Category: Social Justice

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Israel News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Israel and LGBT Rights: A Work in Progress

Over the last number of years, Israel’s extraordinarily progressive positions on gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people has almost made up for the occupation of the West Bank.  I know that sounds ridiculous and, of course, it is.  But the reason I station them side by side is that as a progressive Zionist I have been embarrassed by the growing settlements in the West Bank.  And as a progressive Zionist I have enjoyed overwhelming pride from Israel’s remarkably forward support of gays and lesbians.  The GLBT community is safe and thriving in the heart of the Middle East—Israel—while every surrounding country is hostile and dangerous for our community.

By way of full disclosure, I’m a lesbian rabbi.

So when Education Minister Shai Piron, the number two in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, spoke recently against the legitimacy of gay and lesbian couples, my heart went out to Israeli gays and lesbians, especially to the youth.  And I would have been embarrassed, except for that I’m buoyed by the rigorous debate in Israel that followed.

Piron’s remarks were, “I think it’s a Jewish State’s right, maybe even its duty, to say to same-sex couples who decide to live their lives together: this is not a family.”

Once I learned that he had offered an apology, I sought to write a piece on the power of remorse and t’shuvah (repentance).  Unfortunately, if you look at Piron’s apology, he does not in any way retract his remarks.  On the contrary, he makes the point that, “it’s not up to me to decide what a family is and what it is not.”  In other  words, he admits that if it were up to him, families like mine would not be considered a family.  All he is conceding is that he doesn’t have the ability or right to make that decision for us.

This should come as no big shock considering that, according to “The Times of Israel,” Piron, an Orthodox Rabbi who was the head of a religious-Zionist yeshiva, said before he joined Yesh Atid that “homosexuality could be fixed.”  Piron and Lapid later stated, when Piron entered public service, that Piron had, “changed his views.”

So then what do we make of the fact that openly gay TV host Asi Azzar expressed support  for Piron despite his comments because his actions in the Knesset, according to Azzar, have been helpful to the gay community?

This reminds me a bit of how we feminists looked the other way at Bill Clinton’s sexual harassment of women because he took such pro-female positions when it came to the law and his bully pulpit.

Piron is not where he should be on the issue of gays and lesbians.  We err if we make allowances for his homophobia just because he is less hostile than other Orthodox Rabbis.  And we make a mistake when we forgive someone simply because they are not as homophobic as they once were.  As an American resident it is not my place to call for the resignation of an MK.  But I think that it is imperative to keep criticism of his position highlighted so as not to make room for a homophobic point of view just because we are grateful for the dialogue.  And if I lived in Israel, I would be protesting his leadership as Education Minister as much as I would protest West Bank settlements.  They are bad for Israel and bad for the Jews.

My parents are Sabras who met while serving in Tzahal and moved to the US in the late 1950’s.  When they became American citizens they had to swear that they were not homosexuals.  We have come a long way in the United States and any gay activist knows that individuals often come along slowly on this issue, while others awaken suddenly.

Okay Shai Piron, kudos to you for not being as anti-gay as you used to be.  And thank you for wishing that you hadn’t hurt people’s feelings.  And I am glad that you sometimes vote correctly on LGBT rights.  But you are not where you should be.  You are a work in progress.  If you can find access to a fast-forward button that gives you the wisdom and courage to be diametrically opposed to the position of most Orthodox leaders, I will be very proud of you.

 Rabbi Karen Bender is one of the contributors to the wide-ranging anthology “The Sacred Encounter”. Her chapter, “How to Respond to Bible-Thumping Homophobia, Or: Judaism as Evolutionary If Not Revolutionary” deals with important and controversial issues of homosexuality in the bible.

SECover

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News Rabbis Social Justice

Rabbinic Leadership – Fifty Years Ago and Today

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the historic arrest of CCAR rabbis in St. Augustine, Florida, where they traveled at the request of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. This talk, inspired by the moral leadership of this group, was originally presented as a sermon on Shabbat B’haalot’cha, June 6, 2014, to a Joint Board Meeting of the CCAR, URJ, HUC-JIR, along with the members of the Cincinnati Reform community who joined together for Shabbat.

Fifty years ago this month, Rabbi Israel Dresner was attending the CCAR Annual Convention when he received a telegram from his friend the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We need you down here with as many rabbis as you can bring with you!”

