Categories
LGBT Rabbinic Reflections

LGBTQ+ Rabbinic Groundbreakers: Rabbi Denise Eger: ‘Speak Loud, Fight Harder, Be Proud’

This Pride Month, the Central Conference of American Rabbis is lifting up an important community within the Reform rabbinate: the groundbreaking LGTBQ+ rabbis who were amongst the first rabbis to express themselves openly, who paved the way—and often fought for—LGBTQ+ acceptance and inclusion in the Reform rabbinate and in the Jewish community.

Generations of LGBTQ+ Jews have lived closeted lives because of outright discrimination and more subtle forms of bias and rejection that have dominated much of Jewish history, including the history of our Reform Movement and the CCAR itself. We are committed to continuing to learn how to rectify the erasures of the past and to embrace all of our colleagues.

While the Reform Movement has advocated for LGBTQ+ inclusion for decades, for many queer rabbis, the personal experience of navigating sexuality in rabbinical school, or being the first out rabbi at a synagogue, in an organization, or even in their city or community, was a fraught, sometimes painful experience, often marked with judgment, shame, or even overt discrimination. 

We share these moments of truth, and we also share important moments of joy and hard-won milestones. We honor the experiences of queer Reform rabbis, their meaningful contributions, and above all else, we thank them for showing up as their authentic selves and bringing diversity and wholeness to the rabbinate and to their communities.

“Neitzei hasadeh—Let us go forth and let our message ring out, that God loves us all, that we love us all, and that love conquers all.” [Based on Song of Songs 7:12]


As we observe Pride in 2023, I am reflecting on many aspects of my LGBTQ+ rabbinic journey. I am particularly nostalgic as I am retiring from my pulpit soon. My entire rabbinic career has been serving the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Jewish community.  

When I was ordained a rabbi in 1988 by Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, it was still a time when you could not be openly gay or lesbian and rabbi. (There was not even a discussion that transgender people could be part of this equation at that time!) The College–Institute did not ordain openly gay or lesbian people as rabbis.   

This was a burning question and issue in the mid- to late 1980s within Reform Judaism. What was the place of LGBTQ+ Jews in the community? Could LGBTQ+ Jews be religious leaders? And all of this against a backdrop of a horrible AIDS pandemic that was killing gay men in droves in this country. And in the midst of a political scene where the U.S. government did nothing to help. Ronald Reagan’s administration’s inaction and lack of truth telling about AIDS/HIV contributed to the number of deaths. The right wing of the Republican Party and the religious homophobes they courted called for concentration camps for gay men, and they blocked civil rights for LGBTQ+ people. 

My rabbinate unfolded against this backdrop, fueling me to become an advocate and activist for LGBTQ+ rights in society and LGBTQ+ rites in our Jewish world. There were many closeted LGBTQ+ people who were already ordained, but only a handful who were openly gay. As the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion were actively debating the ordination of gay and lesbian colleagues as rabbis, there was to be a resolution at the 1990 CCAR Convention in Seattle. In advance of the Convention, my coming out story ran in the Los Angeles Times, helping to give a face and name to the cause.  

There was no turning back.

From left: Rabbi Ross Z. Levy, Rabbi Denise Eger, Cantor Patti Linsky during High Holy Days 2022 at Congregation Kol Ami.

I stood at the bedsides of countless young men dying of HIV, feeding them and visiting them when they had no one, when their families still rejected them.   

I advocated for gay youth who were often thrown out of their homes.

I did training for Jewish professionals, social workers, and other community leaders about how to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. We made connections with the Israeli LGBTQ+ community supporting their efforts and worked with the first openly lesbian Tel Aviv city council woman, Michal Eden, who opened the LGBTQ youth shelter, Beit Dror, in Tel Aviv. We raised money for Beit Dror, as well as provided resources to train their social workers in Israel on LGBTQ+ issues for youth.  

These are but some examples of my rabbinate. 

Rabbi Denise Eger, right, with Reverend Susan Russell of All Saints Church in Pasadena, California in 2008, when the California Supreme Court ruled that provisions in the state’s marriage statutes banning same-sex marriages violated the California Constitution.

