Categories
Convention

Dr. Susannah Heschel on Her Father’s Legacy

After a gracious introduction by Rabbi Gary Zola, Dr. Susannah Heschel took the stage at the 130th Convention of the Conference of American Rabbis. She started by telling us how she once wanted to be a rabbi not a professor, but we are so lucky that she choose the path that she did. Even though her father told her not to be an academic. For she is a brilliant teacher or scholar as was her father.

Dr. Heschel spoke about her father’s legacy and the importance of tzedek v’shalom, justice and peace. She spoke powerfully about the walls we build, not only physically but within our hearts. Throughout her talk, Dr. Heschel connected her father’s words to our current lives. His legacy continues through each of us, who have been touched by his life and writings.

Rabbi Heschel lived his life during a period of turmoil in our country. His words are our inspiration as we figure out whether we never again for the Jews is the same as never again for everyone in our world. Her challenge to us, Reform Jewish leaders, was to figure out what is important to us and to work on that issue. For there is too much in our world that is wrong that without direction we will be frozen.

Rabbi Heschel’s legacy is a reminder that we have the power to make a difference in our world, that we cannot stay silent even in light of the divisions within our communities.

Dr. Heschel is a credit to her father’s legacy, but we must remember that she is an important scholar in her own right. She spoke eloquently about the fact that Zionism has always come in multiple strands, and we have a responsibility to dialogue with one another and with those outside of our community. These were powerful words in a room of diverse opinions.

A great thank you to the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives for sponsoring Dr. Heschel’s talk.

—

Rabbi Simone Schicker serves Temple B’nai Israel in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Categories
News

What Does “Brit” Mean to Liberal Jews in the 21st Century?

In 2015, my husband and I welcomed our 8-day-old daughter into a covenant with God.  We had a brit ceremony, using the Hebrew word for covenant. It was, for us, the way to bring her into sacred relationship with God and community. We created a special ritual to acknowledge her place in the Jewish people across time and space. But when I referred to this ritual as a “bris” for our daughter, even the most Hebrew-literate Jews reacted with shock. Of course, we had no intention of performing a milah (the Hebrew for circumcision) on our newborn girl, but I was not willing to surrender the concept of “bris” to an exclusively male realm.  Instead, this was an opportunity to expand meaning, something to which I am especially committed, as I am the Director of the Brit Milah Program of Reform Judaism.

I’m equally unwilling to surrender the bris – the covenant with God – to an exclusively traditional understanding of what a relationship with God looks like.  The exclusivity and specific style of religious observance that many liberal Jews believe is implied in the word “covenant” creates its own feeling of discomfort.  Many of our friends’ babies (and some of our own) have been welcomed into a covenant with God by a mohel that looked and sounded foreign to their own experience with and expression of religion.  Some experience the bris of their baby as alienating because the ceremony lacks the careful explanations and thoughtful inclusion of our values as liberal Jews.  Why would we want our babies to be brought into a sacred relationship with God and the Jewish people using language and ideology strange (and sometimes offensive) to our sensibilities?

My colleague, Rabbi Karen Thomashow (the Rabbinic chair of the Brit Milah Board of Reform Judaism and NOAM, the National Organization of American Mohalim) and I will be at this year’s CCAR conference in Cincinnati replete with stories from the mohalim we train.  From them we have learned that there is an alternative.  More than 50% of the families our mohalim encounter are as of yet unaffiliated.  And because interfaith couples today have little trouble finding a rabbi to perform their wedding, the choices made following the birth of a baby boy are now the first religious choices that many couples face.  It is more important than ever that we, as Reform Rabbis, seek to partner with Reform mohalim to be sure that families can embrace the bris– the covenant with God – in language and with ritual that feels both sacred and in line with their most deeply held values.

Egalitarianism, inclusivity, and diversity should all play a role in the first ritual encountered by a new Jewish family.  Just as we reclaimed b’nei mitzvah for our children as a ritual and imbued it with renewed meaning, we now need to reclaim the bris as a way to sanctify and celebrate the arrival of a new soul to the Jewish people.

At my daughter’s bris, much like that of her older brother two years prior, we invoked the language of covenant in its fullness – not just the covenant of circumcision – but rather many of the references to covenant in the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literature. We offered blessings in Hebrew and English; explained the ritual to be certain that all of our guests understood and felt part of the sacred space; and, like the generations before us, we lit candles.  We found ways to include grandmothers as well as grandfathers, siblings, care-givers, and our child’s pediatrician as partners who would, with God’s help, support us as we raised our children in a Jewish context. We found ways to both innovate and hold tightly to our tradition.  