Sixteen rabbis, along with Al Vorspan, director of the Religious Action Center, then a newly formed joint enterprise of the UAHC (URJ) and the CCAR, proceeded to St. Augustine, Florida. Why did they respond to Dr. King’s call? In the words of our seventeen leaders[1]:

“We came because we … could not pass by the opportunity to achieve a moral goal by moral means…

Leadership at its core has a moral quality – as exemplified by these seventeen Reform Leaders.

How do we act as moral leaders? Rabbi Charles Mantenband, a rabbi little known to most, had served in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where my wife Vicki grew up (and in other communities). Active in the Civil Rights Movement, in 1964 he laid out a four step agenda for leadership with what he called an “innocent rhyming device”:   “aware, care, dare, share.” The Rabbi explained: Aware is to “be informed”; Care is to “indicate your concern”; “Dare is to “take risks”; and Share is to “give of yourself.”[2]

Aware is to be informed.

To be informed requires a lifetime commitment to ongoing education and an awareness of the world in which we live.

For our rabbis, anchored in Torah, it also means learning new leadership skills that involve strategic thinking, organizational management, financial sustainability, and community-building.

For our lay leaders, anchored in our contemporary society and business models, it also means learning Torah and the Jewish values that guide our work.

In addition, to be aware and informed requires self-awareness. In this regard, we model ourselves on Moses, as it says in this week’s Torah portion: Moses was a very humble leader, more so than any other human being on earth (Numbers 12:3). In today’s contemporary language, we would say that we as rabbis and as lay leaders must practice tzimtzum. The contraction of the self to make room for other people and for God in leadership.

Care is to indicate your concern for others.

Why, our commentators asked, is it so praiseworthy that the Torah portion emphasized in the opening verses that Aaron lit the lamps as God had commanded? Because Aaron in his new elevated, superior role retained his humility and still adhered to the customary practice of the people without deviating.

Midrash notes that Aaron was a man of the people. He did not separate from his community but stayed amongst them and with them: When there was a conflict between two people he “would not rest” until he returned them to friendship. When someone did not know how to pray, Aaron became that person’s teacher. If, according to Midrash, someone did not understand Torah, Aaron would explain it.[3]

Today as leaders we strive to model Aaron’s attention to the uniqueness of each individual as we build caring, welcoming, and inclusive communities.

And our concern is not limited to just our local community, but also to groups of people who have been cut off from the community, disenfranchised, or denied their rights. Throughout our history as a rabbinic leadership organization, the CCAR has championed the fundamental principle that every person has been created in God’s image, is entitled to dignity and equality and respect. For that reason, the CCAR this week joined as a plaintiff in a Federal lawsuit that challenges North Carolina’s law banning same-sex marriage. (That law violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right of individuals and congregations to freely practice our religion.)

To care is to act upon our concern.

safe_image.phpDare is to take risks.

Leading to a new future is not easy; it involves taking risks; it may involve failure as well as success. It does not always make one popular. And as we know, our people can complain. As it says in the Torah portion, the people took to complain bitterly about their transition. And discontent can spread quickly. Torah teaches that Moses quickly heard the people weeping, every clan, and at the entry of every tent (Numbers 11:1-10).

Today’s leaders must have the capacity to live with such complaints. In contemporary terminology, our leaders must learn to live with disruption, to hold it in our hands, to manage and lead through that disruption to new beginnings.[4]

Share is to give of yourself.

This weekend, leaders of the CCAR, HUC-JIR, and the URJ will have the opportunity to explore what calls each of you to leadership, what you are willing to share of yourself as you take responsibility.

We also acknowledge that shared leadership is a historic Jewish value. Moses himself cries out that he could not “carry all these people by myself.” God told him to create an advisory board of seventy elders (Numbers 11:16).

Shared leadership is not always easy. Certainly, as we look to the future, the qualities of leadership between rabbinic and professional leaders, on the one hand, and lay leadership, on the other, overlap. But each has unique roles in our organizations. In the Torah portion, Moses stations the 70 leaders around the tent; perhaps the first indication of strategically placed leadership. Each person with his or her own unique role, just as Moses and Aaron too had special roles.

But, at the same time, the Torah’s reference to Eldad and Medad, reminds us that all people have the potential for leadership. As Moses declared: “If only all God’s people were prophets; that the Eternal put the divine spirit upon all of them” (Numbers 11:29).