Over the course of the next thirty-five years, I would push the boundaries of inclusion for marriage equality both in our Reform Movement and the larger Jewish world and in society at large. I performed the first legal same-sex marriage in California in 2008 when the California Supreme Court found same-sex marriage to be legal in the Constitution. I would do over sixty weddings during that summer of love, before voters in November 2008 took away the right to marry until the federal government granted it again in 2015.  

I worked on many other issues of concern for LGBTQ+ people, including advocating for transgender rights and for the expanding understanding of gender expression alongside sexual orientation.  

There are many moments of memory, including becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ person to become president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 2015. One story from that moment that most people don’t know, is that even with all the progress on LGBTQ+ civil rights in society and in the liberal Jewish world by 2015, the day I was to be installed as CCAR President, a credible death threat was made against me. At the Convention, I had a bodyguard. My colleagues kept asking who the guy was that was trailing me everywhere. We couldn’t actually say as we didn’t want to draw too much extra attention to the situation, but there was an abundance of caution. I didn’t leave the hotel except once to go to dinner, where the bodyguard sat at the next table with a clear sight line to the door. It was frightening for me and for my family as my son was with me from college.  

The world had changed and yet not so much. There still was an expression of hatred and violence against me as an out lesbian, as an out Jewish lesbian. 

This wasn’t the first death threat I received. There have been many. 

And what worries me most today, is the climate of hatred and harassment and rolling back of civil rights for our LGBTQ+ community. The particular focus on the dehumanization of transgender people and trans children and their families in many states; the threat to marriage equality; the rolling back of hate crime laws; the attack on women’s reproductive health, hearkens back to the time when I became a rabbi.  

Our Reform Movement will need to stand strong and tall for LGBTQ+ rabbis and their families. Our Reform Movement will need to stand strong and tall for our LGBTQ+ congregants and members and in the larger society and use its power and voice and moral suasion to be the advocates we need.  

May this Pride Season inspire us to speak louder, fight harder for justice, and be proud of our queer rabbis, family, friends, and community. 

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, California. In March 2015 she became the 60th President of the CCAR, becoming the first openly gay or lesbian rabbi to hold that position. She served from 2015-2017. Rabbi Eger is also past President of the Southern California Board of Rabbis (the first woman and openly gay person to do so) and a past President of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis.

In 2020, she released Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of Jewish Life and Ritual (CCAR Press), a groundbreaking collection of LGBTQ+ prayers, poems, liturgy, and rituals. Her latest book is Seven Principles for Living Bravely: Ageless Wisdom and Comforting Faith for Weathering Life’s Most Difficult Times.

Categories
Books Inclusion LGBT

‘Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells’: A Project of Hope

Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells, edited by Rabbi Denise L. Eger, was published by CCAR Press in the spring of 2020. In this post, Rabbi Eger shares how the book came to be.

Some rabbis collect their sermons and publish them. They are pearls of wisdom for the ages.

I may yet do that at some point.

But more urgently, I saw the need to center the voices of the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout my years of service as a rabbi, I had to create ceremonies and prayers for my community when there were no resources. I was ordained in the late 1980s in the midst of the AIDS crisis, at a time when our beloved HUC-JIR still wouldn’t ordain openly LGBTQ+ people as rabbis or cantors. We lived in fear and in the closet. Maybe that is hard to believe now for our many openly LGBTQ+ rabbis and seminarians, but it wasn’t that long ago when we gathered secretly at CCAR Conventions late at night in someone’s room to connect with other queer colleagues.

Over the years, I wrote prayers for Pride Month and National Coming Out Day. I would write invocations and blessings for interfaith gatherings affirming the worth and dignity

of LGBTQ+ people, their families, and people with HIV. I had to invent, create, and imagine an authentic queer Jewish life when there was little liturgy available.

Religion is so often used to shame and hurt LGBTQ+ people. Too much violence and hatred are directed at the LGBTQ+ community in the name of religion. I purposefully write from a different perspective.

