Categories
Convention

Modeling the Behavior at CCAR Convention

One of the most important aspects of my rabbinate is continuing education.  I firmly believe that in order for me to be able to teach and serve as rabbi to my congregants, I must first model the behavior.  While I do try very hard to read and study as often as possible, I am so delighted and blessed to be able to spend these precious days together with my friends and colleagues from around the world.  I attend the CCAR Convention to learn, pray and reconnect (or in some cases connect for the first time) with friends and colleagues.

As this was the first full day of the CCAR Convention 2018, I knew it would be a very full and fulfilling day.  Shacharit services this morning were inspirational and spiritual.  Being present while we recognized and honored our 50 year colleagues was awesome.  Seeing a full bimah of colleagues attending this convention for the first time was definitely exciting.  And of course, listening to the rousing and stirring words of President Stern opened our eyes to the possibilities and wonder of the coming year.

This year, the CCAR Convention intended to focus our efforts on being engaged in our communities throughout the world in renewing our dedication to the rights of all – whether they be civil, religious, political, etc.  As such, the opening session entitled “Rabbis and Civic Engagement” was intriguing and challenging at the same time.  California Comptroller Betty T. Yee and Mayors Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento taught us about some of the challenges and successes facing California.  I believe that the challenges facing California are not a California problem.  These challenges are facing many if not all of our communities.

Civil discourse in the United States – and abroad – is vital.  We cannot turn our backs or close our eyes to the problems that so many of our congregants, friends and neighbors are facing.  As we are constantly reminded in our Liturgy, we must remember we were strangers in a strange land and God took care of us.  We have a tremendous obligation to face these problems with our neighbors head on.

I had the opportunity in the afternoon to attend two truly educational sessions.  The first session was “Freehof Institute: The Jewish-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Sharp Divisions.”  Rabbis Mark Washofsky and Denise Eger taught us of their own experiences with the Halacha regarding the Jewish-Christian Dialogue.  Rabbi Eger explained that the process of Halacha is a process of arguing and discussing legal/ethical issues for understanding and to continue the living tradition of Halacha.  Rabbi Washofsky helped us to understand the necessity of translating Halachic sources to make sense for our time, as our rabbis have been doing for centuries.

The second session was “Problematic Texts and the Religious Other in Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue.”  In this session, we studied some of the texts from the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran.  For me, the tremendous take away was that while it is absolutely possible to misinterpret or misread our sacred texts, the more challenging option (and perhaps the one that is most often not attempted) is to read, reread and then reread again our texts with the sincere attempt at understanding.  If we are unable to understand the “true meanings” of our texts, then it is incumbent for us to know that we have not tried hard enough to understand.  We should open our eyes to the “other” in attempting to understand our own sacred texts.

Dinner out with our colleagues was a great way to wrap up a very full day.  It was nice to kick back and enjoy good food and great company.  I am sure that the next days of our convention will bring many more occasions for spirituality, study and fun!

—

Rabbi Erin Boxt serves Temple Beth El in Knoxville, TN.  This is his 5th CCAR Convention.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Convention

Delving Into Israel at CCAR 2018 Convention

Monday at the CCAR Convention offered several opportunities to delve into our movement’s evolving relationship with the modern State of Israel. After having attended the AIPAC policy conference in Washington DC a couple weeks ago, I felt a very contrasting viewpoint among the scholars, rabbis, and thinkers here in Irvine, California. At AIPAC we focused solely on security matters, Israel’s advancements in science and technology, or Israel’s vibrant culture; but today we focused on apathy regarding Israel among Millennials, BDS on campus, and the difficulties our liberal movement faces with Israel’s right wing government.

I remarked at one of our sessions that after experiencing the euphoric atmosphere that characterized the AIPAC policy conference, the sessions today (all of which were entitled “Celebrating Israel at 70”) felt more of a bikur cholim visit then they did a birthday party. That being said, the sessions were very interesting. The presentations on BDS on campuses were enlightening and highlighted the great work that is being done by so many in the Hillel world on our college campuses. One of the more humorous moments occurred when it was pointed out by the moderator that the AIPAC representative and the J Street representative were sitting right next to each other unknowingly.

