Categories
Torah

Bereshit and My Beloved Cubs

An ode to the intersection of this week’s Torah portion, Bereshit, and my beloved Cubs:

In the beginning. . .

There was a team that experienced an abundance of success. They went to the World Series three times in a row. But they fell from grace after two straight championships. Expelled from the Garden of Greatness, they lost their way, squandering opportunity after opportunity. They experienced a deluge of misfortune, a famine of talent and success as they turned away from the land of the World Series, winding up in the bondage of ineptitude. They wandered, searching to find the promised land for 71 years, escaping the oppression of poor management and indifferent ownership, never losing hope.

Suddenly, a new team arose who knew not the Cubs of the past. Together with new ownership, sabermetric analysis, young talent, and innovative management, the long suffering crew has found its way to back to the World Series, standing on the precipice of the promised land.

By next week, we will all know the outcome of this part of our story, yet to be written. But what we do know is that sure enough, a new baseball season will come next Spring with new opportunities for redemption, renewal, and understanding, just as we have opportunities to find the same in our own hearts during this next year of reading our Torah.

Here’s hoping that the team that taught me to understand the narratives of our people, always striving to return home to the promised land, will have found their Jerusalem. And whether they do or not, as we say at the end of Passover … Next year in the World Series!

—

Rabbi Ari Margolis serves Congregation Or Shalom in Vernon Hills, Illinois.

Categories
Social Justice

Why I Do Not Mourn on Tisha B’Av

Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month Av, is a Jewish day of mourning associated with the Babylonian Destruction of the First Jerusalem Temple in the year 586 BCE. It is also the day when the Second Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. And, it is said, the Jewish expulsion from Spain took place on the 9th of Av, 1492.

I do not observe Tisha B’Av; I do not fast or mourn on that day. Events associated with Tisha B’Av may be considered disasters for some, but, to me, those events all demonstrate the remarkable resiliency of the Jewish people and the historic opportunities that might never have been realized without exile.

This year, I happened to be in Berlin the week of Tisha B’Av, and I found myself visiting the Pergamon Museum — specifically the Gates of Ishtar, the monumental gates to the ancient city of Babylon.

I stood at the Ishtar Gates in the Pergamon Museum. I imagined my ancestors in 586 BCE led into captivity from the modest backwater of Jerusalem, marching their way in the barren desert from the Jordan River to the Euphrates. Suddenly in the distance they saw in the intense sunlight, a brilliant blue, massive structure shimmering and rising out of the sands. They were led along that triumphal processional boulevard lined with walls decorated in brilliantly colored bas relief of mythical wild animals.

These gates were the first things the exiles of Jerusalem 586 BCE must have seen as they entered the great Capitol city of Babylon. Surely they were mourning their fate and doubting their future and the future of their people and faith. They had worshipped the Hebrew God in the Temple of Jerusalem. God “resided,” if you will, in the Holy of Holies built upon the Temple Mount. But all that was destroyed. To the conquered defeated captives it must have seemed that Judaism had come to an end at the hands of the mighty Babylonian army. But Judaism didn’t die. Instead, it was re-born.

Though they were in Exile from Jerusalem, it would be in Babylon that Judaism would undergo one of its earliest creative transformations. They discovered that the personal, tribal God of Judea could be encountered anywhere. God was universal, not limited to one earthly location.

Babylon was where they also developed major concepts of Jewish religion. There, Judaism began the slow transformation from Temple sacrifice to Torah, study, and synagogue. Rabbis and teachers would eventually replace a dynastic system of priests.

I was struck by the idea that here I was, 2,700 years later, standing at the reconstructed ruins of a mighty civilization, the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar. In 586 BCE, one could stand at the mighty Gates of Ishtar and imagine Babylon lasting forever. A Judean exile from destroyed Jerusalem would have been justified to put on sack cloth and ashes and assume that Judaism had come to a dead end. Yet here I was, a rabbi of Judaism, 2,700 years later, representing a vibrant culture and civilization. History allows for irony.

Many destructions and exiles would follow. Tisha B’Av marked the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the exile from Spain in 1492, but in every case, Judaism adapted and responded with creativity and innovation. Eventually the experience of exile brought much of the Jewish world to the shores of America.

The story of American Jewish life is truly remarkable.  There has never been in all history a more vibrant, dynamic, creative Jewish community than this one. This is not just the most prosperous and successful Jewish community, but America itself has achieved much of its own success due to our contributions—and the contributions of all its immigrants over these 600 some years. We have fully adopted the words of Jeremiah: “Seek the well-being of the city of exile. If it prospers, so too will you prosper.”

Exile has brought us to America. With its many flaws, this country has truly been a place of blessing, and, like Abraham, the Jewish people have blessed America with talent, energy, loyalty, and creativity. That is why I do not mourn on Tisha B’Av.

Let me now return to Berlin and the second week in August. I had a specific purpose for being in Germany this summer. A group of fifteen Reform rabbis went on a very short study mission organized by IsraAID, a remarkable organization focusing on disaster relief throughout the world. In Berlin, they are engaged in continuing aid and support for the refugee community and for those who serve them. This is perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our generation.

It was a privilege to get to know the people from IsraAID. They were uniformly young, most under 30. They were Israeli Jews, Palestinian Citizens of Israel, Druze Israelis, Christians, Jews, and Muslims. We met American college kids spending their gap year as volunteers working with IsraAID on programs for the refugees as well as for German children learning about the stories of the exiles. There were some Jews of Berlin and Israelis living in Germany. There was one 85 year old Jewish Holocaust survivor who spends one day a week at a community center teaching German to Syrian children.