This is the legacy we want to leave for the next generation of Jews: to know that our Jewish community embraces them, in the fullness of their being.  Ours is a God that creates a covenantal relationship with Jews of all races, nationalities, sexualities, gender identities, and family constellations. The mohalim we engage as partners must share these values and help us to impart the sacred nature of the brit to those we serve.

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Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler is the Director of the Brit Milah Program of Reform Judaism and NOAM, the National Organization of American Mohalim.  She also serves as the rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in DeKalb, IL, which is located near the campus of Northern Illinois University.  

Categories
Death

A Moment of Awe, Beauty, Courage, and Death

There is awe, beauty, and courage in so many things, and I encountered them at the moment of death of someone who had chosen to end his life before illness and infection took control.

“Jeremy” was one of my synagogue’s members who had, for the last 40 years, suffered from muscular dystrophy.

Dealing courageously with his disease, he became frustrated with the constant deterioration of his body: confinement to a wheelchair; increasing limitations of his upper body; inability to swallow food; and then, 12 months ago, complete reliance on a ventilator to breathe. This most likely led to a recent bout of pneumonia which no antibiotic could conquer.

We watched with great angst as Jeremy’s condition worsened over the last few years. As his rabbi, I felt completely helpless. There was very little else I could offer him, and all we could do was to give comfort.

Jeremy and his wife “Diana” had learned to accommodate the many indignities of his infirmity, but this recent infection placed them at hope’s end. Jeremy was now unable to move his limbs or speak. He could be fed only by fluids, and the incision for his tracheotomy had become distended and could no longer properly accommodate the breathing tube.

The couple realized that the likely result of the current crisis was a certain death from the pneumonia, and only God knew when. What was their next step?

Atul Gawande, in “Being Mortal”, suggests two kinds of courage when dealing with serious illness. “First is the courage to confront the reality of mortality, the courage to seek out the truth of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped…But even more daunting is the…courage to act on the truth we find.” (page 232)

Jeremy and Diana sought courage at this moment in their lives, and they determined to seize control over Jeremy’s limited life path—a control which, according to Gawande, terminally ill people crave—and decided that they would remove the respirator and let nature take its course.

During the afternoon leading up to this procedure, Jeremy and Diana had proper briefings from his doctor. Procedures were explained; consents signed; the bureaucracy satisfied.

In the final hour, Diana and I came back to the hospital. Also in attendance were Jeremy’s niece and her husband, plus two good friends of Diana who had been with her over the years.

Over the unceasing din of his respirator—a constant companion for the last 12 months—we spoke with Jeremy, we sang songs of hope and wholeness (Debbie Friedman’s “B’yado” helped a lot), I offered, on Jeremy’s behalf, the Vidui, the prayer of confession to be said on one’s deathbed, and Diana sat by his side, stroking his emaciated arms and his withered scalp and face. Comforted in this way, Jeremy dozed between wakefulness and sleep, sometimes conscious of the people in his room, sometimes not. Yet when he was awake, he was absolutely focused on Diana’s loving face.

I interacted with Jeremy and Diana as needed, but most of the time they simply did what two people in love would do. They maintained their connection through touch and glance.

At the appointed hour, the nursing staff administered a first medication to relax Jeremy. This accomplished its goal, and he leaned back on his pillow. But he kept his eyes fixed on Diana.

A second injection was given in anticipation of Jeremy’s discomfort when the ventilator would be removed. His eyes remained immersed in the eyes of his wife.

A nurse then removed the tube which led to his tracheotomy. She turned off the ventilator, and the room went silent. Jeremy’s and Diana’s eyes remained focused on one another. I was standing behind Diana and looking directly at Jeremy, and he silently mouthed the words “I love you”. Diana repeated this back to Jeremy. Then Jeremy’s eyes lost their focus, and he was gone.

I cried: in the room, silent tears while we recited Sh’ma and I attended to my rabbinic duties. Later, in the elevator on my departure, I sobbed uncontrollably, and I hoped that no one would enter the car with me. I cried in sadness for a life that was lost, and I cried at the beauty of a love that was strong before Jeremy’s death, and that remained after his passing. I wondered whether I would have similar amounts of courage were I in their situations.

Atul Gawande’s words echoed in my ear: I witnessed today the “courage to act on the truth we find”. For this couple, they understood the reality of their situation, and acted to relieve pain and accept the reality they faced. But the truth of their love for one another seemed a stronger verity, a genuineness that only they could share. At Jeremy’s moment of death, there was courage, beauty, and awe. Would it be that way for each of us as we pass from this world to the next.

