Categories
Passover Pesach

This Passover, I Want to Break Free from the Busyness of Life

I never seem to be ready for Passover.  It always springs upon me, this rite of spring, and I’m always left feeling like I’ve just barely recovered from Purim and the sensory overload that repeat exposure to carnivals can cause (because let’s be real: one can only handle so many bounce houses).  But then Passover arrives without delay, completely unsympathetic to my protest or pleas, wholly indifferent to my fatigue.

No matter how prominent its place on my calendar, Passover still comes in like a tempest, turning me upside down and inside out when it finally hits.  And inevitably, I look around only to realize I have a house full of chametz and nary a box of matzah in sight.   It’s ironic because I am surrounded by signs of Passover’s approach in nearly every aspect of my life, both personal and professional.  I’ve got seders at work and seders at my children’s schools, matzah covers coming home in backpacks and more homemade haggadot (beautiful, precious, sweet and so appreciated!) than I know what to do with.

But while the countdown to seder ticks loud and clear, life often seems to tick louder, preventing me, or perhaps distracting me, from all I need to do, from everything I need to prepare.  This year, especially, life has felt inordinately full with all the requisite personal responsibilities: the birthday parties to plan, the doctors appointments to make, the dentists and orthodontists to consult; the school functions and the charity events and the family gatherings; the overstuffed sports schedules and labyrinthine after school schedules; the chess, the piano, the ballet, the art; the everyday hustle we know as life, along with all of my professional responsibilities as well.   It’s hard to see beyond the daily grind; and it’s even harder to make way for a holiday as all-encompassing and routine altering as Passover.

This year, I confess, I feel particularly compressed by the endless, relentless activity in my home and in my life, and by the incalculable physical, mental and emotional exertion this life demands.  Sometimes it feels like the more I do, the smaller my life becomes, reduced as it is to going and coming, coming and going.  Life is defined by straight, rigid lines, rather than curved, flexible arcs, and it is tightly bound by schedules, timetables and agendas.   It’s a paradox, really, that more does not always yield more, but rather, more often yields less.

As Passover approaches, I admit I feel constricted by the narrowness of this intensely crowded life, a life, albeit, that is filled with so much good and so much blessing.  Yet I worry I’m racing as fast as I can, but falling further and further behind.   It’s hard to stop.  It’s hard to unwind a life that, even with its challenges, feels so ingrained and so familiar.   Sometimes I wonder, where do I even begin?  To be quite honest, I don’t really know.

But I do know the story of Passover and I do know that our ancestors moved through the straits of bondage to discover a freedom they had never known.  They left the narrow places that constrained them and made their way into a vast, open wilderness where promise awaited them.   This is the story we tell every year around the seder table, and in so many ways, this is the story of our lives.

I am so grateful to live a life of freedom and to enjoy the liberties so many yet yearn to call their own.  But I know there is a life on the horizon that is even more expansive and even more bounteous, even more free.  It is a life that is full—not of endless activity and motion and striving, but one of possibility and generosity and love, a life that is waiting for me, for all of us; as our promise.   The challenge of reaching that place is as simple as it is hard: how to leave the narrow spaces we know so well and journey forward into the unknown?

—

Rabbi Sara Sapadin serves Temple Emanu-El in New York City as Adjunct Rabbi. 

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chaplains Passover Pesach

Welcoming Elijah in Iraq

During my 38 years of military service, I had the honor of traveling twice to Iraq to celebrate Passover with deployed service-members, and numerous times to Kuwait.  In every location, soldiers were so grateful that a rabbi would travel all the way from the US to share the seder with them.  So many thought that they were the only Jew within hundreds of miles, and the familiar prayers and songs created an instant sense of community.

In 2005, I was especially moved by the ritual of spilling wine from our cups as we recalled the plagues in Egypt.  During a war, it is an all too available temptation to dehumanize the enemy. Sometimes it feels like a necessary part of preparing for battle.  As we participated in this ancient ritual, we were reminded that it is neve r appropriate to rejoice over the suffering of others, even our oppressors and even those who may be trying to kill us.  Removing the wine from our cups reinforced this message that our joy is diminished when we contemplate the necessary pain that was part of our liberation.  

