Categories
High Holy Days News

It’s Not the Apocalypse

Many people are speaking like it’s the end of days.

We know these people.  Sometimes, we are these people.  The way our world is talking has escalated our existence from the already wearisome struggles of everyday life to the exasperating level of world-ending scenarios.  But sometimes what seems like an apocalypse is just everyday life.

Jewish history is filled with people predicting the apocalypse.  Amongst the first of those was the last of our Prophets, Malachi.  His final prophecy warned of the approaching day of Divine judgment that like a “smelter’s fire” would purge Israel: Who can endure the day of this arrival, Malachi wonders.  Doom and gloom, destruction and suffering, are the imagery of the prophet’s visions.  Like many prophetic peers, Malachi saw his own time period as the literal “end of days”.

But Malachi’s 4th Century was hardly the end of days… in fact, it was the beginning of a wonderful period of expansion of Jewish thought, literature, and even political power!  The prophet’s perceived apocalypse in fact was the dawn of a far better day than he ever imagined.

Our Rabbis actually lived through a far more violent time than did Malachi: they were eyewitness to multiple failed insurrections in Judea, massacres in the Jewish diaspora, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Despite all this, our Rabbis couldn’t have cared less about any apocalypse.  They needed simply to get through the day, to find a viable way for Jewish values and Jewish life to continue.

Our Rabbis read Malachi, especially the prophet’s final vision.  In fact, they maintained Malachi’s message, but steered it away from a prophecy of doom towards an oracle of hope.  They shifted our communal focus from a violence-ridden apocalyptic end-of-days to a messianic age of hope and glory.  How did they do so?  They aggrandized Malachi’s image of Elijah returning as the herald of an edenic age.  As a result of this Rabbinic revolution, Elijah has since stood as the paradigm of possibility for a world not only repaired, but perfected.  Thus do we make room for the hopeful optimism of Elijah every Passover, and intone only the positive part of the picture painted by Malachi: Behold, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the great and awesome day of God.  Elijah shall turn the hearts of parents to children and the hearts of children to parents.

Our Rabbis pivoted from awaiting a day doom towards working for a season of hope.  We need to do the same.

And there’s no better time than right now.  Our High Holy Day season, centered around the possibility of turning towards our better selves, makes clear that the choice we should make in these troubled times is to do everything within our power to restore hope and promise to our world.  In fact, the premise of the High Holy Days could never be more clearly stated than the very words of Malachi: Turn back to Me, and I will turn back to you, declares Adonai.  Our entire season of turning helps us focus first our intentions and then our deeds so that we can reorient our lives towards the better people we know we can be.

There’s no doubt there were troubles the in Malachi’s time, or in the age of our Rabbis.  And I would be the last to say there isn’t a lot broken with our world today, both here in America and overseas in Israel.  But especially in difficult days, Judaism reminds us we must make a powerful choice: we can see things as the end of days and turn inward, or we can work towards a messianic era and reach out our hands to fix our broken world.  In today’s times of trouble, in our Holy Day season of turning towards the purest paths, may we all move away from talking about the apocalypse and instead dedicate ourselves even more deeply to the work of tikkun olam, of bringing hope and healing to all.

—

Rabbi Seth M. Limmer, serves Chicago Sinai Congregation.  He is also the immediate past Chair of the Justice and Peace Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and also Vice-Chair of the policy-setting body of the Union for Reform Judaism, its Commission on Social Action, and currently serves on the board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  He is also the co-editor of the forthcoming Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice from CCAR Press., now available for pre-order.

Categories
gender equality High Holy Days

A #MeToo/#GamAni Confession for the High Holy Days

As we enter the High Holy Days, we reflect on our individual failings, but our liturgy also instructs us to confess communally, recognizing the role each person has in shaping their community. In that spirit, I offer this addition to our prayers of repentance to allow us to reflect on the plague of misogyny, which continues to shape women’s experience of the world. Gender harassment has many expressions, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, micro-aggression, wage inequity, and the unequal representation of women in leadership positions throughout all corners of our society. While this confession emphasizes sexual harassment, true equality will not come until we address all expressions of gender harassment. Confessing our communal wrongs is only one step in the tikkun, the repair needed, but it is an important first step.

