Category: CCAR Convention

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Celebrating the Class of 1965: Fifty Years and a Lot Has Happened

Rabbi William Cutter

At the upcoming CCAR Convention, we will honor the class of 1965, those who have been CCAR members and served our movement for 50 years. In the weeks leading up to convention, we will share and celebrate the rabbinic visions and wisdom of these members of the class of 1965 and their 50 years in the rabbinate.

Fifty Years and a lot has happened… “I am closer to death today than I was to puberty as an infant.  What a chilling thought for one with a couple of diseases knocking on the door.”

“Hamishim Shana, Uchmo shenohagim lomar:  Ken Mashehu Kara beintayim ba’olam.”  Lea Goldberg wrote lines like this about lovers re-meeting after “twenty years.”  Yes, something has happened in the meantime.

Fifty years is longer than Goldberg’s lovers’ hiatus, but I experience the same astonishment about time’s way of confounding us.  I entered College just after Brown vs. the Board of Education, which occurred shortly after Campy and Jackie Robinson were allowed to stay at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis as long as they didn’t swim in the hotel pool.  I went to a fancy college “un-prepped” (both literally and figuratively) and—since there weren’t any “preparatory” schools for seminary, I entered HUC with little thought about getting ready.  My main motive, I think, not cultural-ethnic, to be a kind of Jewish Unitarian, but I left with deep ties to Israeli life and Hebrew culture.  I began to serve my “Unitarian” self some years after ordination when a surprise illness drove me into self-care and attention to people who needed attention as they entered their own worlds of illness.  Just as apparently good things sometimes have unintended problem consequence, so may the bad things that happen yield fresh life and important achievement.

And that became the two sides of my rabbinate:  vigorous, I hope “progressive” attachments to the Jewish nation (my parents called them “pinko”) and a dedication to the problems people experience as they go through their journeys into the world of illness.  So I retired from HUC (a partial retirement, I hasten to add) as a teacher of Hebrew literature and as a trainer of hospital chaplains.  The Kalsman Institute, established by our friends the Levy – Kalsmans, urged me on in the pastoral direction, hard work, and (frankly) batting a little over my head, led me to a life of scholarship about matters Hebraic and literary. I have enjoyed my scholarship, although living in Hollywood has made me aware that more people read a stray blog in one day than have read all of my hundreds of essays over 50 years.   Along the way I helped HUC California grow with a school of education, a school of Jewish studies, and a museum education program that flourished and grew many heads.  A full rabbinical school emerged with a special spirit that maybe I have helped create.

But back to what happened in fifty and more years:  The Civil Rights Movement, our changing relationships with women, The Six Day War, new freedom to Russian Jews, the digital revolution which continues to give me the finger as I try to navigate all the gadgetry that makes life easier and busier.  As with people, progress seems paradoxical, and when I think of Israel’s management of the territory that a few wild eyed dreamers made part of Jewish history, I cry for all we should or might have done as Jews.  But Agnon won a Nobel Prize, and there has been more Jewish American creativity (much of it clumsy but all of it interesting) than I ever imagined when I thought I owned all the creativity that was available.  And the culture that comes out of Israel—good grief, it is amazing, created by geniuses, who are my friends; and scoundrels, most of whom are my opponents (I hope.)

In fact, what I have learned in fifty years is how deceptive people can be in the midst of their goodness; and how many great victories are won at a huge cost to others. Some of the good people:  My first rabbis as a rabbi, Leonard Beerman (z’l), and Sandy Ragins, my first boss (with whom I had a problematic relationship, but who was a major and gracious mentor) Alfred Gotschalk (z’l), the funky but wonderful Ezra Spicehandler, and complex Gene Mihaly (both separated out to death), and many others including my own unruly, gutsy and generous father.

A couple of years ago Hara Person asked me to reflect on my retirement for a little squib in the Newsletter.  I look back at what I wrote then and realize that I was too sanguine.  I retired voluntarily, and enjoyed some great years on account of that; but had I known how well I would manage cancer, heart disease, and a tendency to broken bones, and how I would deal with those unmentionable deep dark things of the soul, how much energy I have, and how attached I was to the institution that made my professional life possible, I would not have taken the deal.  Anyone want to hire a near 80 year old?

Is everything built out of contradictions?  I don’t know, but sometimes I think so.  I am a kosher man (a la Yehuda Amichai, another mentor); I am a kosher man whose soul is cleft and because my soul is parted I seem to be better able to stand.  Chewing the cud is like regret — that other part of Kashrut.   It’s not the best part of my game, but it works for me.

But who would dare regret American efforts at civil equality for minorities and a different consciousness about women; who can regret the multiplicity of Jewish voices that one would not even have dreamt of 50 years ago (although it too has been mixed with some issues) who can regret the privilege during those fifty years to serve people, to teach young students aspiring to be old (some day) just like us? And who would ever regret a life of friendships, a marriage that finds me looking forward to seeing my partner every morning! And who would hesitate for one moment to smile as my wonderful son and colleague daughter in law send pictures of the (belatedly wonderful) little boy who bears my father’s name.