I tried to create prayers in a genuine Jewish voice that uplifted, instilling hope and healing. I tried to combat homophobia through prayers and reflections that reinforced the theology that all are created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. I tried to convey what today we call audacious hospitality, writing naming ceremonies for those transitioning gender, wedding ceremonies before we had any templates, and rituals for coming out. I wrote my first ceremony to celebrate someone coming out as gay in 1986! It was centered around an aliyah to the Torah, as a riff on benching Gomel and a Mi Shebeirach for well-being.

But luckily, over these same three-plus decades, LGBTQ+ Jewish life has grown and blossomed. We have seen tectonic shifts in not just welcoming LGBTQ+ and non-binary Jews home, but embracing queer life and queer Jewish voices.

Often when Gay Pride Month would roll around, many of you, my colleagues, would call or email me to ask for materials for Pride Shabbat. I shared whatever I had created that year. Clearly there was a need for a collection of resources to help communities live out our commitment to be welcoming and embracing places of LGBTQ+ folx. Not one for sitting around, after my time in leadership of the Conference, I knew it was the right moment to collect not only some of own writings, but to invite others to share their poetry, prayer, and passion—centering the voices and experiences of our queer Jewish community.

Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells was born out of this effort.

Mishkan Ga’avah represents some of the collected wisdom, voices, and experiences of Jewish LGBTQ+ people. It is a spiritual resource for both the individual and the community. I hope it inspires others to write creative liturgy and prayers using their own voices. And I hope it will offer comfort, solace, inspiration, and hope to LGBTQ+ people everywhere—a beautiful strand of pearls for all of our Jewish community to wear.


Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the editor of Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of LGBTQ Life and Ritual (CCAR Press, 2020) and a past President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA.

Categories
Inclusion LGBT Social Justice

Transgender Day of Remembrance: An Opportunity for Safety and Visibility

Besides coronavirus, there is another epidemic raging in our communities: the ongoing scourge of violence targeting transgender people, particularly trans women of color. Transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people [ɪ] are more likely to be denied equal access to jobs, housing, and medical care, and they are frequent targets of violence—including murder. Trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folx are afraid to go to the police for help; when they do seek out legal remedies or safe harbor, they often are further harassed by law enforcement, facing violence at the hands of the very people charged with protecting them.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), “In just seven months, the number of transgender people suspected of being murdered in 2020 has surpassed the total for all of 2019.” Black and Latinx transgender women have been particularly targeted. NCTE’s US Transgender Survey, which included more than 28,000 participants, found that nearly half (47 percent) of all Black respondents and 30 percent of all Latinx respondents reported being denied equal treatment, experiencing verbal harassment, or being physically attacked in the previous year due to their transgender identity. 

The Family Research Project has shown that nearly three out of four trans and gender-expansive youth have heard family members say negative remarks about LGBTQ people, and over half of transgender and gender-expansive youth have been openly mocked by their families for their identity.

These harrowing statistics don’t have to be the norm. There is an urgent need for education and awareness-raising about transgender issues, both in our Jewish communities and in the cities and towns in which we live. As rabbis, we can make our synagogues places of safe harbor and support for transgender and gender non-conforming people, whether they are Jewish or not! Just as we build coalitions with interfaith partners, our congregations can build important bridges, becoming advocates for our Jewish transgender and non-binary members while providing connection, safety, and partnership for the larger transgender and non-binary community. One way we might do so is by reaching out to local LGBTQ organizations to sponsor and host ceremonies for Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Every year, November 20 is designated as Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). The week prior is known as Transgender Awareness Week, with the goal of increasing visibility of transgender people and addressing the painful issues their community faces. TDOR was started in 1999 by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was murdered the previous year. The vigil commemorated all of the transgender people lost to violence since Hester’s death, beginning an important annual tradition.

This year, TDOR is on a Friday. Perhaps at your Shabbat evening service, you will invite a transgender activist to speak and educate your community. Perhaps during the Kaddish, you will read aloud the names of transgender victims of murder from this past year. Or in the week before TDOR, perhaps you will schedule a program to help raise visibility and acceptance of transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people.