 

A #MeToo/#GamAni Confession

 

 

Al cheit shechatanu

For the sin we have committed before You . . .

by not believing the victims

by being silent while women were bullied, harassed or undermined

by claiming to be ready to listen when we were not

by claiming equality exists for all

by not supporting victims

by not providing sexual harassment prevention training

by accepting the sexist comments made every day

by blaming the victims

by claiming our workplaces, synagogues, and organizations were safe

by contributing to an environment that allowed harassment

by explaining away harassment

by believing the victims but not acting to make change

by worrying about our community’s reputation instead of the victims’ needs

by not reflecting on the past and present behavior within our community

by denying that gender harassment has many faces

by allowing victims to suffer retribution

by not noticing when women simply walked away from our community or institution

by making the reporting of harassment difficult and hard to engage

by promising change and not fulfilling this promise

 

 

Al cheit shechatanu

For the sin we have committed before You, we ask forgiveness.

—

Rabbi Mary L. Zamore serves as the Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network. Rabbi Zamore is also the the editor of  The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethics, now available from CCAR Press.

 

Categories
High Holy Days

Elul and the Red Planet

This July Mars was closer than it’s been to Earth in fifteen years.  With giddiness and wonder many of us took a glance at the night sky to see a hazy orange glow that indeed felt far more visible than usual.

In truth, Mars is always roughly the same distance from the earth, 38 million miles give or take a few.  Sometimes, however, as happened this summer, our vantage point changes and we see our neighboring planet anew, as if now immediately by our side.  Rather than have our heads buried in phones and screens of every ilk, we saw in a new light what otherwise seemed so taken-for-granted.  The scientific community used the opportunity to present new findings on the epic volcano, Olympus Mons, the largest in our solar system, which rests atop Mars, as well as a winding lake, long dry, stretching twelve miles across a portion of the red planet.

All of it becomes a reminder that we need to look up sometimes too.  We need to be reminded to turn our gaze elsewhere, away from Facebook and meeting agendas, lengthy emails and service outlines.  Elul pulls us back, and turns our gaze to what matters, even as we feel the stifling pull of planning for our holy day season.  Rather than get drawn to the stark glare of logistics and minutiae, let alone a news cycle that can be so unnerving, Elul brings our attention to those places we often neglect.  During this sacred month, we turn to the full breadth of our faith, community, our Homeland and our God.  As the tangible world competes for attention and commercials blare of sales and upcoming TV premiers, it is Elul that pulls our heart back to what is most fundamental.

As one of the harrowing Haftarah readings of this time of year urges: ‘Look up all around you and see; they are all assembled, are come to you’ (Isaiah 49:18).

As we turn ourselves now to our most central and sacred texts and prepare for the upcoming hagim, we see it all as if anew, against the backdrop of our scary world and the multiple generations within our communities that are in search of perspective and guidance for today.  Like a planet that has always been there, but somehow feels brand new, we stand now to come back to the familiar hues and tones of Slichot, the Binding of Isaac, Tashlich, and of course Jonah.  Like Mars, these narratives feel both mysterious and familiar.  They are both right beside us and as distant as ever.  We squint to see them with clarity and marvel at how many have looked at them over the centuries.

Our task becomes turning them round and round so that our collective vantage point has us see them for what they are: inspiring, beautiful, and offering us the wisdom we so very much need.

—

Rabbi Benjamin David serves Adath Emanu-El in Mt Laurel, New Jersey and is a co-founder of the Running Rabbis.  Rabbi David is also the Editor of CCAR Press’s  Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

 

Categories
High Holy Days

A Lifelong Process of Becoming

The High Holy Days are that special time in the Jewish calendar for us to take a step back and reflect on who we are as people. We are given the opportunity to look back on the previous spin around the sun to ponder where we were in our lives and where we are going in the coming year. One of the most effective means by which to consider our holistic growth as fully-rounded human beings is to engaging in t’shuvah, the act of returning to our core state of authentic righteousness. And as we approach these most auspicious of days, the question that should be on our lips and inscribed in our heart is: what does t’shuvah mean for me?

On a spiritual level, the process of t’shuvah is akin to finding our innermost point, a phrase we call nekuda ha’penimit. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter—known as the Sefat Emet—taught, “For everything there is a point of essence (nekudah chayut)… and the world is pulled by this single point.” Once we find this constantly evolving place of inner Godliness, we can nurture it and expand it from smallness to its inherent, infinite potential. This is, perhaps, the most important task of our lives. T’shuvah, the literal translation usually rendered as returning, is a process where constantly returning to a deep inner point of being is the objective; allowing these encounters to transform all that we do and all that we are.

