Category: Books

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Books lifelong learning

An Introduction to the Sacred Path of Reform Judaism

The beginning of 2019 has to shoulder much of the heavy heritage of 2018. Growing international and national political conflicts question our former assumptions about the local, religious, national, and international communities we live in­—and their future. The shooting in Pittsburgh is far from forgotten, it’s implications for our identities as American Jews and our sense of the country we live in and love are still unfolding.

This is a time, then, when we can only gain from the thoughtful learning and questioning of our own roots. What are the histories and values we, as Jews in America, have inherited from our forefathers and mothers in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa? How have the political ideas of European Reform Judaism impacted our contemporary ways to live as Reform Jews and Americans? How much of these histories, values, and ideals can nourish as in the current moment; what even may Reform Jewish spirituality be? And, and maybe this is most important, what are we to learn from the current moment? Are we heading into a time of increased fear? Are we singing toward a new sense of spiritual wholeness? Are we re-attuning our moral senses to an evolving Torah of social justice?

Kol Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh (BT Sanhedrin 27b) … We like to translate this sentence as “All of Israel is morally responsible for each other.” Originally, of course, that meant that every Jew was responsible for the halachic lives of other Jews —in front of God—a statement in radical contradiction to our sense and need of autonomy and privacy. Today and in the context of our theology, we can translate this sentence as “All Jews are responsible for the moral and spiritual well-being and conduct of the members of their various communities.”

In line with this sense of the sentence, the CCAR has created a curriculum for our time. This curriculum invites you into the conversation on who we, as Reform Jews, have historically been, who we are right now, and who we might be in the future. It provides opportunities for learning, personal reflection and assessment, and, so we hope, it also provides opportunities to explore Reform Judaism as an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual resource for the future. We want our movement to be a community of members who are invested in each other’s lives, who share a religious vocabulary and conversation, and who envision and build together a brave, informed, and caring future.

Happy New Year!

—

Rabbi Sonja K. Pilz serves as Editor of the CCAR Press. 

CCAR Press has created a FREE, Movement-wide curriculum on the topic of Reform Judaism in honor of the 130th anniversary of the CCAR and the 200th birthday of Isaac M. Wise. We offer a 3-5 session curriculum, entitled A Life of Meaning: An Introduction To The Sacred Path Of Reform Judaism, An Adult Education Curriculum. This curriculum is anchored in our book A Life of Meaning: Embracing Reform Judaism’s Sacred Path, as well as documents like our Responsa and resolutions.  Please click here to learn more about the curriculum.

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Books

Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary Book Review

Pirkei Avot stands out among the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah as a treatise devoted to ethical exhortation and guidance. Some scholars claim it was originally a manual directed at rabbi-judges. However, there is no question that its words have gained widespread popular currency. Traditional rabbinic commentaries testify to the central role this text has occupied for generations. Its aphorisms and insights are quoted in countless contemporary contexts and precincts (not to mention sung in Jewish summer camps!)

The CCAR Press now joins this august list of interpretations and provides novel wisdom on this classical text through the writing of Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, in his Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary.

Rabbi Yanklowitz, ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, is one of the most dynamic and charismatic Jewish social activists of his generation. He has become a powerful voice for social justice in our time and his commentary on Pirkei Avot is distinctive in its focus on this theme. Given the commitment of the Reform Movement to social justice, it is fitting that a commentary on this classical tractate be published under the aegis of the CCAR Press. In addition, the inclusive nature of the Reform Movement and the transdenominational reality of the American Jewish world is reflected in the Press’s decision to publish the thoughts of this open Orthodox rabbi on this unique text.

Rabbi Yanklowitz has drawn on a breathtaking number of sources and persons as well as his own personal experiences in composing his commentary. Commentators ancient and modern, men and women, Jew and gentile, as well as insights and anecdotes drawn from his own life and a variety of academic disciplines are all in conversation with one another in this pathbreaking commentary on this traditional text. Rabbi Yanklowitz describes his own aims here by citing the words of his “teacher Rabbi Yitz Greenberg,” who states that Pirkei Avot should “serve as an inspiration and a challenge to our generation to follow in the footsteps of the sages—to offer new wisdom, to uncover new revelation, to unite past, present, and future, and to help the Jewish people and all of humanity find their way through the next phase of the covenantal journey toward a perfected world” (pp. x–xi). Pirkei Avot, in the capable hands of Rabbi Yanklowitz, surely does this. Throughout, Rabbi Yanklowitz inspires.

