Categories
Books

Employment, Partnership and Mutual Respect

In celebration of the release of CCAR Press’s newest publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we share an excerpt of the chapter that Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Eternal your God.

Exodus 20:9–10

The commandment to observe Shabbat simultaneously asserts the sanctity and value of work. Just as God worked for six days of Creation and rested on the seventh, human beings spend six days contributing to the world and one day enjoying the fruits of our labor. Pirkei Avot even demands that we “love work” (1:10). An early commentary on this text explains, “A person should love work and not hate work. Just as the Torah was given through the covenant, so too work was given through the covenant, as it says, “For six days you shall labor” (Avot D’Rabbi Natan 1, chapter 11).

While the Rabbis of the Talmud idealized a life immersed in Torah study, without the need to work, they also recognized both the necessity of work and its inherent dignity: “Skin carcasses in the marketplace and collect your wages, and do not say, ‘I am a kohein and a great man, and this is below my dignity’” (BT P’sachim 113a). Even the most important leader should not consider skinning animals—considered one of the most unpleasant types of work—to be below one’s dignity, if economic need demands.

The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic,

From the Rabbinic fantasy of a life devoted only to Torah study, and from Adam’s punishment, “by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread” (Gen. 3:19), we might conclude that Judaism views work as a necessary evil. But this is not the only or even the majority view. God purposely leaves the world unfinished and tasks human beings with completing this world. That’s why we are commanded to work for six days, yet only to rest for one. As Rabbi Chaim David HaLevy, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Tel Aviv from 1973 to 1998, puts it, “In the Jewish worldview, work is sacred—it is building and creating and is a partnership with God in the work of Creation.”

If work is sacred, then the workplace must be treated as a holy place, in which everyone strives to make divinity manifest. According to one midrash, “Everyone who does business honestly, such that people feel good about them, is considered as though they have fulfilled the entire Torah” (M’chilta D’Rabbi Yishmael 15:26). Whereas we might be inclined to think of synagogues and other sacred spaces as being the sites of religious practice, our tradition asserts that workplaces, too, belong in this category. Therefore, employers must take measures to ensure that workers are paid fairly, are respected, and are ensured a workplace worthy of being called sacred.

This approach to the relationship between workers and employers emerges in a t’shuvah (legal opinion) of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Chai Uzziel, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Mandate Palestine/Israel from 1939 to 1953, and HaLevy’s primary teacher. Uzziel writes:

Employers are obligated to behave toward workers with love and honor, and with goodwill and generosity. And the workers, for their part, act faithfully and give themselves fully to the work that they were hired to do. . . . The relationship between the employer and the worker needs to be a relationship of fellowship, as with an equal, and not a relationship in which one person is of inferior status, as such a relationship can lead to acts that are insulting or that induce shame.

These ideals sound beautiful, but how do we put them into practice? As always, the Jewish legal corpus translates these ideals into specific laws regarding workplace practices.

Jewish law and narrative text offer a series of specifics regarding the relationship between employers and workers, including requirements regarding fair and timely pay, expectations of mutual respect, and encouragement for workers to form unions and even initiate strikes when necessary. Ultimately, all of these details aim to create a workplace that lives up to the ideal, articulated by HaLevy, that our labor should feel like a “partnership with God in the work of Creation.”

—

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Executive Director of T’ruah:The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

Categories
interfaith Passover Pesach Prayer

Tragedy and Transcendence: Opening Prayer for the CO State House in a Time of Holiness and Horror

Rabbi Joe Black read this opening prayer for the Colorado State House of Representatives before they began their session on Wednesday, April 17, 2019.

Our God and God of all people:

This Friday night, Jews around the world will tell the ancient story of Passover.  We will gather around our seder tables and experience the bitterness of slavery and the sweetness of freedom and redemption. On Easter Sunday, Christians will celebrate the potential to be reborn with hope and faith.

This is a sacred time – when we are reminded of both the fragility of life and the potential for renewal and redemption. Now should be a period of gratitude and introspection that helps us to see the best in all of humanity.

And yet, in the midst of these festivals of holiness and hope, over the past two days our state was suddenly and brutally thrust into a climate of terror and dread brought about by a heartbreakingly disturbed young woman who played out her demons as we anticipated the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting.

The juxtaposition of the anticipation of these two sacred festivals with the ugliness and paralysis of potential violence reminds us just how little progress has occurred in the years since our innocence was shattered on April 20th, 1999. We have become numb to the horrors of violence brought about by each new tragedy. For a parent to have to tell their child that it is too dangerous to go to school is an obscenity and anathema to the values that are embodied in this sacred chamber.

When messages of rebirth and redemption are overshadowed by fear, we must take stock in who we are and who we are becoming. We can try to write off each tragic incident as distinct and separate, but taken in an aggregate we have no choice but to acknowledge that there is a sickness in our nation that cannot be ignored. Whether it is caused by easy access to weapons of destruction or the political divisions that paralyze us, it is essential that we come together to bring about change – to strive to see the veracity and sanctity of all humanity – even if we disagree. If the deaths of innocents are not enough to move us to action, then what have we become?