On that same thought, Maimonides taught that: “The Jewish People will only be redeemed through teshuvah (Hilchot Teshuvah 7:5). None of us can hold off a moment of growth as no one has reached perfection. “There is no righteous individual on earth who does [only] good and never does wrong” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

In the trenches of Kabbalistic thought, coming to know one’s inner deepest self—one’s id and one’s angelic self—means coming to know something much deeper. Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera explains it in this way:

They said that whoever knows his soul knows his Creator, and whoever is ignorant of knowing his soul is ignorant of the knowledge of his Creator. How can one believe that a person is wise concerning something else when he is ignorant concerning himself? … Therefore, they said that the knowledge of the soul is prior to the knowledge of God (Sefer ha-Nefesh, translation by R. Jospe).

Similarly, Yosef Ibn Tzadik taught:

By man knowing his own soul, he will know the spiritual world from which he can attain some knowledge of the Creator, as it is written, “From my flesh I shall perceive God” [Job 19:26] (Ha-Olam ha-Katan, translation by S. Horovitz).

While religions across the world maintain their own systems of ritual and symbolism, each with their differing perspectives of human-divine interaction, it is our goal nonetheless that we keep our eyes focused on the main role of organized spirituality: to transform and elevate our core being to actualize our mission in this world. To do so, we must be engaged in a daily process of t’shuvah.

There are no set instructions for performing t’shuvah; it’s not an endeavor that one does carelessly. For example, there is the t’shuvat of refraining from doing the same action we repented for in the past (t’shuvat ha’ba’ah); removing pleasure in one’s life equal to the pleasure gained from the wrong done (T’shuvat Ha’mishkol); realizing the need to correct missed spiritual opportunities; and realizing that we need to t’shuvah for the self and t’shuvah for a collective purpose as that of family, community, or the world.

And these are only the beginning!

As in any major pursuit, too many people focus on the macro effect of their efforts rather than the incremental steps. We need game plans. We need dedication. We need the foresight to wake up every morning and ask: How are we going to make every day count? Each of us has the opportunity develop our plan of reflection and action so that we can actualize our greatest potentials. That is what this time of the year reinforces most strongly.

In this life, we are charged with a seemingly unconquerable moral task: to balance striving (hishtadlut) with trusting (bitachon). These two qualities bifurcate our ethical and empirical selves. How far do we go to cultivate radical empathy for the vulnerable and downtrodden, but at the same time, develop a sense to know that our efforts may not be enough to help everyone? Indeed, these challenges of understanding the limits of our potential require intentional effort; they require us to release a deeply imperfect human need for total control. In that way, t’shuvat reflects our desire for holiness. It’s about ensuring that humanity becomes a force for healing rather than a force for hurting; for building rather than destroying; for contributing rather than diminishing. And when we return (shuv) to our Divine essence (tzelem Elokim), our souls reflect their heavenly origin and reveal the beauty of our human aspirations.

—

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the President and Dean of Valley Beit Midrash and the author of Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary (CCAR, 2018).

Categories
Healing member support mental health

Leaving Shame Behind: Sharing my Story as a Recovering Alcoholic

“We have heard from you that balancing our professional and personal lives is one of the biggest challenges of rabbinic life.  Being in the public eye is not easy.  This is especially true when we are facing all too human circumstances such as physical pain, family trauma, mental illness and alcoholism.   We know that there are rabbis who are struggling with alcoholism and addiction.  We have held workshops on addiction and ‘Friends of Bill W.’ meetings at CCAR convention for many years.  Above all else, it is the support and embrace of colleagues traveling the same road that can help us feel less isolated and alone.”  — Rabbi Betsy Torop, Director of Rabbinic Engagement and Growth

Shame. That’s the only emotion I was feeling as I frantically searched the library where I was sure I had left my book. The book I had used when I met with my sponsor. And now it was gone – not to be found anywhere. I worried what I would do if a congregant found it. I’d be exposed . They’d know my secret. They’d know I was an alcoholic. Okay, I’m a recovering alcoholic, but it still felt shameful to me.  I knew what I had to do.  Even after I found my book.  That experience showed me I had to make a decision. I had to come clean. I couldn’t continue to feel this way.  I ripped up the sermon I was going to give on Yom Kippur and wrote a different one, one on mental illness.

I admitted my struggles with alcohol and drugs. I confessed that I used and abused substances to make me feel better.  Alcohol was my friend, my confidant and my lover. It helped me do impossible things.  But one day it turned on me and I had to get help. I struggled with getting help.  I didn’t know how I would live in a world without my vodka. Alcohol had been such a crutch for me.

But getting the help wasn’t as hard to I had thought. As soon I as I reached out, someone was there to walk with me – to guide me through the trials and tribulations of sobriety.  I worked and struggled a day at a time, but eventually I found solid ground.  And now it was time to share this struggle publicly.

I was afraid to admit I was an alcoholic to my congregation, afraid of their reaction, but I was no longer willing to live in shame and fear.  I thought maybe I’d be asked to leave, but instead, that sermon was a turning point in my rabbinate.  It opened the floodgates – and my congregants came in droves to see me to tell me about their spouse, child, parent, boss, and friends who also struggled with addiction.  I was no longer afraid and ashamed. I had become a real person to my congregants and my relationships with them improved.  I gained the trust of my community.  Today, I do not have shame about being found out.  And I’m here to help you.

—

Rabbi Andrea Cosnowsky provides Alcoholism and Addiction Response and Recovery Support for CCAR members. If you think you have a problem with alcohol or drugs, please reach out to her.  All calls are confidential.  Rabbi Cosnowsky is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Etz Chayim in the Western suburbs of Chicago.

Categories
chaplains Death High Holy Days

Love and Washing: Preparing for the Days of Awe

The time of death was 6:55 pm, last night.  The patient was 2 weeks old.  Her name means “journey,” her mother explained. As the doctor and nurses prepared to detach the tubes and wires from her tiny body, her tearful family gathered around.  In a soft voice, the head nurse told the family that after the extubation, they would bathe the baby’s body, so the mother could hold her.  Suddenly, one of the aunties looked up and said, “And you said I could help bathe her.”  The nurse agreed firmly.

I looked at the tiny body, oozing and bloody, yet inconceivably pure and innocent. I thought of Psalm 51.7: “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

As we work through this month of Elul, preparing each in our own way for those trembling Days of Awe in which we confront our mortality and lead others in confronting their own, I pondered the relationship between love and washing.  The well-known drash on the name of this month, “Ani l’ Dodi, v’Dodi li,” underscores the sentiment that we approach God with love, not fear, as we search ourselves and inventory our transgressions.  Coming up with this list of smudges and soot what are we to do now?

Not until last night, could I fully conceive of what the relationship between forgiveness and love might feel like, what might it look like?  Love bathes. Love washes away- like a warm basin, like a soapy washcloth, like a gentle waterfall.

Showering with a lover, drawing a bath for a child, performing taharah – love cleans.

As we prepare for these Yamim Noraim only weeks away, let us go about the gut wrenching and the mundane, the trivial and the sacred, the parts we like and those we don’t, knowing that God’s gentle hands are already gathering perfumed soaps and oils, warm towels and holy loofahs, in anticipation of washing us clean.

—

Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, D.Min, C’2000 serves as a chaplain at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Categories
Books Social Justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: When God’s Word Presses upon Your Heart

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we invited Reverend Cornell William Brooks, to share an excerpt of the Foreword that he wrote.

Generations of Americans are familiar with a black-and-white photograph taken in a long-ago time, a sepia-toned picture of several American prophets: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. walking arm and arm, beside a Torah, on the blood-stained road from Selma to Montgomery, as well Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath. On that day shortly after Bloody Sunday, when marchers were beaten nearly to death, Heschel, as scholar and rabbi, joined Dr. King—representing not only Judaism’s spiritual authority but its moral resistance at the height of the civil rights movement. Amid what may be described as a Twitter-age civil rights movement, there is yet today an anguishing hunger for both spiritual resistance and moral authority. This spiritual resistance and moral authority is suggested in multicolored digital pictures of our time, multi-hued pixelated photographs of a multi-racial group of people walking in a prophetic tradition—today.