Even more significantly, Rabbi Yanklowitz challenges his readers, as the title of his commentary suggests, to improve the world. He unflinchingly contends that these teachings of the ancient Sages clap “a moral yoke upon the Jewish people” (p. 11).

Rabbi Yanklowitz also does not shy away from dealing with difficult passages that are at odds with a modern sensibility. For example, 1:5, which states, “Anyone who talks excessively with a woman causes evil . . . ,” is surely problematic for anyone who possesses a contemporary notion of gender equality. Here Rabbi Yanklowitz contextualizes the passage historically and then insists, quoting both Judith Plaskow and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that we must move beyond the rigid and restricting gender roles imposed by an ancient social order. Instead, Judaism today “must be adamant about embracing feminism and women’s equality” (p. 19). Elsewhere, he writes that Judaism needs to foster “new models for peace, equity, and justice” (p. 30) and urges Jews and others to emulate “Hillel’s peacemaking and love sharing” (p. 41). On 1:14, “If I am not for myself,” Rabbi Yanklowitz acknowledges that it is challenging to find “the proper balance between religious self-preservation and self-sacrifice” (p. 44). Of course, this means that each of us must “embrace doubt and reflection.” Nevertheless, Rabbi Yanklowitz contends that “doubt and reflection” cannot allow humanity to surrender to “paralysis” (pp. 50ff.) and he points out over and over again throughout the pages of his commentary how the resources of Jewish tradition can provide guidance and direction for modern persons.

Such insights, buttressed by a wide variety of voices, fill the pages of Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary and make it well worth study and reflection. For all of us who will have the privilege to read his commentary, we can only thank Rabbi Yanklowitz for the inspiration and uplift his book brings. The CCAR Press is to be applauded for providing this work to the public. It should become a staple text in synagogue and home, in classrooms and in community.

—

This is an excerpt of a book review for Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary that appeared in the CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Winter 2019.  Rabbi David Ellenson is chancellor emeritus and former president of HUC-JIR. He is also former director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and professor Emeritus of Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University.

Categories
Books Death Healing

Where Grief Resides: New Arenas of Expression

When our Temple stood in Jerusalem and was destroyed, the community entered a period of collective grief. In response, the Rabbis began to create a Judaism that would be viable to any contemporary time. The curiosity and imagination of the collective Rabbinic mind took a leap of faith: to contain the caution and fear brought forth at the destruction of the Temple by forming a transportable Jewish life that could live beyond the venue of Jerusalem and move with the people, no matter where they lived. Out of the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis strived to scaffold a Judaism that through its text study, holiday observance, historical perspective, and guidance for living would create templates for daily life: how to eat, how to conduct business, how to build community, how to teach, how to treat others, how to die, how to mourn, how to stand in Awe.

Out of this context, the Rabbinic imagination crafted a spiritual stance that encompasses the human experience of grief. They declared all mourners be greeted: HaMakom y’nachem etchem b’toch sh’ar aveilei Tzion virushalayim, “May the God who comforted the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem comfort you now in your grief.” With this, the Rabbis encapsulated the core paradox of grief: grief is a universal human experience, and each of us experiences it unto ourselves. The Rabbinic mind teaches us that for each person, our own grief is as cataclysmic as the destruction of the Temple. Every person’s individual loss is linked by the historic arc to the communal loss of our Temple.

This declarative link of historic fact to the inevitable human experience we all come to know binds our communal experience to every individual soul. Its resonance of the inner life with the outer historic experience is a generational vibration across the millennia that catapults us into a future that will forever be linked one generation to the next across time and space. It takes imagination, leaps of faith, curiosity, and the containment of caution to move through one’s own grief. Mourning may lead to new ways of seeing, acting, choosing, living. Grief may affirm our faith, it may alter it, it may destroy it, it may leave it untouched. Grief rarely ends a conversation. Rather, grief affirms the thrill and the disappointment of relationship. Death may take a body, but it cannot take a relationship; fraught or healed, relationships often continue after death. We may see our dead, if only in our peripheral vision; we may hear them, if only in memory; we may smell their scent, recall their touch.

