Author: Rabbi Andrea Berlin

Categories
Passover Pesach

No Rice for My Family this Passover

In November 2015 when the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA) issued their teshuvah permitting rice and other legumes for Ashkenazi Jews during Passover, I thought it was interesting, but did not think it had any bearing our movement.

Imagine my surprise, then, when colleague after colleague posted with glee that we could now eat rice.

This reaction bothered me for two reasons.

First, we Reform Jews have never been bound by the halakhic policy of the Conservative Movement. We have not even been guided by it. If our Responsa Committee cites the RA when publishing a responsa, it is rare indeed.

Why, then, was this particular ruling quoted time and again by our colleagues? Is it because those of us who eat rice at Passover felt validated by the Conservative ruling? If this is true, it is problematic. We do not need validation. Our practice and our traditions need no approval from another movement. We preach all the time that other movements are not inherently more correct because they are more fundamentally bound to halakha. If this were true, it would undermine much of what we currently do and much of what we are working toward.

The second reason bothers me even more than the first. As far as I am concerned, rice is still forbidden for Reform Ashkenazi Jews. To defer to the Conservative movement in this instance is to forget one of the most fundamental principles of Reform Judaism.

We are the movement that reinterpreted tikkun olam and use it as our battle cry. We are the movement dedicated to shouting against injustice, caring for those less fortunate, healing the broken among us.

In this context, Passover is more than just remembering the Exodus from Egypt. It is remembering our own privilege, remembering there are those who are always hungry, who do not know when their fast will end.

Without legumes, keeping kosher for Passover gets old very quickly. By the fourth or fifth day, we are longing for the holiday to end. It is on these days, and each subsequent day of Passover, that we should be struck with the stunning realization of how fortunate we are. If we have become weary of our food choices, if we are starting to feel hungry for more, just imagine the plight of those whose food choices are even more limited than ours on Passover, those whose hunger will not be relieved at Passover’s end.

If Passover makes us food-fatigued and hungry, even as we have an array of foods we can eat and can afford, and even though we know the holiday will soon end, can we even begin to imagine what it is like to feel hungry with limited food resources and options in a situation without end?

I do not know if I could reach this point of insight if I included legumes in my Passover diet.

We teach our people that in addition to its organic meaning, Passover also stands as a reminder that there are those still pining for the manna I take for granted. There are those left behind who are still standing on the other side of the Jordan. There are those I am commanded to remember by the very Torah I will celebrate receiving.

This Passover, no matter what your dietary practice, let us remember and remind our baalei batim how fortunate we all are, and if any of us have extra, let us inspire ourselves and them to share it.

— 

Rabbi Andrea Berlin is the founder of Berlin Consulting, LLC, which provides transition management and conflict facilitation to organizations in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.  Berlin Consulting, LLC also provides synagogues with general consulting.

Categories
High Holy Days Rabbis Reform Judaism

Holy Atheism!: The Role of Faith in Judaism

As Yom Kippur, our only holiday which focuses on our relationship with God, fades behind us, I am reminded of a 2007 article I read in Newsweek. Christopher Hitchens quoted these words Mother Teresa had spoken:

“For me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, – Listen and do not hear – the tongue moves but does not speak.”   “Such deep longing for God – and…repulsed-empty –no  faith- no  love- no  zeal.”

Mr. Hitchens points out that such doubt for Mother Teresa would indeed have caused crisis, not only for her, but for the catholics for whom she was such an inspiration.  “Mother Teresa doubted God?!”  In the height of heresy, Mr. Hitchens goes so far as to accuse her of (gasp) atheism!

I was puzzled reading Mr. Hitchens’ article.  Mother Teresa doubted God.  So what? As a child I feasted on stubborn Jonah, angry Moses, poor confused Saul, and the one from whom we inherited our name; the struggling Jacob/Israel. I expected to play Divine hide-and-seek with the God of my understanding.   And yet, Mother Theresa’s words reverberated deeply through my soul.

I’ve always seen faith as secondary to Judaism.  Great if you feel it, irrelevant if you don’t.  I can never get too excited about avowed Atheist Jews.  One doesn’t really need God in order to live a Jewish life.

To live a Jewish life, one need only follow mitzvot, doing so with a little compassion is even better.  It wasn’t Mother Teresa’s struggle or doubt which pulled at me.  It was her pain.  It was her pure human pain.

And this is the point of who we are as Jews.  Angst, emptiness, sadness, loneliness, silence…it is only natural that these words will relate to our search for the divine.  But for us, angst, emptiness, sadness, loneliness, and silence….these words should shock us, drive us into action when they relate to the feelings of human beings.

