Category: Books

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Books Gun Control Prayer Social Justice

The Relevance of Prayer in the Face of Tragedy

The morning after the Las Vegas Massacre, several identical posts appeared on Facebook, many from rabbis, declaring that ‘Prayer is not enough.’ As I was reading them, I received a note in my message box from a long-time anti-gun activist. She asked: “Do you have a prayer to help give us energy and hope as we fight this battle?”

The contrast was stark. Faith leaders were deriding the importance of prayer while an anti-gun activist – crushed with the enormity of the work ahead – turned to prayer for hope and inspiration.

Clergy said it after the Las Vegas massacre. Clergy said it after the Pulse Massacre. Clergy said it after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. After each horrific tragedy – natural or not – a handful of Jewish clergy said: “Prayer is not enough.”

Yes, prayer must be accompanied by action. Tikun olam comes from our involvement in bettering the world. Yet as a liturgist and pray-er, someone who works every day to help people connect to prayer, I worry that stating that ‘prayer is not enough’ minimizes the importance and the impact of prayer. It perpetuates a simplistic understanding of prayer.

What I want to say to my beloved rabbis is this: Be brave in demanding action. Be direct. Tell your congregants this: Get up out of your seats, do something that will make a difference. But in the process, don’t intimate that prayer is irrelevant.

Prayer can give strength to activists. Prayer can remind us of our best selves, helping to galvanize action. It can comfort the wounded and the newly bereaved. Prayer can remind us – when the moment of tragedy has passed – to continue our work. Prayer can unite faith leaders and political leaders with one voice.

Prayer helps us bury the dead and provide solace to their kin. Prayer gives our grief a voice and that voice should be a call to engage in bettering the world.

It’s true that our prayers will not stop a bullet. They won’t keep automatic weapons off the streets. Prayers will not clean up in the aftermath of a natural disaster. They will not build homes. They will not pass legislation. But we have no business believing that about prayer in the first place.

I’m concerned about the conflicting message that we may send by  one day declaring that ‘prayer is not enough,’ the next day leading worship services in synagogue and the next representing the Jewish people in interfaith prayer gatherings. It’s strange to think that one can minimize prayer one day and the next day expect a congregation of worshipers to arrive at your synagogue ready to pray. The question is not when we need prayer and when do we not, but rather, how can we enable prayer to go hand in hand with meaningful action.

Prayer can be a potent and important part of the solution. We shouldn’t expect more of prayer. But we shouldn’t expect less, either.

This is the prayer I sent my friend, the anti-gun advocate: Against Gun Violence

—

Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist, and teacher. He has written more than 600 pieces of new liturgy, offering a fresh new Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. 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, from CCAR Press, now available as an eBook.

CCAR Press has created unique programs for you to host at your congregations, schools, libraries, and Jewish Community Centers. Want to host a Grateful Heart Event? Click for details. Contact us with questions at info@ccarpress.org or (212) 972-3636 x243.

 

Categories
Books Prayer spirituality Torah

A New Amen

The Talmud asks, what is the meaning of the word ‘amen’? Rabbi Ḥanina responds: “It is an acronym of the words: “God, faithful King.”[i] In fact, the first letters of the Hebrew phrase El Melekh ne’eman spell out ‘amen.’[ii]

Perhaps it is time for a new ‘amen,’ an amen of action.

The Talmud asks: Which is preferable, saying a blessing or answering amen? According to Rabbi Yosei, “the reward of the one who answers amen is greater than the reward of the one who recites the blessing.” But a few lines later, the Gemara notes that Rabbi Yosei’s view is disputed by another teaching. Here, the Talmud leaves the question unresolved. Clearly, however, saying ‘amen’ is a critical part of prayer.[iii]

Another section of the Talmud also discusses the importance of saying amen. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says that answering a prayer with a deep and heartfelt ‘amen’ has the power to annul punishment, even traces of idolatry. Reish Lakish says: “One who answers amen with all his strength, opens the gates of the Garden of Eden.”[iv]

Hearing a prayer, it seems, requires a response. Yet we must ask: After major natural disasters, after gun massacres, vehicular slayings and the general rise of hatred, is saying ‘amen’ to a prayer for peace enough to open the gates of Eden?

