Categories
Healing mental health

Moods and Music: King Shaul and Me

“Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Shaul and a רוח רעה ru’ach ra’ah, an evil spirit from the Lord began to terrify him.”

What to do, indeed, when God’s light, God’s very Presence departs from you?  It is an invisible phenomenon, but a discrete and frightening occurrence that I know.  Not that God has ever chosen me the way God chose King Shaul, of course, but, in my own, small way, I feel God in my life — and then, suddenly, not. 

It is reflected in the puzzlement in the doctor’s gentle questioning:  did something precipitate this drop in mood?  “No,” I say, anticipating his disbelief. “I was fine, I was a bit manic for a few days, and then. . . well, then I dropped off the edge of the cliff and I am still falling.”  He may not understand, but he tries to help.

I walk into shul on Shabbat, and I have no skin between me and my fellow congregants.  They are kind, they are loving, they see too much, and I cower in the bathroom before leyning, and leave early to avoid the conversations at Kiddush.

Shaul had David and his music.  I have a therapist whose kind words and open heart surround me, like a hammock beneath me while the רוח רעה, the evil spirit, the bad energy, if you will, breathes through me.  Sometimes words can help; sometimes words fail. 

What do you do, what should you do, when God seems to desert you?  Did the Holy One of Blessing completely leave King Shaul, or simply try to show him to a new role in the world?  Sometimes we mistake an ending for the ending.  But, then, for Shaul, it was the beginning of the end.  He couldn’t find a way to be, without being king.  He mistook his pain in the moment for unending pain.  And no one, it seemed, could tell him differently.

This, too, I understand.  The depression comes and goes.  I know this intellectually.  But when I am in the middle of the fall, when I reach out for God and find only emptiness, a vast void where once was Presence, intellectual knowledge means little.  It come and goes?  It leaves only to return again.  Where to put my faith:  in the recurrence or the remission?  In God’s presence, or absence?

The music worked for Shaul while it worked.  And then, his pain would return.  But so would David and his lyre.

So, too, do I, do all of us, put our faith in one another.  We walk together in light and darkness, our voices and music creating a path in the night, reminding us of God’s grace, of God’s return.  Sometimes we are Shaul, with a רוח רעה squeezing our hearts so hard we can barely breath.  Sometimes we are David, providing a message of hope, that the רוח יי, a spirit from God, might yet return.  And sometimes, we are blessed to be the lyre itself, strings of connection between the worlds, between our souls and the Soul of World. 

Rabbi Sandra Cohen teaches rabbinic texts, provides pastoral care, and works in mental health outreach offering national scholar-in-residence programs.  She and her husband live in Denver, Colorado.  She may be reached at ravsjcohen@gmail.com.

Categories
News

The Case of the Allegedly Antisemitic Judge

On Thursday, the CCAR joined the Union for Reform Judaism, the Men of Reform Judaism, the American Jewish Committee, and over 100 Jewish lawyers in Texas in filing a brief amicus curiae with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals supporting the appeal of a death row inmate named Randy Halprin.  Halprin is Jewish, a fact that was well-known at his trial.  He was one of a group of convicts who had escaped the Texas prison system.  He was convicted of capital murder, that is being part of a criminal group where someone committed murder, in this case the killing of a police officer. 

It is unusual for the CCAR, or indeed the other Jewish organizations and individual Jewish lawyers, to file a brief about a particular death penalty case at a mid-level state appellate court in Texas.  It is, after all, the state with by far the highest number of executions in the country, and we just don’t have the resources to file these briefs as a matter of course.  But this is an unusual case. 

The judge who presided over much of Mr. Halprin’s trial, including the death penalty phase, is named Vickers Cunningham.  Credible allegations of a lifetime of vile antisemitic and racist comments and actions by Judge Cunningham have surfaced since Mr. Halprin’s trial and conviction a decade and a half ago.  In 2018, the Dallas Morning News ran a story that laid these out.

A long-time acquaintance of Judge Cunningham told the Texas courts in a sworn statement that the judge regularly attacked Jews and people of color using foul epithets, including referring to Mr. Halprin as the “goddamn kike” and the “f…..n’ Jew.”  A campaign aide in Judge Cunningham’s 2006 race for Dallas District Attorney provided the courts a sworn statement that she heard him call Jews “dirty” (and slur people of color as well), and that he regularly referred to Mr. Halprin just as “the Jew.”  Mr. Halprin suggests that these attitudes influenced several rulings against him by Judge Cunningham.

The CCAR and others who filed this brief are not taking a position on whether Mr. Halprin committed crimes.  As the brief says, “[A]t this moment, those issues are irrelevant, because issues of guilt or innocence follow a fair trial; they do not precede it.  And if Judge Cunningham is the bigot described in [Mr. Halprin’s] application, a fair trial has not yet happened.”  The brief asks for a stay in Mr. Halprin’s execution and a full evidentiary hearing on whether Judge Cunningham was indeed biased against Jews.  If he was, a new trial should be warranted.