At Forward Operating Base Taji, the lights kept coming on and off as the generators ceased to function, and I quipped that we were reenacting the plague of darkness.  After the service, one young woman told me that “It was almost like being at home.”  In 2006, at Forward Operating Base Sykes we began the seder and were introducing ourselves, when one participant said-

“I’m glad that we are locked in this CONNEX behind closed doors in a relatively secure place, for our own protection.”  When we opened the door for Elijah, there was a moment of hesitation and a collective intake of breath.  Wow!  There was a real feeling of risk and some danger, but I decided that it was critical that we open the door and proudly sing Eliyahu HaNavi.  We read about other doors in history, flung open by the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusaders, the Nazis.   It was a powerful, powerful moment and a huge assertion of freedom in that hostile place.  Our celebration of freedom was especially meaningful as we were, once again, fighting for freedom from tyranny.

—

Rabbi Bonnie Koppell serves Temple Chai in Phoenix, AZ and currently holds the rank of Colonel as a military chaplain in the United States Army Reserve.

Categories
Passover Pesach

The Roundabout Tale of the Orange on the Seder Plate

The orange on the seder plate is a newer tradition in the Passover seder, which especially speaks of the balance between the old and the new. This tradition has come to symbolize for some feminism and the equality of women in Judaism.

I remember the first time my aunt put an orange on the seder plate.  I think I was in rabbinical school at the time, and it was a powerful symbol, as we perceived at the time, of women in the rabbinate.  I was extremely appreciative of the gesture at the time—and that my family was embracing the idea (and not just when I insisted on my parents putting one there when the seder was at our house).  And I’ve come to be increasingly appreciative of the orange on the seder plate, even as I’ve learned more about how it came to be—and what it truly symbolizes.

The story, though, is not as we first heard it.  The actual tale, from Susannah Heschel’s point of view, comes from an experience she had at Oberlin College in the 1980’s, where she was shown an early feminist Haggadah which suggested including a crust of bread on the seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians. She changed the tradition to an orange—symbolizing the fruitfulness of Jewish life when all are included and contribute to the community—and also the pits of hate that should be spit out. She broadened the definition to include all who are marginalized in Jewish life. To her, the crust of bread implied that those who were other were somehow chameitz—that they violated the spirit of Judaism like bread is forbidden on Pesach.

Over time, the story itself transformed into the legend of a women speaking in Florida, at which a man heckled from the audience, saying, “A woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on the seder plate.”

As Heschel reflects, “A woman’s words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is erased. Isn’t that precisely what’s happened over the centuries to women’s ideas?”

But the story of this story gets even more interesting—the women who wrote that Haggadah at Oberlin wrote recently about their version, in which they shared that they had never put the bread on the seder plate.

Instead, they took the crust of bread concept from a short story, and transformed it into leaving a blank space on the seder plate, “A Makom (place) on our seder plate for all who have been condemned and excluded because of fear or ignorance.”

In Heschel’s telling of the story, the act of the students was erased, even in an act of attempting to be inclusive.   And so this orange becomes a symbol of those who have been erased…and also the idea of how stories change over time…a symbol, perhaps, of the very idea of the balance of our sacred obligation not to change and that which demands change.

—

Rabbi Elisa Koppel serves Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington, DE. 

Categories
Passover Pesach

Passover Round-up from CCAR Members

RavBlog has collected a series of supplemental readings from CCAR members for a  special “Passover Round-up.”  These are meant to be meaningful supplements for your seder, for use in addition to your Haggadot.  If you are in need of last minute Haggadot for your seder, remember that CCAR Press offers both The New Union Haggadah and Sharing the Journey: The Haggadah for the Contemporary Family on your eReader!

 

Rasha 5778 by Rabbi Dean Shapiro

Pesach Yizkor: Redemptive Remembrance by Rabbi Jennifer Gubitz

Dayenu: For All Times by Rabbi Lucy H.F. Dinner

Ask Me a Seder! A Passover Trivia Game by Rabbi Leah Berkowitz

Dayenu- A Special Passover Reading For American Jews by Rabbi Lance J. Sussman

The Women of the Passover Story by Rabbi Shawna Brynjegard-Bialik

The Four Children of Metropolis by Rabbi Shawna Brynjegard-Bialik

Cancer Supplement for Seder by Rabbi Ben David

Dayeinu…When Will Enough Be Enough? by Rabbi Marla Feldman (originally for the Women of Reform Judaism)

2018 Passover Seder Supplement by the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte

 

 

Categories
Passover Pesach Social Justice

In Every Generation

A Reading for Pesach 5778*

In every generation

We come out of Egypt.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We stand up to Pharaoh.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We part the waters.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We march toward the Promised Land.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We teach our children.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

Our children teach us.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

 

In this generation

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Two hundred sixty five million guns fill our country- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Ninety seven souls die from gun violence each and every day- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Young and old, black and white, Jew and gentile…said enough; enough.

Let freedom ring.

 

*Participants at the seder are invited to echo the repeating lines.

—

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz serves The Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, NJ.

Categories
Passover Pesach

Seek Justice for All

How do we teach our children the story of Passover when there are so many atrocities? How can we play with plague puppets and plastic toys when reciting curses that befell other people? In what world is it ever okay for a divine emissary to slay children?

These are some of the questions I was asked while facilitating a conversation for interfaith parents while their children learned in a small and vibrant Jewish religious school one room over. They struggled with deep fear over the Passover narrative and left the question lingering for me about the role of victim in our communal narrative.

In a pinnacle moment of the Passover story, the angel of death passes over the Jewish homes and spares our children’s lives. Suddenly, we are not the victims of the newest tragedy – the Egyptians are. Instantaneously we transform from being the helpless people of the story to the lucky ones, with God on our side.

Yet the pain we feel from everything that happened previously doesn’t vanish, so we are reluctant to recognize this shift from destitute to saved. We continue to think about our own slavery experience instead of mourning with and for our Egyptian neighbors.

It’s true, we lessen our joy by diminishing our cups of wine and we have rabbinic commentaries telling us all the people of the world are God’s children. Yet while expressing gratitude over making it through every step of the story we praise events that caused others pain.

We cannot let go of our narrative of being the downtrodden – even though in that moment – that morning – there were others far worse off.

This reluctance to recognize our blessings and cling to the narrative of victimization remains an enduring struggle for the Jewish community.

While others may see us as successful, lucky and blessed, we continue to see ourselves through eyes of fear.

Though we have legitimate gripes about past wrong doings and potential future pain, a failure to see ourselves as the lucky ones in the story of life becomes a failure to see those who truly are victims of our times and in need of our help. If we cannot see the other who needs our voice and support than we squander the privilege we have and do a true disservice to our ancestral narrative.

I’m not saying we don’t have the right to feel broken by life’s hard moments. As individuals and as a community we sometimes endure great pain. All I’m saying is that remembering our experiences of pain shouldn’t prevent us from seeing the pain of others or prevent us from recognizing the blessings we do have.

This is the reason vocal liberal millennials turn a blind eye to our claims of anti-Semitism while embracing flagrantly anti-Zionist behaviors that fill our society under the guise of intersectionality. It brings me great frustration, but I’ve come to see that until we acknowledge the ways in which we are the lucky ones and others are the trampled we will not only fail to find partners for our cause but others will prefer that we not engage in theirs.

Let me be clear – I do not believe there is anything wrong with having privilege, power, and promise. However, there is something wrong when memories of our times without these strengths lead us to believe we are forevermore without agency. That is the exact opposite of why we retell this narrative.

Our Torah reminds us over and over again of our experience of slavery, not to spread fears of anti-Semitism but rather to encourage we seek justice for all. So even though there are moments in the Passover story when we feel God is acting on our behalf at the expense of others, we will not teach our children that this is easy, silly, or just. We will sit with discomfort and acknowledge that we care about all people on this earth, not simply our own.

—

Rabbi Samantha Kahn serves Interfaithfamily in the San Francisco Bay Area and blogs at RabbiKahn.com

Categories
Gun Control Social Justice

Praying With Our Feet at the March For Our Lives in Washington, DC

Dear Friends,

I write this while on a plane en route from our nation’s capital after having shared in a remarkable and life-changing Shabbat experience. On Friday night, I was honored to be asked by my dear friend, Rabbi Bruce Lustig, to participate in an Erev Shabbat service at Washington Hebrew Congregation along with other musicians including Dan Nichols, Stacy Beyer, Noah Aronson and Alan Goodis. Our Director of Youth Engagement, Megan Garrett, and two parent chaperones also accompanied a delegation of several of our teens.  They spent the night in the Synagogue along with over 450 young people from across the country. During the service,we were joined on the Bema by several young people who spoke – many who were students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Others were leaders of their NFTY regions.  After the service, my musical colleagues and I led a short concert and song-session during which I sang the protest anthem that Steve Brodsky and I co-wrote, “Praying With Our Feet.”  While the music was an important part of the evening, the primary focus was on the teenagers. The poise, pain and incredible leadership that these young people displayed while sharing their stories was both moving and inspiring.

