rav Kook’s ability to see the holiness in the commitment of secular Zionists. While the ultra-Charedi world dismissed the secular Zionists as antithetical to Judaism, Rav Kook recognized that through Zionist activity a Jew could be brought into the realm of spirituality.

From my perspective, October 7 intensified Jewish identity for Jews around the world. Overnight, we found ourselves frightened for our futures. But that fear caused us to look deeply at why we care so much. And when the encampments were disassembled and the protesters finally gave way, we could not help asking ourselves a couple of questions: What is it about being Jewish that is so important to us? Why do the lies and vitriol of our enemies hurt us so profoundly? And in these moments, when we ask these questions, we may each draw different conclusions. This is no different than the early Zionists. There were so many different schools of thought on how the goals of Zionism should be achieved. But ultimately, it was clear that all of them were necessary to build the State of Israel. Likewise, today, just as Ben Gurion argued with Begin, and A.D. Gordon debated with Rav Kook, our differences should not stifle our contributions, they should complement them. No matter what our views are, we will do better to begin with the baseline that we each love the State of Israel, and our differences no matter how profound, are imbued with the holiness of the Zionist spirit. 

Davar Acheir, Another Perspective, by Rabbi Keren Gorban

We have entered the season when we remember, mourn, and seek comfort after the destructions of Jerusalem. The second of those destructions, our tradition teaches, resulted from שנאת חינם, sinat chinam, the free-flowing hatred and intolerance of others and their ideas, positions, and priorities. As Rabbi Barras rightly notes, the strength of our community depends on us valuing pluralism and learning from diverse perspectives.

I think it’s critical for us to recognize that our community also benefits from including the perspectives of those who identify as anti-Zionist and non-Zionist. When I meet with someone who tells me that they don’t believe in God, I invite more conversation: “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Invariably, I don’t believe in that God either, but they and I can only discover our shared values and beliefs when we approach each other with respect and curiosity. From their opposition, I strengthen my own connection to God and learn more about how to teach theological complexity. They deepen their understanding of what people might mean when they refer to God, even if they ultimately decide that a relationship with God isn’t meaningful.

Likewise, we, as rabbis and as a movement, need to invite anti-Zionists and non-Zionists into conversation about the Zionism they oppose. These are not debates with the goal of proving one side right and the other wrong. These have to be open, curious, respectful opportunities to learn more about our hopes, visions, frustrations, etc., for and with the State of Israel. We will not always agree—in fact, we may often disagree—but let it be the result of deep understanding and love for each other rather than שנאת חינם, sinat chinam.

The Reform Israel Rabbinic Cabinet asks that if you choose to respond to these authors, you do so only with kavod harav—respect for the rabbi—sharing their wisdom, experience, time, and talent.

Rabbi Jeremy Barras is Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest, Florida. He also serves on the CCAR board of trustees. Rabbi Keren Gorban serves Temple Beth El in Tacoma, Washington.