When he was hosted in the U.S. during WWII, my father was raised by Morris Bagno, one of the leaders of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. Uncle Morris’s entire life was dedicated to bringing dignity and justice to the laborer. Except for family s’machot (joyful events), he refused to enter a shul or synagogue, and, believing that religion drove a wedge between class unities, declined to send my father to cheder (Jewish day school).  He never even mentioned God.  But, this man’s influence on my father and on my family is one of the reasons I became a rabbi. Uncle Morris’s sense of social justice was the epitome of “Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof” (Justice, justice, shall you pursue). He lived Torah so absolutely that he was, in most aspects of his life, the walking personification of Torat Chayim—the  the living, breathing Torah.

In fact Uncle Morris was such an atheist, he would not have understood why Mother Teresa was so worked up.  If Uncle Morris heard her lament, he would have heard the cry of human suffering – and the silence surrounding it.  This, not divine longing, but a human being hearing silence…this would have moved him.   Just as it should move us.  Around us at every moment, near and far, are those who hear only silence and emptiness, those who wish to cry out, but cannot speak.  As a Jew, I know this silence is not God’s; it is ours.

We have neighbors and friends struggling with physical and mental illness, parents who cannot feed their children, and politicians so warped and distracted by their own job security that they cannot hear the weeping all around them. We have masses of citizens gassed and killed by their government’s own hand. “The silence and the emptiness is so great.” Is it ever.

And because it is, we do not have the luxury of struggling long with faith.  As Jews, we are commanded not to believe, but to do. While most religions also command us to action, to response, to feeling and hearing, and then helping – we are commanded with no expectation of belief.  We are commanded with prophetic urgency not to tolerate anguish in this world.

Can we lift the emptiness and silence?  Read anew Mother Teresa’s words, hearing them as an echo of the suffering in this world…   “For me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, – Listen and do not hear – the tongue moves but does not speak.”

So I ask you now…what are we going to do about it?

Rabbi Andrea Berlin is Director Congregational Networks – West District with the Union for Reform Judaism and is the co-director of NCRCR.

Categories
General CCAR High Holy Days Rabbis Reform Judaism

Lost in the Pews: An Ode to the Non-Pulpit Rabbi

Three years ago, I left my congregation to join the URJ.  I proudly professed to my spouse that I did not believe I would miss much, and certainly not the stress of the holidays.  I would rather spend them as a Jew, as a wife, as a mother.

I lied.  As Walnut Creek temperatures neared scorching and the moon began to wax toward crescent and newness, as Facebook posts decried the arduous task of crafting sermons in time for Rosh Hashanah, I slowly became aware of sadness trellising up my psyche.

At first I thought I felt left out.  So, I offered up my editing services to friends preparing their sermons.  How fun it was connecting with old classmates and colleagues across the country!  But, the sadness kept growing.

Perhaps, I missed being part of the amazing Sinai team (Oakland, CA).  So I wrote to each of my former clergy partners, remising about the thrill of standing in the Paramount Theatre’s green room, laughing to the point of tears as we celebrated the joy in each other’s lives and supported the pain.  We all connected over this, but, the sadness kept growing.

Could I miss the adulation I received when a sermon stood out?  I would miss the praise, but not enough to justify the strength of the sadness.

So why was I sad?  Finally, one Shabbat morning a couple of weeks before the holidays, I realized what or who I missed.  I missed God.  Or more specifically, I missed God’s awareness of me.  I subconsciously believed that because I was working toward a uniquely divine purpose, because I was striving to inspire God’s people toward spiritual height, because I was sacrificing my family and my own holiday experience, God had a particular awareness of and gratitude toward me.  And even more surprising; I was afraid.  I was afraid God would not find me that year.  I would be lost as a Jew in the Pew, not where God knew to look for me.

Consciously, I knew how silly this was.  But, subconsciously, I approached the High Holiday’s with a different type of nora from the awe and fear I had felt since I began working the High Holidays at age 18.  And it was with this feeling of trepidation I found a seat in the pews of a synagogue which never knew me in the role of rabbi, and prepared to seek holiness at a service over which I had no control.

I want to write about my lightning bolt moment when I discovered a new soulfulness and connection with God.  This did not happen.  But the next day as we sat with friends and community by our local reservoir laughing and playing, watching our children giggle ruthlessly, talking about the depth and meaning of what our lives could be… I felt the rise of a new joy, a new connection to the divine energy of Yamim Noraim, a new importance to God for just simply and only being me.

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This feeling and relationship has evolved over the last 3 years.  I do still miss the connection I felt to the rest of you, and especially my immediate team, as we prepared to create a sacred experience together.  But, I don’t miss God.  God knows where I am. Right where I belong.

 

Rabbi Andrea Berlin is Director Congregational Networks – West District with the Union for Reform Judaism and is the co-director of NCRCR.