Category: Books

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Books

The Sacred Calling: Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling of Traditionalism

“Ultimately, I think that anyone of any level of Jewish literacy can find something in The Sacred Calling that will inspire them to see the possibilities offered by the Reform world to join this fight, and to take this fight out into the world at large.”

 

The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate, newly published by CCAR Press, examines the ways in which the reality of women in the rabbinate has impacted upon all aspects of Jewish life. Andrue Kahn, rising 4th year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York and author of The Sacred Calling Study Guide, talks about the impact that both women rabbis and the book itself have made in his own life.

Q: Describe your first encounter with a woman rabbi.

A: Growing up, I don’t think I ever encountered a woman rabbi. Certainly not at my synagogue, which was a very small synagogue in Tacoma, Washington. There were women on the bimah, and cantorial soloists, and women from the congregation that would share music or words, but there was never a female rabbi. I don’t remember encountering one until I was an adult.

One woman rabbi that, since adulthood, has impacted my life is Rabbi Lisa Rubin. When I met her, I was already thinking about becoming a rabbi, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go to rabbinical school, or get a PhD in Jewish studies or something to that effect, and she really pushed me to apply to HUC-JIR. She married me and my wife and we remain in contact with her. She really embodies the kind of rabbinate that I want, and she’s an incredible mentor and woman.

Q: How has the presence of women rabbis influenced our Jewish communities? Do you see changes in Jewish life attributed to women entering the rabbinate?

A: I think that there was a lot of stagnation in the Jewish world for a while because people, and especially people in leadership positions, had become comfortable in their roles. I think the experience of being a woman in America pushes women to work harder, think harder, and, unfortunately, to prove themselves in a world that is still mostly dominated by men.  And women, having to fight to break into this world dominated by men, broke boundaries and stirred up new innovation that the people who were in seats of power (who were all men) wouldn’t have done. And having to break through that glass ceiling of traditionalism made it inherent that they become more creative, and more comfortable with breaking boundaries.

Q: You wrote the study guide for The Sacred Calling. How is the book structured?

A: The structure of The Sacred Calling is really great in that it starts out looking at the history of women in Judaism in general. It examines women who attempted to and often succeeded in taking leadership roles in Jewish history, and then goes on to look at the process of allowing women to become rabbis from within the Reform Movement. Eventually, it examines the process from within the Conservative and Reconstructionist Movements. From different women’s points of view, we read the stories of the initial struggles of the past, as well of women who are still struggling with inequality in the rabbinate (in both pay and leadership positions).

Q: What surprised you about the book? Did you learn something you didn’t know before?

A: Reading about the influence of Reform rabbis on ritual was really, really interesting and surprising, in that I had never thought about the fact that women who would break through the boundary of becoming a clergy member would, of course, also have to fight to have their needs met in Jewish ritual and liturgy. Because of this fight, breaking boundaries would create this great blossoming in our nation that we’re still benefiting from. Just the idea of having to reinvent everything to suit underrepresented voices allowed for innovations in different kinds of rituals.

Q: What do you believe is the importance of the book?

A: For me personally, the importance of The Sacred Calling is that I, as a man, take so much for granted, and therefore assume that the struggles presented in the book aren’t as present as they clearly are. Women still struggle against a male-dominated society. And it might happen a little less obviously, but there are still issues specifically faced by women that men don’t often get to hear about in the detail that we find in this book. I also think that it could be very powerful for women in the rabbinate and outside the rabbinate to read the stories, and to know that there are people facing these issues. This book is full of stories of women who have had these kinds of experiences, from ancient times to today (when we are still fighting against issues with family leave, equal pay, and even just daily sexism).

The Sacred Calling Study Guide

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Andrue Kahn, a rising 4th year rabbinical student, is doing a student residency at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, and in the coming year he will be the organizing rabbinic intern at East End Temple in Manhattan.

Excerpted from the filming of the official trailer for The Sacred Calling. Watch the official trailer now.

Categories
Books gender equality

A Sacred Calling as a Sacred Role

“My Judaism encourages me to focus on a personal relationship with God, to know myself, and to know God; to use my skills and strengths in making the world a better place. I think it’s a universal mission and has nothing to do with gender. I think Judaism encourages us to think about what everybody’s sacred role is.”

The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate, newly published by CCAR Press, examines the ways in which the reality of women in the rabbinate has impacted upon all aspects of Jewish life. Upon the publication of The Sacred Calling, we sat down with (now Rabbi) Toba Schaller, approximately the 760th woman to be ordained by Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and 5th year rabbinical student at the time of the interview, to discuss the impact of women in the rabbinate upon a woman and mother about to embark on her own journey as a newly ordained clergy member.Sacred Calling

Q. What made you decide that you wanted to be a rabbi? In other words, what was your sacred calling?

A. I grew up in rural Texas in a very small Jewish community. I went to Jewish summer camp and I studied Jewish studies and anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. After a few years, I found myself in my twenties not knowing what I wanted to do and working as a cocktail waitress at a bar. I became friends with the daughter of the bar owner, who was eleven years old. She started asking me questions about Judaism. Her father asked me if I would pick her up from school one day a week and formally teach her Jewish values, Jewish culture, and basic Hebrew. I then found myself asking for Friday nights off of work so I could take her to synagogue and to family holiday events with me. At some point I said to her, “How did this happen? If you had asked me before, I would have said I was living a totally secular life.” And she said to me, “You talk about being Jewish all the time, and you love Judaism.” She told me that other waitresses in the bar talk about their boyfriends or what’s on TV, and that she heard me debating the value of faith in the world with customers at the bar. I think she really helped me realize that the Torah was in me, whether I recognized it or not, and that what I really love to do is talk, think, and do Torah. After the next few years of working in the Jewish community, I knew that I was ready to be a student instead of a teacher: I was ready for rabbinical school. I was twenty eight when I applied to rabbinical school.

Q. What interested you most in The Sacred Calling and why?

A. Something I appreciated in the history of women in the rabbinate was the lesson about the importance of mentorship in successfully bringing people in from the margins, as well as the importance of membership to the overall success of new clergy members. I feel really lucky that I have had such wonderful mentors at HUC-JIR, and now through the CCAR, as we head into the field.

After reading The Sacred Calling, I feel really lucky to have been given different models for what a rabbinic career can look like. The book has allowed me to see myself as a mother and a woman and a rabbi much more easily.

Q. Debra Reed Blank talks about “the tension between feminism and Judaism” in her chapter, “Making Up for Lost Time: Female Rabbis and Ritual Change” (p. 433). Do you think that this tension is inherent in Judaism or was it developed and encouraged as an interpretation of Judaism by groups trying to keep the power contained within the constraints of their own system?

A. I don’t think there’s tension at all between feminism and Judaism. I have found that my feminism is really informed by my Judaism and vice versa, and I haven’t found conflicts in the Judaism that I know and that I experience. I have seen it in other forms of Judaism, and in other ways of practicing Judaism, but, ultimately, I think that any challenges between feminism and Judaism come from the way Judaism is interpreted, and are not inherent to the religion. I find Judaism really empowering.

Q. There is a chapter in the book by Denise Eger titled “Creating Opportunities for the ‘Other.’” Rabbi Eger talks about the mere act of ordaining women as an important contribution to the inclusion of the “other” in Judaism. What do you see as the next challenges to be met in the struggle towards equal rights in Judaism? What are the next barriers and how do you envision breaking them?

A. I think we’ve come a long way when it comes to the LGBTQ community. We’ve become much more open to queer identity. But we’re not all the way there, and we still have a long way to go before we are really open to people who don’t fit the gender binary.

We’re working on it at HUC-JIR and, for the first time, at least since I’ve been there, we have a gender-inclusive bathroom, which seems like a little thing, but took a long time. It’s a huge step in the right direction, but, as I said, we still have a long way to go.

I am personally really active in working towards inclusions for interfaith families in the places that I work. This, I know, is the big talking point of the movement right now, but it has been for a really long time, you know? Alexander Schindler put it on the agenda in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and it’s still something that we haven’t figured out how to do fully. I look forward, in my rabbinate, to working on inclusion. I want to make sure that people on the edges of our community are welcome.

I think The Sacred Calling can help us think inclusively; I think there are lessons in the book from the women who fought their way to leadership roles and, in so doing, taught us to bring other marginalized groups into the center. And I think that women have come a long way, but we’re not all the way there yet either, and that perspective helps us to be more inclusive of other members of our community.

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Rabbi Toba Schaller graduated from HUC-JIR in 2016 and is now Rabbi and Director of Lifelong Learning at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshrun of Wisconsin.

Excerpted from the official book trailer of The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate.  Watch the trailer now.

 

Categories
Books

Aspiring to Shabbat: Gates of Shabbat Revised

I think Shabbat is an aspiration.

I think Shabbat is also a brilliant, healing, gracious gift from our tradition.

But for most modern Jews, Shabbat is also not a given.  They/we “aspire” to the possibility of a day set aside.  They/we pretty much know what the world might feel like if we could enter the “Gates of Shabbat,” but it somehow doesn’t quite happen as much as we might wish it to be so.

All this is why I’ve taken a journey over the last few years along with several colleagues and friends to revise the book, Gates of Shabbat, which I helped create back in 1991.Gates of Shabbat Revised Edition Cover Image Final

To be honest, when Rabbi Hara Person first asked if I wanted to revisit Gates of Shabbat, I wasn’t sure what else to say about Shabbat that wasn’t already in the existing text.

Then I began to think and I realized that, although Shabbat remains Shabbat, the world around Shabbat has changed substantially in these last 25 years.  A changed world has to inspire new ways to engage the seventh day, and that is what emerged as Gates of Shabbat, Version 2.0…Version 2016 took shape.

Here are a few of the developments that my committee and I responded to as we developed the new book.

First, we noted that technology has transformed our lives in ways we couldn’t have anticipated years ago.  If we were “busy” in 1991, we are busier still today.  We are plugged in 24/7.  We are bombarded with news and connections to the world that have a life of their own.  Is it for good or is it all for bad?  I won’t tell you how we resolved the issue, but the new Gates of Shabbat does address the critical intersection of Shabbat and electronics.

Here’s a related development.  As a result of the Internet, we communicate differently.  A new kind of “literature” has developed.  People blog.  People tell stories.  People share first-person narratives about their experience in ways that were not a part of our lives earlier.  The new Gates of Shabbat will do the same.  We have assembled fourteen original reflections from both laypeople and rabbis.  Each small essay offers readers a new and personal way of encountering Shabbat.

And, of course, the world has changed insofar as new family constellations have become part of the landscape.  As expected, the new Gates of Shabbat will speak to those who are married with children, but it will also speak to households without children, to same-sex couples, to singles, and to a new growing population – those who are retired.  Here is a question that just didn’t occur to us 25 years ago:  What does Shabbat mean for retirees who are more less “free” every day?

Finally, these last 25 years have seen a new dimension of Jewish life emerge.  Or to put it more accurately, during these last few decades our liberal Jewish world has shown renewed interest in classic matters like spirituality and faith.  Meditation and mindfulness are part of our new vocabulary.  As a result, the new Gates of Shabbat introduces texts from Chasidic literature.  Readings from Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav and Rabbi  Zalman Schachter-Shalomi are part of the mix.  You can even find several places in the new book entitled, Creating Holy Moments.  They are designed to help readers slow down and cultivate a deeper sense of k’dushah in Shabbat.