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Rabbi Jonathan Biatch serves Temple Beth El, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Categories
gender equality lifelong learning Rabbis

Spiritual Lessons from the Exercise Bicycle

We’re not big romantics in our house, and in a good year, Valentine’s Day may consist of a card featuring golden retriever puppies and a vase filled with pink flowers. But a few weeks ago in honor of this Hallmark-generated holiday, my husband decided to help keep our middle-aged hearts healthy by investing in a home exercise bicycle. Unlike me, my husband is extremely disciplined in his diet and his commitment to physical fitness. I, however, was raised by a mom who believed that Jewish people should exercise their brains and leave cultivation of physical brawn to lesser minds. It’s hard to shake that kind of bias, even as an adult who understands the importance of maintaining a sound body. Of course I want to be in good working order, to be healthy and strong. I’m just not all that coordinated, and I have never been able to find a compelling exercise regimen. In honor of this pagan love festival, though, and for the sake of my heart, I relented and tried one of the streaming exercise classes that was an integral part of this biking experience.
Grudgingly, I approached the spinning bicycle. At first, I couldn’t even put the shoes on properly. Yes, I could handle the Velcro straps at the top of the shoes, but the bottom strap was a bit more complicated and required simultaneous tugging and pressing down on a lever. Clipping my fancy shoes into the pedals was tougher than tap dancing, but one of my sons managed to guide my feet into the correct spots until we heard the reassuring click.  Finally, I selected a class from a menu of incredibly fit instructors. Touted as a beginner’s class, the half hour would have resulted in a brain hemorrhage if I had not modified my input. Daunted, but not defeated, I promised myself that I would try again.
The next day, armed with a larger water bottle and a better attitude, I selected a different instructor. This class went much better, although I still needed to adjust my workout so that I didn’t feel light-headed. I found a computer generated “leader board” ranking my progress against 15,000 other riders to be a demoralizing nuisance, so I slid it off of the screen. This instructor spent time talking about how the bicycle worked, how to hold my back in a more comfortable posture, how to breathe. She told us to listen to our own breathing, push enough, but not hurt ourselves. I was tired and shaky after this ride, too, but I was willing to try again the next day.
As a newbie to the exercise bike, testing out the various instructors has been eye opening. Of course, being an instructor for Peloton, Soul Cycle, or Fly Wheel is not the same as being a rabbi. Yet, there are some fascinating lessons that I’ve learned in my brief foray into biking classes that relate to both leading an exercise class and religious services.
  1. Don’t judge an instructor by her outfit, and try not to judge a rabbi by the way she looks.  Initially, I wanted to reject every perky, Barbie doll looking instructor with the “I Dream of Jeannie” ponytails (okay, they all have those high, endlessly shiny hairdos). I just felt frumpy watching them and expected them to be ditzy. Some fulfilled my expectations and were, in fact, annoying. They posed for the camera, smiled like they were on a Disney kids’ show waiting for a canned laugh, and giggled through some of the class. Not my cup of tea. Yet, other instructors who looked equally beautiful had intelligent comments about breathing, stretching, and fitness in general.  As a female rabbi, I know that many of us, especially, are judged by our appearance. We’re told that our hair is too long or too short, too natural or too processed. We desperately need to wear some lipstick or wear way too much makeup. Our suits look boring, or our dresses are too distracting. Take a breath, and try not to let the appearance get in the way of what a rabbi (or an exercise instructor) is supposed to do.
  2. A rabbi cannot be all things to all people. Peloton would never hire just one instructor to teach all of its classes. One teacher is a biking expert, another has a background as a professional dancer. Some instructors tell you to sing along to the music, and other teachers tell you that if all you want to do is sing to take another class. One instructor shared a cute story about how her daughter helped pick the playlist for the class, and other instructors don’t seem particularly kid friendly. Rabbis are like this, as well. Some rabbis are more intellectual, others love to sing, and others are all about forming a community. We expect our rabbis to somehow fulfill the needs of every congregant simultaneously. There’s just no way this is a reasonable expectation.
  3. The exercise bike experience also taught me something important about leading services for congregants. As the person directing the pace of the prayers, we need to understand that some of the worshippers may be first-timers. They may not even know metaphorically how to clip in their shoes, and we expect them to keep up a ridiculously high speed when they are on the verge of passing out spiritually. Everyone comes to synagogue for her or his own reason. We can’t expect our congregants to engage fully if we are not engaging in the class right along with them. How can a biking instructor or a rabbi know if the resistance is too difficult if he or she is simply looking ahead to announce the next element of the class or service?
  4. So far, every instructor I’ve tuned in to has encouraged riders to “open your heart.” In exercise and in religion, this advice is pretty much on target. And the only leader board you need to worry about is the one in your own mind. I’ll keep up the beginner rides when my kids go back to school next week, but maybe someone out there could please help me get those shoes out of the pedals.

