Categories
Immigration

Don’t Let the Light Go Out

Rony, a former bus driver, escaped from his native Honduras when his life was threatened. The “mafia” had already killed his father and his brother for failing to pay the required extortion. He was next. Seeking asylum in the US, Rony was arrested and detained at a private prison owned and run by The GEO Group in the California high desert town of Adelanto. I met him this past year, my second visit to the facility. My first attempt was aborted when, along with a busload of people of faith and clergy, I tried to visit detainees there. When GEO learned of our plan, they put the facility on lock-down, not only refusing to let us in, but also ejecting family members waiting to see their loved ones. It was 110 degrees outside.

A recent report by Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General flagged serious health and safety standards violations in Adelanto. There have been suicide attempts: nooses fashioned with bed sheets were hanging in 15 of the 20 examined cells. There are no recreational facilities or skills-building classes, and detainees are allowed a one hour visit per day — given the distance from their families, many get few to no visitors. Is this how we want our country to behave?

Our tradition teaches us to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our Statue of Liberty proclaims: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…” So are we OK with a private prison incarcerating 2,000 human beings for the crime of trying to find refuge and safety, to escape from persecution, violence and extreme poverty?

To shed light on the conditions in Adelanto, Bend the Arc, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, and I, organized an interfaith vigil there on the 8th night of Chanukah. At the darkest time of the year, we wanted to shine the candles’ brightness on the reality of our government’s policies towards immigrants and refugees. But we also wanted to offer the expansive light as a symbol of the possibility of hope to those locked behind bars.

Part of our effort was to rally support for Rony. His bond (a form of bail) was set at $10,000, a staggering amount for someone with no ties in the US. We had hoped to get him out by Chanukah, but had not raised sufficient funding. However, just this week, we reached our goal: Rony was bonded out this week, though he still faces a court decision about his asylum application.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against GEO on behalf of thousands of detainees, and we will continue to be vigilant on their behalf.

—

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

Categories
Chanukah Healing

Blackboards in Pittsburgh

For two weeks before Shabbat Chanukah, four black boards with a question at the top and multi-colored chalk in the chalk trays were placed in the entrance commons of Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh. The question: “Chanukah means Dedication. What do you (re-) dedicate yourself to this year?” All who visited the congregation had the opportunity to write on the boards their answers to the question.

On Thursday before Shabbat, I took those answers and created “Rededication, A Hanukah Prayer from Pittsburgh,” which Rabbi Sharyn Henry and I edited together. At Friday night services, I read the prayer at a joint service of Rodef Shalom and Tree of Life / Or L’Simcha. The goal: add a bit of healing by using the hopes and ideals of the community as the core of a new piece of liturgy.

The week before, the Pittsburgh community marked the shloshim — the thirtieth day of the post-burial mourning process – following the October 27 attack that left 11 dead and seven injured as congregants of Tree of Life were gathering for Shabbat morning services.

This is our second collaboration using black boards. In 2015, we used the same blackboards for an “Elul Memory Project.” The goal: gather memories from the community to use as the basis of customized Yizkor prayer.

Rabbi Henry was inspired to conceive these black board projects by the work of artist Candy Chang’s international public art project “Before I Die.” In that project, artist Chang created large outdoor public blackboards with a series of blank lines inviting passers-by to fill in the end of the sentence: “Before I die I want to _______.”

For both of our projects at Rodef Shalom, I wrote the initial draft of the liturgical combination of the responses, then we edited the pieces together. I also read both pieces from the bima. In both cases, after services, people approached us both to share how they felt hearing their contributions included in the prayer.

Part of the success is a thoughtful approach to the formulation of the question. For the Elul Memory Project, Rabbi Henry and I tested two different formulations of the question with staff, asking how the structure of the question might change the answer.

The blackboards have proven to be a useful means of capturing both community memories and congregational hopes and dreams. It is a project that can be easily adapted to a variety of holidays or community experiences.

Here is the prayer we created for Shabbat Hanukkah:

Rededication, A Hanukah Prayer from Pittsburgh

The oil,
That one cruse of pure oil,
Made holy for the dedication of the Temple,
That should have lasted only one day,
Lasted for eight days
Until new, pure oil for the Eternal Lamp
Was prepared.
We rededicated holy space
To God and the people of Israel.

That light shines now in Pittsburgh.
The ancient light, 2,000 years old,
Shimmering across millennia from the dedication of our ancient home,
Mingles with the glow of the lamps we light tonight,
Our rededication to:

Family and friends,
Patience, Empathy, Sympathy.
Health and sobriety.
Meeting neighbors.
Learning from each other.
Petting more animals.
Hugging.
Listening.
Breathing.

