Categories
Passover Pesach Social Justice

Each Person Must See Themselves As If They Went Out of Egypt

“In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they went out of Egypt.”

This is my favorite line in the Haggadah.

In the Moss Haggadah, an illuminated text created by the artist David Moss, the page with this text depicts Jews from many different generations and places—Jews from ancient Middle Eastern countries, medieval European countries, colonial America, and so on. And in between each picture is a small mirror, so that when you look at the page, you see yourself along with all those Jews of different generations.

This year, when I look a the Moss Haggadah, I will see the faces of my maternal great-grandparents who came to the United States fleeing persecution in Czarist Russia in the 1890’s, and my paternal grandparents, who fled Nazi Germany in 1939. I’ll see my mother’s parents looking like folks straight out of a Sholom Aleichem play; I’ll see my dad’s father, age 7, in his lederhosen. I will add their faces that page of the Haggadah in my mind’s eye.

They told desperate stories to their families of their harrowing escapes, the laws they bent and broke to get out from under the tyranny of their native lands, and stories of the pride they felt in making it to America as refugees, as asylees. I will see I will see my maternal grandparents as they struggled to adapt to life in the United States, to learn English, to learn a new culture. I’ll see in the Moss Haggadah an image of my father’s parents as they spoke with tears in their eyes of all the family they left behind.

And then I will see– there on the pages of the story of our exodus from Egypt, the story of the miracles it took to free us—I’ll see those mirrors on the page. I will see myself—not as a refugee, but as a witness.

And I will see, if I squint hard enough, the faces of my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. I will hear a question in their eyes. I will hear them asking, “What did you do in your generation to live out the Torah’s admonition, ‘In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they went out of Egypt?’ What did you do, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, in your time, when people were facing persecution, fleeing the only homes they’d ever known, seeking asylum? What did you do?”

And what will I say? Will I say, “well, my children, there was nothing I could do”? Or will I say, “well, my children, it was a different time, because it wasn’t Jews who were fleeing”? Or will I say something else? Will I perhaps tell a story of which I am proud, of a time when the Jewish people, when the majority of people of conscience in my home country stood up for the rights of those whose lives were under threat in their native lands?

That is what I will reflect on this Passover as I look in those mirrors, as I see faces of future generations staring back at me. The mirrors are a little blurry. This story is not yet written. We still have a choice. I pray that I will write—that we as a nation will write—a story we can proudly tell our children. I pray that when they open this page of the Haggadah and see us, that they will smile with pride, and be agitated to be matir asurim, those who free captives, in their own time.

—

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher serves Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York City. 

Categories
Passover Pesach

The Freedom Seder

Last year, two brave mothers approached me for a meeting. They were looking to find educational opportunities for their children with special needs. Tired of turning to other synagogues where they felt less connected, or Chabad where they felt philosophically or religiously uncomfortable, they wanted Temple Israel to be place of learning and experiencing Judaism for their children, just like it had been for them and the other children we serve. It was such a beautifully authentic need that I could not ignore. Thus begun my first humble steps into Special Needs programming for our synagogue.

I quickly consulted with colleagues and then more seriously applied to the Matan Institute for Educational Directors to help me best serve the needs of this community. Matan educates Jewish leaders, educators and communities to empower them to create learning environments supportive of children with special needs, through training Institutes and consultations across North America. By advocating for the inclusion of diverse learners, Matan enables the Jewish community to realize the gift of every individual and fulfill its obligation to embrace all children regardless of learning challenges in every Jewish educational setting.

And so I set out to create our first holiday program designed for special needs children and their entire family, called the Freedom Seder. The Freedom Seder is designed to look a lot like a camp program. There is music with a song leader, it is interactive and inclusive, it aims to inspire and educate learners on multiple levels (including adults) and it is flexible. We have learned that the space should be a safe one. Children can be who they are – we don’t expect them to “sit still” or do all the activities. We hope they will participate, but we also know that some days are tougher than others and the quiet room, with Passover books and pillows and soft lighting might be a great option for a particular child on that day. We offer tactile activities, but we make sure there are alternatives for those that struggle with sensory processing disorders. Our Freedom Seder is a one hour program that gives these children the “freedom” to explore different aspects of the Seder. They can plant parsley seeds, vote on their favorite part of the story, taste different kinds of matzah and tell us which one they liked the best. They can make an afikoman bag and color in different parts of the Seder. And their parents can meet one another, get to know our clergy (who all volunteer to be present) and watch their children explore with excitement their rich and engaging tradition.