As a fourth-generation African Methodist minister, raised in and around the birthplace of the American Reform Movement, Charleston, South Carolina, I witnessed the spiritual resistance and moral authority of the Reform Jewish community a mere two years ago. As the then president and CEO of the NAACP, I called for a march from Selma, Alabama, to Washington, DC, to oppose widespread voter suppression and restore a Voting Rights Act, gutted by a constitutionally wrongheaded and morally wrong-hearted Supreme Court decision, Shelby v. Holder. Rabbis, their adult congregants, and even grade-schoolers and Jewish summer campers responded with a prophetic courage, moral exuberance, and organizational speed that was frankly stunning.

Even today, neither the magnitude nor moral profundity of that response can be fully measured. One out of every ten Reform rabbis in the United Stated marched on America’s Journey for Justice, a historic 1,002-mile march from Selma to DC. Not only did these rabbis march from Selma to DC, but they carried the Torah, and not only did they carry the Torah, but so did Baptists and Methodists, the faithful and the cynical, gentiles and Jews, African Americans and Latinos, seniors and their grandbabies, and many for whom the Torah was both an unexplained mystery and as yet unread tome. Beautiful digital images of these marchers circulated online, around the globe and into the hearts of those seeking justice in this time.

Leaders of the protest, holding flags, from left Bishop James Shannon, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington Cemetery, February 6, 1968. Published February 7, 1968. (Photo by Charles Del Vecchio/Washington Post/Getty Images)

I and hundreds of non-Jews discovered that when you march carrying the Torah, with your right or left hand and the sacred scroll laying upon the opposite shoulder, the Scripture literally crosses and lays upon your heart. As I walked with the Torah, I came to understand that to truly “pray with your feet,”1 as Rabbi Heschel said of marching for justice, one must have God’s word pressing upon your heart.

More than anything, Jews (and this gentile with so many others) yet hunger for hope. While hope may lack an empirical basis, it surely has a moral foundation in the Torah and its timeless teachings as they are interpreted for this generation in this moment by these writers. It is a hope greater than dry poll-tested probabilities of the prospects for uninspired reform. It is a hope that gives us an often tested determination that compels us to co-labor with God for a “justice that rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24). It is a hope that inspires us to “dream dreams” (Joel 3:1) and “see visions” (Joel 3:1) as well as to “write the vision . . . plain” (Habakkuk 2:2). It is a hope that compels us to pray—and to plan, strategize, study, mentor, teach, and partner as well as learn.

  1. Susannah Heschel, “Following in My Father’s Footsteps: Selma 40 Years Later,” Vox, April 4, 2005.

—

Reverend Cornell William Brooks is a Visiting professor of Ethics, Law, and Justice movements at Boston University School of Theology and Boston University School of Law; Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center of Justice at New York University Law School; Visiting Fellow and Director of the Campaigns and Advocacy Program at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School; Visiting Research Scholar at Yale Law School; regular contributor to CNN; and former president and CEO of the NAACP.  Rev. Brooks also wrote the foreword for CCAR Press’s forthcoming publication, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, now available for pre-order. 

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Searching for Possibility and Hope

A smile can make a huge difference. That is what two of my congregants and I discovered when we came to McAllen, Texas to volunteer for a week with the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center for immigrants newly released from detention. McAllen is the largest processing center for immigrants seeking to enter the United States. After arriving at the border, they are detained by immigration authorities. If and when they are released, they are taken to the Central Bus Station. That is where staff and volunteers from the Respite Center pick them up and bring them to the center for a hot meal, a shower, a change of clothes, before being accompanied back to the bus station where they are sent off across the country to meet their sponsor — usually a family member. Once there, they will face a court date and the decision of a judge as to whether they can stay here or be deported back home.

These are the lucky ones. They are not placed in detention beyond a few days, and they are not being permanently separated from their children. It is not entirely clear why they are being released while so many others are kept in detention for many months. It may be because they have a sponsor and a credible case for asylum, but no one we spoke to was entirely sure as the system seems to be somewhat arbitrary. However, their situation is far from fortunate. They come primarily from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, countries torn apart by violence and plagued by extreme poverty. These immigrants are fleeing the violence, often fearful for their own lives and that of their children. Their dangerous journeys average 3-4 weeks during which they travel by foot, by bus, and/or on La Bestia, the freight trains which they ride on the roof. Some of the women are pregnant, some of the adults are carrying newborns.

Once they turn themselves in or are arrested at the border, they are put into detention for 3-4 days in what the immigrants call “La Hielera” — the Ice Box — because of how cold it is in there. One woman, Maria Luisa, told us that she was separated from her two sons, forbidden from hugging them, forced to sleep on the floor with only an aluminum blanket, barely fed a frozen burrito, allowed to shower once for three minutes, and kicked awake at 3 o’clock in the morning. She along with all the others who are released, was forced to wear an ankle monitor to ensure that she would appear for her court date. Her ankle bracelet, as was the case with the others we saw, was tight and uncomfortable, and made her leg swell.

This inhumane treatment is in marked contrast to how these immigrants are welcomed at the Respite Center, which was established four years ago by Sister Norma Pimentel. In that time, something like 100,000 immigrants have come through their doors. The motto over the front door, “Restoring Human Dignity,” is what drives the staff and the revolving groups of volunteers from around the country. The immigrants here are met with kindness, concern and care. When they first arrive, they are rather stone-faced and wary, but soon they relax and respond to the warmth being shown to them. We tried as much as possible to look them each in the face and to smile, acknowledging their humanity. We served them a bowl of chicken soup, helped them find a fresh set of clothes and shoes, and guided them to the showers where we kept two washing machines and two dryers going constantly to keep up with the volume of towels. Because the clothes on their backs have been worn for close to a month, we threw them away. We also put together snack bags and sandwiches to take with them when they returned to the bus station for the next step of their journey.

One of my congregants was asked by some of her friends whether the children we saw actually belonged to the adults they were with. There is no question that these adults were their parents! They demonstrated a great deal of love and affection for their children, and the children were clearly very attached to them. They are people like you and I, seeking a better life for themselves and their family. “There but for the grace of God go I…” They are looking for a new start, one with possibilities, one with hope. As we enter the month of Elul on the road to the High Holy Days, we too are in search of a new beginning. Let us be thankful for our good fortune. Let us also resolve to remember those whose lives have been disrupted by war, civil unrest, gangs, and poverty. At the very least, we can offer them a smile, a reminder that they too are created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image.

—

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

Categories
Healing

Hurricane Harvey: A Year Later

We thought we were the lucky ones, those of us who lived on the west side of Houston. When Hurricane Harvey stalled over Houston nearly one year ago, we spent the days watching the news as one neighborhood after another succumbed to what turned out to be 50 inches of rain that never seemed to end. We watched, and gave thanks, and wondered what we could do to help. This sense of fear and gratitude continued for two days, until August 28th, when we started to hear rumors on the news: “Addicks Reservoir can’t hold all this water,” the Army Corps of Engineers reported. The city said they needed to release water into Buffalo Bayou, which stretched through the west side of town. Still, the city assured us that when they released water into the bayou, there would be only minor street flooding. Instead, when they opened the dam on August 29th my neighborhood—the neighborhood closest to Addicks Reservoir running south of Buffalo Bayou—was flooded within fifteen minutes. The homes closest to the bayou had water up to the roofs. The floodwater stretched eight miles, turning the already flooded recessed Beltway 8 into a gushing river. Every single street intersection in between was flooded so that the west side was cut in half—north of the bayou and south of the bayou—with no way to traverse it. People had no warning or chance to evacuate, and sadly several elderly people died in their homes that night and the following day. And unlike the rest of the city, where the water came in and then returned to sea in a matter of days, the water stayed in our homes for three weeks. Business, churches, and homes were destroyed by up to six feet of water, and by the resultant mold that crept up the walls as days stretched into weeks. In some neighborhoods, every single home filled with water, every single car was destroyed, every single article of clothing was covered in mold, every single memento decayed. There was simply nothing left to salvage.

Still, I was one of the lucky ones, and the congregation I serve, Temple Sinai, was also lucky. So, within two days of the storm, my two coworkers and I called every single one of our families. We partnered with the Conservative and Chabad Jewish communities on the westside to create a supply pantry, and our congregation organized two Mitzvah Days in the two weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah to assist our families that had flooded, to deliver meals and reach out to anybody who needed support. One of our Temple members, Marla Hansel, organized these events. She thought she would spend a couple of weeks helping; she is still at it, calling families who flooded, distributing gift cards, and making everyone who was in dire straits know they are not alone because Temple Sinai has their backs. Within a week of the flood, we called every family in our congregation again, and two weeks later we called them all again. We wanted to ensure that nobody fell through the cracks and that we reached out to everyone. Still, for months we kept learning of people who were flooded but “didn’t want to bother” us, or who felt other people had greater needs. It took about six months for us to realize that approximately 40% of our community was impacted by Harvey.