In the Torah reading for the week when the brief was filed, the Israelite people are instructed to appoint judges.  As part of that, they are told lo takir panim, “you shall show no partiality.”  Every court system deserving of its name has required the same of its judicial officers.  In this case, the Conference asserts that principle remains paramount today.

—
Rabbi Thomas M. Alpert serves Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin, MA.

Categories
Reform Judaism

What is the Future of Religion?

At a recent TV interview in Westborough, MA, I was asked: “What is the future of religion”? I do not know what prompted this question but, I guess, the interviewer thought that, as a Rabbi, I would have a special insight on this subject at a time when religion is under attack in many quarters: Attendance at religious services is down, many religious leaders have been accused of sexual misconduct, and quite a few synagogues and churches in the Boston area have either closed or have recently combined their activities with others. On the other hand, religious fundamentalism keeps getting stronger and more rigid. Recently, I was looking for a particular channel on TV when I came across a Christian program during which the minister was making assumptions about Judaism that were totally biased and factually wrong. I was about to call the station but then I changed my mind knowing that it is almost impossible to have a rational conversation with a religious fanatic.

Not too long ago, I came across a list of statistics which shows that, in America today, 20% of the population is not affiliated, but 68% still believe in God and 37% call themselves simply spiritual, whatever that means.

I maintain that religion will survive, simply because it deals with ultimate values that we need them in our daily life. However, I would urge that it be based on reason and rationality. Being a Jew, I would argue that the Judaism of the present and of the future has to be 1) based on the best scientific information we have; 2) that it must be progressive, answering the existential questions of our time, and, 3)  that it needs to be inclusive, reflecting the different experiences of Jews around the world, in particular remembering that there are a variety of valid Jewish concepts of God, and different religious traditions and rituals (e.g., Sephardic vs. Ashkenazic).

Religion has to be believable, and not based on unproven assumptions, for, if it is, people will not take it seriously and simply ignore it. I take religion seriously but not literally, and am comfortable to say that, for example, many of our classical religious texts (like the Hebrew Bible or the New-Testament, and, less so, the Quran), were completed much later, and that most of these texts were “attributed” to, and not “written by” their “authors.” I also maintain that these texts represent the thinking of their own time, and that new ideas were developed by Jews throughout history. For example, Maimonides was an Aristotelian; Kabbalah mysticism formally originated in the 13th cent. Southern France, and Erich Fromm was a humanist. Today, religion must struggle with our present existential questions using new perspectives.

I am a religious naturalist, following the teachings of Kaplan, Gittelsohn, and Spinoza. I am convinced that Scriptures emerged after a long period of oral transmission, and reflect the thinking of their own time; that miracles do not exist, and if something unusual occurs, it is because we still do not know how the world really operates; that prayers are not answered but reflect our expectations and hopes; that Mitzvot (commanded deeds) must be carried out, not because of the presumed reward in the world-to-come that does not exist, but because it is the right thing to do now; and that after death the only thing that remains of us are our name and actions.

I can live with these assertions and am comfortable with them. What about you?

—
Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D. serves as Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, MA.

Categories
Books

When Donors Behave Badly: Guiding Principles for Jewish Institutions

In light of CCAR Press’s publishing of The Sacred Exchange: A Jewish Money Ethic, edited by Rabbi Mary L. Zamore, earlier this year, we invited Rabbi A. Brian Stoller to share an excerpt of the chapter that he wrote.

What should a synagogue or Jewish institution do when a donor is known to be involved in illegal or immoral activity? Imagine that after a synagogue dedicates a newly renovated sanctuary, the beloved community elder who gave more than a million dollars toward the project is indicted for embezzlement. Suppose that a prominent nursing-home proprietor, whose facilities have a reputation for unclean conditions and abusive treatment of residents, offers to provide scholarships for needy kids to go to summer camp. We seek to be guided in our response to these situations by the moral voice of our tradition. While there are few clear-cut answers, our texts provide certain principles that can inform our decision-making.

The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic

What happens when two moral obligations conflict with each other?

A CCAR responsum on the case of a synagogue contribution by a criminal points out that it is a mitzvah incumbent upon every Jew to support the synagogue financially.(1) The Reform Movement has said that communal organizations should not refuse a donation from a person of questionable character because we do not have the right to prevent someone from fulfilling his religious obligations.(2) Moreover, denying the would-be giver the opportunity to do a mitzvah would further alienate him from the righteous path. As Maimonides says, “We do not tell a wicked person: ‘Increase your wickedness by failing to perform mitzvot.’”(3)

At the same time, accepting the donation may violate a different mitzvah, namely the prohibition against placing a stumbling block before the blind. As Jewish business-ethicist Meir Tamari suggests, a person may be “blind, so to speak, to the moral consequences of his actions.”

(4) By accepting the gift, therefore, we might inadvertently encourage the donor to continue in these errant ways and cause the donor to stumble further.