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All in all, I hope Gates of Shabbat 2016 brings something refreshing and important to the search for Shabbat.  I believe the book can speak to vatikim because it contains what was best about the earlier volume along with the innovations mentioned above plus some wonderful new texts and readings.  I believe too that the book will read well for those who are considering the seventh day for the very first time.

Personally, I love the book because, among its many offerings, I continue to be moved by two very brief poems that capture my sense of Shabbat’s magic.

 a day

stillness

 

—

Mark Shapiro is Rabbi Emeritus of Sinai Temple in Springfield, MA.  He is the editor of Gates of Shabbat, which is now available for pre-order and will be ready in time for Fall Classes.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

A Summer Journey with Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh

It was another blazing July afternoon in New York City. Wearing khaki shorts, sandals, and a white linen shirt, I stepped into the sun-drenched West Side of Central Park. I diverged from the path momentarily, stopping near a park bench to check the hours for the Metropolitan Museum of Art on my phone, before trekking across the park to see their Egyptology exhibits. A man seated there in a checkered shirt, jeans, and sunglasses called out to me from behind his newspaper, “That’s a great book! Have you finished it yet?” Nearly dropping my phone, I gazed at him quizzically. He smiled at me. I blinked. He couldn’t have possibly meant the copy of Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh that I had in my hand, could he? “You see, I’m a Native American, but I’m also Jewish. On my dad’s side…” I squinted my eyes in confused disbelief, trying to understand how he could know this book. His appearance, ethnicity, and religious background had no bearing for me whatsoever, but somehow he now seemed perturbed that I would doubt him. “How could you have read this book? It hasn’t been released yet,” I asked. With a slight air of indignation he said, “I’m an author. I received an advance copy from Simon & Schuster. Four months ago…” I stared him square in the eyes and slowly shook my head with an audible “Hmph.” He doesn’t know the book or the publisher and he is clearly lying to me. But why? “Hmph.” he retorted, imitating me, continuing his charade. “I am writing a blog article about the book,” I said, “This one advance copy was given to me by the CCAR, the publisher of the book. So…if you really read it, then tell me, what is it about?” The man coolly responded while returning to his newspaper, “It’s about a journey. Life’s a journey.” With that, I said, “Okay, thanks. Have a great day…” and continued down the path to the East Side.

I passed a potpourri of musicians who were busking in the shaded parts of the park. A diversity of divertissements. There was the accordion player, the classical guitarist, the jazz guitarist, the violinist, the singer-songwriter. I needed a diversion to get the strange encounter I just had out of my head, but I couldn’t figure out why he had lied about the book. As I drifted past Sheep Meadow, the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, the Loeb Boathouse, and the Conservatory Pond, eventually winding my way up to the Met, my thoughts evaporated in the hot sun. The only thing left of the conversation in my mind were his last words. “Life’s a journey.” I pondered the collective journeys of everyone who visited or worked in the park, who built the park, and who paid to preserve the monuments and buildings. And then I meandered through the Egyptian exhibits at the Met. There were so many things to see, I couldn’t possibly process it all in one day, and I left wishing I had a guide – a Divrei Mitzrayim.DivreiMhN - no crop marks

So I took a break after visiting the museum and sat in a cafe to finish reading through Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh. I finished the commentaries, the essays, and then took a look at the indexes and tables. It struck me that there was a lot of incredibly useful and even entertaining information in the book. At times I imagined it was an episode from VH1: Behind the Machzor, only with more rabbinical commentary than music. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little to myself as obscure facts about sources and rationales behind decisions became apparent. The phrases like “The God of Max Janowski is a Zealous God,” as well as naming the sources for many of the traditional prayers the  “Goldschmidt Variations,” made this cantor and Bach aficionado laugh out loud. I looked up from the book slightly embarrassed, as I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to have been laughing or not. After all, this is a clergy commentary on a High Holy Day machzor. It could have been a very dry book of useful information, but instead it revealed a very human quality.

The book made me feel as though I was in the room with the committee, deliberating over something as seemingly inconsequential as one letter, like whether we should say “HaMelech HaYosheiv” or “HaMelech yosheiv,” which in actuality can be a profound difference once it is explained. Reading the commentary and essays helped me to appreciate the incredible amount of scholarship, time, and collaboration that went into producing the High Holiday machzor, as well as the weight and intensity with which they must have deliberated over its details. I was greatly appreciative of my colleague, Cantor Evan Kent, who must have reminded the committee of the impact that changes in the liturgy have on the music and congregational participation for the High Holidays. The voice of the cantor and the importance of the music on the High Holidays was felt throughout the decision-making process. And reading the resonant words of Rabbi Leon Morris and Rabbi Hara Person brought me back to our time working together at my first High Holiday pulpit as a cantorial student in the Hamptons and at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, evoking fond memories of my personal journey.

Reading Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh also made me look forward to the High Holy Days this year. We at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue are rolling out our new Mishkan HaNefesh machzors for the first time this fall. While I was initially impatient and disappointed not to have gotten the machzor when it was published last year, in retrospect I am glad that we waited so we would have the opportunity to read Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh and be able to put more thought into our decisions, just as this machzor committee did. Like the ancient ruins of Egypt that had old blocks of granite that were reused to create the cornerstones of newer structures, the committee gave deference and respect to the old volume of Gates of Repentance while charting a new course. They recognized that the process was a human endeavor and that in the end there will likely be mistakes that are spotted and later corrected. In their long journey to create the commentaries and essays they recognized the humanity within themselves as well as the diversity of the Reform movement, and teach us lessons not only on why they did what they did, but how we too may collaborate as clergy and lay people to create meaningful new experiences that build upon the best of our past.

I never asked the man in the park why he was lying. He may have hoped to impress me. Perhaps he was lonely. Or trying to divert my attention from my phone. Or eager to connect with someone. I will never know why. But I know that the strange little journey I took that day, as if back in time to our days of captivity in Egypt, made me contemplate the journeys we all take and how the people who we encounter along the way have the capacity to alter our perspective and enrich experiences with as little as one book, one word, or even one letter.

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Cantor Daniel A. Singer serves Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan. He has served on the Executive Board of the American Conference of Cantors for two years. 

Categories
Books Technology

High-Tech & High-Touch Visual T’filah at URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy

A camp that blends Reform Jewish values with science and technology is practically a dream-come-true for me.  It only makes sense that as the Digital Media Manager of the CCAR, I should spend a week there on faculty.  I can confidently say that both the camp and I grew from the experience. I had conversations about apps & ebooks, Minecraft & Star Wars, and even gave a drash on how God is like wifi. But perhaps the most exciting part of my visit was spending time working with campers and staff to create the Visual T’filah for Shabbat services.dan 2

At the end of services, the camp director, Greg Kellner, climbed the steps to the bimah to address the community. I could see that he had been moved to tears.  When he asked all of the campers who played a role in creating the Visual T’filah to rise, we were all taken aback when roughly half the camp stood.  “I can’t believe so many of you helped create this Visual T’filah,” he exclaimed. “And I can’t believe how beautiful it is!”  Whether they explored camp taking pictures in the “Spiritual Photography” chug (elective) or we recorded a video of them explaining their own Jewish evolution, these campers were meaningfully engaged in crafting the payer service for all of camp.  And they were proud!

While Visual T’filah has already become a regular part of the Sci-Tech camp experience, I was fortunate to be able to bring my decade of experience creating Visual T’filah to raise the production and design to new levels.  The hardworking camp educator, HUC-JIR rabbinic student Rachel Heaps, has dodan 1ne amazing work so far. However, the finite amount of time she is able to dedicate to creating the Visual T’filah each week, given her other responsibilities around camp, meant that her scope was limited.  Now with the introduction of the CCAR Visual T’filah Template (which includes the text of Mishkan T’filah prepared and formatted for the big screen) as well as a few other stylistic and design upgrades, her task will be much easier each week.

I was also blessed to be able to utilize some of the special camp resources to explore some new techniques.  Campers were filmed in front of one of the camp’s green screens, allowing the campers to appear to be standing in front of the beautiful images taken by the campers in “Spiritual Photography.”  Campers faded in and out in succession to tell how their relationship to Judaism has been enhanced by rabbis, by camp, and by other people and events. Then as the last camper in each video group faded out, the prayers themselves appeared floating over the images selected to convey the meaning and spirit of the prayers.  The result was a seamless prayer experience, greater than the sum of its parts.

It is my great pleasure to experience and demonstrate how the use of Visual T’filah can increase engagement and participation, and play an important role in crafting a meaningful prayer experience.  To be able to offer my time and expertise to enhance a community’s prayer life is really a gift.  I look forward to seeing how the continued use of Visual T’filah at Sci-Tech engages and inspires the campers, and how Visual T’filah can continue to transform prayer in other communities as well.

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Rabbi Dan Medwin is the Digital Media Manager at the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  Check out his blog from last year’s camp as well. 

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

5 Things That I Seek at The High Holy Days, and How Mishkan HaNefesh Helps Me to Find Them

Following several months of service sampling in a program that engaged over 60 of our members, our congregation adopted Mishkan HaNefesh and introduced it to the whole congregation last year. The feedback was universally positive. Here I highlight five things that I seek at the High Holy Days and, with reference to the new accompanying guide, Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh, illustrate how our new machzor intentionally goes about addressing those needs.

1) I want to fully engage in the liturgical flow of the High Holy Days in ways that are spiritually meaningful to me.

I want to emerge from the Yamim Noraim feeling like I’ve been helped to engage in a process of introspective teshuvah and, when necessary, to feel spiritually driven to verbalize that teshuvah to others. As Rabbi Eddie Goldberg explains in Divrei Miskhan HaNefesh (p.61), this is what the editors of Mishkan HaNefesh consciously hoped the machzor could support, by ‘designing the best “map” possible.’ That map saw the services as building up ‘… to a climax where painful truths are realized, change is considered and adopted, and the individual leaves with a plan for self-improvement.’ (ibid).  Rabbi Janet Marder points to some translation choices, such as ‘The ways we have wronged You… and harm we have caused in Your world’ instead of ‘The sin we have sinned before You’ as just one way that the language of the liturgy could better draw us in and help us ‘to arrive at a more honest assessment of human misbehavior’ (p.70).  The use of Mussar-inspired character traits in the Yom Kippur Mincha service is another way of engaging me in authentic spiritual work. As Rabbi Marder explains, ‘The goal of cheshbon hanefesh (moral inventory), after all, is not self-condemnation but an honest, realistic assessment of both our weaknesses and our strengths, our right and wrong actions.”CORRECT-MACHZOR-NEW

2) I want a machzor where reading in English still feels like prayer.

Over the past few years, I’ve found myself whittling away more and more of the English in Gates of Repentance, replacing it with alternative readings, kavvanot, and meditations. Part of my personal challenge with the text was a sense of a universal ‘we’ in the language used that often conveyed theological or other sentiments that did not resonate with me. Instead of drawing me to a deeper place, it pushed me away.