During this entire time, I only cried twice: Once, after the first day of calls, when it became clear how badly our families were impacted. And then I cried again, when mail started to be delivered, and we received letter after letter with donations enclosed—some of $18 and some of $5,000—by friends and strangers. They had watched the news and wanted to help, and their donations did help; in the end we distributed $50,000 to Jews on the west side of town so they could rebuild their lives.

In addition, Temple Sinai opened its doors to an Episcopalian church close by that was six feet underwater. Emmanuel Episcopal began to pray in our Temple the Sunday of Thanksgiving, and ever since the members of our two communities have drawn close. We shared Advent and Hanukah songs and treats, and we created a joint Mitzvah Day. They attended our Passover Seder and their members have joined our High Holy Day choir, and we are joining their St. Francis Blessing of the Animals (which just happens to be on the Shabbat of parshat Noach). When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, their sewing ministry made her a prayer quilt under which she took her last breath. When their senior rector was diagnosed with cancer, we added his name to our Mi Shebeirach list. They continue to thank us, but I keep thanking them, because they allow us to live our values of hachnasat orchim and recognizing that all people are created in God’s image every single blessed day.

Now, we are approaching the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey. So many people remain displaced, and so many neighborhoods throughout the city remain permanently altered. It will take years for the city to fully recover. Every time it rains, many of us get more than a little nervous. But I must admit that despite the devastation Harvey brought, despite the trauma, despite everything… maybe we are the lucky ones after all.

—

Rabbi Annie Belford serves Temple Sinai in Houston, Texas.

Categories
spirituality

The Jew of Whitehorse

This summer, I had the opportunity to travel up to Whitehorse, Canada, a city of some 30,000 people in Yukon Territory. Why did I go to Whitehorse? Should I give you the Facebook answer or the real one?

I went to Whitehorse because I would have the opportunity to fly on Air North, a small Canadian Carrier. This airline was on my bucket list of airlines to try. Yes, I love flying, and I go out of my way to be in the air. My husband says I’m normal in every other way.

While researching what to do with my one-day visit to Whitehorse, I learned that Rick Karp, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, was Jewish. He was one of a handful of Jews in the city. I began to think of him as “The Jew of Whitehorse,” as he was the carrier of the Torch for the city. I reached out to Rick right away, and he offered to show me around upon arrival.

It was then that I remembered a story my Grandpa Bert, of blessed memory, once shared.

Grandpa Bert was born in Russia and moved to Montreal when he was an infant. As a young adult, he worked for the Canadian Railroad and headed west. Grandpa disembarked the train and asked the local station manager if there were any Jews in town.

The manager held up one finger and said, “There is just one family.”

One family….. That’s all it took. Grandpa found that family and they took him in for the night.

Now, it would be really nice if this story unfolded with a romantic ending. (No, the family did not have a child that Grandpa eventually married). It’s just a simple story grandpa used to share to illustrate how important it was to be part of the Jewish community.

So while my trip to Whitehorse began as a flying adventure, it transformed into an opportunity to walk in the path of grandpa (though the town he went to was not Whitehorse).

Rick Karp is an incredible soul. He shared with me how he and his wife (zl) arrived in Yukon. He told me about the Israeli community who landed there as well. And he showed me incredible documents about the history of Judaism in Yukon Territory, going back to the times of the Gold Rush. Rick introduced me to the tiny Jewish cemetery in the town of Dawson, and how it had been rediscovered in the middle of the woods after nearly a century of abandonment. And Rick showed me photos and videos of Jewish celebrations that had taken place in the area of over the years. There were tears in my soul.

My entire thinking shifted while there. I approached my visit with an attitude of, “Perhaps I can help bring a taste of Judaism to the area.” But I left realizing, “The Jew of Whitehorse gave me more than I could possibly ever have brought to him.”

My gosh…. the entire world is a living Torah! And I feel deepened through Parashat Whitehorse, stumbled upon by complete accident, but giving me a renewed sense of purpose!

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Rabbi Zach Shapiro serves Temple Akiba in Culver City, CA.