In my book, Mishkan Gaavah: Where Pride Dwells, published this year by CCAR Press, there are several powerful prayers and readings for TDOR. Here’s one to consider using:

A Prayer for Transgender Day of Remembrance

Rabbi: We praise You, Holy One, for the gift of life, precious, stubborn, fragile and beautiful; we are grateful for the time we have to live upon the earth, to love, to grow, to be.

Congregation: We give thanks for the will to live and for our capacity to live fully all of the days that we are given;

Rabbi: And for those who have been taken by the devastation of violence used against them. We remember them and claim the opportunity to build lives of wholeness in their honor.

Congregation: We give you thanks for the partners, friends, allies and families who have been steadfast in their love; for the people who have devoted their lifes work to the prevention of violence, support and making transitioning from one gender to another possible with passion and commitment,

Rabbi: For the diligent science, brilliant ideas, and insights that have led to new life-giving procedures, for those in leadership who have acted to provide health care for people who are in transition.

Congregation: We give thanks for those whose prejudice and judgment have yielded to understanding, for those who have overcome fear, indifference, or burnout to embrace a life of caring compassion.

Rabbi: We praise You, Eternal One, for those who have loved enough that their hearts have broken, who cherish the memories of those we have lost, and for those who console the grieving.

Congregation: God, grant us the love, courage, tenacity, and will to continue to make a difference in a world even with the violence aimed towards our community;

Rabbi: Inspire us to challenge and stand strong against the forces that allow needless harm and violence to continue—prejudice, unjust laws, repression, stigma, and fear.

Congregation: Into Your care, we trust and lift up the hundreds of souls who have been tortured and murdered.

Rabbi: We lift up to You our dreams of a world where all are cared for,

Congregation: Our dreams of wholeness,

Rabbi: Our dreams of a world where all are accepted and respected,

Congregation: A dream we know You share.


[ɪ] The Human Rights Campaign has a useful glossary for anyone unfamiliar with these terms.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the editor of Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of LGBTQ Life and Ritual (CCAR Press, 2020) and a past President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. She is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA.

Categories
Books Prayer

Accessing the World of Meaningful Prayer

The tension between keva and kavanah in our worship is always there.  The fixed texts of our liturgy guide us through our daily moments of reflection and prayer.  They contain our history, our theology, and our deep bond with the Holy One through the millennia. There is a comfort for me in chanting the words that my parents and grandparents knew. Even when praying in English or some other mother tongue those too can have the same force that binds us to our covenant.

The kavanah, the inspirational or extemporaneous moments of prayer take me in a different direction. The words and music I craft at any given moment pour out of my lips in an effort to capture my spiritual longings of a specific moment or situation.  I am drawn increasingly to these interpretative poems and prayers to express my soul’s longing in the complex world we live in.  I search for material that will enhance the keva and at times liberate me from the keva as well.

As the one who is responsible for crafting meaningful worship for others, we rabbis and cantors are often caught in the bind between these two points.  We have a sacred duty, on the one hand, to our received tradition and to engage the worshipper for whom the fixed text is foreign, and who may only occasionally enter into moments of conversation with God. And we who long to create different kinds of spiritual connection through prayer and meditation that is still authentically Jewish but soars beyond the keva need material that can reframe and revitalize our Jewish prayer voice. This dialectic between the written texts and the inspirational texts, and impromptu prayers will always challenge us and hopefully propel us to deepen our thoughtfulness in preparing meaningful worship experiences.

This is why I appreciate deeply the poetry and prayers of Alden Solovy.  In his newest collection of prayer/poems, This Joyous Soul, soon to be published by the CCAR Press, Alden gives us some tools that will help us navigate this tension between the traditional rubrics of the service and inspired language of kavanah, specifically around Shabbat morning.

I had the opportunity to utilize some of Alden’s newest prayers as part of Shabbat morning worship with my community and in other settings.  The collection of prayer/poems accompany the keva, the fixed liturgy, in a complementary way deepening the experience for the congregation.  The themes of the morning service are woven into every line and stanza in the book.  Let’s take but one example from this new collection:

God’s Morning

Calm or wind.
Cloud or sun.
Warm or cool.
It’s God’s morning.
A gift.
A promise.
A bird gliding on a breeze,
Singing ancient songs,
That need no translation.
A ray of secret light
Stored for this very moment
Since the beginning of time.