As we look to the future of Jewish leadership in North America and throughout the world, we hope and we pray that God will put the divine spirit upon each and every one of you, every one of us, who will lead the Reform Movement into its new future.

Rabbi Steven A. Fox is the Chief Executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  

[1] The seventeen include: Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Rabbi Israel Dresner, Rabbi Daniel Fogel, Rabbi Jerrold Goldstein, Rabbi Joel Goor, Rabbi Joseph Herzog, Rabbi Norman Hirsh, Rabbi Leon Jick, Rabbi Richard Levy, Rabbi Eugene Lipman, Rabbi Michael Robinson, Rabbi B.T. Rubenstein, Rabbi Murray Saltzman, Rabbi Allen Secher, Rabbi Clyde T. Sills, and Mr. Albert Vorspan.

[2] The full text of Rabbi Mantenband’s presentation can be found in the CCAR Yearbook, 1964.

[3] Rashi and others have observed that Torah commends Aaron for adhering to the customary practice without deviation. There is a good explanation of this, as well as the commentary of Rabbi Meir at Premishlan, in Abraham Torsky’s Living Each Week commentary on this particular Torah portion.

[4] Also, we hear a great deal today about entrepreneurship in the Jewish community and that rabbis themselves must be entrepreneurs. In the 19th century, Richard Cantillon first defined an entrepreneur as a “bearer of risk”.

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Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

An Introduction to the Jews of the South: A Good First Impression

The president of the congregation met me at the airport. It was late summer, 2000, my first visit to Hebrew Union Congregation, my new biweekly student pulpit in Greenville, Mississippi. No sooner had we pulled away from the tiny terminal, past the defunct air force base, onto the access road, than we were pulling off again, into a cotton field in full bloom. I had never seen anything like it. Next thing I knew, I stood waist-deep among gently bobbing plants, an undulating field of white stretching to the horizon, the green leaves beneath like a sea obscured by bright foam.

“Have you ever picked cotton?” he asked.

“No.”

He urged me to pull one soft boll for myself. I asked if this was his field. He laughed, knowing from a lifetime of Mississippi autumns that soon, during the harvest, the roads would be paved in white, stray cotton blowing along the lane markers, fields still generously tipped with snowy fibers, as if awaiting gleaners.

“It’s okay to pick one,” he assured me. I hoped he at least knew the field’s owner, and followed his instruction.

How do you make a good first impression? Or a powerful one? I’ll never forget my introduction to the Deep South, to the Jews of the south. I got the message loud and clear that cotton was—historically, and still in large part to that day—the lifeblood of the region (and if our “field” trip weren’t enough, my congregational president, a history major in college, had plenty of tales of times past to finish the job). The blood wasn’t pumping as strongly as it once had, and the town was in decline. The synagogue had just said goodbye to their last full-time rabbi. I was their first student rabbi. Nevertheless, in the hearts of many in the Mississippi Delta, cotton was . . . if no longer king, at least a true royal.

Of course, the legacy of cotton is inextricable from the legacy of slavery, which is one of the factors that set the region up, 100 years after abolition, for its troubled relationship with the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

We continued on to the synagogue, a gorgeous domed 1906 structure with enormous stained-glass windows and a full-sized pipe organ. The congregation had once claimed the largest synagogue membership in the state, and the sanctuary seated hundreds of worshipers. The synagogue building had all the amenities you might expect: assembly hall, kitchen, classrooms, board room, and a sizable library. The library had recently seen the installation of an impressive historical exhibit, curated by two congregants.

The president led me to a glass-sided display case, filled with some of the more physically vulnerable artifacts: old snapshots and siddurim, yellowing posters, manuscripts. He opened the case, and pulled out two items.

The first was a pamphlet, published by the Association of Citizens’ Councils of Mississippi, titled “A Jewish View on Segregation.” The anonymous author self-identified only as a “Jewish Southerner,” but was presumed by Jewish locals, based on personal details disclosed in the essay, to be a resident of the Delta.