May the messages of hope and rebirth symbolized by both Passover and Easter motivate all of us to see the holiness infused in every soul. As we anticipate this painful anniversary, may we be inspired to use every means at our disposal to ensure that the hopelessness and despair that we have been feeling these past two days will be replaced by a sacred determination to bring about healing and change.  Only then will we be able to ensure that we are doing God’s work on earth.

Amen

—

Rabbi Joe Black serves Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. This blog was originally shared on his personal blog.

Categories
Immigration Passover Pesach Social Justice

Let My People Go

Over 1,000 men in detention. Fifty men sharing a dormitory room, sleeping on bunk beds seemingly made out of plywood and nails, topped with thin plastic “mattresses.” Men under constant surveillance, wearing prison uniforms, fed unappetizing-looking meals, and  working as barbers, cooks, or custodians for $1 a day. Days spent mostly lying on their beds, with occasional outings to a cement yard topped with barbed wire. For most of them, they have committed no crime, only exercised their human right to seek asylum. 

These are the conditions inside the New Mexico Otero Detention Center for migrants awaiting a hearing. It is run by the for-profit company Management and Training Corporation(MTC) which collects $100,000 of our tax dollars daily to house these men. There is one part-time physician and one chaplain for all of them. The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s office made a surprise visit to Otero in 2017 and “found evidence of the unjustified use of solitary confinement, unsanitary conditions and non-working telephones.”

The Torah tells us 36 times that we are to care for the stranger for we were strangers in the land of Egypt. Our freedom from slavery is celebrated every year at Passover, which begins the night of April 19. So when I see hundreds and thousands of people from Central America fleeing from violence and desperate poverty, coming to our borders seeking asylum, only to be locked up in detention centers or detained in the elements under a bridge, my heart aches and I am called to action.

This is why I joined HIAS and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights on a recent trip to El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to learn what is going on at our border. I was not unfamiliar with the plight of migrants from Central America. Near where I live in Riverside, CA is the town of Adelanto, a desolate location in the high desert and home to another private detention center, this one run by the private company GEO Group. With the help of organizations such as the New Sanctuary Movement and Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, I had visited detainees there but was never allowed beyond the visiting room. The conditions at Otero were more upsetting than I had expected.

Under international and federal law, people have the right to request asylum. Asylum seekers are not criminals; many are people with legitimate fears of being killed in their countries of origin. Why are we treating them like this? Judaism certainly insists that we are all made b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image. How do we as a country justify making a profit off those seeking safety by locking them up in private prisons?

As a rabbi, I take seriously our mandate to free the captive — those who are unjustly imprisoned. The people in these detention centers made dangerous journeys to arrive on our soil. As they await their trial, their detention can last months in these conditions. In El Paso, the rate of deportation following this ordeal is close to 97 percent.

On this trip, we also visited shelters in El Paso and on the other side of the border, in Ciudad Juárez. We met true tzaddikim, righteous people doing everything they can to provide a respite for those on these arduous journeys. At the nonprofit Annunciation House, for example, Ruben Garcia tirelessly places migrants released by ICE in a variety of shelters throughout the area. In fact, ICE would have to release over 600 people a day if Garcia did not provide them with these locations.

At this point, the shelters are being overwhelmed beyond capacity. The day we left El Paso, Customs and Border Protection had begun to detain migrants under the bridge connecting the U.S. to Mexico. We were horrified to witness crowds of women and children behind barbed wire, forced to sleep on the rocky ground outside.

What can you and I do to address this problem? You can support any of the wonderful organizations mentioned above. You can volunteer your time at one of the shelters, whether you live in El Paso or not. And you can bring these stories to your seder table, drawing the parallels between the journeys made by our own ancestors and those of today’s refugees. Let us adhere to Rabbi Hillel’s dictum: If I am not for myself, who will be?  But if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, California.

Categories
Passover Pesach

The Poor Bread

From The Passover Haggadah:

This is the poor bread that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who are oppressed shall come and eat, anyone who is in need shall come and partake of our Passover. Today we live in a world imperfect; next year may we live in a world redeemed.  Today we are enslaved, next year may all be free.

This reading from our Haggadah remains one of my favorite pieces of Jewish liturgy.  At the outset of our Seder, we focus in on the Matzah as a teaching tool, as a mnemonic of history, as an invitation to all who are hungry, and as a reminder of the deepest lessons of our liberation.  We transform an unleavened slice of bread into a symbol of our commitment to end all oppression, to bring the freedom we enjoy to all the people of our world.

But why is it called “the poor bread”?  Our CCAR Haggadah of my youth translated this difficulty away, rendering the Aramaic HaLachma Anyia as, “This is the poor bread, the bread of affliction”.  Surely our Exodus narrative speaks of our oppression in Egypt, of harsh labor in mortar and brick, of genocidal edicts enacted by Pharaoh.  Despite all that affliction, we also learn from Torah that our ancestors ate pretty well in Egypt: while in the wilderness, the Israelites bemoan the fish and fruit and foods they savored during servitude.  If we eat Matzah to remember the haste with which we departed Egypt, why do we call it “the Poor Bread”?