I know my experience is not unique, because the editors of Mishkan HaNefesh intentionally created a multi-vocal text in which many more people can find themselves and their inner thoughts and conceptions of the holy mirrored back to them. There are readings that use the language of science to invoke awe or moral conviction. There are poems that convey struggle, theological ambivalence, and a search for truth (p.81).  In particular, the well-selected poetry that echoes the themes of traditional prayers on facing pages open up the prayer experience. As Rabbi Sheldon Marder explains in Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh, ‘Poems do not preach or dictate to us – they are not dogmatic; rather, they are suggestive, evocative, and open-ended. A poem can turn a statement of belief into a question for our consideration’ (p.107).  His approach to translation of the traditional liturgy was ‘faithful’ in that it aimed to present the ideas, feelings and values in the expression of prayer more than a word for word correspondence (p.87). This is one of the great successes of the new machzor.

3) My personal theology is not one that upholds the notion of a personal, judging God, in any literal way, and I want a prayer book that enables me to find a spiritually honest way to make prayer real while remaining true to my sense of God.DivreiMhN - no crop marks

Rabbi Elaine Zecher explains the way that the machzor presents an ‘integrated theology’ that ‘allows for dissonant and harmonious ideas to work together, to open up broader possibilities of what it might even mean to express a belief in a greater Power in the universe’ (p.113).   This approach enables many people to find a way to pray authentically with the new machzor.  This integrated approach does more than just reflect back the God of my imagination to me. By juxtaposing so many different theological expressions with the choice of readings, poems, prayers, and commentaries, I am able to see the partial truths in these other expressions of theology as they open up new possibilities for me.

4) I am seeking greater variety in the ways that the Torah service can more deeply enhance my High Holy Day experience.

Like many of my congregants, I find the Akeidah a troubling text, but I’ve always been particularly drawn to Genesis 21 (the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael) for the High Holy Days. Now, along with several other traditional and alternative selections, I can reintroduce it to my congregation without handouts. Exploring the emotional landscape of the characters (Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael) especially lends itself to important behavioral insights that we can really use in our lives. Watching fear, jealousy, anxiety and more play out in the narrative, and searching for hope at a life moment that seems bleak… these are themes that our people can relate to much more deeply. Last year, in our family service, we even created a modern midrashic play, with the help of some of my sixth graders, watching the story play out with the commentary of the emotional characters of  ‘Inside Out.’  But there are so many ways to read this powerful text. Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh (p.35-37) offers yet another narrative that looks at the themes of loneliness, and compassion for those who live on the margins.

5) I want to more deeply understand and be engaged by the richness of our tradition.

My congregation, geographically placed as a hub in Central Massachusetts that draws members from nearly 30 towns, consists of those who come from Orthodox and Conservative backgrounds, as well as Reform and non-Jewish backgrounds. We offer multiple services, allowing us to vary styles considerably. One morning service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is intentionally grounded in more traditional liturgy, and more Hebrew. The new machzor enables us to conduct this service with even more integrity than we could with Gates of Repentance.  Rabbi Leon Morris describes this as a ‘hermeneutic of embrace’ that ‘… urges us to see the classic siddur and machzor as the poetry of the Jewish people.’  It is ‘… rooted in the idea that the classic text has a great deal to teach us – and that our primary task is to realize how it might be reframed, explained, or translated in such a way as to allow it to live again in our Reform synagogues’ (p. 95). By re-instating parts of the liturgy that had been removed, but doing so in ways that juxtapose those texts with new insights and alternative multi-vocal texts, we can find ways to reconnect with these traditional liturgies.

The new machzor has addressed so much of what I was seeking and yearning for as a guide to navigate my way through the High Holy Days. Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh is filled with essays and commentaries that help to articulate why it has achieved its goals so successfully.

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Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.

Categories
Books

The Sacred Calling: A Call to Action

“The Sacred Calling is not just an important historical narrative—it is a call to action.”

The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate, newly published by CCAR Press, examines the ways in which the reality of women in the rabbinate has impacted upon all aspects of Jewish life. Rabbi Peter Berg, Senior Rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta, GA, sits down to talk about the progress we’ve made in the last four decades and the distance we still have left to travel.

Q: In a chapter in the book titled “Creating Opportunities for the ‘Other,’” Rabbi Denise Eger states the significance of women’s ordination in the inclusion of the “other” in Judaism. What are the next challenges to be faced?

A: The ordination of women as rabbis opened up the door for the “other” in a way that we never could have fully understood. Today, we look at the community around us, and ask, “What is the next big hurdle before us?” I think it unfolds in the following way: first of all, as Rabbi Eger mentions in the book, gay and lesbian and transgender Jews do not get to enjoy the same equality in the placement process that female rabbis now enjoy. The second is Jews of color. We have so many Jews of color here in Atlanta, and it won’t be long before some decide to go to rabbinic school. They are great teachers and great scholars, and we’ll have to figure out how we, as a Reform Movement, will accept more Jews of color as part of our rabbinate. The third and final area that I think we have to look at is Jews who converted to Judaism earlier in their life, and now are rabbis. We have members of our congregation who are looking at rabbinical school who are converts, and there’s incredible discrimination in the Jewish community towards those who converted and are therefore perceived as not fully authentic.Sacred Calling

Q: What barriers still exist for women rabbis?

A:  There are many challenges that our female colleagues face, and I’ll just enumerate a few of them. The first, I think, is salary discrepancy. It’s far more pronounced in the rabbinate than most people believe. Women clergy earn 76 cents on the dollar, and the reason why that’s so problematic is that the national average pay gap is 83 cents. So women clergy are earning less on the dollar than they would with most other jobs in the United States.

The second would be in paid family leave. We’ve really only just begun the conversations about paid family leave. All of our European counterparts figured out a long time ago that paid family leave benefits not only the mother, but also the congregation when the rabbi comes back to work. I believe we have a long way to go in not just tolerating paid family leave, but encouraging it, and speaking about it with the support that it deserves.