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Rabbi Sharon Forman serves Westchester Reform Temple and was a contributor to CCAR Press’s The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality.

Categories
News

Walking the Plank

Our twin themes of the 2019 CCAR Convention in Cincinnati are the celebrations of both the 130th birthday of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the 200th birthday of Isaac Mayor Wise. Although four more years would pass before Wise established the CCAR in 1889, our auspicious co-anniversaries prompted me to revisit our 1885 Pittsburgh Platform. While some of the Platform’s planks no longer support us – our movement’s embrace of ritual observance has certainly swung far away from the Pittsburgh Platform and our fidelity to Israel shapes Reform Jewish identity – many of Pittsburgh’s planks are as sturdy today as they were then. My particular favorite is the 8th and final plank:

In full accordance with the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, which strives to regulate the relations between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.

Join me at the Convention on Wednesday, April 3, from 11 AM – 1 PM for a “Tour of Two Cities,” a special off-site program that will bring the “contrasts and evils of the present” into sharp relief as we explore two sides of economic development: urban renewal and gentrification. Together, we will walk the plank through Cincinnati’s historic, working class Over-the-Rhine (OTR) neighborhood, exploring the complex changes and challenges brought on by OTR’s rapid boom and transformation.

We will enter OTR via the Cincinnati Bell Connector, itself a source of controversy regarding both its route and who the streetcar serves, before arriving at Washington Park for consecutive walking tours of the neighborhood. We will travel over to and up Vine Street before returning to Washington Park, as together we will witness OTR’s incredible commercial and residential development, asking ourselves critical questions and seeking answers that may also apply in our own communities. We will be led on our tours by Eric Avner, Senior Program Manager of Community Development for the Haile/U.S. Bank Foundation, and Dr. Mark Mussman, Director of Education for the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and tentatively hope that our colleague Rabbi Lucy Dinner will help offer a Jewish frame to our conversation. Our excursion will conclude with an optional pizza lunch at Venice-on-Vine, a pre-employment training and job placement program for individuals with barriers to employment.

Register For Convention Now

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Rabbi David Spinrad serves Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA.

Categories
gender equality

I Am a Woman, and I Have Gender Bias

Far too often, members of congregational search committees say they don’t need to worry about gender bias because they have women on the committee. Yet most of us, including women, carry implicit gender bias.   It is implicit because it remains unexpressed. The more we are aware of our biases, the more we can address the challenge. When they remain hidden, there is very little we can do to tackle them.

Back in 2008, when then Republican presidential candidate John McCain nominated Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, I was very critical of the choice, and not because she had limited government experience. I simply didn’t believe that a mother of five children, especially when the youngest was living with a disability, could handle the job. I eventually shifted my thinking, thanks to numerous conversations with friends. I realized I would have never argued that a father of five couldn’t manage a high-level political job. It was the first time I was aware I carried gender bias, one that negatively impacted my view of what jobs mothers could do. My gender bias had been implicit until it became explicit, thanks to dialogue, conversations, and a openness to challenge my thinking.

There may have been several reasons why I held such a bias in the first place. At the time, I carried some ambivalence to becoming a mother, worried that being a mother would hold back my career ambitions. I didn’t understand how in many ways, working mothers are eminently qualified for their jobs because they are mothers. In addition, there is a cultural norm that it is ok to negatively judge other women when they make choices you wouldn’t for yourself. Of this, I am guilty.

Why do we as a Movement need to care about implicit gender bias?

The mission of the Union for Reform Judaism is to build a world of justice, wholeness, and compassion. We will not be successful at achieving this without an awareness of how our gender biases affect our ability to build that world.

We will not build a world of wholeness if we implicitly believe that mothers are not able to do the same work that fathers can, especially as senior rabbis of congregations.

We will not build a world of justice if those same gender biases affect our ability to pay mothers and women in general at an equal level that we pay fathers and men.