These conflicting moral obligations cannot both be operative at the same time, but the sources suggest that there are circumstances in which one or the other should take precedence.

What causes money to become “dirty?”

According to Deuteronomy 23:19,(5) payment for prostitution (which is forbidden by the Torah) and the monetary value of dogs used by hunters and watchmen to intimidate the public (which are lawful but unseemly activities(6)) are unacceptable as donations to the Holy Temple.(7) Maimonides rules that “when one steals or obtains an object through robbery and offers it as a sacrifice, it is invalid and the Holy One hates it.”(8) That principle suggests that the Torah regards money and anything else acquired through illegal and immoral means as “dirty” and unfit as an offering. Therefore, should someone seek to make such a donation, the synagogue or communal entity should refuse to accept it, even though doing so would prevent the person from fulfilling his obligation.

But if money gained through illegal or immoral activity is “dirty,” what about money that is earned on the up-and-up by someone who behaves immorally in other areas of her life? Is there a difference between a donation from Bernie Madoff, who acquired his wealth through theft and fraud, and a donation from Harvey Weinstein, who earned his money legitimately but sexually harassed and manipulated countless women? In a relevant discussion, Maimonides holds that a kohein (priest) is not disqualified from performing his religious duty on account of immoral behavior in his non-priestly life unless he commits one of the three cardinal sins of Rabbinic Judaism: idolatry, illicit sex, or murder.(9) Following this reasoning, could modern institutions say that immoral behavior unrelated to how one’s money is gotten should not disqualify a donor from carrying out her religious duty unless she commits an act that the community regards as a cardinal sin? If so, what actions would rise to that level?

Should the Donor be Acknowledged Publicly?

The sources raise two key concerns about publicly honoring a donor of dubious character. One is that acknowledgment will draw constant, unwanted attention to this sinful behavior. The other is that people of ill-repute will “utilize a gift to the synagogue [or other Jewish institution] as a means of purchasing a good name”(10) and atoning for their sins.(11) In order to avoid these outcomes, the Reform Movement recommends that organizations accept the donation but not publicly acknowledge the donor unless and until he does t’shuvah and abandons the immoral behavior.

Organizations should not accept donations of items that are known to have been gotten illegally. Beyond this, the guiding principles outlined here leave room for leaders to exercise judgment based on communal values and the nuances of each situation. While decisions need to be made on a case-by-case basis, institutions benefit from intentional conversations about core values and principles that guide their approach when donors behave badly.

—
Rabbi A. Brian Stoller serves Temple Israel in Omaha, Nebraska.

NOTES

  1. CCAR Responsa Committee, “Synagogue Contribution from a Crimi- nal,” Central Conference of American Rabbis, accessed September 17, 2018, https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-responsa/curr-52-55/. Readers should con- sult this responsum for a thorough analysis of the relevant halachic issues.
  2. See the CCAR responsum cited above, as well as Mark Washofsky, Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice (New York: UAHC Press, 2001), 45.
  3. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot N’siat Kapayim 15:6. Translation by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger, Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Tefilah II and Birkat Koha- nim (New York: Moznaim, 2007), 218.
  4. Meir Tamari, The Challenge of Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on Earning and Spending Money (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995), 32.
  5. Deut. 23:19 states: “You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the pay of a dog into the house of the Eternal your God in fulfillment of any vow,  for both are abhorrent to the Eternal your God.”
  6. In his comment to Deut. 23:19, Abraham ibn Ezra explains that “the pay of a dog” refers to activity that, although not forbidden, is “disgraceful” (derech bizayon).
  7. These explanations of the phrases “the fee of a whore” and “the pay of a dog” are given by Rashi and Nachmanides in their commentaries to the verse.
  8. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Isurei Mizbei-ach 5:7. Translation by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger, Mishneh Torah: Sefer Ha’Avodah (New York: Moznaim, 2007), 334.
  9. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot N’siat Kapayim 15:1–6, esp. halachot 3 and 6.
  10. Washofsky, Jewish Living, 45.
  11. See Nachmanides’s comment to Deut. 23:19.
Categories
Books High Holy Days

“And who shall I say is calling?”: Leonard Cohen in a Conversation with the Divine

Leonard Cohen z”l, was a quintessentially Jewish artist. His themes and motifs tugged on the heartstrings of Jewish Thought, both contemporary and millennia-old. To those who would argue that his obvious references to other faith systems, both within his work and his personal life, discount his work’s designation as Jewish, I would point out Marc Chagall’s heavy utilization of the crucifix motif — should Chagall’s work be discounted for this as well? But there is a difference. Chagall’s corpus mainly focused on contemporary Jewish life, particularly in the shtetl; Cohen drew his influences from biblical, exegetical, and liturgical tradition. “The Binding of Isaac” is a pseudo-midrashic retelling of the Akeidah narrative; “Who By Fire” is a modern tongue-in-cheek take on Unetaneh Tokef; most famously, “Hallelujah” not only utilizes that familiar refrain found across Psalms, but calls upon several poignant moments throughout our Prophetic narratives.

