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Books Social Justice

Pirkei Avot 3:19: On Freedom

Each Friday leading up to Shavuot, RavBlog will be posting a series of excerpts from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary by Rabbi Dr. Schmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is available for pre-order now from CCAR Press.  

One of the oldest existential questions that have vexed the minds of rational beings is the dialectic between free will and fate. Is humanity bound by a supernal force that dictates every action, or is the consciousness of the human mind the ultimate captain of moral decisions? It is a query that philosophers and theologians dedicate their lives to unraveling. The ancient Jewish Sages, too, pondered this.

Everything is foreseen, yet the freedom of choice is given. The world is judged with goodness, and everything depends on the majority of one’s actions.

In a turn toward age-old theological questions, this mishnah touches two divine characteristics: omniscience, the supposed all-knowing force, and benevolence, the force of pure and inherent good. One characteristic might contradict the other or counter a normative interpretation of the Divine.

So, two distinct problems are addressed in this passage. First, if God is all-knowing, how are humans truly free? The mishnah says that though God knows what humans will choose, humans are nevertheless free to make individual decisions. Jewish tradition is adamant about this spiritual paradox: humans are absolutely free, and God knows in advance what we will choose.

Second, God-as-judge and God-as-protector are in tension here; here, justice and mercy are presented as dual ends of the spectrum, though there is more substance present here on second glance. If God is a judge of truth and justice, how can God also be merciful, compassionate, and all-loving? Here, too, this paradox is true: God is both the God of truth and justice and the God of mercy, compassion, and love. That such paradoxes are unlikely to be satisfactorily resolved may be beside the point. The questions themselves are to drive us to strive toward the impossible peak of unambiguous truth about the ways of God and the universe. Our goal is to acquire as much knowledge, and as much hope, as we can and then to apply the values we discover to our ethical selves. When we speak of all people of the world “serving God,” we may, in a universalistic sense, mean that we’re all striving toward moral goodness, to emulate moral perfection.

We have an ethical imperative not just to realize our freedom but to expand it and actualize it. Abraham was told to depart from “your land, your birthplace, your father’s house” (Genesis 12:1)—that is, to liberate himself from the various pressures to conform. Each of us must be prepared to depart from our upbringing, break from conformity, and depart from the familiar. Warren Bennis, a twentieth-century thinker on leadership, writes, “By the time we reach puberty, the world has reached us and shaped us to greater extent than we realize. Our family, friends, and society in general have told us—by word and example—how to be. But people begin to become leaders at that moment when they decide for themselves how to be.” Embracing our freedom is an ethical imperative that requires us to regularly rethink all of our commitments.

Our negative emotions constitute another form of enslavement. Holding resentment is like holding on to a hot coal; waiting to throw it at your enemy, you burn yourself. Negative emotions, like hatred or bigotry, can be crippling. Our spiritual work, all the more imperative for activists who are often responding to forces of evil, tyranny, injustice, and oppression, is to transform those negative emotions to positive ends, while harnessing the energy and releasing the negativity.

The knowledge that we are free, while also realizing that God knows what we will choose, should inspire humility. This sense of humility doesn’t have to be paralyzing, nor should it impede us on our spiritual journeys. Rather, this is an empowering humility, which inspires courage. Our freedom is a gift to be actualized. In this mishnah, right after we are reminded that we are free, we are told that God will judge us compassionately. God will be gentle with us because we will strive to do our best with our freedom.

—

This is an excerpt from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the president and dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, a pluralistic Jewish learning and leadership center; the founder and president of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice movement; the founder and CEO of the Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, a Jewish vegan, animal welfare movement; and the author of ten books on Jewish ethics. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top fifty rabbis in America, and the Forward named him one of the fifty most influential Jews. He studied at the University of Texas as an undergraduate and at Harvard University for a master’s in leadership and psychology, completed a second master’s degree in Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, and completed his doctorate at Columbia University in moral development and epistemology. He was ordained as a rabbi by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (the YCT Rabbinical School) in New York, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and he received two additional private rabbinic ordinations. As a global social justice educator, he has volunteered, taught, and staffed missions in about a dozen countries around the world. A film crew followed him for over a year to produce a PBS documentary (The Calling) about the training of religious leadership, which was released in the winter of 2010. He was born in Canada, was raised in New Jersey and Chicago, and now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Shoshana, and three children.

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Books Social Justice

Pirkei Avot 2:20: On Time

Each Friday leading up to Shavuot, RavBlog will be posting a series of excerpts from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary by Rabbi Dr. Schmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is available for pre-order now from CCAR Press.  

This mishnah is remarkable in the Jewish philosophical canon. In the economy of a single sentence, Rabbi Tarfon lays out a Jewish apothegm of a life dedicated to hard work in a hard world.

Rabbi Tarfon says: The day is short, the task is abundant, the laborers are lazy, the wage is great, and the Master of the house is insistent.

A critical Jewish task is to become a person who values the remarkable nature of time. Every day, people rush from urgency to urgency because of feelings of deep responsibility. But it is a spiritual art to be in a state of rush, accomplishing as much as possible as effectively as possible, while also remaining focused and calm. We are divided, consumed by an overabundance of commitments, and yet we are to be present, focused, and attentive. We are to sprint, while remaining aware of every footfall. While we continue to act and lead, we also must reflect deeply about the nature of our leadership and our purpose in the world.

Our days are short. Our lives are busy. We have obligations to meet: work, family, health, recreation, and attending to our spiritual needs. Balancing these disparate aspects of life is difficult. But we must find balance; it is commanded of us. Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, in his eighteenth-century magnum opus on the cultivation of Jewish virtues, The Path of the Just, teaches:

Alacrity consists of two elements: one that relates to the period prior to the commencement of a deed, and the other that relates to the period that follows the commencement of a deed. The former means that prior to the commencement of a mitzvah a person must not delay [its performance]. Rather, when its time arrives, or when the opportunity [for its fulfillment] presents itself, or when it enters his mind, he must react speedily, without delay, to seize the mitzvah and to do it. He must not procrastinate at this time, for no danger is graver than this. Every new moment can bring with it some new hindrance to the fulfillment of the good deed.

Dionne Brand, a Canadian poet and essayist from Trinidad and Tobago, explains:

Revolutions do not happen outside of you, they happen in the vein, they change you and you change yourself, you wake up in the morning changing. You say this is the human being I want to be. You are making yourself for the future, and you do not even know the extent of it when you begin but you have a hint, a taste in your throat of the warm elixir of the possible.

While not every person is meant to be a revolutionary, taking on the mantle of leadership and creating local change are within reach for those who choose. Embracing this mission while “the day is short” means that we must “taste . . . the warm elixir of the possible.” Social change can happen quickly when a president signs a new law or when a new nation declares independence. Events can spiral in unintended directions at the behest of a small but vocal group. But spiritual and cultural changes take a long time to shift. Slavery was prohibited in America, but more than a century and a half later, we’re still dealing with the racial injustice that the practice of slavery set in motion.

To be sure, the fact that injustice continues to fester shows that the work to improve the world can never cease. We must engage deeply in the issues that affect countless people and propel the world toward justice.

—

This is an excerpt from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the president and dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, a pluralistic Jewish learning and leadership center; the founder and president of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice movement; the founder and CEO of the Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, a Jewish vegan, animal welfare movement; and the author of ten books on Jewish ethics. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top fifty rabbis in America, and the Forward named him one of the fifty most influential Jews. He studied at the University of Texas as an undergraduate and at Harvard University for a master’s in leadership and psychology, completed a second master’s degree in Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, and completed his doctorate at Columbia University in moral development and epistemology. He was ordained as a rabbi by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (the YCT Rabbinical School) in New York, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and he received two additional private rabbinic ordinations. As a global social justice educator, he has volunteered, taught, and staffed missions in about a dozen countries around the world. A film crew followed him for over a year to produce a PBS documentary (The Calling) about the training of religious leadership, which was released in the winter of 2010. He was born in Canada, was raised in New Jersey and Chicago, and now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Shoshana, and three children.

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Books Social Justice

Pirkei Avot 1:1: On Relationships

Each Friday leading up to Shavuot, RavBlog will be posting a series of excerpts from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary by Rabbi Dr. Schmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is available for pre-order now from CCAR Press.  

This first mishnah does not state directly that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people. Instead, it begins with Moses receiving the Torah from “Sinai,” rather than with the story of communal divine revelation. By beginning in this manner, mishnah 1:1 describes the Torah’s primary focus on human relationships.

Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; and Joshua to the Elders; and the Elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They [the Men of the Great Assembly] said three things: Be deliberate in judgment; develop many students; and make a fence for the Torah.

The entire Torah enterprise requires relationship. To embrace tradition, one does not hide away in the library or the sanctuary, but instead engages in face-to-face encounters.

To take part in such an intellectually rigorous tradition, the Maharal teaches that people must strengthen three components of the human intellect: chochmah (wisdom), binah (understanding), and daat (discernment), which he aligns with the three pieces of guidance that end this mishnah. He also aligns these teachings respectively with mishpatim, laws that enable society to function justly; mitzvot, religious mandates of the Torah; and chukim, laws that are less based on common sense and societal order and more on our character development and relationship to God. The Mishnah encourages us to be more careful with din, our judgment. Such lessons pertain to both our dinei mamonot, monetary decisions that affect others’ property, and dinei n’fashot, decisions that affect others’ lives.

To exercise this inherent intellect, every generation is responsible to render safe passage to the tradition. And to do so, each generation must transmit the teachings in such a way that they are stronger than when they were received. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook teaches that to do this is to “expand the palace of the Torah.” Every generation has new insights based upon the changing times, and when we add those contributions to the wealth of the previous transmissions, we strengthen our heritage. We must embrace discomfort at times, challenge dogmas, and question outdated assumptions that no longer further the Torah enterprise nor the whole of the human enterprise.

Today, we see danger to the Torah enterprise from two places. There are those who want to distort the tradition so radically that our ancestors would no longer recognize its essence at all. On the other hand, there are those who seek to freeze the tradition, so that its relevance can scarcely be grasped by our contemporaries. The Sages of Pirkei Avot caution against both destructive approaches and seek new measured understanding. Consider the Talmud’s story that imagines God showing Moses the teachings of Rabbi Akiva in the distant future. In this telling, Moses is at first distressed because those teachings do not resemble what he himself knows; but he is assured by the claim that this, too, is authentic Torah linked through an eternally continuous chain (BT M’nachot 29b). The sacred goal is not merely the survival of the tradition (as that would be quite a low bar). Instead, tradition flourishes because each successive generation has sufficient independence to pursue the transformational interpretations of tradition, within the context of their own time and place.

—

This is an excerpt from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz.  Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the president and dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, a pluralistic Jewish learning and leadership center; the founder and president of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice movement; the founder and CEO of the Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, a Jewish vegan, animal welfare movement; and the author of ten books on Jewish ethics. Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top fifty rabbis in America, and the Forward named him one of the fifty most influential Jews. He studied at the University of Texas as an undergraduate and at Harvard University for a master’s in leadership and psychology, completed a second master’s degree in Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, and completed his doctorate at Columbia University in moral development and epistemology. He was ordained as a rabbi by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (the YCT Rabbinical School) in New York, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and he received two additional private rabbinic ordinations. As a global social justice educator, he has volunteered, taught, and staffed missions in about a dozen countries around the world. A film crew followed him for over a year to produce a PBS documentary (The Calling) about the training of religious leadership, which was released in the winter of 2010. He was born in Canada, was raised in New Jersey and Chicago, and now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Shoshana, and three children.

Categories
Books Social Justice

Pirkei Avot: Moving Society Forward

One thing is certain. Our Reform congregants understand the concept of tikkun olam. They come to religious school with tzedakah in hand, participate in Mitzvah Day, and many attend local rallies such as the Women’s Marches and our teen-organized March for our Lives.  One thing is less certain. When asked which sacred texts ground their commitment to social justice, many congregants do not have a ready answer.

In his new book Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary from CCAR Press, Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz inspires our communities to think more deeply about living ethically as individuals and as a society. While the six chapters of Pirkei Avot are traditionally read on the six Shabbat afternoons between Pesach and Shavuot – the richness of Yanklowitz’ commentary will take far longer than six Shabbat afternoons to ingest and savor.  His expansive work offers powerful teachings on the 129 mishnayot that make up Pirkei Avot — the most accessible tractate of our Mishnah. He offers an essay on each teaching, uncovering its timeless wisdom.

Yanklowitz’s book is scholarly and relevant.  He amplifies the single sentences of our ancient sages, weaving them together with wisdom from varied denominations and faiths and speaking to the countless daily opportunities we face for individual and collective ethical decision making. Yanklowitz relies heavily on mystical and philosophical texts, many of which are offered through his own English translation and most of which inspire action. On the notion of healing our world, he writes:

Tikkun ha-olam, repairing the world, hints at tikkun he-elem, repairing that which is concealed, whether from our thoughts or from our heart. Our job is not just to repair the world, but to make what is hidden visible and repair that, too. This includes the suffering of invisible people—those vulnerable people who go through life without the concern of the broader populace—while also combatting the pernicious and hidden forms of injustice, below-the-surface oppression, and scarcely seen brokenness that silently affect millions.” (p. 9)

Adding depth to the commentary, Yanklowitz uses the words of a broad range of present-day popular teachers and leaders. From weaving in Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg’s description of global human rights’ violations against women to his discussion on chilul HaShem, to sharing the teachings of the popular Tibetan Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön’s insights on compassion, every chapter is replete with contemporary voices that bolster Pirkei Avot’s ancient and ageless instruction.

Yankowitz is an Orthodox rabbi, scholar, activist and powerful writer. His book makes it plainly clear that social justice is not just a liberal or Reform endeavor but a Jewish action and obligation incumbent on Jews across the denominational spectrum. The moral teachings that make up this profoundly important tractate of the Mishnah are meant to become a profoundly important part of our moral fiber.

This book is a valuable resource for any rabbi – from the Hillel rabbi who wants to share a text of Torah at his community meal, to the congregational rabbi who wants to add meaningful teachings to her Board or social justice committee meetings, to the preaching rabbi seeking ancient and modern gems for his sermon, to the contemplative rabbi who wants a new text for chavruta or daily personal reflection. It is the richest resource on Pirkei Avot I have encountered and a great addition to one’s rabbinic library.

Rabbi Yaklowitz sums the obligation of justice best. “We can address the messy outer work of the world only if we address the messy inner work in our lives.” (p. 420) Studying his commentary on Pirkei Avot, valuable mishnah by valuable mishnah, is a great path for us to take to move ourselves and our society forward.

—

Rabbi Judy Schindler is co-author, with Judy Seldin-Cohen, of Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America (CCAR Press, 2018).

Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary is available for pre-order now from CCAR Press.  Each Friday leading up to Shavuot, RavBlog will be posting a series of excerpts from Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary by Rabbi Dr. Schmuly Yanklowitz.  Please be sure to check back on RavBlog starting this Friday, April 13, 2018.

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Books Passover Pesach Social Justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: The Obligations of Our Exodus

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we’ve invited Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, co-editor of the book, to share an excerpt of the book on Passover. Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

A couple of months ago I was arrested in the grand rotunda of the Russell Building of the United States Senate. Nearly one hundred Jewish clergy and leaders joined in song and prayer, demanding that the United States Congress pass the DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to the nearly eight hundred thousand Dreamers who came to the United States as children and are every bit American as my own daughters. As we sang “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” (“We will build this world with love”) over and over again, hundreds of Dreamers stood cheering us on from the balcony, ringing us like a human halo. In an intentionally ironic twist on the famous cry from Moses to Pharaoh, we chanted, “Let our people stay!”

When we were handcuffed, removed by the Capitol Police, and placed under arrest, we understood that we were following directly in the footsteps of our ancient Israelite ancestors. Ironically, our being put into fetters was inspired by the Hebrew slaves, who rose up from their slavery in Egypt and cast off the chains of Pharaoh’s bondage in their journey to redemption. As our hands were locked in cuffs and we were led away, we chanted the verse taken from the Song at the Sea “Ozi v’zimrat Yah, vah’yi li lishuah,” “God is my strength and might, and will be my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). There seemed no words more fitting than those our ancient Israelite ancestors sang as they passed through the parted seas of their redemption.

Even as we were led into police custody, our group understood that we were walking in the footsteps of countless generations of Jews before us, generations who internalized the Rabbinic mandate in the Passover Haggadah that “it is incumbent on every generation to see itself as if they themselves—every person—had personally escaped from Egypt” (Babylonian Talmud, P’sachim 116b). Our deeds of civil disobedience were an act of moral resistance to the injustices being perpetrated on the Dreamers, along with tens of millions of other immigrants and refugees. We acted on the spiritual authority inherited from recent leaders like Rabbis Richard Hirsch, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Maurice Eisendrath, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because they internalized the most often repeated commandment in all of Torah: “You shall love the stranger, because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). Jews have marched throughout history because the core narrative of our people, the defining master story of our tradition, is the archetypal tale of redemption. Our Exodus from Egypt is the story of the transformation of the world-as-it-is, in which “strangers” are continually crushed by oppression, into the world-as-it-should-be, one where all people know justice. The power of the Jewish master narrative lies in its inherent call to every generation to live empathy; because our ancestors were strangers, we—in this era, and in every era—are to love the stranger.

Jews not only retell the master story of redemption throughout our ritual and cultural life; we have relived it throughout history. Our history has served to reinforce the most central exhortation of our Exodus narrative: we are obligated to love the stranger as ourself.

Among the many gleanings of the Exodus narrative that ground Jewish life and values, three stand out as the sources of the spiritual authority demanding that Jews resist injustice and champion morality in every age (and regardless of the challenges we face). First, we learn not only that resistance is required by our faith and experience, but also that it is always possible. Second, we are reminded that our empathy extends beyond the “stranger” to all those who are vulnerable in our midst. Finally, we instill in our souls that the Exodus is not simply about freedom from bondage; our master story culminates with the agency to enter into a covenantal community in which all people are bound to one another.

—

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for social justice.  Rabbi Pesner is the co-editor of CCAR Press’s  upcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, as well as a contributor to Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

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Books

A Sacred Calling Program Reminded Me: “A Liberal Body of Men” Still Has Much to Learn

Here at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, we kicked off a four-part Sacred Calling series this past Shabbat. In many ways, our congregation is isolated from “Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate,” The Sacred Calling’s subtitle. B’nai Israel has never been led by a woman rabbi. (To be fair, the congregation has only had three rabbinic searches since 1972, one of them rather early in the era of women rabbis and another for an interim rabbi.) As I read about the programs that colleagues held when The Sacred Calling first came out, with panels including the anthology’s editors and Sally Priesand, I knew that expense and distance would prohibit such an occasion in Little Rock.

We got creative. Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, a Sacred Calling author, is a dear friend of our congregation, and especially of our President and her wife, who generously offered to bring her here to keynote our program. Another Sacred Calling author, Rabbi Jeff Kurtz-Lendner, lives within driving distance, as does Rabbi Katie Bauman, the woman rabbi who grew up in this synagogue and maintains strong ties here. A program was born.

I did not know to anticipate that our Temple archivist, Jim Pfiefer, would deepen the program with an exhibit in our Temple lobby. The display suggests that our congregation may not be as remote from those “Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate” as I thought. I did know that my predecessor, Rabbi Gene Levy, was ordained with Rabbi Priesand. I did not know that Rabbi Angela Graboys had served in nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas; or that Rabbi Laura Lieber hails from Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I’m touched by the lovely display case about Rabbi Bauman.

Included in the display are the words of Rabbi Louis Witt, z”l, who served this congregation from 1907 to 1919. Two years after leaving Little Rock, Rabbi Witt pled with the CCAR to support the ordination of women. In 1921, which proved to be more than a half-century before the first woman would be ordained in North America, Rabbi Witt was already exasperated: “Five years ago, I had to argue in favor of women’s rights when that question came up in the Arkansas legislature, but I did not feel that there would be need to argue that way in a liberal body of men like this [i.e., the CCAR].”

On Friday night, prior to Rabbi Elwell’s keynote, I reflected on how Rabbi Witt might react to the present realities for women in the rabbinate. My liturgical prompt was Mi Chamocha. The Children of Israel doubtless celebrated their freedom when they escaped Egyptian bondage after the tenth plague. Scarcely a week later, they found their liberation incomplete: They were trapped between Pharaoh’s armies and the foreboding Sea. Then, once secure on the other shore, they sang in celebration. And yet, even then, freedom was not complete. Enemies internal and external would continue to plague them. And us. And still, we sing in gratitude.

We are, and we ought to be, grateful – for the ordination of women over the last 45 years, the realization of the only goal that Rabbi Witt knew to dream. For the successes that many of our female colleagues have achieved since 1972. For award-winning (and deserving) achievements such as The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and The Sacred Calling.

Now, though, we also know, as we should’ve known all along, that liberation is not complete:

  • Women rabbis, like their peers in other professions, continue to face a wage gap, compared to males of similar seniority, congregation or community organization size, and experience.
  • Women rabbis report sexual harassment at the hands of both colleagues and community members.
  • Equitable family leave, including but not limited to maternity leave, is not a reality for many.
  • The voices of women rabbis aren’t always taken as seriously or heard as loudly as those of male colleagues.

My list is incomplete for a variety of reasons, not least because I’m not a woman.

I am grateful that our Conference, professionally led in this arena by Rabbi Hara Person, has established a Task Force to examine the experience of women in the rabbinate; and that our Women’s Rabbinic Network and the Women of Reform Judaism are diligently exploring the wage gap and family leave issues.

At our upcoming convention in Orange County, I look forward to hearing from Task Force Chairs, Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus and Rabbi Amy Schwartzman, as well as WRN leaders, about their progress and challenges. Like the colleagues Rabbi Witt addressed, I am among “a liberal body of men” who have much to learn. Unlike Rabbi Witt, I will be learning from and alongside female colleagues.

And that’s a blessing. Like the Children of Israel singing Mi Chamocha before us, we have much to celebrate, even as we acknowledge that liberation is not complete.

—

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees.

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Books

Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation

“Creation has us consider who we are at our most fundamental.” These words, in Rabbi Benjamin David’s introduction to his anthology, Seven Days, Many Voices, sets the stage for a book which is about fundamentals, but not at all fundamentalist.

As reflected in the title, this anthology sets out to include a variety of voices interpreting the seven days of creation, as recounted in the book of Genesis. Most, but not all, of these voices come from a Reform Jewish perspective; similarly, most, but not all, are written by clergy. There are a total of forty-two essays (perhaps a nod to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?), comprised of six essays in each of seven sections.

In keeping with David’s modern and liberal approach, the book is no enemy of science. In fact, it includes in its pages strong arguments for reading the seven days of creation, as recounted in Genesis, using a scientific lens. This is not revolutionary, but it is done here with depth. Consider, for instance, Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman’s essay on using scientific metaphors in theology, referring to the One God of the Shema as “Adonai the Singularity” (p.35), or Loui Dobin’s piece on the physics of Jewish time.

A number of essays in this anthology have stand-alone value. I was particularly struck by Rabbi Jill Maderer’s essay on the meaning of celebrating festivals at their designated times (rather than when it is convenient). Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb contributes a comprehensive article on the principle of bal tashchit (not wasting) – replete with “fanciful divine diary entries” giving insight into God’s reflections on the very busy third day of creation (p.114f); similarly, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz gives a Jewish perspective on the rights of animals. Cantor Ellen Dreskin adds an important perspective in her piece on music and time, which speaks of “the crumbs of the melodies of our lives” in a way that is evocative of a Yizkor reflection (p.181).

Two essays also stand out for their intellectual originality and sophistication. One is Rabbi Oren Hayon’s essay suggesting that creation is “the first phase of God’s project of establishing justice on earth” (p.4), in which he compares the wind over the waters in Genesis to God splitting the sea in Exodus. Another is Dr. Alyssa Gray’s argument that the Mishnah, like the biblical creation, is an acknowledgment of an existential rupture – but that, unlike in Genesis, the rabbinic re-creation after the destruction of the Temple is the product of human hands.

Most impressive is the overall range of perspectives. The section on the second day of creation, for example, contains a pilot’s perspective on the division between heaven and earth (Rabbi Aaron Panken); the metaphor of God as homemaker, constraining chaos with order (Rabbi Mira Beth Wasserman); reflections on prayers in the swimming pool (Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon); meditations on star-gazing, in the desert and at summer camp (Rabbi Scott Nagel); an argument for water conservation (Rabbi Kevin Kleinman); and a description of the sacred potential of mikvah (Shaina Herring and Rabbi Sara Luria). Also notable is the range of essays on the seventh day of creation. As a congregational rabbi, I was especially moved by Rabbi Benjamin David’s piece on Shabbat and parenting, and Rabbi Richard Address’ reflections on Shabbat and aging. Rabbi Address’ question stays with the reader, interweaving the existence of the world with the existence of the self: “This is the great religious concern: How do I bring meaning to the time that I have?” (p.292).

There is some repetition between the essays, which is a challenge inherent in this kind of collection. Environmentalism, as one would expect, makes frequent appearances. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is cited numerous times, leaving Pope Francis as a distant (but still noteworthy) second. One wonders whether the authors could have reached for a greater theological range; it is perhaps surprising that Rabbi Eugene Borowitz’s covenant theology does not make more of an appearance (with the notable exception of Rabbi Jack Paskoff’s essay on the meta-ethics of Shabbat); feminist theologians are likewise lacking, though there is a good mix of genders among contributors.

I would have loved to have seen the inclusion of poetic interpretation – as we find in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary – to add an extra layer of meaning. However, the anthology as it stands provides a rich resource for individuals and study groups alike. Rabbi David speaks in his introduction of approaching his topic with great curiosity. Perhaps its greatest virtue is to leave the reader newly curious about one of our oldest stories.

—

Rabbi Lisa J. Grushcow, D.Phil. serves Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montreal. 

Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation  is now available to order from CCAR Press.

Categories
Books

How We Struggle to Translate the Hebrew of the Psalms

Songs Ascending may be the high point in Richard Levy’s career—a career filled with high points. Whether in his more Olympian organizational roles  (CCAR President), or on a lofty project like the Reform platform,  or the more intense restoration of a prayer, Richard Levy has been leading us for more than five decades.  Countless of his projects in Los Angeles lack his name and contain no reference to their provenance. There are Levy contributions in our prayerbooks where his identity is buried on some back page, and complete Machzorim and Siddurim with his name more boldly attached.  The sun never sets on Richard Levy’s projects; and now it has arisen on Songs Ascending—a new translation of the Book of Psalms.

But this is more than translation, as work with Psalms most often is.  We must be intrigued by the recent quantity of work on Psalms from people like Arnold and Deborah Band and Robert Alter, and the enduring work of folks like Marcia Falk, Sheldon Marder, and Lawrence Hoffman.  And then there are acts of public performance, as in Lincoln Center’s offerings of new musical settings for Psalms. Now, we also have Richard Levy’s meeting of spirit with literature, molded by enormous respect for language and inspired by his deep personal attachment to these ancient tropes.

Read these Psalms, he seems to be saying, for the expressions of how humans feel when confronting fright, or when imagining how another’s imagination has sought the divine (all right, that is shared by all editors and translators of Psalms).  But here is a guide (in the postscript of every chapter) for how YOU might use Psalms in your lives.  Understanding the core problem with gendered language in today’s day and age, Rabbi Levy has provided acceptable translations of problematic Hebrew words; and because he realizes that some are lulled into lack of attention by familiarity with passages that open our daily prayers or close our meals, he shocks us with imaginative translations of those familiar words.  Sometimes he abandons cohortatives like “let us…” and favors such common phrases as “Let’s… .”He has founded metaphors with which not all readers will agree, but which—we all must agree—make us think of what a Psalm line is getting at, and (perhaps most importantly) why this Psalm found its way into our liturgy. 

How we struggle to translate the Hebrew of the Psalms and sometimes even to care about them —even though they fill our liturgy, and occupy stage center when someone dies!  Many of us struggle simply to READ the Psalms, too identified with archaic pieties, holding back when we think of all the darkly dressed Jewish people getting through the turbulence of a flight across America.  Will reading t’hillim really help us get over the Rockies?  Or, if I read them with enough serenity, might they rock me to sleep?  There is more than meets the eye when our eye meets a reader immersed in these vivid lines.  It’s such a large collection of ancient poems, that most of us think only of its “greatest hits” – The Hallelujahs, the psalms of longing, the songs where a shelter is promised to the fragile, the cry of those who feel surrounded.  As with opera arias, we don’t need to struggle when the lyrics are familiar, but that familiarity often works against intensity.  And then those Psalms which many of us don’t think about at all, like the Asaph Psalms (#s 73ff) which elude us entirely.

Richard Levy struggled for us—reading and translating, and transmitting—with a boldness that belies his modest countenance, and a sureness that warns us not to be too casual in our familiarity.

Yes, he has in this volume made some bold choices—choices which might not please everyone.  In efforts to capture rhythm and alliterations, he has come up with clever collocations like: Chamber of Cheaters” when a roomful of scoffers is called for, and where “moshav letzim” approaches becoming a Yiddish witticism.  But even where Rabbi Levy is more imaginative than accurate, his similes and metaphors pressure us into asking “how is THIS like THAT?”  And, in almost every instance, he sheds new light—Levy light and ascending light on this ancient text.  A compliment is due, here, to David Stein, an extraordinary linguistic editor whose task it has been to pass Rabbi Levy’s imagination through a scholarly filter.

So let us examine one of his Songs of Ascent. Psalm 130 begins with the familiar phrase: “Out of the depths I called to Adonai, listen to my voice, (mimaamakim…) and may your ear incline towards the sound of my plea.” Different translators have found different renderings, and Oscar Wilde’s plea was Latinized into “de profundus.”  Richard Levy is not satisfied with what has become the most standard translation of the next line:  “listen to my voice.”  The opportunity exists to create a picture, so he seizes it, suggesting: “From places deepest down have I called you, Adonai./ Adonai, listen as my voice ascends.”   Rabbi Levy offers a note that explains his departure as an effort to help the reader-worshipper visualize the contrast between high and low:  “I am down in the depths, but I am sending my voice upward.”  Like it or not, you will know where Rabbi Levy stands, as my 20-something son said a generation ago.  And he will grant you the privilege of linguistic accuracy by sharing his thinking in the rich notes in these volumes.  Those notes, by the way, are a compass to any serious reader who wants to understand the difference between the various superscriptions: leDavid, Asaph, Korach(!) and more.

The most recent complete effort at translating the Psalms comes, as I hinted above, from another scholar whose work also has not primarily been related to biblical philology:  Robert Alter.  But Alter adheres more to the compass of the linguistic past—and not always to the benefit of the result.  I believe one line in Alter’s introduction to his brilliant work illuminates an important distinction between his work and Levy’s:  Many of the Psalms…derive some of their poetic force from the literary antecedents on which they draw (p. xv in the introduction to Alter’s translations).

For Richard Levy, and here I make no judgment, the force of the Psalms comes from their spiritual intentions; and he re-enforces this priority with rich commentary and postscripts that help the reader actually USE the Psalms in some meaningful way.

So different motives drive different renderings of this amazing collection of old words.  There are more than liturgical or devotional motives and drivers as well, as witness Debra Band’s (with her father in law, Arnold) remarkable aesthetic achievement, I Will Wake the Dawn. And sometimes one finds a  kind of utility for teaching, as in the simple elegance of expression and structural patterns to which Sheldon Marder exposes the residents of the San Francisco Home for the Aging.

And one area in which I was quite involved: the use of specific Psalms in our new Rabbis’ Manual—especially popular and well known Psalms like #23, in which a mourner seems to be sitting on the edge of her seat, waiting to hear the familiar words.   Try as one might to offer a new liturgical reading, a congregation of mourners might be inclined to “take it away” from any authoritarian translator. Richard Levy knows that his Psalms versions will serve another purpose, and he pursues that purpose with goodness, mercy, and determination.  Songs Ascending is an opportunity to take people inside into the depths towards the reaching, with pictures that make one feel almost as if he or she were lying in that grass:  “Adonai, my shepherd:  I lack for nothing.  In meadows thick with grass you lay me down, Across streams serene you guide me…Leading me serenely in well worn paths of justice… .”

Rabbi Levy points out, through his elegant rendering here, that there are paths we ought to walk in and that those paths have a similitude to the moral paths we should walk.  I will leave it to the reader to decide the proportion between the psalmist’s intention and Rabbi Levy’s promptings. Richard Levy’s “promptings” dot this work with tilei-t’hillim (mounds) of suggestive ideas and even an occasional challenge to our theologies.

The Psalms we sing at Seders, the morning hymns we chant when we pray, niggunim for our post-Shabbat meal table songs, are all enriched beyond their routine familiarity with the intense meanings that arise from modern poetic renderings that force us to hear the words.  Yehuda Amichai wrote whimsically that the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a good place from which to pray, and that is why, he continues poetically, we say:  “I cry out to god from the depths.”  Yes, the depths refer to my personal experience, but a topographical (metaphor?) metonymy won’t hurt!  Who thinks of the REAL meaning of these psalms without the help of the modern poet, the hospital chaplain, the artist, or the contemporary scientific scholar:  those who read Richard Levy’s versions will become well versed and have a shot at owning this amazing ancient material which calls out to us with headings reminding us that David played the harp, Korach was once a leader, that someone must have played a stringed instrument, and superscriptions reminding us of a relatively obscure ritual leader named “Asaph” whose name in Hebrew means “a gathering.”  Gathering, indeed!

Welcome to this new gathering of poems for a gathering of ancient people, who don’t gather often enough.

—

Rabbi William Cutter is Emeritus professor of Hebrew Literature and Human Relations at HUC-JIR, Los Angeles, where he taught for over 50 years. 

 Songs Ascending: The Book of Psalms, A New Translation with Textual and Spiritual Commentary is now available for order from CCAR Press. 

Categories
Books Healing News Prayer spirituality

A Prayer of Gratitude from URJ Biennial 2017

Take a moment to be fully grateful for just one thing in your life. That little pause may be enough to change your outlook and your attitude for the day.

At the URJ Biennial, CCAR Press offered that opportunity with a set of stickers and a poster board featuring the book, This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. Each of the stickers read ‘I’m grateful for…’ and folks who came by the booth could complete that line and add the sticker to the poster. Adults and kids, rabbis and cantors, educators, congregants, and lay leaders joined in. By the end of the convention, the board was covered with individual prayers of gratitude.

Gratitude for family and the Biennial appeared most often. One of my favorites came from a little girl who dictated her gratitude to her mother: “being fancy.” I got a chuckle reading “my puppy (woof).”

This is a prayer based on those stickers. I added the language in italics – as well as the punctuation and a few of my own gratitudes – and arranged the order. The words of the prayer are taken from the stickers written by Biennial attendees.

Biennial Sticker Prayer of Gratitude

We are grateful for so much,
All the gifts this world offers.
We celebrate:
The URJ, the CCAR and our congregations,
Biennial, the people, the music and the ruach,
The chance to learn and share,
Being a college ambassador
And singing in the Biennial choir.

I give thanks for:
My family,
My wonderful husband, my wonderful wife,
My children, my grandchildren,
My sons, my daughters,
Nephews and nieces,
Mom and dad,
Sisters and brothers,
My amazing boyfriend,
My fantastic girlfriend,
Thoughtful work friends,
My dog, my puppy (woof) and my cat,
My house, bed and toys,
Best friends and conversations,
Being who I am,
My camp, my nanny and my students,
Jewish music and my guitar,
You.

We marvel at the gifts of:
Dreams, spirit and creativity,
Opportunities, expected and unexpected,
Personal passions,
Good health and sleep,
The ability to grateful,
The ability to forgive,
Second chances and
Guardian angels,
Good food and better company,
Water, hugs and coffee,
Doctors, medicines and helping hands,
America,
Torah and Israel,
Books, puns, words and being fancy.

Today, Source of love and light,
We are grateful for
Every. Single. Thing.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist, and teacher. His teaching spans from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud, UK, and synagogues throughout the U.S. Solovy is a three-time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He made aliyah to Israel in 2012, where he hikes, writes, teaches, and learns. His work has appeared in Mishkan R’Fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR Press, 2012), L’chol Z’man v’Eit: For Sacred Moments (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), and Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016). He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, published by CCAR Press in 2017.

Categories
Books Prayer spirituality

Delve Deeper into the Siddur

Upon three things, our tradition says, the world stands:  upon Torah, upon worship, and upon acts of loving-kindness. Of the three, worship is often the most challenging, least accessible component of Judaism today.

Worship is all about our yearning for transcendence:  it attempts to both express and address the inexpressible—to commune with the Ultimate—through poetic speech, music and gesture.  It is about giving voice to our human-all-too-human needs, fears, and hopes; about reaching in, reaching out, and reaching up from the depths of our beings; about enacting community and, through collective ritual performance, energizing our commitments to our ideals and to bettering our world.

Prayer as a form of address can be difficult if we have doubts about the addressee of our prayers (God? To whom it may concern?), but prayer as a deep and even spontaneous response to our human situation—to its needs and vulnerabilities—may be easier to access since, when we are honest with ourselves, we are all needy and vulnerable.  Those same concerns and human realities are expressed in our historical Jewish liturgy, although it may sometimes be difficult to connect the private stirrings of our hearts with the public words on the page.  This book attempts to make that connection easier, at least cognitively, by showing how the words on the page did not come down to us full-blown in every minute detail from Sinai, but were composed by human beings and elaborated in response to the changing needs and situations of Jewish communities over time. This observation pertains both to the traditional prayers and to their modern, Reform adaptations and paraphrases, for in this sense, all liturgy is creative liturgy.

In every generation, in every place, we struggle with both universal human questions and particular issues rooted in our specific cultural and physical space. Our prayers have always been adapted to unique human moments and hold the tension between the authenticity of tradition rooted in our history and the our changing situations.

Ten years ago, Mishkan T’filah was published as the most recent contribution of the North American Reform movement to this ongoing dialectical process.  A survey of Reform congregants indicated, among other things, that, when it came to role of a prayer book in communal worship, they wanted to understand what they were saying in Hebrew – particularly now that so much of the traditional Hebrew text has been restored in Reform worship. They also wanted to understand the logic of the liturgy itself: the structure, historical-contextual background, and meanings of the various services and the individual prayers. How can the prayers on the page become the prayers of the heart? How can the historical prayers of the community become also my personal prayers?

A first step in that process is iyun t’filah – contemplation, study, and learning about those prayers of the community – and how they might be personally internalized, even when that requires some interpretation. To supplement and provide some context to these Jewish prayers, the Reform Movement’s Commission on Worship, Music, and Religious Living, on which I sit, generated a series of essays about the prayers that were distributed once a week between May, 2008 and January 2013 in the URJ’s daily “Ten Minutes of Torah” e-mail blasts.  I wrote the pieces that dealt with the development, structure, and historical meanings of the prayers, including their various Reform adaptations.  Divrei Mishkan T’filah: Delving into the Siddur is an updated, revised, and enlarged compilation of those pieces.

Divrei Mishkan T’filah: Delving into the Siddur is not a spiritual-religious meditation and commentary on the prayers.  Some of that kind of reflection can be found at the bottom of each page of Mishkan T’filah and in a number of other contemporary books on Jewish prayer and worship.  Instead, this book is an accessible account of the historical development of the prayers and the ideas behind them, in both their traditional and Reform contexts (including the variety of ways they have been adapted and paraphrased in major Reform prayer books over the past two centuries). Understanding how our prayers originated and have been adapted over time in different contexts gives us a deeper appreciation of where we have been as a people. My hope is that this understanding will also contribute to readers’ greater personal connection and eventually to a sense of ownership, as we bring our own experiences to the mix.

My own connection to Jewish liturgy, ritual and music was sparked early, though my experiences at Temple Emanu-El in suburban Detroit in the 1950’s and 60’s, singing in children’s and adolescent choirs at Shabbat and festival services and learning Hebrew liturgy through the variety of its musical expressions. This continued throughout my undergraduate years at Brandeis University, during which I also studied in Israel for the first time, and then in rabbinical school at HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, where I studied Jewish liturgy with Rabbi Jakob Petuchowski, who had a deep appreciation for liturgical aesthetics. The expressiveness and emotional quality of Jewish prayer—both Hebrew text and music—were impressed upon me through all of those experiences, and remain essential to both my teaching and worship leadership today.  Compiling Divrei Mishkan T’filah: Delving into the Siddur, and writing the individual pieces that it brings together, was a labor of love for me.  I hope that love and enthusiasm are conveyed in the book itself and will inspire readers to connect—to delve yet deeper into the Siddur and to explore what the many facets of Jewish worship might mean to them.

—

Rabbi Richard S. Sarason is Director of the Pines School of Graduate Studies, Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought, and The Deutsch Family Professor of Rabbinics and Liturgy at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati, OH, where he has been a faculty member since 1979. He is also the author of Divrei Mishkan T’filah: Delving into the Siddur, a commentary on Mishkan T’filah from CCAR Press.