Categories
Immigration Social Justice

For You Were Strangers…

How fitting. My last official public statement as the CCAR Chief Executive was about protection for the immigrant and the refugee.

I say “How fitting” because my own family’s history is one of flight and immigration.

My sister Karen and I are children of immigrants–our mom fled from Dortmund and our dad immigrated to the States from Vienna. One of our uncles would have been, by today’s standards, an “illegal” immigrant. Our great-grandmother was forced to return from the safety of America to Germany and died in a Concentration Camp.

Our parents saw great opportunities in this country for themselves and for their children—both of whom, to their great surprise, became rabbis!

There is no ambiguity in my world. I am alive because somebody stood up for my parents.

For many of us, such stories are part of our family’s histories. We retell them, and we will never forget them. Today, again, people are arriving in our country, seeking to fulfill for themselves the American dream that we were so blessed to be able to realize for ourselves.

As we grew up in our parents’ home, we were aware that voting was a privilege.  We had come to this country as immigrants. We became Americans. And we were proud to participate in American democracy.   

Sadly enough, on Thursday, we saw the Supreme Court betray its responsibility to protect the right of all people to participate in American democracy. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling allowed for the continued practice of gerrymandering, which means that some people’s voices in our country go unheard. As Justice Kagan said “Part of the court’s role in that system [of government] is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections.”

For decades, the Reform Rabbinate–in partnership with courageous lay leadership, our cantorial colleagues, other Jewish professionals, and our interfaith clergy partners–has led the Jewish community in our shared efforts to protect the immigrant, and the right of all citizens to participate in our government.

Today, we–as Reform Jews, and, often, as children of immigrants and refugees–stand for immigrants and refugees of this generation. We raise our voices for all those who suffer from hate and discrimination, whether it’s because of their country of origin, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, or any other aspect of their identity. Today we look to the next generation of leadership in Reform Jewish life. As Rabbi Hara Person begins her work as the new CCAR Chief Executive, and a new generation of rabbis enters their rabbinates, I am confident that we, as Reform Jews and as children of immigrants, will remain at the forefront of the battle for our values as Jews and as Americans – without any ambiguity.

—
Rabbi Steve Fox is the Chief Executive Emeritus of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Categories
gender equality

See Something, Say Something: Having the Courage to Name It

As a rabbi, who also happens to be a woman, I am living through an unprecedented time, recognizing that I have the honor of standing on the shoulders of giants, those clergy who have paved the way for me to gain access to the rabbinate relatively easily. They fought some of the hardest won battles, proving that women are equally as capable of being great rabbis. There was never any question that I would have the opportunity to serve as a rabbi to a community, and instead, I have the privilege of worrying about the variety of struggles that we, as women rabbis face, particularly when it comes to the implicit biases surrounding gender.

I was particularly reminded of this recently, when I sat with some of our lay leaders discussing a potential business opportunity – a relatively new preschool had approached us about renting some of our classroom space. As we entered into the conversation, the topic of the school’s viability arose and almost immediately began to focus on the gender of the two founders, both of whom happen to be young moms. I sat there watching the conversation volley back and forth, noticing a common repetitive trope, “Are these young moms really capable of creating a successful school?” It became clear, as the conversation continued, that this was not so much of a question as it was a negative mark against the founders of this business endeavor, as if to say that young women were not capable of running a business, but others may be.

As a woman, I often find myself questioning whether it is the right moment to speak up, carrying around with me centuries-old baggage of both explicit and implicit biases. I wonder if others might think that I am upset because I am a woman, or because I am young, or perhaps because I am a younger woman rabbi. In the middle of our conversation, I finally burst out, “Can we please stop referring to these two individuals as young women?!”  After a moment of stunned silence, the people around our table resumed the conversation, now referring to these two individuals as the entrepreneurs or school founders. Underneath my exasperation was the understanding that the conversation had, unintentionally, turned to capability based on gender, rather than any measurable data. They saw the implicit bias that had crept up in the heat of the moment, immediately altering the way in which they referred to the school’s founders.

During my time in rabbinical school and in the rabbinate, I have had countless encounters in which a gender bias is clearly present – comments on looking younger than my age, being called a “chick” while leading text study, or remarks about the way in which I style my hair; each time I have to weigh whether it is worth it to call out the bias or let it pass. With each comment, I ask myself whether my calling out the bias will result in a change of opinion or behavior. If I believe that my calling out the bias will result in a change, then I point it out, as I did with our lay leaders.

I know that it is not always easy, nor effortless, to figure out the best way to highlight the implicit biases that still exist within our communities. But it is only with our constant conversation and the courage to point out the implicit bias that we will pave the way for the next generation of rabbis and leaders.    

—
Rabbi Jessica Wainer serves Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston, VA.  

Categories
Books

Psalm 27: Music and Spirituality

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27 by Rabbi Debra Robbins, we invited Cantor Richard Cohn to share an excerpt of the chapter that he wrote.