The third area of challenge is in the placement process. We have come a long way over the years, and if you look at the demographics in the country today, so many women rabbis serve in some of the greatest congregations in the country. But there are still some areas of the country where women have a far more difficult time in the placement process than their male counterparts.

A final challenge that I think our female colleagues face is acceptance in the wider Jewish community. We’re fortunate here in Atlanta that our Modern Orthodox colleagues sit at the table with our women rabbis. They call them “rabbi,” and they work with them with great honor. But in many places in the country, this is not the case, and our female colleagues are not afforded the same honor that our male colleagues enjoy. And I think we have a responsibility to try to equal the playing field on that front.

I believe that men and male rabbis can be feminist rabbis as well. It’s a different kind of feminist rabbi, obviously, but we have a responsibility to make sure that our female colleagues enjoy the same benefits and the same options in the placement system that male rabbis have enjoyed for many, many decades.

Q: What purpose do you believe The Sacred Calling to serve? What is the importance of the book?

A: The Sacred Calling is as much a historical perspective as it is a calling to all of us today. I believe it is required reading for all rabbis, for all cantors, for all Jewish educators, and all Jewish professionals. Every single congregational leader has a responsibility to read this important book.

Most people don’t know our history; they don’t understand that it was in the early ‘70s that Sally Priesand first became a rabbi. So the first important reason that we need this book is to help our congregants understand the significance of women becoming rabbis. And the second is to figure out what we can do now to make sure that the challenges that are on the table for women rabbis – pay equity, the placement process, acceptance in the wider community, paid family medical leave – all of these challenges are addressed and understood, and that they truly are one of the social justice issues of our time. This book is the moral calling that will help us understand not just the historical perspective, but also how we can take those challenges that still exist and build a better rabbinate for the future.

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Rabbi Peter Berg serves The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia.  

Excerpted from the filming of the official trailer for The Sacred Calling. Watch the official trailer now. 

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

Theological Dialectics: Balancing Competing Values in Mishkan HaNefesh Pt. II

In my previous entry I discussed Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh, a new commentary on the CCAR machzor. I also described some of the dialectical issues facing its editors — those tensions that arose as they navigated competing values throughout the seven-year editorial process. This time, I will focus on God.

Judaism yearns for God in endless shades of metaphor, and Mishkan HaNefesh honors that theological breadth. Rooted in sources from antiquity to modernity, the many depictions invite us into a nuanced theological conversation at a time when God can seem especially harsh and distant.

Liturgy is where the rubber hits the road for most Jews, theologically speaking. The editorial team seized the opportunity to offer new access points to worshipers. The sources they included expand notions of God and the human-divine relationship far beyond traditional prayer language. Some of these most powerful dialectics include: Faith and doubt; din and rachamim (judgment and compassion); and divine power and human agency.

Faith and DoubtIMG_0555

See Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh Index of Themes, “Theological doubt and struggle, or outright unbelief,” p. 133; “Science and scientists,” p. 132; and “Scientific language in poetry,” pp. 132-133. 

Doubt can be an act of reverence; proof that we spiritual seekers are taking our search seriously. Alongside the many pronouncements of faith, Mishkan HaNefesh makes room for serious questions about divine power and the nature of evil — questions based in Jewish tradition. Editor Rabbi Janet Marder cites the reading “Who is like you among the silent?”[1] which presents a powerful counter-text for Mi Chamocha, in which the addition of a single Hebrew letter turns eilim (gods) to il’mim (the silent [literally, mute] ones) — transforming a prayer in praise of God’s redemptive power to a cry of anguish, denouncing God’s silence in the face of human suffering.[2]

The phrase comes directly from the M’khilta, and the tone of enraged protest was inspired by medieval Jewish poetry from the crusader period. While certainly subversive, this reading is also authentically Jewish: it voices the sorrow, doubt, and sense of abandonment of generations of oppressed Jews.

Notably, the new machzor reaches out to those who struggle with faith. Some readings express skeptical curiosity; others, outright doubt. Rabbi Marder writes:

Some readings are drawn from the writings of scientists who express their own spiritual longing, sense of wonder, or moral convictions. These words… are placed in dialogue with the liturgy — a juxtaposition that conveys the clear message that science and religion may fruitfully co-exist. This machzor also includes contemporary poetry that celebrates the grandeur of creation in quasi-scientific language…Finally, many readings and poems directly articulate theological ambivalence, difficulty with prayer, anger, struggle, and the search for truth.[3]

Din and Rachamim

See Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh Index of Themes,”’Recognizing the good’ and self-forgiveness,” p. 132.

Mishkan HaNefesh urges us to consider the attributes of judgement and mercy in new ways. In particular, readings concerning hakarat hatov (recognizing the good) direct us toward the laudable deeds of the past year in addition to the regrettable ones. (See YK pp. 93, 312, 313, 424, 425, 659, and 667). These good deeds “Serve as a counterweight to the liturgy’s intense focus on scrutiny of one’s own wrongdoing. They also highlight a damaging moral failing — quite pervasive but usually not acknowledged in the prayer book: the inability to regard one’s own behavior with the same gentleness and forgiveness we are expected to offer others.”[4]

When worshipers consider the full range of their actions and emotions as part of heshbon hanefesh (spiritual self-audit), they affirm a point of connection between humanity and divinity. Like God, we have infinite potential for good, but we make mistakes. Like God, we have the ability to forgive. And for many of us, forgiving ourselves is the most difficult forgiveness of all.

Divine Power and Human Agency

See Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh Index of Themes, “Theology of human empowerment”, pp. 133-134

Many familiar liturgical metaphors of the Yamim Nora’im are quite grim: humans as sheep passing under God’s rod and staff; or as guilty children subject to the discipline of a strict parent. Mishkan HaNefesh retains these images, but supplements them with a variety of rabbinic, medieval and modern sources that reframe the power differential.

Take the iconic and terrifying Unetaneh Tokef. This piyyut (liturgical poem) envisions God as judge and arbiter of all creation, deciding (in gory detail!) the fates of every soul. Mishkan HaNefesh retains the piyyut, but includes a “counter-text” immediately opposite:

Left Side (“counter-text”) Right Side (translation)
Let us embrace the day and its holiness,

For this day is a throne of goodness and power.

When the people of Israel do God’s will,

They strengthen God’s power on high.

But when the people of Israel fail to do God’s will,

They weaken — if one might say it —

God’s great power on high.

So let this day recall Your power — and ours.

 Let us proclaim the power of this day —

A day whose holiness awakens deepest awe

(…)

In truth,

You are judge and plaintiff, counselor and witness.

The right side affirms the familiar hierarchical theology of the Yamim; the left side challenges it. The covenant is still hierarchical, but humans have some agency; some role to play in the relationship and in the world. The editors of Mishkan HaNefesh deem this the “theology of human adequacy.”

It is a theology thoroughly grounded in rabbinic literature. One of my favorite examples — also from the machzor — comes from the Midrash:[5]

Said the Roman Procurator Turnus Rufus to Rabbi Akiva: “Whose Acts are greater, those of human beings or those of God?”

Rabbi Akiva answered: “The deeds of human beings are greater.”

(…)

Akiva then brought to Turnus Rufus wheat stalks and cakes, raw flax and fine linen. “The wheat and the flax are the work of God,” said Akiva, “but the cakes and the linen were made by human beings. Are they not superior?”

So our Sages taught: “All created things require refining and improvement. The mustard seed needs to be sweetened; the lupine needs to be soaked; the wheat needs to be ground, and the human being still needs to be repaired. The world that is given into our hands is still incomplete. Go forth, then, and work to make it better.”[6]

In Mishkan HaNefesh, this midrash appears on the left side of the spread in nisim b’chol yom  as if to suggest that just as we thank God for the wonders of our world, we also acknowledge our roles as partners in the work of creation.

—

Danny Moss is a CCAR rabbinical intern and a rising fifth-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR.

 

[1] YK p. 197

[2] DMhN, p. 72

[3] DMhN, p. 81

[4]  DMhN, p. 71

[5] Tanhuma, Tazria 5; Genesis Rabbah, 11.6

[6] YK p. 163

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

High Holy Days Leader Experience: Being the Suffering Servant, Isaiah 53

No one thinks about the High Holy Days more than rabbis and cantors. That’s not to say that Jews as a community don’t look forward to the holidays. People enjoy being with family, eating special foods and seeing people at Syangogue. Many people also find the High Holy Days to be a spiritually fulfilling and uplifting experience. But for the most part it is the rabbis, cantors and other High Holy Day service leaders who spend months planning and preparing for the 10 Days of Awe. Everyone else just shows up.

Several years ago, I ran into Dr. Larry Hoffman just as my pre Rosh Hashanah stress load had reached its peak. He casually asked how I was doing. I recall griping about how overwhelming and even painful High Holy Day preparations always seemed to be, that there was incredible pressure to provide the congregation with a spiritually fulfilling Holy Day season and that I had little if any time for my own spiritual preparations or practice. “You know the suffering servant in Isaiah 53,” he asked? “That’s us.”

The Jewish people may be God’s servants in the Biblical text, but when it comes to the High Holy Days we serve God AND the Jewish people. Finding a way to create worship experiences that are comfortable yet creative, inspiring but also challenging can be a tricky proposition. Last year my congregation worshiped using the new machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur mornings in our alternative service and Yom Kippur afternoon through Neilah in the main sanctuary.  And though I had wored with several different pilot versions in the past, as a clergy team we spent hours picking music and readings, working to find a balance between the old and new, guessing at timing and hoping that the congregation would take it all in stride, which for the most part they did.

That being said, I wish I hadn’t had to wait until this summer to read Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh. Don’t be fooled, I am sure I will suffer plenty in the next few months as I revise service outlines, write iyunnim and sermons and work out all the details of volunteer participation (with my cantor taking on much of that load as well). Yet this book provides the spiritual uplift I had been missing to put it all in perspective. Not only does Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh give us the insiders view on what went into developing and crafting the two beautiful volumes of Mishkan HaNefesh, but it allows the reader to think about the greater purpose and meaning of the High Holy Days and prayer in general. In reading this volume I was also inspired to appreciate what our machzor can do. As Rabbi Edwin Goldberg so aptly reflects, “…we post moderns need a corrective,  a ‘reset’ that centers us in a context of what matters most. Life, many of us deem, is a problem. Jewish text and tradition- presented as a meaningful, relevant High Holy Day experience- can be a captivating and vital solution.” (p.1)

The explanations of how different editorial decisions have been made and the textual references at the back of the book are excellent tools. However, for me, it is the eight essays in Part Two of the book that I cherished not only for the superior writing but for the chance to engage in higher level thinking they provided me. Each essay leaves the reader with big ideas to ponder and lifts up the preparations for the holy days from a task of servitude to one of holy service.

In his essay, Translating Faith, Rabbi Shelly Marder reminds us of how the words we pray, whether they are in Hebrew or English are a human attempt to articulate the inarticulateable: what we really believe. “…[F]aith, after all, is a language that challenges us to describe  the ineffable and comprehend the unknowable. (p.85)

If all written or spoken prayers are each an attempt to “translate the non-verbal into speech,” (p.86) then the English versions of our ancient Hebrew prayers are no more than “a living bridge…[that] gives us access to the world that generated the original text- as well as a glimpse of the experience of those who first used it.” (p.87) Understanding how translation is an art in and of itself can inspire us to remember that the prayers we now say or sing so specifically and devotedly were once nothing more than a prayerful person’s best attempt at articulating their own feelings of faith. The new writings and poetry that have been added to the machzor are similar artistic reflections of faith, no less holy for their less than ancient origins. As undertake my own writing for the season I will keep this in mind.

Rabbi Leon Morris brilliantly unpacks the tension between traditional and Reform liturgy in his essay Restoring and Reclaiming tradition: Creative Retrievals and Mishkan HaNefesh. By counseling us to engage in a ‘hermeneutic of embrace’, Morris challenges us to see our fellow Reform Jews as intelligent, thoughtful and spiritually searching people. Rather than ‘decide for our community’, as rabbis and liturgists of ages past have done, this new machzor presents the opportunity for everyone to engage in Avodah on their own terms. As he writes, “the understanding of Avodah as work might be apt…when we consider the interpretive labor required of us when trying our best to bridge the gap between the inherited words of the classic siddur and our contemporary lives. It is often hard work to make meaning from these words. Simultaneously such work is a privilege, a blessing and an opportunity for connection and continuity.” (p.99)

Cantor Evan Kent reminds cantors and rabbis alike of the powerful effect music can have on the energy of a worship service, “creating living liturgical memories [that] involve the body and mind.” (p.118) His essay: Collective Effervescence: High Holy Day Music and Liturgical Memory, challenges us to think beyond the grand liturgical pieces we have all come to expect. By incorporating highly repetitive and communal singing, he suggests, we can create threads that  weave a room of strangers into a congregation while taking advantage of the liturgical themes of the season that also weave in and out of the High Holy day liturgies. As he writes: “Highly repetitive music actually adds to the intensity of the ritual as it enables maximum participation” (p.121).

This new volume is truly a treasure. Keep it as a resource, but return to it again and again for inspiration and guidance. It reminded me of how holy a task it is to prepare for and lead our communities through the Days of Awe. It can remind us all that the machzor is a tool that enables us to ask: “How do we help ourselves return to our sacred path, in a world that continually seduces us away from the work that we must do.” (p.63)

—

Rabbi Mara Nathan serves Temple Beth-El in San Antonio Texas. She is also currently serving on the Board of the CCAR as Dues Chair.

Categories
Books Torah

Leading Torah Study: Framing the Message

What does it mean to lead a Torah study?  When we sit with congregants, friends, are guests in different communities, what is it we are doing when we are given the honor to lead a Torah study?  There is something quite amazing that we are doing – we are framing the message for this group. For that short moment in time that we are asked to lead, we are transmitting a concept, idea, ideal or moral teaching that we believe the group needs to hear.  It is a truly powerful moment and the texts, commentaries, works that we bring to the table also convey the message of what our values are or what sources contribute to our very own understanding of the week’s parashah.  For the Torah studies that I lead, I am indebted to a rabbi and teacher who taught me the important lens of gender to bring forth powerful lessons, messages and teachings.

In the Fall of 2011, I found myself sitting in the classroom of Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss.  Within the first ten minutes of her class, I quickly discovered that all I thought that I had learned, all that I thought that I knew about Torah, it was as if I was viewing only half a painting.  I was studying and teaching about an incomplete picture.  From that point on, Dr. Weiss challenged us to try to step back and expand the lenses through which we viewed Torah.  That is, to also use the lens of a woman’s view when studying and teaching Torah.

It is not an easy thing to find one’s understanding of Torah to be so challenged.  Or more simply put, to be told that I had been missing so much in my studies up until that moment.  But in that challenge, I found that it freed me to be willing to engage with our sacred texts in a way that I never had – to appreciate Torah for all of its voices and to see the beauty in the rainbow of Torah interpretation.  And where do we turn to begin this discussion?  For me, it has been and continues to be the WRJ’s The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.WTC - Jewish Book Award - Updated

In the early pages of this work, Drs. Tamara Eskenazi and Andrew Weiss write “In reproducing the variety of Torah interpretations, past and present, we envision our readers joining the centuries-old dialogue through their own personal and communal study.  We hope that The Torah: A Women’s Commentary will inspire and invigorate a lifelong exploration that will go beyond these pages and will shape women and men in our communities well into the future.  In this way, all of us will rightly pay tribute, at last, to the Torah of our mothers and fathers.”

I believe these words to be an important and perhaps even sacred charge for the Torah that I teach and the message that I pass on week to week.  What does this charge practically look like?  For me, it means beginning my Torah studies with the outline that can be found before every parashah in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.  And what happens when I begin the sacred conversation with this outline? Often times, I’ll find a comment or two during, but especially after the formal teaching, where someone will share how they’ve never thought of looking at Torah in this way.  Other times, someone will tell me how the study helped them come to the realization that they’ve never looked at how the generations of commentaries before the last few decades almost all are devoid of a woman’s voice!

womens commentaryTo study Torah in this way slowly began to permeate the other ways in which I have come to understand Judaism and its rituals.  Because of this eye-opening experience, I have been spurred to begin exploring other parts of our tradition for the voices of not only women, but those other silenced minority voices.  I believe that in that class nearly five years ago, Dr. Weiss gave me a gift whose reward benefits not only me, but all who I am grateful to study Torah with during my rabbinate.  The Torah: A Women’s Commentary is a work that causes us to ask difficult questions, to look at our Torah in new and exciting ways, and continues the important work of giving voice to all within klal Yisrael.

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Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt serves as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Sholom and is a current Pines School of Graduate Studies Doctor of Hebrew Letters student.  Check out Rabbi Weisblatt’s video about The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.