Since the destruction of the Temple, our tradition has met each moment by threading our history into the present so that we can wrap ourselves in a fabric that warms the soul. All theology strives to frame our human experience into ritual, prayer, and spiritual reflection. We will never tire of this poetry because it is the endless form with which we express our deepest yearnings. Spiritual reflection—in prayer or ritual—is the form that allows us to link our history to our personal story. This glimpse into moments of life that yearn to be significant, comforting, of solace and succor, follow a path toward wholeness. From the secular to the religious, our natural spiritual hunger seeks nourishment. It is a desire that rises with a demanding vulnerability from the throes of grief and looks all around—inside, outside, and above, for anchor, for firm footing, for the horizon.

[The] collection, Mishkan Aveilut: Where Grief Resides, is an effort to provide the spiritual sustenance we all crave in the midst of one of life’s greatest vulnerabilities. Whether grief comes because a loved one died or one is relieved they have left this earth, we are filled with a loss that demands attention. At any moment along the spiritual journey we can be filled with either surety or doubt. We may struggle with language, metaphor, and theology, or we may find them satisfying. Our hope is that the moment you enter into prayerful engagement here, the experience will bequeath you, across the millennia, your place within our people’s unbreakable relationship to God, Torah, and Israel. Vulnerability in any endeavor brings the soul’s yearnings into new arenas of expression. We hope that this healing book will help weave our human capacity for curiosity into our capacity for spiritual life.

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Rabbi Eric Weiss is the CEO/President of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, and is the and the editor of both Mishkan R’fuah: Where Healing Resides  and Mishkan Aveilut: Where Grief Resides.

Categories
Books

Dreaming a New American Economy

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we invited Rabbi Andy Kahn to share an excerpt of the chapter that he wrote.

The central notion of the American Dream, that every person is equally capable of working towards a life of prosperity and happiness, may remain, but only as a dream. That ideal based itself upon the belief in an equal playing field[1] for all Americans. Through tax legislation, corporatization, dismantling of social safety net programs, and wealth channeling directly to the upper echelons of the economic elite, the nature of the system upon which the American Dream rested has been altered in such a way that this dream no longer corresponds to reality.[2] In the face of this situation, Judaism can provide us excellent examples of responses to similar dramatic change. We can, with the power of our visionary tradition, construct a new dream for the American future based in Jewish values.

As vessels of Torah, we can return to our dreams from the past as guides to help us forge a new way forward in America. Like the prophecies of Isaiah,[3] this new dream must aid all people in our country in finding their way to a better, more sustainable life. I suggest three sources of guidance: Cain and his descendants’ reaction to their world changing; the Israelites’ response to a new mode of collectivity in the desert; and the dreams of the future yet to come – that of the Messianic era.

Cain, when cast out of Eden and cursed to have his work on the land never yield fruit, was placed in a brand-new world. He, unlike Adam, was given no directive as to how he would survive – only that he wouldn’t be murdered himself. His response to this new reality? To construct the first city.

Cain having been notified that agriculture was no longer an option for him, went to work cultivating a collective that birthed new modes of production into the world. Rather than languishing in irrelevance, Cain and his offspring found new ways to contribute to society. From Cain and his children, we learn that we can view our own new, scary economic reality as an open canvas. We can choose the palette with which we paint. It is almost impossible to imagine our current society without the fundamental technologies attributed to Cain and his offspring – now, how innovative can we become to create equally new and groundbreaking ways of being and expressing humanity?

D’var acher – another example. The Israelites in the desert were emerging from generations of slavery in Egypt, and in need of a new way of organizing themselves. Just like Cain, Moses brought forth a new, this time God-ordained, technology – the Mishkan, an innovation meant to maintain connection between the People of Israel and God.[4] When Divinely directed to collect the resources for the Mishkan, the Israelites were specifically asked to do so with nedivut lev, the free will of their hearts.[5] In practice, this meant that people with particular skills or resources volunteered what was needed for the project.

This new social formulation gives us insight into our Scriptures’ view of human and communal nature. The Israelites’ went above and beyond of their own accord. In our day and age, this is a revolutionary outlook. It is often assumed that people are unlikely to contribute resources or energy to projects without extrinsic rewards or punishments. Due to this, the jobless or impoverished are often devalued to the point of being dehumanized (referred to as “drains on the system,” for instance), and individuals seek jobs, and in particular socially valued jobs, at any cost, whether or not they have a desire to perform the actual role. Humans, according to this piece of Torah, when in meaningful community and given a clear, direct need, will jump at the chance to contribute. This view is continued in the grand Torah of the future – the Messianic age.