Compassion is defined as the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. We will not build a world of compassion if we are not conscious of the degree to which being a woman, or being a mother, is seen as a disadvantage in the congregation, and doing what we can to change that. This requires rethinking what we consider the qualities we want in a leader, as well as the prior experiences we expect. We often discount the experiences of parenting, for example, as a job qualification, or look for qualities, like gravitas, that we don’t associate with women.

There is no way to avoid having implicit biases. We all have them. Our aim is to become aware of them and call ourselves out as we recognize them. I recently had to call myself out again.

It was Friday evening. My friend Josh, a rabbi in our congregation, and I found ourselves chatting while the kids ran around. Josh and his wife have three young children, and he was sharing how his wife Nani was away on a work trip for a few days. I asked, “Did your mom come down to help?”

As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized I was guilty. Guilty of an assumption that feeds into the beast that is gender bias. I needed to name it, more for myself than for my friend. “Josh,” I said, “I feel terrible. If Nani were standing right here, and she had told me that you were away on a work trip for a few days, I never would have asked her if your mom had come down to help. I would just have assumed she could handle it, because she is the mom.”

I made an assumption that a father is less well-qualified to take care of his children, especially because he had a job as a congregational rabbi. This job requires evening work, and Shabbat responsibilities. How would he handle that if his spouse was not around to help? What was even stranger is that I had been in those exact same shoes myself, as a working mother with bimah responsibilities only a few years before!

How does this implicit assumption hurt women in our congregations, in particular the future rabbis and cantors we may hire to lead? If we assume a father is less well-qualified to take care of his children, what leaps of imagination do we have to do when faced with a mother who wants to become the next senior rabbi? Do we bring in our own biases of how children should be raised?

Project Implicit, out of Harvard University, has access to free implicit bias tests around a variety of themes. Consider taking it, or asking your board to consider it. The first step in addressing implicit gender bias is simply becoming aware.

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Rabbi Esther L. Lederman is the Director of Congregational Innovation at the Union for Reform Judaism and sits on the CCAR Taskforce on the Experience of Women in the Rabbinate.

Categories
Convention

My Epiphany

Having been raised in a traditionally observant Jewish home and attending Orthodox yeshivot from kindergarten through ordination and later serving as a Conservative rabbi, I found myself over the course of my career on a slippery slope (or in the language of Beit Shammai – “holchin u’pochsin”) in matters of both faith and observance. As I matured and grew in autonomy, I felt even more strongly the need to be consistent in my views and practices as well as open about them to others. I remember preaching on the first morning of Pesach, when still serving a Conservative congregation, that there is no evidence that the Hebrews had been enslaved in Egypt, but that it was essential to learn about self liberation and being redemptive in society from the myth and the ritual observances of the holiday. My raising such doubt about the veracity of the Torah distressed and raised the ire of a number of congregants, regardless of their level of personal observance. I felt it important to be “tocho kevoro,” speaking only as I truly believed.

I was becoming a religious naturalist and found inspiration in Spinoza’s pantheism, his rejection of dualism yet being God intoxicated (one could still feel and recite that “the whole world is full of God’s glory”). I found Kant’s concept of the God Idea the most direct and clear of the formulations of monistic thinking and was excited to learn that the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 emphasizes the God Idea.

Hermann Cohen taught that to be religious is to strive to correlate one’s personal character with the traits descriptive of the God Idea. This really spoke to me, to my emphasis on taamei hamitzvot, the usually personal transformational rationale for the commandments, and reminded me of the rabbinic teaching that “kemo shehu rachum vechanun af atta hevai rachum vechanun.”  Just as God is merciful and compassionate you too must be merciful and compassionate.” Imitatio Dei, the effort to identify ourselves with the midot, the positive attributes of our anthropopathic God image as described in the Torah, does not require belief in a supernatural being.

My dissertation addresses how our upbringing is related to our worldview and specifically to our image of God as wrathful or compassionate, whether we experience midat hadin or midat harachamim in our operational theology, what we really feel regardless of the dogmas we articulate. If we are to correlate ourselves with the sublime attributes of the God Idea, it is important that we foster an Idealism enabled by our experiencing life from a secure base. This can be accomplished in adulthood, regardless of the challenging early life experiences of many, through loving relationships, psychotherapy and being part of a caring community of spirituality seekers.

Multi-vocalism, which is emphasized in Reform liturgy, enables people to have differing views about God, while using the same theistic language, which is supported by Maimonides’ approach. The pluralistic emphasis in Reform Judaism enabled me to find a home in which I could be a religious naturalist and observe only that which was spiritually meaningful to me.