I do “regret” (but it’s the wrong word) that my father and mother could not live to see that little boy, but—as the sunset and the sunrise never actually meet (that phrase is plagiarized) so it is God’s way that each generation has new interpreters—interpreters whom the old timers aren’t really comfortable with.  I hope little Kobi (Jacob, that is) and the Kobi cognates (my students) will interpret my life as contributing to the great citizens and Jews he and they will become.

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Celebrating the Class of 1965: Deflations and Exaltations

Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman Celebrates 50 Years in the Rabbinate

At the upcoming CCAR Convention, we will honor the class of 1965, those who have been CCAR members and served our movement for 50 years. In the weeks leading up to convention, we will share and celebrate the rabbinic visions and wisdom of these members of the class of 1965 and their 50 years in the rabbinate.

It was a steamy summer day in Cincinnati, Ohio, the end of July, 1960. Arlene and I had been married for a month. Together we navigated the Appalachians and the Ohio Valley in our un-air conditioned 1954 Ford Fairlaine. Our arrival was a great day for Cincinnati.  Everyone was happy. For on that day, the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs announced that Crest toothpaste was effective in inhibiting tooth decay. P&G stock skyrocketed. And the Stiffmans had arrived. We dropped off a carload of possessions at a friend’s home, and then excitedly drove to our real destinations, University of Cincinnati for Arlene; 3101 Clifton Avenue for me. We had seen the pictures of the beautiful HUC campus in the catalog. As we drove up Clifton Avenue, we became more excited. Exaltation – visiting the mother font of Reform rabbinical training, and then we turned into the driveway.

It was a construction site. The Sisterhood dorm was being renovated, as was the classroom building. The Klau library was under construction, as was the new dorm. I parked on the dirt area in front of the classroom building, and we ventured inside. The first person we met, a junior faculty member named Norman Golb, directed us to the Provost’s office. There we met Mickey November, Dr. Sandmel’s administrative aide, who really ran the school. She showed us around, put us in touch with those we had to meet, and we were on our way back to our car. Exaltation!

We looked forward to getting to our motel next to Frisch’s Big Boy and resting. As we reached our car, we realized that our first visit to HUC-JIR had resulted in a flat tire. Deflation!

Exaltation and deflation!   Welcome to the next five years of my life. Ain’t it great to be retired! Each of us remembers those days.

Memories can be deceiving. Usually I’ll remember something and Arlene will tell me what really happened. Whenever I speak lovingly of those HUC days, she reminds me how our study group used to get together to study, but spent half of the time complaining. “Rivkin and Reines spend too much time on their personal theories and not enough time on their subjects. Language lab was a downer after we learned, ‘Sim na yadecha tachat yerachee.’ Too many papers! Too little time to study!” There were so many complaints.

But the major one was, “They’re not preparing us for congregational life. They are educating us with texts, history, philosophy, human relations, a little theology, a dash of music…but not practical rabbinics.” By and large, this was true. Yet, buried in all of that other important stuff, we sometimes got a glimpse of the future. In Mihaly-McCoy tradition, let me cite three instances.

The first was in a class that was not a class. The school did not offer a class in practical rabbinic. A group of us went to Dr. Glueck to ask for such a class and we’re told, “You’ll learn all of that afterwards!” Out of the goodness of his heart, Sylvan Schwartzman offered a unit on the practical rabbinate in his home. It was the first time I stood in front of a couple with a Rabbi’s Manual in my hand and struggled through leading a wedding service.

He was the only faculty member who had served a congregation. Among the many things he taught us, one stood out. He said to us, “Remember, you’re not one of them!” He related his experiences in Nashville, where many of his congregants spent every Saturday night at the Country Club, often drinking quite heavily. He was given a Country Club membership, but this was not his style. So he stopped going regularly. One of his lay leaders told him that he was missed at the Club. “After all,” the man said, “We like to have “The Rabbi” there!” He wasn’t Sylvan Schwartzman; he was “The Rabbi.”

That story stuck with me. I’ve served the same congregation for forty-eight of my fifty years as a Rabbi. We had made some good friends. But…. We used to go to a wedding and see tables of our friends and contemporaries sitting there having a good time. However we viewed them from the end of the head table, sitting next to the grandma who couldn’t hear. Once we were lucky enough to be seated with friends at a reception. One of our longtime friends remarked, “We must be considered very important because we’re seated with ‘The Rabbi.’ Remember… “You’re not one of them”.  Ain’t it great to be retired and to remember?