The second was a letter, dated November 1963, from the president of Greenville’s Hebrew Union Congregation to the Board of Trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, protesting the arrangements for the banquet speaker at the upcoming Biennial Convention. The letter did not report the details, already well-known by the parties involved, and my guide filled them in for me: The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had been invited to speak at the gathering later that month in Detroit. The record shows that he spoke, Greenville’s protest notwithstanding. The letter, however, received a thoughtful, two-page reply from Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, also on display  in the library; and the congregational board secretary, a Detroit native, in defiance of her board colleagues, attended.

“Why are  you showing me this?” I ventured, hesitantly. The current president did not strike me as the sort who would be proud of this chapter in his congregation’s history. But I wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Can you believe this?” he chortled. “Some folks in the North think this is still who we are. But we’ve changed. It’s pretty amazing how much the South has changed.”

It’s pretty amazing, I thought, that this near-total stranger trusted me to see through the stereotype that the documents present, to perceive whatever reality I might encounter in my own experience here, just now beginning. It reminded me of how we’ve preserved the shame of the golden calf in the Torah, for all to see, like an inoculation, a warning or reminder of what we’ve been, against what we might, but mustn’t, become.

I’m reminded of this now, as we prepare to observe the fiftieth anniversary of Freedom Summer, when hundreds of young people, disproportionately Jewish, traveled south to register African-American voters. I’m back in Mississippi, where I have lived full-time for seven of the last fourteen years. The cotton still flourishes in the Delta, and the South is still changing.

"Shabbat Cotton." Photo by Bill Aron. Courtesy Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. Do not reprint without permission.
“Shabbat Cotton.” Photo by Bill Aron. Courtesy Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. Do not reprint without permission.

Rabbi Kassoff serves Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville, Mississippi, as rabbi, and Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi as Director of Youth Education.

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News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Joining the North Carolina Marriage Equality Lawsuit: Living Up to Our Values

I am proud to be a Reform Rabbi.  This week the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) has joined the marriage equality lawsuit in North Carolina.  This past week the CCAR joined the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a plaintiff in overturning the same-sex marriage ban in North Carolina.  This is significant in several ways.

First, the CCAR has supported marriage equality for many years. As early as 1996 the Conference is on record as supporting Civil Marriage Equality. And then again in the year 2000 in at our convention in Greensboro, North Carolina the CCAR went on record to endorse officiation of rabbis at Jewish and civil marriages.  So it is fitting that we join this lawsuit in North Carolina.

Secondly, the CCAR and our Pacific region (PARR) have been involved in marriage equality cases in California, Washington, New Mexico, Massachusetts and the Windsor case at the Federal level. However, we have not been the plaintiffs in these cases.  Instead we filed friend of the court briefs as a religious group whose religious rights were being denied.

But with the case in North Carolina we are actually suing the state as the co-plaintiff.  This is taking an important step forward in our advocacy and support for marriage equality.  One of the things that makes this case so unique among the marriage equality lawsuits that have been filed around the country is that this one hinges on the rights of clergy to perform gay and lesbian weddings.  The North Carolina law specifically forbids clergy from performing even a commitment ceremony let alone a legal wedding, and imposes penalties on clergy who do so.

Sacred Encounter Cover 3Many Reform rabbis have led their communities to embrace and welcome LGBTQ Jews into their communities and have been proud to perform the first weddings in their states as marriage equality has become legal.  I had the honor in California in June of 2008 when I performed the first wedding of plaintiffs on the steps of the Beverly Hills Court House. And this past week, our colleagues, Jonathan Biatch and Dan Danson had the honor of performing some of the first lesbian and gay weddings in Wisconsin, the newest state to welcome marriage equality!

I rejoice that the Reform Rabbinate is taking a lead in this case, supporting our North Carolina rabbis, and living up to our stated values of full equality, justice and inclusion of the LGBT community!  And you should be too!

If you want to read more about the history of the LGBT equality and Reform Judaism, read further in the new offering from CCAR PRESS,  The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality,  ed. Rabbi Lisa Gruschow, Ph.D.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami and serves as President Elect of the CCAR.

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Immigration News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

We Stand With Ruth as We Get Ready for Shavuot

Tomorrow, on Sinai, we will affirm the purpose of our freedom from Egypt.
Tomorrow we will remember our history and our values, our mitzvot.
Tomorrow we will stand with Ruth.

We invite you to speak – even in the briefest of ways – to the Ruths of today.
We invite you to use whatever part of this liturgy speaks to you and your community.
We invite you to stand with Ruth.

And if you do, please let us know by clicking here. 