For Rambam, the ultimate state of Messianic redemption is one in which people no longer have to compete for resources.[6] In essence, this means that all needs will be provided for, and the individual will be able to pursue one’s own knowledge of God. Perhaps we can tie this vision to the Mishkan, and the individual knowledge of God may be construed as the individual’s nedivut lev, one’s own free will to enact one’s own God-given abilities in pursuance of collective Good.

As the 1999 CCAR Pittsburgh Platform states, “Partners with God in tikkun olam, we are called to help bring nearer the messianic age…We are obligated to pursue tzedek, and to narrow the gap between the affluent and the poor…to protect the earth’s biodiversity and natural resources, and to redeem those in physical, economic and spiritual bondage.”[7]

These values central to the Reform movement commit us to pursuing a new Jewish dream for America’s future. We, the vessels of such a boldly hopeful Torah, can take the lead in realizing a new vision for the future of our beloved home in America. As we stride bravely into the uncharted territory of our country’s future, the guiding values of our Torah will provide us the dreams we need in order to to build a new, better future, free of bondage for all people.

[1] We must also recognize that this equal playing field never truly existed for all people and has always been particularly difficult to reach for people of color and women.
[2] Bartlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele, The Betrayal of the American Dream, Public Affairs; 1 edition (July 31, 2012), pp xvii-xx
[3] In particular, Isaiah 2:3.
[4] Exodus 25:8
[5] Exodus 35:5-29.
[6] Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Kings and Wars 12, trans. Reuven Brauner, 2012. [Sefaria.org, https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Kings_and_Wars.12.1?lang=bi&with=About&lang2=en]
[7] CCAR, A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism, Pittsburgh, 1999,
https://www.ccarnet.org/rabbinic-voice/platforms/article-statement-principles-reform-judaism/, Accessed June 26, 2018.

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Rabbi Andrue J. Kahn serves Temple Emanu-El in New York City. The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic is now available for pre-order.

Categories
Books Prayer

Accessing the World of Meaningful Prayer

The tension between keva and kavanah in our worship is always there.  The fixed texts of our liturgy guide us through our daily moments of reflection and prayer.  They contain our history, our theology, and our deep bond with the Holy One through the millennia. There is a comfort for me in chanting the words that my parents and grandparents knew. Even when praying in English or some other mother tongue those too can have the same force that binds us to our covenant.

The kavanah, the inspirational or extemporaneous moments of prayer take me in a different direction. The words and music I craft at any given moment pour out of my lips in an effort to capture my spiritual longings of a specific moment or situation.  I am drawn increasingly to these interpretative poems and prayers to express my soul’s longing in the complex world we live in.  I search for material that will enhance the keva and at times liberate me from the keva as well.

As the one who is responsible for crafting meaningful worship for others, we rabbis and cantors are often caught in the bind between these two points.  We have a sacred duty, on the one hand, to our received tradition and to engage the worshipper for whom the fixed text is foreign, and who may only occasionally enter into moments of conversation with God. And we who long to create different kinds of spiritual connection through prayer and meditation that is still authentically Jewish but soars beyond the keva need material that can reframe and revitalize our Jewish prayer voice. This dialectic between the written texts and the inspirational texts, and impromptu prayers will always challenge us and hopefully propel us to deepen our thoughtfulness in preparing meaningful worship experiences.

This is why I appreciate deeply the poetry and prayers of Alden Solovy.  In his newest collection of prayer/poems, This Joyous Soul, soon to be published by the CCAR Press, Alden gives us some tools that will help us navigate this tension between the traditional rubrics of the service and inspired language of kavanah, specifically around Shabbat morning.

I had the opportunity to utilize some of Alden’s newest prayers as part of Shabbat morning worship with my community and in other settings.  The collection of prayer/poems accompany the keva, the fixed liturgy, in a complementary way deepening the experience for the congregation.  The themes of the morning service are woven into every line and stanza in the book.  Let’s take but one example from this new collection:

God’s Morning

Calm or wind.
Cloud or sun.
Warm or cool.
It’s God’s morning.
A gift.
A promise.
A bird gliding on a breeze,
Singing ancient songs,
That need no translation.
A ray of secret light
Stored for this very moment
Since the beginning of time.

Let us rejoice.
Let us sing.
Let us tremble with love,
While the Artist paints
The sky and the hills,
The seas and the plains,
In the colors of majesty.

It’s God’s morning.
Sent as a reminder
To love and to hope.
Sent as a reminder
To celebrate
The glory of Creation.