Rabbi Yehuda Loew, the Maharal of Prague, asked these precise questions in his 16th Century commentary on the Haggadah, called “Gevurot HaShem/The Power of The Name”.  Loew starts off by likening the Matzah to poverty: just as unleavened bread is stooped lower than its peers and cannot stand tall, so too does poverty force people to lower their heads, preventing them from standing tall and proud.  He hints that just as Matzah is missing in some ways the quintessential element of bread, namely leaven, so too are those forced into poverty deprived of the essence of a robust existence.  That is quite a lesson to chew over for seven days!

The Maharal, however, isn’t satisfied with that explanation.  Amazing, just as our Haggadah equates “the poor bread” with “the bread of affliction”, so too does the Maharal expand the interpretation of Lechem Oni.  He imagines a situation in which the Egyptians, in order to oppress the Israelites even more painfully, forcefully fed them Matzah so that it might be stuck in their stomachs.  The Maharal knew what many of us experience: the difficulty of digesting Matzah!  He actually describes our weeklong intestinal discomfort as inflicting upon ourselves the same punishment Pharaoh meted out to our ancestors.  On this interpretation, our festival of unleavened bread is an extended hunger banquet meant to connect us physically to the sensation of those oppressed and deprived.

In the end, however, the great sage of Prague rejects both of these interpretations he himself created!  He ultimately explains that our matzah is “poor bread” because it is the opposite of “rich bread”, namely beautiful leavened bread covered with cream and jam.  The Matzah, to the Maharal, stands as a stark reminder that while those who are poor do indeed eat, it is in marked contrast to the festive table arrayed before us.  That is his last word on the matter of Matzah.

However, the last word shouldn’t be taken as the final answer.  Rabbis actually do know how to answer a question directly; when the Maharal shares two answers only to reject them, he still hopes to deepen our learning.  I believe he shares all these interpretation of Ha Lachma Anyia because—historically accurate or not—he believes the lessons of all are important.

Together, these takes on the Poor Bread teach us to be sensitive to the experience of poverty.  Those oppressed by want are often forced to walk in humiliation, not in pride.  Those deprived, even by force, of healthy and nutritious foods, spend their lives in real physical discomfort.  Those whose needs are greatest cannot perhaps even imagine the luxuries of family and ritual and food we enjoy every night, and especially on the most different nights of Passover.

Our passage ends with the hope, “Today we are oppressed; next year may all be free”.  Just as do so many other elements of our Seder experience, the Matzah—a la Maharal—is meant to put us in deep connection to that oppression so that we can rise from our Seder tables with an even deeper commitment to work for a world where all are free of the chains, sufferings, and deprivations of poverty.

—
Rabbi Seth Limmer serves Chicago Sinai Congregation and is on the CCAR Board of Trustees. Rabbi Limmer also is a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic.

Categories
Passover Pesach

Opening the Door, Eyes Wide Open

On Friday night, we will send the youngest among us to open our doors to the promise of perfect redemption. This year, though, that promise feels more distant than ever, even unattainable: Humans, far from being God’s partners in bringing salvation, continue to destroy the world.

We are taught, by the ancient rabbis in the Mishnah and also in the holy Quran: “One who kills a single human being is compared to one who destroys the entire world.”[i]

Hatred has annihilated God’s creation repeatedly.

On March 15, 2019, fifty human lives were snuffed out. Their crime? Being Muslims at prayer.

On October 27, 2018, eleven precious souls were taken from this Earth. Their crime? Being Jews at prayer.

On June 12, 2016, forty-nine human beings were executed. Their crime? Being gay men, or in the presence of gay men, at a night club.

On June 17, 2015, nine of God’s children were shot to death. Their crime? Being Black people at a Bible Study.

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 lives were taken. Their crime? Being Americans, or among Americans, at work or on an airplane.

And I have listed only a small fraction of these horrors in the current century.

In the last century, Pastor Martin Niemoller, in the wake of the Nazi genocide, initially imagined himself to have been among those who had resisted Hitler and his homicidal hatred. Then, he visited the Dachau Concentration Camp. At the crematorium, he saw the dates throughout which a quarter million victims had been incinerated there, 1933-1945. Niemoller recognized his culpability. He had not begun standing up to Hitler until 1937. Only then, Pastor Niemoller began to hold himself to account for the slaughter, in words that later became a famous poem:[ii]

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

If we are to send our children to the door with integrity, we must declare that we will never be silent in the face of hatred.

When they come for Muslims, we must speak out, because silence is deadly.

When they come for African Americans, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

When they come for queer folks, we must speak out, because silence is deadly.

When they come for immigrants, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

When they come for Republicans or Democrats, for Americans or Asians, for Christians or Jews, for country folk or city dwellers, we must speak out, because silence destroys the entire world.