On Shabbat morning, the entire NFTY delegation and many other adults prayed together in a pre-rally Shabbat service.  We were joined by many dignitaries – including Debbie Wasserman Shultz – the US Congresswoman who represents Parkland, Florida, and Rabbi Rick Jacobs who addressed the congregation via video feed. But once again, the major focus of the service were the young people who led us in prayer and song.  There was one incredibly moving moment towards the end of the service when my friend and colleague, Rabbi Brad Boxman, who serves a congregation in Parkland, FL, shared how, on the first Shabbat following the shootings, he asked all of the adults in his packed sanctuary to turn to the children who sat with and near them and bless them.  He then asked all of us who were present to do the same.  As we placed our hands on the heads of these beautiful teenagers and said the words of the Priestly blessing together, tears flowed freely down our faces. You see, we knew that we had come to DC to protest. We knew that change had to come. We were charged and ready. But there was something about praying for God’s protective blessing on these precious, beautiful souls that shifted our focus and made everything very real. We were not about to march for a cause: we were marching for our children’s lives.  And then we started our journey to the rally.
We carried signs and banners with sacred texts:
  • “If not now, when?”
  • ‘It is not up to you to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from carrying it out.”
  • “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds”
We chanted, we sang, we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. But our march soon came to a halt when we realized that there were so many people filling the streets that we could only go a few blocks. Every space in the street surrounding the Capital was filled.  But it didn’t matter. We watched on video screens, heard from loudspeakers and felt the determination in the million other marchers who were with us. We came from all walks of life – all colors and creeds – but we shared in our determination to speak up and say enough:
  • Enough killing;
  • Enough pretending that the issue is not guns, but people;
  • Enough ignoring the plight of people of color;
  • Enough manipulation from the gun lobby;
  • Enough silence from legislators who are afraid to address the issue of easy access to weapons of mass destruction.

This was not a political rally – although, after today’s events, many politicians will be worried about keeping their seats – and they should be. We marched for moral, not partisan reasons. This was not, as some have charged, a volley of Left Wing talking points – it was a rising up of a generation raised in the shadows of Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Las Vegas, Parkland and too many other tragedies that have been lost in the endless cycle of shootings that have become yesterday’s news.

The rock stars and celebrities who were on stage were not the focus of the rally either. No, it was the children- the survivors who have taken on the mantle of leadership – who stirred our souls and compelled us to action. We heard about the toll that daily violence on the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC has taken. We wept along with speakers who had lost brothers and sisters to bullets. We heard the passion of the newly-energized victims of school shootings who have watched as the adults in their lives relinquished the responsibility of protecting them and, as a result, have taken it upon themselves to give notice to their elected officials that silence is complicity, and that they refuse to remain silent.

As I contemplate this remarkable 24 hours, I am in awe. The vision, poise, leadership and power that these young activists have discovered gives me hope that not all is lost, and that the future will be in good hands. I also am more determined than ever to both speak out against and call out the hypocrisy and callous disregard for human life that the gun lobby and its enablers have fostered in our society.

Let me be very clear:  I am not opposed to guns per se. I am, however, opposed to the idolatry that gun worship has spawned in our nation. We owe it to our children to speak out as loud and proud as they do. They have taken on the mantle of leadership. I am compelled to follow. Will you join with me?

We can do no less.

