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CCAR Convention Rabbinic Reflections

Regrounding Ourselves in Our Purpose: CCAR President Rabbi Erica Asch’s CCAR Convention 2024 Sermon

The 135th annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis was held March 10-13 in Philadelphia, where 450 Reform rabbis gathered in person. Here, we share the powerful sermon that CCAR President Rabbi Asch gave during the Convention Torah service. Her d’var Torah addresses the challenges of being a Reform rabbi after October 7, and the self-kindness, gratitude, and joy she hopes all Reform rabbis can find. Read the sermon below, or watch the video here.

March 11, 2024/ 1 Adar II 5784

How’s it really going?

How it started.

We all remember the beginning of our journey. Getting the letter, or email, that we had been accepted to school. Meeting our classmates. Studying. Student pulpits. Dreaming of what the future might be. And even hiking in the hills of Israel.

And then after years of rigorous study we made it. Ordination! Triumph! My class was not always that serious, I promise.

And now here we are—esteemed rabbis, established leaders, well respected members of our community. When people ask us how’s it going, we confidently reply, “Living the dream!” That is how it started. And this is how it’s going.

There’s an interesting thing about these memes. They always tell a positive story. And sometimes we feel that way. But often our reality of how it’s going might be this:

Too many things to do and a too messy desk. Four appointments I missed last week because I was so frazzled.

Or this:

Looking desperately for some inspiration and not feeling like I know what I want to say for a really big sermon I’m giving.

Or this:

Up in the middle of the night because the world is overwhelming.

The gap between how it started and how it’s going can seem painfully big. It can be hard to remember the honor and privilege, the excitement and optimism, the hope and joy that we once felt about being a rabbi.

So… how’s it going? How’s it really going?  Do you feel exhausted? Overwhelmed? Hopeless? Yes? Sometimes I do.

Because sometimes this job eats us alive. Even in normal times, being a rabbi means having to wear too many hats—we are religious leaders and fundraisers and administrators and a pastoral presence and transmitters of tradition and social workers and mediators and…and…and

And then came October 7.

October 7—and everything that has happened in the months since have shattered our world in ways we do not yet understand. It has taken an incredible toll on us personally. Yet, even as we work through our own trauma, we have continued to serve our communities. We are expected to be strong, and smart, and caring, and careful. We’re expected to have it all together.  

And we know that October 7 is neither the first nor the last crisis we will have to face. How many of us have led communities who have confronted the devastation of natural disasters made worse by climate change—floods, fires, hurricanes, and more? Raise your hands. How many have had to deal with a mass shooting that shocked your community? Who has had to deal with threats to your physical safety? What about an unexpected and tragic death? Those challenges, and ones we can’t even imagine, are part of the job. They will always accompany us on our rabbinic path.

All of this—the war and upheaval, the antisemitism and hatred, the pressing needs of our communities—all of it can wear us down. Sometimes, it can seem impossible to keep going. I hit my breaking point late October, a few weeks after October 7, just after a mass shooting in Lewiston, 30 miles from my home, after walking with a close friend through an unspeakably horrible experience. I was done. There was no way I could do this job anymore.

I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way. And yet, in the midst of feeling so hopeless, I was lucky. I was lucky to have friends and colleagues I could turn to. I was lucky that the CCAR offers short-term counseling and I could talk to a rabbi about what I was feeling. I was falling, but I was caught by my family, my friends, and my colleagues. I know that not all of us have been caught in the same way.

This job is so hard, and we all have been carrying so much the past several months, and throughout our careers. That is why we must strive to rekindle the sense of joy and purpose that inspired us to pursue the rabbinic life. And, if we are lucky enough to be living in a moment of joy and purpose, we must help those around us who are struggling. We have to recognize and accept our imperfections. We have to reground ourselves in our purpose. We have to recapture our sense of gratitude. And, now, more then ever, we need one another. We need this community.

Because we are rabbis, and we are Jews, we ground ourselves in the wisdom that our Torah offers. This week in P’kudei, we read in detail about the making of the priestly vestments. These are made of the finest materials—linen and colorful yarn, gold and precious stones, all stitched together with the utmost care. Almost an entire chapter is devoted to these vestments, but we never see the person who will wear them. Aaron only appears when the mishkan is finally consecrated. He appears after a list of all the objects that are anointed and consecrated. Then, just like all of those objects, Moses is commanded:

 וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ֙ אֶֽת־אַהֲרֹ֔ן אֵ֖ת בִּגְדֵ֣י הַקֹּ֑דֶשׁ

וּמָשַׁחְתָּ֥ אֹת֛וֹ וְקִדַּשְׁתָּ֥ אֹת֖וֹ וְכִהֵ֥ן לִֽי׃

Put the sacral vestments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve Me as priest (Exodus 40:13).

Aaron and his sons, like the mishkan and altar and laver are made up, dressed up, and anointed to serve God. They dutifully play their role. The clothes they wear, all those beautiful designs, hide who they really are.