Music offers us a powerful connection to spiritual practice. Melodies are both fluid—moving through time with flexibility and intention—and grounded—anchored in structures of rhythm, scale, and key. They embody aliveness within a defined structure, mirroring the flow of life itself.

In combination with the harmonies that support them, melodies can convey beauty, form, and emotion. They can touch on areas of comfort, hopefulness, serenity, warmth, and joy (among many others!), even suggesting more than one feeling at the same time. They are received and interpreted differently by each of us, and their resonance can vary from day to day, or even from one repetition to the next. In addition to emotion, form, and beauty, music miraculously transmits something from the formless dimension of spirit into the physical realm of song.

Rabbi Robbins has chosen the last verse of Psalm 27 to be a musical thread in our encounter with the complete text. Why anticipate the conclusion when we’re only starting out? One possible answer is to reflect on the closing words in their relationship to each stage of the journey: How do we move step-by-step toward a strengthening of the heart that lifts us in hope toward an awareness of the holy? Singing (or listening to) a melody corresponds exactly to that process, as we travel from note to note in search of a destination that exists in potential from the very beginning, but that can only be reached by tracing the entire path. As with the psalm itself, repeating the melody again and again can deepen and expand our understanding of the journey.

There are many ways to utilize the recording that accompanies this book. You may wish to begin with mindful listening, perhaps closing your eyes and bringing attention to the sound itself, to the shaping of individual syllables and words, or simply to the unfolding stream of music. You may find yourself starting to hum along, and you can add the words whenever you like. With each repetition, or from day to day, notice what’s new (or old!) in your encounter with the music. If you’d like to sing it on your own, rather than with the recording, see what happens when you try a different tempo or if you sing it more softly or loudly, more contemplatively or emphatically. Before long, you may know the music by heart. It may become an increasingly internal experience, becoming fully integral to your daily practice. If the melody begins to seem a bit less interesting, scale back to singing it only once a day, or sing it an extra time to see if you can bring something fresh to your interpretation.

May this singing practice be heart opening and soul lifting, as you explore the inspiring textures of Psalm 27.

—
Cantor Richard Cohn serves as Director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He’s also served as president of the American Conference of Cantors, and he has been a featured conductor at the North American Jewish Choral Festival.

Categories
Books interfaith Social Justice

Learning to Speak the Language of Faith Again

In 2017, a newly elected conservative Congress introduced legislation that would have stripped 40 million Americans of health insurance. Within days, hundreds of clergy from all over the country gathered at the U.S. Capitol to oppose the bill, calling it a Death Bill. In this first of many actions to come, we packed the hallway outside Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s office. One by one, Jews, Christians and Muslims read from our sacred texts and told the stories of those who would suffer and die from these cuts. At the end of the protest, a lay leader looked at me with the eyes of one standing on holy ground and said, “I feel like I am learning how to speak the language of faith again.”

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, edited by Rabbi Seth Limmer and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, empowers religious leaders and activists to boldly speak the language of faith in this challenging moment in our nation’s history. In part one, leading Jewish scholars lay a scriptural foundation to wrestle with the critical issues of our time. Part two shares organizing strategies from cutting-edge Jewish advocacy leaders.

As we advocate for justice, we must recognize that powerful people in our midst seek to implement policies motivated by greed, Social Darwinism, and the ties of “blood and soil” rather than love of neighbor. Our voices, grounded in scriptures that instruct us honor the image of the divine in every person, welcome the stranger, and proclaim the year of Jubilee provide a powerful antidote. God calls us to resist tyranny — to never forget our own vulnerability and oppression because we too were once slaves in Egypt. To preserve these teachings and values, we must be well-organized and courageous, and loudly speak the language of faith.

As a Presbyterian pastor who leads an interfaith network of clergy, I see firsthand the richness and power of this nation’s diverse faith and moral traditions. Each one brings unique wisdom to bear on how we live together. Even as we speak the unique language of our own faith, our unity is powerful. We don’t need to have the same talking points and theology to march under the same banner for the same cause.

Our moral vision is critical for the survival of our communities and our nation. We must be articulate and bold in communicating these to the public. And we must be strategic as we organize resistance to rising white nationalism, growing inequality and the oppression of religious, sexual and racial minorities. I keep this book close at hand as I seek to meet the challenges of the present moment. I urge you to read it, and I look forward to seeing you lifting up your voices on the streets, and in the halls of power.

—
Reverend Jennifer Butler serves as the CEO of Faith in Public Life. She was also Chair of the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration.

Categories
Books spirituality

Psalm 27: My ‘Go To’ Spiritual Walkabout Song

Author’s Note: This essay is dedicated to the memory of Angela Gold, z”l, whose neshama and harmonies blessed everyone she met.

I sing to myself. Not the “singing-in-the-shower” variety. Not the “sing-along-with-my-playlist-while-I-clean-the-apartment” variety. It’s the moment of “this-is-the-song-in-my-heart.” A song too big to hold in.