For me this is the Shabbat Morning Yotzer prayer filled with hints of light and God’s creation.  It refocuses me on God as the artisan who paints all of creation and the world. This refreshes my understanding of the idea of renewing creation daily and transitions me into that wide expanse of love that follows in Ahavah Rabbah.

I have shared this piece several times with different members of my community. Read in worship and in study to a person, they have each smiled to themselves as they bathe in the beauty of the painted words.  While the Hebrew of our prayers provide ancient connection for my congregation, through Alden’s words they access the world of meaningful prayer through an authentic Jewish voice.  It is not replacement for the keva, but instead a kavanah that primes me and my community for the keva.  And perhaps a way into the keva now that the table has been set.

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Rabbi Denise L. Eger  serves Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and is the immediate past-president of the CCAR.  This Joyous Soul is now available to order! 

Categories
Books Prayer

A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

As wildfires burned in California, hundreds of missiles rained down on Israel from Gaza. Fire on the ground and fire from the air, with people I know and love in both places. Just a week before, 12 people were murdered in a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. A week before that, the largest-ever U.S. antisemitic massacre was perpetrated at Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha Congregation, Pittsburgh. All this occurred against a backdrop of growing anti-Semitism world-wide and contentious U.S. mid-term elections.

My pen has been grieving, the ink pouring out prayers with titles like these: “Missiles from Gaza,” “As Fires Rage” and “Taharot in Pittsburgh.” In those 2.5 weeks, I wrote a baker’s dozen of ‘responsa prayers,’ dealing with immediate concerns in the wake of news events. Writing ‘responsa prayer’ is one of the roles of a modern liturgist, to give our shared experiences a voice of prayer.

There’s a reason why these pieces resonate. Our prayer book, the siddur, has tuned our ears to the many voices of prayer. We know the voice of grief and the voice of yearning. We know the voice of joy and the voice of hope. We have been praying some of these prayers for more than 1,000 years. The prayers call out to us, as they did to our fathers and mothers.

There can also be a disconnect. While the siddur gives us the spiritual foundation to connect to our inner hearts of blessing, at times the language doesn’t fit.  Another role of a modern Jewish liturgist is to bridge that gap, opening doorways back into the prayer book. The goal is to capture the familiar cadences and themes – and at times the familiar idiom – in a way that is true our current sensibilities and language.

The Reform siddur, Mishkan T’fillah, addresses these opposite forces with a faithful, contemporary translation of Hebrew texts, as well as a broad set of alternative readings on the left-hand page of two-page spreads.

This is the goal of my new book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings. Structured to reflect the morning service found in Mishkan T’filah, this collection provides a new set of ‘left-hand pages’ to enliven our worship. The prayers in This Joyous Soul invite a deeply personal prayer experience that strengthens our connection to Jewish tradition. It’s written to inspire each of us to make the traditional daily liturgy our own. So, my hope is that it will be used both by individuals as part of their personal prayers and will be adopted for use in congregations throughout the Movement.

For generations, the siddur has given voice to our deepest desires. Every generation has left a mark on this great book that spans centuries, continents and cultures. This Joyous Soul is one contribution to that great endeavor: keeping the prayers of our ancestors vital and alive, with a new voice for these ancient yearnings.

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Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist and teacher. His work has appeared in Mishkan R’Fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR Press, 2012), L’chol Z’man v’Eit: For Sacred Moments (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), and Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016). He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, published by CCAR Press in 2017, and This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, now available for pre-order from CCAR Press and available by Thanksgiving 2018!

Categories
Books

Dividends of Meaning: Jewish Rituals for the Financial Lifecycle

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we invited Rabbi Jen Gubitz to share an excerpt of the chapter that she wrote.

When Hyman retired from his job, he gathered with his community and rabbi to ritualize this major transition in his life. This Jewish ritual began as many do —his wife Ann placed a kippah on Hyman’s head, they lit candles, and blessed wine. Then Hyman put his briefcase down on the ground and asked aloud: “As I enter the years of retirement and aging: Will I be bored or stimulated? Will I feel useless or valuable? Will I be lonely or involved with others? Will I feel despair or hope?” “Only the years to come can answer those questions,” the rabbi responded, “but tonight we can do several things to help Hy through his transition.

  • First, we have brought seven gifts.
  • Second, we can follow the traditional Jewish custom of offering tzedakah in Hy’s honor. The money will be given to the Philadelphia Unemployment Project.
  • Third, we can scare away the demons as our ancestors did with the blast of the shofar.”