Like Aaron, we too often put on our vestments and subsume ourselves to the role of that ideal rabbi.

But dutifully fulfilling this role can harm. It harms Aaron. In Leviticus 10 we read that after Aaron’s sons are brutally killed right before his eyes in an act of divine retribution, וַיִּדֹּ֖ם אַהֲרֹֽן, Aaron is silent. And then, Moses commands Aaron and his remaining sons not to mourn or cry out and they do as Moses tells them. They do what Moses tells them. Aaron doesn’t mourn his sons. It is one of the cruelest parts of Torah. Rather than grieving as any father would, Aaron wears his beautiful robe and plays his role. He and his remaining sons are asked to give up their humanity in service to their God and their people. And they do.

This week’s parashah, in fact, gives us an example of what not to do. But we are not priests. We are rabbis. We are not anointed by God, and we do not have to do our duty no matter what the cost. Our ancestors threw off the mantle of priesthood, yet sometimes we still cling to it, because it can be hard to give ourselves permission to just be us, not Aaron, not “the rabbi,” just who we are. It’s hard just to be Zusya and know it is enough.

That is the first piece of figuring out how to do this job in a way that is sustainable and even fulfilling. We have to recognize our desire to always be more and remind ourselves that we are enough. In fact, being imperfect is not only a gift we give ourselves, but something we can model for those we serve. 

Accepting “enough” is hard. It took me a long time to come to terms with “just” being the rabbi of a small congregation, in the middle of rural Maine: I felt I should be striving for more professionally instead of being satisfied with the very real gift of finding a congregation that I love and loves and appreciates me. It’s beautiful that we want to give our best to those we serve, but that desire to do more is also dangerous. We need to give ourselves the gift of recognizing and embracing our imperfections. 

The second thing we have to do is to reground ourselves in our purpose and remember why we went into this work. We didn’t become rabbis for fame or fortune, we went into it for something bigger, something we could uniquely contribute to the world. Maybe it was walking with people through the most difficult moment of their lives, or creating community, or teaching this tradition we love. That purpose is different for everyone, but having it keeps us focused and centered. Without it, we risk trying to do everything for everyone and that is impossible. We are at our best when we embrace the unique gifts we bring to this work and reground ourselves in what we bring to our communities.  

Finally, we need to recapture our sense of gratitude. As I was reading the reflections by our 50-year colleagues on RavBlog, I was struck that while their careers were not perfect, they all expressed a sense of appreciation—for the ability to be with others during difficult and joyous moments, to teach, and to serve. I have no doubt that those of us still a few years away from that milestone will look back on our careers with that sense, but we need recapture gratitude right now.

While this week’s parashah offers an instruction on how not to be, we are also celebrating Rosh Chodesh Adar II. We are taught משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה. How can we mandate joy? Perhaps, as our ancient ancestors suggest, we should just naturally feel joy because of the miracles done for us during this month. With no disrespect to them, it isn’t that easy. But I think the secret of this obligation, lies in the celebration of Purim itself. Purim is yom hafuch; a day of turning everything upside down. It’s a day of accepting that maybe the mistakes were supposed to happen. A day of reminding ourselves of the importance of celebration and joy. It’s a day of just being who we are. Purim’s gift to us is that we don’t have to put ourselves into a box or fulfill a function. The task is the joy and the silliness and the messiness of life. We need that permission. As rabbis, and as people. And our people need that permission as well. How beautiful to be reminded of the need for joy right now, in a world that often asks too much and a profession that can seem overwhelming.

This d’var Torah isn’t about all the work the CCAR is doing, although I’m incredibly proud of that work and I’m happy to talk your ear off about it. It’s about who we are, as rabbis and as people. It’s about how tremendously hard this job can be; how sometimes it almost breaks you. And it’s about how we must recognize and accept our imperfections, reground ourselves in our purpose and recapture our sense of gratitude.

My wish for us is that we find a way to be a little bit kinder to ourselves. That we love ourselves even when we don’t live up to our exacting standards. That we recognize that our work is hard, but it is holy. And that we extend that kindness and compassion not only to ourselves but to one another. That we meet someone new. Lend a shoulder to cry on. Celebrate a victory.

I really wanted to find the perfect picture to encapsulate a real version of how it’s going. One that acknowledges the difficulty and celebrates our successes. I couldn’t figure out what it was. But I realized that this morning I would have the perfect picture. Looking out at all of us, I see all the incredible work we are doing. I see us going on this journey together. And, I see the type of community we are building for the generations of rabbis to come. A community where they are seen and valued not for what they do, but for who they are. A community of connection in a society that is often full of loneliness and isolation. A community where we value finding balance and meaning and joy in our work. And that picture, the picture of all of us, is one of resilience, and hope, of kindness and joy. We are so blessed to be part of this community.

Rabbi Erica Asch is the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and has served as the rabbi of Temple Beth El in Augusta, Maine since June of 2013.