It is certainly possible after attending the sessions today on Israel that one could walk away with a gloomy assessment of where Israel us going as it begins its eighth decade. But an interesting juxtaposition can be felt by the participants at the convention when they leave the session and walk into the lobby of the hotel. There they will find several travel company representatives who are very busy engaging Reform rabbis and talking to them about their plans to lead trips to Israel with their congregations. In fact, it is very common to go on social media (which is not an uncommon occurrence here) and see my good friend Guy Millo from ArzaWorld  posting another picture of a rabbi holding a sign that reads, “I am leading a trip to Israel.” Although we are talking seriously about the issues that Israel faces, it is clear that among the Reform rabbinate love for the modern state of Israel is strong.

Most of my colleagues have strong feelings and concerns about the current government and its policies, and they are trying to make sense of our evolving relationship with Israel. But it seems to me that their love for the State of Israel is unconditional.  Perhaps it is this love that causes us to care so deeply about Israel’s challenges and not focus solely on their triumphs.  One interesting thing that I heard today was that several students from other liberal rabbinic schools are transferring HUC-JIR because they felt that their schools were too anti-Zionist. From what they knew about HUC-JIR they knew that they would find a home where the students, faculty, staff, and alumni are willing to question Israel’s policies, but not their love for the State of Israel. This gives me a sense of reassurance that though I may have serious policy differences with my colleagues on Israel, I know that their love for our Jewish homeland is passionate and enduring.

—

Rabbi Jeremy Barras serves Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest, Florida. 

 

Categories
Books Passover Pesach Social Justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: The Obligations of Our Exodus

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we’ve invited Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, co-editor of the book, to share an excerpt of the book on Passover. Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

A couple of months ago I was arrested in the grand rotunda of the Russell Building of the United States Senate. Nearly one hundred Jewish clergy and leaders joined in song and prayer, demanding that the United States Congress pass the DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to the nearly eight hundred thousand Dreamers who came to the United States as children and are every bit American as my own daughters. As we sang “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” (“We will build this world with love”) over and over again, hundreds of Dreamers stood cheering us on from the balcony, ringing us like a human halo. In an intentionally ironic twist on the famous cry from Moses to Pharaoh, we chanted, “Let our people stay!”

When we were handcuffed, removed by the Capitol Police, and placed under arrest, we understood that we were following directly in the footsteps of our ancient Israelite ancestors. Ironically, our being put into fetters was inspired by the Hebrew slaves, who rose up from their slavery in Egypt and cast off the chains of Pharaoh’s bondage in their journey to redemption. As our hands were locked in cuffs and we were led away, we chanted the verse taken from the Song at the Sea “Ozi v’zimrat Yah, vah’yi li lishuah,” “God is my strength and might, and will be my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). There seemed no words more fitting than those our ancient Israelite ancestors sang as they passed through the parted seas of their redemption.

Even as we were led into police custody, our group understood that we were walking in the footsteps of countless generations of Jews before us, generations who internalized the Rabbinic mandate in the Passover Haggadah that “it is incumbent on every generation to see itself as if they themselves—every person—had personally escaped from Egypt” (Babylonian Talmud, P’sachim 116b). Our deeds of civil disobedience were an act of moral resistance to the injustices being perpetrated on the Dreamers, along with tens of millions of other immigrants and refugees. We acted on the spiritual authority inherited from recent leaders like Rabbis Richard Hirsch, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Maurice Eisendrath, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because they internalized the most often repeated commandment in all of Torah: “You shall love the stranger, because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). Jews have marched throughout history because the core narrative of our people, the defining master story of our tradition, is the archetypal tale of redemption. Our Exodus from Egypt is the story of the transformation of the world-as-it-is, in which “strangers” are continually crushed by oppression, into the world-as-it-should-be, one where all people know justice. The power of the Jewish master narrative lies in its inherent call to every generation to live empathy; because our ancestors were strangers, we—in this era, and in every era—are to love the stranger.

Jews not only retell the master story of redemption throughout our ritual and cultural life; we have relived it throughout history. Our history has served to reinforce the most central exhortation of our Exodus narrative: we are obligated to love the stranger as ourself.

Among the many gleanings of the Exodus narrative that ground Jewish life and values, three stand out as the sources of the spiritual authority demanding that Jews resist injustice and champion morality in every age (and regardless of the challenges we face). First, we learn not only that resistance is required by our faith and experience, but also that it is always possible. Second, we are reminded that our empathy extends beyond the “stranger” to all those who are vulnerable in our midst. Finally, we instill in our souls that the Exodus is not simply about freedom from bondage; our master story culminates with the agency to enter into a covenantal community in which all people are bound to one another.