All of our families deserve and so yearn for a place that lacks judgement or places unrealistic demands on their time, energy or child. We need to provide educational opportunities that are stimulating and adjustable. At Temple Israel we are committed to providing more of these opportunities where we educate differently then we have in the past, we assume nothing, we build relationships of care and trust and we provide interactive and tactile activities at the heart of all we do. Most importantly we have reframed our goals – we do care that the content be current, engaging and deeply enriching but we are also supportive of other goals. For some of these new families the goals may be to meet new faces, hear Jewish music, or simply feel comfortable in the building. We have only just begun. This year we provided two family programs (Chanukah and Passover), we will begin to make our family Shabbat services an inclusive and warm setting for all of our families – including those whose children have special needs and we opened our Purim Carnival early for those children who need a more quiet approach to a Purim celebration.  These steps towards an inclusive community for all help us break down the walls that for too long restricted some of our families from participating in Jewish life and learning.

I can say without hesitation that these hour-long programs are the most rewarding hours of my career; the joy of learning is palpable, the enthusiasm contagious and the gratitude overwhelming. Each year we read the Passover story I always find myself lingering on the moment at the sea. As the Israelites crossed between two walls of water, perhaps they found themselves also caught between feelings of gratitude and nervous anticipation of the unknown. Where would this journey lead the people? Did they know enough? Were they strong enough? Would they live up to the expectations of the God who redeemed them from the darkness?  I too face this new path, humbled by what I don’t know, but grateful and eager to provide new ways for each learner to connect powerfully to our beautiful tradition.

—

Rabbi Melissa Buyer-Witman serves the Temple Israel of the City of New York.

Categories
Passover Pesach

Our Real Security Tonight is Being Here, All Together

All rabbis have humbling moments when the words that spontaneously emerge from our mouths wind up being far more impactful than those sermons over which we slave through ceaseless drafts.  Such a moment happened to me just this past week.

The setting?  Our annual Interfaith Seder.  The timing? Right after a full Paschal meal and before we got to an ecumenical Barech, our grace after meals.  The impetus?  I was doing what all rabbis must do… thanking everyone who helped.  Given the fact that we host over 150 people from 12 different faith institutions, feature two different choirs, include 14 clergy partners, and engage 30 temple volunteers, there was a long list of people to whom I owed gratitude for sharing such an event.  Equal–if not above–them all, are all the members of the staff team at Sinai.  I came around to thanking Bill, who is part of our security team.  Right after I thanked Billy, these words just came out of my mouth, my mind:

Our real security tonight is being here, all together.

“Let all who are hungry come and eat” can be taken in many different ways.  Some of us, cleaning our houses of chametz, make donations to local food pantries to make sure those who literally hunger can find sustenance this festival season.  Others of us host communal sedarim so that no one has to be alone on Passover.  At Chicago Sinai Congregation, a different kind of hunger brought together a community across lines of race, class and color.  I just didn’t realize it until the Haggadot had closed and Adir Hu was but an echo in our ears.

I inherited a remarkable ritual when I joined this synagogue: every year, about two weeks before Passover, we host an Interfaith Seder for our non-Jewish neighbors.  The event was explained to me as an opportunity to share the best of what Judaism has to offer: we stage a model Seder through which we can teach our Jewish practices, traditions, and most deeply-held values.  With the tools of our Haggadah, our favorite songs, and some explanations along the way, we manage to create a lovely evening, and express the importance of our core narrative of liberation with the unique impact of Pesach.

When we gathered for last year’s Interfaith Seder, I did what many of do at Seder: I added a supplemental reading to help us focus on contemporary issues of oppression.  The Reform Movement was launching its Racial Justice campaign; I barely need spill any ink expressing why that is relevant here in Chicago.  And so one year ago, just before we blessed the matzah and made our Hillel sandwiches, I gathered the clergy who were in attendance, and we read the Racial Justice supplement created by Rabbis Organizing Rabbis.  We simply stood at the front of the social hall and read from photocopied pieces of paper.  A last-minute idea turned out to be last year’s most powerful moment of the night.

And so, a few weeks ago, I went searching for something new to supplement the Seder, a different piece for the participating clergy to read.  After a it of poking around, I decided to excerpt part of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “No Religion is an Island,” originally published in 1966.*  Amidst the rush of preparing for multiple Sedarim, a few shabbat sermons, and a CCAR convention, it seemed like it would fit the bill just fine.