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Rabbinic Reflections

‘Sh’leimut’ and These 50 Years: Rabbi Bruce Kahn Reflects on His Diverse Career as a Reform Rabbi

On page 14 of Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar, Alan Morinis writes, “Achieving our potential for wholeness—sh’leimut—is not so much a reward as it is the fulfillment of the purpose of our lives.” I believe that is indeed the purpose of our lives, of religion, and of my rabbinate. Aiding others in the pursuit of sh’leimut unifies every good thing I attempted to do each day from ordination onward.  

While a great many of my teachers at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion had especially powerful influences on my rabbinate, Dr. Alvin Reines’s teachings impacted me most of all. He challenged us to go forward to assist individuals and communities to move toward wholeness as Jews or in accord with whatever were their beliefs. I tried to do so as a congregational rabbi, as a US Navy chaplain, as a civil rights agency executive director, leading philanthropic pursuits and much more. I have always seen myself as a servant and derived great satisfaction doing so. Let me add here how honored and proud I am to be a member of the class of 1974!  What great classmates!    

US Navy Chaplain Corps (twenty-eight years, mostly as a reservist): Twice, I attended Naval War College. I served briefly on many of types of ships and served at USNA and USCGA. I was three times a unit commanding officer, and I was Regional Command Chaplain. I led services the first time a Jewish worship pennant flew on a ship underway. I officiated at the burial of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, and I was at sea on the submarine Rickover when the producer and screenplay writer for The Hunt for Red October were on board in preparation for making the movie. I was activated on 9/11. On October 11, 2001, I was the only Jewish chaplain co-officiating in 9/11 memorial service at Pentagon. I retired in 2002, and was recalled in 2003 and sent to the Iraqi Theater during High Holy Days and Sukkot. In 2014, I was the only rabbi to testify before a congressional subcommittee on religious accommodation in the military. I have held commission for fifty-four years.  

Pulpits: 

  • Congregation Or Ami, Richmond, VA, 1976–1980: Congregation doubled in size. I served with denominational judicatory heads to advocate for social justice in Virginia legislature, where I got to meet Jacques Cousteau. And I began my decades-long involvement in fair housing. 
  • Temple Shalom, Chevy Chase, MD, 1980–present (solo rabbi, senior rabbi, rabbi emeritus): I separated tenth-grade graduation from confirmation service, making confirmation voluntary. 80 to 90 percent of b’nei mitzvah youngsters continued through tenth grade. 85 to 100 percent of confirmands continued in post confirmation. I established culture so that whatever a member’s need, help from within Shalom could be found. Many members went to HUC-JIR or other seminaries. I began a dozen cutting-edge programs. Shalom commissioned the writing of a sefer Torah in honor of my service there—I still don’t believe it. I was also presented with Shalom Lifetime Achievement Award. (Received two other lifetime achievement awards from other organizations.) My beloved wife Toby was given a Shalom award bestowed only twice before.

    In recent years, I am thrilled to be a member of Zoom Gali Gali, a group of over a dozen retired Reform colleagues living in the area. 

Soviet Jewry:  As a Washington Board of Rabbis leader in support of Soviet Jewry, I helped plan eight peaceful arrest demonstrations in front of Soviet Embassy. With four colleagues, I served twelve days in federal prison. The US Supreme Court later overturned the law used to convict us.    

Civil Rights:  I was a founder of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington and the Equal Rights Center. 2004–2008 served as ERC Executive Director. Among many other things, we brought actions that led to a nationwide end to the crisis in accessible housing for people with disabilities.     

Amcha for Tsedakah: In 1990, I founded a small tzedakah collective that over time raised two million dollars for especially worthy NGOs in Israel, America, and elsewhere.   

Camp Airy: I was involved there since 1957. In 2012, Airy dedicated a new Shabbat siddur “In loving honor of Rabbi Bruce E. Kahn, D.D.”  

Every year I am privileged to remain involved in a great many rabbinically connected volunteer efforts. One example: for the past eight years, I have raised essential funds for and worked almost daily with impoverished families; first one family in Baltimore, and then a family in DC.    

Most important to me, before and through these past 50 years, are my wife Toby and our family, my faith in God, and helping folks move towards sh’leimut.     

Bruce Kahn is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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Books CCAR Press Responsa

Claiming the Halachic Tradition: Rabbi Mark Washofsky on ‘Reading Reform Responsa’

Rabbi Mark Washofsky, PhD, is the author of Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today’s Issues, now available from CCAR Press. In this excerpt from the preface, he explains the book’s structure and introduces his argument for why responsa—and the halachah they reference—are essential to Reform Jewish life.

I want to invite you to join me in reading some of the most fascinating texts that rabbis have ever written. They are responsa, answers to questions about Jewish religious practice submitted to them by individuals and communities. More specifically, they are Reform responsa, composed by Reform rabbis for an audience of progressive Jewish readers.