—
Rabbi Joe Black serves Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado.  This blog was originally posted on his personal blog. 
Categories
Passover Pesach

Pesach by Foot

I write to you from the Israel National Trail (Shvil Yisrael), which was conceived of in 1995 by Avraham Tamir after he hiked the Appalachian Trail. I chose to do this for my sabbatical from my congregation with intention of experiencing a sacred pilgrimage. So often I travel around Israel either via a tour bus or by car. This time I wanted to do it by foot. (You can read more about my journey at rabbimollyg.com/itsaboutthejourney/)

When I was preparing for doing the Shvil I began reading about other people’s sacred journeys by foot from Cheryl Strayed’s Wild to David Grossman’s To the End of the Land. In each of the stories, the path is just as important as the people who are walking upon it. They choose to walk not for relaxation and to get away from it all, but because the path has called to them and they want the challenge. Or as Phil Cousineau puts it, “Journeys are rhapsodies on the theme of discovery.”

Over a week ago on the trail I was wondering what the Hebrew word was for pilgrim and one of my fellow shvilists told me it was, “aliya laregel.” Of course, I thought to myself about the Hebrew, remembering the term: shalosh regalim…which refers to Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, when pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem.

As Passover approaches while I am on the trail, I have thought a lot about our pilgrim ancestors walking to Jerusalem (which I hope to achieve by mid – April). They journeyed with commitment, to be in community, and to bring sacred gifts to God. When we celebrate these holidays we often do it sitting down at a table still perhaps with these things in our hearts, but not so often with these intentions in our feet. So I imagine this year while on the shvil having these intentions in my feet…thinking about my commitment to Eretz Yisrael, the joy from walking the shvil in community with people from around the world, and with love in my heart for God and God’s promise of this land for the people Israel.

—

Rabbi Molly Kane serves Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and is currently blogging at rabbimollyg.com/itsaboutthejourney/

Categories
Convention

Words into Deeds: The New CCAR Task Force on Women’s Experiences in the Rabbinate

Rabbi Sally Priesand once said that, “The Central Conference of American Rabbis has been on record since 1922 as being in favor of the ordination of women, but it took fifty years to change the attitudes of people.”[1] Reform Judaism, a denomination that now accepts female rabbis, did not always hold this perspective. Many fears surrounded the concept of female rabbis—a concept that not only challenged a patriarchal, Jewish tradition but also gender-role stereotypes. As a result of these fears, female rabbis had difficulty obtaining pulpit placements. Therefore, in 1976 the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) organized the Task Force on Women in the Rabbinate, which strived to promote the full acceptance of female rabbis.

Similarly, in December of 2017, in order to respond to the challenges faced by this century’s female rabbis, the CCAR organized the Task Force on Women’s Experiences in the Rabbinate. While much progress has been made since the last task force, there are still many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve gender equality in the rabbinate. Led by Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus and Vice-Chair Rabbi Amy Schwartzman, the task force has implemented a three-year plan, with this first year dedicated towards inquiry.

On Monday, March 19th at the 2018 CCAR Convention, a special listening session was held to begin the anonymous information gathering and to learn what areas must be addressed. Through the use of virtual, rapid polling, attendees were asked to respond to questions by typing them into a survey site. The questions revolved around female rabbinic experiences with gender bias in the hiring and advancement process, sexual harassment and assault, statements on appearance made by laypeople, speech by male colleagues and gender dynamics in Jewish institutions. A main ballroom was filled by female and male colleagues of all ages for this interactive session that also allowed time for table discussions. Participants shared about their interactions and experiences, which were transcribed by table leaders. Taking part in this process was a unique opportunity and was surely history in the making!

Although I am newly ordained, I too, directly and indirectly, already know of the challenges female rabbis face. The experience of gender-based comments and undermining behavior, as well as the struggle to negotiate a respectable amount of paid maternity leave all form an insensitive reality that can and should be changed. Although this reality is shaped by a combination of a patriarchal, Jewish tradition and secular, societal trends, if anyone can be the trailblazer of institutional gender equality, it is the CCAR—it is the same organization that was the first to ordain women, and it is the same denomination that was the first to promise religious equality for women in synagogue life.

I am proud of the CCAR for starting this difficult but imperative endeavor that will challenge and be challenged by society’s gender norms. I am proud of HUC-JIR for beginning the conversation on gender inequality these past two years by leading workshops on micro-aggressions, power dynamics and sexual harassment. It is vital for students, staff and professors to be aware of these gendered experiences and to understand how they can play a role in changing the culture of our institutions. Last but not least, I am proud of our male colleagues who are not afraid to be allies and advocates in cultivating and upholding gender equality. As Rabbi Weinberg Dreyfus stated, “The outcome we seek is not just a program or a policy but cultural change within the rabbinate and the movement at large.” Through consciousness-raising, policy-making and accountability, we can achieve this cultural change.

Rabbi Sally Priesand, who was in attendance at this session and who received an applause of appreciation, once wrote that the “the best way to assure that our Movement’s recognition of women is more than symbolic is to bring women into leadership roles on the national as well as the congregational level, to turn our resolutions of the past decade into reality, to translate our words into deeds.”[2] She knew that real change did not come by just identifying concerns and setting goals but by implementing a plan and following through with it. May we once again hold our words and intentions accountable so that they are transformed into deeds.

—

Rabbi Allison B. Cohen serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton, FL.

 

 

[1] Interview. Interview With First Female Rabbi. ABC News. 25 Nov. 1973. Television.

[2] Priesand, Rabbi Sally. Letter to Rabbi Alexander Schindler. 1979. Print.

Categories
Convention Israel

Listen to This: Israel is Still A Fragile Dialogue

My wife, Sarah, grew up going to Jewish day school. When I talk about the work I do, she has a very familiar reference point. She has lived it, more or less. I don’t have to explain Jewish ritual to her; more often, she causes me to question and dive deeper into the work that I do. It is a rare opportunity, though, when I get to bring her work into what I do.
A few years ago, she and her colleagues at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, published a paper about what happens in the brain when people with strongly held political believes are presented with challenges to those believes. The paper was eventually turned into an episode of the web comic, “The Oatmeal,” titled, “You’re Not Going To Believe What I’m About To Tell You.” The basic premise, as it relates to this topic, is that when people are presented with a challenge to a belief that is connected to one’s core identity, people tend to dismiss this alternative perspective and dig their heels in deeper to their previously strongly held belief.
One of the reasons why CCAR Press’ recent publication, The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism is so poignant is because the Zionist stakes are high. The new voices of liberal Zionism are teaching us that digging into previously held beliefs and narratives sets up a recipe for disaster, or more realistically, disengagement with Israel. At the workshop featuring chapter authors from The Fragile Dialogue, Michael Marmur, Liya Rechtman, and Eric Rosenstein presented diverging narratives of even what it means to be a liberal Zionist today.
Marmur opened with an implicit nod to how we deal with differing narratives, noting, “We create our own myths, which become our facts.” He continued his observation that we try to squeeze each other’s facts into our myths. “Most of us spend a lot of time doing myth preserving, making sure that our myths are neither strengthened nor weakened. This quells creativity around our myths.” This caused me to wonder: the rabbis who created Midrash had no problem getting creative around our foundational myths (Marmur even noted that our tradition has established for us a foundation where “we’re meant to be creatively uncomfortable”) – specifically when it comes to Zionism, why have we shifted so drastically against creativity?
Because it’s a fragile dialogue.
Liya Rechtman presented a narrative which was important for this room to hear, specifically because it was so challenging. “When you have red lines of who you will hear from, you inherently cut people out of the conversation,” she offered. And she’s right. How many times have we not invited — or worse, disinvited — speakers purely because their views crossed a red line for someone in our community? One of my rabbinic mentors has noted, “We spent 2000 years dreaming of having a Jewish parliament, and one of the members of that Jewish parliament wants to speak to us, and we’re saying ‘no’?”
Because it’s a fragile dialogue.
I feared going into this session that if we were to hear, as we did from Liya and Eric, that 21st century Israel narratives are based on the accepting the diversity in our narratives and finding places of mutuality and common ground, whereas 20th century Israel narratives were about the preservation of Jewish life, participants would backfire — digging their heels in, not believing what they were hearing. What gave me hope is that the opposite happened. Yes, assumptions were challenged. Yes, there were disagreements in perspectives. And yes, looking into a mirror of the generational divide on even what it means to be a liberal Zionist was difficult. But we heard each other.
Because we all know it’s a fragile dialogue.
If learning happens through failure, growing at a moment when a premise is challenged, this workshop showed that the future of our leadership and our approach to liberal Zionism is no exception.
Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishk’notecha Yisrael – How wonderful are your sessions O Jacob, your dwellings of fragile dialogue, O Israel!
—
Rabbi Jeremy Gimbel serves Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego, CA.