On this Shavuot, we stand with Ruth. We stand with rabbis and their communities across the continent in calling still for comprehensive immigration reform. Why? Congress has debated reform for far too many years while millions of aspiring Americans remain in the shadows, their lack of legal status barring them from good jobs and rendering school scholarships almost unattainable. We will not give up. Over the past seven weeks, we have counted the days from Egypt to Sinai, and we will not stop counting until all the Ruths have been welcomed home.

And why was the Scroll of Ruth written?

Rabbi Ze’ira says: “To teach [us] of a magnificent reward to those who practice and dispense chesed/loving kindness” (Ruth Rabbah 2:15).

Hear now the voices of Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz:

I am Ruth.

With beloved family I came to a new country. I worked hard, determined to create a better life for myself and my loved ones. Today, I see my experience reflected in the lives of so many aspiring Americans strengthening this country through the work of their hands and the love of their families. On this Shavuot, please stand with me in recognition of the dreams of so many.

We are all Ruth.

I am Naomi.

I fled tragedy in one country to come to another filled with promise…only to be rejected—my dreams dashed against unthinkable challenges. Today, I see my experience reflected in the lives of so many aspiring Americans facing the fear of deportation, a promising future turned bitter.

On this Shavuot, please stand with me as we turn dreams sweet once again.

We are all Naomi.

I am Boaz.

I recognized those toiling in dark shadows in the corners of the field. I used my power to bring light to lives burdened by daunting trials. Today, I would like to see my experience reflected in the lives of many more American working to change current policies that keep bright futures dim. On this Shavuot, please stand with me to welcome those toiling in the corners of this country.

We are all Boaz.

* * *

On this Shavuot, we stand with Boaz, Naomi, and Ruth.

We stand with Boaz who looked into the face of the stranger and accepted responsibility, welcoming Ruth and teaching for the generations the ideal of chesed/loving-kindness, just as his grandfather Nachshon demonstrated action by leading others into the Red Sea.

We stand with Naomi who sought the well-being of others, who defied the example of her husband, Elimelech, a man who fled from his responsibility to others, whose narrow vision, selfishness, and jealousy led to his own demise.

We stand with Ruth who graciously said:

“Your people shall be my people,” who was the immigrant becoming citizen, the outsider becoming insider, whose descendent King David gives us even now a sense of promise.

On this Shavuot, may we be inspired to act with chesed with aspiring Americans, as we stand with Ruth.

Categories
Immigration Rabbis Social Justice

We Stand with Ruth of Moab, And We Stand With the Ruths of Today

This blog is the last in a series from Rabbis Organizing Rabbis connecting the Omer to Immigration Reform. This Shavuot, we recommit ourselves to working with the modern-day strangers among us. This Shavuot, we stand with Ruth. Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is a joint project of the CCAR’s Peace & Justice Committee, the URJ’s Just Congregations, and the Religious Action Center. Learn more and join the mailing list.  

We Stand With Ruth of Moab 

The Book of Ruth begins with the introduction, “It happened in the days when the judges judged” and concludes with the birth of King David, the representative figure for Malchut, the sephira of sovereignty.  The book itself is a kind of cri de couer for a better time—free of this book’s rampant poverty, loneliness and maltreatment (in Ruth 2:9 Boaz warns his workers not to molest Ruth, implying that they regularly molested other women).  We know that that is the Biblical view of the period of the Judges, when periodically “Israel did what was wicked in the eyes of Adonai” (Judges 4:1 et al.) because “in those days there was no king in Israel; each person would do what was right in one’s own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

For while it was a time when the Judges judged, they did not seem able or interested to judge how they might stop the famine which had sent Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi and her family into exile in Moab to seek food.  In our own time, so many people come to the United States to flee famine, drought, poverty or political oppression, often because they have given up hope that the powers in their own countries will be able to assist them, or care about assisting them.  They too are searching for a sovereignty which cares for them.  They have learned to believe that Americans do care.

To leave Eretz Yisrael for another land was a major decision, just as it is today.  To leave the country of one’s birth, however oppressive its living conditions, remains a difficult decision, never made lightly.  Today’s immigrants, like those in the Book of Ruth, have to abandon family, friends, the only language they know, sometimes the only place they have known.  Naomi, widowed by the man who led them into Moab, speaks of herself often as a bitter woman.