We rededicate ourselves to kindness,
Building a more peaceful world,
Combating hate,
Acts of compassion to one another.
Tikkun olam, repairing the world.
Tzedakah, giving charity.
Taking risks and being vulnerable.
Being the action of love.
Simply… being.

This is not easy
With broken hearts.
Yet this is who we are.
Inspired by the past,
Inspired by our faith,
We rededicate ourselves,
In this new generation,
To holiness and sacred convocation.

We will be vigilant in support of Jews, Judaism, and Jewish education.
We will be vigilant in advancing the dignity and the rights of all people.
Positive thinking and openness to new ideas,
Considering other points of view,
Trusting the mystery of life.
Paying forward these gifts.

To speak gently, with fewer words,
Criticizing less and helping more.
Simply doing the right things,
With dedication to truth.
With dedication to understanding.
With Peace –
Saalam, Shalom –
Udo, Paz, Vrede, Mиp, Paix, Friede –
In every language,
In every land,
Peace.

The flame from that oil,
That one cruse of pure oil,
Still shines upon us,
Within us,
From those days
To this season.

By Alden Solovy and Rabbi Sharyn H. Henry
© 2018 Alden Solovy and Rodef Shalom, Pittsburgh

—

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

Categories
Immigration

Tornillo: “Shut It Down!” And the Commentary Is Important.

I was privileged to join a bold and visionary group of midwestern Reform rabbis — led by Rabbis Bruce Elder, Miriam Terlinchamp, Joshua Whinston, Jonah Zinn, and Todd Zinn — on a November pilgrimage  to the U.S.-Mexican border in and near El Paso, Texas. The centerpiece of that visit was at Tornillo, a tent-city detention facility for immigrant teenagers. A rally outside the Tornillo camp prominently featured the chant, “Shut It Down!”

I participated in the pilgrimage as the CCAR Board’s representative. I am not at all new to immigration activism — In June, for example, I was arrested, in a civil disobedience action related to immigration at the Arkansas Capitol as part of the Arkansas Poor People’s Campaign. However, in mid-November, I didn’t yet feel fully comfortable as I joined the chants, “Shut It Down.”

Today, after further research, I am.

First, some words about my reluctance. Several years ago, URJ Greene Family Camp, one of my two cherished camp homes, had served as a facility where unaccompanied minor immigrants were housed. The nonprofit provider inside the Tornillo facility, BCFS, was also the provider at our camp. Moreover, our colleague, Rabbi Ben Zeidman, who is deeply committed to immigration justice, had visited inside the Tornillo camp with an interfaith clergy delegation which had found conditions to be acceptable. For a moving piece about the important work of Greene Family Camp in those days, please read these words by my friend and fellow Greene alum, Mandy Karp Golman.

The more I learned, though, the more I became convinced that the situation has changed. The facility at Tornillo must be promptly closed, the children detained there must be united with U.S. sponsors without delay, and we must strongly advocate against the establishment of  similar facilities.

During the summer, massive public outcry forced the Trump Administration to back down on its policy of separating undocumented immigrant parents from the children who accompanied them. What most Americans still do not know is that teenage immigrants continue to be separated from responsible non-parental adults with whom they arrive at the border — most often older siblings, aunts and uncles, or grandparents. We must protest all family separations, absent evidence of abuse or significant felony charges. These separations have massively increased the numbers of supposedly “unaccompanied” minors now in U.S. detention.

Back in the days when URJ Greene Family Camp was partnering with BCFS, that nonprofit provider actively sought U.S. sponsors for the truly unaccompanied minors who were in federal custody. Today, government policy has dramatically curtailed BCFS efforts in this regard, putting teens and potential sponsors at great risk. Potential sponsors reasonably fear coming forward in the current environment, exposing them to potential deportation. In fact, the process of seeking sponsors often serves as “bait” to lure family members into processes that may result in their deportation.

The result is a massive multiplication in the numbers of incarcerated teens — and the length, perhaps indefinite, or until they turn eighteen and are eligible for deportation — whose only crime is arriving at our border, seeking freedom in the Land of the Free.

Torah is clear: “You must not oppress strangers, nor harm them” (Exodus 22:21). Our government is perpetrating grave, even permanent, damage, upon a massive and increasing number of young people at our border. For that reason, I am delighted that our Reform Movement has officially joined the Close Tornillo Coalition.