The song is always the same. Over and over. Usually under my breath, but if I think I’m alone in a staircase – which almost exclusively happens as I head to classes at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies – I might belt it out, just to hear the echo. I sing:

Here in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, I suspect that anyone who overhears knows what I’m singing: “One thing have I asked of Adonai, how I long for it, that I may dwell in the house of the Adonai all the days of my life, to behold the graciousness of Adonai, and to dwell in the palace.” It’s the fourth verse of Psalm 27, the essence of the Psalm. I sing the Paul Schoenfield rendition.

This spontaneous a cappella vibrates with my faith, a paradoxical faith, at that. On one hand, I believe with a perfect faith that – at any moment, perhaps the very next one – the glory of God’s presence might just appear. Perhaps right there in the stairway, on the next landing. On the other hand, regardless of whether I see it or feel it in the moment, God is right here, right now. Yes, God is here, and I’m still seeking God’s house, knocking at the gates of mercy, seeking the throne of holiness.

This contradiction is the essence of my yearning as I sing the line: knowing that I’m already in God’s presence, and yet knowing that I only can remain there by continually seeking God.

In her forthcoming book from CCAR Press, Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27, Rabbi Debra J. Robbins writes: “Sit in the house of God. It’s the one thing that I really want. But now that I’m here, what do I do?”

Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year

Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27 is a guide to using Psalm 27 to prepare for the high holidays. Every day from the second day of Elul, through Shemini Atzeret – including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot – traditional Ashkenazi prayer includes the recitation of this psalm.

With this book, Rabbi Robbins has created a guide to prepare spiritually for the Days of Awe by examining phrases from each line of the psalm each of the 50-plus-day period. Nine of the phrases she uses in this intentional spiritual practice, nearly one of every five days, come from 27:4, my walking tune.

Of the words “achat sha’alti” – “one thing I’ve asked” of God – she wonders: “If I can ask only one thing of God, what would it be?” Of the word “u’le’vaker” – “and to dwell” – she notices the connection to the word “boker,” or morning. Am I ready, aware and eager, each morning, to witness God’s presence? About the words “b’veit Adonai” – the house of God – she asks: “This is God’s house. But is God home?” We are invited to explore each phrase with a series of steps, including prayer, meditation, journaling and blessing.

Fifty days of reciting Psalm 27 as part of the High Holiday season is a practice that’s relatively new in the history of Jewish liturgy, beginning about 200 to 300 years ago. Rabbi Robbins has turned that daily recitation into an opportunity for spiritual growth before, during and just after the Days of Awe, the entire holy season from Elul to Shemi Atzeret.

For me, Rabbi Robbins has added new ways to think about – and to sing – my ‘go to’ spiritual walkabout song.

Click here for a guitar rendition of the Schoenfield setting for this verse. Here are settings by Chava Mirel, and Beth Hamon.

—

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

Categories
lifelong learning Rabbis

Finding Our Authenticity as Rabbis: Sermon from Ordination, Cincinnati, 2019

Rabbi Hara Person, incoming Chief Executive of CCAR, delivered this sermon during the Ordination at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati this past Shabbat. It was her great honor to have been invited by the ordinees to address them, and she is grateful to have been invited to be part of their ordination.

Authenticity

In the waning days of my fifth year as a rabbinic student, a rabbi posed a question to my class. He asked: How will you come to feel authentic as a rabbi?

And I remember instinctively blurting out an answer: When I grow a beard. 

In retrospect, it’s funny. But it’s also not so funny. The image I had in my head even after five years of rabbinic school was still man with a beard and a kippah. In part my comment was about gender, but it wasn’t only about that. I was gauging my sense of self by what I believed to be the view of others. I was looking at myself from the outside rather than searching within. At that moment, I couldn’t imagine who I would become as a rabbi, and what my rabbinate might look like. All I could feel was the gnawing dread of not being authentic. 

My worry about authenticity wasn’t simply that I was insecure – yes, that too. But there were bigger forces at play. At that moment I knew what I couldn’t be as a rabbi, but I couldn’t yet imagine who or what I could be. I worried that as a first- generation Reform Jew, not having attended Reform summer camp or been in NFTY, not having those childhood connections and shared vocabulary, that I would be less than fully authentic. I also worried that being a woman rabbi with two small children, and the employment choices I made as a result of my children, would make me less than a “real” rabbi.

Today’s parashah asks the questions that I struggled with as I looked toward ordination twenty-one years ago: Who do you want to be? How will you get there? What’s going to happen if…? 

Much of this parashah hangs on the word im, “if.” The first “if” follows with a cascade of goodness. IF you follow my laws and my commandments –  rain will fall on your fields and you will have everything in abundance, you will live in peace, and Adonai will be your God, present always in your midst. The blessings are all conditioned by that one initial “if.” But the flipside of the equation pounds forth with “if” after “if.” IF you do not obey me, IF you spurn my laws, IF you remain hostile – the “if”s hammer away at us, one after the other, an ongoing reminder of the potentiality that things may not work out well.

The repeated trope of “if,” harsh as it may feel in that second list, actually reminds us: the future is not based on what we’ve already done. Rather, the text insists that the future is still in formation, it is dependent on the choices we make in the present, and will continue to make, as we set the direction of our own internal compasses.

“If” is a perfect word for today, a liminal space between what is and what will be. Imagine who and what you want to be as a rabbi. Whether you are setting out to work in a congregation, chaplaincy, a school, an organization, Hillel, the military, go to medical school, or wherever your rabbinic calling may lead you, you are choosing to set out to do sacred work. Your IF, your rabbinic compass, is setting you in the direction of doing what you can to bring more goodness, more justice, and more healing into the world, to live up your highest aspirations.

This path you’re choosing requires great courage and great faith. Sometimes the way through is going to be obvious to you. You will be at a bedside or in front a classroom or on the bima, and you will suddenly realize that you are fully there, fully rabbinic and sure of yourself in that moment. But sometimes, you will feel less certain. 

The choices we face as rabbis are often not as clear as the binary choice between right and wrong, good and bad, as set out in our parashah. There will be moments when you find yourself writing at your desk or sitting with someone in pain or trying to soothe someone’s anger, or for that matter, maybe when you’re moving chairs for the tenth time in a week, and you’ll think: Why am I here? Is this who I am? Why does this matter? What am I supposed to do now? 

I remember the deep angst I had upon becoming ordained and watching my classmates take what looked like big and exciting positions – full-time congregational callings rather than the less-than part-time organizational job to which I was headed. I looked to their glorious futures, and felt that my choice, by comparison, while realistic for me, a not-totally-full-time position that would enable me to be at home in the evenings with my small children, was insignificant compared to the careers my classmates were sure to have. They were going to be real rabbis, while I was, I didn’t even know what, juggling as fast I could just to keep all the balls in the air, doing the best I could. Twenty-one years later, what I can stand here and tell you today is that no one’s journey was as expected. Not mine and not theirs. Along with many successes there were also unanticipated detours and curves in the road for everyone, many opportunities for self-reflection, much learning and growth, and sometimes redirection. The journey hasn’t always been easy, but it has always remained a sacred challenge to be our best selves, to make the best choices, and to do our best for those we serve. 

Our Jewish history is full of people called by God to embark on a sacred journey. Think of Abraham, told by God to leave his country, his homeland, and his father’s house, and to set out into the unknown. Etz Hayim teaches: God’s first words to Abram, Lech Lecha, mean, “go forth and discover your authentic self, to learn who you are meant to be.” This is to be a journey not only to fulfill God’s plan, but of self-discovery, one that allows Abraham to grow into his true self. 

Think of other examples of going out into uncomfortable new spaces – recall Rebekah being asked if she would leave her home to make a journey with a stranger, to go marry Jacob, also a stranger, and live amongst a tribe of strangers. Dr. Judith Baskin, in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, cites a comment from Midrash HaGadol that typically, when a woman would be promised in marriage, she was too embarrassed to give her consent or to reject.[1]But as Baskin notes, Rebekah forcefully and clearly makes known her assent. Her direct response, “I will go,” reveals a sense of mission and purpose, and an understanding that her destiny lies elsewhere.  As Dr. Yairah Amit writes, “Women’s contributions to the fulfillment of national destiny finds its expression not only in their role as child bearers but also in their ability to take bold and vital action at critical moments.”[2]

Both Abraham and Rebekah, with no idea of what lay ahead, boldly set out on epic missions, journeys that impact dramatically on the narrative of the Jewish people. They go into the uncomfortable unknown, with faith as their compass, to become who they are meant to be and to fulfill their destiny. 

As you become rabbis and set out into the unknown today, it is your emunah, your faith in God, in the future of the Jewish people, in our collective destiny, that has gotten you to this moment of being a Rav b’Yisrael, a rabbi. The people you serve, in whatever way you serve, are going to look to you to be someone in whom they can maamin – believe in, have trust in, and entrust with theiremunah – their faith. It will be up to you to provide a sense of rabbinic authenticity that comes not from knowing all the right answers, but from having the courage to ask the right questions. 

It won’t always be easy. After all, for all that faith matters, we are not B’nei Emunah, we are B’nei Yisrael (with no offense meant to any members of any Congregation B’nei Emunahs), not the Children of Faith but the Children of Israel, those who struggle with God. Faith leads us, but if struggle comes to you, welcome it, use it for self-reflection because that too is real and will allow you to keep growing. 

There may be voices that question or challenge your authenticity – but only you get to determine it and define it. How you convey your authenticity and your sense of emunah as you grow into your rabbinate will enable those you serve to feel that you are amin, reliable and trustworthy. And when you are amin, those you will serve will be able to truly say, amen; you will be a blessing to them. 

The root that amin shares with emunah goes into many other directions as well, one of which is oman, artist, and omanut, art. In becoming your authentic rabbinic self and growing into your rabbinic authority as someone who is aminand leads from a personal sense of emunah, you will also become an oman, the artist of your rabbinate, defining its contours and texture, its colors and brushstrokes.

The companion to rabbinic authenticity is rabbinic authority. Being the careful, thoughtful author of your rabbinate will nourish your rabbinic authority. A successful rabbinate depends on maintaining the right balance of authenticity, authority, and, yes, humility.  Be sure of what you stand for, nurture and question and redefine your emunah, ask the big and hard questions, and be willing always to learn, and to be wrong. If you encounter a challenge or a problem, be open to the truth of it, no matter how painful, and figure out how the situation can enable you to grow. No doubt about it, this is hard work:  being a rabbi, taking care of yourself and your family and the Jewish people, and remembering why this work matters. Have courage, be brave, and ask for help – talk to a trusted friend or a teacher or mentor. Call the CCAR. Get a coach. Take a class in an area in which you need to further develop.

You will grow as rabbis and as people, and the rabbis you become will likely look different from what you can imagine today. Not every day will feel fulfilling and meaningful. But each of you, no matter how and where you serve, no matter how winding your path will be, will grow into your own rabbinic authenticity. You will become a new model of a rabbi – each of you will broaden the definition of who and what a rabbi is, what a rabbi looks like, what a rabbi does, whatever your gender expression or sexuality or color or size or skill, with beards or without, with kippot or without, in congregations or in organizations or Hillels or hospitals or schools or in whatever rabbinic path you follow. Be open to surprising avenues that may unfurl before you. Remember that you don’t need to know everything, and remember too that you never will.

In her poem “Insufficient Knowledge[3]” the poet Bronwyn Lea writes:

You have to start with insufficient knowledge,
yes, this, and yes, praise be, then this,
you have to have that kind of courage.


A breath, a step, a word: it’s to your advantage
to begin. There isn’t time to wait for grace—
you have to start with insufficient knowledge.


Think of the first human to sail over the edge
of the world, or a base jumper departing an edifice:
you have to have that kind of courage.


Break your fists, your back, your brain, punch
yourself an opening. This is all there is:
you have to start with insufficient knowledge


of the heart, that higher organ, which
from time to time catches us by surprise
and we startle with the kind of courage


that will spend it all, not hold back, wage
everything, all, right away, every time, yes.
You have to love with insufficient knowledge,
you have to have that kind of courage.

I share this poem with you today because it speaks to my rabbinic story – the fear of not knowing and not being enough, the impulse toward courage anyway, the voracious willingness to jump all in despite the trepidation, the stretch of opening the heart and being vulnerable. “Punch yourself an opening,” the poem tells us, get yourself in there where you long to be. So much of these twenty-one years since ordination has felt like that. My early years in the rabbinate were a constant master class in assertiveness training as I learned to speak up and be heard, to be in the conversations that mattered, to claim my authenticity and authority as a rabbi, to create my rabbinic self and share it with others.

So now here we all are together. You’re about to start your rabbinic voyage, taking on new responsibilities and challenges. And I’m about to start my new rabbinic adventure as well. None of us know what awaits us. But I do know this. These experiences ahead of us will change us. And from these changes will arise new hopes and new possibilities, new understandings of self, new skills and outlooks, new callouses and muscles. Like it has for me, your path will most likely contain unexpected plot twists. Those children I mentioned, who so shaped my choices upon ordination, are now adults out in the world. As they grew, I grew, as a mother and as a rabbi. The road before me that I once thought was clear, albeit limited, branched out into surprising new directions that I could not have imagined at ordination, standing as I did in the present of that moment. 

So as you step out in the unknown, have courage. And also unapologetic tenacity. And chutzpah. Don’t prevaricate. Practice humility, yes, but not having all the answers doesn’t mean apologizing for who or what you are, or aren’t. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you that you’re ready. 

Go out there into the unknown. Write your rabbinic story. We can’t wait to see it unfold.

Rabbi Hara Person is the Chief Strategy Officer of Central Conference of American Rabbis and Publisher of CCAR Press. Rabbi Person was recently named the incoming Chief Executive of the CCAR and will assume that position on July 1, 2019.

[1]TWC p. 128
[2]TWC p. 122
[3]Lea, Bronwyn, The Other Way Out, Artarmon, New South Wales : Giramondo Publishing, 2008. p.69

Categories
News

Why Requesting the “Male” Rabbi Just Isn’t Acceptable Anymore (if it ever was)

The email arrived Thursday morning – a couple set to be married on Sunday was in desperate need of an officiant. Their rabbi had a medical emergency and could no longer perform the ceremony.  A friend had forwarded the query – could anybody help?

It seemed clear from the wording that any rabbi – Reform, Conservative, Orthodox would work.   Never one to not do my best and knowing a couple of rabbis in the town where the ceremony was to be held, I reached out to see if they were available.  It was only upon speaking to one of them that I learned a key element of the request had been missing. The request was for a male rabbi.  As it turned out, the couple or their family had made inquiries and it had been made clear – they were in search of a male rabbi who could perform the ceremony.

I was a little more than ticked off.  I was mad. Pretty mad. A female rabbi was insufficient, even when a family was in a pinch because their original choice had a medical emergency,

There wasn’t much I could do with my anger.  I informed my friend and the other rabbis who received the original request as to what had happened.  I think I wanted company in my anger.

That led to a fascinating exchange with a close friend who is, like me, a female rabbi. The conversation made me realize that although this example may seem like a little deal to some, it actually has lasting implications for the equity of female clergy in our movement and in our country. 

When a couple, or in some cases, their parents, ask for a male rabbi to perform a wedding ceremony, the result is that clergy as women become invisible, and are viewed as less than.  Even though the intention may not be present, the impact is no different.  This is so much more than hurting an individual woman’s feeling.  This is about an injury to women as a class of people, women as rabbis, or women as cantors.  In the business world, we call this sexual discrimination.  In the congregational world, some call it “individual religious freedom.”

I would add that I also have no tolerance for the family who asks for the female rabbi to do the bat mitzvah, or the funeral.  There is no special magic either gender, or non-binary individuals, receive  during that moment of ordination at the Ark.  We are who we are, equally capable in our abilities to preside at liminal, sacred moments of our people no matter the biology or gender identification we carry.

Allow me for a moment to inject some discomfort here – particularly for the reader who may still not be convinced.  I would like you to replace the binary of male/female and replace it with white/black or straight/gay.  Imagine someone calling up and asking that the white rabbi do the ceremony, and not the Jew of Color rabbi.  Imaging someone calling up and saying, ‘I don’t want the gay rabbi to do our son’s wedding.’  The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it? 

Sometimes our jobs as clergy is to listen to our people, and sometimes our job as clergy is to be truth-tellers, even when it might be hard for them to hear.   The next time you, or your colleague, or your congregation receives a request for the male rabbi, please consider saying some version of the following:  “I would really love to help you, but fulfilling that request would require me to go against my values of gender equity and seeing people in their wholeness as a human being, and not simply by their biology. I hope we can help you in the future.”

And the beautiful nechemta (comforting ending ) to the story with which I began – the couple were successfully married on Sunday, by an able and accomplished female rabbi, fairly pregnant with her first child.  I don’t know what the reaction was to that visual. My hope and prayer is that in that moment, a taste of redemption could be felt by all those in the room. 

—

Rabbi Esther L. Lederman is the Director of Congregational Innovation at the URJ and sits on the CCAR Task Force on the Experience of Women in the Rabbinate.

Categories
News

How Should We Translate Pirkei Avot? Why Does It Matter?

A decade ago, Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss, now the Provost of HUC-JIR, taught me a new term: “gender-accurate translation.”

No, I was not new to ridding our liturgy and sacred texts of gender-based language. However, I had always thought of that process as changing the language of sacred texts, which would be more intrusive than correcting an error of the past.

Rabbi Weiss explained that our new Torah translations – in that case, in the Women’s Torah Commentary – would replace gendered language when the original text doesn’t specifically refer to a person or persons of one particular gender. God, for example, is explicitly without gender in our Jewish tradition; and yet, the inherently gendered Hebrew language refers to God exclusively as “He.”

Gender accuracy, done right, needn’t be noticeable, let alone jarring. None of our current CCAR prayer books refers to God with gendered language, and the English flows seamlessly.

At this season of sfirat ha-omer, counting the fifty days from Passover to Shavuot, from liberation to at Sinai, we read Pirkei Avot.

Many of us are familiar with Pirkei Avot, or at least some of its most famous aphorisms. For example: “Who is wise? Those who learn from everyone. Who is strong? Those who conquer their impulses. Who is rich? Those who are happy with their lot.”[i] Did you notice that this translation is gender-accurate? Other translations render: “Who is the wise one? He who learns from all men,”[ii] and so forth. Clearly, though, the lesson is valuable for everyone, regardless of gender, there’s no reason to believe that even the ancient rabbis intended their teaching to refer only to men.

In his new book on Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz writes that the title of the book “[l]iterally … means The Chapters of the Fathers[iii] The word avot may indeed mean “fathers.” However, the way a gendered language works, avot can also mean “ancestors.”

Rabbi Yanklowitz writes that we might understand the word even more broadly: “The Hebrew word avah (of which avot is plural) is found in Proverbs 1:30, meaning, ‘to lead through advice.’ Therefore, another way to understand the title of this work is The Chapters of Advice.”[iv] That latter title is descriptive of the book, chock full of Jewish wisdom but without halachah, which characterizes the larger work in which it’s found, the Mishnah.

I have often taught, surely not originally, that every translation is an interpretation. Since other options are available, those who translate the title “Ethics of the Fathers” are choosing to emphasize the gender of its authors. I typically refer to Pirkei Avot as “Ethics of the Sages.”

Why does it matter?

  1.  Honesty. All of Pirkei Avot is articulated in the names of rabbis – that is, men of a certain class and education. However, Pirkei Avot is likely replete with mansplaining, that is, women’s ideas repeated by and credited to men. No generation is without its wise women and men, but women of the Mishnaic period would not have been credited with their own ideas. Moreover, all the rabbis quoted in Pirkei Avot had mothers, and almost all had wives, who had doubtless imparted significant insight to them. We must shed any doubt that women’s words and ideas are included in Pirkei Avot. Therefore, the suggestion that the book includes only “Ethics of the Fathers” is simply false.
  2. Respect. In a patriarchal society, such as one that gives voice only to men, women are undervalued. While our own culture is blessedly less patriarchal as that of Second Century Palestine, we would be wrong to insist that patriarchal influence has disappeared. When we unnecessarily and inaccurately credit only men’s wisdom in the past, we imply that men are the exclusive source of insight, even today. When we translate, we should open up the possibility that a sage could be a person of any gender. Doing so, we indicate that every person’s wisdom is equally valuable.
  3. Inspiration. Women who are rabbis of my generation often speak of the first time they saw or even just heard about a female rabbi. Previously, they had never internalized the fact that they could become rabbis or religious authorities of any kind, even if they knew that regular ordination of women as rabbis had begun in 1972. While we cannot name women who were sages during the Mishnaic period, by translating Pirkei Avot as “Ethics of the Fathers,” we close the possibility that a woman could be a sage. Using an accurate English name of the book that isn’t gender-bound, young women and girls may see themselves as they should, fully included in the chain of Jewish tradition that stretches from Abraham and Sarah to Moses and Miriam to this very day.

When I was ordained, half of my classmates were women. However, at that time, only twenty-eight years ago this month, the HUC-JIR faculty did not include even one tenured professor who wasn’t male. This month, new rabbis are being ordained by a long-tenured rabbinic scholar who is the College’s Provost, and she’s a woman. For the next generation of rabbis – and, more broadly, of the Jewish people, increasingly even in some corners of the Orthodox world – the term “sage” may finally include women.

As we count the days from Egypt to Sinai, reading Pirkei Avot this year, let us assure that our language is honest, accurately reflecting the past rather than the way that the past presented itself. Let our words convey respect for every person, regardless of gender, as we continue to dismantle the patriarchy. And let us inspire every Jew, of every gender and of every coming generation, to lead us into a future filled with wisdom.

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Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

[i] Avot 4.1.
[ii] Ibid., Sefaria translation.
[iii] Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, New York: CCAR Press, 2018, p. xi.
[iv] Ibid.

Categories
Ethics

Confidentiality in the Ethics Process

What is confidentiality in the CCAR ethics process, and how does it differ from other settings, such as pastoral counseling? Recently, several people—rabbis, participants in ethics cases, members of congregations—have asked questions about the nature of confidentiality in the CCAR ethics process. In particular, several asked whether the names of complainants, victims or witnesses are ever made public. The short answer is no: CCAR does not disclose publicly the names of complainants, victims or witnesses.

Confidentiality is often assumed to be a blanket non-disclosure.  But in different settings, confidentiality means different things.  For example, in a pastoral counseling setting, confidentiality goes to the heart of the congregant’s expectation of privacy between the congregant and the rabbi (or minister).  In fact, that privacy even is recognized in the law as a “priest-penitent privilege” that prevents disclosure of those conversations except in special circumstances.   

The goal of the CCAR process is to help rabbis and communities achieve their aspirational values that reflect the very best of the rabbinate and the community, including sacred and safe communities with rabbis who live up to their highest moral values. Confidentiality in the ethics process is designed to achieve these goals and allow an ethics committee to do its work in a way that is fair, protective, and safe. (As I have written about in other settings, the CCAR ethics process is an ecclesiastical process, not analogous to a legal trial court.)

The CCAR ethics process is one in which the CCAR determines if a rabbi has violated the Code of Ethics.  Someone (an individual or a congregation) begins the process by filing a complaint with the CCAR against a rabbi. Then, the rabbi responds to the complaint, and the process moves forward.  At this point, the process is confidential out of respect for the privacy and reputation of everyone connected to it—parties, witnesses, victims, and potential victims. But it is not secret. 

There’s an important difference.  “Secret” means that nothing is shared and everything is out of the public eye. By contrast, a “confidential” process is one in which information gathered during the process is not broadly disseminated except to others involved in the process so that the Ethics Committee can do its work to determine if a rabbi violated the Code of Ethics. 

To achieve our goals, the CCAR does not publicly identify victims, witnesses or complainants at any stage in the process.  We continue to respect their request for privacy throughout the process and even after it is concluded.

However, adjudications of Code violations that lead to public censure, suspension or expulsion of a rabbi are not kept confidential. In fact, these actions are publicly disclosed on the CCAR website.  

The Code explicitly dictates what information must be disclosed and to whom.  To begin the process, “complaints must be written and include the names of all parties involved.”  (VI.B.1.) The complaint is shared with the rabbi.  Thus, the names of the parties—the complainant and the rabbi—are disclosed to one another and to the Ethics Committee from the outset of a complaint.

While the CCAR Ethics process is ongoing, we ask that everyone connected to it honor the confidentiality of the process.  Confidentiality better assures that the parties and witnesses will provide information and the victims feel they have a safe place to share their experiences.

Yet asking someone, such as a complainant or victim or rabbi, to respect the confidentiality of the process certainly does not mean that people, especially victims, should not talk with their immediate family or close friends about what they have experienced, and it does not prevent anyone from seeking spiritual, emotional, or professional support.  We know that can be of importance to a person’s health and healing.

When it comes to complainants, witnesses, and victims, we may also need to protect them from fear of retaliation or humiliation in some instances.  As written by one of the leaders in the field of clergy misconduct,  “shooting the messenger is a common response to the revelation of unethical conduct.” (Is Nothing Sacred, Marie Fortune) This concern is another reason why we do not disclose publicly the names of the complainants, victims or witnesses.

The CCAR process continues to evolve and improve over time with the input of many people, including those of the rabbis, complainants, and victims themselves.  We especially are proud that lay leaders have joined with rabbis in the ethics process:  on the Ethics Committee which receives complaints and adjudicates; on Fact Gathering Teams, which gather information from complainants, rabbis, and witnesses; on the Ethics Board of Appeals, which hears appeals from an adjudication; and on the Ethics Process Review Committee, which proposes changes to the Code of Ethics.

CCAR members aspire to exhibit the very best of the rabbinic tradition.  The Ethics Code and process reflect those aspirations.

—

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

Categories
Technology

From Star Trek to Paper T’filah: “Live Long and Prosper”

Logical. Unemotional. Alien. As Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek television series, Leonard Nimoy found himself trying to bring depth and detail to a character that hadn’t yet been fully fleshed out; it was up to Nimoy to contribute much of what made Spock who he was—including the famous “Vulcan salute.”

Nimoy said that one day on the set, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry asked him to come up with a greeting to use when meeting the Vulcan matriarch, and into his head popped an image of the chazan in his childhood shul giving the “priestly benediction.” And with that, this ancient Jewish hand gesture was introduced to the world.

It’s the blessing by which Aaron blessed the people, the blessing that kohanim still say over worshippers in synagogues today, and it’s the blessing that my wife says over our children every Shabbat (and yes, she does the thing with her hands). “May God bless you and keep you,” she recites. “May God deal kindly with you, and be gracious to you. May God’s face shine upon you, and grant you peace.”

I’ve always connected to the Vulcan salute and the words that accompany it (“Live Long and Prosper”). Perhaps it’s because it seemed so obviously (to me) Jewish, and yet slipped under the radar of my non-Jewish friends. Whatever the reason, I used it to structure my papercut, “Live Long and Prosper,” which I made with cut-up Star Trek comic books.

Yeah, cut-up comic books. For those of you who missed my last post, that’s what I do: I incorporate cut-up comic books into my work, drawing parallels between comic book mythologies and religious traditions. So within the delicate cutaway panels of my “Live Long and Prosper” papercut can be found images of Nimoy as Spock giving the Vulcan salute, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and the beauty of comic book outer space. I also included parts of a chumash that had been headed for the g’nizah for ritual burial: words of the priestly blessing in Hebrew and English, side-by-side with the Spock and his crewmates.

The image is a representation of blessing and strength, and I’ve made it the starting point for the Paper T’filah Visual T’filah I designed for the CCAR. It’s my intention to anchor this visual liturgy in an image both immediately familiar, for multiple reasons–a mix of reverence and amusement, and a statement of intent: this service will boldly go where no one has gone before … and I hope you’ll go there with me.

My wife and I have made “Paper T’filah” an element of the “Paper Midrash” residencies that we lead around the country: worship and study and papercutting workshops that bring together contemporary art, pop culture, and scholarship. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and I couldn’t be more proud to have brought something new to their worship experience.

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Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik is a Jewish artist living in Southern California. He cuts up comic books and reassembles them into work made of clean lines and patterns, sinuous shapes and sharp edges, large fields of color and small intimate spaces.

Click here to view a sample of Paper T’filah by Visual T’filah. It is now available for purchase on the CCAR Press website. For more information on how you can bring Paper Midrash to your community, email Isaac or visit his website.