Speaking out is powerful. The rabbis taught, in words also inscribed in the holy Quran: One who saves a single life is credited with saving the entire world.[iii]

As our young ones open the doors on Friday night, we pray that they do so with eyes that shine with the promise of a bright future. We who are adults, while smiling for our little ones, must open our eyes wide both to all that plagues God’s creation and to our power and responsibility to be God’s partners in salvation.

[i] M. Sanhedrin 4:5, inter alia in the Talmud. Also Quran 5:32.

[ii] Joseph Coohill, ”Martin Niemoller, ‘First They Came…’ – Quote or No Quote,”  Professor Buzzkill, November 6, 2018.

[iii] M. Sanhedrin 4:5, inter alia in the Talmud. Also Quran 5:32

—

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees. 

Categories
Passover Pesach

Discussion Starters from the Seder Plate

Just in case Miriam hasn’t stopped by to replenish your well lately.

The Two Cooked Dishes

Starter

Pesach 114b of the Babylonian Talmud mandates “two cooked dishes” (in addition to charoset and chazeret) be present on the seder plate. While Rav Huna advocated for the vegan options of cooked beets and rice, Rav Yosef insisted that each should be meat, one as a remembrance of the obligatory paschal sacrifice (usually interpreted as the shankbone) and the other, a voluntary commemoration our festive celebration (usually understood as the egg).[1]

Potential Discussion Directions

  • Out of the sacrifices on your proverbial plate, what is done out of obligation (the shank bone) and what is done out of voluntary joy (the egg)? How do we choose to spend our time and resources? Where is the balance between the two? Where is the integration between obligation and joy?
  • (Using two brave volunteers, or in teams) Debate Rav Huna’s position for a vegan seder plate versus Rav Yosef’s position for a sacrificial seder plate. What are the benefits to each? Why would so much of tradition weigh on the side of the sacrificial seder plate? How does what we know about modern agricultural sustainability inform this debate?
    • Potential supporting text for Rav Huna’s “side”: “For as soon as man ceases to look upon himself as the empowered guardian and administrator of the earth… For him the sun does not shine, nor the thunder roll, the lightning flash, or the earth deck itself in green…” Rabbi Samuel Raphael Hirsch, Nineteen Letters
  • Sherira Gaon (986-1006 CE) recorded that many added a third cooked dish to this list, in memory of Miriam (in reference to Micah 6:4, “I brought you from the Land of Egypt… I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”) How are we working to include women’s voices today? In our religious practice? In our organizations?
  • It takes energy to cook a dish. As Passover marks the start of spring, let’s take a moment to reflect: where are you directing your energy? Is that direction aligned with your driving values? How is the holiday of Passover meant to help us realign how we spend our energy with our values? 

Matzah

Starter

“This is as the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those who are hungry, come and eat; and all who are in need, come and celebrate.” (Ha Lachmanya, Passover Haggadah)

Potential Discussion Directions

  • Many cultures – including our own Western one, especially when you look on social media – often hides any kind of affliction, as a source of shame or embarrassment. Yet here we are, holding it up and naming it honestly, as one of the centerpieces of tonight’s celebration. How can we work to highlight, rather than hide, today’s afflictions? What affliction do you wish was spoken about openly and honestly?
  • What can we do to mitigate affliction?
  • Some require that three matzot be on the table, in order to represent three different parts of ancient Israelite society, the Kohen, the Levi, and Israel. What different kinds of class systems exist in our society today? What can we do to ensure that all of us are able to experience not just sustenance but also celebration?
  • In Mishnah Pesachim 10:5, Rabban Gamliel states that matzah is also a symbol of redemption. When have you seen a failure or affliction be eventually turned into a learning experience and, if especially lucky, redemption?
  • Why do we say the blessing for matzah over the broken piece? Where can we find the holiness in the brokenness?

Maror

Starter

Midrash HaGadol on Exodus 1:14 reads “In four things there is said to be bitterness. The inability to conceive children… bereavement over children… a broken heart… and terrible illness. When the Egyptians enslaved Israel, they caused all of these.”[2]

Potential Discussion Directions

  • Depending on what is happening in your community and the context of your seder, you might want to discuss some deeply personal issues. There are organizations that can help you frame some of these discussions around infertility, child loss, the importance of therapy and other healing practices, and health issues.

D’var Acher: A different Starter

We eat maror, or bitter herbs, while reclining ceremoniously.

Potential Discussion Directions

  • Why is it important that we recline? Why do we express gratitude while reminding ourselves of bitterness?
  • Maror is a symbol of the bitterness of slavery. Modern day slavery exists; and in all its forms, it is still just as bitter. There are organizations that help. Let’s discuss.