Fascinating? Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m prejudiced. Much of my academic career as a student of the literature of Jewish law (halachah) has involved the study of the genre known as rabbinical responsa (sh’eilot ut’shuvot, “questions and answers”), documents dating from the eighth century CE to our own day. And as a member of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1985 to 2017, I have taken part in composing many Reform responsa. I have lived for decades with responsa as both a reader and a writer, so it’s little wonder that I’m partial to them. Nor should it be surprising that I want you to share my enthusiasm… which goes a long way toward explaining the existence of this book.

But why should you share my enthusiasm? That’s a big question, too big for this preface. Think of the book itself as an extended answer. The introduction explains what responsa are and their significance in the history of Judaism. It discusses the nature and history of the genre in general and of Reform responsa in particular. And it offers suggestions as to why Reform rabbis write responsa, why those responsa legitimately claim importance, and why they deserve to be read carefully and critically. The chapters that follow guide us through the reading of Reform responsa on ten subjects that I hope you will find interesting and that provide good examples of how these texts work and how they seek to accomplish the goals that their authors set for them. In the conclusion, I make some inferences and observations about the role that responsa play in Reform Jewish thought and life.

What I can and should do in this preface is to name some of the convictions that have brought me to write this book and that will no doubt be evident throughout its pages. First, responsa are an essential literary tool—maybe the most important such tool—through which rabbis (including Reform rabbis) create Torah and create community. Responsa create Torah because they answer new questions, those that the existing texts of halachah do not explicitly address, or hard questions, which the texts do not resolve in any clear and agreed upon way. Responsa create community because they are essays in persuasion. Responsa writers do more than simply declare their decisions. They argue for those decisions, with the goal of persuading their intended readers to adopt that argument as their own, to form a community around this particular understanding of the message of Torah on the question at hand. Second, Reform responsa resemble traditional responsa in that they are halachic texts, drawing their support from the literature of the Jewish legal tradition. The very existence of a genre called “Reform responsa,” by far the largest body of writing on issues of Reform religious practice, demonstrates the continuing relevance of halachah to Reform Jewish life. And third, Reform responsa differ from traditional responsa. Written by Reform rabbis and speaking to an audience of Reform Jews, they embody a uniquely Reform Jewish discourse, our own way of understanding the halachic tradition and of making meaning within our community. Reform responsa assert our own claim upon the halachic tradition, our refusal to grant to others the exclusive right to interpret that tradition and to say what it means.

Order Reading Reform Responsa here.

Rabbi Mark Washofsky, PhD, is an emeritus professor of Jewish Law and Practice at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. He served as chair of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1996 to 2017. He is currently the chair of the Solomon B. Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah. His publications include Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice, Reform Responsa for the Twenty-First Century (CCAR Press, 2010), and Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today’s Issues (CCAR Press, 2024).

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Rabbinic Reflections

‘Meet People Where They Are and Grow Together’: Rabbi Jerome David on 50 Years in the Reform Rabbinate

A true story: I was in the third grade, or maybe fourth, and I went to Shabbat services with my friend Gary at his Orthodox shul. We are both children of Holocaust survivors. While his family clung to tradition, mine tried to escape it. I was trying to follow the service, but to this day I remember that uncomfortable, sinking feeling of being totally lost and confused—being a stranger in a strange place. I also had this growing awareness that the older kids sitting near me were pointing at me, talking about me and laughing, or so it seemed.  Just then the gabai towered over me, grabbed my siddur, and turned it right-side up! “Here, try this,” he barked. 

I swore then I was not going to remain stupid in my own Judaism. My grandparents were killed because they were Jewish, and I didn’t know the first thing about it. I prevailed on my parents to join a synagogue—a Reform temple, where my rabbi served as a mentor and role model. At my bar mitzvah, the rabbi commented to the congregation, “We now know where our future rabbis are coming from.” A seed was planted. 

I’ve thought a lot about the trajectory of my own life, having recently returned from my high school reunion. 

I thought about how I could have predicted so little of it. If you would have told me when I was a fifteen-year-old kid at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio that I would be here with you, now, celebrating my fiftieth anniversary in the rabbinate, and fifty years at one congregation, I’m not sure what I would have said. 

Could I, arriving at Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in the summer of 1974—my sideburns long, my Midwestern accent thick, my experience non-existent—could I have known that I would stay, not the two years prescribed by my initial contract, but fifty years in the end, through generations, through upheaval, through change, moving from Cooper River to the promised corner of Springdale and Kresson, unifying with M’kor Shalom and becoming Kol Ami?

In the words of our son, Rabbi Ben David, “We all have examples too. I know we do.” You didn’t think it would go this way. You weren’t expecting it either: the news, the sickness, the sadness, the surprises, the professional and personal transitions one after another. Who would ever have imagined? 

One unexpected consequence is how agreeing to pilot the Introduction to Judaism course in the winter of 1979 would turn into a lifelong passion. I’m still teaching the course and so many of my cherished graduates are members and leaders of our congregation. This journey remains a labor of love for me—not only have I instructed, I have learned volumes and have been truly inspired by my students.  

One might say that the prevailing philosophy of my rabbinate is to “meet people where they are and grow together.”  