Now, you have the commentary. Let us all raise our voices to demand that our government “Shut It Down!”

—

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

Categories
Chanukah

What’s It All About?

I know, for sure, that it’s not about the presents. It’s also not about the gelt. I don’t think it’s really about the dreidels. And, I’m pretty sure it’s not really about the candles.

So, what is Chanukah really all about? Well, it’s definitely about giving. It’s also about sharing. I really think it’s also about having fun. And I’m pretty sure it’s really about light.

Even more than all that, the real meaning of Chanukah is “faith in miracles.”  When we think of Chanukkah, more often than not, we first think of giving gifts and gelt (money), eating latkes and sofganyiot (donuts) and lighting the Chanukiah (Chanukah menorah).   However, to find the real meaning of Chanukah, we must look beyond all of that. We must look at what is the reason for the latkes, the dreidels, the Chanukiot and the candles.

Most of us know that the story of Chanukah is a story about how the small army of the Maccabees fought for their right to practice Judaism and even had to fight for their survival.   We know that when they won, and they re-dedicated the Temple they found oil which lasted for 8 days, instead of what appeared to be only enough oil for one day.

However, there is more to the story than just that.  The fact that this amazing group of Jewish survivors found any oil to relight the flame was a mere miracle, and the fact that the oil lasted for eight days was an even greater miracle. Perhaps, though, the greatest miracle of the Chanukah story was that the Maccabees and Judaism survived and to this day, continues to thrive as we continue to keep the flame burning. As we discuss the ancient story of the miracle of the Maccabees, it can only be paralleled to the modern miracle of Israel’s formation and survival, as well.

Chanukah is a time in which we have the opportunity to appreciate all the miracles God performed for the Jews throughout our history, and it’s also a time for us to think about all the miracles we experience in our own lives. Chanukah should also serve to remind us of being open to the possibility of miracles in each and every day of our lives.

When you spin the dreidel and look at the letters which represent the words, “Nes Gadol Hayah Sham” – “A Great Miracle Happened There,” may we be always open to receiving and appreciating miracles in our own lives- here and now!

—

Rabbi Emily Ilana Losben-Ostrov serves Temple of Israel in Wilmington, North Carolina.  She also blogs at www.kaddishformydad.com

Categories
Healing

When the Rabbi Feels Trauma: Lessons from the SoCal Fires

We jumped into the fire, but many of us feel fortunate like we have come out relatively unscathed. Or at least that’s how it might appear at first.

I worry that we have forgotten, in the course of escaping these ever spreading flames, that just a short while ago our entire community experienced two other intense events: the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill, a country-western bar frequented by college students in Thousand Oaks, CA and the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Our community has faced three major traumatic events coming at us in just a two week period. How do we process these fires, and the flames of hatred, directed at us?

I want to tell you a story, a true story, about trauma. My trauma. I share my personal story with you because I want to help us all, as we all face the fallout from these three traumatic events.

Seeking Advice to Understand How to Respond

Since last Wednesday, after the mass shootings, as the fires began to rage across the Conejo Valley, Rabbi Julia Weisz and I got in touch with our rabbinic colleagues from communities in Santa Rosa, CA which was decimated by fires a year ago, Houston, TX which endured horrible floods, and Parkland, FL which faced a murderous mass shooter in the high school. We called them because we needed to understand what we might expect and what we might do to help heal our community.

Most of us do understand that the process of repair for those who lost houses or were wounded or had loved ones murdered is long and arduous. But Rabbis Stephanie Kramer, Oren Hayon, and Marci Bloch who guided us well also cautioned us that our experience does not end when we return to our homes, find new homes, or when the dead are buried. They taught us that the process of healing would also be long and arduous for all of us. We will need to come to terms with the fact that these fires – and increased mass shootings – are now the new normal. They are going to happen, again and again, and they are going to get worse before they get better. Repair of our broken hearts and broken world takes time.

Recognizing our Trauma

We need to recognize our trauma. My rabbinic colleagues told us that those who survive, those who evacuated, even returned to their houses and saw how close the fires came – sometimes all the way up to backyards – or those who saw their friends’ homes burnt down, also will face trauma. Meaning most of us.

The story that I want to tell you tonight is about my day one week after the fires began. I want to open your eyes to what can happen. I have done advanced pastoral counseling work, studied about the traumatic effects of such experiences, and was warned by all those rabbis who told me what was going to happen to many of you. Well, it happened to me too.

One week after the fires began, I had to take a day off. Because after dealing with these events 24/7 for a week, I hit the wall. I am not sharing this for sympathy or caring: I’m good and with continued support from my team, I will be even stronger.