IsraAID workers are training others, teaching German, computer skills, helping with job searches, and childcare, offering much needed psychological support for those who have experienced the trauma of war and terrifying escape. We visited a community support center for LGBTQ refugees.

Who were these Syrian refugees? Our assumptions, prejudices, stereotypes were often wrong. Many of them are middle class and educated. Many spoke English or German. Nearly all of them hoped to stay in Germany or Europe. While the Germans hoped the war would end and the Syrians could eventually return back home to the Middle East, most of these exiles wanted to begin a new life. Their greatest desire was to escape the terror and war.

Why do we care? Why would a bunch of young Israelis – Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze – care about Syrian refugees? Why did a group of American Reform rabbis, from throughout the US, care about the refugees? It is our narrative, our story, our memory, our teaching. How do we remember our own past? Why do we remember our past? We were exiles. We were strangers in a strange land. We were outcasts in the Land of Egypt, and in countless lands since then. We remember the plight of exiles, dispossessed, and refugees. We are commanded to fight for the rights of the stranger, to protect the outcast, to provide for the homeless, the landless. We knew Egypt and Babylon, Rome and Spain.

And we must also remember our own experience in America. We know the results of fear and xenophobia which shut the gates to America after WW I and in the early 1920’s, and we are profoundly aware of the tragic consequence when America was not a shelter for the Jews of Europe about to be sent to their death. The arguments that were made then might seem familiar to us today. The echoes resonate in today’s headlines. There were those then who claimed that there might be dangerous spies or terrorists among the refugees from Europe. In the early years they pointed to Emma Goldman among the Jews, or Sacco and Vanzetti for Italians. The anti-immigration forces raised fears of organized crime or Irish terrorists. They said: Lock the gates. Turn inward. America First. In the late 1930’s, Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and Father Charles Coughlin claimed that German spies might be hidden among the Jewish refugees attempting to escape Hitler and the Nazi death machine. They claimed that Jewish refugees were a danger to American security.

We are the children of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel. We trace our roots back to Babylon and Ur and Nahor, Aram Naharaim –the birthplace of Abraham and Sarah. Nahor is today a place where South Eastern Turkey meets Northern Syria. It is the region that today is Aleppo. It is now a place facing destruction, genocide, and death.

We too were wandering Arameans, outcasts and strangers. Let us never forget who we were and what we have been called to do and become…in order to remain partners with God in repairing the brokenness of this world, freeing the captive, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger. Abraham was commanded: “Lech lecha.” Leave Nahor, your land, your birthplace, the land of your fathers, and go to a new land. There I will bless you, and you shall, in turn, be a blessing. Today’s refugees from Nahor, Aleppo, and elsewhere must be rescued, welcomed, and resettled. May they too become a blessing.

—

Rabbi Samuel N. Gordon serves Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette, IL.

Categories
Rabbis spirituality

A Reminder of Some of the Most Important Work We Must Do

As I move more deeply into my third year of working with the CCAR to provide companionship and guidance in the area of self-care, the Yamim provided an opportunity to reflect upon my tremendous gratitude for this privilege and the gifts it brings me every day. Among those – the opportunity eight years after leaving pulpit work to offer something to those of you who continue to shoulder that rich, rewarding and challenging responsibility. I also find myself reflecting upon the toll the work and all that goes with it can take upon us, and how that has played out in the lives of some with whom I have worked since entering into this role with the Conference. One thing that rises clearly for me is the awareness that a primary source of the pain I encounter in some of our colleagues is the result, in no small part, of inner personal work set aside in the face of professional demands, which feel more immediate and – often – overwhelming.

And yet, dear friends, we all know somewhere in our gut that the external work will eventually suffer for inner work not done. Last year I posed to you the question, “What am I doing or should I be doing to set my own spiritual and psychological house in order and to make sure that it is a Sukkot shalom?”.  The last couple of years, sitting with ever more of you, confirm me in the clarity that the cheshbon nefesh in which many of us feel there is no opportunity to engage during the Yamim must, nonetheless, happen – v’im lo achshav, eimatai? If we fail to do it, the apparent security of the structures we have erected in our lives – families, marriages, careers – are at risk of rot and ruin. Those external sukkot are, ultimately, only as strong as the inner sukkah of our souls.

So, once again, I invite you into conversation. This can come about through the possibility of one-on-one work in short-term spiritual direction or counseling or through participation in offerings I coming forth over the course of the next year, such as the online Mindfulness Class beginning October 26th. As we head into this Shabbat Sukkot, we remember the oft-told tale of Zusya, lamenting the fact that he wasn’t Moses. Neither are we, and if even Moses couldn’t do it alone, as we read in the parashah this Shabbat, how can we hope to do so. We need those quiet moments, to be sheltered in the sukkah of the cleft of that rock, to hear and feel the message of companionship and support which is a manifestation of Holiness in our lives. It will be my honor to share such moments with you. Hoping to hear this year from many of you, I wish all of you a joyous, healthy and fulfilling 5777 in which you are able to set free sparks of holiness and healing for all, Mo’adim l’simchah and Shabbat shalom.

—

Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, LSW is the CCAR Special Advisor for Member Care and Wellness, providing short-term counseling or spiritual direction to rabbis in need. He can be reached at rperlmeter@ccarnet.org or 410-207-1700.  Rex will be leading “Building a Jewish Mindfulness Practice” webinar series with CCAR, starting Wednesday, October 26 — sign up now!

Categories
Social Justice

T’shuvah in an Age of Mass-Incarceration: The Radical Possibility of True Return

Now that we have confessed our sins and beaten our chests, I propose that we, as a movement, act. Let us bring true t’shuvah into this world.

In an age of mass incarceration, in which a definable group of people, many of whom are the descendants of former slaves, live in a state of non-freedom, our belief that people can change, strive for blessing, and engage in t’shuvah is not just counter-cultural, but downright radical. When we deny someone, especially a young person, the opportunity to grow and perform t’shuvah, we not only deny that person a future, but deny our country limitless amounts of potential as well.

Throughout the year, but especially now, individually and collectively, we are pushed to take stock of our souls, to account for our sins. We are counseled to both ask for and give forgiveness, to turn back and right ourselves on a path of justice and embrace those who have returned to walk with us.

In his work, the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides outlines the process of t’shuvah as one of repentance, confession, and return. When an individual engages in the work of t’shuvah, Maimonides writes, he or she not only recognizes and seeks forgiveness for wrongdoing, but also examines, interrogates, and erases the very impulses from which the wrongdoing emerged. When confronted with the same situation again, therefore, the sin no longer arises, and the path of return is set.

Where could we, as a society, apply Maimonides concept of t’shuvah? What would notions of guilt and punishment look like in a criminal justice system founded on the possibility of return? The Rabbis of the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin address these questions through imagining a world in which t’shuvah rewrites and informs biblical notions of justice in the case of the ben sorer u’moreh, the stubborn and rebellious son.

Outlined in chapter 21 of Deuteronomy, the case of the ben sorer u’moreh features a swift and exacting punishment for a son who refuses to listen to his parents. In just four verses, this young man is condemned to death by stoning, and executed before the entire community.

Hundreds of years later, the Rabbis of tractate Sanhedrin take on the case of the ben sorer u’moreh, questioning both the logic and outcome of the biblical narrative. Noting the age of the boy, the lack of any judicial process, the role of the parents in the case, and the exact nature of the crime, the Rabbis determine that this case never actually happened – no one could be condemned to death in just four verses. Why, then, the text asks, do we read about this boy?

The objections raised by the Rabbis in the case of the ben sorer u’moreh have much to teach us on the topic of t’shuvah. One of these objections, in particular, caught my eye. One Rabbi offers the possibility that he was executed at such a tender age to prevent future wrongdoing, so that he could die an innocent man. This explanation, too, however, is rejected – we cannot judge a person based on his future deeds, there exists always the possibility for t’shuvah.

In many ways, there is no possibility for movement, personal-growth, blessing, repentance, and return in our criminal justice system – as a society, we execute the ben sorer u’moreh: we sentence the child to death before giving him a chance to repent and return. For the past few months, I have been teaching a course at Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex, to ten men who are incarcerated at one of the facilities on the island. Together, we have been learning about the criminal justice system, and reading the book, The New Jim Crow. These men, my partners in learning, have opened my eyes to the many ways in which true repentance and return for them is almost impossible. How can we welcome back those in need of healing and return? How can we, like the Rabbis of tractate Sanhedrin, recognize the potential of the ben sorer u’moreh.

In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander argues that the system of mass incarceration thriving in our country today works to create an under-caste in our society; a group of people largely composed of men of color who are subject to, “a lifetime of shame, contempt, scorn, and exclusion. In this hidden world,” she writes, “discrimination is perfectly legal” (142).  Even for a first-time, non-violent offender, someone who may not even spend time in prison, the result of a conviction could mean the loss of, “federally-funded health and welfare benefits, food stamps, public housing, and federal education assistance…if he is convicted of another crime, he may be subject to imprisonment as a repeat offender. He will not be permitted to enlist in the military, or posses a firearm, or obtain federal security clearance. If a citizen, he may lose the right to vote; if not, he becomes immediately deportable” (143).

When we, as a Jewish people, engage in t’shuvah and believe in our ability to remap the impulses imprinted at the very core of our beings, we open up the possibility for others to do the same. We are a people who take our souls into account, who grow and forgive, fall off the path and welcome those who have returned with us. But is this enough?  What if every congregation in America committed to hiring someone who had been incarcerated for a non-violent crime?

Now that we have confessed our sins and beaten our chests, I propose that we, as a movement, act. Let us bring true t’shuvah into this world.

 —

Hilly Haber is a third-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in NYC. Originally from New York, Hilly has a Masters of Theological Study from Harvard Divinity School and has worked in temples from Boston to Boulder.  Hilly is a rabbinic intern at the Central Conference of American Rabbis and is teaching at Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex.

 

 

Categories
Holiday Reform Judaism spirituality Torah

When Torah Becomes “Mine”

That look in their eyes when, for the first time in their lives, Torah is placed in their arms, is precious.

In that moment, they realize that they are cradling the Jewish story. They recognize that what was once at arm’s length, is now quite literally in their arms. They become Moses or Miriam, or Michael or Mandy, standing again at Mt. Sinai, receiving Judaism’s most sacred text.

Each year on Simchat Torah, it happens.

After we unroll the entire Torah scroll around the sanctuary.

After we read the end of Deuteronomy.