The second teaching moment took place in the classroom of that fearsome scholar, Dr. Jakob J. Petuchowski, of blessed memory. It was our first class following the High Holy Days. In walks this distinguished theologian in fancy cowboy boots with a ten-gallon hat covering his thick shock of dark black hair. He had spent another Yamim Noraim at his ten-day-a-year congregation in Texas. His people presented him with the hat and boots. He looked up at us, and in his Germanic-British accented English said, “Remember this gentlemen, there is nothing like the Jewish layman.” We were taken aback. This guy who made us strain our necks trying to avoid his gaze so he wouldn’t call on us to answer a question, was praising these unlearned Texans with whom he shared ten days a year?

He went on, “At HUC we tell you all of the time how important the rabbi is, that you are the repository of wisdom and ethical tradition. You are the one who must lead”. He went on, “Gentlemen, the lay people live in the real world. They can help us keep our heads on straight. They don’t have to support a synagogue or form a Federation or educate themselves and their children. They live in a small town and don’t have to pay to bring a rabbi in every year for the holidays. But they do it. There’s nothing like the Jewish layman.”

What a lesson! How many of us locked horns with lay leaders, ordinary people in our congregations? When we wanted to win the argument, we were tempted to tell them, “I’m right because Judaism says you should do it this way.” At times like that, when I felt strongly about an issue and wanted to pull my rank, I would think back to “Petuchowski in boots,” to stabilize my thoughts and tamp down my ego.

Most of us, retired old souls, can now look back upon our years of active duty. Most of us agree that there is nothing like the Jewish layman or laywoman. They volunteer their time. They give of their means. Some annoyed us to distraction and some inspired us to perfection. In light of the Pew report and demographic surveys, we should especially cherish our partners. As we remember the many leaders with whom we shared, we think, “Ain’t it great to be retired!”

Number three. To prove my innate sense of non-discrimination, I refer to a faculty member of our New York campus, to our revered late President and to our beloved Jacob Rader Marcus. Each reminded us that we can overcome our failures.

Twice I heard Borowitz talk about tough times in his life. He had been fired as a teacher at Rockdale Temple when he was a student – then came back to speak there as Director of the Joint Commission on Jewish Education. A decade later he spoke at my congregation, where as a young Assistant he had been pushed out by the Senior Rabbi Julius Gordon. He said to my flock, “And now I’m teaching those who will be your rabbis!”  What a brilliant career he still is experiencing.

Marcus wrote “The Rise and the Destiny of the German Jew,” in the early 1930s predicting the fall of Hitler and a great future for German Jewry. Facts proved otherwise. He then decided to concentrate on the past and founded the academic discipline of American Jewish History, a major scholarly discipline today. Neither Borowitz nor Marcus gave up because of a failure. They used them as stepping stones to a better future.

Each of us has experienced times of failure, seasons of disappointment in our rabbinate. How many times did I fail to reach out to a member, screw up a Torah reading, skip a name on a Kaddish list, or miss seeing someone in the hospital? How many times did I fail a colleague or myself?  We each have memories of failures – but they do not define us. Like our teachers Borowitz and Marcus, we move on from dwelling on our failures to remembering our successes.  Now we are free to look back upon our careers, to remember all, the deflations but mostly the exaltations. Ain’t it great to be retired?

“You are not one of them.” “There is nothing like the Jewish layman.” “I overcame failure.”  I guess I learned more about being a rabbi than I realized.

The flat tire was repaired and we moved on to the motel next to Frisch’s Big Boy and to our life ahead. I celebrate my memories.

We celebrate our memories. We give thanks for the support of our families who still uphold us. We cherish the memories of the friends and the study partners, the colleagues and teachers who taught and teach us at the College-Institute and beyond.

We of the class of 1965 hope that it might be said of us, “Vayecchi,” that we lived and made a difference in the world, cherishing our sacred calling while partnering with amcha, learning from our deflations and basking in our exaltations.

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CCAR Convention General CCAR Israel Rabbis Reform Judaism

Celebrating the Class of 1965: Shaping What Tomorrow Will Bring

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

At the upcoming CCAR Convention, we will honor the class of 1965, those who have been CCAR members and served our movement for 50 years. In the weeks leading up to convention, we will share and celebrate the rabbinic visions and wisdom of these members of the class of 1965 and their 50 years in the rabbinate. 

As with all of my jubilee classmates, life has brought me much undeserved joy: Resa, my life partner who shares with me a nurturing, forgiving, healing, joyous love; children for whom I am still a desired part of their world; grandchildren who regularly turn to me with challenging questions and unsolicited hugs; and a career of meaningful, often satisfying sacred service, rich with human interactions.

As with most us, life has also brought me much undeserved pain: sitting by my young mother’s bedside, helpless before the malignancy that was consuming her brain; confronting a professional failure that challenged my too fragile self-worth; bearing the agonizing burden of deciding whether my sister should be administered sufficient morphine to quiet her pain, morphine that would also stop her heart; trying to internalize what it meant, what it really meant, when for over ten years – every six months — my physicians would tell me that I had only three more months to live.