Her husband’s name was Elimelech, “My God is Sovereign”.  Yet what is sovereign in this book?  Naomi seems to believe that for each person—at least in her family—homeland is sovereign; in the book’s most famous passage, 1:14-17, three times Naomi urges Ruth and her sister Orpah to return (shovna)to their homes—the source for the custom of turning away potential converts three times.  They were all immigrants, Naomi held, and with their husbands dead, the sisters should return to the place from which they came.  But Ruth perceives a higher obligation—a higher sovereignty, if you will; using the same word as her mother-in-law, Ruth says, “Don’t entreat me to abandon you, to turn back (la-shuv) from you.”  For Ruth, to “return” to her own home would be to turn away from her proper home—the home she felt called upon to go to, because of her loyalty and love for Naomi.  If this book is a tribute to the rewards that come from following the precepts of the Torah (obedience to parents [or in-laws], caring for the stranger, leaving grain for the poor, etc.), Ruth turns to the sovereignty of God rather than the sovereignty of her own native place.  But the sefirah of Malchut also has a human dimension, representing kenesset Yisrael, the community of Israel—since it is through the community of Israel that God’s sovereignty is manifest.  When Ruth embraces the people Israel in choosing to go with Naomi, she embraces this dual dimension of Malchut as well.

The implications of this decision for today’s immigrants is instructive.  While we usually attribute primarily economic motives to contemporary immigrants’ desire to remain in the United States, we do our country a disservice by playing down a motive similar to Ruth’s: a belief, or a desire to believe, that the United States is a more caring country than the one from which they came.  How often do we tarnish that belief with the insensitivity, fear, and hostility we show particularly to undocumented immigrants, but often to all immigrants! How insensitive we often are to the still present American commitment to being a beacon to the oppressed—to the malchut, if you will, of the “American dream”—and of the American people as, at their best, the embodiment of it.

As a result of Ruth’s decision to remain with Naomi, the older woman feels an obligation to care for her.  A word that pervades the book, chesed, usually translated “love” or “lovingkindness”, really means love borne of a covenant.  Ruth shows chesed to Naomi, Naomi shows it to her, and Boaz shows it to both of them.  This covenantal love stems from the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai, which the Holy One will renew with us when the period of the Omer climaxes with Shavuot.  Devotion to the covenant is a sign of acceptance of the sovereignty of the God who made it—ol malchut shamayim, the “yoke” of the rule of heaven, and ol mitzvot, the “yoke” of the mitzvot.  Ol in Hebrew is related to the word al, above, with the sense that the yoke links us to the God above, rather than the more usual image of joining two creatures on the same level.

Are we ready to feel a sense of “covenant” with the undocumented immigrants of our time?  Are we ready to link them with the memories of grandparents or other relatives who endured many hardships to reach these shores—often out of the same motives as today’s undocumented?  And if we say, “Well, our ancestors came legally,” we forget that most of them came here at a time when immigrants were wanted, invited, encouraged by the state.  Now that the state is hostile to immigrants, to which sovereignty are we going to be loyal, that of a welcoming, covenanting God, or a too often frightened state?  Or, in the language of the Book of Ruth, are we going to be  citizens of a too often uncaring rule of Judges, or of the ideal, embracing sovereignty of God’s Malchut?

The season in which we read this book makes our choice quite clear.

We Stand With the Ruths of Today

Rabbi Shoshanah Conover of Temple Sholom of Chicago speaks with Erendira Rendon, Lead Organizer at the Resurrection Project in the Pilson neighborhood of Chicago. As Naomi stood with Ruth of Moab, Reform rabbis are standing with the Ruths of today – undocumented immigrants like Ere. Watch the Youtube video. 

Rabbi Richard N. Levy is the Rabbi of Campus Synagogue and Director of Spiritual Growth at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, CA. He completed a two-year term as the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and was the architect of the Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism, the “Pittsburgh Principles,” overwhelmingly passed at the May, 1999 CCAR Convention. Prior to joining the HUC-JIR administration, Rabbi Levy was Executive Director of the Los Angeles Hillel Council. He is also the author of A Vision of Holiness: The Future of Reform Judaism.  

 

 

 

Categories
Books Social Justice

First Encounter with The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality

Here’s a hint that the intersection of Judaism and sexuality is a complex, multi-faceted, and endlessly fascinating topic: the new CCAR anthology, The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality is 810 pages, with over fifty contributions from clergy and thought-leaders from the Reform movement and beyond.

Clearly, there is a lot to say – and I’m both encouraged and excited by the depth and breadth of perspectives put forward by the book’s editor, Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, and the many authors included in this book. No one takes the easy way out, as each essayist tackles a wide range of issues head-on, employing new, creative approaches for textual analysis, ritual creation, and contemporary policy debates. From same-sex marriage, to infertility, to creating sacred space in cyberspace, these of-the-moment topics address age-old questions with refreshing honesty and intellectual rigor.

We enrich and sanctify these conversations when we convene them within Jewish communities, and this anthology provides us with an incredible tool to do so.

So – where to start? We have synthesized the incredible material included in this volume into a study guide, providing both topic-based tracks and chapter-by-chapter discussion questions.

The tracks, which include Marriage, Social Justice, Sexual Ethics, and more, are appropriate for a variety of adult and young adult education sessions. Each track includes relevant sub-topics and chapters. You could opt to teach the entire track as a longer, multi-part course, or select a particular sub-topic and its associated chapters in the book for a one-time discussion.

We also created tracks that include topics of particular interest for a WRJ/Sisterhood group, MRJ/Brotherhood group, synagogue teen group, or youth workers to discuss together. Synagogue boards may wish to study together using the tracks that include Reform Movement policy perspectives or improving LGBTQ Inclusion. The tracks also serve as a useful topical index – if you’re looking to recommend one chapter for a couple in pre-marital counseling to read, the Marriage track distills sub-topics from sexual intimacy to ritual and legal innovation.

The second part of the study guide includes discussion questions for every chapter of the book. You might use these questions in an adult education course covering one or more of the track-based topics. You could also employ the questions as a starting point for personal reflection after reading a particular chapter. Many of the questions are geared toward how the ideas in a given chapter could be implemented in your synagogue or local Jewish community.

Finally, The Sacred Encounter is full of beautiful personal reflections related to the broader topics in the anthology. Included in many of the tracks in the study guide, these reflections also provide an accessible entry-point to the book as a whole.

We look forward to hearing how you are teaching and discussing the many perspectives included in The Sacred Encounter. How do you plan to teach on any of these topics? Please let us know which tracks, discussion questions, and chapters spark the most exciting debates for you! This is only the beginning of what we know will be an incredible conversation.

Liz Piper-Goldberg, CCAR Press Rabbinic Intern/HUC-JIR ‘15, wrote the study guide for The Sacred Encounter

The study guide for The Sacred Encounter is available for free as a downloadable PDF

Categories
Immigration News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

We Stand With Ruth: Staying Connected to Our Families

This blog is the sixth in a series from Rabbis Organizing Rabbis connecting the Omer to Immigration Reform. This Shavuot, we recommit ourselves to working with the modern-day strangers among us. This Shavuot, we stand with Ruth. Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is a joint project of the CCAR’s Peace & Justice Committee, the URJ’s Just Congregations, and the Religious Action Center. Learn more and join the mailing list.

In this week’s post, Rabbi Joel Simonds and Reuben Banks, President of University Synagogue youth group and a member of Reform CA, share a powerful video message for the 6th week of the Omer. (Youtube Video)

“As we prepare for Shavuot, as we prepare to receive Torah from Sinai, and all of the beauty that is wrapped in our Torah, this week, the week of the foundation of yesod, We Stand with Ruth. We stand with all our brothers and sisters who seek to keep their families connected, who seek to keep their families together, who seek to keep their families – the foundation of this country we love so much. We stand with Ruth, we stand with all our brothers and sisters.”

Will you stand with Ruth? On this Shavuot, we recommit ourselves to working with the modern-day strangers among us. On this Shavuot, ROR stands with Ruth – and so can you! Pledge to participate in ROR’s Shavuot campaign, “We Stand with Ruth.”

Categories
Immigration News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

This Shavuot, Will You Stand With Ruth?

To our colleagues and friends:

We created Rabbis Organizing Rabbis (ROR) for the same reason so many of us became rabbis – because we believe in the power of the Reform rabbinate to change the world! We know you feel that way, too. We have the opportunity this Shavuot to stand together and to stand with Ruth. Will you join us?