Upon the conclusion of a final shofar blast, Hyman was declared a Bar Yovel, a “Son of the Jubilee,” released from professional employment with the opportunity to move on to a new stage in life.[i]  To mark his new status, Hyman also took on an additional Hebrew name.

A donation dedicated to the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, a briefcase, candles, and the shofar: From the mundane to the holy, these are the ritual items used to mark a financial and life transition. This category of ritual does not celebrate the eight-day old baby, a child entering Jewish adulthood, or the beloveds under their wedding canopy, but the retiree, enhancing a significant moment of the secular financial life cycle. In addition to celebrating retirement, Jewish ritual and wisdom has the means to frame and celebrate seemingly amorphous and mundane financial moments, from opening a bank account to getting a first credit card, from purchasing and owning a car, to the first or the last mortgage payment on the place called home; from receiving a scholarship to remitting that final student loan payment to submitting a final tuition payment for a child’s education; from cutting up credit cards to tackling debt to earning money through labor and investments, and accruing money through saving; from retiring from a primary career to transitioning to a second or third.

However, a personal survey of literature and clergy’s stories among various faith traditions revealed surprisingly few rituals, prayers or poems to mark these significant moments in life. The distinct transitional moments of the financial life cycle clearly lie beyond the arc of the traditional framework of Jewish ritual and its marking of loving relationships, childbearing, welcoming, learning, illness, and loss. Judaism brims with ritual and recognition of the formal family life cycle, yet these days many of us live longer, causing the gap in time between classic Jewish life cycle events to increase dramatically.  Moreover, the only experiences in life we all have in common today are birth and death. Many of us do not even aspire or are able to reach or mark the traditionally ritualized moments of the Jewish life cycle that happen in between, causing a dearth of ritual in progressive Jewish life.

There is tremendous opportunity to broaden the scope of private and communal Jewish ritual to encompass moments of the life cycle in connection to money and finances. With sensitivity to the many in our midst who work endless hours and years without reaching the financial milestones that would relieve them of their crippling debt or acknowledge their life’s investment, this type of ritual innovation can have a transformative impact on the Jewish community, particularly on the demographics of people least attracted or immediately connected to Jewish living, such as millennials and baby boomers. Money and its impact on our lives is part of the reality of living in the world. We are not, yet, allowing Judaism to permeate this part of our lives, bridging the realities of secular living and Jewish practice. That said, over the last 20 years Jewish ritual has been the subject of many innovations, and some of our new rituals do attempt to make our financial life cycle part of our spiritual lives.

[i] This Ritual of Retirement was adapted from a “Life Cycle Passages” class at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1983. The ritual is published online at https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/bar-yovel-retirement-ritual.

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Rabbi Jen Gubitz serves Temple Israel of Boston.  She is also a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming book, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic. 

Categories
Books

This Joyous Soul: Communicating with God

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, we invited Rabbi Sally J. Priesand to share an excerpt of the Foreword that she wrote.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, also known as the Kotzker Rebbe, is remembered for his profoundly wise sayings, often simple, always insightful. When asked where God is, he answered that God dwells wherever people let God in. Prayer is one of the ways in which we let God in, offering us the opportunity to open our hearts to God’s presence. Thus, prayer books exist to help us communicate with God.

Prayer books enable us to look within to those values that shape our lives, and they assist us in gathering strength and courage for the tasks that remain undone. In many ways, a siddur is a history book that reflects the story of those who create it and those who pray from it. Each generation adds its own piece to the puzzle that is Judaism. A prayer book reflects those beliefs that are important to its users and provides insight into how Jewish tradition evolves from generation to generation.

Our children and grandchildren would probably find it strange to pray from a siddur that did not mention our Matriarchs, that talked about Israel only with the wish that the sacrificial cult be restored, and that consistently referred to God as “He.” They are the product of their generation, and their response to a prayer book reflects the values with which they have grown up. A willingness to change makes possible the continuity of our tradition.

Alden Solovy is a worthy representative of our generation, for creating spiritually satisfying prayer. With This Joyous Soul, a companion volume to This Grateful Heart, he has artfully crafted once again a book of prayer that touches the soul in joyous ways. His ability to focus on the needs of the human heart makes prayer accessible to the individual and the community living in a contemporary world.