In the pursuit of meaning in the presence of such a mixed bag of life experiences, I have dedicated my rabbinate to the Jewish People. It wasn’t a conscious choice. It just happened. I came alive to our world in the ’60’s; I embraced the anti-war movement while still in uniform; I entered into the struggle by African Americans for human and civil rights; feminism; choice – yet through all of that I found myself inexorably drawn to my people’s right and obligation to secure its own future. The Six Day War. The Soviet Jewry Movement. The birth and flowering of Reform Zionism. High school kids at Kutz. College kids. Israel. The Aliyah that Resa and I embraced as full partners.

For four decades as a congregational rabbi and now for one decade as a retiree – the meaningful survival and evolution of the Jewish people have been at the center of my day-to-day concerns. Over the years that struggle became a unifying theme around which I could organize my thoughts and actions. Even today, even now, it ignites within me hope and purpose. To put it simply, that struggle keeps me alive. Perhaps it is not the most worthy of causes, but it infuses my being with a shot of metaphorical adrenaline.

Maybe that is why I find myself today still trying to shape our people’s tomorrows. Maybe that is why so many of my classmates have made similar choices in their own ways, in their own lives: refusing to give up on trying to have an impact on the future.

It’s not that I see better or know more than anybody else. I know that I don’t. But I believe based upon what I have seen and learned and experienced that the survival of Israel as a Jewish democratic state is a sine qua non for the survival of North American Jewry, even as the reverse is equally true. And that belief for me is a mandate for meaningful action.

So when I received a call from a close colleague and friend in early January, asking me to help him raise some funds quickly so that he could effectively compete for a position on the Labor slate in the forthcoming Knesset elections, I could not refuse. That election has a real possibility of overturning what I consider to be an intransigent government incapable of launching positive initiatives which might, just might, move us closer to a two state solution. If a new government is formed this Spring linking parties of the political right with the ultra-orthodox parties, many of the recent ground-breaking achievements in easing the stranglehold of the Rabbinate over matters of personal status and life cycle events will be reversed. To shape the future, outspoken advocates for religious pluralism like my friend are needed by the Knesset. There is a job demanding to be done. I tried to help.

Elections for the World Zionist Congress are currently on-going. A victory for ARZA in these elections will pour more than $20 million into the activities of the IMPJ and the Hebrew Union College over the next five years. Israeli Reform Judaism now tracks support from more than 7% of the population. We are growing, evolving, changing. We offer new definitions as to what a synagogue could be; we demonstrate how the manner in which we treat the stranger in our midst helps determine our relationships with an increasingly hostile world. With a western understanding of democracy and with a liberal and embracing vision of Jewish identity both embedded in our Reform DNA – Israel needs us to win and to win big in the Congress elections. Another job yet to be done. By us. We can still help. We are very much alive. We are relevant. We are needed.

I don’t know how many quality months or years that I have left. The door to that mystery is firmly shut. And I am painfully aware of my own personal limitations and weaknesses. But like many of my classmates, I am not yet willing to turn my back on how the future will emerge. Being in a struggle the outcome of which will not be known for many years after I am gone doesn’t diminish the vitality that I feel today because I am still engaged.

So whatever the worthy issues that command each of us: Israel or environmentalism or racism or economic justice or the strengthening of our families or writing that book that really needs to be written — we who are growing old can continue to find what Frank Bruni recently called in The New York Times, “slices of opportunity” awaiting us. So long as our hands can reach, so long as our souls can yearn and our minds can comprehend – so long can we yet have a vital role in shaping what tomorrow will bring. We who were once the future and then were the present are not ready to lay down our burdens. Not yet. Not now. We have too much to do. We are needed. You see, there is life to be lived. And we are still choosing to live it.

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Celebrating the Class of 1965, 50 Years in the Rabbinate: First and Foremost a Rabbi

Rabbi Mordecai Schreiber, Celebrating 50 Years in the Rabbinate.

My relatives and my childhood friends in my native Israel keep wondering to this day how in the world I ever became a Reform Rabbi. Back in Haifa in the 50th we never heard of Reform Rabbis. We heard of Nelson Glueck, whom we knew as an archeologist. We also heard of Abba Hillel Silver, whom we knew as a Zionist leader. We heard of Judah Magnes, whom we knew as co-founder of the Hebrew University. But we did not know that all three were American Reform Rabbis. In my late teens I was living in Uruguay, and one day I met a Reform Rabbi named Isaac Neuman who told me about the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. I told him I was accepted at Brooklyn College and was getting ready to go there for my undergraduate studies. He convinced me that HUC was a better choice for me, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The last fifty years since I was ordained at the New York school have been a wonderful journey. My first pulpit was in Guatemala, where I had to create my own Spanish-Hebrew Reform prayer book. The second was associate rabbi to the late Arthur Lelyveld at Fairmount Temple in Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland I founded the Agnon School against great odds, which has since become one of the finest communal Jewish day schools in the country. From there I was “called” to Commack, Long Island, where I spent seven years as the rabbi of Temple Beth David, which grew from 300 families when I arrived to 700 when I left. I recall doing over 1000 b’nai mitzvot ceremonies during that time, probably some kind of a record. After Commack my focus changed from the pulpit to other venues, but over the years I helped small congregations grow and performed other rabbinical duties.