We are a people of deeds, a people who value the nitty-gritty work of tikkun olam. Our forbearers said ‘Heineini’ – ‘here I am’ – when God called their names. In these times, we need a new ‘amen, an amen of action.

We can start with a new acronym for amen. In Hebrew, amen is spelled ‘aleph,’ ‘mem,’ ‘nun.’ Taking the ‘aleph’ from the first letter of the first word – and the ‘mem’ and ‘nun’ from the first and last letters of the second word – I propose that Ani Muchan, ‘I am ready,’ as the amen that will open the gates of Eden.[v]

We are expected to be God’s partner in perfecting creation. We are expected to use our individual actions and financial blessings to improve the world.

Perhaps our prayers are, in part, a set of questions. Will you work for peace? Will you feed the hungry and cloth the naked? Will you fight injustice and pursue peace?

Ani muchan. I am ready. Thus, ‘amen’ becomes a commitment to take our prayers out of our synagogues and out of our hearts and move them onto the streets and into the world with dedication and love. To answer a prayer with ‘ani muchan’ is to make a pledge that can only be fulfilled when we’re done praying.

Click here to read “To the Streets” by Alden Solovy.

—

Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist, and teacher. He has written more than 600 pieces of new liturgy, offering a fresh new Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. 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, from CCAR Press, now available as an eBook.

CCAR Press has created unique programs for you to host at your congregations, schools, libraries, and Jewish Community Centers. Want to host a Grateful Heart Event? Click for details. Contact us with questions at info@ccarpress.org or (212) 972-3636 x243.

 

[i] Shabbat 119b; Sanhedrin 111a

[ii] The Nehalel Siddurim translates El Melekh ne’eman as ‘God, Loyal Sovereign.”

[iii] Brachot 53b

[iv] Shabbat 119b

[v] Thanks to Asher Arbit for his help with the acronym.

Categories
Books Holiday Inclusion

Sukkot Inclusion and Children’s Books

After the power drill is put away and all of the pointy parts of the s’chach that is just right for poking your brothers’ eyes out is finally on top of our little booth, Sukkot transforms into one of my favorite holidays to celebrate with my children. In the Moroccan Sephardic tradition, we leave a chair out for Elijah. This special chair is often laden with books for ushpizin. As the younger of my three year old twins still occasionally chews on the furniture, I prefer to leave more child-friendly books within reach (rather than, say, my favorite binding of Psalms I enjoy periodically weeping over). But which books to pile onto our special chair this year?

To me, the value of inclusion is deeply related to the concept of hachnasat orchim (the welcoming of guests). After all, hachnasat orchim, treating each other with empathy and kindness, is the first step into true inclusion. We particularly celebrate these values at Sukkot, as we welcome both real and spiritual guests into the sukkah. In honor of a holiday in which we greet and happily receive others into our dwellings, here are eight non-traditional children’s stories about welcoming others into our hearts. I included several about narwhals; narwhals are so hot right now.

You could read one a night with the ushpizin who come to your sukkah!

Wendell the Narwhal How do we invite in though who want to be included, but don’t know how and feel overwhelmed?

Not Quite Narwhal How many communities do you belong to? How does belonging to a variety of communities enrich our identity?

Narwhal, Unicorn of the Sea Sometimes it is hard to make friends with someone from a different background; but these friendships can be some of the most important. (This is set up in semi-graphic novel style and is the beginning of a series about Narwhal and Jelly’s adventures together.)

Something Else Have you ever felt excluded? What does that feel like? How can you use that experience to prevent someone else from feeling the same way?

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed  Authority figures setting the standard to create a culture of inclusion

Can I Play Too? Learning how to find a way to play together might take some creativity, but means that everyone can have fun!

Ada Twist, Scientist Sometimes even the people who we love most (and who love us the most) aren’t quite sure how to acknowledge who we are, celebrate our differences, and include us. Inside a family, how can we figure this out?