Mishkan HaNefesh excerpt.

In this way, I posit that Cohen was something of a modern-day (non-liturgical) Paytan. The classical Paytan was not only a poet, but a scholar. The piyutim were filled with both overt and obscure textual and exegetical references in an effort to elevate the fixed liturgical practice both through their aural and cerebral qualities. In Cohen’s contemporary take, he shifted this framework, often subverting the very liturgy or scripture he referenced. It should be noted that for the classical Paytan, it did not necessarily matter if the kahal understood the subtle textual references; the poetry, with all its hints to moments across Jewish text, was for God’s benefit. It is interesting to wonder, for whom did Cohen write his music?

Needless to say, I am a big fan. His music occupies a permanent place in my Spotify “Heavy Rotation” playlist. I find his melodies beautiful and his words profound. His lyrics and poetry are evocative and provocative, calling to mind the lowest depths of the human condition as well as the highest ethereal forms of divinity.

All of that said, my stomach turns to knots when his music is used in a liturgical context. I cringe whenever a shaliach tzibur sets Psalm 150 to Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I have ranted to friends and classmates: “There is a time and a place for a cold and broken hallelujah; P’sukei D’zimra is never that time.” The whole point of Cohen’s song is to subvert the idea of the Psalm. The Psalm calls to mind the celebratory joy of worship — “Praise God for God’s exceeding greatness. Praise God with blasts of the horn; praise God with harp and lyre. Praise God with timbrel and dance; praise God with lute and pipe…” Meanwhile, Cohen’s text recalls King David’s voyeuristic lust for Bathsheba and Delilah’s betrayal of Samson the Nazirite. The Psalmist’s alacrity and jubilance are replaced by Cohen’s resigned, resentful, “broken” hallelujah. He does this not to belittle Jewish worship, but to complicate our understanding — blind, wholehearted, unquestioning praise simply does not represent our relationship with the Divine.

So, too, does Cohen’s “Who By Fire” function as a countertext of the Unetaneh Tokef liturgy; whereas the somber traditional text places us as submissive and subject to God’s judgement, Cohen introduces a sarcastic response to God’s call: “And who shall I say is calling?” Cohen challenges us to think beyond what God’s judgement is to focus on who is handing down the decrees. While I would argue that, like “Hallelujah,” the song is inappropriate in a liturgical context, it can serve as an excellent study question and prompt for personal thought (in fact, the text can be found as a “Study Text” before Unetaneh Tokef on page 207 of the Yom Kippur volume of Mishkan HaNefesh).

Throughout his work, Cohen does not place himself beneath God, in a submissive, prayerful manner, but instead, sitting across the table, in conversation with the Divine. At no place is this relationship more evident than in Cohen’s titular song of his final album, “You Want It Darker.” He speaks directly to God, “If You are the dealer, I’m out of the game. If You are the healer, that means I’m broken and lame. If Thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame. You want it darker, we kill the flame.” In case there was any doubt as to the identity of Cohen’s conversation partner, Cohen utilizes the opening line of Kaddish, “Magnified, sanctified, be Thy holy name.” He goes on to challenge God’s apparent inaction in the face of our prayers: “A million candles burning for the help that never came.” Cohen is simultaneously exalting and challenging God, all while repeating the familiar biblical response to God’s call: Hineini — “Here I am.”

Clearly, Cohen struggled with God — as our people, Am Yisrael, tend to do. But despite his struggle, his irreverence, his sardonic rhetoric, and his subversion of the liturgy, he still says hineini. To put it in his own words, “Even though it all went wrong, I will stand before the Lord of song, with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.” This is, in my opinion, his most Jewish line. In the face of adversity and doubt, Jews across time and space have found a way to reaffirm our faith. Whether by the waters of Babylon in the face of exile, in the establishment of the Mourner’s Kaddish following the Crusades, or, recently, in the uptick in synagogue attendance in the wake of mass-shootings in American synagogues, we reaffirm our faith. This is what it means to be called Yisrael, to not only struggle with God, but to follow that struggle with affirmation. In this way, Leonard Cohen’s work essentially represents the embodiment of the Jewish experience.

—
Gabriel Snyder is a rising second-year cantorial student at the DFSSM, HUC-JIR. Growing up at Temple Beth Elohim of Wellesley, he earned his BA in Religious Studies from Skidmore College in 2018. He has spent this summer as a Press Intern at the CCAR, where he has worked on a variety of projects for several upcoming publications. He will spend the next year as the student cantor at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire in Great Barrington, MA.

Categories
CCAR on the Road Immigration Social Justice

Truth, Justice and Reconciliation – Day 3

The last day of any mission, trip or conference leads one to think about travel and arriving safely at home.  I mean, what could this last morning offer us that could possibly match the power and intensity of the previous two?