Since then I have had several careers besides the rabbinate, including national director of education for BBYO, the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization; founder  and president of two companies, Schreiber Publishing, which publishes Jewish books and books for translators, and Schreiber Translations, which has become one of the main providers of foreign language technical  translations for the U.S. Government. Currently, I am serving on cruise ships as Rabbi and discussion facilitator, and I love the life aquatic. Through it all, I never stopped writing, and over the years I have had over 50 books published. My latest book is called Explaining the Holocaust: How and Why It Happened, due soon from Cascade Books, and I am working on a new book titled Why People Pray, which gives me immense satisfaction and which makes me realize how important prayer is.

Through it all, I am first and foremost a Rabbi. The essence of my life is to impart the Jewish heritage and lore to my fellow Jews and to the world. I am very fearful of the decline of Jewish life and knowledge in our goldeneh medineh. But my greatest satisfaction is that all my three children have a strong Jewish identity, and my three grandchildren show every sign of carrying on our glorious chain of tradition. I am sure my wife Hanita and I have something to do with it.

I would like to thank ribono shel olam for having kept me alive and sustained me and allowed me to reach this great milestone of 50 years in the rabbinate.

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A Conference of Colleagues, A Blessing of Rabbis

I’m not sure what one calls a large gathering of rabbis. Is it a rabble of rabbis? A den of rabbis? A blessing of rabbis? Whatever the official appellation, there sure were a lot of us at the CCAR convention I just attended in Chicago. In fact there were over 500 rabbonim gathered at the Fairmont Hotel for 4 days of learning, studying, schmoozing, and connecting. As always it is a sweet reunion of old friends, pulling out our iPhones, sharing pictures of our spouses and our kids and now for some of us, our grandchildren. It has also become a chance to meet new colleagues with new ideas about so much of what we senior rabbis have been doing for decades. These encounters can be bracing: the young are so certain about so much… These encounters can also be humbling, because they produce fresh insights into long held views on any number of practices.

We invite young scholars, many of them now teaching at Hebrew Union College, the Reform seminary. And they are so smart! So credentialed from fine universities: Yale, Sorbonne, Hebrew University, and so forth… We learn that there are few eternal verities in Jewish Studies.

We also invite people from the world of business and politics to share their wisdom as it relates to Jewish life and leadership. With them we learn the shifting complexities and expectations of community, whether that be a community of consumers, Congressmen and women, or congregants. It is sobering for all of us to recognize that everyone agrees with the notion that we are living during a transition; we just don’t know to what we’re transitioning. There’s the rub…

untitled-58-2Yet with all the stress on the new and evolving, some things do not change, including the Reform movement’s commitment to social justice. This past Wednesday night Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center reminded us that for 50 years, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (“the RAC”) has been the hub of Jewish social justice and legislative activity in Washington, D.C. The RAC educates and mobilizes the Reform Jewish community on legislative and social concerns, advocating on more than 70 different issues, including economic justice, civil rights, religious liberty, Israel and more. He spoke with Jim Wallis, a Christian writer and political activist who is best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine. Together they reminded the rabbis to keep our eyes on the prize.

Congregational life is changing and by definition, so too must the congregational rabbinate. We are less and less called upon to be scholars, experts in Jewish studies. More and more we are called upon to serve our temples through compassionate caring and connection. Adhering to “the way we have always done it” has slowly changed to doing “whatever is new and hip.” We are truly in new digital territory with analog maps. That consensus is shared by the vast majority of rabbis. So many Reform rabbis agreeing about anything en masse is cause to pay attention.

Rabbis are opinionated people with a deep sense of obligation to our congregations. We know that we will be called upon for unimaginably wonderful moments. We also know that we will be called upon to be present, to hold the center in the midst of devastating loss. We are not prophets yet we are often expected to fill that role – as well as the role of priest. Being at a conference of colleagues reminds us all that we are all human. We lack super powers. We are lonely sometimes. We are blessed to be present in the most sacred moments of life. Thirty years after my ordination and a day after the CCAR annual convention, I feel more blessed, luckier every day, to be a congregational rabbi.

Rabbi Keith Stern serves Temple Beth Avodah in Newton, MA.

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Why Rabbis Need Rabbinic Conventions

Rabbi Paul Kipnes

I’m just back from the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention, a gathering of 600 Reform Rabbis from all over the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe, South America and elsewhere. Four fabulous days of inspiring worship, thought-provoking speakers, pastoral skill-building sessions, and insightful study of our Jewish texts.

I return home with Evernote (books) filled with ideas and insights for the many roles I live as an American Reform Jewish congregational rabbi. In fact, each day was so packed with large plenary gatherings and small group meetings that my mind was working in overdrive from 7:00 am through 11:00 pm.

One of the most poignant events occurred at a location twenty-minutes away from the Convention Hotel. That night, eleven people gathered at a local restaurant in a private room for dinner.

The dinner took place during intentionally set time for “dinner with friends and colleagues.” Along with other sessions and the plenaries, this dinner allowed us to address one of the most significant reasons we rabbis need to attend rabbinic conventions: to find solace and strength in the company of colleagues.

Over dinner, we laughed, joked, kvetched, kvelled, commiserated and counseled each other. We reflected upon the distinctive role and responsibility of being a rabbi in our contemporary Jewish community.

As we played musical chairs – switching places between courses – we shared triumphs and tribulations. This one sought advice on how to deal with a particularly thorny pastoral problem, while that one teased out new approaches for a difficult issue of organizational governance. These two compared notes on the challenges of youth engagement as those two shared strategies for keeping our own young ones from becoming too encumbered by the challenges of living in the Jewish public eye. These four discussed new ways to think about the congregational rabbinate, while those four debated the perspective on Israel in Avi Shavit’s book, My Promised Land. From the personal to the professional, the macro to the micro, we wove memories of our past through the realities of the present and into the hopes for the future.

I left dinner sated: full of delicious food, helpful advice, meaningful insights and a clear sense that the shared challenges we face are surmountable because we have others to guide and support us.

Why do rabbis need rabbinic conventions?

KipnisWhile being a rabbi is an especially rewarding profession, it can be challenging, exhausting and emotionally depleting. Only in gatherings of rabbinic colleagues can we let our metaphoric hair down – of course, I have none left because I shaved my hair to raise money and awareness to fight pediatric cancer (but that’s another blogpost). In this safe space among people who know and understand can we find sessions and support to rejuvenate ourselves and lift each other up spiritually.

So four days away is both a short time and a lifetime, because in those brief moments away from the 24/7 responsibilities of leading a sacred community of our holy people we regain perspective and gain new perspectives to dive back in and lead and partner anew.

So to my dinner companions – my friends – I say thank you for rejuvenating me.

To our CCAR leadership and the Convention Program Committee, I say Todah Rabbah (thank you so much) for creating moments to find new meaning.

And to my synagogue – Congregation Or Ami (Calabasas, CA) – I offer my profound appreciation for making it possible to leave and come back. I and we will benefit greatly from this experience.

Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA. This post was originally published on his blog, Or Am I?

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Healing and Strengthened With Friends at the CCAR Convention

I come to the CCAR Convention every year for many reasons. I want to learn, refine, rediscover and build rabbinic skills, and I want to spend time with my colleagues and friends. And this year especially, I not only wanted to but truly NEEDED to be with my colleagues and friends.

It’s been a long six weeks since the fire at my congregation TBS that not only destroyed our kitchen, but also brought our building to its skeleton because of the smoke and soot damage.  For me, my entire staff and amazing lay leadership, days have been long and involved, and to be honest, we are all exhausted. Coming to CCAR was a welcome moment to step away and hope to fulfill the goals I set out with every year. But this conference would become something more.

As in this week’s Torah portion during which the priest is called to the house or bedside of someone with tza’ara (a visible growth or skin disease) he was expected to investigate if the person was in fact clean once again, in other words cured. This portion is one of two that is challenging because we automatically fall into the “gross factor” and challenge the portions relevance. However, there are positive blessings as the priest was not only the spiritual practitioner for the people, he was also the physician, seeking healing for anyone in his community. He brought support and strength.

This year’s CCAR is filled with many “priests” (aka, colleagues and friends) who seek to bring healing and invite me, and actually all of us to recognize that the tza’arot that plague our lives are not insurmountable. That they can be cleaned and we can be made whole and able to embrace a new normal.

I have been overwhelmed by the love and support of every CCAR colleague and friend who read my post about our TBS fire and have offered support on all levels. Many of you I know and some are new to me. Each of you are a part of my rabbinic family and your compassion is felt deeply. Everyone of you have overwhelmed me in the most amazing way and I am feeling inspired, healed, whole and ready for the next chapter of our congregations journey toward recovery.

10003475_10152094270038196_640183136_nAnd the support knows no boundaries. Last night, 54 rabbis shaved their heads, participating in St. Baldrick’s 36 Shave for the Brave in loving support of our colleagues and friends Rabbis Michael and Phyllis Sommer and in memory of their son, Sammy, z’l, who lost his battle to leukemia in December. Last night we gathered to support those who shaved (and I even wielded the shears for one shavee) as we celebrated raising over $575,000 (and that number continues to grow) toward childhood cancer research. We also mourned because  this event reminds us that too many children are dying. While some may say this is only a drop in the bucket, we know that every drop counts and eventually the bucket will be filled and we pray no family will ever have to lose another child to cancer.

We come to the CCAR Convention to learn, grow and yes, to heal. And together, we find it and create the moments. And tomorrow, we will leave stronger, more whole, and blessed. I know I am.

Rabbi Heidi Cohen is the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Ana, CA. This post originally appeared on her blog, ravima.com

Categories
CCAR Convention Gun Control

Gun Violence in America: Moving from Helpless to Hopeful

Today I attended a fascinating session on Gun Violence, titled “Gun Violence in America: Moving from Helpless to Hopeful,” here at the convention led by Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, 5th year HUC-JIR student Adena Kemper Blum, Diane Boese, and Alec Harris. Two local Chicago people working on this gun violence prevention modeled locally. In short, the approach is to go after the purchasing power of the military and law enforcement who purchase 40% of the guns in this country and with that purchasing power, require that the gun manufacturers utilize rapidly improving technology that promotes gun safety.

Does this seem a little bit unclear? Think of the emissions standards my home state of California passed. In essence, because of these regulations all car manufacturers must produce cars that will pass the strictest emissions standards in the state. This organizing effort is trying to do something similar with gun safety technology.

The presenters shared the experiences of traveling to a European gun show (many of the top gun brands are produced by European companies) to speak with the gun enthusiasts about the safety issues. We also heard how Chicago-based organizing efforts have been effective, as Cook County is in the process of making changes.

If you would like to find out more about this effort, please visit Do Not Stand Idly By.

Rabbi Eleanor Steinman is the Director of Programs and Fund Development at A Wider Bridge, the pro-Israel organization that builds bridges between Israelis, LGBTQ North Americans, and allies. 

Categories
CCAR Convention

Gender Issues are Mens’ Issues

As we are about to reconvene in dinners focused on an aspect of gender identity at the CCAR in Chicago, I remember my obligation to write a small piece about why a group of men got together to talk about gender issues at the CCAR last year, in 2013.

As we aim to bring real egalitarianism to our synagogues, Reform Judaism, and our countries, it has become abundantly clear that when men and women progress through the same jobs, equality in treatment, pay, and benefits works to everyone’s advantage. We must enlist men to see that gender issues affect everyone, including men.

Here are three issues that come to mind immediately that impact women and men as rabbis:

  • When a woman gets paid less in a job than a man who may then succeed her in that job, we have lowered the pay standards for both men and women.
  • When standards are different for men and women because of benefits that may come from partners, organizations’ standards for offering benefits may drop as well.
  • Expectations and treatment of partners differ based on gender.
  • Many of these issues were raised in the last month by President Obama and are also discussed in an article from Slate last year.

These issues are complicated. That doesn’t remove from us the obligation of working to proceed in a more-fair-for-all direction, especially as we encourage egalitarian parenting too.

These issues already exist in our movement. Some have been discussed on RavKav. I believe very strongly that we need to begin to create a system of principles on these issues from which we can negotiate reasonable and fair outcomes in our constituent organizations.

The CCAR is responsible for leading the way on social issues for all of our rabbis. Men must recognize that gender issues are our issues, so that we can truly bring equality to all.

Thanks for reading, if you have so far, I look forward to figuring out ways to participate in moving forward on these issues.

Happy Spring to all,

Jonathan

Rabbi Jonathan Freirich serves as associate rabbi at Temple Beth El in Charlotte, NC.

Categories
CCAR Convention

#36rabbis – Why I’m Moved to Shave

Picture

I am about 2 hrs and 10 minutes away from shave-time, and it occurs to me that I should probably try to put into words why it is that I’m heading up to the local SuperCuts to shave my head for the first time in my life.
(What does it say about me that I still get my hair cut at SuperCuts?)
I should probably not be surprised that the SuperCuts website, which promotes these recommended hair styles if I aspire to be ‘cool like a rock star’, does not feature the bald look.  That’s a shame, because it turns out that there are plenty of famous rock stars that are bald.  (Yes, I voluntarily paid good money as a kid to see Phil Collins in concert.  File that under #whatnerdyfuturerabbisdo.)Anyway…I digress.  Why will I be shaving off all of my hair (at the aforementioned SuperCuts) in 1 hr 55 minutes?

To begin, you might notice from the picture above that I’ve already shaved off my beard.  (For some reason, every time I say the word “beard,” my three year old son Avi hilariously gives me a sing-song shout-out by proclaiming “your beard!!!” and then he spontaneously cracks up.  It’s funny and mysterious all at the same time).  

I’ve had a beard pretty much permanently since….college?  I typically shave the beard off only once a year: the day before Passover, as a way of connecting to the spiritual meaning of growth that I believe is implicit in the season of the Counting of the Omer.

In that sense, the first thing that is disorienting for me today is the fact that my beard is gone…two weeks early.  I’ve lost something….a part of myself….and even though the loss was voluntary…and even though it is entirely cosmetic…and even though it will (God-willing) grow back…it is a loss nonetheless.  On some level, simply by shaving my beard, I have entered into the world of grief and mourning.

There are other emotions and sensations that I am aware of.