Winnie the Pooh Written in a time before many of the diagnoses we now use today, Winnie the Pooh’s friend circle as an example of inclusion of individuals with a variety of dispositions and procivities. No matter which story you choose, note how this community of toys consistently and naturally includes one another, without ever asking anyone to “just get over it.”

Do you have any other books you love to use when talking about inclusion? How do you practice including your Sukkot guests?

—

Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan, M.A.R.E., resides in Palo Alto, California with her lovely husband and their four energetic and very small children.

Categories
Books

Honoring Tradition, Embracing Modernity

I could not have known, when I first began working at Congregation Rodeph Sholom as a second-year rabbinic student, just how much my experiences there would shape the many years after – even up until today.

Initially, I taught fourth grade – but we quickly all agreed that this was, perhaps, not my forte. The next year, I began working with high school students, a much better fit, and was later asked to start to reimagine the Introduction to Judaism and Conversion experiences for our adult students.

Each of these moments along the way allowed me to work with the inimitable Jo Kay. A teacher above all else, she was my guide as I gently dipped my first toes into conversations with people who wanted, more than anything, to learn about what it meant to be a Jew. Jo’s early lesson plans, hours-long conversations, and advice about how to teach to the learning styles of my students are all gifts I still hold dear. Her encouragement (along with that of the clergy at the synagogue) to create a real, foundational process for conversion and learning at the synagogue also introduced me to the hunger our students had for significant opportunities to learn in a deliberate and thoughtful way. They wanted to learn experientially, philosophically, spiritually – and were clear that they also wanted text.

Many of my students over the years – and yours, too, I imagine – had primarily known academic learning. This was their model for how to “know” something. Only after months of being together did they acknowledge that the “doing” was as much a part of the “knowing” as the reading and studying.

But the reading, I also came to learn, cannot be underestimated.

Eventually I was directed to Dru Greenwood at the (then) UAHC, one of the great heroes of our Reform Movement when it came to reaching out, bringing in, and teaching and learning along the way. Dru introduced me to the many books at our disposal as teachers of Introduction To Judaism.

Back then, in the late 1990s, we had a good library from which to choose, but to some extent, we still had to piece together a syllabus– a bit from this book, a bit from that. The gift of the first edition of the UAHC’s Introduction To Judaism Sourcebook with its parallel teacher’s guide was, for lack of a better phrase, a Godsend, allowing those of us who were teaching to gather many resources all in one place.

But time marches on, and books change hands. With a shift of ownership of the material from URJ Press, our Introduction to Judaism Sourcebooks were taken off the shelf. The loss of our old book was difficult – teachers had to fall back to the piecemeal practice they had not needed for quite some time

After having spent so much time reading and learning with my students, and in a new role with the URJ myself, I was privileged to learn once again. Rabbi Hara Person and I had breakfast one day, and together, we lamented the loss of our old book. It turned out that, while at the URJ we had been talking about a new kind of book, similar conversations were being had over at the CCAR. We realized that this was a real opportunity.

The basis for a new book – for new students – would be a trove of outstanding clergy resources that already exist in the CCAR Press paired with the on-the-ground knowledge shared by many of our Introduction to Judaism class coordinators and teachers throughout the URJ. The hope of a new resource, one that could now include so many of our newer texts, combined with corollary references to text from TaNaKH and rabbinic writing, was a very exciting prospect.

It became clear that the book could align with one of the new Introduction to Judaism Course Outlines the URJ was creating, giving teachers even more resources to use while still employing the same methods we’d been taught over the years. This book, edited by Rabbi Beth Lieberman, would allow us to teach to the style of our learners who wanted the experiential, the philosophical, and the spiritual. It would enable us to teach the learners who don’t know what to ask, as well as those who think they have no more to learn.

In the end, a new book was created – and it even has a new name. We at the URJ and CCAR Press are thrilled to introduce Honoring Tradition, Embracing Modernity: A Reader for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Introduction to Judaism Course. Designed for use with the Union for Judaism’s Introduction to Judaism classes, this sourcebook is for readers who seek to deepen their knowledge of Judaism’s wisdom, practices, beliefs, customs, people, and history.