In our progressive approach at The New Reform Congregation Kadima, where I serve, our Shabbat morning observance involves the study of Mussar with an emphasis on character development and personal transformation. This, of course focused on self transcendence and altruism, reinforces the congregation’s commitment to social justice work, which is so core to our identity as Jews and as part of Reform Judaism’s emphasis on Prophetic Judaism.

I feel a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment to have progressed in my spiritual journey and in my rabbinic career to have the freedom to think and to function in a manner in which I can be true to myself. The archetypal story of yetziat mitzroyim really speaks to me as an allegory about freeing myself from external authority toward a growing autonomy on my journey toward the promised land. I am grateful to the Reform Movement which has provided me the context in which to be free in thought and in deed while pursuing a deep love for Judaism and its inspirational and transformational power.

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Rabbi David I. Oler is celebrating 50 years in the rabbinate at the upcoming 2019 CCAR Convention.

Categories
Technology

“Paper Midrash”: The Connections between Comic Narratives and Jewish Liturgy

As a kid, I knew better than to sneak comic books into services, but as an adult, that’s exactly what I’m doing–with the Visual T’filah I designed for the CCAR.

As an artist, I am constantly engaged in a conversation with the texts of our tradition. I’m a papercutter, and my work is visual biblical commentary; I call it “paper midrash.” I always begin with text—often biblical and other traditional sources, but also the words of poets and musicians. My work is influenced by elements of the natural world and how we understand our connection to the Divine: the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea, the revelation at Sinai.

I incorporate cut-up comic books into my work, drawing parallels between comic book mythologies and religious traditions, to delve into the stories that make us human. In my Paper T’filah series I explore connections between comic narratives and contemporary Jewish liturgy.

It’s a good fit. Comic superheroes exist outside of the “natural” world, be they visitors from other planets or people whose powers stem from strange scientific accidents, and their struggles can be seen as a metaphor for the human experience. Their stories are woven into my explorations of prayer.

So my Barchu—which marks the beginning of the formal prayer service, the moment when we stop being just a group of individuals and become a community praying together—is made with comic book superhero teams. Yotzeir, which praises God as the Creator of light, is filled with comic book heroes whose powers are tied to light and color, such as the mutant musician hero Dazzler. V’ahavta is a prayer about teaching children the value and meaning of our tradition, and my papercut of that prayer is filled with younger heroes like the Teen Titans and the Legion of Superheroes. G’ulah leverages the Green Lantern “Blackest Night” storyline as a parallel to our story of slavery and freedom, and you can find Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner comics tucked into the parted waves of my Mi Chamochah.

The progression from papercut series to Visual T’filah was a bit challenging. Rather than just put pictures of my papercuts next to the prayers, I instead strove to combine my images with the words of our liturgy to provide an alternative or additional way to understand the prayers. I digitally cut and pasted and shaped the papercuts to work within the Visual T’filah format, creating something that is at once connected to the original papercut series and also something completely different: a projected illustrated siddur.

My wife Shawna 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.

—

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.

Paper T’filah by Visual T’filah 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.

Categories
Convention

Anticipating Cincinnati 2019

Several of my fellow Convention Committee members have offered reflections in this space about the upcoming convention. I join them in looking forward to the opportunity for professional development and personal growth.

The CCAR convention was held in Jerusalem during my HUC-JIR Year in Israel. There are two things that I vividly remember from that gathering. First, we had the opportunity to participate in the programs with many of the major speakers, including Prime Minister Rabin. Second, I was amazed and uplifted by seeing so many of my rabbis in one place at one time, and to see the love and enthusiasm they offered to one another.

Our conventions are special because they allow us to be together, in person and away from the demands of our daily lives. Yes, there may be a temptation to brag or to only share in superficial ways, but I believe that our conventions provide us with an important chance to open up to one another. The power of coming to Cincinnati this spring lies in the chance to find support in facing our stresses. I have learned over the years that while I can certainly talk about my successes when I see colleagues at Convention, it is much more gratifying and beneficial when I open up and share about my struggles. The time we have together at convention is a unique opportunity to be with people with extraordinary talents, great wisdom, and a definite understanding of what we face in living and working as rabbis.

Yes, there will be several impressive keynote speakers at CCAR 2019. There will undoubtedly be lots of chances to celebrate together. However, what I look forward to most is the chance to bring the fullness of my life and my rabbinate to share with our colleagues, and to find the support, inspiration, and comfort that allows me to recharge and return home renewed in confronting the demands that lie ahead.