The answer was not long in coming.  We began, as we had done the previous day, in study.  Instead of text, we were guided in history by our esteemed colleague, Rabbi Bernard Mehlman, Emeritus Rabbi of Temple Israel in Boston.  With the aid of video materials prepared by Rabbi Gary Zola of the American Jewish Archives, we learned the stories of senior colleagues who served in the South, rabbis whose names we recognized but whose stories were unknown to us.

For we had reached the moral crossroads of our journey to Montgomery and Selma.  What had the Jewish community done in the face of rigid segregation and the violence employed to maintain it?  We like to bring out the names of Reform rabbis who traveled South to stand with Dr. King  We mention Jews who were jailed, beaten and even killed during the tumultuous fight for civil and voting rights for African-Americans.  But most of them came from the North.  They played their valiant part and returned home, singed but not burned.  The Reform rabbis who lived in the communities of the South, who served Jews whose lives and livelihoods were at stake, had to balance a tightrope taut with fear and danger.

Rabbi Perry Nussbaum of Jackson, Mississippi, Rabbi Milton Grafman of Birmingham, Alabama and Rabbi Charles Mantiband of Florence, Alabama and Hattiesburg, Mississippi were on the front lines as much as the more famous Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of Atlanta, if not more.  In a big city like Atlanta, you could find allies for equality.  In small cities like those mentioned above, one’s capacity to serve, one’s ability to survive, was much more tenuous.

 They were in physical danger from racists, but often without support in their own congregations.  Jews were afraid of losing their jobs, having their businesses torched and their homes firebombed.  Their fear was real and legitimate.  But from gradualists like Rabbi Grafman to those who took public stands against racism like Rabbi Mantiband, they stood and withstood pressures that I cannot imagine in my own rabbinate (despite once coming face to face with the notorious James Wickstrom of the Posse Comitatus in northern Wisconsin in 1987).

We then visited a holy place, the parsonage of Dr. Martin Luther King when he served in Montgomery.  Dr. Shirley Cherry guided us from the visitors’ center and told the story of the street we were on, how the neighbors opened their homes to the Freedom Riders from the North and hid them from the Klan.  She told of us Vera Harris, who lived four doors down from the parsonage where we stood and how she had personally fed and cared for those brave activists.  She told us that Vera was in her mid-90’s and was in hospice care at home.  All of us, 48 rabbis strong, would go that morning to her house and pray for her body and soul, that her passing from this world to the next might be without pain and in peace.

Dr. Cherry took us from room to room in Dr. King’s house, starting with the front room that had been bombed while he was preaching at church.  Coretta and her baby were there, but in a back room and miraculously emerged unhurt.  From there we went looked into the bedrooms and the saw the simple way the King family lived.  I was fascinated, as were my colleagues by the small study packed floor to ceiling with books and a writing desk.  She showed us the lovely dining room table where Dr. King would sit with his family for dinner and eat with guests, the simple and the high and mighty.

But the real sacred space in that home was the kitchen.  Dr. Cherry told us of Dr. King’s long, sleepless night after the bombing, when he was receiving 30-40 calls with hate and death threats each day.  He went into the kitchen, heated up some coffee and paced the floor to think of what to do.  He sat down and had his epiphany.  His enemies had hatred, guns and bombs.  He had faith, but felt despair. 

Dr. King pleaded with God, saying, “I think the cause we are fighting for is right, but I’m losing my courage…”  And he heard his inner voice call him by name and say, “Martin Luther, stand up for justice, stand up for righteousness, and lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  And all of the fears left him, Dr. Cherry said.  He went on standing for justice and righteousness until the moment he was struck down by the assassin’s bullet in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Into Dr. King’s kitchen chair Dr. Cherry had placed Rabbi Jonah Pesner.  I don’t think she knew that he is the extraordinary, inspirational head of our Religious Action Center in Washington, DC, which has placed fighting racism at the top of Reform Judaism’s agenda.  As she described the divine experience of Dr. King during his long, lonely night of the soul, Rabbi Pesner, sitting in that simple chair, wept freely, as did many of us with him.

She led us out to the Peace Garden behind the house where we gathered for the final time.  Dr. Cherry repeated what she he had declared to us over and over again that morning.  She said with all of her passion and inner fire that, “love is the ultimate security in the time of ultimate vulnerability.”  She concluded by saying that there are things in this world that will break your heart, but you must not let them break your spirit.”

These three days have wrenched my soul.  I have been touched by colleagues, scholars and heroes I had never known.  I have re-learned the lesson of our age, that radical hatred must be met head on with radical love.  Violence may win for a moment but faith and love and justice will prevail in the end, even if that is only be achieved beyond my lifespan.  This I believe with every fiber of my being.  By this ideal I will live the rest of my life.  For this I commit my head, hand and heart.  

This is the prayer of my life.  All from three days in Alabama’s furious past and thorny present.  Just three days to kindle within a spirit of fire, the fire of memory and justice.

—
Rabbi Jamie Gibson serves Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh, PA.

