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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.

 

Categories
Books Reform Judaism

Embracing Reform Judaism: Behind the Scenes of A Life of Meaning

My dream of editing a book on Reform Judaism for the CCAR Press began germinating in college. Late one evening, I wandered into the Judaica section of the library and came across a volume called Reform Judaism: A Historical Perspective, edited by Joseph L. Blau. (I still remember that books dealing with Reform Judaism were numbered 296 by the Dewey Decimal System.) This volume presented a collection of essays originally published in the yearbook of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and archived eighty years’ worth of material most indicative of Reform concerns over that time span.

Compiling material for A Life of Meaning: Embracing Reform Judaism’s Sacred Path was a very different task than the one that Blau undertook. We knew that we wanted something broader than a collection that focused on specific issues within our Movement, and we knew that we wanted the volume to address the more existential questions concerning our community at large. Ultimately, we wanted A Life of Meaning to present original works on a spectrum of important topics—something that would both reflect who we are and what we believe today. Perhaps even more importantly, however, we needed to make sure that A Life of Meaning would provide Reform Jews a door into the discussion of what our religion means in today’s world.

I knew that this could not be a single-authored volume; what we envisioned required multiple perspectives on what Judaism means and how this meaning is expressed. Such a volume calls for viewpoints diverse enough to speak to the varying beliefs, practices, and experiences of as many individuals and organizations of the Reform Movement as possible. The challenge was to create a manuscript that simultaneously embodied this diversity while carving a clear path into the heart of what it means to be a Reform Jew, not just for those looking in from the outside, but for every Reform Jew who, at heart, feels any uncertainty about what it means to identify as Reform. We wanted a text that would help them enter into Reform Jewish thought not as an academic discipline, but as a set of core concepts that contribute to making a life of meaning, both for the individual and, perhaps even more importantly, for the members of the Reform community.

Little by little, we began collecting tentative essay topics and titles, then longer descriptions of what each essay might look like and, finally, the essays themselves. The number of authors with whom I was in touch started to expand exponentially, and the diversity within the Reform Movement became even more strikingly clear. I was amazed at the distinct attitudes, approaches, and beliefs of each author in this collection, and was even more amazed by their dramatically varied lifestyles. Despite their differences, however, the congregations and communities to which they belonged or which they led always had much in common.

Putting together a volume of this sort is, as the saying goes, a little bit inspiration and a lot of perspiration—the completed volume is very much a testimony to the many thoughtful and talented people constituting the American Reform Movement today. Contemporary American life just does not fit into the theoretical categories that religious-studies scholars and others have theorized about and expected to find. But our goal is not to prove theoreticians right or wrong; it is to create texts that can serve both as source material for greater knowledge and as sources of spiritual inspiration. We wanted to create a volume to be read, not just by individuals, but by study groups and entire communities. We wanted to create a text that would stand as a living source of discussion and dialogue, promoting Reform Judaism among, first and foremost, those most likely to embrace it.

While it is enormously gratifying to put the project to rest and to see the finished product, it is hard to accept that the many correspondences and discussions involved in creating this book have come to an end. Our hope, of course, is that the published book—whether in print or eBook—will take on a life of its own as a wellspring of discourse that will not only continue to inform, but to transform, our understanding of what it means to embrace Reform Judaism in the worlds of today and tomorrow.

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Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan currently serves Springhill Avenue Temple in Mobile, Alabama.  He is also the Editor of CCAR Press’s A Life of Meaning: Embracing Reform Judaism’s Sacred Path.

 

Categories
Books

Something for Everyone: Rabbi Richard Levy’s Songs Ascending

“To ask something of God is to praise the Holy One, for it demonstrates the worshiper’s belief that God has the power to grant the prayer”  —  Songs Ascending

The title, Songs Ascending, plays on the idea that prayer is ever upwards, from the human to the Divine. But, as stated in the quote, the Divine responds; humans have God’s ear, so to speak. Coming from a man who marched alongside Heschel and MLK Jr. on the streets of Selma, this commentary offers one vision of prophetic Judaism played out through the words of the Psalmists (or “poets” as Rabbi Levy calls them). In the acknowledgments he notes that this work was a very personal endeavor, and one can see this reflected throughout. Reading this commentary feels as if you were studying with Rabbi Levy and gaining his personal insights and words of wisdom.