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Rabbi Peter W. Stein serves Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY.  Click here to register now for CCAR Convention 2019.

Categories
News

Eulogy for Albert Vorspan

This Eulogy for Albert Vorspan was shared with permission from Rabbi David Stern:

I am standing here today because of a sacred pact between my father, Rabbi Jack Stern, of blessed memory, and his best friend, Al Vorspan: long ago, they solemnly pledged to each give the eulogy at the other’s funeral.

Of course, the mutual nature of this covenant made it both impossible and elegant – after all, the wronged party would never know if the other had reneged first, and whoever reneged second had the best possible excuse. Or, as Al once wrote of their arrangement, “Only one of us will have to deliver, but we both have to prepare.”

And so I am here, along with my sister Elsie and brother Jon, to uphold the Stern family’s end of the bargain, with absolutely no hope of fulfilling this task as my father would, nor as Al did so beautifully for Dad eight years ago. After all, Al and Dad did have the advantage of preparation. Every time Al would crack up my father (and himself) with a story, Al would eventually catch his breath and say: “Jack, you gotta use that one.”

We never found an actual Vorspan file among my father’s papers – Dad never wrote the punchlines down. What he did write, every time he and Al would have lunch in their later years, is a list, in advance, on a notecard, of everything he wanted to make sure they would cover: politics, Israel, rabbis, Reform Judaism, all Judaism, children, grandchildren, and of course, their regular dissection of the New York Times op-ed page as if it were a daf of Talmud.

Dad didn’t save the note cards or record the jokes or write down Al’s fierce wisdom. He did what we all do – carry Al around in our hearts, even as we do this day, even as we will from this day. Because for a spirit as indelible and indomitable as Al Vorspan’s, you really don’t need a manila folder.

He was a liberator – not of the poor finally from their poverty, nor of the hungry from their hunger, nor of African Americans finally from the shackles of American racism, though God knows he tried.

He was a liberator because he freed the Torah from the ark, the prophets from the quiet pages of bound Bibles, the light of justice from the dainty ner tamid. He simply refused to leave the beating heart of Judaism trapped inside stained-glass windows or musty halls.

He brought Jeremiah to the Capitol and Isaiah to the jail cell in St. Augustine and Micah to the conference table at the RAC and he did it with a pipe in his teeth and a smile on his face and those expressive hands and with his bald head shining like a beacon for social justice. He was brave and smart and eloquent and magnetic beyond measure – my mom used to say Al Vorspan made social justice sexy.

But it wasn’t always sexy, and it was rarely easy. Rabbis of my generation and younger have this fantasy that justice work was simpler in the good old days – that before Ronald Reagan came along, every Jew was a New Deal Democrat, and every congregation floated in a tranquil sea of homogeneous blue.

But as Al reminded us time and again, it was never easy. It wasn’t easy when the rabbi in Alabama asked Al not to march with Dr. King in 1955 because the Jewish community there feared the reprisals of the White Citizens’ Council; it wasn’t easy in every Reform congregation that Al and Rabbi Eugene Lipman traveled to in the 1950’s to introduce the notion of a Social Action Committee; it wasn’t easy at the 1961 Biennial, when after a fierce floor fight, the Union voted to establish the Religious Action Center, and Al Vorspan was for once speechless, and he retreated in relief to the parking lot where he broke down and cried.

The fact that he was ceaselessly charming did not make him any less courageous. The fact that he was not a rabbi did not make him any less a person of faith, and his faith was profound. For him a Judaism of justice was a Judaism of substance and sacred promise, a Judaism that mattered; its Torah a Torah that dared enter the marketplace and the workplace and the factory and the fields of Viet Nam; a faith that Judaism was a force for redemption, even when things seemed irredeemable. Even when his critiques of the America he loved or the Israel he loved were most harsh, or when he came close to despair after the American election of 2016, that sense of hope remained his calling card.

We have taken to calling him a giant. That is testimony to his defining influence for the past 65 years in shaping Reform Judaism into a justice movement – the Reform movement simply would not be what it is today without him.

And it is testimony to his unquenchable charisma – he could hold a room like nobody’s business, and he had a command of the English language and a gift for delivery that would literally quicken your pulse when you listened to him. It’s a good thing he didn’t become a rabbi, because he would have put the rest of us out of business.

But to call him a giant is also a disservice, because what made Al Vorspan Al Vorspan was his unique combination of prophetic zeal and deep humanity – the genuine care for whomever was in front of him – a roomful of us or one at a time.