As the Tears Began to Flow.. And Not Stop

My story began at about six o’clock, when I began crying. I was talking to my kids about what was going on with the fires and our work to be there for our community. Sitting safely in my home, far enough away from the fires to be assuredly safe, I recounted our work organizing the community. And the tears began to flow. Initially I figured I was just exhausted.

But then I woke in the middle of the night and while watching an episode of the TV show Parenthood – about a dad who couldn’t find time for himself, but finally broke away and went surfing – and all of a sudden I found myself bawling again. At four thirty in the morning.

That morning I participated in an early conference call but had to break away numerous times because I kept shedding tears.

Calling my Therapist

My very next call was to my therapist, who I see sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. He opened up an appointment for me at 5:00 pm. I then texted Sally Weber, a social worker and friend from Jewish Family Services, who earlier in the week “kidnapped me” from the relief work to encourage me begin to process. She could talk at two thirty.

Then I contacted the Central Conference of American Rabbis, to get in touch with Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, the CCAR’s crisis counselor, who said he would call me back in twenty minutes.

Rex and I talked for an hour. Sally and I spoke for an hour. My therapist and I spent an hour together. And you know what I discovered in those three hours of therapy? That although I thought I was not directly touched by any of this, I actually was traumatized by all that has happened. It was partly exhaustion, but not just that.

Shaken Up by the Shootings

What I discovered was the intense effect on me, especially of these double shootings. I was experiencing the shootings as deeply personal attacks. First they came after us at a synagogue (I’m Jewish. I work in a synagogue. It could easily have been my synagogue.). And then, over at the Borderline Bar, that country western dance bar, one of our young people, 23 year old dear to me, had been in there dancing and ran for his life. I’m glad that he is physically unharmed. Yet, just five days earlier I had been sitting with him, commiserating over the synagogue shooting and all those shootings at churches, schools, concerts, malls, and elsewhere. I cautioned him that as terrible as it is, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I assured him though that the chances of his getting shot at is about as likely as his stepping off the curb and getting hit by a bus (I buried someone from that only once, very early in my rabbinate). Then just five days later, that young man was in the Borderline Bar shooting.

In those counseling sessions, I realized that I didn’t know how to keep my kids safe, or my congregant kids safe, or my congregation safe, or the school safe. I discovered that was frustrated and so sad. I realized that I couldn’t sit back anymore.

Survivor’s Guilt

And then I realized that I had a form of survivor’s guilt. I was feeling guilty that we were here in this gorgeous part of the country and while many were evacuated, most escaped with only smoke damage to their homes. Yes, in fact, the fires raged all the way up to peoples’ homes, workplaces, and backyards, but I and most of our congregants were safe.

As we dug deeper, the counselors helped me discover the intensity of the repetitious nature of these fires. What now was happening to people I love had happened in nearby Ventura, CA a year ago, and to a lesser degree, we faced fires two years ago in Calabasas. In fact back then, I rescued our two Torah scrolls from the approaching fires, carrying them across the freeway bridge to safety. Since then we post in the synagogue lists of items to take if we are evacuated.

Personal Sense of Loss

Amidst my tears, I also remembered that of the three Jewish camps destroyed, I had personal connections to each. I had been a director of Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling Hilltop Camp for four years. It was so long ago, I forget about it. And most of our temple teens go to Camp JCA Shalom for NFTY retreats. These camps are their home away from home. They were part of my life.

Then I realized that just one year ago, our Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, where our family spent every summer for twenty years, had burned down. My therapy team helped me realize that I had trauma on top of trauma, compounded trauma.

And then I became aware of the self-growth I needed to undertake: that if I really wanted to do something to stop these annual fires from happening, and if I want to do something to stop these constant shootings, we all have to stand up. And I had to become a leader in a different way than I had been before. That’s is intense and a little bit scary too.

If it Could Happen to Me, It Could Happen to You Too

Finally, I learned that if I can become overwhelmed and traumatized by this, then, they tell me, it can happen to you too. Remember, I am trained to handle this and I train interns every year about just these types of situations. If it could happen to me, it can happen to you.

So even when you go back to your house and at first all seems fine, take your pulse. If you can’t sleep as well as you used to (or as well as you used to not sleep), or if you can’t relax, or if your child’s grades start to change, or if you witness significant behavioral changes in the kids or the adults or yourself, or if something else seems off, please call Rabbi Julia, call Cantor Doug, call me, or call the Jewish Federation crisis hotline, or call Jewish Family Services, or call a therapist, or call a friend. Because you too might be dealing with intense trauma or PTSD.

I was lucky; because of my training I quickly could tell that something was wrong. And I quickly reached out for help. But I’m not over it.

To remain in track, I have given control over my eating over to my wife Michelle; I said I would eat whatever she tell me to eat. I would go to sleep whenever she told me to go to bed. I have arranged with trusted friends who know me well to check in regularly.

And I have additional counseling appointments scheduled.

I’m Going to Be Okay… Are You?

So I’m okay, because I did and am doing the therapy work. But many of us may have to do it too. It’s not over when we are back in our homes. The fires are not over. These insidious shootings are not over. We are going to have to deal with the trauma from them and come to terms with the new normal. Because this new normal is insidious and can easily overwhelm.

Each week we light Shabbat candles, and we take the same element, the fire that destroyed, and use it to create light and hope, for today and for the future. We are going to light Shabbat candles to bring in Shabbat light so that we can do what we did this whole horrible week since the shooting happened and the fires started: Kindle more light, not of destruction, but of love, hope, and healing. Amen.

—

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

Categories
parenting

Blessing Up: A Chanukah Lesson

At a Shabbat service led by two b’nei mitzvah students in my congregation, I was lulled into a meditative frame of mind. As if following a rigid script, the young people chanted from the Torah, led the set prayers in English and Hebrew, and presented divrei Torah to the community according to a formulaic outline. Then, after one of the students wound down his presentation describing his mitzvah project and expressing words of thanks to parents, siblings, guests, teachers, and clergy, he appeared to finish his speech. I waited for the requisite, “Shabbat Shalom,” and thumbed through the prayerbook to locate the concluding prayers of the service. Pausing, the bar mitzvah boy looked up from his typed words and radiated an impish smile. He gazed at the congregation, pointed both index fingers toward the heavens, and finished his speech with a loud exhortation, “Bless up!”

I had never heard of that particular expression before that moment. It reminded me of something a professional athlete might intone in preparation for a big game. Since that day, I’ve thought about the phrase more than a few times. Did the bar mitzvah boy mean we should bless God, who dwells up on high? Perhaps the expression means that it’s time to make a blessing and be grateful for the gifts we have that we are taking out of God’s realm and drawing into our own spheres. Maybe he thought he was being cool and funny by calling the congregation to prayer with slang in the midst of a formal service?

With the imminent arrival of Chanukah, this young man’s expression has re-entered my consciousness. Reviewing one of the famous disagreements between the schools of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai (Talmud, Shabbat 21b:5-6), we recall that on Chanukah, we add an additional light for each night of the festival, as instructed by Hillel. While the modest sage’s rival, Shammai, favored kindling a brilliant array of lights on the first night and then deducting a candle or light as each night passed, Hillel would kindle lights corresponding to the outgoing days. By crowning Hillel as the victor in this conflict of opinions, the Talmud has ruled that when we light a chanukiyah, we, too, are supposed to “bless up.”

Just two weeks ago, I shared a very slow-moving elevator with a 96-year-old man and his 94-year-old wife. I asked them how they were getting along, and the gentleman looked at me, shook his head with caution, and instructed, “Take my advice, don’t get old.” The couple shuffled off of the elevator and made their way together, as I processed the jarring conversation. This man who was almost a century old probably did not feel good, may have suffered profound personal losses of friends and family members who predeceased him, and could have been suffering from a number of ailments and worries. He looked ahead at his days and may have wondered if positive, joyful experiences awaited him. Like the darkening chanukiya of Shammai, this nonagenarian’s opinion about life and joy corresponded to the incoming days, and the lights dwindled for him.

Downcast, I reminisced about my grandmother, who passed away at almost 102 years old. She enthusiastically complained about her failing eyesight, mourned the parents, siblings, husband, and friends she had lost, and lamented the insults of aging. Yet, she retained her gratitude and her sense of humor, joking that the Malach Ha-Mavet had lost track of her because she had moved to an assisted living facility in Mason, Ohio. For the time being, she was tricking death by living in a town that sounded eerily similar to the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Meitim — dead ones, and so the Angel of Death had assumed he had already visited her. I learned from this grandmother and my other grandparents, as well, to ascribe to the school of Hillel, and focus on the light of the outgoing days.

The Talmud instructs us to elevate to a higher level and never to downgrade in matters of sanctity. May we internalize the lesson of Hillel and find increasing light and joy in the progression of time. May we find strength in our days, and may we all grow very old with vigor and goodness in a world of peace.

Oh, yeah, and to quote a very wise bar mitzvah student, remember this Chanukah to always “bless up!”

—

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

Categories
Chanukah

Home for the Holidays: DIY Chanukkah

Your children are actively anticipating Chanukkah, and you want to harness their enthusiasm for Judaism at every opportunity. After all, you have a degree from HUC-JIR. You are deeply invested in getting them to feel personal ownership over their tradition. And you spent way too much time on Pinterest when you had bronchitis after Yom Kippur. You’ve totally got this.

Plan A:

Materials:

  • 4 cups of candle wax
  • Double boiler, in which you really, really do not care about the inner pot
  • 44 weighted wicks (you can use cotton string, weighted with nuts, or prepared wicks)
  • Tall, thin mason jar (any heat-proof jar that you can easily replace will do)
  • Long wooden stick; a skewer will do (for mixing wax)
  • Large bowl you hate, filled ¾ of the way up with cold water
  • Large drop cloth
  • Aluminum foil

Instructions:

  1. Open up the wax; ask your children to touch the wax. In an attempt to tie this into the second child’s science unit, note how the wax is currently a solid but that we are going to turn it into a liquid and then back again. Ask: What observations can you make? Try to come up with an answer as to why the wax “smells like a movie theater.” Re-evaluate which movie theater you go to.
  2. Heat the water in the outer double-boiler pot, while your children “negotiate” measuring out four cups of wax into the inner pot. Remind yourself that practicing conflict resolution is an important life-skill.
  3. Place inner pot into the outer pot. Gently warn the children that the outer pot is hot. Allow children to take turns stirring wax using a long wooden skewer, because your touchstone on practical parenting, Dr. Wendy Mogul, said reasonable risk-taking is important for raising resilient, self-reliant people. Hold your breath to prevent yourself from panic-screaming, “DO NOT TOUCH THE OUTER POT; IT IS SUPER HOT!”
  4. As wax finishes melting, place bowl of cold water and mason jar close together on drop-cloth covered surface. Show children which end to dip into the wax; make sure that they are holding their wick from the top. Gently reemphasize that the wax is hot. Mentally spiral about wax heat and risk-taking. Remind yourself what Dr. Mogul said. Remind yourself that lighting candles in dark times is an important commandment that brings joy, gratitude, and inspiration. Remind yourself that you are pretty positive that Irving Greenberg said, “As long as Hanukkah is studied and remembered, Jews will not surrender to the night. The proper response, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle.” Remind yourself that you want your children to feel ownership over their engagement with Judaism. That Judaism is this beautiful, messy practice that makes your life, the lives of all of those who came before you, and the lives of your children more meaningful. And, remind yourself that if the tutorial lady from YouTube can do this, so can you.
  5. Pour the wax into the mason jar. Take turns dipping wick from wax-filled mason jar into cold water. Repeat until candle reaches desired width, then place on aluminum foil to finish cooling. Note how the change of temperature makes the wax change from a liquid to a solid, neatly tying all of this back into that science unit. Admire that the four-year-olds only want to make squat candles that will never fit into any hanukkiyah/menorah. Declare that those will be used as Shabbat candles. Resort to Plan B.

Plan B:

Materials:

  • Beeswax sheets (cut into 4 inch by 3 inch strips) and cotton string (cut into 4.5 inch pieces)
  • Or just a kit like this one

Instructions:

  1. Lay the cotton wick lengthwise, making sure that the excess all sticks out one side. Roll.
  2. Listen to children as they comment how much easier, less messy, and more beautiful this candle-making process is. Acknowledge their feelings. Make a mental note that simplicity is important, and maybe you should spend a little less time on Pinterest next time you’re sick.

—

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 Prayer

Accessing the World of Meaningful Prayer

The tension between keva and kavanah in our worship is always there.  The fixed texts of our liturgy guide us through our daily moments of reflection and prayer.  They contain our history, our theology, and our deep bond with the Holy One through the millennia. There is a comfort for me in chanting the words that my parents and grandparents knew. Even when praying in English or some other mother tongue those too can have the same force that binds us to our covenant.

The kavanah, the inspirational or extemporaneous moments of prayer take me in a different direction. The words and music I craft at any given moment pour out of my lips in an effort to capture my spiritual longings of a specific moment or situation.  I am drawn increasingly to these interpretative poems and prayers to express my soul’s longing in the complex world we live in.  I search for material that will enhance the keva and at times liberate me from the keva as well.

As the one who is responsible for crafting meaningful worship for others, we rabbis and cantors are often caught in the bind between these two points.  We have a sacred duty, on the one hand, to our received tradition and to engage the worshipper for whom the fixed text is foreign, and who may only occasionally enter into moments of conversation with God. And we who long to create different kinds of spiritual connection through prayer and meditation that is still authentically Jewish but soars beyond the keva need material that can reframe and revitalize our Jewish prayer voice. This dialectic between the written texts and the inspirational texts, and impromptu prayers will always challenge us and hopefully propel us to deepen our thoughtfulness in preparing meaningful worship experiences.

This is why I appreciate deeply the poetry and prayers of Alden Solovy.  In his newest collection of prayer/poems, This Joyous Soul, soon to be published by the CCAR Press, Alden gives us some tools that will help us navigate this tension between the traditional rubrics of the service and inspired language of kavanah, specifically around Shabbat morning.

I had the opportunity to utilize some of Alden’s newest prayers as part of Shabbat morning worship with my community and in other settings.  The collection of prayer/poems accompany the keva, the fixed liturgy, in a complementary way deepening the experience for the congregation.  The themes of the morning service are woven into every line and stanza in the book.  Let’s take but one example from this new collection:

God’s Morning

Calm or wind.
Cloud or sun.
Warm or cool.
It’s God’s morning.
A gift.
A promise.
A bird gliding on a breeze,
Singing ancient songs,
That need no translation.
A ray of secret light
Stored for this very moment
Since the beginning of time.

Let us rejoice.
Let us sing.
Let us tremble with love,
While the Artist paints
The sky and the hills,
The seas and the plains,
In the colors of majesty.

It’s God’s morning.
Sent as a reminder
To love and to hope.
Sent as a reminder
To celebrate
The glory of Creation.

For me this is the Shabbat Morning Yotzer prayer filled with hints of light and God’s creation.  It refocuses me on God as the artisan who paints all of creation and the world. This refreshes my understanding of the idea of renewing creation daily and transitions me into that wide expanse of love that follows in Ahavah Rabbah.

I have shared this piece several times with different members of my community. Read in worship and in study to a person, they have each smiled to themselves as they bathe in the beauty of the painted words.  While the Hebrew of our prayers provide ancient connection for my congregation, through Alden’s words they access the world of meaningful prayer through an authentic Jewish voice.  It is not replacement for the keva, but instead a kavanah that primes me and my community for the keva.  And perhaps a way into the keva now that the table has been set.

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Rabbi Denise L. Eger  serves Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA and is the immediate past-president of the CCAR.  This Joyous Soul is now available to order! 

Categories
Books Prayer

A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

As wildfires burned in California, hundreds of missiles rained down on Israel from Gaza. Fire on the ground and fire from the air, with people I know and love in both places. Just a week before, 12 people were murdered in a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. A week before that, the largest-ever U.S. antisemitic massacre was perpetrated at Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha Congregation, Pittsburgh. All this occurred against a backdrop of growing anti-Semitism world-wide and contentious U.S. mid-term elections.

My pen has been grieving, the ink pouring out prayers with titles like these: “Missiles from Gaza,” “As Fires Rage” and “Taharot in Pittsburgh.” In those 2.5 weeks, I wrote a baker’s dozen of ‘responsa prayers,’ dealing with immediate concerns in the wake of news events. Writing ‘responsa prayer’ is one of the roles of a modern liturgist, to give our shared experiences a voice of prayer.

There’s a reason why these pieces resonate. Our prayer book, the siddur, has tuned our ears to the many voices of prayer. We know the voice of grief and the voice of yearning. We know the voice of joy and the voice of hope. We have been praying some of these prayers for more than 1,000 years. The prayers call out to us, as they did to our fathers and mothers.

There can also be a disconnect. While the siddur gives us the spiritual foundation to connect to our inner hearts of blessing, at times the language doesn’t fit.  Another role of a modern Jewish liturgist is to bridge that gap, opening doorways back into the prayer book. The goal is to capture the familiar cadences and themes – and at times the familiar idiom – in a way that is true our current sensibilities and language.

The Reform siddur, Mishkan T’fillah, addresses these opposite forces with a faithful, contemporary translation of Hebrew texts, as well as a broad set of alternative readings on the left-hand page of two-page spreads.

This is the goal of my new book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings. Structured to reflect the morning service found in Mishkan T’filah, this collection provides a new set of ‘left-hand pages’ to enliven our worship. The prayers in This Joyous Soul invite a deeply personal prayer experience that strengthens our connection to Jewish tradition. It’s written to inspire each of us to make the traditional daily liturgy our own. So, my hope is that it will be used both by individuals as part of their personal prayers and will be adopted for use in congregations throughout the Movement.