I am still growing, reaching, climbing, and hoping. 

 Rabbi Jerome David is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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Rabbinic Reflections

‘Sit Until You Are Called Forward’: Rabbi Harold Robinson Reflects on His 50-Year Career as a Reform Rabbi

It was my first ever Rosh HaShanah dinner as a rabbi, and I was trying to enjoy the meal, but instead was frantically reviewing my sermon and double-checking the cues, and generally full of opening night jitters. Then the phone rang: “Rabbi, what do we do if one of the family has just died at the dinner table? Did the rest of us go to service?” I frantically scrolled through memories of halachah while I extended my concern for the family and offered to come by either before or right after services. And asked for the identity of the caller so I would be able to connect. 

“Oh no, Rabbi, you misunderstood. We were just chatting around the table and wondered what would happen, hypothetically.” I asked myself; “Really? Is this why I became a rabbi?” 

Last month while attending a wonderful lecture at HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, in a room full of colleagues, my phone (on silent) signaled an incoming call. I texted, “Can I call you back in an hour?” All caps response, “NO, NOW!” I stepped out and called back. It was a woman whose father I had buried and at whose daughter’s wedding I was misader kiddushin. She was barely able to get out the words “talk to the police!” I have known the police lieutenant for forty-five years; he grew up across the street from us. The officer said, “Rabbi, her husband just died in a horrible accident.”  

Two days later I gathered with the bereft widow, the four young adult children and their significant others. The family was riven by issues; the children were still coming to terms with each other and their parents. Some had not spoken in several years. I mostly listened for three hours and even taught two texts.  

When I left, they were once again a family, tearfully embracing each other and me. This really IS why I became a rabbi! Silently, I thanked my days at HUC-JIR fifty years ago, my studies with Rabbis Mirsky and Katz, and especially conversations in the Bumming Room with you my fellow students that started me on the path that brought me and that family to that important moment.  

Most of all, I cherish the study of texts. At this moment I harken to the wisdom of Vayikra Rabbah 1:5: “Rabbi Joshua of Sichnin in the name of Rabbi Levi expounded the verse ‘For it is better it be said to you: Come up here, than you be humbled and sent down before the prince’ (Proverbs 25:7). Rabbi Akiba taught in the name of Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai: ‘Take your seat two or three lower and sit until you are called forward: rather that than if you had placed yourself higher and be told to move back. Better that people call you up, come up, than say go back, go back.’” 

It was hard but worthwhile advice to follow when I thought I knew more than I knew, and still hard but worthwhile advice to follow when I actually know even more than I imagined I knew. In almost every circumstance it has been better to be asked for advice or an opinion than to gratuitously offer one. Though it is often a struggle.  

Still, I am learning from Miriam, my beloved wife, who teaches from P’sachim (99a): “Silence is fitting for the wise … ‘Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is considered wise; and he that shuts his lips is esteemed as a man of understanding’ (Proverbs 17:28).”  

Rabbi Harold Robinson is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Harry D. Rothstein: Finding the Divine in a Hospital Room

Life is funny in some ways. I was born into a secular Jewish family in Brooklyn, went to New York City public schools, all the while playing hooky from afternoon Hebrew school. And here I am fifty years in the rabbinate. God has a sense of humor.

I graduated from Brooklyn College and was accepted by Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, receiving ordination in 1974. When I was accepted into the College–Institute, I was told that I would be prepared for the pulpit. Yet, my most profound and spiritual experiences have been as a hospital chaplain. Life can have its twists and turns.

While I initially served in pulpits in New York State, since 1987 my positions have been as a chaplain in psychiatric centers, prisons, hospice, a cancer hospital, and acute care hospitals, and as a volunteer for a suicide prevention hotline. During my chaplaincy I earned four units of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my Board Certification through N’shamah, the Association of Jewish Chaplains, and received a Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Counseling from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion.

While I have written about pastoral care in professional publications like the Journal of Palliative and Supportive Care and in Caring for the Human Spirit. I find the most meaningful experiences in pastoral care to be not writing, but being with patients. When a patient says that they could not have been discharged without my help, that is the day I know I have earned my salary. The experience of offering pastoral care has made me less judgmental and more compassionate, not only as a professional, but as a person.

My chaplain colleagues will sometimes report that from time to time when they engage with a hospital patient, not often but sometimes, all seems to fall away. For a moment it no longer matters that they are sitting in a hospital room. It no longer matters that they are a chaplain nor that they are conversing with a sick person. Their daily schedule, or any method of pastoral care, seem to fall away. Rather they are merely two human beings engaged in speaking with each other. This moment is divine—sometimes.

When I walk into a patient’s room, I believe that the Shechinah walks with me.

At that moment, I am just one human being speaking with another human being. For me, this is where God lives.  

I was raised in a family where we were taught that the greatest service was service to others. The rabbinate and chaplaincy have given me opportunities to live up to my upbringing.