Charoset

Starter

Mishnah Pesachim 10:3 lays out the different requirements for a seder plate. It lists matzah, chazeret (lettuce), charoset, and two cooked foods. However, in Pesachim 116a of the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis debate if eating charoset is truly a commandment, as it is not a symbol found within the Torah. Rabbi Levi connects charoset with remembering the sweetness of love, quoting Song of Songs 8:5. Additionally, Rabbi Yochanan associates charoset with the memory of the mortar used by Jews when they were slaves in Egypt.

Potential Discussion Directions

  • On the importance and beauty of diversity: Why would the rabbis have a single symbol seemingly hold such different meanings?
  • On memory: why would we need so many symbols to remind us of all the different parts of the Passover story? Why wouldn’t one symbol be enough?

Elijah’s Cup

Starter

While the idea of welcoming the prophet Elijah, as the harbinger of a more perfect age, is recorded in the third century, the placing of Elijah’s cup on our seder table cemented into tradition only by the early medieval period.

Potential Discussion Directions

  • Why would the yearning for a more perfect age be so strong as to change tradition in the Middle Ages? What imperfections about today’s age drive you to hope for (and maybe work towards) change?
    • What role does fear play in our lives today? How can we work to strengthen our hearts against the emotional slavery of today’s fears?
  • “‘Come out,’ called God [to Elijah], ‘and stand on the mountain before Adonai.’ And lo, Adonai passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of Adonai; but Adonai was not in the wind. After the wind – an earthquake; but Adonai was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake – fire; but Adonai was not in the fire. And after the fire – a still, small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he covered his face.” (1 Kings 19:9-12) Where do you find the still, small divine voice?

[1] Hoffman and Arnow, ed., My People’s Passover Haggadah, vol 1, p. 38

—

Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan, M.A.R.E., lived in Tel Aviv, Israel until recently, and now resides in Palo Alto, California with her lovely husband and their four energetic and very small children.

Categories
Books

Wealth as a Blessing and Challenge: A Further Look at the Sources

In celebration of the release of CCAR Press’s newest publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we share an excerpt of the chapter that Dr. Alyssa Gray wrote.

The teachings of our tradition in large part agree that wealth is a blessing. However, a nuanced view of the sources provides us with clear-eyed cautions about the spiritual, psychological, and social costs that come with the pursuit of wealth and with our possession of it.

Being Wealthy Is a Good Thing

There is no shortage of biblical verses supporting this proposition. Let us look at the role that God’s bestowal of the blessing of wealth plays in the crafting of the character of Abraham, the father of Israel. Wealth and divine favor go hand in hand. Abram leaves Haran with wealth (Gen. 12:5) and is described as rich in “livestock, silver, and gold” (Gen. 13:2). He is concerned that the king of Sodom not be able to take credit for his wealth (Gen. 14:23) but does accept silver and flocks from Abimelech (Gen. 20:14–16). His servant Eliezer opens his speech to Abraham’s relatives about his mission to find a wife for Isaac by stressing that “the Eternal has blessed my master exceedingly and made him rich” (Gen. 24:35).

The Book of Proverbs later says that “in her [Wisdom’s] right hand is length of days; in her left, riches and honor” (Prov. 3:16). Wisdom “herself” later says, “Riches and honor belong to me, enduring wealth and success” (Prov. 8:18). The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 25b) builds on Proverbs’ linkage of wisdom, riches, and honor: while Rabbi Yitzchak teaches that one should face south while praying to obtain wisdom and north to obtain wealth, Rabbi Y’hoshua ben Levi teaches that one should always face south, as wisdom leads to wealth (citing Prov.3:16). At the very least, this Talmudic passage demonstrates that seeking and acquiring wealth is viewed positively.

The Devastating Spiritual, Psychological, and Social Consequences of Greed

What of those who remain trapped by the feverish desire for possessions and a cycle of perpetual accumulation for its own sake? Mishnah Avot 2:7 states that the one who increases his possessions increases his worries. This increase in worry, if taken to an extreme, can become spiritually damaging. Commenting on Exodus 16:4 (“I will rain down bread for you from the sky . . . that I may thus test them”), Luntschitz points out that those who have more possessions than they actually need are too busy maintaining their lifestyle “to engage in Torah.” We may discern another consequence of the endless drive for accumulation in a responsum of Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, the Rashba (Barcelona, 1235–1310)—the emergence of an “us and them” mentality, separating the very wealthy and the needy. Adret harshly criticizes people he labels the “magnificently wealthy” for their plan to dismantle the local social welfare apparatus and compel the local poor to beg, all because (as he sees it) they wished to save themselves the money needed to maintain it.

Taken to an extreme, greed can fray social bonds so much that social breakdown results. JT Yoma 1:1, 38c claims that the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE despite widespread engagement in Torah study because the people “loved money” and hated each other without cause. Although the Jerusalem Talmud does not connect these two social ills, they can reasonably be seen as mutually reinforcing.