The layout of the commentary is as follows: Volume One covers Psalms 1-72 and Volume Two covers Psalms 73-150. Each chapter of the Psalms is treated separately, with the English translation to the right of the Hebrew text. Following text and translation is a verse by verse commentary, after which comes a section titled “spiritual applications.”

Songs of Ascending is set apart from traditional commentaries in two main ways. First and foremost, one notes that the “spiritual application” portion is not something found in most commentaries, much less in a Jewish commentary (e.g. the JPS Torah Commentary series). This section reads almost like a daily devotional, something foreign to most Jews; devotionals have long been relegated to the realm of Christianity. Yet, Rabbi Levy adroitly demonstrates that this need not be the case—the Hebrew Bible and the Psalms in particular offer much for those who yearn for spiritual growth. He proves that “work before the ark” need not be saved for the High Holy Days. In fact, Songs Ascending seems to suggest that such efforts should not be a once-a-year occasion. Noting the tradition of P’sukei D’zimrah (singing select psalms during the morning Shacharit service), the inclusion of other psalms in the Kabbalat Shabbat service and yet another set in Hallel, Levy explains how the book of Psalms has much to offer us. This spiritual work is not for our own benefit alone, but can bring us in tune with how we act as responsible humans and Jews in society. For example, the “spiritual application” for Psalm 72 calls to task our commitment to social justice and our responsibility to create just leadership in the world.

The commentary also differs in its explication. Many commentaries focus on ancient Near Eastern texts as a means of unlocking difficult passages. For example, Psalm 29 (the psalm for Shabbat), is understood by traditional commentaries to be about the theatrics of the storm god Ba’al as he reveals himself to the world in a theophany of thunder, lightning, and earthquakes. Rabbi Levy, on the other hand, begins with the biblical text and then looks to Jewish tradition for illumination. He notes where other biblical passages unlock the meaning of a Psalm, and concentrates on what the Hebrew means in context. Attention is given to 1) exploring the various shorashim (verbal roots) and what they mean and 2) the literary aspects of the poetry, such as alliteration, assonance, and parallelisms. Consider the commentary for Psalm 29. Verse 1 notes the alliteration and assonance in kavod vaoz, stating that the English “resplendence” and “strength” were chosen to mirror the repetition of vowel and consonant sounds. Verse 6 draws the reader’s attention to the fact that “Sirion” is another name for Mt. Hermon (Deut 3:9). Finally, unlike other commentaries, sometimes editorial liberties are taken to make the text comprehensible to the contemporary audience: “The words we have added [in verse 6] are an attempt to make the image more vivid to the reader who may have no idea what Sirion and Hermon refer to . . .” (p. 106).

With its clear and engaging English translation, the insightful commentary, and thought provoking spiritual applications, Songs Ascending offers something for everyone, from lay person, to rabbi, to biblical scholar alike. And for that, I give it a “two thumbs up,” or as we say in Hebrew: kol hakavod!

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Kristine Henriksen Garroway was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in 2011 at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles, CA.

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

Categories
Books Israel

Engaging with Israel on your own Terms

As The Fragile Dialogue explores, Israel has quickly become one of the most polarizing forces in the North American Jewish Community. There are those who remain curious and committed, wanting to remain connected in some meaningful way. There are those who have effected a divorce, asserting Israel has no place in their lives. And there are those who are ambivalent, filled with questions, not sure what they think and feel. Many would consider the last two categories a failure in cultivating a passionate connection to Israel. I disagree. It seems to me that any conversation about Israel that engages people in open, honest exploration of issues and expression of questions and concerns is an educational success.

Our inability to articulate a compelling vision for Israel education may lie in our unwillingness to accept the inherent ambiguity in our stance toward Israel. Rather than embrace this ambiguity, we seek to harmonize and instrumentalize Israel so that it fits with the not-so-hidden curriculum of American Jewish education, which is, in essence, how to function as an American Jew. Inasmuch as Israel education can be used as a way to reinforce American Jewish identity, it is viewed as a positive. This has resulted in a “mythic” representation of Israel that, as Jonathan Sarna pointed out, has, “for well over a century . . . revealed more about American Jewish ideals than about Israeli realities.” Jewish education has reinforced this idealization of Israel to a great extent so that Israel can remain consistent with American conceptions of “Zion as it ought to be.” This means that we keep Israel at a distance through episodic and rather superficial encounters. We teach old conceptions and old narratives about Israel, because they are “safe” and because we don’t know what else to do. Indeed, it seems that a tacit assumption is made that only by first cultivating an uncritical “love of Israel” can we hope to engage American Jews at all.

To be sure, approaches that cultivate love can be effective for some. For increasing numbers, however, such approaches lead to dissonance, alienation, anger, and outright rejection, especially when they come to realize the mythic vision of Israel they were taught is vastly different from the much more complicated and often distressing reality. And, teaching only the “lovable” parts leaves our learners with, at best, a superficial understanding of why Israel is or could be significant in American Jewish life.

I want to propose that we accept the fact that being ambivalent about Israel is a productive educational goal. This may be unsettling for some, but it is far from a novel idea. Almost a century ago, the great Hebrew poet and writer Chaim Nachman Bialik wrote that “the phenomenon of dualism in our psyche [is] a fundamental characteristic of the Jewish people.” This dualism is not a black-and-white choice between opposing forces, but rather a formative tension that allows for productive negotiation and growth. This kind of dualism is woven throughout Jewish life, belief, and practice, with manifold tensions between Zion and Sinai, sacred and profane, Israel and Diaspora, exile and redemption, religion and peoplehood, blessing and curse. Bialik claimed that the desire both to expand from the center and to contract toward it is what has kept Judaism and the Jewish people a dynamic and thriving civilization. “Because the people did not tie its fate to one of these and because they remained in equal power, the rule of this dualism in our group character has survived to this day.”

Translating a “nuanced understanding of Israel” into educational practice is a multilayered process that could start even with how the geography of Israel is taught. What maps are displayed on the walls? Do they mark the Green Line? Do we teach only about Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem, or do we also include units on Kfar Kana, Um el Fahm, and Sakhnin? Do we focus only on the kibbutzim of the north or also teach that 50 percent of the population of the Galilee is Muslim, Christian, or Druze? When we plan a mifgash (encounter) with Israelis, whether virtual or real, do we include meetings with Palestinian citizens of Israel or only Jews? Does our investigation of social justice initiatives in Israel extend only to issues of religious pluralism that pertain directly to Reform Jews, or do we also study about educational and/or social justice organizations that are striving to attain a shared citizenship across religious, ethnic, and political differences?

These are just a few of the questions worth considering when thinking about developing an intentionally ambivalent educational approach to teaching Israel. Embracing this ambivalence does not preclude me, however, from starting with the chutzpadik claim that Israel is integral to Jewish life wherever it is lived. That sets a boundary that is clear but also flexible. For me, Israel is a key dimension of what it means to be a Jew. Like the Psalmist, I believe that forgetting Israel can be likened to losing the use of a limb. One can still live without one’s right hand, but the loss is an attenuation, a diminishment, far from desirable. But, this chutzpah is tempered with a lot of humility. Understanding Israel as integral but not central allows for and even endorses a range of different personal commitments and connections. Israel as integral means that there is no one right way or one right level of intensity to be connected. Just as with every other aspect of Jewish life, Israel education can provide individuals with the resources and experiences to become informed and then make their own choices as to the nature and extent of their involvement. Just as all would agree that God, Torah, and Shabbat are integral to Jewish experience but that different Jews have different beliefs and practices, the same can be said about Israel. There is no one right way to engage with Israel, but engaging is an essential aspect of Jewish experience. Just as educators strive to help Jews find meaning in God, Torah, and Shabbat and cultivate the motivation, knowledge, or skills that enable them to be develop their own set of practices, so should they work to help Jews engage with Israel, each on their own terms, yet as part of the collective Jewish project.

What this means is that we must accept that our communities can and need to welcome a wide range of views, understandings, feelings, and actions about Israel. This seems all the more pressing and essential today in order to build thriving Jewish life and to sustain a relationship with and connection to Israel. It means having faith and hope in the Jewish people, that expressing our differences will help us to listen more carefully to each other with open hearts, knowing that the choices we make build us up, enrich us, and allow Jewish life to continue to thrive in a multiplicity of ways.

http://https://vimeo.com/242998063

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Rabbi Lisa D. Grant is Professor of Jewish Education at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion.

The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism is now available to pre-order from CCAR Press.