Rabbi Harry D. Rothstein is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Calling It a Career: Rabbi Stephen Fuchs on the Moments that Matter in His 50-Year Rabbinic Career

Ecclesiastes reminds us, “There is a time for every purpose under heaven (3:1).”

When I turned seventy-seven last year, it dawned on me with stark clarity that it was time to bring down the curtain on my tenure as spiritual leader of Bat Yam Temple of the Islands in Sanibel, Florida, and retire.

I will always, of course, be a rabbi, and I will await in wonder to see what new plans the Eternal One has in store for me.

When I announced I would retire the first time in 2012 from my position as senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut, people asked, “What will you do now?” I honestly answered, “I am not sure. I’ll read more, write more, and beyond that, we’ll see.”

I could never have imagined the blessings the “we’ll see” had in store for me these past twelve years: serving as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, which enabled me to visit more than sixty-five communities on five continents teaching about and advocating for progressive Jewish values; serving as guest rabbi in Milan and Florence, Italy; spending significant parts of five years teaching and preaching in Germany; and then serving for six years as rabbi of Bat Yam Temple of the Islands.

Among the highlights of our years in Germany have been the invitations to teach with Vickie about the Shoah in German schools, and to speak in the synagogue and in churches and at Kristallnacht commemorations in Leipzig, Germany, the city where my father, Leo Fuchs, of blessed memory, grew up and was arrested and imprisoned on November 9, 1938.

Our tradition teaches that King Solomon wrote three biblical books: Song of Songs, a book of love poetry when he was a young man; Proverbs, a book of wisdom in middle age; and Ecclesiastes, with its sober look at life as an older man.

Although I cannot claim Solomon’s wisdom, I have been blessed to find true love as a young man, and the loving marriage I have shared with Vickie for all fifty years of my career years, has sustained me through the many joys and the few disappointments of my career.

I have tried my best to share what wisdom I have gained in my sermons, lectures, and in the college and seminary teaching I have been invited to do over the years, and in the seven books I have written.

Upon ordination in 1974, I became the first full-time rabbi of Temple Isaiah in Columbia, Maryland, a synagogue launched by my beloved mentor, Rabbi Richard S. Sternberger, z”l, UAHC Mid-Atlantic Regional Director.

Beginning in 1986, I became senior rabbi at Congregation Ohabai Sholom, known as The Temple, in Nashville, Tennessee. I will always be grateful that the congregation funded my graduate studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, which culminated when I earned a DMin in biblical interpretation in 1992.

In 1997, I became senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel until I became rabbi emeritus in 2012.

Now that I am older, I look back on my fifty-year rabbinical career and reach the important conclusion Ecclesiastes teaches: “Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity (1:2).” How true I find those words today.

What is truly important to me now is not recognition or material rewards. I do not deny that I have striven for and enjoyed a measure of those things, but the joy does not last that long, and looking back, they matter very little.

What I shall always cherish, and what will always matter, are the times when something I did, wrote, or said made a real difference in someone’s life. It was in those moments or when someone reminded me of them, that I truly felt God’s pleasure. Participating in our son Leo’s ordination in Los Angeles last May, is a wonderful retirement present and a memory I shall always cherish.

As they did back in 2012, people ask me, “What will you do now?”

For the time being I am proud to become Bat Yam’s rabbi emeritus.

In addition, I would add, “I’ll read more, write more, and beyond that, we’ll see.”

Rabbi Stephen Fuchs is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

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Books CCAR Press Reform Judaism

How Disruption Shaped Jewish History: Rabbi Stanley Davids and Dr. Leah Hochman on ‘Re-forming Judaism’

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids and Leah Hochman, PhD, are coeditors of Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought, recently published by CCAR Press. In this interview, they discuss the book’s development, the unique topics addressed by contributors, and the future of Judaism.

What was the inspiration behind Re-forming Judaism?  

Rabbi Stanley Davids: I am proud of my place within Reform Judaism, but I remain amazed and frustrated that so many of our people, lay and professional alike, don’t really understand how we fit within the flow of Jewish history. It is in the very DNA of Judaism to be able to encounter the shifts and changes in religious thought and within the lands where we live—and to dramatically reposition Judaism. The status quo was always a potential death knell; flexibility, creativity, and devotion to our core values allowed us to rise above both physical and intellectual rubble and to move our mission forward. When I found a true partner in Leah Hochman, I knew that we could craft a message that would have significant value and resonance.

Dr. Leah Hochman: Stan has long been interested in the multiple paths by which Jews and Judaism have come to be where and how they are. The book is his brainchild; he put together an exploratory committee of really smart people to think through some of the ways Jews tell the story of intellectual growth (and decline). Using disruptions in Jewish religious thought as a framework brought the project together. Nothing in history happens in a straight line; Judaism’s (and Jews’) ability to pivot, re-form, respond, and grow has ensured its vibrancy and continuance.

What was the editing process like? Did you learn anything new from working on this book?