—

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for social justice.  Rabbi Pesner is the co-editor of CCAR Press’s  upcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, as well as a contributor to Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

Categories
News

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Prophets: A 50th Anniversary Appreciation

The night before his death on April 4, 1968 an exhausted Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Masonic Temple in Memphis. The night was stormy, tornado warnings had been issued, and the crowd was small in the giant hall. “But it doesn’t matter now…because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” King famously declared in a trembling voice, “And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I have seen the Promised Land. And I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Martin Luther King, JR. reminded the American people with his unforgettable last words that though a man may die, a dream does not. And it is no happenstance that King was referencing Moses, the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. Time and again King drew inspiration from the prophets of old.

In his famous Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963) King wrote, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns…so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.”

In his iconic I Have A Dream speech at the March on Washington of the same year King quotes the prophet Amos: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream (5:24),” and Isaiah: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” (40:4-5).

Perhaps his most stirring words about the prophets were spoken by King at an address to the Synagogue Council of America on December 5, 1966:“When silence threatens to take the power of decision out of our hands”, King began, “…one looks into history for the courage to speak even in an unpopular cause. Looming as ethical giants are those extraordinary of men, the Hebrew prophets. They did not believe that conscience is a still, small voice. They believed that conscience thunders or it does not speak at all. They were articulate, passionate, and fearless, attacking injustice and corruption whether the guilty be kings or their own unrepentant people. Without physical protection, scornful of risks evoked by their unpopular messages, they went among the people with no shield other than truth.”

King stirringly concludes: “Today we particularly need the Hebrew prophets because they taught that to love God was to love justice; that each human being has an inescapable obligation to denounce evil where he sees it and to defy a ruler who commands him to break the covenant. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because decent people must be imbued with the courage to speak the truth, to realize that silence may temporarily preserve status or security but to live with a lie is a gross affront to God. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because we need their flaming courage; we need them because the thunder of their fearless voices is the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and clamor of war….”

In a recent interview historian Taylor Branch describes the influence of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book, The Prophets (1963) on King, noting, “He became like a driven Old Testament prophet….[King and] all those guys used to carry around Heschel’s book. They really identified with the prophets.” Branch adds that “Heschel’s seminal study of the prophets…gained the eager devotion of King and his fellow pastors.” Many of us are familiar with the iconic picture of Heschel and King marching together in Selma, and Heschel’s remark that “I felt like my feet were praying”.

Fifty years after his untimely death the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. inspires and challenges us anew. His devotion to prophetic ideals bids us in the Jewish community to rediscover our outspoken biblical forbears and their quest for justice. How can we walk the prophetic path in these troubled times? How can we speak truth to power? How can we “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly”? For as Hillel said, “But leave it to Israel; if they are not prophets, yet they are the children of prophets.”

—

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

Categories
Books

A Sacred Calling Program Reminded Me: “A Liberal Body of Men” Still Has Much to Learn

Here at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, we kicked off a four-part Sacred Calling series this past Shabbat. In many ways, our congregation is isolated from “Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate,” The Sacred Calling’s subtitle. B’nai Israel has never been led by a woman rabbi. (To be fair, the congregation has only had three rabbinic searches since 1972, one of them rather early in the era of women rabbis and another for an interim rabbi.) As I read about the programs that colleagues held when The Sacred Calling first came out, with panels including the anthology’s editors and Sally Priesand, I knew that expense and distance would prohibit such an occasion in Little Rock.

We got creative. Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, a Sacred Calling author, is a dear friend of our congregation, and especially of our President and her wife, who generously offered to bring her here to keynote our program. Another Sacred Calling author, Rabbi Jeff Kurtz-Lendner, lives within driving distance, as does Rabbi Katie Bauman, the woman rabbi who grew up in this synagogue and maintains strong ties here. A program was born.

I did not know to anticipate that our Temple archivist, Jim Pfiefer, would deepen the program with an exhibit in our Temple lobby. The display suggests that our congregation may not be as remote from those “Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate” as I thought. I did know that my predecessor, Rabbi Gene Levy, was ordained with Rabbi Priesand. I did not know that Rabbi Angela Graboys had served in nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas; or that Rabbi Laura Lieber hails from Fayetteville, Arkansas. And I’m touched by the lovely display case about Rabbi Bauman.

Included in the display are the words of Rabbi Louis Witt, z”l, who served this congregation from 1907 to 1919. Two years after leaving Little Rock, Rabbi Witt pled with the CCAR to support the ordination of women. In 1921, which proved to be more than a half-century before the first woman would be ordained in North America, Rabbi Witt was already exasperated: “Five years ago, I had to argue in favor of women’s rights when that question came up in the Arkansas legislature, but I did not feel that there would be need to argue that way in a liberal body of men like this [i.e., the CCAR].”

On Friday night, prior to Rabbi Elwell’s keynote, I reflected on how Rabbi Witt might react to the present realities for women in the rabbinate. My liturgical prompt was Mi Chamocha. The Children of Israel doubtless celebrated their freedom when they escaped Egyptian bondage after the tenth plague. Scarcely a week later, they found their liberation incomplete: They were trapped between Pharaoh’s armies and the foreboding Sea. Then, once secure on the other shore, they sang in celebration. And yet, even then, freedom was not complete. Enemies internal and external would continue to plague them. And us. And still, we sing in gratitude.

We are, and we ought to be, grateful – for the ordination of women over the last 45 years, the realization of the only goal that Rabbi Witt knew to dream. For the successes that many of our female colleagues have achieved since 1972. For award-winning (and deserving) achievements such as The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and The Sacred Calling.

Now, though, we also know, as we should’ve known all along, that liberation is not complete:

  • Women rabbis, like their peers in other professions, continue to face a wage gap, compared to males of similar seniority, congregation or community organization size, and experience.
  • Women rabbis report sexual harassment at the hands of both colleagues and community members.
  • Equitable family leave, including but not limited to maternity leave, is not a reality for many.
  • The voices of women rabbis aren’t always taken as seriously or heard as loudly as those of male colleagues.

My list is incomplete for a variety of reasons, not least because I’m not a woman.

I am grateful that our Conference, professionally led in this arena by Rabbi Hara Person, has established a Task Force to examine the experience of women in the rabbinate; and that our Women’s Rabbinic Network and the Women of Reform Judaism are diligently exploring the wage gap and family leave issues.

At our upcoming convention in Orange County, I look forward to hearing from Task Force Chairs, Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus and Rabbi Amy Schwartzman, as well as WRN leaders, about their progress and challenges. Like the colleagues Rabbi Witt addressed, I am among “a liberal body of men” who have much to learn. Unlike Rabbi Witt, I will be learning from and alongside female colleagues.

And that’s a blessing. Like the Children of Israel singing Mi Chamocha before us, we have much to celebrate, even as we acknowledge that liberation is not complete.

—

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

Categories
Convention Social Justice

Social Justice at CCAR Convention: We Stand at a Crossroads

When we gathered in Orange County in November of 2016 to begin planning for the upcoming CCAR Convention, we recognized immediately that, like the interchanges of the Southern California freeway system, we stood at a crossroads and that we were all being challenged to figure out which direction we would take.  The challenges we are presented with on a daily basis invite us to find a way to navigate between the spiritual, professional and civic engagement pathways that our roles as rabbis and our faith as Jews require of us.

As we inch closer to convention, I am looking forward to the many opportunities for us to learn more and engage with Social Justice leaders and thinkers on topics that are rising to the topic of our concerns.  Every day of convention will have moments that will help us learn how we can advance the many concerns we have as Reform Jews.  Through conversations with champions of Social Justice, we will be able to think deeply about the directions we might take in our own communities when we stand at our own crossroads.  I would like to take a moment to highlight the many Social Justice learning opportunities we have throughout convention.

We stand at a crossroads about the protection of our civil rights.  The Supreme Court of the United States exists to interpret the constitutionality of our laws.  Inherent in that is the protection of the civil rights guaranteed to us by the constitution.  To open convention, journalist Dahlia Lithwick will discuss with us “The Battle for the future of America at the Supreme Court.”  This session will help frame our thinking as to how we as rabbis navigate the crossroads that strive to ensure the protection of the values we strive to safeguard.

We stand at a crossroads of Civic Engagement.  At convention we will have sessions with California Elected officials, Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Sacramento, Darrell Steinberg and State Controller, Betty Yee.  On Tuesday evening, we will turn our focus to one of the most pressing issues of the day, Gun Violence Protection.  So many of us are motivated to make a lasting change that will prevent what happened in Parkland and the many other communities affected by gun violence from happening again.  CA state Attorney General Xavier Becerra will address gun policy in California and his recent victory defending California’s law at the Supreme Court.

We stand at a crossroads of Health Care policy.  Tuesday at convention will focus on health care.  With changes to the ACA and the challenges many of our colleagues face when it comes to health care access, we will turn to national policy expert John McDonough who will speak to current and future states of Health Care reform.  McDonough served as a Senior Advisor on National Health Reform to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions where he worked on the development and passage of the Affordable Care Act.

We stand at a crossroads on Immigration concerns.  To conclude convention, we will have a conversation with Mark Hetfield, CEO of HIAS.  HIAS has led the way supporting refugees and immigrants in our communities.  We will spend time learning about the impact we need to make moving forward.  Monday afternoon will also feature a workshop on “The Escalation of Removal” where we will learn about the power of immigrant voices in our world today.

We stand a crossroads of navigating the religious imperative to do pursue justice.  With the increasing polarization of our communities, we often stand on thin ice when it comes to the balance of Jewish values compared with political ideologies.  Wednesday morning will feature a conversation with Sister Simon Campbell, “The Nun on the Bus” and Jonathan Cohen, about how we navigate this tension.  Sister Simone is a trailblazer in her community and her voice was instrumental in the passing of the Affordable Care Act.  Her bus tours have opened up lines of communication to understand what matters to the heart of Americans.  She is elevated the voice of the poor and of immigrants.

Lastly, there will also be workshops by the RAC leadership on the Urgency of Now and also on the Mass Incarceration.

I look forward to seeing you in Orange County as we navigate the heavy traffic of the Social Justice arena.

—

Rabbi Rick Kellner serves Congregation Beth Tikvah in Columbus, Ohio and is the co-chair of the 2018 CCAR Convention in Orange County. 

Categories
Death Gun Control Healing

For Florida, and the Floridas to Come. Unless –

We say it over and over again.  “Enough,” we say.  Enough.  But it was enough the first time.  It was more than enough.  Columbine was enough.  Littleton, Charleston, Orlando, Newtown and the others… all the others we can’t even remember by name anymore.  In our numbness and shame… can’t keep up with them because it happens, and happens, and keeps happening and will happen again.  And there is no word for being this far past enough.

My own little baby, I ache to leave you better times.  Thoughts and prayers can’t save us any more than it can save them now – seventeen bright souls who have joined the ranks of all those lives extinguished, blown to bits, the taste of ash in the mouths of their families who loved them best.  How can we praise life anyway?  How can we believe that wisdom and sanity will ever win the day?  That the righteous will flourish like the palm tree, thrive like the cedar… when the righteous are hatefully, needlessly cut down and the arrogant stand idly by the blood of enough after enough after enough?

The poet Warshan Shire wrote: “I held an atlas in my lap/ ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.”

In the wake of Parkland, Florida… in the wake of all of them… we are mourners.  And so we stand, everywhere… everywhere… everywhere.  We will stand as we remember our own, and now seventeen more who are also our own.  Or could have been.  Or could yet be.  The weeks will pass and the news will fade, but we will stand for our Kaddish still.  We will remember, we will praise what can be praised, we will work for better times.  And if ours are the names on Kaddish lists by then, if when those times finally come we do not see them, we pray that our children and their children will.

—

Rabbi Rebecca Gutterman serves Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek, California.

 

Categories
Convention

Get Yourself a Teacher, Find Someone to Study with, and Judge Everyone Favorably

I will always remember my very first CCAR convention.  I was a first year rabbinic student at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem, and the 1995 convention was held there.  The students were included in many of the programs and the learning and the camaraderie were very special.

I certainly cherish the memory of meeting Prime Minister Rabin and other important Israeli officials and scholars.  However, what stood out for me in that moment was the experience of having so many of my teachers and mentors in one room…and then being introduced to their teachers and mentors!

I have been blessed with wonderful role models, rabbis who nurtured me formally and informally, in congregations and in classrooms.  I remember the first rabbi I ever saw in blue jeans, the first rabbi who invited me for a meal, and the first rabbi who opened my eyes to the wonders of Mishnah.  I remember the rabbis who held my children as newborns in their Brit ceremonies  and the rabbis who held me close over these last months as I became a mourner.  I believe our Conference is stronger because we are a multi-generational web of teachers who lift one another up through all of life’s challenges and joys.

At our conventions, there are extraordinary opportunities to connect with those who are already or can become our personal rabbis.  In Orange County, we will have the chance to study with several of HUC-JIR’s finest professors.  Every time I attend convention, I always seek out these opportunities, to study text with great scholars, simply for the joy of learning.

Our conventions give us the chance to learn face to face with great teachers and side by side with old classmates and new friends.  This face to face experience is precious.  As much as we can try and stay connected over the phone and through the computer, I believe there is always something limiting about those interactions.  Come to Orange County, and sit in our very own Beit Midrash, able to learn both from the texts and the people.

As we learn in Pirke Avot 1:6, “Get yourself a teacher, find someone to study with, and judge everyone favorably.”

We are blessed to be part of a conference of colleagues, each one of us eager to study and to teach.  When we gather at convention, our experiences together will help us to see the good and the hopeful in the world all around us.  Join me in Orange County!

—

Rabbi Peter W. Stein serves Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY.  He is a member of the CCAR Convention Committee and also serves as CCAR Dues Chairperson.

Categories
Gun Control Healing Prayer

Prayer in the Aftermath of a Tragedy

Our God and God of all people,
God of the Rich and God of the poor.
God of the teacher and God of the student.
God of the families who wait in horror.
God of the dispatcher who hears screams of terror from under bloodied desks.
God of the first responder who bravely creeps through ravaged hallways.
God of the doctor who treats the wounded.
God of the rabbi, pastor, imam or priest who seeks words of comfort but comes up empty.
God of the young boy who sees his classmates die in front of him.
God of the weeping, raging, inconsolable mother who screams at the sight of her child’s lifeless body .
God of the shattered communities torn apart by senseless violence.
God of the legislators paralyzed by fear, partisanship, money and undue influence.
God of the Right.
God of the Left.
God who hears our prayers.
God who does not answer.
On this tragic day when we confront the aftermath of the 18th School shooting in our nation on the 46th day of this year, I do not feel like praying.
Our prayers have not stopped the bullets.
Our prayers have changed nothing.
Once again, a disturbed man with easy access to guns has squinted through the sights of a weapon, aimed, squeezed a trigger and taken out his depraved anger, pain and frustration on innocents:  pure souls. Students and teachers. Brothers and sisters. Mothers and fathers- cut down in an instant by the power of hatred and technology.
We are guilty, O God.
We are guilty of inaction.
We are guilty of complacency.
We are guilty of allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by politics.
The blood of our children cries out from the ground.
The blood of police officers cut down in the line of duty flows through our streets.
I do not appeal to You on this terrible morning to change us. We can only do that ourselves.
Our enemies do not come only from far away places.
The monsters we fear live among us.
May those in this room who have the power to to make change find the courage to seek a pathway to sanity and hope.
May we hold ourselves and our leaders accountable.

Only then will our prayers be worthy of an answer.

AMEN
—
Rabbi Joe Black serves Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado.  This prayer was originally posted on his blog. 
Categories
Convention

Learning from One Another

A few years ago, at our Chicago Convention, I attended a session presented by our colleague Joel Mosbacher on gun legislation. I went in expecting a particular form of argument, and I left understanding the herculean efforts engaged to further the cause of smart-gun technology.

The basic premise of smart-guns is that only the authorized user has the ability to unlock a weapon. It is not a panacea when it comes to solving the issues of gun-violence, but rather is just one proposal in a larger sea of suggestions.

Joel has traveled the world to meet with politicians and manufacturers in support of this cause, to little effect. But he did explain how perceptions were slowly beginning to change. Sadly, as we all well know, guns and gun violence are a tragic part of our existence, at this moment.

The conversation then veered into a discussion about local community organizing efforts. I took these lessons to heart, and I began to get involved in community organizing in my previous position. I met with a local organizer and we started holding discussions with fellow clergy across religious denominations. However, as I moved on to a new position, I had to leave these efforts in the hands of others.

The reason why I mention this is I went into a session expecting to hear arguments I had heard before. When I left, I had a new sense of purpose and a new area of engagement that has helped to shape my rabbinate. I had a new understanding of what you, my colleagues, are doing to bring about a greater sense of our Prophetic tradition to our country and our world. And I left with a sense of optimism in that what we do, matters.

This is one of the reasons why I go to conventions. I enjoy time with friends and colleagues, and the ability to blow off steam is invaluable. But it can also be a place to rejuvenate our sense of mission and purpose, especially in today’s troubling world. What we do matters, and we can learn a lot from each other in how to become better advocates for the causes we care so passionately about.

So please join us at CCAR 2018 in Orange County. Speaking for myself, I would love the opportunity to learn from you.

—

Rabbi Benjamin A. Sharff serves The Reform Temple of Rockland in Upper Nyack, New York.