We begin our day by celebrating God as the Creator of life, a reminder that God creates through us and so makes us all creators too. Solovy has taken this God-given gift of creativity and developed it in such a way that our eyes are opened to new truths, our souls uplifted, and our spirits made tranquil. An extraordinarily gifted liturgist, he puts into perspective those things that matter most and challenges us to delve into the innermost recesses of our hearts, there to find God and understand that God cares who we are and how we act and what we do. Indeed, God depends on us, even as we depend on God.

This Joyous Soul was written to accompany Mishkan T’filah, with the hope that it would be placed in pew racks and used to enlarge the offerings found on the left-hand pages of the newest siddurim of the Reform Movement. That is good news, especially for those of us who attend synagogue services regularly and appreciate new material upon which to reflect. For those who do not attend quite as often, This Joyous

Soul invites you to consider the ways in which prayer can enrich your life. Either way, these prayers are appropriate for communal prayer and/or individual reflection.

Our teacher Dr. Jakob Petuchowski, z”l, used to say that one generation’s kavanah (intention) becomes the next generation’s keva (fixed prayer). In other words, the private prayers of one generation become the public prayers of the next. I am confident that Alden Solovy’s work will find a well-deserved place in whatever new prayer books are created by our generation, and for that I am eternally grateful.

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Rabbi Sally J. Priesand was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion of Cincinnati in 1972, making her the first woman rabbi to be ordained by a rabbinical seminary.  She served first as assistant and then associate rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City before leading Monmouth Reform Temple in New Jersey from 1981 until her retirement in 2006.

Students from HUC-JIR recite Alden Solovy’s “On Making a Mistake,” one of the many readings included in the forthcoming publication This Joyous Soul, from CCAR Press.

Categories
Books Social Justice

Stuck on the Shores of the Parted Sea: Mass Incarceration Through a Jewish Lens

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we invited Hilly Haber to share an excerpt of the chapter that she wrote.

During my third year of rabbinical school, I had the privilege of co-teaching two college classes at New York City’s main jail complex, Rikers Island. The students I worked with in the class were either serving out a sentence or detained and awaiting trial or sentencing. Every Friday, I rode the city bus from Queens across the bridge onto Rikers Island, surrounded by men, women, and children visiting their parents, children, loved ones, and friends who were detained on the island.

During our time together, we learned about and discussed the historical origins of the prison system, debated various philosophies of punishment, and armed ourselves with knowledge about today’s criminal justice system. These men were members of what Professor Andrew Skotnicki calls “the Rikers Island Campus of Manhattan College.”

In the spring of second semester, I missed a class to celebrate Passover with my family. Later, as I explained the story of Passover and the Exodus from Egypt to the students, I was overcome with the realization that these men, some of whom were being detained for crimes for which they had not yet been found guilty, were living, and would go on living, in a perpetual Egypt—a perpetual state of non-freedom.

According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, nearly one in every thirty-one Americans lives either under correctional control in prison or jail or on probation or parole for nonviolent offenses. This shocking statistic does not even take into account the thousands of men and women who live with the permanent scar of a felony incarceration on their record or the family members of those who have been incarcerated. Across the country, a felony incarceration can lead to legalized forms of discrimination, including but not limited to denying men and women employment, housing, public benefits, the right to vote, the ability to serve on a jury, and public accommodations, all of which affect not only the person being discriminated against, but his or her family members as well. As Michelle Alexander argues in The New Jim Crow, mass incarceration in the United States has led to the creation of a caste system in which men and women who live or have lived under the control of the criminal justice system are permanently subjected to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.

The Exodus narrative is an inspiring story in which the Israelites move from slavery to freedom; the statistics on mass incarceration, on the other hand, tell the dispiriting story of a people who have moved from one form of enslavement to another. While incarceration rates differ from state to state, on average, one in eleven African American adults compared with one in forty-five white adults live under correctional control.

The cycle of incarceration and recidivism fueled by racism and poverty within the United States is the Egypt in our midst.

In contrast to today’s criminal justice system, biblical and rabbinic legal structures did not utilize incarceration as a means of punishment or a way of forcing someone to remain in a permanent state of nonfreedom or exile from the community. Indeed, rather than isolate and oppress members of the community who were found guilty of committing a crime, systems of punishment outlined by the Bible and refined by the Rabbis actually sought the opposite outcome. The absence of incarceration as a form of punishment in biblical and Rabbinic texts speaks volumes. Punishment in Jewish tradition, with the exception of capital cases, functioned as a way of bringing about t’shuvah and full return to the community.