Unchecked greed can dehumanize the greedy. BT Sanhedrin 109a recounts that the people of Sodom would deposit bundles of fragrant spices with wealthy people, who would put the bundles in their treasure chests. At night the greedy people of Sodom would sniff out the bundles like dogs and tunnel to steal the treasures. They allowed their greed to distort their humanity and began behaving like animals. The end point of such untrammeled accumulation is rebellion against God; according to BT Yoma 86b, Moses held God responsible for Israel’s worshiping the Golden Calf, because God gave them so much silver and gold when they left Egypt that they yelled, “Enough!” Their sense of spiritual self was entirely overwhelmed by the excess of gold and silver—and God was to blame! In the twentieth century, Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan warned that the unchecked pursuit of luxuries could lead people down a path of “robbery, violence, and also disgrace and shame.”

—

Dr. Alyssa Gray is the Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics and Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at HUC-JIR in New York. 

Categories
Healing

Rabbi in Crisis: How a Community Conspires to Care

Imagine having to make this decision: to fly home to hold your wife’s hand as she buries her mom on the West Coast or to remain on the East Coast to oversee the diagnosis and care of your mother who just had a major stroke. What would you do?

Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional tumult of having to decide whether to skip my mother-in-law’s funeral to remain at my mother’s bedside. Nothing.

Not five years co-teaching rabbinic pastoral counseling at HUC-JIR. Not 28 years as a rabbi, holding countless congregants hands and broken hearts as they navigated through their own pain. I am the rabbi, a human being regularly called to care for others; but I am also a husband, son, and son-in-law, struggling to figure out how to keep my head above the rising waters.

An Impossible Choice

This impossible choice, at the unfortunate intersection of two painful events, pushed me to my emotional edge. For the first time I was the one needing a community to help me through. Our communal values – henaynu (being there for one another) – were again being put to the test. Was the community really up to the task of caring for the caretaker?

Thank God that our synagogue, Congregation Or Ami (Calabasas), had for years been practicing the art of Henaynu. Thank God for the healthy relationships between our lay leadership and clergy that allowed us to see each other as partners and humans. Thank God for the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ (CCAR) deep commitment to caring for rabbis and teaching us how to care for each other.

When I, a community leader, was adrift, they all stepped in.

I skipped the funeral. My wife made the decision easy by making it for me. With the enthusiastic though saddened agreement of her father, whose wife died on the same day that my mom had the stroke, my wife and our family decided that I needed to remain in Florida to care for my ailing mother and help direct her treatment. It was the right decision for us.

Yet in my mind’s eye, I kept seeing my wife’s hand, the one I’ve held for almost thirty years, whose every freckle and fine line I have memorized to the touch. There was that hand, at the funeral, hanging there unheld. I imagined her sitting at the funeral, needing the hug that I couldn’t give her. This thought almost destroyed me. 

What got me through?

Even Rabbis Need A Rabbi (Part 1)

To survive, I had to reach out and let go, falling into the arms of my Rabbinic community.

Four rabbis separately conspired to take care of me. This one walked through the hospital doors, wrapped his arms around me, and held me as I cried like a baby. That one held onto my hand as tears ran down my face and gave me the space to talk through the tortuous journey of the last few days. A third one took over our pulpit, no questions asked, thus allowing me to get lost in the incomprehensible. The fourth sent a text, then took my call, and walked me through the painful process of accepting the choice I had no choice but to make.

The first two are former Rabbinic interns of mine, now full grown rabbis themselves. They sensed my need and just showed up. The third pair are my rabbinic and cantorial  partners at the synagogue, who immediately became caregivers and rabbi to my family who haven’t had one beside me for years. The fourth, an older colleague, is a rabbi’s rabbi who instantly became my rabbi, helping me figure it through.

In unspoken partnership, these four rabbis – each a gift from the Divine – along with so many other colleagues who phoned and texted – carried me through this particularly difficult period.

Fortunately I had known enough to reach out by myself. But if I didn’t or couldn’t, the CCAR, my rabbinic organization, was prepared to find me some rabbis to care for me. Rabbi Betsy Torop, the CCAR’s Director of Rabbinic Engagement and Growth, called and offered.

As Rabbi Torop and other CCAR leaders explain, according to a professionally administered self-study of our Conference, we rabbis experience a unique and deep sense of isolation and stress that is compounded during times of crisis. The CCAR is addressing these challenges of being a rabbi during crisis.

Thanks to my colleagues and the CCAR leadership’s continued intentionality and caring, I made it through the first week of crisis. With their help, I shall endure. (Among the greatest investments in rabbinic excellence would be to endow the CCAR’s Department of Rabbinic Engagement and Growth, so that all rabbis will always have a rabbi to help them through.)

Can the Synagogue Care for its Caregiver? (Part 2)

To be a clergyperson is to make oneself available 24/7 to meet the unending pastoral needs of the community. Rabbis show up when people are in need, no matter how it hard affects our own families. We are born to be caretakers. But what happens when we rabbis are the ones in crisis?

From its earliest days, Congregation Or Ami embraced the Jewish value of henaynu(radically being there for each other) and placed it at the center of our community. We believe this fulfills the vision of what God and Torah expects of us: to be a community that cares. Integral to that vision is a commitment to extend that same communal caring to the clergy who cared for us.

We have all heard horror stories of congregations and clergy, locked in battle over finances and failure, roles and responsibility. At Or Ami we focus instead on intentionally building up trust and practicing partnership. Hard as it sometimes is, the rabbis and cantor practice vulnerability, sharing our stresses big and small with our leadership in order to teach them how to help and support us. The community has learned to accept the humanness of their clergy and to intentionally allow us have moments of fragility.

Just as the clergy care for others compassionately, the congregation has long practiced caring for clergy through a variety of challenges: when a family member is struggling, a spouse has the flu, caring for older parents, and multiple periods of parental leave. Along with deep conversations about congregants who are struggling, we talk openly during our board and staff meetings about the rabbis’ struggles, most recently with trauma and burnout following the devastating SoCal fires and a mass shooting not far from the synagogue. We teach that compassion is a muscle that must be exercised.

So when, on the same day, my mother-in-law died in California and my mother had the stroke in Florida, I leaned on our time-tested partnership and made just four calls:

  1. To my clergy partners – a rabbi and cantor, telling them I was wasn’t coming home and I was stepping aside
  2. To our synagogue president sharing the tsuris (problems) so he could inform our leadership and partner with our clergy to envision the way ahead
  3. To our Shabbat dinner coordinator asking her to take over arranging the communal seudat aveilut (shiva meal) and meals for my family
  4. To two communal leader friends, asking them to “be me,” watching over my wife and family since I could not.

They all took over and played their parts. They supervised staff and made decisions. They checked in with me only on the most important issues. They arranged for the funeral to be live-streamed and for graveside to be FaceTimed so I could witness it from afar.

They took care of my family and me, insisting, in the most compassionate way, that I release control. And I did. Mostly.

Then they endured my moments of wanting to micromanage, listening patiently to my concerns, responding with openness, and then holding me metaphorically as they moved me once again to release control.

My partner rabbi and cantor sometimes channeled me – asking WWPD (what would Paul do) – and other times doing whatever they deemed appropriate. I trusted them as they sent explanatory emails to the congregation, sharing with them first about the death of my wife’s family’s matriarch, and later about my mom’s stroke and the reasons why I would be absenting myself from the funeral.

Our synagogue president and Shabbat dinner coordinator ensured that meals were delivered, that the large communal shiva meal was taken care of by the community, and that the staff and clergy understood that volunteers were prepared to do everything and anything to help.

One community leader texted me throughout the funeral service, narrating whatever the video would not pick up, ensuring that I felt the unseeable sense of the room. My rabbinic friend walked my wife into the chapel, holding her up, and he read my eulogy of sadness and loss.

Surviving Crisis and Trauma

We know that most clergy will experience intense crisis, trauma, or burnout a few times in their careers.

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, in his book Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion, describes how he overcame his struggle with crisis, burnout, and depression by facing it honestly and by engaging his leadership and church. By allowing them to step up, he allowed himself to step away and face his struggles. When they do it compassionately, without stigma or retribution, the healing comes quickly and recovery is possible. Pastor Cordeiro encourages all religious communities and clergy to prepare for these eventualities.

I am proud and appreciative that Congregation Or Ami accepted the challenge and embraced it fully. I am so thankful that my rabbinic colleagues reached out and continue to do so

They all held on. And we survived. My family. My synagogue. And me.

[Note: Once his mother was stabilized, the author returned home for the last few nights of shiva (memorial services). As his wife embraced the true sadness that surrounds her mother’s death, he skipped the CCAR national convention, and headed east again to settle into a few weeks of caretaking. But that’s another story.]

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Rabbi Paul Kipnes serves Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA.  This blog was originally posted on paulkipnes.com

Categories
Death Healing

Mourning My (Unknown) Child

It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Holding my wife’s hand in the ultrasound room, we heard that rapid thump thump thump of newly created life. My wife was about 8 weeks pregnant with our next child. We left the room smiling and filled with a glow. I watched as my wife rested her hands gently on her abdomen. I smiled at her, and for the briefest of moments, felt a twinge of envy, knowing that I would never know our child as she would. It turned out, however, that life had other plans.

Within the following two weeks, my wife kept repeating to me that she felt something. She knew that there was something wrong with our child. Back to the ultrasound room we went, and, instead of that familiar and comforting sound of that thump thump thump, we heard silence, deafening silence. The life growing inside of her stopped growing; her cradle of life, my wife’s womb, now held lifelessness. The following week, after nurturing life for almost three months, my wife underwent a procedure, known as a “D&C”, to remove the silence.

There is so little in our literature, in our tradition, to guide the women who go through such tragedy, and less to offer wisdom to their partners on how to support in these moments of terrible loss. Over the ensuing weeks, I watched my wife mourn for the child we would never come to know. I sat silently as she would break out crying for no apparent reason, then run to hug our one and a half year-old son so tightly, and tell him how much she loved him. So often I wanted to say “something,” but I never knew the right words to say to her. What was I, a partner who could not carry life inside himself, who could never know life on that intimate of a level, what could I say besides that I grieved with her, and mourned with her.

But I’m a rabbi, aren’t I supposed to know what to do? I’ve been through chaplaincy rotations, studied the halakhot of mourning, pastored to people, shouldn’t I have been able to find something to comfort her? I soon realized that I was at a loss. There is almost nothing for a mourning of “the could have been.”

The Rav taught that the mourning of the intimate lives we know, this is aveilut hadashah – new mourning. This label has a double meaning for a situation such as this – it is new not simply because it is not the aveilut yeshanah of the Temple and ancient tragedies, but also because until very recently, Judaism has failed to recognize the need of the parents to mourn for what could have been.

My wife and I were experiencing a form of this aveilut hadashah, and even with the small collection of new material and liturgy, it felt so foreign. We didn’t discuss it in seminary, and it’s a small section of the rabbi’s manual. However, we are now living in a world where the marvels of medicine allow us to look at the fetus earlier than ever before, to hear the heartbeat of life sooner than ever before, and, we are having children later than any previous generation. Taken together, this is changing our understanding and attitudes of mourning for the loss of a life that could have been.

Standing nearly a year removed from this terrible moment, I cannot believe how completely unprepared I felt as a husband and a rabbi. It is time, I believe, that we begin to change our understanding of mourning beyond years 0 – 120. Unlike our ancestors, we live in a world where the hidden is not so hidden. Talking about and preparing our spiritual leaders, from rabbis-to-be to those already ordained, this too I believe is a part of our obligation as rabbis when we pastor. Our Mishnah, Niddah 5:3, goes so far as to say that a child one day old can be counted for mourning; perhaps it is time to take this halakhah one step further.

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Rabbi Jeremy Weisblatt serves Temple Ohav Shalom in Allison Park, PA.

Categories
Convention

Writing Our Rabbinic Histories

As a rabbinical student, I spent a lot of time studying and working with Dr. Gary Zola, and so I am never that surprised to find myself unconsciously mimicking him by referring to, “the historic Cincinnati campus of HUC-JIR.”

HUCinci was historic well before I stepped onto the campus, but today, as I returned to 3101 Clifton Avenue for the first time since I was ordained in 2014, I realized that I had become a part of my school’s historic identity.

This understanding was cemented for me during the class “roll call” which highlighted more than 60 years of ordination classes that are present at our convention. As each year was called, I watched as rabbinic classes demonstrated their diverse personalities. Some shouted and clapped, others stood calmly and with little fanfare, and still others sprung up from their seats, waving joyfully.

As we made our way back in time, we eventually reached the classes that had been ordained more than 50 years ago. It was very moving to see how the entire conference stood for each of these groups, applauding the colleagues who have served the Jewish people for so many decades.

Hours later, at the Women’s Rabbinic Network dinner, we repeated the roll call. Once again, each class showed their unique style. Some moved across the room to stand together, others high fived enthusiastically, and upon standing, some discovered that their new vantage points allowed them to see classmates that they had not realized were in attendance. And then 1972 was called, Rabbi Sally Priesand stood with a smile and wave, and all of us who came after her rose as well, applauding in gratitude for her leadership and spirit.

While both of these roll calls were joyous and fun, they also prompted moments of introspection. I couldn’t help but think about what my classmates and I would look like when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our ordination. This May will mark 5 years since we stood on the bimah of Plum Street Temple and received our blessings from Rabbi Aaron Panken, of blessed memory. But, even though it has only been half a decade, it feels as if we have all changed and grown so much already. Who will we be in 10, 20, and 60 years? What kind of rabbis will we have become? What history will we have written for ourselves and our communities?

200 years ago, the founder of American Reform Judaism, Isaac Mayer Wise, was born. 144 years ago, the Hebrew Union College was created by Rabbi Wise, and 130 years ago, he established the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis. 47 years ago Sally Priesand became the first woman ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and 44 years ago, female rabbinical students created the Women’s Rabbinic Network. Five years ago, my classmates and I were ordained, and in that moment, we were written into the history of the CCAR and (for my female classmates and I) the WRN.

It has been wonderful to spend several days praying, talking, and learning with rabbis of so many generations. At moments, it has felt as if I could see both the past and future of our movement reflected in the faces of the hundreds of colleagues who have gathered together for our convention. It has been a gift to have the time to reflect on the history of our movement, but I know that I will leave Cincinnati tomorrow focused more on our future than on our past.

I’m not sure what the next forty-five years will hold for my classmates and I, but I hope that when we stand together in 2064 and listen to someone call out, “the class of 2014,” we will rise with all the joy, pride, and contentment that comes from knowing that the history we’ve been writing has benefitted our college, our conference, our movement, and the Jewish people. It’s a tall order, but we’ve got plenty of time to make it happen.

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Rabbi Rachel Bearman serves Temple B’nai Chaim and is the Marketing and Communications Vice President of the Women’s Rabbinic Network.