Categories
Books Prayer

Sacred Practices with Psalm 27

These 50 days from the first of Elul to the end of Sukkot and the celebration of Simchat Torah can be overwhelming for clergy, with so many details and demands.  It’s easy to lose focus or be too focused; to help others and forget to open our own hearts.  The spiritual tradition of reading Psalm 27 every day is an antidote to these tendencies with its imagery of the season (temple, sukkah, shofar) and its words that evoke a range of emotions (loneliness and fear, joy and courage, the need for patience).  It coaches us in the sacred practices we need to do our work (professional and personal) throughout the season: sit still, stand tall, sing, cry, listen, walk in God’s paths, see Goodness, hope.  And it reminds us that little by little we make our way into the New Year, with Light.

This Reflection for Focus is one of fifty-two pieces (one for each day of Elul, plus a bonus for Simchat Torah and the day after) included in my book, Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year (pages 82–83).  It invites focus on the phrase, ori b’yishi, in Psalm 27:1

Of David.
Adonai is my light and my victory—
From whom should I feel fright?
Adonai is the stronghold of my life—
From whom should I feel terror?

Really?! I ask myself,
read the same poem, Psalm 27, every day
for the entire month of Elul,
for the ten days from Rosh HaShanah through Yom Kippur,
for the four days until Sukkot begins and on every day of it as well
until the season concludes with joy at Simchat Torah?
Start each day with a relentless recitation of the same words?
My Light
My Salvation (a more common translation than “victory”)
My God . . . ?

Yes.

“You are my Light, on Rosh HaShanah,
and my Salvation, on Yom Kippur,
forgiving my sins, redeeming me from the narrow place of my life.”

Little by little, day by day, starting in Elul,
the Light starts to glow,
and I begin the work.
Little by little, day by day, on Rosh HaShanah
the rays peek above the horizon.

“Redemption doesn’t happen all at once.”
Like the sun that rises,
little by little,
until the dawn breaks
and Light floods the world with warmth and hope,
so, too, t’shuvah.
Little by little, day by day.
A tiny shift
a spark of awareness,
a single apology,
and then another.
No excuses,
no caveats,
no ifs.
And one response when asked for forgiveness: “Yes.”
With God as my Light I begin to see on Rosh HaShanah.
With God as my Salvation, and little by little, day by day,
I might experience at-One-ment on Yom Kippur.

Footnotes:

You are my Light, on Rosh HaShanah: William G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 370 (Psalm 27:4).

Redemption doesn’t happen all at once: From Mishkan Hanefesh, vol. 1, Rosh HaShanah (New York: CCAR Press, 2015), p. 165, based on imagery from Jerusalem Talmud, B’rachot 1:1.

—
Rabbi Debra J. Robbins has served Temple Emanu-El in Dallas since 1991 and currently works closely with the Social Justice and Adult Jewish Learning Councils, the Pastoral Care department, a variety of Worship initiatives, and teaches classes for adults. She is the author of Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year, published by CCAR Press.

Categories
CCAR on the Road Social Justice

Truth, Justice and Reconciliation – Day 2

Today started with us learning text, the lifeblood of our rabbinic life, the source of our authority.  It is essential that we not be seen merely as liberals, or worse, “do-gooders,” who can be dispensed with as those who lead with soft hearts instead of sharp minds.

Our teacher was our colleague, the incomparable Rabbi Rachel Mikva, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary.  We started with the classic text from Pirkei Avot 1.18:  R. Shimon ben Gamaliel says:  “The world stands on three things, on justice, on truth and on shalom.”  In Montgomery, Alabama, these words strike directly to the heart.  They seem more compelling and urgent than Shimon the Righteous’ claim that the world stands on Torah, Avodah and Acts of Lovingkindess.

She introduced the notion of “A Torah of Race,” building upon Rabbi Ellen Lippmann’s framing of authentic Teshuva upon core values of confession, regret, restitution and resolution.  The supporting texts from tractates Ta’anit and Sanhedrin forced us to confront what we are required to do publicly to acknowledge our wrongdoing as leaders.  We learned once again how a stolen beam of wood fashioned into a palace might render the entire structure illegitimate. 

We could not look away from our own responsibility regarding the illegitimate structures of the society whose benefits we enjoy, often richly.  We could not evade the debt we owe to those persons who were owned, degraded and denied dignity and opportunity even as our country was enriched by their forced labor.

After our shiur ended, we visited the PowerHouse, where women are cared for and protected when they seek abortions in the state of Alabama.  In the midst of unrelenting harassment, Executive Director Mia Raven and her fearless clinic escorts protect women who need abortions because of their life situations.

Anti-abortion protesters try to thwart poor, needy women, mostly of color, who choose not to bring their pregnancies to term.  They may need money, a bed to wait for 48 hours before the state will allow a simple D&C procedure.  They receive a soothing voice and strong arms to guide them through hostile crowds of men and women who hurl curses and abuse as they walk the 30 feet from PowerHouse to the clinic.