SD: Our wonderful collection of authors represented widely diverse fields of expertise. They had a true passion for their subject matter. The editing process was at times quite grueling. We had to reduce the chapters to an acceptable size. We had to point out where many of our potential readers would not have the skill set to understand technical allusions. We knew that we were creating a book that did not have to be read chapter by chapter, but still, the chapters had to be in conversation with each other. I treasure what I learned—and the inspiration that I gained—from each chapter and from each author.

LH: We were extraordinarily lucky that so many talented thinkers were not only interested in the project, but were generous with their participation in its completion. Stan and I, along with the deeply committed CCAR Press editorial team, met several times to think through the organization of the book, who might contribute, and how to ensure a balance of topics, authors, and themes. The entire process occurred during the COVID shutdowns—pre-vaccine to post-Omicron—and was marked by disruptions of illness, personal loss, and changes in the CCAR office. I learned that Stan is a fierce champion of what matters and that persistence requires a whole lot of effort. It was a long haul, but thankfully, also an enormously fruitful one.

Are there any disruptions discussed in the book that readers may find surprising?

SD: I can speak only for myself, not for our readers. Surprising? So many. How the Torah emerged as a massive response to disruption. How Pauline Christianity helped shape post-Churban (destruction of the Second Temple) Judaism. How the world of Sephardim confronted very different disruptions—and thus shaped a culture quite different from the world of the Ashkenazim. How an understanding of the dynamics of gender and of synagogue music was dramatically enhanced by our own camp movements. And how adaptations to previous disruptions must be carefully studied so that we can navigate tomorrow’s world.

LH: I think all of them are surprising! I have learned an enormous amount from each of these chapters—they zero in on precise moments of growth and adaptation and unpack those moments to showcase how ingeniously our forebearers have created and preserved a sense of Jewish purpose and intentionality. Stephen Smith’s article on Holocaust witness testimony might be the most immediately surprising, but honestly, there is something for everyone in these essays.

Why is it important that we, as Jews, understand the various disruptions that have gotten us to this point in our history?

SD: Disruptions keep on coming. Sometimes they are products of natural disasters. Sometimes they are products of radical internal challenges to how we interface with the non-Jewish world. Sometimes they are the product of radical shifts in how the Western world understands the meaning and purpose of existence. Sometimes they arise as responses to horrible wars and to brutal assaults against us. We cannot understand who we are and where we are going if we cannot understand how we got “here” from “there.”

LH: We are currently living in a time period of deep concretization of story—such and such happened, in so and so way, and that’s that. And we are deepening the trenches between multiple versions of similar stories. I think it’s crucial for all of us to remember that we have choices in how we respond to the disruptions of today and that we can learn a lot from a careful and thoughtful look at our pasts.


What disruptions are we experiencing today?

LH: What a question! It feels ineffective to call the October 7 massacre, and the ongoing war in Gaza, a disruption. We had barely understood our losses from the pandemic and the full nature of the threats to individual autonomy in the US, when American Jewry needed to shift its focus to the crises in Israel and the exponential rise in antisemitism here. The twenty-first century has been wildly disruptive in virtually every way.

SD: October 7 is a disruption that will reshape Israeli understandings of themselves, American Jewish understandings of ourselves, and what Israel will mean to us tomorrow. The political climate in America represents a massive shift in Jewish comfort in this, our home. We are being forced to confront a resurgent antisemitism, along with a sense that we are being marginalized from groups and communities that once were our greatest allies. Denominationalism is rapidly diminishing as a key factor differentiating one Jewish community from another. The role and purpose of synagogues and the notion of a discipline of worship are fading. Cross-generational commitment to what once was considered normative is weakening. And here’s the key point: history teaches us that we have no idea as to what major disruptions lie just beyond the corner. We dare not confront such uncertainties unprepared. This book is both a warning and an enormous source of hope.

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids is rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El of Greater Atlanta. Leah Hochman, PhD, directs the Louchheim School for Judaic Studies at the University of Southern California and is an associate professor at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. Rabbi Davids and Dr. Hochman are coeditors of Reforming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought (CCAR Press, 2023).

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

Then You Remember: Rabbi Dennis Sasso Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

Some years ago, I wrote about stages of the rabbinate. I called the first stage “I want to change the world;” stage two: “I want to touch your soul;” stage three: “Wow! I can make a difference;” stage four: “What’s it all about?,” and stage five: “Integration.”

In the “I want to change the world” stage, I was ready to unpack and transmit everything I had learned in rabbinical seminary and make every congregant a maximalist Jew. I had so much to teach, so many good ideas, if people would only listen. As we mature, we realize that our presence is more important than our ideas, and our compassion more important than defending faith and tradition. 

The rabbi then discovers that there are issues in the lives of vulnerable human beings and begins to own the role of pastor, entering the stage of “I want to touch your soul.” We are not just enactors of rituals and ceremonials, preachers of theology and ethics, but spiritual counselors whose caring and appropriate words and gestures, whose loyal presence, can help to ease the burden and double the joys of our congregants.