The Gemara also displays a certain empathy for those who have been imprisoned and is aware of our social responsibility toward the incarcerated, teaching that “prisoners cannot free themselves from their shackles” (BT B’rachot 5b). Today’s shackles are not limited to the walls of a prison. Once released from prison, most people are still bound by both the force of law and by stigma, forces that keep the walls of the sea from parting for millions of men, women, and children.

In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides writes that t’shuvah atones for all sins. Maimonides’s conception of t’shuvah involves repentance, atonement, and return. Once a person has repented for his or her sins, forgiveness and reintegration into society must follow. Today’s criminal justice system, one that emphasizes punishment and surveillance over rehabilitation and reintegration, offers few opportunities for true t’shuvah—true return for those permanently sentenced to states of non-freedom.

If our Reform Jewish community takes seriously our commitment to both social justice and Jewish tradition, we must work to open new pathways for people who remain shackled in narrow places.

—

Hilly Haber is a fifth year rabbinic student at HUC-JIR in New York City. Originally from New York, Hilly holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College in religion and German Studies, and a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Hilly serves as the student Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, and as a teaching assistant on a Rikers Island with Manhattan College. Hilly is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and a Tisch Fellow.  She is also a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, now available for pre-order.  

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Books Social Justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Learning How to Make a Difference

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we invited Rabbi Karen R. Perolman, to share an excerpt of the chapter that she wrote.

What prevents us from directly and regularly engaging in social justice work? So many of us want to make a difference and help to repair what is broken in our world, and yet, it can often feel overwhelming. Instead of doing anything, we feel paralyzed; we sit at home reading articles or watching other people’s actions posted on social media. What can push us past thought toward action? In my experience and opinion, the tipping point for action is training. Social justice classes, seminars, groups—all the different intentional experiences that fall under the category of “trainings”—are essential to move us from the mere desire to act to actual action. Through these trainings, participants gain community, confidence, and concrete knowledge in order to act with purpose and presence.

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice — Now available for pre-order.

I recommend to every reader that they go and seek out a training opportunity in order to gain the concrete knowledge, help see themselves as part of a community, and gain the inner confidence needed to stand up to systemic oppression.

Community

Trainings are the perfect environment to create organic community. Instead of forcing a group of people to come together, trainings attract like-minded individuals who are both open to and interested in learning. Since trainings are often held in university, religious, or communal spaces, they will appeal to those who are already active in their community. A social justice training also often appeals to those with a curious and interested mind-set. These may be individuals who not only want to participate in civil and communal life, but also are seeking relationships with others like them. These may be those who are already active in their individual faith or area community or who are likely to go beyond their safe and comfortable circles. One of the tremendous benefits of attending training is the interwoven circles of community to which each participant becomes immediately connected.

Through the single act of attending one training, one can become linked in what I think of as a shalshelet hatikkun, a chain of repair that has the power to right the wrongs of our world through thoughtful and direct action.

Confidence

Confidence is often tied to our own sense of self, and often our lack of confidence is connected to our having experienced powerlessness. Trainings create the opportunity for dedicated, passionate individuals to work through their own experiences of oppression, inequality, or trauma so that they might find their own inner strength. In order to speak truth to power, it is essential for those in positions of leadership in community organizations to have insight and reflection regarding their own feelings of power and powerlessness. Through multi-day trainings, one can first work through one’s own personal experiences and then build the self-confidence that will be critical in the work of organizing and justice.

Concrete knowledge

More than ever, information on every subject is available almost immediately in the palms of our hands. Despite the relative ease by which we can access information on every facet of social justice, the dissemination of misinformation can be just as prevalent. In the age of googling experts, there is nothing that feels as authentic as going to an IRL training session with live professionals whose goal is not to pass on information about issues or policy, but to impart knowledge about how a group of dedicated individuals can effect constructive change.

In short, here are three reasons to attend a community organizing or social justice training:

  1. To learn firsthand from experts and seasoned organizers.
  2. To take the opportunity to rehearse, build confidence, and work through any personal baggage.
  3. To meet like-minded individuals and build community.

In the years since I attended that first IAF training, I have found myself in many similar rooms focused on training as passing on the knowledge born of experience.  Every time I walk out of those rooms—often at the end of a long day or days—I always have the same feelings: humility for all that I do not know, hunger to make a difference, and a sense of hurry to get to work. After all, the world isn’t going to fix itself.

—

Rabbi Karen R. Perolman serves Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey, and is a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, now available for pre-order.