This was such an exciting project of which to be a part. The relatively few suggestions our team at the URJ made at each step along the way pointed even more strongly to the strength of the team at the CCAR.

Having worked on this project, it now feels as though months of work and discussion, thought and arguments for the sake of heaven, learning, shifting, and being excited about new discoveries, have all culminated in a wonderful new part of our community being introduced for the very first time. It may seem earnest or dramatic to say that this new book and its introduction feels like welcoming a new Jew into our community – but that is indeed exactly how it feels.

—
Rabbi Leora Kaye is the director of program for the Union for Reform Judaism.  

Leora was privileged to work with URJ colleagues April Baskin (URJ Vice President of Audacious Hospitality)  and Frieda Hershman Huberman (URJ Manager of Introduction To Judaism) on  the creation of Honoring Tradition, Embracing Modernity.

Categories
Books spirituality

Approaching the Days of Awe: Turnings and Returnings

A blessing—in Hebrew, b’rakhah—is a special kind of utterance that can turn a moment into an event. Blessings intensify life by increasing our awareness of the present even while awakening our connections to the past. In the increasingly chaotic social and political climates in which we live, blessings can root us in the teachings of our tradition, and these teachings can help us recognize and remember the sacred in our everyday lives.

As a poet, I have long been drawn to the power—the lyric intensity—of the Hebrew b’rakhah. I began writing blessings of my own, however, because I was extremely uncomfortable with the heavily patriarchal image of God in the traditional prayers. When, almost four decades ago, I found myself standing silently in synagogue every week, unable to pray to the Lord-God-King of the traditional liturgy, I knew it was time for a change. And so it began. I sought to write new blessings that would speak not only to my own vision, needs, and concerns, but to those of individuals seeking greater meaning through our tradition. I wanted to provide a resource for the forging of fully inclusive and embracing communities.

Thirteen years later, in 1996, the first edition of The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival was published. I had written the book especially (though not exclusively) for Jews who felt shut out of the tradition, alienated by liturgy that had failed to adapt to changing times. But although I had known there was a need for more inclusive language when I began writing my liturgy, I was surprised by the initial breadth and the enthusiastic tone of the reception to the book’s publication. It wasn’t just progressive Jews who wrote to thank me for the blessings, telling me they were using the book in their homes and chavurot; I received letters from Jews of every denomination. I was humbled to learn that The Book of Blessings had begun to open doors that had been closed to so many for so long.

Today the CCAR Press is issuing a 20th-anniversary edition of the book. My hope is that this new edition will return us to the conversation that began two decades ago with the publication of the first edition, and that it will carry the conversation forward, opening it to a new generation. Like the first edition, the new edition of The Book of Blessings is for Jews of all denominations, as well as unaffiliated Jews, progressive Jews, humanists, and self-identified secular Jews. It is for all who are dissatisfied or frustrated with the prayers of our ancestors as well as for those who want to build upon the traditional prayers.

At this time of year, it is the particular aim of The Book of Blessings to help us turn inward and outward at once—inward to the truths of the self and outward toward the whole of humanity. This to-and-fro movement—turnings and returnings, from self-examination to making amends with others—is at the heart of the High Holidays. I have written a companion book to The Book of Blessings, which focuses specifically on these themes: The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the High Holiday Season. It is my hope that, taken together, these volumes will enrich our experience of the upcoming Days of Awe, guiding us to a fuller and more vibrant awareness of our participation in the Greater Whole of Creation.

—

Marcia Falk received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Stanford and did postdoctoral work in Bible and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival; The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season; The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible; The Spectacular Difference: Selected Poems of Zelda; With Teeth in the Earth: Selected Poems of Malka Heifetz Tussman; and three books of her own poetry, This Year in Jerusalem, It Is July in Virginia, and My Son Likes Weather. Marcia is also a painter and life member of the Art Students League of New York.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Holiday

High Holy Day Family Sermon Starters

Oh my goodness, are you so tired? I am so tired. Like, my leg bones ache, so tired. And oh good heavens, there is only a month left until the High Holidays begin. Between the start of the school year and the political situation and just getting to the grocery store so we can have something that vaguely resembles food in the house, I bet you might feel the same.

So let’s just get straight to it. Here are some sermon starters for family service sermons, using non-traditional picture books as the jumping off point. Hopefully, one of these will resonate with you (and make things just a bit easier)

 

Oh No, George!: Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance

Central sermon question: What do we do when we make mistakes? What constitutes true repentance?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Who is truly repentant? The one who, when the temptation to sin is repeated, refrains from sinning.” – Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b

Modern References:

 

Emma’s Poem: Privilege and Tikkun Olam

Central sermon question: How do we use the blessings we have to help repair the world?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community” – Pirke Avot 2:5
  • “[Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet, you are not free to desist from it.” – Pirke Avot 2:21
  • 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. – Deuteronomy 10:16-19

Modern References:

Having a hard time talking about privilege? Here is one interesting, accessible resource.

 

Pout Pout Fish: Yom Kippur as the Silver Fish

Central sermon question: Can we choose happiness?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • Selection of references asking the Divine countenance to shine upon us: Numbers 6:22-25, Psalm 31:16, Psalm 67:1, Psalm 80:3, Psalm 119:135, Daniel 9:17. “We pray for God to change Her/His face; are we capable of doing the same? Can we find a way to see the positive in a situation we originally considered negative?
  • Shammai says:… meet every person with a pleasant countenance – Pirke Avot 1:15
  • “Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world” – Chasidic, 18th Century (p. 3, Gates of Repentance)

Modern References:

Gretchen Rubin’s podcast “Happier”

 

Knuffle Bunny Too:  Second Chances

Central sermon question: Can forgiveness and empathy help form new, meaningful friendships?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Who is honorable? One who honors his fellows” (Ben Zoma) – Pirke Avot 4:1 – Learning how to do this healthily can be hard!
  • Yehoshua ben Perachia says, “Make for yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend and judge every person as meritorious.” – Pirke Avot 1:13

Modern References:

  • TED Talk about the Grant Study at Harvard (Crunched for time? Skip to about 6 minutes in)

 

The Thank You Book: Blessings

Central sermon question: What are blessings?

  • Blessings are an expression of gratitude; an opportunity to remind ourselves of what is truly important in our lives – the food we eat, the people we love, the existence of rainbows and wonders (maybe not in that particular order). What are you grateful for? Who are you forgetting? Is it someone or something that you take for granted so much that you need to break the fourth wall in order to thank?

Do you have any other favorite non-traditional children’s books that you love to use as sermon-starters? Join the conversation in the comments below!

—

Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan, M.A.R.E., resides in Palo Alto, California with her lovely husband and their four energetic and very small children.

Categories
Books

Total Solar Eclipse

As most of us know quite well, today (Monday, August 21st) there will be a rare event in our country: a total solar eclipse. In short, the moon will “photobomb” the sun’s selfie. I recently wrote a chapter in the new book Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation that speaks  about the relationship between the sun and the moon. In chapter one of Genesis (verse 16) we read: “And God made two great lights; the large light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night; and God made the stars.” There seems to be a contradiction here.  If God made two great lights, then how can one be large and one be small?  Many Jewish commentators address this apparent irregularity.  One comment from an ancient midrash sees a moral lesson within the disparity.  The moon complained to God that it did not like being the same size as the sun, so God “rewarded” the moon’s complaint by making it smaller.

A more favorable treatment of the moon is found in Midrash Genesis Rabbah, 6:4:  R. Aha said: Imagine a king who had two governors, one ruling in the city and the other in a province. Said the king: Since the former has humbled himself to rule in the city only, I decree that whenever he goes out, the city council and the people shall go out with him, and whenever he enters, the city council and the people shall enter with him. Thus did the Holy One, blessed be He, say: Since the moon humbled itself to rule by night, I decree that when she comes forth, the stars shall come forth with her, and when she goes in [disappears], the stars shall go in with her.

This teaching reflects an ancient rabbinic support for humility in our leaders.  As another sage (Hillel) once observed: “When I exalt myself I am humbled, but when I humble myself I am exalted.”   It is only when we create space for the world that we are able to find our genuine selves.  The medieval mystical notion of tzimtzum, or contraction, by which God could create the world only by contracting God’s Self, teaches us the spiritual power of creating space within our own egos for the world around us.  By letting go of some of the ego needs that distract us we open space for enjoying the present and being more present for others.

I know these days we can easily be frustrated, worried and even fearful. There are certainly many things we can do about our current situation. One thing we may not have considered is practicing more humility in our family, circle of friends, and areas of work. This practice will not solve all our problems but it can serve as a timely corrective in a world too eclipsed for the light to shine through.

—

Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, serves Temple Sholom of Chicago, and is the editor of Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh: A Guide to the CCAR Machzor, and coordinating editor of Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR machzor.  Rabbi Goldberg  is also is a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation!

Categories
Books

Who Is Wise? One Who Learns From All.

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share excerpts from the book. The book is now officially available to order!

The opening words of the Torah are iconic, and they mark the start of an iconic narrative, namely the Torah’s account of how God created our world. Centuries later, these words continue to carry power and resonate broadly. However, those first six days, presented twice in Genesis, tell of much more than the beginning of day and night, skies and seas, animals of earth and air; they provide us with a touchstone to return to once and again over the course of our lives. When we dare to investigate the intricacies of the Creation text we come to see not only ourselves, but the imperatives with which we live as Jews: to care for the natural universe, to take responsibility for ourselves and those around us, to lift up the Sabbath as a holy day, and to always remember our ever-profound origins.

We might also argue that never before have there been greater misgivings regarding Creation. At a time when considerable skepticism is aimed at religious institutions and tradition at large, the early chapters of Genesis are easily cast aside as antiquated, even irrelevant. And yet, even when placed beside the realities of scientific discovery and evolution, those chapters remind us in the most succinct fashion of precisely what is so ennobling regarding religion and religious life: ritual, poetry, coexistence, tradition, and the underlying belief so many of us carry in a benevolent Creator manifest in our daily lives. It is true that if the Creation story is going to withstand the test of time, it is not only because of its literary prowess and magnitude, but because it consistently renews our commitment to faith itself.

In an age of dire pace and frenzied obsession with technology, holding fast to our beginnings matters greatly, for us and our children. Rather than fixate forever on what’s next, and whose social media status garners greatest attention, Creation has us consider who we are at our most fundamental. They are verses to which we are meant to pay attention.

Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, a new publication from CCAR Press, started as a mere idea three years ago.  It has now become a very exciting reality.  When I proposed a book that would explore the great range of thought around the Torah’s Creation stories, I never imagined the far-reaching scope achieved by the nearly fifty essays.  Indeed, included in this collection are the diverse perspectives of awe-inspiring colleagues and teachers, each of whom have wrestled with Creation in their own right.  The end result is an anthology that captures the layers and complexities of Creation in new and fascinating ways.  At the start of this project I believed, and still believe, that we honor Creation most when we allow ourselves to see it in the most complicated light, rather than rushing to simplified, easy readings.

The book’s contributors challenge many of the common conceptions around Creation. They urge readers to see Creation not only as a story about how God formed our world in six days, but what it means to have faith, what it means to be a Jewish parent, what it means to care for the environment, what it means to protect the most vulnerable among us, what it means to think deeply about gender and sexuality, and what it means to observe Shabbat.

I am proud to align myself with a community that allows for and encourages diversity of thought.  To include authors that span the ideological spectrum within one anthology, sometimes in near total opposition to one another, speaks to the adage from the Mishnah: “Who is wise?  One who learns from all.” Perhaps one of the great victories of this book, therefore, is that it reminds us to learn from those not altogether like ourselves.

—

Rabbi Benjamin David serves Adath Emanu-El in Mt Laurel, New Jersey.  Rabbi David is also the Editor of CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, now available to order.

Categories
Books

Male and Female God Created Them: The Everyday Life of the Creation Myth in Israeli Society

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share excerpts from the book. The book is now officially available from CCAR Press. 

“So God created the human beings in [the divine] image, creating [them] in the image of God, creating them male and female.”  (Genesis 1:27)

Every society for which there are records has its version of a Creation myth. These myths serve as important allegories and help the society tell its own story. They present a microcosm of society, of the way men and women relate to one another, and of the place of humans in the world of nature. It is essential that we understand the values projected in creation myths in order to transform power imbalances.

While Jewish tradition has several Creation stories, I will focus on the ways in which the Creation story in Genesis 2 establishes the patriarchal order of our Jewish history. Plants could not grow because man was not there to till the ground, which is why God created the mist to water the earth, and man to cultivate it. Following the creation of the garden, plants, and rivers, God guides man around the Garden of Eden and instructs him on cultivating and keeping the earth.  God then creates all the animals to help man and save man from being alone. Man sees and names them and finds no help through them.  So, God creates woman from man’s rib. According to this story, man has an essential role in Creation, designated to him by God. The entire plant and animal kingdom is dependent on man, while woman is created to support man’s welfare.

After eating from the Tree of All Knowledge, Adam and Eve become aware of duality (which had been not present before) and man and woman realize they’re different. God and man then come into conflict, as they, too, are different. In that conflict, woman (paired with nature) is the cause of the first sin. Knowledge therefore comes not only out of the realization of good and evil, but also out of the differences between male and female.

This paradigm led to the establishment of a Jewish society in which women could exist and function only in relation to their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers. The paradigm has also led to the evolution of two separate sets of rules within our halachic systems, excluding women from all religious leadership roles, from major events within the Jewish community, and from the close and intimate disciplines of religious practice that are related to time and season.

This duality echoes another element of the Creation story, which is the connection between women and knowledge. In the story of Creation, the “basic” state of man is one of ignorance. He is commanded to refrain from eating from the fruits of the Tree of All Knowledge (Gen. 2:16–17). The only limitation placed on man is the restriction of knowledge. Woman (being tricked by the snake) tempts man to eat from the fruit, committing the first sin, and shattering his divine-intended ignorance.

In Israeli society today, religious and political rhetoric perpetuate this particularly misogynistic reading of sin, knowledge, and gender roles. Since 1999, there have been repeated demands made by members of the ultra-Orthodox leadership (the fastest growing community in Israel, averaging 6.9 children per family) to segregate men and women in the public sphere in Israel. These demands, following a decade of work by the Israel Religious Action Center, are now, thankfully, being rejected by the Israeli government. Beyond their lobbying, ultra-Orthodoxy’s social structures prevent adults from leaving the closed society through a gender-segregated school system that deprives boys of the educational tools that would enable them to sustain themselves and lead lives outside the ultra-Orthodox world.  Through the political pressure of ultra-Orthodox parties, the Israeli government sponsors such schools that in essence teach only traditional Jewish studies. Since the late 1990s, in order to support their growing society, ultra-Orthodox women have been leading a quiet revolution. They are lawyers, accountants, and software engineers. They are more educated and are earning more money than ever before.

We in Israel therefore find ourselves living with the Creation metaphor as an everyday reality: Man in a primal state, connected to God, and woman holding the forbidden fruit of knowledge, thus threatening the innocence of man. This ongoing reenactment of the Creation story is a major threat to the future of Israel. Twenty-seven percent of Israeli boys in first grade study in a public educational system that ostensibly sentences them to a life of poverty and binds them to the ultra- Orthodox community. As we continue to lead the legal and political struggle to improve the education of ultra-Orthodox boys, we need to both recognize the elements of our tradition that provide support for the current situation, as well as utilize the various traditional responses to support knowledge, education, and gender equality.

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Rabbi Noa Sattath is the a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, now available!

Rabbi Noa Sattath is also the Director of Israel Religious Action Center, the social justice arm of the Reform movement in Israel. She is charged with leading the staff of the organization, developing and implementing social change strategies in the fields of separation of religion and state, women’s rights, and the struggle against racism. 

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Books

The Animal Kingdom

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share excerpts from the book. The book is now officially available from CCAR Press. 

In all of Jewish tradition, the mitzvah of shiluach hakein—the commandment to send away the mother bird before taking the egg—is the most seemingly eccentric and confusing. To the enterprising mind, however, this supposedly ethical dilemma of shiluach hakein underlies the divine enterprise that the Creation story presents to humanity.

On that point, the fifth day of Creation presents the Jewish people with an overarching moral quandary. As we will discern, the universe would not be complete without the diversity of the fauna that roams upon the lands. The totality of Torah articulates a myriad of responsibilities that humans have for animals. These responsibilities are intertwined with opportunities for the cultivation of Jewish values. Perhaps the premier mechanism to cultivate reverence for the wondrous multiplicity of Creation is to avoid eating God’s creatures altogether.

Indeed, vegetarianism/veganism—and Jewish awareness toward the overarching umbrella of animal welfare—is the most dynamic and growing trend in the American Jewish community and has been for the past few decades. Yet, the biblical text presents us with a conundrum. In the latter part of the Creation story, humans are told they “shall hold sway over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the beasts, over all the earth, over all that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). This seems to be in contradiction to the human obligation to emulate God’s ways and be “good to all” (Psalm 145:9). How could the consumption of God’s creatures be commensurate with the duty to uphold mercy?

The biblical history of animal consumption experienced three distinct eras. In the Garden of Eden humans did not consume animals. After the Great Deluge[1] and construction of the ark, God perceived the violent nature of humans and thus permitted meat consumption as a concession so they would channel their violent nature to kill animals instead of people. Finally, we come to learn that after meat was only permitted as a sacrifice to God, it later became permitted as a more regular staple of diets outside of sacrificial worship. These three eras mark the progression of an admittedly supernal ideal and evolution of a certain religious pragmatism. Are we now in a fourth era, and in the position to consider the well-being and rights of animals as comparable to the basic rights that humans are privileged to hold?

Following this reasoning, a midrash explains that Moses was chosen as the leader and prophet for the Jewish people because of his consideration for animals.[2] It is not only the prophets and kings of Israel who are so often portrayed as compassionate shepherds; this is also a popular way of personifying God: “The Eternal is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). This value is also reflected in one of the best-known instances of animal protection in the Talmud: That we may not eat until we have fed our animals (BT B’rachot 40a).

The Torah states, “When…you say: ‘I shall eat some meat,’ for you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish” (Deuteronomy 12:20). A commentary in the Talmud goes even further, interpreting the verse from Deuteronomy to mean that “a person should not eat meat unless they have a special craving for it” (BT Chulin 84a).

Throughout the millennia, Jews have yearned to return to the Garden of Eden. The Creation story is not the story of the Jews, but of every creature that God found worthy to exist. By being compassionate to animals, we not only fulfill the mandate of the Torah, but we regain our humanity. In fact, the great sages of the Talmud consider mercy and compassion to be essential characteristics of being Jewish (BT Beitzah 32b). Choosing not to eat meat for ethical reasons has the power to imprint the values of mercy and compassion deep within our souls. From the lowliest microbe to the most complex being, all gain life from the same holy source.

When we arrive at the insight that the world was not created for us alone[3]—that the mother bird and her egg are precious to God— and that we are not entitled to consume whatever we wish, we reach a powerful Torah ideal, one that may be the most spiritual ideal of all. We share this beautiful world with a remarkable diversity of life. We are only one aspect of this biosphere.  And when we respect it for what it is, we venerate that which brought it forth from the far reaches of time and space.

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Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, now available!

Rabbi Yanklowitz is also the President & Dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, and the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute . Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America and the Forward named him one of the 50 most influential Jews.

[1] Also known as the Flood, seen later in Genesis 6–9.

[2] Sh’mot Rabbah 2:2.

[3] Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:13.