Simply by shaving my beard, I am becoming re-acquainted with how my face feels.  It’s a funny way of saying it – but a beard is something of a firewall against certain facial sensations.  With the beard gone, I can feel again…the smoothness of my face, and in doing so: I feel…younger.

In this wonderfully liberating way (akin to when I put on a Phillies hat instead of a kippah), I feel less like a rabbi, and more like a regular person. That’s important to me right now….with 1 hr 35 minutes to go.  Because even though, on the surface, this is about rabbis (Phyllis and Michael are my colleagues, and someone decided to call this group #36rabbis), being a rabbi has absolutely nothing to do with my reasoning to shave my head.

My colleagues and I are prone to tweet pithy status updates with the hashtag #whatrabbisdo.  But, honestly, for me….a more honest description about my act might be #whatpeopledo.  Or at the very least: #whatpeopleshoulddo.

We should care, I think, that in the year 2014, when we are privileged to live in moment of history in which it is possible to accurately measure the age of the universe, and when it is possible to send messages to one another from our phones from one side of the globe to the next….I think we should care that in this moment, that it is wrong…existentially speaking…that children should inexplicably die from incurable cancer.

And so, rather than complain about it from the sidelines, I’ve decided to do something about it.  I’m going to shave my head (in 1 hr 21 minutes) to raise awareness (on the presumption that people will be asking me 1000 times over the next few weeks why I’ve shaved my head).  And I’ve made (in brutal honesty, a relatively minimal) gift of tzedakah to do my part to work for a cure.  (You can give too, via St. Baldrick’s.)

But there’s another reason that I’ve decided to go down this road.

We are supposed to say Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet when news reaches us of a loved one’s death, acknowledging that however painful the loss, that there must be a divine sense of justice/order in it.  God has God’s reasoning, even if we are not privileged to know it.

I’m relatively far removed from Michael, Phyllis, and their family.  I don’t think I ever had the honor of meeting their son Sam – I was going to write “may his memory live on to be for a blessing” but the absolutely extraordinary thing is that, from my vantage point, it already has – anyway…I never had the honor of meeting Sam (again I think of my son, Avi, and their shared identification with Superman), and yet…for me: Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet was not something I could say when I learned of Sam’s passing.

I knew it was coming.  I had been following all of the Tweets, and the Facebook messages, and had heard through the grapevine.

And yet in the moment of hearing the news, I would not and could not say the words.  There was/is to me an absurdity associated, this year, and on this day, with the notion of believing in a God that would want Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet to be recited on the loss of a child.  I have still not been able to make sense of that, theologically.  As a rabbi: sure…I would be happy to refer you to Kushner, or if we’re feeling more bold, maybe Rubenstein.

But I’m not a rabbi right now.  I’m a person.  

I’m a person that – during this entire journey that Phyllis and Michael have been on – I’m a person that only succeeded in picking up the phone once (went to voicemail) to offer my support.  Three times I sat down with pen and paper to write a real, live letter to them – and all of those wound up in the trash, along with countless draft emails.  Mostly because, as a person, I could not summon the necessary empathy…could not begin to imagine whatever it was that they have been feeling.

Yes, I’m a father.  But the fact that I’m a father I think has actually made it harder for me to empathize in this case.  Because even though the Sommers’ loss has spurred me to new heights of gratitude, in terms of appreciating the miraculous and blessed existence of Siona and Avi (I feel selfish in this moment admitting that)…nonetheless: how could that possibly enable me to connect (on some human level) to the way that their family has changed?

It is no doubt utterly selfish (yikes, there’s that word again) of me.  But I am shaving my head – not just out of a sense of solidarity with Phyllis and Michael, and all of the other friends and colleagues that are gathered at this very moment in Chicago, while I remain here in New York…but also out of the misguided hope that shaving my head will spark .00001% more empathy for me, that I might have a tiny additional sense of what it means to be a human being (and to connect to others human beings) in this world.  

To put it another way: I hope and pray that this act of ‘othering myself’ in 1 hr 2 minutes will actually have the opposite effect: that I will grow into a deeper sense of awareness, and maybe even peacefulness.  Not with God…for the time being, that ship has sailed.  I cannot claim to understand the logic of God in all of this.  But maybe a deeper sense of awareness and peacefulness with the rest of humanity….of what it means to be alive, and grateful for that gift of life…and of what it means to love, and to lose.

…הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזֻמָּן

I am hereby ready and prepared: to try harder at fulfilling the mitzvah of being present for friends and colleagues; to try harder at fulfilling the mitzvah of tikkun olam by addressing all of brokenness that pervades our world; and most importantly: I am ready and prepared, to shave my head, and to perhaps attain a fuller sense of what it means to be human in the process.

Sending my hugs, and all of my love…or at least as much as the Internet can carry…to Phyllis and Michael, and to every one of my friends and colleagues in Chicago.

48 minutes to go.  SuperCuts: here I come.

Rabbi Jeffrey Brown serves at Scarsdale Synagogue Temples Tremont & Emanu-El. This was first published on Rabbi Brown’s Blog.