I was not prepared to hear by friend and partner, the Reverend Randall K. Blakey, read these words:

First and foremost we meet as human beings who have so much in common: a heart, a face, a voice, the presence of a soul, fears, hope, the ability to trust, a capacity for compassion and understanding, the kinship of being human. My first task in every encounter is to comprehend the person-hood of the human being I face, to sense the kinship of being human, solidarity of being.

This is what our Seder, every Seder, is about: the kinship and solidarity of all human beings.  As the assembled clergy continued to read, Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, AME Zion-ists, UCC-ers, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews literally brought life to Heschel’s vision.  And tears to people’s eyes.

 

We are living in turbulent times.  Political forces threaten to dismantle long-standing inter-religious partnerships and splinter off friends forced to protect their small self-interests.  Cruel and sadistic individuals call or email our institutions and threaten our precious children; we fear these actions won’t culminate merely in threats.  Our nation’s beacon of hope for the world’s tempest-tossed–a most fitting metaphor for our Passover theme–is being dimmed to darkness.  We find few places to feel secure.

This was the hunger people brought with them to this year’s Interfaith Seder: a hunger for human decency, a hunger for a hopeful message,  a hunger for belonging to a larger community united for the common good.  Oh, that all who have such hunger could come and be nourished!

I was hungry, too.  What I realized during our Interfaith Seder, what actually came out of my mouth before it entered my consciousness, is that–for all the needed guards and protocols Jewish institutions require–our greatest security during these turbulent times will be our friends, our community, our partners.  When we build strong relationships with friends of other faiths, when we speak honestly of shared values that arise from different sources, when we live our lack of fear for the other and demonstrate a compassionate curiosity in other human beings, we build an impenetrable fortress of faith.  Not faith in the same God, perhaps, or even any God at all.  But faith in united purpose.  Faith in common destiny.  Faith in each and every human being who hungers.

Let all who are hungry find the sustenance we need in this year’s Passover.

—

Rabbi Seth Limmer serves Chicago Sinai Congregation.  

Categories
lifelong learning

Spreading Our Message

At your best attended service how many people are there to hear your sermon?

This was the question that was posed by our facilitator, Reverend Kellie Anderson-Picallo, from the Auburn Institute as she challenged us on how we spread and share our message. The size of our communities are the first limitation, restricting our listeners to those who are present on any given day in any given service. We can of course live-stream our services extending our community beyond the physical walls of the building and then we can ensure that our sermons are shared on blogs, podcasts, or YouTube. However, even with all of these avenues for sharing our message she questioned how many people were we really reaching.

As her facts and figures made clear, for us to reach the widest audience possible we needed to ensure that our writings were being shared by mainstream and online media. In the academic world it is a case of “publish or perish,” in our rabbinic world perhaps it is a case of “publish to promote our message, values and ideas.” When our article or blog post gets picked up by another publication, our message’s reach increases exponentially and the impact we have grows significantly.

At the time I participated in the Auburn training, I had been struggling with my response to the epidemic of gun violence, which continues to plague our country. I wanted to speak out, I wanted to share my message, but I was unsure where to begin. The training helped me to hone my message into the sermon that I had been waiting to deliver, but it also gave me the tools and the drive to take it to the next level. I shared the sermon on my blog and edited our service live-stream to post my words to YouTube, and then I edited it further.

I took the sermon and edited it into an Op-Ed, an opinion piece sharing my voice as a Rabbi, ready to be shared in response to the next incident of gun violence. When that happened, I clicked “send” and offered the article to a number of sources, one of which said yes. While I was pleased to have my message reach a wider audience, my synagogue also took pride in having their Rabbi published in the wider world.

Prior to the training with Reverend Kellie Anderson-Picallo from Auburn I had not thought strategically about how to get published in the wider media. And more than that, when I tried to convert sermons into articles, I struggled with what to keep and what to cut. The Auburn training provided me with a wonderful set of tools and resources for spreading my message.

In the current political climate I am sure that many of us feel a greater urgency and obligation to speak out and to share our message and our values. The Auburn Institute training provided me with a wonderful set of tools to not only improve my writing, but to help me write in a way that catches the attention of editors. The CCAR is partnering with the Auburn Institute and Berlin Rosen to offer “Media Savvy: Harnessing Your Rabbinic Voice in Troubled Times” on April 24th and 25th in New York City. Now more than ever it is important that we speak out and are heard; this training will be a great aid in achieving that goal.

—

Rabbi Danny Burkeman serves the Community Synagogue of Port Washington, New York. Register for Media Savvy: Harnessing Your Rabbinic Voice in Troubled Times now.

Categories
Convention

Sea Level: First-timer Reflections on the CCAR Convention

I am not a big-hotel person. Wandering through long hallways, going up and down in mirrored elevators and walking on endless carpeted floors does not somehow enhance my sense of well-being or joy. When I first got to the hotel, I had to find out where the convention was actually happening and the answer was: “Take the elevator to C level.”

Now in Israeli geography, when you live not too far from the lowest spot on earth, the term “sea level” has a life of its own: driving to the Jordan Valley in Israel, whether to the Sea of Galilee in the north or the Dead Sea in the south, the signs indicating “sea level” are your reference to how high or low you are going. So I guess “sea level” made perfect sense to me. I was lucky enough that there were other people going into the elevator so I had a quick chance to realize my mistake without embarrassing myself too much, although I was already getting disoriented to the point that I wasn’t sure whether we were going up or down, the elevator sign just indicated it was EZ.

On the right level I still found myself more than once following the cool CCAR footprints on the floor to find myself in the right place at the wrong time (or vice versa) which gave me a chance to re-evaluate Heschel’s idea about sacred time versus sacred space, since in this case I needed a combination of both to make things happen. With this little sense of disorientation, I finally made it to Monday morning prayers, to enter a huge ballroom marked by its heavy chandeliers shedding somewhat dim light, carpeted floor and windowless walls, a setting I found not at all like my preferred setting for prayer. Not having windows was the hardest. I was well aware of the demand to have windows in a place of prayer, since at one point in our community in Rosh Ha’ayin, the option of praying in a miklat – a bomb shelter, came up, and I used the demand that there be windows to reject that option.

But then, as often happens, the magic just happened. I was carried by the music, the spirit, the joy of being together and the words of Torah, and it made me completely oblivious of the setting. It was symbolic for me that Rabbi David Stern, the elected CCAR president, related in his D’var Torah to the feeling of disorientation, of not knowing where the four directions or the four winds are, or being ‘wind whipped’. In that case, he said, quoting from Brachot tractate, you need to direct your heart to heaven to re-orient and re-connect yourself. This idea made me think of the small ritual of covering yourself with Talit, the prayer shawl, at the beginning of the Morning Prayer: you first wrap yourself completely, losing all sense of orientation, and then re-open the tallit regaining a new orientation, which has to do with turning your heart to heaven. I also realized that the word orientation might have originally indicated finding the orient, the Mizrach, the direction where (for those who used that term!) Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem are.

In turbulent times, Rabbi Stern related, when we experience a sense of being ‘wind whipped’, we need to take our sages’ advice and find ways to re-orient ourselves, to create our own compass (מצפן) and our own consciousness (מצפון) so we are able to discern good from evil.

For me it meant going back to our base line or what I was referring to as sea level.

Rabbi Stern concluded by mentioning the Sulam, Jacob’s ladder. Each of us, he argued, need to place his ladder with its legs steadily standing on the ground but its head aspiring to reach the sky. It made me think of Jacob waking up the morning after the ladder dream and realizing: God dwells in this place and I didn’t know.

God definitely dwelled in that place and I didn’t know.

—

Rabbi Ayala Miron serves Bavat Ayin Congregation in Rosh HaAyin, Israel and teaches at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem. 

Categories
Convention

Stayed On Freedom

“I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.”

This week, as part of the CCAR rabbinical convention in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to explore the Civil Rights movement, through a tour of the Center for Civil and Human Rights, lectures from leaders of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP, and a visit to The Temple, Atlanta’s historic Reform synagogue, which was bombed by White Supremacists in 1958.

Among other exhibits, the Civil Rights Center has a wonderful movie about the Freedom Riders, those black and white young people who spent the summer of 1961 riding integrated buses across the South, challenging segregation laws. Who endured beatings and arrests to make their point about the injustice of segregation. The film ended with a song from the Civil Rights movement: “I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsziXdKfOsE?rel=0

I know that song. I know every word of it! I sang it as a kid at Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the Reform Jewish camp in Utica, Mississippi, along with folk songs and Hebrew songs that expressed our Jewish values. In fact, it probably wasn’t until adulthood that I realized “Woke Up This Morning” wasn’t actually a Jewish song. I suspect that this Civil Rights songs had become one of “our” songs because the earliest counselors and campers of that Deep South camp, which was founded in the early 70s, had been immersed in the struggle for Civil Rights during the previous decade.