“Rabbi” means teacher. As I was graduating college, I considered an academic career, but soon realized that it was being with people gathered for prayer, celebration, and memory, for the performance of acts of justice and kindness, that most compelled me. I cherished my involvement in academia and writing, but I preferred being a mentor, a guide, and fellow traveler with the Jews of today. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan reminded us, “The rabbi should not be a walking sarcophagus of dead ideas about religion, but an interpreter of the experiences… of religion that are understandable and relevant.”

With the passing of years, the rabbi becomes a leader who “can make a difference” in the broader community, sometimes drawing strong reactions. A mentor warned me, “Some people will love you without reason, and some will hate you without cause. Be yourself. You will know when you have done well.” Rabbi Israel Salanter warned, “A rabbi whose community can never agree with him cannot be their rabbi; but a rabbi who never disagrees with his community is not fit to be a rabbi.”

There will be times of doubt when a rabbi questions ideals and vocation. It’s the “what’s it all about?” stage. Then, you remember…

…you remember the love in the faces of new parents holding a newborn and praying for health and joys;

…you remember standing on the bimah with a nervous thirteen-year-old, offering blessings and assurance;

…you remember moments under the chuppah, with a young couple with whose parents you also had stood under the wedding canopy, celebrating the ongoing chain of tradition and love;

…you remember being at the hospital bedside of an elder chanting prayers he had cherished and sung, moments at the graveside of one who died too young, or of a senior taken by Covid, whom the family could not visit during the final days and hours.

…you remember the open phone conversation with a grieving family standing near a beloved mother about to be taken off life support—the tears, the love, the last breath.

Carl Sandburg observed that “Life is like an onion. You peel it a layer at a time and sometimes you weep.” And so, you remember the layers, the joys, the tears, the grace, and the strength that sustained you as you sought to sustain others.

As the years flow, a rabbi enters a stage of “integration.” Soren Kierkegaard reminds us that some things are true when they are whispered, but not true when they are shouted. Mature religion is less about the exclamation sign and more about the question mark. With humble and grateful spirit, we enter the stage of “integration”—the feeling, the awareness, that our rabbinic self and persona are one. 

Being a “Rabbi in Israel,” even now in retirement, is not what I do, but who I am—a servant and teacher in love with Judaism and the Jewish people, our culture, our spiritual values, our memories, our moral imperatives, our answers, our questions, our gifts of hope and imagination to shape a better world. Let us imagine…

Rabbi Dennis Sasso is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.

Categories
Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Allen Bennett: 50 Years of Joys and Rewards of Chaplaincy, Pulpit, and Interfaith Work

I graduated in the largest ordination class in HUC-JIR’s history.

I was one of the very few graduates that year, if not the only graduate, who intentionally chose not to seek work in a pulpit setting. I elected to enter a one-year residency program in Clinical Pastoral Education (hospital chaplaincy) in Rochester, Minnesota, after which I remained as the Jewish chaplain at the Mayo Clinic-affiliated hospitals for the next two years. Unbeknownst to me when I went to Rochester, I was also expected to serve as the rabbi of B’nai Israel Synagogue there, something no one thought to mention to me during the application process.

I loved my chaplaincy work and learned a great deal from the synagogue work. But when I had an opportunity to enter a doctoral program at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, I jumped at it and moved west. Realizing that I needed to support myself while a graduate student, I took jobs as the Director of Adult Programs at a Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, a clerk in a Jewish book store, a clerk in a Jewish-owned insurance brokerage, the rabbi at Sha’ar Zahav (San Francisco’s first LGBTQ+ synagogue), the Associate—and then Executive—Director at the San Francisco office of the American Jewish Congress, the Executive Director of the JCRC of the Greater East Bay and, finally, as the rabbi of Temple Israel of Alameda. I retired from Temple Israel in 2012.

Throughout my rabbinate, I was drawn to hospital chaplaincy. I became the (volunteer) chair of the Chaplaincy Advisory Board of Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, and served in that position for ten years. I now serve on the chaplaincy committee of Kaiser Hospital in San Leandro because I still enjoy the world of chaplaincy so much.

Relatively early on in my time in the San Francisco Bay Area, I got to know an Orthodox rabbi who was the unpaid President of the Board of Rabbis here. He was a wonderful character who was a role model in the way he tried to support and care for local rabbis regardless of their denominational affiliations. It was because of him that I became intimately involved with our Board of Rabbis, eventually serving at various times as both President and Executive Director, and even now in retirement, I continue my affiliation and strong support of the organization.

As far back as my earliest days in Minnesota, I became involved in interfaith work, initially with the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition of Minnesota, and then with the local interfaith councils. Once I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, my involvement in civic affairs has always been based in interfaith work. I was, and remain, involved in several interfaith and interreligious organizations in the area, working on immigrant rights, reproductive rights, homelessness issues, LGBTQ+ issues, and other social justice issues.

At this point in my life, my greatest joys involve volunteering in chaplaincy-related programs, supporting local rabbis, and interfaith social justice work.

Rabbi Allen Bennett is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2024.