Let us rejoice.
Let us sing.
Let us tremble with love,
While the Artist paints
The sky and the hills,
The seas and the plains,
In the colors of majesty.

It’s God’s morning.
Sent as a reminder
To love and to hope.
Sent as a reminder
To celebrate
The glory of Creation.

For me this is the Shabbat Morning Yotzer prayer filled with hints of light and God’s creation.  It refocuses me on God as the artisan who paints all of creation and the world. This refreshes my understanding of the idea of renewing creation daily and transitions me into that wide expanse of love that follows in Ahavah Rabbah.

I have shared this piece several times with different members of my community. Read in worship and in study to a person, they have each smiled to themselves as they bathe in the beauty of the painted words.  While the Hebrew of our prayers provide ancient connection for my congregation, through Alden’s words they access the world of meaningful prayer through an authentic Jewish voice.  It is not replacement for the keva, but instead a kavanah that primes me and my community for the keva.  And perhaps a way into the keva now that the table has been set.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger  serves Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and is the immediate past-president of the CCAR.  This Joyous Soul is now available to order! 

Categories
High Holy Days Holiday

Preparing Ourselves

In these times of turmoil we rabbis bring a sense of comfort and steadiness to the communities we serve.  In the storm tossed waters that seem to shake the world these days, our congregants, students, and communities look to us to help them make sense of it all.  They look to our tradition, our prophets, our Torah for soothing, healing, and that most important quality, hope.

These coming High Holy Days will challenge us to bring that spiritual nourishment to the Jewish people like never before. In the aftermath of Charlottesville our people will need a true message of consolation.  How to forgive in the face of such vile bigotry?

We, too, are not immune to these same feelings as those we serve.  Our own outrage and concern as we have to respond to the hatemongers among us affects our well-being too.  I have heard from many friends and colleagues about their own worries and concerns for the U.S. as the racists and white supremacists, Nazis and Klan have come out from their hoods into the light of day and the light of their tiki torches.  I have heard about the fatigue that grips us as we are constantly called upon to march and comfort, speak up and show up.

So how can we in these days and weeks of preparation for the Yamim Noraim prepare ourselves to lead? How can we bring a sense of shalom to our own souls so that we in turn my guide and uplift our communities in prayer and reflection? How can we prepare to lead the Jewish people toward t’shuvah in the weeks ahead?

If we turn to Yoma 2ab we find the discussion of the sequestration of the High Priest. Seven days prior to the start of Yom Kippur the High Priest was removed from his home.  This was done according to tradition to ensure the High Priest’s spiritual purity for the sacred day and sacred service.  The High Priest lived in a special chamber at the Temple during this time and his team went to great lengths to ensure that his spiritual purity could be guarded and protected. During the Avodah service on Yom Kippur the atonement of the people depended upon his spiritual purity.  But our tradition also teaches that the High Priest was sequestered to also search his own soul. This time allowed him to pray and reflect and meditate on the awe-some task that would soon come.

While we are not priests like in the days of the Temple, I believe we have to find the time even as Religious school starts up again, and there are sermons to be written, music to be chosen and our people return from their summer vacations, to prepare ourselves spiritually for the Days of Awe.  Rabbis may not be able to take seven days prior to Yom Kippur to sequester ourselves  but this text does provide us with a reminder that even the High Priest needed to prepare  for his task.  We too have to prepare our spiritual selves for our task. Our spiritual purity and sensibilities do need some time and attention.  Self-care in these times of political disruption and assault will help each of us steer our people’s prayers toward heaven.

I am inspired by the High Priest’s preparation and I am inspired to ensure that my own soul is ready to do the heavy lifting of t’shuvah.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and is the immediate Past President of the CCAR. 

Categories
Convention

Atlanta Here We Come!

Atlanta here we come! In just a few weeks we will gather for our annual convention. I can’t believe that it has been two years since my installation in Philadelphia.  The months have literally flown by as I have traveled not only across the U.S. but also visiting our colleagues in South America, Europe and Israel! The CCAR is truly a global organization.  What an incredible privilege it has been to serve our Conference and all of you.  I am looking forward to greeting you in the Peach State and to celebrating the accomplishments of our CCAR and welcoming and installing our new President, David Stern.

Our annual convention is the highlight of every year and this year will be no different. I know that our Program Committee under the leadership of Wendi Geffen and our local Atlanta colleagues alongside CCAR Program Manager, Victor Appell, have worked to ensure that this gathering will be memorable. I am very excited about the emphasis on civil rights and social justice that awaits us in Atlanta; touring The Center for Civil and Human Rights; hearing from the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center and NAACP; meeting with pastors from the historic Ebenezer Church and of course a visit to The Temple! Our convention will help us frame and reframe for our rabbinates the call of our prophetic tradition to speak truth to power and to lift up the dignity of every person.

Click to register for Convention.

But even more than the workshops, tours, and professional development that will be offered this year I think there is one more component that will be more needed than ever: Chevruta.

I know that since the November U.S. election you all have worked tirelessly to support your many congregants who have so many questions. You have held their disappointments and anger. You have been torn between often speaking up about our Jewish moral tradition and worry that your more politically conservative members and donors will be alienated or that political incivility will tear apart the congregational bonds.  Many of you have written to me of your own personal worries and difficulties during this time.  I have received emails and phone calls about some colleague’s sense of isolation from their communities as if they are the lone voice in the wilderness. I know that Steve Fox and our staff have also received calls and emails about this and talked with many of you.

View the Convention Snapshot.

That is why our convention gathering will be so important. Because together in Atlanta we will comfort each other, lift each other up, inspire each other, teach each other, laugh with each other, breathe with each other and renew one another spirits. More than ever we need to be together.

So if you are hesitating about whether or not to come, just do it! Register and join us for a celebration of everything that is so good and holy about being rabbis.  Join us so we can strengthen our resolve to engage in our holy work of Torah that includes lifting up the souls and strengthening the moral fiber of the Jewish people!

I have been asked what I liked best about being President of the CCAR. And I always have the same answer.  I like rabbis.  I have met so many of you that I didn’t know before.  I have seen how you toil for God, Torah and Israel. I have deep admiration for the holy work you do, wherever you do so.  Whether in the hospital, or military, college campus, day school, congregation or organization, you, my colleagues have inspired me to see that the Jewish people lives and is strong and will be not just survive but continues to thrive.  I hope you will come to Atlanta so we can share in that communal strength with one another.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and is President of the CCAR. 

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor

Pulling Out an Old Friend Before the New Year

With the New Year set to begin shortly, I know most of my rabbinical friends are working very hard to craft their sermons and iyunim.  I know I spend time thinking about each and every word and story to shape a meaningful message to my community.

But each year before I begin to write, I engage in my own process of preparation.  I turn to the original Shaarei Teshuvah—Gates of Repentance.  Not our previous machzor-but Rabbi Jonah of Gerona’s book. I use my now well- worn text as my way into preparing myself for the High Holy Day Season. My copy is written in and has dog –eared and paper clipped pages. It still has some of the original book cover. This is a text that I have studied alone in some years and with a chavruta in others depending on the year.

I love re-reading this powerful text on repentance each year.  I deeply hearken to the way it highlights the practical steps to teshuvah.  The text outlines Twenty Principles that help one move from acknowledging the transgressions one has committed to keeping others far from sin.  Many of the principles would be recognizable from anyone who has worked the 12 steps of an Alcoholic Anonymous Program. But Rabbi Jonah goes deeper into each principle helping to lift up the essence of teshuvah with a focus on keeping the person far from sin.

I love reading and re-reading this text as a spark to prepare my heart, my soul, and as a reflection on the process I need for myself at this time of year.  I have found that the preparation I do spiritually-feeding my own soul matters perhaps more than the messages I will deliver from the bima.  Not in some selfish way but rather as a process to lift my intentions higher. The text study and reflection builds in me the spiritual reserve to frame my messages to my community.

But as much as I study and review the Twenty Principles, I love the notes that I have written alongside the text in my book. The sparks of sermon ideas and questions it raised in me through the years are a good review.  My scribbled notes on grammar or vocabulary in Hebrew, my jotted shorthand mentioning another book I may have been reading at the time bring the various years together in one place; the comment of a chavruta partner; all these notes to myself help me to prepare.   And most of all it is a record of my spiritual journey of years when I felt my sins weighed heavy against me or the years when I felt wronged by others.

My preparation for the New Year is not complete without studying with my friend Rabbi Jonah of Geronah.  In these days before the New Year arrives I hope that you feel that you have filled your spiritual reserve enough to share with your family and friends and the communities you lead.

With every good wish for a sweet and fulfilling 5777.

— 

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the current President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood.  

Categories
Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice

At the Start of the Journey

The Central Conference of American Rabbis is partnering with the Religious Action Center, the NAACP and other African American civil rights groups to call attention to the systemic racism in our society.  America’s Journey for Justice is focusing on restoring the Voting Act, jobs and education, the scourge of mass incarceration, police brutality and equality and liberty for all Americans.  I was profoundly moved by my participation and that of my colleagues on the first day. I was honored to hold the Torah scroll brought from Chicago Sinai by my colleague, Rabbi Seth Limmer.  Holding it in my arms as we crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge of Bloody Sunday infamy brought a welling up of tears at the holy work of bringing full equality that still lies before us.

These are the words I shared at the rally that started the Journey for Justice.  I was honored to speak on behalf of our CCAR:

Good morning. I am here on our holiest day of the week, the Sabbath, representing the over 2,300 Reform Rabbis of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  As President of the oldest and largest rabbinical organization in North America, we who have come to pray and walk alongside our brothers and sisters, and commit not only to talking the talk of justice and righteousness, but walking the walk. More than 150 rabbis from all over our country will join in this journey. We will be carrying with us a sacred scroll of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, that inspires our Jewish commitment to justice and equality and liberty.

As Rabbis of the CCAR, we pledge this day to stand with and work with and learn from you; to renew the historic Jewish – African American relationships and coalition that once worked together with ease. This is a new beginning.

We, rabbis and the Reform Jewish Movement, pledge to work with you to end the culture of racism in our country. We pledge to work wholeheartedly to end mass incarceration in our country. We pledge to work tirelessly with you to give every child the education she deserves. We pledge to work to root out gun violence in every neighborhood, to fight for economic justice for every person, and to secure voting rights for every American citizens.

God of All, bless those who march today and for the next 40 days.  May our feet be swift, our dedication to Your ideals of Tzedek u’mishpat, righteousness and justice, be strong. And lift us on eagles wings as You once did for the Children of Israel; so that we can bring about the glorious day when all shall eat at the table of liberty and the true Promise of America.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

Categories
General CCAR News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Marriage Equality and a Vision of Wholeness

We shout mazel tov for marriage equality!

The dream has come true, but there is work to do! The United States has taken one more step toward fulfilling the dream of a country where people can live their own lives without fear; but as we celebrate the SCOTUS decision that gives every person the right to marry their beloved, we know the right to live in peace is still a far off dream for too many people.

This victory is a milestone on the road to justice and freedom. Even as we celebrate, we hold the people of Charleston and the entire country in our prayers. The poignancy of our celebration is huge because our joy is so great and our grief for our African American brothers and sisters is so deep. We know now more than ever that none of us are free until all of us are free.

IMG_0835At the core of my religious faith is the eternal promise of justice for all. Not for some but a vision that one day all people of good will shall sing in one voice an anthem of peace and liberty. In Jewish tradition, we teach that the Sabbath is a foretaste of the world to come. The Sabbath is a model of how the world might be. It is a world without work obsessions, a world where poverty and violence are gone, a world where children go to bed at night with warm full bellies. The Sabbath is the taste of the ideal where we rest from our labors to enjoy the true gift of freedom and taste God’s bounty at a table set for all.

We know the right to marry will face great resistance. We know the violence against transgender people is rampant. We know the need for an employment non-discrimination law is great. We know the need to work against racism is urgent, but today, TODAY, we celebrate as if all is complete, the Shalom, the peace and wholeness of God’s creation is with us.

This vision of wholeness, of Shalom, reminds us that when the celebration ends, and the Sabbath prayers are complete, justice and equality will only be fulfilled by going back to work to bring everyone to the table in all our glorious diversity.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA. She currently serves as President of the CCAR

Categories
omer Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice

We All Count: Counting the Days toward Equality

This blog is the fourth in a series from Rabbis Organizing Rabbis connecting the period of the Omer to the issue of race and class structural inequality.  Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is a joint project of the CCAR’s Peace & Justice Committee, the URJ’s Just Congregations, and the Religious Action Center. 

As we count the Omer this year in anticipation of receiving Torah, I am also counting the days in anticipation of a Supreme Court hearing on Marriage Equality to take place on April 28, 2015 and then sometime in June when the Supreme Court will likely rule on whether or not there is a right to marry in many of the states that have objected such as Alabama, Michigan, Tennessee and others.  As a long time Marriage Equality advocate I remember the happy summer of love in 2008 in California when I officiated at over 60 Jewish weddings between June 16, 2008 including the first legal wedding between plaintiffs in our California case, Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen.   But on November 4, 2008 it was over as a majority of Californians had gone to the polls to elect Barack Obama on the one hand but pass the notorious Proposition 8 which took away the equal right to marry from Californians.  As I stood on a stage in Hollywood that night at an election rally bubbling from Obama’s big California win, I had to comfort a community that had been sucker punched by an unholy alliance between the Catholic Bishops and Mormon Bishops in Utah and California.  More than 40 million dollars had been spent to demonize LGBTQ people and their families once again. It was the most expensive proposition race ever.

The next days and weeks were spent at rallies and protest marches.  I worked vigorously both in front and behind the scenes.  On the night after the election during a big rally in the city where I serve as rabbi, we began passing buckets to raise money to take this back to the courts. My congregation turned out in droves as did many in the Reform Jewish community who were stunned by the results.  I climbed on to the back of a truck that led the protesters through West Hollywood and back down Sunset Blvd. as my fellow activists and I took turns at the bullhorn.

The next night of protests one of the gay community leaders suggested a march on the Mormon Temple the next day.  I knew this would be bad from the start. As she led the marchers the next day down Santa Monica Blvd from West Hollywood to Los Angeles’ Mormon Temple you could feel the tension in the crowd and in the LAPD.  Traffic was completely snarled during rush hour-never a good thing in Los Angeles and those caught in the standstill were angry that they couldn’t get where they were going. That’s when scuffles began between drivers who got out of their cars and protesters.  More than one bloody fight took place. As the marchers turned toward the Mormon temple, my good friend and interfaith partner, Rev. Neil Thomas and I ended up guarding the Mormon Stake behind their Temple. The protesters were beginning to rush the doors.  It was Rev. Thomas and I that stood between the protesters and the Mormons. Luckily the protestors listened to us, kept to the sidewalk, remained calm and kept moving.

There are so many more stories to tell of that time.  But now this many years later I give thanks that marriage equality is legal in more than 33 states.  And so I am counting down the days-not only to receiving Torah at Sinai once again but toward Tuesday, April 28 when the case for marriage equality heads back to the Supreme Court.  Hopefully, it will be a positive resolution nationwide where marriage equality will be the law of the land everywhere.

The work of justice will not be done though. As long as you can still be fired for being married to someone of the same gender, as long as there are no protections in housing or education for LGBTQ individuals the work of equality and justice is not done.  And so I will still be counting in anticipation of that day and counting on all of you to help make that a reality.

———

Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is project of the Reform Movement’s social justice initiatives: the CCAR’s Committee on Peace, Justice and Civil Liberties, the Religious Action Center, and Just Congregations.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami and the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.