I grew up in the South, but since today I live far away in Canada, it’s easy to forget how real the Civil Rights Movement is – how recent, and how nearby. I was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 16 years after Governor George Wallace stood on the auditorium steps in that city to block the integration of the university. The events described in the Civil Rights exhibit take place largely in the states where I was born and where I grew up, and largely within my parents’ lifetime. In fact, this past Tuesday as I heard Joseph Levin, Jr, tell – in his strong Alabama drawl – the story of how he came to co-found the Southern Poverty Law Center, I felt strangely at home. I grew up surrounded by those accents and those ways of thinking – by men and women who attended those universities and were members of those fraternities, who dress conservative but think liberal, who talk in old-fashioned Southern accents but act in courageous new ways in the fight for social justice. That is, in many ways, the Southern Jewish experience. It is something to be proud of.

Yes, I know the Civil Rights Movement isn’t about me, and it isn’t even about the Jews. It’s about the brave African Americans who stood up and demanded rights and equality. But it’s also about the white, black, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim allies who stood with them in the demand for a more just society. And it is about those of every place and time who know that our world is not yet as it should be.

I rarely encountered overt racism or anti-Semitism growing up in the South in the 80s and 90s. My Temple was not bombed. My schools were at least nominally integrated. My Jewish youth group and camp experiences were positive, happy, and healthy. And yet the old issues were not far beneath the surface. There were the occasional worrisome comments. The racial integration of our schools existed only on the surface – I remember distinctly that in one of the high schools I attended in Baton Rouge, the white and black kids essentially kept to themselves. When former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana, I was floored by how many of my 7th grade classmates in New Orleans supported him. It is clear to me in hindsight that these were indications that the South is still struggling with issues of Civil Rights and racial equality. There is still work to be done.

Today I live far from the South. In fact, as a resident of Toronto, I live in a city that prides itself on being diverse, progressive, and welcoming. There is a level of diversity and coexistence evident on the streets, on the subways, and in my kids’ schools that still astounds me every day. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t hate. We have had our JCC bomb threats, our racially motivated killings, and our mosque attacks as well. We may not be Alabama in the 1960s, but neither can we fool ourselves that we are we living in a society free of bigotry. That is why we must continue to build relationships, why we must create bridges of understanding, knowledge, and acceptance between different faith and ethnic communities. And it is why we must speak out loudly – no matter who we are or where we live – against hate and injustice in all its forms.

Last month, when 6 worshipers tragically lost their lives in a hate-motivated attack on a mosque in Quebec City, synagogues throughout Toronto organized “Circles of Peace” around the local mosques, singing and praying in solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. The members of my congregation wanted instead to attend Friday prayers at a local mosque with whom we have a relationship. And when we did, and when we were warmly welcomed by our friends at the mosque, we discovered that 2 churches were also in attendance. On that Friday, Muslims, Christians, and Jews sat together, raising their voices in prayer that someday our world will be a place of tolerance and freedom for people of all races, religions, and backgrounds.

“I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.”

There are moments in history that call for clarity of purpose. May we look to the examples of the past, to the brave men and women who have fought for justice and equality, and may we be inspired to stand together with those who are different from us, and to stand up for what is right.

—

Rabbi Micah Streiffer serves Temple Kol Ami in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada.

Categories
Convention

What Happens When We Listen?

Our world has become filled with talking.  We have to push our thoughts and opinions out into the world in an effort to convince others that we are right.  However, when we are talking we are not really listening.  When we are talking, we are often arguing over the heads of others and responding without even thinking about what the other is saying, we just want to be right and be sure the other is wrong.  It is as if we are holding up an identity card that immediately shows others what we believe and what our thoughts on a certain subject might be.  Others hold up these same identity cards, we walk away and relationships break down.

When we listen, we build relationships and human connection. On Wednesday at Convention, we witnessed that and we lived that.  Listening to the incredibly deep changes that Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Ali Abu Awwad have gone through in their lives is remarkable.  If they can change so can we.  For an Israeli settler Orthodox rabbi to go from never seeing a Palestinian to breaking bread with Palestinians and creating grassroots change is almost unheard of.  For a Palestinian to go from a agitator and someone who was shot by an Israeli soldier to say, “I want to defend Judaism and the right Jews have to their land, at the same time I want to defend my own state,” is a profound acknowledgement and acceptance of the other’s narrative and existence.

Hanan and Ali’s words are a reminder that two opposites can come together and make peace.  The American Jewish Community has witnessed disconnect and a breakdown when it comes to Israel.  If Hanan and Ali, two seemingly bitter enemies, can see the other, why can’t we? We need to create a culture of civil discourse not disagreement.  We were inspired to learn today that Civil Discourse is rooted in listening emphatically and actively.  When we hear the stories of another and ask people to clarify where they are coming from, we create human relationships.  When we listen in order to understand and not respond, we create human relationships.

Our tradition is rooted in understanding.  We learn in Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:3 that the Sanhedrin was physically set up in a semi-circle so that every member of the Sanhedrin could see the face or the profile of the other.  Such a set up ensures the interpersonal relationships would not be interrupted during debate.  Today, seeing the face of the other is felt in hearing one’s story and connecting personally.  Seeing the face of the other is listening without trying to respond and listening for understanding and emotion.

What happens when we listen?  We engage in civil discourse, we hear and see the other, and we build a relationship with a fellow human being.

—

Rabbi Rick Kellner serves Congregation Beth Tikvah in Columbus, Ohio.  

Categories
Books Convention

Collecting Rabbis

I collect rabbis.

As a young boy, it seemed to me, being a rabbi was a profound and precious use of a Jewish soul. To inspire Torah into hearts and into the world, oh my! So, at the age of 18, when I asked my own rabbi about going into the rabbinate, I was crushed.

My rabbi told me that I was already behind in Torah studies. That it would take me twice as long as the other students to catch up. Even then, my Hebrew was so bad that I wouldn’t begin seminary with my peers. If I made it – if I made it, he said – I’d always be a rabbi, that the entire Jewish world would constantly judge my actions, that the entire Jewish world would be represented me always. He asked if I had the strength to do that.

What I heard, as an insecure and uncertain teen, was this: “We don’t want you. There’s no place for you in Rabbi-World.”

He was a brilliant Torah teacher. I still reread his books. I remember sermons he gave decades ago. I remember the joy of our Friday morning Talmud class. He gave me my first glimpse of the depth and beauty of diving into Torah. Since then, I’ve considered the rabbinate several times. Even at 60, there’s still a wound in my heart with the words: “Not a rabbi.”

So, I collect rabbis. What does that mean? That I still allow my heart to be open and vulnerable to rabbis. That if you touch my heart, you’ll always be my rabbi. The balm on the wound is to collect the vibrant golden hearts of Torah teachers, tikun olam leaders, healers, blessings in the flesh. The balm is to add a bit of your heart to mine.

You were at my wife’s deathbed and comforted my children at her shiva. You taught me Torah. We stood together at the Kotel defending women’s prayer rights. You taught me how to say the Shema with my entire being. You’ve encouraged my writing, challenged it to get better. You’ve brought me to your synagogues to teach. We made music together. You call yourselves Rabbi, Rav, Rabba, chaplain, educator, pastoral care counselor, editor, coach, friend.

Here I am, early on Monday morning at the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention. Some of my rabbis are here, some didn’t make it. Most are Reform. Some Conservative, Orthodox, Renewal, Reconstructionist, Havurah, Haredi, defiant of labels. Some are AIPAC and some are JStreet. Some are men, women, trans, gay, lesbian. Writers. Teachers. Scholars. Activists.

Last night here at CCAR17, I was blessed to hear many kind things about my writing and my new book, ‘This Grateful Heart.’ I confess: part of me – the ‘not a rabbi’ part – doesn’t know what to do with these words, so I put them into the box of inspirational fuel for my work as a liturgist.

I’m still collecting rabbis, so this is the place for me to be.

It appears that some rabbis are also collecting liturgists. This Grateful (sentimental) Heart is touched.

—

Alden Solovy is a liturgist, author, journalist, and teacher. He has written more than 600 pieces of new liturgy, offering a fresh new Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. His writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife from catastrophic brain injury. Solovy’s teaching spans from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud, UK, and synagogues throughout the U.S. The Jerusalem Post called his writing “soulful, meticulously crafted.” Huffington Post Religion said “…the prayers reflect age-old yearnings in modern-day situations.” Solovy is a three-time winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism. He made aliyah to Israel in 2012, where he hikes, writes, teaches, and learns. His work has appeared in Mishkan R’Fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR Press, 2012), L’chol Z’man v’Eit: For Sacred Moments (CCAR Press, 2015), Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe (CCAR Press, 2015), and Gates of Shabbat, Revised Edition (CCAR Press, 2016). He is the author of This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, from CCAR Press.

Categories
Convention

Shining a Light into the Darkness

As American life becomes darker for many, as hatred, bigotry, and anger gains an  historic foothold in public discourse and public interactions, we gathered – more than 550 Reform Jewish rabbis – seeking to comprehend this moment in history. At the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention in Atlanta, we discovered once again that the lessons of the past often offer insight into the present. Perhaps, as the teaching goes, this insight can help point the way for us into the uncertain future.

Thus we listened with rapt attention as one of this generations great prophets, Joseph J. Levin Jr., co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, gave us a peek into the background of some of the extremism and hatred that has claimed a place in American life. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the great watchtower of American life, based in Montgomery, Georgia, speaks truth to power, shining a light into the darkness.

Mr. Levin, a nice Jewish boy, told us his back story: about how as the grandchild of immigrants who fled the czar’s ethnic cleansing nationalistic movement, he was a young man who struggled through an American life buffeted by the winds of racial bias and bigotry. It was a time of poisonous hatred when the Ku Klux Klan was active and burning crosses, and when Jews had to have their separate country clubs. Back then  the ideal of purity and separation of the races permeated so much of American southern life; it found the voice among the predecessors of today’s alt-right, white supremacist groups. Back then, “states rights” was the acceptable code word for those who wanted to pursue anti-federal segregationist policies.

Mr. Levin reminded us that bigotry and hate, even the ascendent anti-Semitism of today, that we thought had been relegated to the far edges of American life, grow out of the olden days of his upbringing. He drew lines between the toolkit of the Jim Crow era and the overt bigotry in today’s discourse.

We shook our heads in disbelief as he recounted recent public statements of today’s hate groups, easily located through links on the SPLC’s website, which might have well have come from yesterday’s racist hate groups. We shook our heads in agreement as he urged us to consider that questions about whether this national leader or that might actually be a racist is not the point. Rather he suggested, such discussions serve only hide the deeper, more dangerous problem: that the hatred of today being articulated today, publicly and openly, is eroding the pluralistic, all embracing, open society that Jewish values imagine and which should characterize America life.

The nechemta (the solace and hope) came in the firm of a rousing combines chorale concert of singers from the Temple and the Ebenezer Church, whose integrated singing and music reminded us that when good people reach out and work together, the harmony and melody are sweet, healing and hopeful.

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Rabbi Paul Kipnes serves Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, California.

Categories
Convention

B’dibur Echad

 I tried to leave the room without making any noise at 6:40 this morning. Nevertheless, my husband called out, “Where are you going so early?”

“To the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion Alumni Breakfast” I responded.

“Why so early?” “Do you really need to be there?”

While I had no good answer to the first question, the second was easy.

Yes, I need to be there! The Alumni breakfast is my favorite part of the CCAR Conference. It’s not because of the scholarship (which was great – thank you Aaron Panken).

No, it’s the roll call. It always strikes a chord that reverberates in my soul.

Rabbi Walter Jacob, Class of 1955

As colleagues Chuck Briskin and Jim Prosnit called out each class year, starting with current students and then transitioning to the most recent ordinees, my heart filled with anticipation. 2016. 2015, 2014…. Every class has its own character. When my year (1997) came, we stood up and cheered.

Then I sat back and watched. As each class ascended, I thought of the legacies created and the lives moved. I reflected on our shared experiences as well as the unique visions. I was mindful of the journeys we had endured. And I was thankful for the scholars that inspired us.

The roll call ended with Walter Jacob, Class of 1955. As he stood (to a rousing ovation), I wondered …. When Walter attended his first CCAR conference, what luminaries stood at roll call whose careers spanned over 60 years? Were there rabbis ordained by Isaac Mayer Wise?

We are a living bridge to both yesterday and tomorrow. That’s why I got up at 6am to attend this breakfast. I take my place with such honor as part of this chain. It’s a sacred and shared, somewhat ironic responsibility. After all, we transform the world while keeping it stable – b’dibur echad.

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