After we review the five books of our people, highlighting the most poignant stories and Torah’s most abiding Jewish values.

After we return to the beginning again to read the opening words of Genesis.

Then, the celebration of Torah leads to Kabbalat Torah, the receiving of the gift of Torah: Those priceless moments when someone holds Torah from the first time and finds herself right there in shalshelet hakabbalah, the unbroken chain of transmission of Torah.

Sometimes it is an older woman whose synagogue back then did not allow girls to become bat mitzvah. Or an Israeli secularist who once saw Torah as the province of only an entrenched Orthodox political establishment. Or a college student coming back to Judaism after dropping out too early. Or poignantly a Holocaust survivor who missed out on receiving Torah before the world darkened around him. Or a Jew by choice choosing to embrace a new people. Or a ger toshav, a non-Jew who has dedicated her life to raising their children in the Jewish faith. Or the multicultural Jew whose skin color once made her feel unwelcome in the synagogue. Or the older gay man who for the longest time thought he was written out of the story.

For each of them, the progression – so delicious – is similar. Always, it reaffirms the power and poignancy of our most sacred Jewish text.

First comes the worry, a split second of terror: Am I holding it right? Will I be the one to drop it? What happens if I drop it?

Then comes a reassuring sense of calm: I’ve got this. I can hold this. I am doing this.

Then the amazement: I have Torah in my arms. I am holding Torah. Me.

Then the dancing: Look at me. Torah and me. Together. As one. I am part of its story. And it’s story is part of me.

Round and round the Torah goes, in and out of the circle of dancers. In and out of the arms of the community. In and out of the lives of its adherents.

Some might come back for Torah study. Some might disappear until next Simchat Torah. But all leave refreshed and renewed, having once again stood at Sinai and received the Torah.

Some love the unrolling of Torah. Others value the return to the beginning. But me? I love those moments when the public becomes the personal and for yet another person Torah becomes “mine.”

—

Rabbi Paul Kipnes is Vice President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and serves Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, California.

Categories
High Holy Days Rabbis

Yom Kippur and Hurricane Mathew: What is Normal?

When one is forced to abandon one’s home due to a hurricane or a natural disaster, it feels strange to walk around another community trying to be normal, engage in normal looking activities like eating in a restaurant, or engaging in normal pleasant conversation when seeing other evacuees from one’s congregation. It is almost surreal to inhabit the world of another town while all along one is thinking about what is going on in our community. What is happening to our house or the congregational facility we cherish? Congregational rabbis make themselves available to their congregants in their time of need, and especially if there is an unusual event. Yet, a hurricane?

For me this Yom Kippur was unusual to put it mildly. As a result of Hurricane Mathew, we in Hilton Head, SC had to leave our homes behind and find alternative accommodations in a short period of time. My congregants spread out throughout the region from Charlotte to Atlanta. Our family traveled first to Aiken and then settled down in Augusta, Ga. At first I happily ran into our congregant friends in Aiken, but when we settled into the larger city of Augusta we felt we were on our own.

Of course, we kept in touch with congregants through social media. At first it was nice to see many pictures of folks enjoying themselves and touring the places they visited. We did that too. Yet, as Mathew rolled into the low country and into Hilton Head, I suddenly realized that all our plans and anticipation for Yom Kippur were going up like dust in the wind during an Israeli Chamsin. Yes, I was concerned about our house and our congregants as I received many calls, emails and texts from congregants who were contending with all sorts of issues. I was grateful to receive calls from local and regional colleagues, assuring us that there would be room for my congregants at their Yom Kippur services. I spoke to some colleagues who had experience with Hurricane Sandy, and with other colleagues who were dealing with Hurricane Matthew as well, and I am totally grateful to the colleagues who took the time to reach out to me and offer assistance. I am also grateful to the CCAR, Dan Medwin in particular, who helped with providing technological advice to live stream our services in Augusta, GA.

The truth is that throughout the weekend I was not ready to admit that we would not be in Hilton Head for Yom Kippur. First I contacted our colleague Rabbi Shia at Children of Israel in Augusta for Shabbat Services. We had a great experience and were welcomed by him and the congregation. Even then I felt we would be able to return home. Saturday night we had dinner with our colleague Rabbi Rachael Bregman and a few evacuees from Savannah. I started to feel optimistic again. The Hurricane, I wrongly believed, would veer off to the Atlantic and we would have a light brush of intense wind and rain and that would be the end of it. Not so. Man makes plans and God laughs, the Yiddish adage goes.

By Monday I could see that reports were that the hurricane would run over Hilton Head with a vengeance. Oh how it did. Rabbi Shia invited us to services and his president had us and some of our leadership over to her house for dinner before Kol Nidrei. Shia invited me to sit on the bimah with him and deliver a few remarks. This was the first time I had not been on a bima as officiant for Yom Kippur since I was ordained in 1984. I sat there for Kol Nidrei and spoke to the congregation. Shia provided me with an extra kittel and tallit. He was the most gracious colleague one could ask for in this difficult time. A group of my congregants who evacuated to Augusta showed up and I felt that familiar surge of joy and happiness. I left with a good feeling even though I missed doing my thing as I would always do on Yom Kippur. Sure, I missed all the congregants I have come to know and love. There was an emptiness in my heart, even though I was relieved no injuries had been reported from our congregants, and that was the most important thing. I received pictures of the trees falling down on my house. The Temple was in good shape. I prayed to God on Kol Nidrei to give me the strength to keep my cool, my sense of humor, and to remain optimistic.

Yom Kippur morning was a different story. A group of 200 folks from an independent living center in my community, Tide Pointe, were taken to a hotel in downtown Augusta. We have about 10 or so Jewish seniors there and so after meeting with them we decided to have a service for them.

Wednesday morning: We went over to the Ramada Inn to conduct a small service. I promised the attendees that I would give them an abbreviated service from shacharit to Neilah in one hour. The seniors were grateful and appreciative. We talked about their feelings regarding being relocated.  I have to say that I enjoyed doing the service for them. Yes, it was a real mitzvah and I know it was holy work. I felt good about it. Again these are not normal times. Something told me that I needed them more than they needed me.

Nor was this a normal Yom Kippur. We returned to Children of Israel in Augusta for Neilah. There we were sitting in the back row: very weird for me to sit there instead of being on the bimah. The rabbi did a fine job and with joy and celebration the congregation danced in the sanctuary. We ended the service and went to into the social hall for a break the fast meal.

The folks in this congregation were fantastic and I think we made some new friends. I’m concerned like everyone else about my own house and the trees on our homes or on the ground. My mother always says, “This too shall pass.”

I am anxious to deal with the house issues and get the process of removal and clean up underway. I want to be there for my congregants and help them in any way I can. I want to be on my own bimah to show that life goes on and we as a community will rebuild brick and mortar, and our spirits too. This is what we do as rabbis in congregations. The truth is that I felt highs and lows helping my congregants this time and I know that the long term effects of this hurricane are yet to be felt. We as a community, not just at Beth Yam, Hilton Head but the entire low country needs hope and healing.

From strength to strength I have faith we will fashion a recovery of the material and the spiritual in which we will emerge a more united community in the long term.

—

Rabbi Brad L. Bloom, MSW DD, serves Congregation Beth Yam in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Categories
Holiday

The Lulav and Jewish Unity

We hold the four species of the lulav together, as we wave them in every direction, symbolizing that all Jews – indeed, all humanity – must be united if God is properly to be praised. Nevertheless, I’ve never resonated to the specifics of the midrash in Vayikra Rabbah, detailing the four types of Jews which the species are said to represent: the etrog, with taste and smell, representing Jews who study Torah and perform mitzvot; the palm branch, with taste but no smell, symbolizing those who study Torah but do not practice what they’ve learned; the myrtle, with good smell but no taste, symbolizing those who perform mitzvot but are not learned in Torah; and the willow, with neither taste nor smell, symbolizing those who lack both learning and Jewish observance.

Let me suggest an alternative.

Perhaps the etrog represents those who participate actively in Jewish worship, study, and performance of mitzvot as well as the stewardship of the Jewish community. The palm, then, might stand for those who practice Judaism actively but aren’t engaged in the business of the synagogue or other Jewish institutions. The myrtle would symbolize Jews who give their time to Jewish communal governance but don’t often worship, study, or observe the mitzvot.

Dan Hotchkiss, author of Governance and Ministry, writes about a woman who has participated in building perhaps more Habitat for Humanity homes than any other volunteer. However, she has never attended a committee meeting. She wants to do the good work; governance doesn’t interest her. The converse is true of others, though they may engage in at least token volunteer work in Habitat’s service. The mistake we make, Hotchkiss teaches, is that we often ask people to be on committees, then frustrate them with unclear expectations: People who are eager to do the work end up being asked to make decisions, and vice versa. The palm branch and myrtle remind us that different Jews prefer engagement in different aspects of our community, and that we should embrace both.

But what of the willow, that symbol with neither taste nor smell? Which Jews does it represent? Each congregation I have served is blessed, and I do mean “blessed,” with more than a few “willows,” members who are neither eager to practice Judaism actively nor be involved in governance. Active congregants sometimes speak of these folks derisively, emphasizing that they attend “twice a year,” if ever. I, on the other hand, see these “willows” differently. Yes, I’m eager to find ways to engage everyone in Jewish life. Still, I am grateful for the “willows” who haven’t totally disengaged from the community, who stand up and let themselves be counted as Jews – and, in the case of the congregations I have served, continue to pay their annual financial commitments faithfully, even as they rarely “take advantage” of the “privileges of membership.”

On this Sukkot, let us rejoice in every Jew in our midst, appreciating even the “willows,” as we embrace members of the Jewish community of every proclivity. May we all pull together, appreciating one another, rejoicing that we do band together in diverse ways to serve the Holy One of Blessing.

—

Rabbi Barry Block serves serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Categories
Books gender equality LGBT Social Justice

On the Shoulders of Revolutionaries: Queering Jewish Texts and Reform Ritual

As a child, I could see myself becoming a rabbi. And now, as a queer rabbinic student, I can envision myself echoing the call of women rabbis who demanded to see themselves in tradition.

Queer readings of Jewish texts are liberating – they explode traditional categories of classification and rigid ways of thinking.  Rather than pushing readers toward clear cut understandings of biblical figures, aggadic material, and Jewish law, queer analyses of texts open up and shed light on multiple truths and ways of being in relationship to Jewish ritual and values. I believe that one feature of any sacred text is its ability to capture and say something about the human condition. Understanding a text through a queer lens has the power to not only locate universal human truths, but also to amplify these sacred elements, allowing us to see themes and characters as constantly changing. In opening texts to new meanings, we as people then have the permission and power to understand ourselves as constantly changing, traversing borders, and breaking down barriers. Queer theory also pushes us to challenge the binary nature of labels like, “sacred and profane,” acknowledging that the line between such categories is constantly shifting and permeable. When the boundary between sacred and profane is understood in this way, the brokenness and injustices of our world can become sites of sacred work, partnership, and healing.

While there are many scholars, clergy people, and Jewish organizations engaged in the project of queering Jewish space and text, I would argue that the power and full force of this work has not yet been incorporated into many Reform congregations. How would a “queering” of Jewish space look in mainstream Reform Judaism? Perhaps it would challenge our, often, hierarchical leadership structures, open up the possibility for new rituals in our congregational life, or push us to embrace and name every aspect of the human experience, like anxiety, joy, anger, and frustration in our worship. What would it mean for our congregations if gender was experienced not as a set of defined behaviors, but a fluid and ever changing category? Would there still be a brotherhood poker night? Or a sisterhood fashion show? When we free ourselves and our children from expectations of behavior based on constructed categories like gender, we open ourselves up to new understandings of proximity, social change, and justice – we understand that boundaries and borders set between people only grow wider and stronger when we refuse to cross them.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of celebrating the release of The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate at HUC-JIR in New York City. As part of this celebration, Rabbi David Adelson, Dean of the New York campus, moderated a panel discussion between three women whose rabbinates represent the influence of women on the American Jewish landscape. Addressing the packed chapel, Rabbis Sally J. Priesand, Rebecca Einstein Schorr, and Leah Berkowitz spoke about their experiences confronting and breaking open barriers as female clergy members. The powerful testimony of each rabbi made clear both the tremendous strides the reform movement has taken toward gender equality since Sally Priesand’s ordination in 1972, and the groundbreaking work female rabbis continue to do in teaching us new ways of being in the world.

As a female, third-year rabbinic student at HUC-JIR, I am a direct beneficiary of this work. Listening to these women share pieces of their respective rabbinic journeys, I could not help but feel tremendous gratitude for my ability to walk along their well-trodden paths. Growing up, watching Rabbi Leah Cohen, the rabbi of my home congregation, in action every Shabbat, it was never hard for me to imagine myself on the bimah or to see myself entering the rabbinate. When I applied to HUC-JIR, I didn’t see my application as an act of daring or courage, but rather the fulfillment of my childhood dream. But there is more to this story. Women rabbis have not just opened the door for young girls to see themselves in positions of Jewish leadership; they have also fundamentally infused the role and identity of the rabbi with endless possibility. As a child, I could see myself becoming a rabbi. And now, as a queer rabbinic student, I can envision myself echoing the call of women rabbis who demanded to see themselves in tradition. In creating and opening up new models of religious leadership, women rabbis have sewn the seeds for other forms of non-traditional engagement with Jewish texts and ritual, the harvest of which is in full-bloom.

Like Moses, Miriam, Jacob, the levitical priest, Judah the Prince, and countless other figures and innovators of our tradition – we have the power to cross boundaries, re-imagine ourselves, and to demand relevance and blessing from our tradition – to queer notions of identity and meaning in this world.

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Hilly Haber is a third-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in NYC. Originally from New York, Hilly has a Masters of Theological Study from Harvard Divinity School and has worked in temples from Boston to Boulder.  Hilly is a rabbinic intern at the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Social Justice

We Stand Here This Day: This is Our Time, This is Our Vote

I am a rabbi, I am a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a faithful friend, and a human being. These are blessed gifts in my life in relationship to others. Celebrating another New Year in the Hebrew calendar, I am cognizant of our fleeting days, and the gross unfaithfulness and ungracefulness with which human beings squander relationships in this gift of life, and the malice that marks much of human relations.

I am a leader in interfaith relationships in my community, I am a social justice advocate, and I am a member of the NC NAACP, in faithful partnership with my congregation Temple Beth Or, and with Judaism’s Reform Movement: issue by issue, march by march, hand in hand. During the precipice of the New Year, as Jews are turning in introspection, examining our lives, realigning our values with our faith, these Days of Awe call for highly personal reflection of our own lives in relationship with the discord of our times, and specifically with the racial injustice that pervades American culture.

My heart aches at the anguish of police shootings of Black men, from Tulsa to Charlotte, from California, to Baltimore. My heart aches from the abject prejudice that confronts Americans of color and affronts their freedom as citizens of the United States.

As a rabbi, as a Jew, I know what it is like to have my synagogue, and even my own life threatened. I have lived through weeks where my children were followed by police at their public schools because of the threats to my family. But in reality, I know nothing of the heartache of people of color. When the threats to my family subsided, in a short time, my children were back to their care free life.  A flash in the pan compared to those who have to worry daily: will one of my own be the next Keith Scott, or Michael Brown?

I ask for forgiveness during this Jewish season of repentance: on my behalf, on behalf of my community, and on behalf of the United States. No matter how many marches we have marched together, Jews and Blacks, together for justice, I have not been there to march the Black children of my community to school each day, where the police arrest as many young Black children, as they guard against harm, like they did my children.

In Jewish tradition, true repentance requires that one asks forgiveness, and then turns to a new path that will not lead one back to those sins of yesterday. The Torah reading for Yom Kippur called Nitzavim incorporates that idea by laying out the new path and committing the entire community to walk toward a better world.

In Deuteronomy the inclusive words speak so poignantly for the Israelites of old and for us today: Atem nitzavim hayom, kol chem lifnei Adonai Eloheichem. You are standing here today, all of you before the Lord your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the people of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God.” (Deut 29:9-11)

What do we make of the detail of this Hebrew scripture, notoriously known for being terse? Wouldn’t it have been enough to say: “All of you are standing here before God?” But, the text names everyone from the leaders, to the children, to the stranger, and then specifically the woodchopper and the water drawer. It is an all-inclusive teaching straight from the Bible. If you might think that it is up to the clergy to keep the covenant and do the hard work, you are mistaken. The parallelism in the text starting with the leaders and ending with the woodchopper and water drawer shouts out that there is no division or classism in God’s society. Everyone is responsible. Everyone is accountable.

And lest we think this is an ancient teaching for ancient days listen to what Deuteronomy instructs a couple of verses later: “It is not with you alone who I make this covenant, it is for those standing here this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day.” (Deut 29:14) This idea, the very basis of democratic society for all peoples and all backgrounds, is given for all time. It is not only for those who heard those words that day. It is for every successive generation of humanity. We all stand as equals before God, and we all stand as equals in the covenant to honor God’s world.

The classism, the racism, the ethnocentric partitions, those are the false classifications that oppressive cultures create because they do not understand these words from the scripture. “We are standing here this day:” “This is our time, this is our vote.”  Nitzavim instructs us to claim democracy, equal rights for every citizen, undaunted by the road blocks that others construct along the way.

We know those road blocks all too well. We know them from history, and we know them from the story of the North Carolina legislature and governor who enacted the most comprehensive voter suppression laws in the country just days after the Supreme Court stripped parts of the Voter Rights Act saying that the provisions for preclearance need to be updated by the Federal government. While the Federal government has not taken one step to reauthorize the Voters Rights Act, North Carolina has led the way in eradicating the protections the Voter Rights Act used to provide.

Even so, even with preclearance gone, even without the Voter Rights Act protections, the racist, voter suppression laws of North Carolina, have been struck down again and again in court. Nevertheless, North Carolina’s governor and legislators still don’t understand that democracy means every citizen has the right to unfettered access to the polls. We have fewer and fewer polling places, in every county in North Carolina, because one political party chair instructed the partisan voting commissioners in each county to specifically limit access for African Americans. He says this is not racist policy, it is only because African Americans don’t vote for his party. These words are a contradiction in terms. Someone tweet Webster’s and tell them North Carolina has the ultimate example of the definition of racism to add to their dictionary. Instructions like these go to the heart of voter suppression. They divide citizens out on the basis of oppressive, class-based, society; rather than expansively opening our democracy to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Lest we still not understand the teaching the scripture reiterates: “Surely this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day in not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens, that you say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you say, “Who shall cross the sea and get it for us and impart it to us…. No the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to observe it.” (Deut 30: 11-13).

Is not that the very principal that undergirds American democracy, that all of us are responsible for the leadership of our country?! Each one of us has a voice and a vote. And each one of us has a responsibility to uphold our democracy. It is not enough to decry the oppression of the other and say I cannot do anything about it, because they have all the control. No citizen should be bullied into believing that voting is beyond their reach.

The politics of fear that pervades our country today cannot define us or sway our standards. Bullying and fear are powerful motivators. In Maslow’s theory of human needs, if one cannot get beyond fears for basic security, there is no hope for relationship and meaning in life. That fear is hijacking the core values of humanity and democracy.

We cannot give in to it. For, there is a force greater than fear. There is a force that fuels relationships rather than foments mistrust. There is a force that unites, even in the face of the weightiest of dangers.

That force is what gets us out of bed each day. It is how we put one foot in front of another, and how we summons the courage to move forward even in the face of grave evil. That force is faith, faith in God, and faith in the image of God planted in every human being.

We can, every one of us, assure voting rights for every American. We can update our own and members of our community’s voter registration to match changes of address, names, or other pertinent information. We can register new voters, who have been discouraged from registering and participating in our democracy. We can help voters get absentee ballots and turn them in. We can assist with transportation to the polls. We can educate the community and teach them that this thing “is not in the heavens or across the sea, it is in their mouth and their heart to observe it.”

We cannot sit by and wait for the courts to throw out more laws while the election is right before us. To do nothing, to remain indifferent is not an option. We have an obligation to act to transform our democracy and define once and for all that voting rights are for everyone: from the leaders, the stock brokers, and the executives; to those breaking their back for an inadequate minimum wage, to the infirmed, to those buried in college debt, the elderly, and the homeless, to people of color, to Muslims, to new citizens and old. Voter rights are for Blacks and Latinos, from young adults to seniors, the disabled, to the multi-millionaire. We cannot and will not accept the classism and racism that divides and oppresses Americans and pits us against one another.

How do we bring about the reforms our government needs to replace racism and classism with a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

Register voters.

How do we enact the laws needed for reform and transparency in police departments across the US?

Register voters.

How do we work for a livable minimum wage in every job?

Register voters.

And, that’s not all. When they are registered, our work will have just begun. Then we have to get them to the polls.

So, how are we going to replace the most racist voter suppression laws in America?

Get them to the polls.

How are we going to eradicate the racism in our judicial system, that incarcerates African Americans at six times the rate of whites.  (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP. Retrieved 2014-04-08.)

Get them to the polls.

How do we provide equal educational opportunity for all youth, rich and poor, black, and white?

Get them to the polls.

How do we get the government out of our bathrooms and repeal HB 2, and anti-LGBT laws across the land?

Get them to the polls.

Centuries ago Rav Nachum of Bratzlav taught in a time fraught with its own fear and destruction:  Kol ha olam kulo geshser tzar meod, v’haikar lo l’faked ba.

“The whole world is one narrow bridge, and the key, the important thing is not to be afraid.”

There will always be forces trying to hold down the Black community, or the Jewish community, or the LGBT community, or Muslims, or atheists, and all of the above plus more. The blessing that we have in our communities of faith is that we do not have to face that narrow bridge alone. When we put our hands in the hands of our brothers and sisters, when we lift our voices together, we cross that narrow bridge. We unite to fulfill the covenant of democracy. We stand together the leaders and the water carriers, crossing that narrow bridge. It is not in the heavens or across the sea. The covenant is right here before us in our mouths and in our hearts. We will conquer xenophobia and the fomenting of fear; and replace it with true democracy, where every person has a voice and a vote.

Let us stand here today, every one of us, standing with and for all humanity. This is our time; this is our vote.

—

Rabbi Lucy H.F. Dinner serves Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Categories
High Holy Days Social Justice

How Can We Sleep?

Rabbi Seth Limmer

It was my grandmother who asked me, “Why do rabbis always talk about Jonah on Yom Kippur? Can’t they think of some other subject?”  This year, I can’t help but think that my grandmother’s question will eerily parallel that asked by so many sitting in the sanctuaries of our Reform synagogues: Why is my rabbi always talking about racism? Can’t rabbis think of some other subject?

Jonah is ineluctable: he waits for us in the recesses of our afternoon liturgy, hiding in the plain sight of our assigned haftarah.  We could no more escape talking about the reluctant prophet than could the selfsame prophet escape the Divine command to go to Nineveh.  It makes no difference how majestic are our High Holy Day sermons, how compelling or complex are the main messages we fashion over months, how emotionally exhausted and spiritually spent we might be by minchah: we must confront the Son of Ammitai before the Gates of Repentance close.  Weeping may tarry for the night, and joy arrive in the morning, but Jonah is always awaiting us in the afternoon.

Racism is as unavoidable in America as is Jonah in our High Holy Day experience.  Hammering headlines assault us with brutal facts: the police killings of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa; a presidential candidate advocating nationwide adoption of stop-and-frisk tactics; the unabated gun violence in my city of Chicago.  No engaged citizen can avoid the American truth that we do not live in a society of equal justice for all: the only way to continue the pretense of living in a colorblind culture is to bury one’s head in the sand.  The lingering legacy of centuries of institutionalized injustice and systematic prejudice is laid bare before us each day in every news outlet in any city or suburb where we make our homes.  No one with eyes open can avoid confronting America’s racial injustices.

Unfortunately, many rabbis think we can—or maybe should—avoid speaking of the plague of racism this High Holy Day season.  We reason that the more we speak of a single subject, the less congregants are likely to listen.  For those of us who addressed these issues last year, we fear being labeled a ‘one trick pony’, or accused of speaking to social issues at the expense of tending to our flock.  Since racial justice—unlike Jonah—isn’t waiting for us in our fixed liturgy, we imagine we might be able to avoid this difficult subject.  That Jews of Color are still the minority in our own houses of worship allows us to feel as if this is not really “our issue”, and we would be better served leaving it to others. The tragedy of the worldwide refugee situation, the uncivility of our presidential election, and the many issues connected to Israel provide us with a panoply of other topics about which to talk.  Each and every one of us could make it through Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur without ever facing the difficulties attached to speaking about race.

Jonah, too, thinks he can avoid all difficulty.  He runs from his Divine charge, and amidst a tempest salts himself away in slumber.  The storm raged outside: everyone felt its wrath, but Jonah chose to ignore it.  But burying himself below deck cannot last: How can you sleep! Our captain, our tradition, challenge Jonah: How can you sleep?  Rashi takes these words to chastise, “This is no time for sleep!”  Isaac Abarbanel deepens the astonishment at the blind eye Jonah turns to the raging sea, “Do you not understand the difficulty of this moment, and sense the great danger we all face?”  The book that bears Jonah’s name summons Jonah to pay attention, to address the turbulent seas on which he sails.  The haftarah we read in the tiring hours of Yom Kippur afternoon reminds us we cannot sleep soundly in our cabins and ignore the raging storms of society.

The message of Jonah is that we all need to be awakened.  Or, as some might say today, we all need to be woke.  This is a true for exhausted clergy in the twentieth hour of the fast as it is for a congregation worn out with continuing reminders of our responsibility to counter the raging storm of racism in America.  As much as we are coerced to confront this challenging issue, let us take our direction in so doing from the story of our sailors.  They move from asking Jonah, “What have you done?” to looking for concrete solutions: what can we do?  This year, amid the tempestuous season of protests and outrage, may we be moved from delineating the origins of our situation to outlining solutions to end structural racism in America.  May we continue to do so with the great partners of our Reform Movement, and may we continue to build relationships with partners across the lines of faith, class and color until the seas around us subside.  May we, whether weary in our pulpits or in our pews, remain awake and attentive to racial injustice.  May we, in moving from examination and understanding to solidarity and solutions, play our part in bringing calm to America’s shores.

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Rabbi Seth Limmer serves Chicago Sinai Congregation.  He is also the Chair of the CCAR Justice, Peace & Civil Liberties Committee.