He understood the fear of that rabbi in Alabama; he respected our movement leaders when they challenged him. He believed in the power of community, and established the Commission on Social Action and congregational Social Action Committees across the country because he knew that the Torah of justice belonged on both sides of the aisle, where the people are. He combined rebuke with love, a challenge to conscience with a hand around your shoulder.

He stood in front of lots of packed houses, but I am guessing that for most of us here, the enduring image is of Al standing close, leaning in, laughing hard, listening well. There was no hypocritical distance between his care for the world and the care he showed for his own family, or for this Reform movement family. He was at home on the ramparts, and at home in the warmth of a quiet Shabbat in the Berkshires. If he was a giant, he was a giant who remembered your name.

We have taken to calling him a prophet. That is testimony to his remarkable courage and ethical compass. But as Aron Hirt-Manheimer wrote in his beautiful remembrance this week, no prophet was ever as funny as Al Vorspan – although if Jeremiah and Amos did tell stories like Al’s, we can understand why their jokes didn’t end up in the Bible. And of course, nobody took greater joy in a Vorspan story than Vorspan.

If you want to laugh until you cry, read Al’s blog post (July 25, 2016), called “Sex and The Retirement Home,” his response to an article earlier that month in the New York Times about how the Hebrew Home in Riverdale had started to encourage sexual activity among residents. I have made a career choice not to recount any of it here.

Al was a beloved mentor, teacher and friend to generations of Reform rabbis, stirring the fires of social justice activism in countless CCAR members and the communities we serve. He made us better every day, and it’s my honor to extend sympathies to all of Al’s family on behalf of our family of rabbis.

He was a teacher for generations; a friend for the ages; a beloved brother, father, grandfather and great-grandfather; and above all else and every day, Shirley’s steadfast companion. If Al was magic, Al and Shirley were more so; she had his number and she had his heart. May the artist and the activist be together again in whatever Hillsdale the heavens have to offer.

Some 1500 years ago, the Babylonian Talmud (Berakhot 3a) told us of Rabbi Yosei, who went to pray in the ruins of Jerusalem. Elijah the prophet came and gently rebuked the sage for praying in the ruins, a practice the rabbis considered to be both physically and spiritually dangerous. Elijah teaches Yosei that though the ruins may have felt safe and familiar, he should have prayed in the open, out on the road, out in the world.

Al Vorspan was our Elijah, summoning us beyond the ruins of parochialism, of paralysis, of self-righteousness, of despair – calling us to bring our prayers and deeds onto the road and into a world desperately in need of healing.

Two years ago, at the age of 93, Al Vorspan wrote a dialogue he called “The Debate in My Head,” a conversation between what he called his Inner Realist and his Inner Idealist, both characters labeled “Me” on the page. Eventually, the Inner Realist says: “It’s time to disengage, old man. Turn it off. Exit gracefully. The game is over for you. Cash in your chips, turn off MSNBC, read that book by Amos Oz, write a memoir for your grandkids.”

But the Inner Idealist comes back with the account of Al’s Navy experience in the Pacific during World War II, when his ship was hit by a Japanese bomber outside of Okinawa, and how amidst the wounded and the dead, Al’s fear gave way to a sense of courage and duty. Then the Inner Idealist effectively wins the debate with these words:

“Who are you to decide the game is over? The truth is, the biggest game is just beginning. And it will need all hands on deck. Young, old, blue state, red state. People need to wake up, storm their congressman’s office, demand the America they once took for granted: humane, democratic, fair, welcoming. We need to wake up and demand an America which does not place the environment and the planet at risk; an America which does not comfort the comfortable at the expense of the weak and the poor; an America that is once again a light to the world!”

Classic Vorspan: admitting that it’s a struggle, and then soaring in hope and inspiration to win the day. At 93 and 95 and every day, he was a prophet who laughed, a giant who remembered you, an Elijah who summoned us to our better selves.

We will miss him greatly, but the Vorspan file is secure and enduring: when our own standards start to slip, we will remember his integrity; when we begin to retreat from the heat of the day, we will gain courage from his compass; when we start to take ourselves too seriously, we will remember how he made justice and joy sing together. He has left us a legacy of shining conscience and deep love.

Sail on, sweet sailor, brave spirit. May your example ever light our way.

Albert Vorspan, zecher tzaddik livracha – may the memory of the righteous abide for blessing. Amen.

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This Eulogy for Albert Vorspan was shared with permission from Rabbi David Stern. Rabbi Stern is the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and serves Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas.