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.

—

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.

—

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.

—

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. 

Categories
News

#lovetriumphs

As the fires still raged, I took a break to marry Lindsey Cooper and Laura Berman down on the Santa Monica beach (leaving our Fire Response Efforts in the able hands of my partner, Rabbi Julia Atlas Weisz, and her amazing team).

Under the beautiful setting sun, with the Santa Monica Pier roller coaster lit up nearby (reminding us that life by definition is a roller coaster of ups, downs, and spinnings round and round), the two brides, made beautiful by the LOVE that burns within them, celebrated joyously in their relocated ceremony (originally planned for Malibu but moved 24 hours before). Looking at their love-drunk faces as she broke the glass–a reminder of the destruction our people endured–I was inspired by these lessons:

  1. That love will triumph over hate (and may this love motivate us to stop the cynical turning back the clock now underway on marriage equality and LGBTQ2 rights)
  2. That with LOVE, we can endure the most disappointing destruction (of our homes, our sense of safety, the loss of life, and the intentional, purposeful, and insensitive comments of the one who should be Healer in Chief)
  3. That a LOVING community transcends distance (thanks to all who helped call and check up on our congregants). May we continue to turn that LOVING energy toward reaching out and helping all affected by the fires and shootings, regardless of where they live, how much they make, their skin color, national origin, religion, etc.
  4. That an embrace of LOVE, like that of de Toledo High School, helps us endure the loss of homes, the evacuation of sister congregations, the burning of buildings (at camp JCA Shalom Camp, Hess Kramer, Ilan Ramon Day School, and elsewhere), and the burning loss of our sense of security
  5. That LOVE burning brightly can motivate us to face down and ultimately stop hate-honed shootings, like those at the country western dance bar, Badlands, the synagogue in Squirrel Hill, at Kroger’s in Kentucky (because the shooter couldn’t get into the predominantly black Church), and at the churches and concerts and schools and malls and <insert latest location of mass shooting here>. LOVE can triumph over this kind of violence-producing hate, even if it has been honed by those in power.

So Mazel Tov, Laura and Lindsey:

May your passion for each other burn brightly for 120 years, inspiring us to reach out with LOVE to the evacuated, the shot-at, and the downtrodden, dispossessed, unloved, and everyone else, who like you and me are deserving of living with LOVE in safety and hope.

—

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

Categories
News

Two Questions to Ask as We Reflect on Trudeau’s Apology

On Nov. 7, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized on Canada’s behalf for turning away the MS St. Louis from the Halifax harbour almost 80 years ago. Canada refused to accept the 907 shipboard Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 — as did Cuba and the United States. While some passengers eventually found refuge elsewhere, over 200 were returned to Nazi Germany’s clutches, to be murdered in the Holocaust. Canada has said little over the decades, at least officially. Now that is changing.

The timing of the prime minister’s apology – two days prior to the commemoration of Kristallnacht– is significant. The “Night of Broken Glass” — Nov. 9, 1938, when the Nazis and their henchmen rampaged through German Jewish neighbourhoods, destroying buildings and lives – made Hitler’s intentions clear. Just months later, the St. Louis and its precious cargo took off from Hamburg, a ship of Jews in search of safe harbour that would prove beyond reach. And worse: a harbinger of what was to come.

As we reflect on Trudeau’s apology, we might ask two questions: First, can a government apologize in any meaningful way for such a massively fatal dereliction of responsibility? After all, however sincere the regret, how can words make up for the deaths of innocents so casually flung back into harm’s way?

The short answer: an apology, yes; a meaningful one, not so likely. But there’s a fuller answer, too. There are different, sometimes unexpected, ways to acknowledge past evils other than through words. They too can constitute an apology.

I understood the compelling nature of non-verbal apologies best while wandering the streets of Berlin some years ago. I was stunned that the city’s architecture and buildings revealed all of 20th century Berlin’s history — literally all of it. Nothing of Berlin’s modern past is erased or hidden, save for what was destroyed during the Second World War — and even some of that has been restored. It’s all there, out in the open.

Berlin’s architecture conveys the message that a city and its people, once complicit with evil, need not pretend the past away. And, in fact, such a city is best served by preserving what was, rather than hiding it. Better to recall than to repress, better to know what happened than to forget or destroy it. Berlin’s preserved physical history conveys in architectural form much the same lesson that the Talmud records about the profound relationship between forgetting the past and the doing of evil. That is, the one who represses his past, especially its painful ignominies, is the most prone to committing evil.

But there is the second question we must ask about Canada’s apology: how do we determine if an apology is genuine? This is perhaps more difficult to assess, but I’d venture one thought: if Trudeau takes the apology seriously, he will have done his own homework. His own reading and lots of it, his own thinking. It won’t hurt, too, for the prime minister to know what the Talmud teaches with regard to sincerity: that which is a genuine product of the heart, once articulated, can touch the heart of the other.

The evil done to the St. Louis passengers 79 years ago is not unrelated to the anti-Semitism of today. In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, it is essential for the prime minister and his government to remember that. And of course, there is a clear link between the most recent manifestation of Jew-hatred and its most pernicious manifestation – the desire to rid the world of Israel. Would that Trudeau remind his countrymen and women that, had there been a Jewish state in 1939, the St. Louis would have sailed there — and found refuge rather than refusal.

Reconciliation begins with remembering evil. If he gets it right, and follows through with appropriate action, Trudeau’s apology can be very meaningful – even all these decades later.

—

Rabbi John Moscowitz is Rabbi Emeritus at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. This article was originally posted by the Canadian Jewish News.

Categories
chaplains

Song of Service: Veteran’s Day Prayer

JWB Jewish Chaplains Council was founded more than 100 years, and over that time, in times of peace and war, JWB’s mission has been to serve Jewish men and women who serve  in the United States military. We ensure that every Jewish member of the U.S. armed forces has the opportunity to practice Judaism in a meaningful and fulfilling way no matter where they are stationed, and serve as the officially designated representatives of the American Jewish community to the Department of Defense and Department of  Veterans Affairs.

Prior to this year, the American Jewish community did not have a singular chanted prayer for members of the U.S. military. With the publication of the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council Prayer Book for Personnel in the Armed Forces, seeks to change that. This year, JWB held a contest, inviting cantors, rabbis, musicians and others to submit entries, putting to music the words of the Prayer for the Armed Forces that appears in the siddur. Earlier this year, a composition by noted New York musician Danny Mendelsohn was chosen as the official Jewish prayer for the U.S. armed forces.

JWB Jewish Chaplains Council has chosen the Shabbat immediately prior to Veteran’s Day 2018 to debut A Song of Service: A Prayer for the US Armed Forces. On that Shabbat we would like to invite you and your congregation to join synagogues of all denominations and Jewish communities across the United States in adding this moving prayer, set to Danny’s soaring music, for the first time to your Shabbat services as a weekly addition.

Please click here for the prayer, the sheet music and a link to the digital audio file of the prayer. With this act of unity and faith, we will demonstrate once again, the great support the American Jewish community gives to our men and women of all faiths serving in our U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at ielson@jcca.org

Shalom and thank you!

—

Rabbi Irv Elson, CAPT, USN (Ret) serves as the Director of the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council.

Music and text © Jewish Welfare Board/Jewish Chaplains Council, published by American Conference of Cantors/Transcontinental Music Publications. Used by permission.

Categories
Gun Control Healing

Hineni

Hineni.   I am here.    Like Abraham of old i stand ready to serve thee
Today.
Today i am here in Shul.
With my friends and neighbors
Filled with sadness and anger
Searching for words

Today.

But what about tomorrow?

I will not sacrifice Isaac.

Sarah must not die from the pain of a child’s death.

Nor will we be fooled by Satan’s fake news.

Tomorrow must be different

So I will rise up early but I will not pack my bags.

Instead I will stand resolute as a Jew

I will work for a world where Isaac and Ishmael live as brothers.

And I will try harder to find 10 righteous,
Davka because yesterday 11 gave their lives

Tomorrow I will know that despite the sadness and the tears, the killing and the hate, good people walk with us
And God’s promise will not lie curdled in our mouths like spoiled milk.

For I believe that someday, one day
all the families of the earth shall be blessed through love.

Yes.  These things I pledge for tomorrow.

But today, today I mourn.  Today I heal.  Today I look forward to
Tomorrow

—
Rabbi Sanford Akselrad serves Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson, Nevada.  
Categories
Healing

Is It Safe?

“Is it safe?” They asked me.

Over and Over.
Is it safe at night? Safe for women? For “Whites”?
Will you be able to walk the dog? To drive?
Will you run out of water?
Is the country safe? The city? The neighbourhood?
Did you choose a “good” street?
Is there off-street parking? Electric fencing? An alarm?
IS IT SAFE???

And each time, with whatever reassurance I could give,
came also this question back from me,
“Is anywhere really safe, these days?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This week, in South Africa, Jewish communities joined in the Shabbos Project – a country-wide observance. At our #ProudlyProgressive temple, we had a weekend full of awesome and well attended inclusive, egalitarian events and services. A Challah-Bake; A T’fillin-Wrap Minyan; A music-filled Erev Shabbat T’fillah.

And yesterday morning, a Temple Israel unity service – with all of us in one location, celebrating Shabbat together with music and learning and five rabbis (2 of them women) and two guitars, and nusach and chazzanut and harmonies.

And, a baby naming (two fathers, who wouldn’t have access to this ritual anywhere else in the city).

And at the end, lots and lots of food.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On Shabbes afternoon, when people were being slaughtered in another part of the world, and I didn’t yet know,
I was elated – celebrating the end of a hot morning with a dip in the pool,
with new friends who are like family;
with my dog;
with a call to my mom to share my absolute joy at this new life I have landed myself into.
Then, home to watch the rugby, as one does here,
and then

the call. the channel change to CNN. the tears.

If I had been moving to Pittsburgh last month, no one would have asked me, “Is it safe?”
But there I was, in South Africa, tucked up on the couch with the dog,
behind our security gate and the front door gate and the bolted door (of course),
and my Shabbat morning had been safe –
I hadn’t even given it a thought, though I greeted the guard on the way in
(through the temple’s security gate)

and that baby was safe in the arms of her fathers
and they will have beautiful sun-soaked memories
and there,
in Pittsburgh, another baby’s simcha was shattered,
defiled,
and lives were lost

Bubbies and Zadies laying in blood
in the place they came to pray and celebrate
and be in community

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It is beyond belief.

It is all too believable.

it was only a matter of time

and
also

how, in this day and age . . .
how indeed?

We know the answers.
We know these are dark times
and that they will pass
and better times will be had.

Other babies will be welcomed in safety
but it may get worse before it gets better

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I am far from home
I am a rabbi who’s worst nightmare just happened to another rabbi,
somewhere
where it should have been safe
but wasn’t

I don’t have all the words yet
to express the sorrow
the rage
the hope

But this is what I know:

As evening fell, I went back to my new shul
to my new home
to my new family.
I was held and comforted and fed and distracted.
There was Torah study and music and wine.
And with guitar in hand I led Havdallah with my new colleagues
because we are rabbis and that is what we do
we lead these moments no matter what –
whether the Shabbat was beautiful or horrific or both,
just as so many rabbis in America led Havdallah last night with vigil candles
with tears streaming
with words of comfort being sought and found
just as they, and we, will continue to lead the way in the days to come.
Held by our communities even as we hold them.

Across borders
Across continents
Across the room

This is a day when we are all together. Grieving. Singing. Ending one week into the next.
Knowing there will be better Shabbatot ahead and worse
Knowing there is work to be done
and slivers of heaven in among the brokenness

My heart is in Pittsburgh. My home is in Africa.
And Canada
And Israel
And yes, even America, even still.
And wherever there is a Jew in need

Home is sometimes the place that is safe
And sometimes it is not
and it is still home
and we hold each other
until we can make it safe again.

—

Rabbi Emma Gottlieb serves Temple Israel Cape Town Progressive Jewish Congregation in Cape Town, South Africa.  This blog was originally posted on Rabbi Gottlieb’s personal blog. 

Categories
Healing Social Justice

After Pittsburgh: Confronting Anti-Semitism and Ourselves

The gunman who struck the Tree of Life Synagogue on Shabbat in Pittsburgh indicated on line that he wanted to “Kill Jews.” Prior events whether at our southern border, on the streets of Charlottesville, or at political rallies sponsored by our President, Jews were seen as passive observers to the changing political scenarios of this nation. The assault on worshippers that took place this past Shabbat morning however was seen as a direct attack on Judaism and America’s Jews. It would represent the single most violent incident against Jewish Americans in the history of the United States.

In a society already under assault by the politics of hate, this is but one more indication that a war is underway for America’s soul. Where once America and Americans celebrated differences, today there is a conscious and deliberate effort to intimidate and seek to silence those who represent different religious, sexual and political beliefs and practices. Democracy itself is being threatened. Hate violence has replaced civic discourse. As a result anti-Semitism is a manifestation of a fundamental disregard for the respect for diversity. In this new and uncertain political environment, Jews have become political targets.

It is cynical for politicians to offer words of comfort in the aftermath of violence, when their own rhetoric, framed in nationalistic images, seeks to question the loyalty of certain Americans and where political operatives single out individuals suggesting that they are the cause of America’s troubles. In this type of political culture, violence and hate will sadly be manifested on our streets.

A year ago on these pages, I wrote:

A fundamental political sea change appears to be underway. As America’s social fabric is being tested, new strains of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have emerged globally and at home. …There is a heightened awareness among Jews of extremist expressions challenging not only the existing democratic norms of the nation but also reflective of how minority communities, including Jewish Americans, are being categorized and threatened. 

A new political reality faces American Jewry in the aftermath of Pittsburgh, as hate has gone mainstream. Moving forward, will Jews feel safe in this country? Out of this nightmare, will a new sense of the collective spirit of the Jewish people be rekindled?

The ongoing, unresolved issues that re-emerged on Saturday remain to be addressed. These concerns involve gun violence, the discourse of politicians who need to be held accountable for the words that they employ, and the use of social media to convey hate messaging. These and other policies and practices define who we are and what it may mean to be an American.

Fear and intimidation must not be allowed to silence Jews or others. This is a moment that demands a serious conversation among Americans about the state of our nation and the collective interests and shared values that bind us together. This is a time to reassert the civic principles that convey the American story. We owe it to these victims of anti-Semitism and to ourselves.

—

Professor Steven Windmueller, Ph.D. is the Alfred Gottschalk Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Service at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of HUC-JIR, Los Angeles. His writings can be found on his website, www.thewindreport.com.  This article was originally posted on eJewishPhilanthropy.com

Categories
News

A Prayer: Standing with The Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh

In light of yesterday’s horrific violence at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, we share this prayer that Rabbi Kedar wrote for her congregation.

Be strong and let your heart have courage

Psalm 31:25

God, hear our prayer.

With horror we bear witness to

the evil within our midst.

We prayer that our broken hearts

do not become embittered.

Let us not give in to cynicism and despair.

May we find comfort in our faith and in our community,

strengthen our resolve

to be messengers of peace and healing

and bring comfort to the broken hearted.

We pray for the soul of our country.

May violence be no more.

May the way of our land be for good and not for evil.

May the words we speak, inspire.

May our outstretched arms, embrace.

May our minds learn tolerance and understanding.

Strike the inclination to do evil from

the hearts of the wicked.

Empower us for good, for life, for love.

God, we pray for the children.

The children, our greatest gift,

the hope in our hearts, the delight of lives,

our future and legacy.

The children, dear God.

Innocent and true.

Our children, pure in their beauty,

proof of goodness and miracle.

Our children

The children, dear God.

May we be strong and may our hearts have courage.

October 27, 2018

18 Heshvan 5778

Rabbi Karyn Kedar, Senior Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, IL, is widely recognized as an inspiring leader who guides people in their spiritual and personal growth. She is the author of many books, including Omer: A Counting.