Category: Books

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Books

Music and The Punctuation of Time

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. 

This is the story of a fourth day. From the mystery emerge years, seasons, nights and days, all with their own series of markers and movements in the sky. These patterns are the foundation upon which we build our lives. And because of the innate capacity for patterns to quickly progress from lovely routine to painfully boring rut, it is in reference to time, and specifically Shabbat, the seventh day, that we first engage with the word “holy” (kadosh) in Tanach. In order to make and take meaning from the random events of our lives, to vary the endless patterns, we must somehow mark one moment from the next, and also connect one moment to the next, in a way that makes sense over seasons, over years, over generations.

Music and time are inexorably intertwined.  Music that we see on a page is only a hard-copy representation of something that cannot exist without the passage of time. Music must move forward within the context of the passage of time, as must the planets and stars in their revolutions in the sky. The single notes, much like single stars, mean nothing unless connected to others.

The power of a single melody can send one hurtling back in time, and allow us to take others along. That’s the real meaning of the word “commemoration”: remembering together.  With a single melody, I can be transported, along with innumerable others, to another space and energy and emotional state. In this way, music helps us to both awaken to and immerse ourselves in special set times of celebration and commemoration, as well as to the k’doshim b’chol yom, the holiness inherent in every moment of every day. 

In their book Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical Reflections on Jewish Prayer, Rabbis Lawrence Kushner and Nehemiah Polen remind us that there were two splittings of seas in Tanach.[1] The Sea of Reeds story is one that we know quite well. Few, if any of us remember this second miraculous occurrence of Israelites crossing a sea on dry land, when “Adonai your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you crossed, just as the Adonai your God did to the Sea of Reeds, which God dried up before us until we crossed” (Joshua 4:23).[2]

Rabbis Kushner and Polen share with us, from the teachings of Itturei Torah,[3] that the reason that one story is paramount in our people’s faith formation and the other has fallen by the wayside is because of song. And when we sing Mi Chamocha we are taken back, each time, to when we emerged from slavery to freedom.

The presence of music and the ways in which it moves our spirits has the ability to change us, as well as whatever comes after.  It connects us to our deeper selves, gives us insight into our past, and reaffirms our commitment to action. It causes us to reflect on our connection to each other, as well as our deep emotions in the face of art and beauty and song. All of these blessings that music brings somehow coalesce in the function of music in our ritual lives.

All faith and secular cultures mark the passage of time with ritual. Can you imagine an important Jewish ritual or holiday celebration without music? Although they vary according to region and origin, the specific modes and melodies used at different times of the year have helped Jews over the centuries to celebrate the patterns of their lives. Our music connects us not only to our present-day communities, but to Jewish communities across the millennia. As older melodies are, over time, replaced by more contemporary sounds, we also merge our unique stories of the past with the story of the communities in which we presently live.

By paralleling and making us mindful of time—its patterns as well as its passage—music allows us to go far beyond the spoken word. By adorning and providing  context  for the  ways in which we travel under the  sun, moon,  and stars created  on the  fourth  day of Creation, music has the power  to open  our hearts  to that  which is “within  our reach, but beyond  our grasp,” according  to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.[4] Music connects us to any human who has ever looked to the patterns in the skies and celebrated with instrument, rhythm, and voice; it allows us to reach upward and inward, simultaneously touching our individual souls, our shared stories, and our stars.

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

Cantor Dreskin also serves as Coordinator of the Cantorial Certification Program at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York. Ellen travels extensively to congregations around the country as a scholar-in-residence, and has taught for many years on the faculty of URJ Summer Kallot, Hava Nashira, and the URJ Kutz Camp Leadership Academy.  

 

[1] Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen, Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mys- tical Reflections on Jewish Prayer (Woodstock,  VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004),

[2] Adapted from JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publica- tion Society, 1999), 464.

[3] A. Chayn, Itturei Torah, ed. Aaron Jacob Greenberg  ( Jerusalem: Yavneh, 1987),

3:124.

[4] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Vocation of the Cantor (New York: American Con- ference of Cantors, 1966).

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Books

The Third Day and Our Oceans

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.  

We are not told that we hold sway over the sea.

We are told that we hold sway over the animals. When God creates humankind, God grants dominion over the “fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over every animal that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

We are told that we may do what we like with the plants.  “These are yours to eat,” God says on the sixth day (Genesis 1:29).

Later, this relationship between human beings and vegetation is modified with the additional command l’ovdah ulshomrah, translated literally as “to work it and keep it,” and commonly known today as “to till and tend” (Genesis 2:15). Humankind is intended to take care of and partake in all animals and all plants.

Day three of the Creation story has two components. Before God established plants, God first collected the chaotic waters of the earth and designated these as “seas,” an area differentiated from “dry ground” (Genesis 1:9–10). The creation of each is concluded with a repetition of the central trope of Creation, “God saw how good it was” (Genesis 1:10).

These two acts of creation on one day create two parallel tracks for God’s contract with humankind as a partner in Creation. We are told that we hold sway over the animals. We are told that we may do what we like with the plants.

We are not told that we hold sway over the sea.

And yet, humankind has ruled over the seas. We have disrupted the boundary lines distinguishing sea from land. Whole populations will be displaced. Cities and states will be pulled underwater as the sea becomes entangled with dry ground. Further, rising sea levels are causing drinking water contamination and disruptions in agriculture, coastal plant life, and wildlife populations. In impacting the seas, we have also adversely affected life on dry land for humans, animals, and plants.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sea levels have risen approximately seven inches globally since 1900. Our industrial output of greenhouse gases has initiated global climate change and sea-level rise; we have failed to stay within the means of our God-given responsibilities. Climate change caused by human activity presents problems of an immense global scale with potentially infinite disruptive power. Rising global atmospheric temperatures in turn cause sea-level rise, disrupt ecosystems, limit crop viability, and lead to drought and extreme weather events. Many of our current international security and poverty crises can be traced back to these adverse climate change impacts.

These challenges have hopeful and plausible remedies. We can mitigate sea-level rise by investing in and advocating for the production and dissemination of clean energy technologies. Unlike clean energy’s fossil fuel counterparts, the mechanisms for extraction (solar panels and windmills) are not disruptive. While we cannot turn back the clock on climate change, it is within our power to ensure that the current impacts of sea-level rise are not dramatically worsened as we continue to use nonrenewable sources. We need only shift from greenhouse-gas-producing technologies to renewable energy in order to minimize our negative impact on the oceans.

On day three of Genesis, we read, “Let the waters beneath the sky be collected in one place, so that the dry ground may be seen!”—and so it was. And God called the dry ground Earth, and called the collected waters Seas. And…God saw how good it was” (Genesis 1:9–10).  As Jews, we can look at this passage, in both its description of separation and, later, our absence of active human obligation, to make the case for a Jewish response to climate change through renewable energy. By living up to our responsibilities on land, we can restore our seas. We can give back to them their autonomy as a space distinct from the dry ground. We must not hold sway over the seas.

We are at a crossroads in human history where we have gained rule over nature and have the responsibility and capacity to surrender that power. We have scientific evidence that we have created a problem. We have the global willpower to make the change. We are not told that we hold sway over the sea. We are told that God saw how it was. Now, we just need our energy industry and our policy-makers to catch up.

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

Ms. Rechtman is also a Wexner Graduate Fellow/Davidson Scholar and Amherst College Graduate Fellow at Harvard Divinity School as a candidate for a Masters of Theological Studies with a concentration in religion, ethics, and politics. She previously served a consultant for the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, Manager of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and co-chair of the Washington Inter-religious Staff Council’s Energy and Environment Working Group.

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Books

The Second Day: A Pilot’s Perspective

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. 

The second day of Creation supplies the world with a new device never seen before: an “expanse” that separates two domains, the heavens and the waters, from one another. The original Hebrew rakia, “something that is beaten or stamped out,” is like a sheet of metal an artisan has flattened into a thin layer to divide one area from another. Portrayed here as decidedly solid, later in Genesis (7:11 and 8:2), we learn that rain can descend from the heavens through windows or sluices, offering the fascinating possibility of trans-expanse communication: water could come down, and in certain very rare instances, people could go up.

In the early days of postbiblical literature, the idea of human beings ascending to heaven to access hidden secrets was all the rage. Enoch, Elijah, Moses, and just a few other characters were granted such supernal experiences, succeeding in their desire to gain divine knowledge in a way that even the subsequent mythical Prometheus would have envied. As a rabbi and student of ancient texts, and a pilot, I admit to feeling a deep connection to these ancient ascent stories.  We moderns, who leap routinely heavenward in complex tubes of beaten metal with sophisticated machinery unimaginable to the premodern mind, are often pretty blasé about what it takes to leave the earth’s surface, climb a mile into thin air, and land a thousand miles distant.

Focus, for a moment, on the intense harmony that must be achieved by the unstintingly complex mechanism that is an aircraft; the balance between going above and returning to below. In the complexity of flight lies another expanse we must cross: the expanse of reaching for expertise. Bringing oneself squarely up against a challenging task one learns to perform is a vital part of being fully human. Flying is but one of these sorts of tasks. The truth is we become fully human when we commit our entire selves to something that is hard and worth doing, when we know our limits, and when we take pride in what we achieve.

One lesser known form of aviation is soaring, also known as gliding. In soaring, a powered aircraft tows you up from a grass runway to a few thousand feet over the airport, whereupon the engineless glider and pilot sail free to employ the air around them to remain aloft as long as possible. The harmony that results from diverse parts that function together suggests a oneness to the universe that is both human and beyond humanity, existing both below the expanse and above it at the same time. As a glider pilot, I have personally circled in rising columns of air with families of hawks, climbed over ten thousand feet in just a few minutes in strong thermal lift, and remained aloft for hours traveling miles and miles powered only by the air. To be able to understand clouds and wind, lift and sink, terrain and airflow well enough to do this makes me feel as if I have access to secret knowledge; as if I have, like an ancient, gone on an ascent to the heavens and returned with secrets that surpass regular humanity. Once one has soared, one can never quite look at clouds and the sky in the same way again. Each glance at sky above fills me with a deep and abiding sense of gratitude that God has created a world in which this is possible for mortal human beings.

For the remarkable ability to fly, with all its beautiful complexity, and for entrée to the secret knowledge of an aviator in the heavens above, I am profoundly thankful. The Creation story in Genesis reminds us, at its core, that God’s handiwork is a gift God shared with us, which implies a duty of care and an invitation to investigate. Safe inside beaten metal thousands of feet above our normal dwelling place, we effortlessly cross expanses unimaginable to our ancestors, learning and growing as we go. This gift of ascent within God’s Creation, whether literal or figurative, is one we can never fully repay.

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Rabbi Aaron Panken is a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.  Rabbi Panken is also President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute (HUC-JIR), North America’s first Jewish seminary, with campuses in Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York.  

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Books

The Why and the How of Creation: Harmonizing Genesis and the Big Bang

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. 

I’m going to let you in on a secret. The Bible is not a scientific textbook. Now, this might seem obvious on an intellectual level, but when people read the opening chapters of Genesis, emotions come into play. We grapple with the relationship between Genesis and the big bang, a relationship that at its core takes on the question “Where did we come from?” As such, we face a challenge: The Bible says one thing, and science says another.  So how do we make sense of Genesis 1 in light of big bang cosmology?

My organization, Sinai and Synapses, presents four different ways we can talk about science and religion in general: In conflict; in concert; in contrast; and in contact. Before we address how we can better understand both Genesis and the big bang, let’s first take a look at the more problematic understandings of this relationship.

This first model, “in conflict,” is the one that gets the most attention in the media and the blogosphere. Here, either science or religion is correct, and if we accept one, then we have to reject the other. The model of “in concert” is, in many ways, the flip side of the conflict model. The common refrain for this model is “We don’t know how long a day is. The Psalmist even says, ‘A thousand years in [God’s] sight are like a day that has just gone by’ [Psalm 90:4], so I can read the Torah in a way that doesn’t violate my scientific sensibilities.” This model is an attempt to fit science into the biblical narrative, but the problem is the Bible isn’t meant to be read scientifically. In the “in contrast” model, science and religion live in separate spheres, and so we end up bifurcating our sense of identity, keeping our science and our Judaism far away from each other. The “in contact” model helps us to reconcile Genesis and the big bang. Since, as Reform Jews, we shouldn’t read the Bible as a literal, factual, scientific account, we should instead see how scientific metaphors for God can be useful.

The big bang theory tells us what happened immediately after the universe started. This is similar to the classic midrash that asks why the Torah starts with a bet and not an alef. Rabbi Levi answers, “The bet is closed on three sides and open only on the fourth. This teaches that one should not question what is above or what is below, or what came before, but only what transpired from the day of the world’s creation forward” (B’reishit Rabbah 1:10). While the Rabbis might have viewed these as prescriptions, for us they might be descriptions—the only thing we can currently understand is what has happened after all time, space, matter, and energy began. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that from the big bang until today, the natural tendency of the universe is to go from order to chaos. The only way to move from chaos to order is to direct energy toward that task. This is exactly what we see in Genesis 1, where God intentionally moves from chaos to order. And so, if we view ourselves as being “in the image of God,” then our job, too, is to overcome the universe’s natural inclination to move toward chaos and instead strive to create more order.

The key phrase in the Genesis story is one that the big bang can’t address: “and God saw that it was good.” Leaving aside God for the moment, we can all agree that while science can tell us what is, only human intentionality and action can determine what should be. If the universe is “good,” then we have certain responsibilities to safeguard and protect Creation.

Ultimately, we may never be able to scientifically answer the question of how the universe began. Instead, we can read Genesis as a way to remind us to create more order in a chaotic world, and to ensure that the actions we take are “good.”  While the big bang can help us better understand ourselves and our world, it is upon us to use that understanding, in conjunction with Genesis 1, as a way to create more peace, justice, and goodness in our lives.

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Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

Rabbi Mitelman is also the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds, and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He has been an adjunct professor at both the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion. From 2007 to 2014, he served as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, and he appeared on Jeopardy! in March 2016.

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Books Israel

Fragile Identities in Dialogue: What is Zionism today?

I grew up in an age when the State of Israel was touted as the panacea for the lost American Jew. We celebrated Yom haAtzmaut as fervently as we celebrated Purim. The most exciting skits put on by our day camp counselors all ended up with the characters realizing they could just go to Israel. It was messaged, both subtly and not-so-subtly, that the greatest move we could make as a Jew was Aliyah. The State of Israel was a modern miracle. I do not remember the word Zionism crossing anyone’s lips, but I was certainly raised a Zionist.

When I ventured to Israel for the first time as a senior in highschool, I came back fully bought into the triumphalist Zionist narrative of the State of Israel as the culmination of all Jewish history; the reclamation of Jewish strength; the realization of Jewish sovereignty, and, soon, in vague whispers, the messiah. Then I went to college in Gambier, OH, and I found that there was another side to the story – a reality of oppression inflicted by the State of Israel upon the Palestinians that wasn’t justifiable.

In search of answers, I returned to Israel for my junior year abroad in 2004-2005, and now off the rails of the high school Israel-as-Disneyland experience, I was free to see a much broader spectrum of Israeli life. Busses exploded blocks from my dorm in Beer Sheva; religious extremists refused to leave their settlements in Gaza, threatening to tear apart the country; Bedouin were rounded up and forcibly settled in the Negev against their will, often in abject poverty. I returned from that experience confused and concerned. Why had I been taught this State was the answer to all my questions about Judaism? What even is Zionism, and do I want anything to do with it?

Dr. Joshua Holo, the dean of HUC-JIR in Los Angeles, writes in the upcoming release from CCAR Press, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, that Zionism “seeks to guarantee Israel’s existence and its Jewish and democratic character…(and) merely reflects the fact that Jews and Judaism are tightly bound up with the Land of Israel.”

Regardless of the inner conflict, the crack at the foundation of my relationship to Israel, I still feel bound up with the Land of Israel. After writing a graduate thesis on the development of secular Israeli identity, and spending my first year of rabbinical school in Jerusalem, I am no longer surprised by the disappointments the government of Israel consistently bring me. It no longer hurts when my very Jewish identity is denied authenticity by that same government. My anger no longer burns so strongly at the continued and worsening oppression of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government. It has all become old hat, and as predictable as the rest of the Jewish calendar.

Coming from the perspective of a Jewish educator, in her chapter from The Fragile Dialogue titled, “Educating for Ambiguity,” Rabbi Dr. Lisa Grant, writes, “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.”

Words are slippery creatures. Jewish tradition has spilled much ink arguing over the definition of one word or another. Once a word referring specifically to the lofty dream of a new nation State for the Jews, upon the accomplishment of this goal it has now spun into a multitude of different amalgamations: Religious Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Classical Zionism, Anti-Zionism – and, as these writers discuss, Liberal Zionism.

I’m not sure if I’m a Liberal Zionist, but I am sure that no matter what I do, the State of Israel is as basic to my daily thoughts as Torah and the Jewish calendar. Although I no longer see the State of Israel as a miracle (just as I no longer think that Moses literally parted the Red Sea), I can not cut the ties that bind me to her. So I must join the conversation, and welcome all the voices, from Religious Zionists to Anti-Zionists, but also be willing to stand and put my own relationship with Israel into words.

During Purim we celebrate the story of the victory of the Jews of Persia over their oppressors, and also look critically, even ashamedly, at the end of the book of Esther in which these same Jews massacre 75,000 of their enemies. If we can manage this confusing and confounding tradition each year, we can celebrate the accomplishments within the contemporary State of Israel, as well as protest the moral failings we see in its government.

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Andy Kahn is entering his fifth year as a rabbinic student at HUC-JIR. He has served as the CCAR Rabbinic Intern and is currently the Rabbinic Intern at East End Temple in New York City. 

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Books

On Living Text

Our tradition teaches that there are seventy faces of the Torah. Originally, shiv’im panim laTorah  referred to the multiplicity of ways a single verse can be interpreted: pshat, drash, remez, and sod (Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15-16). It is mentioned later on in commentaries by Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, and in the Zohar. Today, the Torah’s seventy faces often refers to the multiplicity of viewpoints within every community and gathering—the glorious tapestry that we know is our Judaism.

The 70 faces of Torah are an entry point into the tradition. But successfully claiming our inheritance from the tradition is most likely to happen when we are grounded in foundational Jewish knowledge. Exercising informed choice is only possible when we learn together and engage in discussion and dialogue. How do we offer our communities diverse ways to do this? How do we help our communities  experience the open, evolving Judaism which emerges when we live the texts, returning to the wellspring and renewing their relationship with the wisdom of our tradition? For just as the sages of the Talmud did for their times, we can (and must) bring our cherished values and hard won knowledge to the interpretation  of our tradition.

If you are looking to bring your community into the ongoing conversation, the CCAR, as your rabbinic membership organization, is continually creating new resources to help with this. That is why we are pleased to introduce the launch of Living Text, the CCAR’s presence on The Tent, the URJ’s collaborative workspace for lay and professional congregational and community leaders. Living Text’s mission is to foster ongoing discussion among scholars, rabbinic and cantorial leaders, educators, and community members, and to share ideas and resources on the CCAR Press’s newest works of thought and practice, as well as on Judaism’s rich library of wisdom literature, classic and contemporary. These texts will serve as the foundation for conversation as we navigate ways to meaningfully engage with Jewish tradition, bringing together past, present, and future.

Please visit, and join our forum. Our launch features Rabbis Rebecca Einstein Schorr and Alysa Mendelson Graf, editors of The Sacred Calling, who are inviting members to talk to them in real time, or view and download video interviews and study guides available on the group page. This is only the beginning. In the coming months, there will be resources for you on the themes of Creation, Israel engagement, and Reform Judaism, all of which will be available for teaching and learning within your communities.

Please explore Living Text, and let us know what you think. Post your comments and questions in the group, so that we can continue to develop new resources for community discussion and learning that you can use. We want to hear from you.

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Rabbi Beth Lieberman serves as executive editor at CCAR Press.  Join CCAR Press in The Tent, in our new group, Living Texts.

Categories
Books Israel

Swiftly Flow the Days

Stanley Davids
Rabbi Stanley Davids, celebrates 50 years in the Rabbinate.

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share how the book came together. The book is officially available for pre-order now from CCAR Press. 

When I sat with David Ben Gurion in his Tel Aviv apartment in 1973, there was no doubt in “The Old Man’s” mind as to what Zionism was: To come to the Land.  To build and to be rebuilt.  To create a new Jew and a new Judaism in the Old/New Land.  He was bemused by the fact that there was push back from some quarters in the Diaspora.  All those ‘Zionists’ had come out to cheer BG in London.  But then he boarded his plane to return to Eretz Yisrael, and they returned to the London suburbs.  So what’s a Zionist?

And then there was the struggle with Jacob Blaustein of the American Jewish Committee.  All Israel’s founder had said was that Jews were obligated to settle in Israel. Blaustein strongly protested against this obvious denigration of the Diaspora, so the Blaustein-Ben Gurion Agreement was signed in 1951.  Blaustein would support the Zionist enterprise from afar and BG would not (often) criticize that distancing.  So what’s a Zionist?

In 1967, it seems that everyone was now a Zionist.  Following the victories of the Six-Day War, Jewish volunteers flooded Israel.  Youth programs expanded dramatically.  Israeli flags flourished on synagogue pulpits across the world.  Heschel wrote: Israel, An Echo of Eternity.  Soviet Jewry began to flex its muscles.  American Jewry was marked by parades, marches and other public events in which our Zionist identities were celebrated with pride.

But with the passing years there were increasing doubts and uncertainties and disappointments.  The world was moving away from the fervent nationalisms that described the mid-20th century.  Israel became controversial.  Some deemed its policy of Occupation to be colonialist or worse.  Ethnicity and peoplehood eroded as the individual was increasingly celebrated.  More wars.  Intifadas.  Ethiopian Jews confronted discrimination, as had the Mizrachim before them.  As do Israeli Arabs.  Reform Judaism was far too often treated as an unwelcome, alien presence.  Huge gaps opened up between the very rich and the very poor.  Was the bloom off the rose?

The nations of the world increasingly felt free from their burden of responsibility for having incited anti-Semitism over the centuries.  But now anti-Semitism was being cloaked in anti-Zionism.  And long suppressed arguments burst forth from within world Jewry.  Too easily accommodating to new norms for discussion, shouting replaced words; ad hominem insults replaced reasoned disagreement; rage replaced discomfort.  We refused to hear anything with which we disagreed.  By the second decade of the 21st century, Jews began boycotting Jews over arguments regarding who and what is a ‘good’ Zionist?  And whose views were the most likely to guarantee Israel’s security?  Battered increasingly from without, we turned on each other.

The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism has the self-assumed role of trying to demonstrate that we Jews must and can learn how to speak with one another about core, existential issues.  This book is intended to be a model for Jewish disagreement about the meaning, purposes and goals of Zionism.  No more demonization.  No more exclusion or banning.  Neither Rabbi Englander nor I have any intention of attempting to define right answers, but only to demonstrate that strongly held positions from within the liberal Jewish community both need to be heard and must be heard.

Does anything go?  Frankly, No.  Our scholars and teachers had to meet one standard: they are firmly committed to the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and Democratic State.

Some of our authors favor the possibility of a One State Solution.  Some favor Two States.  Some favor a nuanced imposition of BDS.  Some see Israel as a Divine gift.  Some reject any claim that Israel is “The beginning of our Redemption.”  Some want us to teach Zionism with an embrace of ambiguity; some see the survival of North American Jewry as dependent upon the survival of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State.  They all have a place in this book; and they all have a place in our synagogues, campuses, and Jewish organizations.  Open wide the umbrella!

Enough banning of Zionist voices with which we are uncomfortable!  Hear each other.  See each other.  Greet each other with respect.  Make space so that our children can find their own, unique liberal Zionist voices – without fear of being ostracized.

In recent days, complaints against the Netanyahu Government over the Kotel and over Conversion have made this book even more important.  The language of liberal, religious Zionism can give us the power to state our demands while not encouraging even more distancing or, worse, indifference.

The liberal Zionist dialogue is fragile, but we must preserve it.  Larry and I have worked with that imperative firmly in mind.

Read as if our future depends upon it.  Because it does.

—

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids serves as rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta, GA. He is also a Co-Editor of CCAR Press’s newest book, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, now officially available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

Categories
Books Israel

It’s Lonely in the Middle

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share how the book came together. The book is officially available for pre-order now from CCAR Press. 

Randy Newman, tongue planted firmly in cheek, wrote a song with the title “It’s Lonely at the Top.”  When it comes to political ideology – and in particular, to Zionism – it’s more like “It’s lonely in the middle.”  That covers a wide range somewhere between Haredi fanatics who want to expel every non-Jew from Greater Israel to those whom I call “template leftists” who see Israel only through the lens of colonialism.  Where do we find the ground to engage in reasonable dialogue, even with those whose perspectives differ from our own, without any side claiming a monopoly on truth?  Where do we find a safe ground for this dialogue to take place?

These questions prompted the vision for the forthcoming book, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism.  In the autumn of 2011, I had guest-edited an issue of the CCAR Journal which contained a symposium on Progressive Religious Zionism.  A few years later, Rabbi Stanley Davids (who had contributed a seminal article to that symposium) took the initiative to suggest that we expand that dialogue between the covers of a book.  Our objective was to garner a wide spectrum of perspectives, ages, and topics.  Now that we have seen the finished product, both of us are very pleased with the result – and we hope that you will be too.

Among other things, I’m happy that every article in the book presents something new and fresh.  I learned something significant from each and every author.  Rather than point to specific articles, I’d like to share some of the insights that I gained from the collection as a whole:

  • I was reminded that, even though the Jewish population of Eretz Yisrael has been scant at times, we as a people have never relinquished our hope for a return.  This constitutes the historical core of our Progressive Religious Zionism.
  • I learned that there is a widening gap between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews with regard to our expressions of Zionism.  We don’t always understand each other.
  • I also read first-hand accounts of the distancing from Israel that is taking place, especially in the United States.  This appears to be due to different factors: discomfort or disagreement with Israeli government policies, fear of being singled out on campus as an Israel supporter, or simple lack of interest.
  • I became convinced that any solution to the above phenomenon will depend on intensive, creative and nuanced educational initiatives.
  • It was also interesting to discover that liberal Zionism is expressed differently in different countries of the Diaspora.  In our book, we gain an insight from the United Kingdom; I hope the exchange between Rabbis Baginsky and Gold will open the door for other nationalities to join the conversation and to learn from each other.
  • I was saddened to read that, for some liberal Zionists, Israel must take second place to their home country in addressing issues of civil society.  I would have hoped that the values of Reform/Progressive Judaism would be applicable – and necessary – for both nations.

These are my impressions after reading the essays in solitude on my computer screen.  But my main hope for our Fragile Dialogue is that it will encourage readers to meet together and to initiate their own dialogues to discuss its contents and to seek meaningful responses.  The book has been deliberately crafted so that a wide range of responses are presented and respectful disagreement is encouraged; and even beyond these, the door remains wide open for further thoughts and plans of action to emerge.  I welcome you to pick up what I truly believe is a great read!

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Rabbi Lawrence A. Englander serves as Rabbi Emeritus of Solel Congregation of Mississauga, Ontario and Adjunct Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Toronto.  He also serves as Chair of ARZENU, the international Reform Zionist organization, until August of 2017.  The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

Categories
Books Israel

What’s in an Anniversary?

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share how the book came together. The book is officially available for pre-order now from CCAR Press. 

On the occasion of Israel’s 8th anniversary Rav Joseph Soloveitchik gave a series of landmark lectures which were later compiled and called “Kol Dodi Dofek” or “The Voice of my Beloved Hearkens.” This quickly became a seminal document in the canon of Religious Zionism which examines clear manifestations of God’s presence in modern historical events. This visionary rabbi – tasked with the mission to rebuild the Orthodox community in a post-Shoah reality – realized that merely 8 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, we were already seeing a drifting apart between the two largest Jewish communities in the world, Israel and North America.  His hope was that these two communities would operate as if they were a person with one body and two heads.[1] Soloveitchik’s argument boiled down is a basic תוכחה (rebuke) or clever commentary on Israeli and American Jewish life that accuses Israelis of being too focused on peoplehood thereby, being weak on Torah values, and American Jews for being weak on peoplehood and mutual responsibility while being overly focused on Religion.  His is a statement claiming that the early development of these two polarities could set a course of furthering one from the other and creating an insurmountable metaphoric (and physical) distance between the two communities.

This year, a year of fortuitous and fateful anniversaries, would that we could reflect back upon the Rav’s assessment and thankfully extol how wrong he was.  But alas…

This year much of the Israel-oriented and Zionist world is hyper-focused on 5777 being:

120 years since the first World Zionist Congress

100 years since the Balfour Declaration

70 years the UN vote to accept the Partition plan on November 29th

50 years since the Six Day war

40 years since the “מהפך”  (the revolutionary moment when Menachem Begin and the Likud rose to power reversing the establishment rule of the Labor party), and the establishment of ARZA(!)

30 years since the first Intifada…

All leading up to the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel which we will celebrate in 5778.

Anniversaries are important, as they mark milestones and offer opportunities for individual and collective heshbon nefesh. They allow to us pause, zoom out and ask ourselves what has happened in the past 100 or 50 years, and whether we have achieved our goals, strayed dangerously from the path of righteousness and justice, or engineer a necessary cause for celebration and affirmation that we fell on the right side of history.

Of all the anniversaries that we mark this year, the Balfour declaration and the Six Day war have been highlighted as the source of discussion, debate and convenient conferencing and teaching. These are important opportunities for engagement with our students, congregants and fellow Jews but we must not let them be used out of context or glorified for more than they are. Use this moment to teach, to read books and evaluate the current situation.  Is this moment a cause for celebration?  There is no question in my mind that it is.  Is this moment a cause for consternation, concern and recognition and that Israel has reached a point of no return, also true? A century after the British Empire awarded us with favour the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” do we not also recognize that Sir Henry McMahon made a similar promise to Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca who then saw the Balfour Declaration as a violation of previous agreements made in their correspondence?  Do we see the Six Day War only in the light of the miraculous victory that saved the State of Israel from imminent destruction, or do we view this moment as the predicate to the military rule over another people?

The answer, I hope, is “Yes, and…”.

Yes, this is cause for celebration and cause for concern and let us not forget that Zionism is about creating the exemplary society that the pioneers romanticized.  It is about liberation, self-determination and creating a society based on the principles of חסד  (chesed – loving kindness) and צדק (tzedek – justice), ones that we hope will prevail for the next 50, 70 and 100 years.  As our contemporary Zionist leader Anat Hoffman often reminds us, that “love is what remains after we know the truth.”  Seek the truth, teach it and preach it, and instill the love that is at the core of who we are and what we do.

Happy anniversaries.

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Rabbi Josh Weinberg is the President of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America, and is a contributor to The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism, now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

 

[1] Shared Suffering: A logical, and natural, consequence of the awareness of a shared predicament would be a commonality of anguish; the sharing by all Jews of each other’s suffering. To illustrate this point, the Rav utilizes a midrash based upon the discussion of the legacy to which a man with two heads is entitled (based on a parable in BT Menahot 37a).
The situations begs the question that if he should receive two shares, or just one; does he constitute two separate entities inhabiting the same body, or just a single entity with diverse appearances?
Answer:   The answer is to have boiling water poured on one of the heads. If it alone cries out in pain, then it is truly separate from the other; if both experience the agony, however, then there is but one.

 

 

Categories
Books High Holy Days Holiday Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Mishkan HaLev: Transported Beyond Words

A prayerbook is a repository of rituals and ceremonies; its language is often formulaic and sometimes feels abstract. Yet the rituals contained within the best prayerbooks also speak to our souls: the recurring idioms (for example, “Baruch atah, Adonai . . .”) create a shared spiritual space in which communities gather to affirm their values and beliefs, define their orientation to the world, and try to make sense of life’s vicissitudes. That is, in addition to teaching us the right steps in the right order, a prayerbook worth its salt must be “real.” Its content should touch our hearts — speaking to the lives we live, while aiming to inspire hope and faith and courage.

And so we come to Mishkan HaLev — a book whose name means “A Sanctuary of the Heart” (or “a dwelling place of the heart”). Mishkan HaLev is largely a response — albeit a partial one — to a single question: how do Reform Jews prepare for the High Holy Days? Here is what we learned by asking that question in a CCAR survey several years ago: (1) serious Reform Jews value preparation because they recognize the unique character of these holy days; (2) some Reform Jews have found interesting, creative ways to prepare for the Days of Awe — the season of introspection, repentance, and forgiveness; and (3) many have yet to figure out how to make time for meaningful preparation, but would like to do so. What is the goal of Mishkan HaLev? Its main purpose is to encourage more people to be better prepared, spiritually and emotionally, for the High Holy Days— and we hope that those who pray its prayers, read its poetry, and study its commentary are enriched by the experience.

Mishkan HaLev is comprised of two sections: Shabbat Evening Service for the Month of Elul; and S’lichot: Songs of Forgiveness for the Season of Return. The Shabbat service is intended for all Friday evenings during Elul, the month that leads to Rosh HaShanah; in addition, it includes the liturgical insertions for Shabbat Shuvah — the “Sabbath of Return” between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. The S’lichot service is the CCAR’s first new S’lichot liturgy since Gates of Forgiveness was published in 1980. Both services contain many choices for communal worship, study, and discussion, as well as diverse options for private devotion and inspiration — in particular, the “Meditative Amidah” for Friday evening and abundant poetry. Both are designed, as well, to serve as resources for educational programs leading up to the High Holy Days.

Many poems appear in these pages, because, as Edward Hirsch has written, “poetry is a soul-making activity.” At its best, poetry celebrates the gift that allows human beings to see things differently, to remake the world, and to reinterpret received ideas and traditions. Reading a poem can stir within us a sense of intimacy and even urgency.

Why have we called this prayerbook “Mishkan HaLev — A Sanctuary of the Heart”?

Love is the theme of the month of Elul, in part because the initial Hebrew letters of Song of Songs 6:3 — “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li) — spell out the word Elul. Our Sages saw the verse as expressing the tender mutual devotion that makes t’shuvah possible. If we turn with open hearts to the Holy One, they taught, God is forever ready to embrace us with love.

No prayerbook can choreograph the turning of our hearts to God and to other people; nor can it possibly choreograph their loving responses to us. Such events are profound and unique; often they are transcendent — moments in which we are transported entirely beyond words, and far beyond the pages of the prayerbook. But it is our hope that Mishkan HaLev will challenge all of us to open our hearts and minds to the possibility of such moments in our lives. May this prayerbook help us to make Elul a time of profound introspection, self-examination, and turning.

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Rabbi Sheldon Marder is currently the Rabbi and Department Head of Jewish Life at the Jewish Home of San Francisco. Rabbi Marder is the co-editor, translator, writer, and commentator of Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe, published by CCAR Press in 2015, as well as the co-editor of Mishkan HaLev: Prayers for S’lichot and the Month of Elul, a companion prayerbook to Mishkan HaNefesh. He is also the contributor to other publications, such as Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh: A Guide to the CCAR Machzor, published by CCAR Press in 2016; and CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Summer 2013 issue.