Please take the pledge to use any part of ROR’s Shavuot liturgy, written by Rabbis Adam Stock Spilker and Shoshanah Conover, and/or ROR’s Shavuot text study, written by Rabbis Erica Asch and Elana Perry.

You can share the liturgy by reading it during services, including it in your synagogue bulletin, sharing it over email, printing or posting it for your congregation/community, or sharing on Facebook or Twitter (using the hashtag #WeStandWithRuth). You can use the text study during your Shavuot tikkun, or in adult education classes leading up to Shavuot.

However you chose to share these ritual components, let us know that you are joining ROR – that you Stand with Ruth – by pledging at rac.org/ROR.

B’shalom,
Adam Spilker, Ari Margolis, David Adelson, Elana Perry, Erica Asch, Esther Lederman, Gary Glickstein, Greg Litcofsky, Jason Rosenberg, Joel Mosbacher, John Linder, Josh Caruso, Karen Perolman, Kim Herzog Cohen, Larry Bach, Mark Miller, Peter Berg, Sam Gordon, Seth Limmer, Shoshanah Conover, Sissy Coran, and Wendi Geffen

Categories
Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Hunger Still Haunts America

For one in six Americans, hunger is a daily reality. That’s right—1 in 6, close to 50 million of our citizens! As you are reading this article, nearly 13 million families in America are struggling with food insecurity. And most of these do not match the stereotype that we too often conjure up in our minds: instead they are normally hardworking families who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced, for lack of sufficient funds, to cut back on the amount of food they eat—sometimes it just the adults, too often the entire family.

In the Torah portion Emor (‘speak’) God commands us (Leviticus 23:22), “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am Adonai Your God.” In parashat K’doshim (Leviticus 19:9) we encounter a similar mitzvah with the additional instruction that “you shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard.”

Rabbi Bernard Bamberger z”l, broadened our understanding of theses verses in his commentary on the book of Leviticus for The Torah: A Modern Commentary (URJ Press). He refers to “the rights of the poor at harvest time…It confers the right to glean and to harvest the uncut edge on those who have no resources of their own. It is perhaps the oldest declaration that the disadvantaged members of a society have a right to support from the society. They should not be dependent on voluntary benevolence alone…”

Rabbi Bamberger’s multiple use of the word ‘rights’ when it comes to the poor and hungry in our midst represents a radical new use of language that, if adopted, would change our understanding of our society’s obligations to those millions of Americans who are daily challenged to feed themselves at all, let alone nutritiously. Neither our political nor our judicial system has ever spoken of the ‘rights of the poor and hungry’. The adoption of this creative language would be an important first step towards changing the attitudes and practices that conspire to keep hungry Americans in such desperate straits.

I recently accepted an invitation to join the national Board of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and I am honored to serve in this position. In recent months I have learned a lot about the issue of food insecurity in America (and in Israel), and I am often horrified that in our day this struggle is still so common. I am proud that many Reform congregations have adopted ‘Hunger’ as the central focus of their social justice efforts. Many synagogues host weekly Soup Kitchens, regularly make sandwiches distributed at multi-service centers and deliver bags of food to the needy multiple times per year. This is wonderful work, God’s work. Nevertheless, these benevolent activities are stopgap measures. The only way to end the devastating problem of hunger is to pursue justice for everyone.

The Union for Reform Judaism, our Religious Action Center, our Reform movement’s Commission on Social Action and the Central Conference of American Rabbis have each adopted resolutions that challenge us to fight the injustice of hunger and food insecurity in our midst. These statements of support go back as far as 1975 and have been reiterated on several occasions through the intervening years. But while they theoretically commit us to engage in this fight, we clearly are not yet doing enough. The statistics are simply overwhelming.

Deuteronomy Chapter 15 challenges us: “If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kin in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin. Rather, you must open your hand and lend them sufficient for whatever they need….for there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.”

RabbiJonathanSteinAs hunger and poverty continue to flourish in America, and as economic inequality continues to widen, I pray that our Reform movement will ever take to heart the obligations that our Torah enjoins upon us. Let us work for the rights of the hungry in our midst and for a just and compassionate society. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger…these are the real tests of our commitment to making God’s good world even better.

Rabbi Jonathan A. Stein serves Temple Shaaray Tefila in NYC. He is the Immediate Past President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.