“They have weaponized Jesus,” Mia declared to us.  The irony was not lost on us.  The Prince of Peace in Christianity was being employed as a vehicle of shame,  hatred and violence.  The stories we heard literally took our breath away and underlined that these extraordinary efforts were being taken in the name of reproductive justice, not merely rights.

We went to Selma in the afternoon, Selma of legend and dark fame.  The real Selma is down to only 20,000 people, mostly African-Americans now. There we spent time with Joanne Bland, a fierce woman of color who demands respect and attention.  She walked us through the events of Bloody Sunday, took us to the church where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to the crowds to motivate them and steel their will.  She told us of her own personal experience and that of her family during those fateful days.  She showed us the concrete slab where John Lewis and the other marchers stood and we each picked up a stone from that sacred place to remind us to be strong and courageous when standing up for justice, as she and all the rest of the marchers had done, even when threatened with death.

Joanne had us drive on our bus slowly, no more than 15 miles per hour, so she could point out all of the significant places of her Selma, a place of so much pain and resilience it took my breath away.  After sharing with us the story of the heroes of the march and its martyrs, we finally began our walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, tracing the footsteps of the heroes from 54 years ago.

Though the bridge is enormous in my imagination, the actual structure is quite modest.  The walk across it is positively placid.  Walking slowly over the span I had to listen silently for the police sirens, the bullhorns, the anguished cries of the beaten from a half century ago.   On the other side is a park and shrine and a chance to speak to another witness who was there, who gives his vivid testimony to anyone who will stand and listen.

Finally we went to the Selma synagogue, Mishkan Israel.  Once a place of thriving Jewish life, it now serves four living members.  The structure is from 1899 and was built in only six months.  Its style is Romanesque and it is filled with rich wood and lovely stained glass.  The president (the youngest of the four remaining members) shared the story of the community and his love for the building.  For the 50th anniversary of the Selma march, the sanctuary was filled like it had not been for years.  But the footfalls have faded and such was the uniqueness of our rabbinic visit that the local television news was there to report on it.

We prayed in the social hall and my silent b’rachot were for mercy, compassion and justice for all who had suffered as well as for the will to respond to the urgent call to combat racism that still haunts our country, North and South, today.  

And I pray now  – God, may our hearts and minds stiffen our backs, gird our loins and guide our hands to combat all those harm Your beloved creatures with their hatred, all who refuse to accept the simplest of our spiritual truths, that we are all one people, all from one God.  We Jews declare that God is One and we are one.  Could any truth be more clear or pressing today?

—
Rabbi Jamie Gibson serves Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh, PA.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

We Carry Them With Us

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

I don’t know the little girl’s name, but she is still with me.

On the side of a long, lonely road, with nine somber adults as her only company, this three-year-old delighted. She flitted about, unencumbered  by the midsummer evening’s heavy, Texas heat. The billowing clouds of dust left in her wake provided a welcome relief from the eerie stillness of Clint’s Customs and Borders Facility, and the harsh geometry of the razor-wire fence surrounding it. This formerly little-known building became infamous for imprisoning children, stolen from their parents, penned in cages far beyond capacity, in conditions eye-witnesses described as squalid, degrading and torturous. The girl’s frolicking reminded me of how, beyond the basics of love, food, shelter and clothing, children need very little. They can amuse themselves with a patch of space, and the freedom to move about in it. 

“Ghost Child”

My colleagues and I had come to El Paso to join Reverend William Barber and Rabbi Rick Jacobs in Moral Monday at the Borderlands, an interfaith call to peaceful action, protesting our government’s intensifying assault on immigrants and refugees. A crowd of approximately 100 clergy stood at the gates of the El Paso detention center and, with about 500 people of faith accompanying us, requested to make a pastoral visit to the inmates inside. It was a national event, publicized and covered in every form of media. 
Several hours later, a carload of Reform Jewish women – one lay leader, one cantor, three rabbis – drove 45 minutes to Clint for a far smaller, but no less meaningful, act of resistance. Every Monday night, people gather in front of this detention center for a candlelight vigil. It is energized by Peggy and Yvonne, who live in El Paso. They feel desperate, as do so many of us, to get as proximate as possible to the frightened children languishing inside. And so they come, and sometimes others join them. 

Ashamed Veteran

I connected with Peggy through #CitizenPresence. This grassroots twitter network enables enraged Americans to pool resources, ideas and talents to support a steady flow of ordinary citizens into the Borderlands, so we can directly witness, protest and document the atrocities at their epicenter. It was started by Georgetown Law Professor, Heidi Li Feldman, who models that one determined person who pursues a vision can make great things happen.

When we arrived, we first met Ray, a retiree from Florida, who calls himself an “ashamed veteran.” Agitated to act, he raised a couple of thousand dollars and drove to Clint, set up large, hand-made protest signs, and remained there all day, every day, for as many weeks as his shoestring budget allowed. Chatting with Ray was Amy Cantrell, a Presbyterian Pastor, who had traveled from North Carolina for Moral Monday and is also part of #CitizensPresence.

Lullaby Circle

Peggy and Yvonne pulled up. Peggy brought candles, and Yvonne brought her three-year-old granddaughter. Peggy invited us to join in their weekly ritual (my word, not hers). Dusk dissolved into dark, framing a full moon. We lit our candles and formed a circle. Each of us shared our reason for coming. We poured out rage and determination, helplessness and hope. Ray expressed his frustration at giving all that he could and still feeling like it wasn’t making a difference. I responded with the Pirkei Avot verse, “The task is not ours to complete, nor can we desist from it.” Pastor Amy gifted us with a simple and profound summary of Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching: “Love is never wasted.”

We stood, our silence punctuated by little girl giggles and the occasional whoosh of a car zooming by.

Then, perhaps most poignant, our friends led us in singing lullabies, English and Spanish, to the children struggling for sleep under harsh lights, on hard floors, under Mylar sheets. Even if our offering couldn’t reach their ears, surely it was carried by God. 

Yvonne invited us to share a Jewish song. Cantor Hollis Schachner introduced Hashkiveinu, describing it as a lullaby assuring that the darkness of night is not something to fear, but a blanket of divine protection. We sang, weaving Hebrew into these melodies of resistance. 

By this point, sleepy from the late hour and her play, Yvonne’s granddaughter had made her way to our circle, settling inside at her grandmother’s feet. Peggy asked if we would offer a prayer. As the Jewish clergy began chanting and speaking the priestly benediction, all nine of us instinctively huddled close, protectively encircling the little girl. Nine adults, with a small child bringing us to minyan. A child whose name I don’t know.  A child happy and well fed, heading home to a bath, a soft bed and a house full of family. A child only separated from the many children, whose names we don’t know, by concrete walls and barbed wire, the distance of a ball toss, and luck. 

We carry them with us.

—
Rabbi Sarah Reines serves Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York City.

Categories
CCAR on the Road Social Justice

Truth, Justice and Reconciliation

Montgomery, Alabama is a clean, glistening city.  Sunlight dances off the white, marble dome of the Capitol building.  There are posters for an African-American candidate for Mayor this year.  You might think that its terrifying past of racial terror is in the rearview mirror.

But then you talk to Pastor Ed Nettles, lifelong resident of Montgomery.  After sharing his memories of terrifying Ku Klux Klan marches he admits that his white neighbor living next to him turns his back on him every time they are near each other.  After recalling the childhood abuse he suffered from a white man stepping on his hand so he wouldn’t pick up a Mardi Gras necklace, he shakes his head slowly when we ask if things really are better.

He says that it will take several generations of young people who won’t tolerate with the legacy of hate, who will then finally throw off the yoke of this city’s racist legacy.  This is a legacy which still honors Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, which fought defend white peoples’ right to own other human beings, specifically because of their color.

That racist legacy is brilliantly brought to life by the Equal Justice Initiative, the work of Bryan Stevenson, the author of the best-seller, Just Mercy.  The initiative is publicly shared in two parts.

First, there is a museum chronicling the history of slavery and degradation of people of color over the centuries in America.  We walk the exhibits in silent awe and shame. 

But the museum is filled with more the eye-catching pictures and powerful video re-enactments and timelines. In one room there are hundreds of large jars, 24 inches tall and 6 inches wide, filled with dirt.  These soil samples are from where each of thousands of African-American women, children and men were lynched, murdered on the merest pretext, often in front of enthusiastic, blood-thirsty crowds.  Shelf after shelf neatly stacked with row after row of jar after jar – each one containing the DNA remains of a lynching victim listed by name.  We walk by the jars and read the names of the dead in silent awe and shame.

From there we take a shuttle from the Museum to the Memorial.  The memorial is composed of large, 10 foot slabs of metal with the name of more than 800 counties in the US in which lynching took place for the better part of 90 years.  Each slab has the names of the victims listed.   They are suspended from the ceiling of the outdoor exhibit.  We enter and walk the grounds in silent awe and shame.

There is a plaque on the grounds that reads as follows:

For the hanged and beaten.
for the shot, drowned and burned.
For the tormented, tortured and terrorized,
For those abandoned by the rule of law
We will remember.

With hope because hopelessness is the enemy of justice,
With courage because peace requires bravery,
With persistence because justice is a constant struggle,
With faith because we shall overcome

Yizkor – We will remember.  It feels like visiting Yad Vashem, but with no end of this story. We walk from the grounds in silent awe and shame.

I pound my head with my hand, trying to comprehend – Fellow Americans did these atrocities.  And past has been prologue – Fellow Americans still perpetrate violence against people of color because they are deemed to be of less value than white people.  The past was slavery and lynching.  The present is mass incarceration and violence, even death at the hands of the police and other white people.

At the end of the evening, back at the hotel, I walk slowly back to my lovely hotel room.  In silence and in shame.  And this is just day one.

—
Rabbi Jamie Gibson serves Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh, PA.