For generations, the siddur has given voice to our deepest desires. Every generation has left a mark on this great book that spans centuries, continents and cultures. This Joyous Soul is one contribution to that great endeavor: keeping the prayers of our ancestors vital and alive, with a new voice for these ancient yearnings.

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Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist and teacher. His work has appeared in Mishkan R’Fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR Press, 2012), L’chol Z’man v’Eit: For Sacred Moments (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), and Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016). He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, published by CCAR Press in 2017, and This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, now available for pre-order from CCAR Press and available by Thanksgiving 2018!

Categories
Books

Dividends of Meaning: Jewish Rituals for the Financial Lifecycle

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, we invited Rabbi Jen Gubitz to share an excerpt of the chapter that she wrote.

When Hyman retired from his job, he gathered with his community and rabbi to ritualize this major transition in his life. This Jewish ritual began as many do —his wife Ann placed a kippah on Hyman’s head, they lit candles, and blessed wine. Then Hyman put his briefcase down on the ground and asked aloud: “As I enter the years of retirement and aging: Will I be bored or stimulated? Will I feel useless or valuable? Will I be lonely or involved with others? Will I feel despair or hope?” “Only the years to come can answer those questions,” the rabbi responded, “but tonight we can do several things to help Hy through his transition.

  • First, we have brought seven gifts.
  • Second, we can follow the traditional Jewish custom of offering tzedakah in Hy’s honor. The money will be given to the Philadelphia Unemployment Project.
  • Third, we can scare away the demons as our ancestors did with the blast of the shofar.”

Upon the conclusion of a final shofar blast, Hyman was declared a Bar Yovel, a “Son of the Jubilee,” released from professional employment with the opportunity to move on to a new stage in life.[i]  To mark his new status, Hyman also took on an additional Hebrew name.

A donation dedicated to the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, a briefcase, candles, and the shofar: From the mundane to the holy, these are the ritual items used to mark a financial and life transition. This category of ritual does not celebrate the eight-day old baby, a child entering Jewish adulthood, or the beloveds under their wedding canopy, but the retiree, enhancing a significant moment of the secular financial life cycle. In addition to celebrating retirement, Jewish ritual and wisdom has the means to frame and celebrate seemingly amorphous and mundane financial moments, from opening a bank account to getting a first credit card, from purchasing and owning a car, to the first or the last mortgage payment on the place called home; from receiving a scholarship to remitting that final student loan payment to submitting a final tuition payment for a child’s education; from cutting up credit cards to tackling debt to earning money through labor and investments, and accruing money through saving; from retiring from a primary career to transitioning to a second or third.

However, a personal survey of literature and clergy’s stories among various faith traditions revealed surprisingly few rituals, prayers or poems to mark these significant moments in life. The distinct transitional moments of the financial life cycle clearly lie beyond the arc of the traditional framework of Jewish ritual and its marking of loving relationships, childbearing, welcoming, learning, illness, and loss. Judaism brims with ritual and recognition of the formal family life cycle, yet these days many of us live longer, causing the gap in time between classic Jewish life cycle events to increase dramatically.  Moreover, the only experiences in life we all have in common today are birth and death. Many of us do not even aspire or are able to reach or mark the traditionally ritualized moments of the Jewish life cycle that happen in between, causing a dearth of ritual in progressive Jewish life.

There is tremendous opportunity to broaden the scope of private and communal Jewish ritual to encompass moments of the life cycle in connection to money and finances. With sensitivity to the many in our midst who work endless hours and years without reaching the financial milestones that would relieve them of their crippling debt or acknowledge their life’s investment, this type of ritual innovation can have a transformative impact on the Jewish community, particularly on the demographics of people least attracted or immediately connected to Jewish living, such as millennials and baby boomers. Money and its impact on our lives is part of the reality of living in the world. We are not, yet, allowing Judaism to permeate this part of our lives, bridging the realities of secular living and Jewish practice. That said, over the last 20 years Jewish ritual has been the subject of many innovations, and some of our new rituals do attempt to make our financial life cycle part of our spiritual lives.

[i] This Ritual of Retirement was adapted from a “Life Cycle Passages” class at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1983. The ritual is published online at https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/bar-yovel-retirement-ritual.

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Rabbi Jen Gubitz serves Temple Israel of Boston.  She is also a contributor to CCAR Press’s forthcoming book, The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic.