Categories
Rabbis

The Road Not Taken

I grew up in a loving Orthodox family in Boston.  When I was 9 years old, my world changed.  I was playing in the streets with an African-American friend at my grandparents’ home in Roxbury.  Someone came running down the street, shouting racial slurs in filthy language against my friend.   Scared, I ran into my grandparents’s house.  My father took off after the person.

At 9, I knew something was wrong in the world.  I didn’t discern it all.  I went to my Rabbi.  After I left him, I decided I wanted to become a Rabbi and do something with my life to overcome hatred and prejudice.

At 13, I tried with a lifeguard to save a 9-year old from drowning in Maine.  After he was rushed to the hospital, he was pronounced dead.  One of the doctors said to me, “Don’t worry, God wanted another young person up there.”  Right then, I stopped believing in God.  In time, I came to believe in Godliness is how we treat one another.  The only option for me was to become a Reform Liberal Rabbi, the best decision of my life.

In the 1960s, I was drawn to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Jesse Jackson.  I opposed the Vietnam War and marched with them.  I was drawn to suffering and those who had virtually no voice.  I went to Moscow to meet, assist, and sponsor Soviet Jews.

When I served in Miami as an assistant Rabbi, I met with gay individuals and preached a sermon in 1968, ” The Jewish Community and the Homosexual ”  It opened a door, though there were many threats against the sermon.  I have never stopped passionately supporting the LGBT community.

When Saigon fell, I traveled to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and met with refugees.  Rabbi Erwin Herman and I traveled with Vice President Walter Mondale to Geneva to assist with Vietnamese refugee resettlement.  The Boat People became our people.  Our own Boat People were on the St. Louis.  We went to Camp Pendleton, where I took in a family to my home.  We resettled 13 families at Temple Judea in Tarzana.  Rabbi Herman and I, with the support of Rabbi Alex Schindler and the UHAC, traveled the country to meet with our colleagues and assist them in resettling Vietnamese refugees in our Reform Congregation.

I traveled with Reverend Jesse Jackson, joining him in his quest for greater involvement in civil rights and human rights.  I joined him to speak at the 25th memorial service in Philadelphia, Mississippi in memory of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.  I traveled throughout the Middle East with Rev. Jackson, meeting with Yasser Arafat, Bashar al-Assad, and leaders of Israel and Lebanon supporting peace efforts.  Our interfaith group went to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to meet with Slobodan Milosevic to free the 3 American POWs.  We brought them home.  Our interfaith work continues, more important today than ever as Muslims, Sikhs, and other communities are the target of hatred in America.

The road not taken.  Being ordained a Rabbi 50 years ago has opened my world as a passionate, liberal Jew to make a difference.  I am blessed to have been a dreamer and realized those dreams as a Rabbi.  Never could I have imagined a life that has so fulfilled me.  No other profession could have prepared me to travel on the Road Not Taken.  The journey continues.

Today, I pursue my civil rights and human rights work with my wife, California State Controller Betty Yee, in pursuit of economic equality for all.

I thank the Hebrew Union College, Temple Israel of Greater Miami, Temple Judea in Tarzana, Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills, and my teachers, students, and colleagues.

—

Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs is celebrating 50 years in the reform rabbinate.

Categories
News

Reflections from Rabbi Ferenc Raj

It has been my destiny to always serve congregations in cities and towns that start with the letter “B”:  Budapest, Hungary; Brooklyn, New York; Belmont, Massachusetts; and Berkeley, California.

In Budapest, under Communism I learned perseverance, and that it is our duty to always pursue justice even if there are personal risks. I came to realize that learning is a gift no one can take away from you and that we must always follow our dreams. And I learned by its absence, the great importance of freedom.

In Brooklyn I learned that even in a free society not all are treated equally and that it is incumbent upon us to stand up for the oppressed.  It was in Brooklyn that I began the journey of becoming an American Rabbi while still remaining true to myself and to my European heritage. I also learned that freedom of religion brings its own challenges; when asked: “What is your religion?” one can choose “none” as the answer.

While I was not free in Budapest, I was still able to enjoy freedom of spirit. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists could take away my spirit, my love of learning and teaching, my faith in God and in the future of the Jewish people.  In Brooklyn, I was able to teach, guide and inspire both young and old as we faced together the challenges of assimilation in America that still threaten the continuation of our religion.

In Belmont I found my own Rabbi, Earl Grollman, the Rabbi Emeritus of the congregation.  He became my close friend and confidant.  Earl lovingly taught me about crisis management, death and dying, and bereavement counseling.  How often, as I comforted my congregants and friends, Earl’s words have echoed in my mind: “Never say to a person who comes to you to share his or her burdens: ‘I know how you feel’, because you don’t.”

In Berkeley I was given the greatest gift: complete rabbinical freedom that allowed me to be myself.  The congregation supported me in my decision to complete my PhD dissertation and gave me the time to do it.  Nowhere else have I witnessed such hard working lay leaders and staff.  Nowhere else have I seen such deep commitment to social action. Nowhere else have I seen such dedication to study, to community, to our people and to our faith.

We rabbis are teachers whose ultimate task is to teach by example. These are the questions that each of us should ask ourselves: Do I only say the words or do I live by them?  Is my life truly guided by Torah?

In the Book of Isaiah, we read God’s words:  Anokhi, anokhi hu m’nachemchem…. I, I am the one who comforts you.  What can we learn from the repetition?  Scholars have interpreted it to indicate that we each possess a public “I” and a private “I.”  If we are sincere, these two personas are in unison.   It is our task to be able to bring our “two selves” into alignment with one another and with God’s hopes for us.  We must ask ourselves if what we say, in other words our public image, is in concert with what we do, our private self?  How often I talk about loving God, Torah and Israel and of living a life of mitzvot.  Anokhi, anokhi… Is my life imbued with reverence for the Blessed Holy One?  Do I perform the mitzvot or do I merely tell others to do so?  Are Rabbi Ferenc and the man Ferenc Raj one and the same?  In all my 4 “Bs” I have striven to be a role model and as I look forward, I hope God will give me the strength, wisdom and determination to continue on this path.

I am grateful to God who gave me the opportunity to teach in two continents and bring the Torah to our people.  I am grateful to God for my wonderful family, for my teachers, colleagues and students from whom I learned so many invaluable lessons.  I am grateful to God for all life’s experiences – both the bitter and the sweet – that have allowed me to “go from strength to strength.”

—

Rabbi Ferenc Raj, PhD is celebrating 50 years in the rabbinate.

Categories
spirituality

Worship Workout: A New Year’s Resolution

There is a seemingly endless number of ways technology has encouraged good health, physical fitness, and well-being – each attempting to be our New Year’s Resolution. Gyms with apps that show how often we attend, track our workouts, set goals, and guide us to meet them. Food apps from simple calorie counters, to specific diet apps, to overall healthy eating and nutrition apps. And then, of course, there is Fitbit. The most famous device of its type, Fitbit makes a collection of wearable health devices that can track a multitude of information about one’s physical activities. In its most basic form, it is a step counter. You put on the fitbit bracelet in the morning when you wake up, and before you go to bed you check it and see how many steps you have taken. You can set a goal of reaching a certain number of steps per day (or not). You can meet the goal (or not). You can share your daily steps with others to encourage you and your friends to make and meet goals (or not).

No matter how Pavlovian a fitness app or gadget is in encouraging us to engage in behavior that will keep us healthy, at the end of the day it is on us whether we make and actually follow through on any health related New Year’s Resolution (or not).

Now maybe you had no need of a New Year’s Resolution and have already fallen down the rabbit hole of one of the many paths to physical health between SoulCycle, fancy gyms, apps and Fitbits, Class Pass, and so forth. Maybe you are deep down one of those rabbit holes, and love it. Maybe you aren’t and don’t want anything to do with any of it. Regardless of which applies to us personally, it is true that physical health is important – not just on January 1, but all year. But there is another fitness resolution that we usually aren’t bombarded with, much less our congregants. That is, our spiritual fitness. One of the reasons keeping healthy is so important is so that if something does go wrong physically, we are in the best shape to be able to handle it. So too with spiritual health – when life presents us with a crisis, having a grounded sense of Jewish identity, community, and worldview, aka “good spiritual fitness,” gives us a foundation on which to handle the chaos even tragedy that life can present us with. As rabbis we understand this intuitively, but many of our congregants don’t understand how important this bedrock is until after going through a crisis without it. Just like keeping a healthy body takes attentiveness and action, so too does keeping a healthy soul. Both require the steps of getting started and staying committed, followed by constant reward.

An easy path to a spiritual fitness through any of our synagogues is worship. Just like a Fitbit, gym, or diet, the first step is to simply start, which if our guests or members are starting from nothing can be daunting. Like getting a Fitbit for the first time and having no idea how to link it to a phone, or – and this is a personal experience – going into the gym for the first time and literally not knowing how to use any of the equipment except the pool.

I was so new to gym culture that if I hadn’t had a welcoming, pleasant experience I doubt I would still be going (even if it does have the only close lap pool with rabbi-friendly opening hours). Beginning or renewing Jewish worship engagement has the same barriers to many. We have families and individuals  whose first synagogue entrance in many years or potentially entrance ever will be through our doors, at any time, which is why a warm, inclusive, inviting experience is so important the first time and every time, else there would never be the second step: staying committed.

Any worship experience should be meaningful and effective, be it Yom Kippur, Torah Study, or an intimate Friday night chapel service. Each experience should be able to stand alone, just like any one workout will have a measured impact. But we know with physical wellness the real benefit comes from frequency, consistency, and familiarity – long term. Work outs are smoother, easier. To get there, maybe you have a workout buddy or a trainer. It is the same with pursuing a healthy Jewish spirituality. Seriously, we can ask any of our Bar/Bat Mitzvah students about how they feel at any Shabbat service after their Bar/Bat Mitzvah, versus the daunting experience of going to someone else’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah Service a year earlier when they were still in the process of learning the Hebrew prayers (with, hopefully, both personal trainers and practice buddies).

Of course, there is something that spiritual fitness offers that goes beyond what physical fitness can offer, because it is beyond the tangible. Hopefully we have felt it – that special moment where everything is just right. Maybe it’s from the music, or the Hebrew, or the community being together, or simply being relaxed…then it happens. The Zen moment. The I-Thou moment. A moment where we connect – with ourselves, with other human beings, with our understanding and/or experience of God.

A quick story. There was once a man who went to services every single Shabbat evening and Shabbat morning. Noticing this, his friend at the congregation mentioned that he must really like connecting with prayer every week. “Oh no,” the man responded, “I don’t actually connect with prayer every week. I always enjoy services, but I don’t always connect with the prayers. I can never tell if this service or that one will be one where I really feel the connection. That’s why I go every week – so when there is a moment to connect, I will be there…ready.”

For our congregants (or, gasp, for ourselves) it doesn’t have to be January 1, or even Rosh Hashanah, to be a good time for a Worship Workout Resolution to engage in and reap the benefits of a meaningful and dynamic experience of Jewish worship at a Reform temple.

—

Rabbi Jim Stoloff serves Temple Israel of the City of New York.  

This article has also been shared with the members of Temple Israel of the City of New York. 

Categories
Reform Judaism spirituality

Rabbi, I Don’t Need Religion to Be a Good Person

Rabbi Mordecai Schreiber, Celebrating 50 Years in the Rabbinate.

I cannot recall how many times over the years I’ve heard the words: “Rabbi, I don’t need religion to be a good person.” I am sure we have all heard different versions of this statement, and it probably gave us pause. As a young rabbi, it sounded to me like a copout. After all, we all are expected to strive to be good people. Religion, as I understood it and still do, has as its main goal to make us good people. Certainly, religion can be easily misused or misapplied. But the founders of the great religions taught kindness and compassion and inveighed against evil. We Jews are taught, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” What binds the community together are our shared beliefs, customs, and traditions. Being part of the community teaches us we are all responsible for one another, and provides the opportunity to help others rather than look out only for ourselves.

Looking back, however, it has become clear to me I had been too judgmental in considered this statement a copout. Instead of dismissing it as a convenient way to “separate oneself from the community,” I should have focused on the words “a good person.” No one should be scorned for wishing to be a good person. Imagine, if everyone were a good person, there would be peace in the world. I should have said to the makers of that statement, “I applaud you for striving to be a good person. This is the worthiest cause of all.” I could have then gone on to say, “You need to find the best way for you to be such a person. I, personally, find religion to be helpful for me to achieve this goal, but everyone is different.” In other words, I shouldn’t have taken it as a rebuke or a criticism of me as someone who represents religion, and let the conversation end at that.

Life, one learns over time, is an ongoing search. We all search for something, and our search takes us in many different directions. For some, interacting with a spiritual leader may be a positive experience, and for others it may be the opposite. Most difficult of all is one’s experience of God. As children we are taught to believe in a good God who cares for you and who is interested in your well-being. But our faith is constantly being put to the test. Life, even under the best of circumstances, is the school of hard knocks. As Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us, bad things do happen to good people, leaving that person with the unanswerable question, why is God doing this to me? Losing faith in not uncommon, and it is often painful. We Jews who have experienced the greatest tragedy of our long existence in our own lifetime, have every reason to lose faith in a good and caring God. But many of us have made a conscious decision not to give up faith. “In spite of everything I continue to believe.” I believe that in the end good will prevail, no matter how difficult it may be.

I will remember next time someone says to me, “Rabbi, I don’t need religion to be a good person,” I will look kindly at that person in the eyes and utter the words I should have uttered long ago. This will definitely make me a better person.

—

Rabbi Mordecai Schreiber is celebrating fifty years as a Reform Rabbi. 

Categories
Rabbis

Fifty Years in the Reform Rabbinate

Let me begin this blog by saying that I grew up in Cincinnati, for many years the beating heart of Reform Judaism in America, attended religious high school classes at HUC, and had the Rosh Yeshivah of HUC-JIR in my family (Nelson Glueck, z’l, was my uncle. Despite all of that, I did not consider becoming a rabbi until my senior year in college. Even then, was not committed to becoming a Reform rabbi. Somehow or other, Bill Cutter, a fellow Eli, cherished friend and 3 years later an usher at my wedding, visited me and urged me to enroll at HUC-JIR. Meanwhile, I had applied to Columbia and Cornell to obtain an advanced degree in English literature in pursuit of a doctorate!

What prompted me to direct my attention to the Hebrew Union College and eventual ordination as a rabbi was my recognition that teaching was my specialty, and rather than teach an academic career, why not teach from the well-spring of my own tradition, about the people and faith I was raised in and thoroughly enjoyed. I considered applying to JTS, but was not willing to commit to the regimen of kashrut and Shabbat observance which had not been part of my upbringing. I briefly considered the Reconstructionist movement, but I knew very little about it, and didn’t particularly want to be studying in Philadelphia. In the end, I enrolled at HUC-JIR, and because I wanted to spend a year with the American Friends of the Hebrew University program in Jerusalem, my return to Cincinnati was delayed until the fall of 1962.

That said, let me address the primary assignment here: what have I learned in the course of my 50 years of service to Reform Judaism, which includes a year as a Chaplain resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, six years as a prison chaplain to Jewish inmates, and nearly six years as the Spiritual Director of an Assisted Living and Memory Care facility?

I have learned what wonderful resources my colleagues are and how willing they are to respond to my inquiries. Even now, in retirement, I frequently communicate with colleagues when questions arise.

I have learned how many people, congregants and others, are willing to embrace a new rabbi who is ready to listen to what they have to say, and who doesn’t judge them in any way, or make them feel guilty.

I have learned how difficult it is in some settings to persuade a Temple Board to “do the right thing,” and how important it is to be cool-headed when others are upset.

I have learned that there are many satisfactions about being a rabbi in a large congregation, and at least as many satisfactions about being the rabbi of a small congregation.

I have learned how important it is to keep in touch with everyone in the community you serve, as much as is physically possible to do so, and attend to the needs of congregants facing medical or other issues.

I have learned that studying the weekly Torah portion with congregants can be an exalting experience, and that each year, the portion yields new insights.

What have I accomplished?

I have helped many, many people to become more serious about their Jewish beliefs and practices and more willing to make the synagogue an important part of their lives.

I have created meaningful liturgies for hatching, matching, and dispatching Jewish individuals and families.

I have made meaningful connections with other clergy in almost every community that I have served, especially in Long Beach and State College.
I led Passover Sedarim in Catholic and Protestant settings every year. I was also involved with the AIDS community in a city with several AIDS hospices, performing Bar Mitzvahs and conducting funerals for this beleaguered community, often rejected by their own families.

I helped to de-segregate the Long Beach school system by serving on a citywide committee specifically for that purpose. And while I was in Long Beach I was very active in interfaith work, and in addressing the challenge of teenage pregnancy. I also was closely connected with the local Hospice program, and involved with the conversion of scores of applicants.
During my “final” pulpit assignment in Winchester, Virginia, working with clergy, the pharmacy and nursing department of Shenandoah University as well as the American Cancer Society, I created a weeklong program to address the challenges of cancer in the community. It was a profound learning experience for me, the acme of my professional life beyond the pulpit.

I have helped people understand the difference between healing, which can be accomplished in almost any circumstance, and “curing,” which is a different matter entirely, and will not always be possible.

I have created a significant set of strategies to assist older people through the challenges of aging, and more strategies to help them acknowledge, and then celebrate the last chapter of their lives sand the journey that follows death.

I have learned to accept my own failings and missteps, and, though I can still do better, I have learned to stop judging other people’s behavior, because I don’t know that I would have acted any differently than they have done, given their situation.

What I am looking forward to:

The first thing I am looking forward to is spending more quality time with my four children, their spouses, and my grandchildren, who live in Alexandria, VA and Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Everything else is second to that. And I remain active in several clubs, local interfaith work, and doing a lot of reading of biographies of famous people. I also have a subscription with the Folger Shakespeare library to attend at least 3 plays a year in D.C., plus lots of musical events at our local University, and our really terrific Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

And now that I have become a retired Reform rabbi, I look forward to each day’s opportunities and challenges, and meeting annually with other NAORRR members where we can continue to address both personal and Reform Jewish priorities. I keep in touch, by phone or email, or both, with scores of people I’ve met along the way, always being exalted in the conversations. I look forward to making people laugh, because laughter is good for the soul and the body.

I have developed a series of strategies to deal with aging, and a year ago presented a shiur on “strategies to achieve a happy ending”. My approach now is as follows: when the malach ha-mavet knocks on my door, I will invite him/her in for schnapps!

—

Rabbi Jonathan Brown is celebrating 50 years in the rabbinate. 

 

Categories
spirituality

Sitting With the Unknown: Continual Revelation of the Not-Yet Revealed

I have a quote on my bathroom vanity that reads, “I have no idea what’s going to happen, and I love it!”  In the middle there is a stick person with his hands triumphantly in the air.  Care to guess how many times I have exclaimed back to this piece of paper, “I do not love it!  I do not love it??!”

I framed this quote and its invitation to sit with the unknown precisely because, it is so, so difficult! We want the comfort of believing that we determine our destiny, or if we do X, Y, and Z this way, we will get what we want.  And while many of our actions shape our fate in profound ways, more often than not, we cannot control what happens to us or our loved ones.

There are some whose faith holds that God has a plan for them, and this is the reassurance that they need in times of uncertainty.  And yet, there are also many of us who do not believe the Eternal directly intervenes in human affairs, or that the Divine is even capable of intervening.  In fact, the Torah goes to great lengths to reassure the searching Jew that skepticism is healthy, legitimate, and even cele­brated in Jewish life.[1]  Rabbi Daniel Gordis asks, “Why does Ju­daism validate doubt? Judaism takes doubt seriously because it takes people seriously.  It recognizes that if Jewish life is to touch us, then it has to meet us where we are. That “place,” Jewish tradition understands, is often a place of bewilderment, of hurt, of skepticism.[2]

And yet, this place of bewilderment or skepticism also invites us to unite with the Eternal.  Reaching out to the Transcendent in moments of uncertainty is deeply Jewish. Our relationship with the Divine Mystery is not supposed to be easy blind faith.

Judaism doesn’t ask us to deny our doubts or fears.  Instead, it invites us to feel God’s presence precisely in these challenging moments.  Bringing mindfulness to these moments offers a helpful path through the struggle.  When we feel powerless, the practice of gratitude can open our hearts connecting us to the simple and profound—our ability to see the light glinting off a tree’s verdant leaves or feel the cool sweetness of a breeze across our face, or to taste the sweetness of a summer peach.

Acceptance of the present moment is another mindfulness practice. It requires patience and strength to sit with discomfort because we do not always know when our thoughts or circumstances will change. Practicing acceptance while sitting with discomfort or the unknown invites us to move into the Divine Mystery even as the unknown scares us. We are afraid things will never change even though we know things always change!  To master our fear, we tell stories and make explanations. However, it can be more skillful to let go of knowing.  Freedom comes with surrender to the unknown.

Martin Buber teaches, “the world is not comprehensible but it is embraceable.”  We do not always need to know how things will turn out, instead we can focus on how we respond in the moment. We can only feel the Divine when we are truly present.  God does not appear when we are worrying about the future, God is manifest in moments when we inhabit the here and now.

Sometimes we cannot summon tools to sit with the unknown, move into the mystery, or connect with gratitude. Sometimes, we are lost in a downward spiral.  If we are able to reach out to our friends, teachers, colleagues, and fellow seekers in these moments, they remind us that this is only temporary.  We have had other challenging moments and will again. They remind us that while the darkness may feel stifling or terrifying, it will shift.  They reassure us that they have been there too; moments of unknown darkness are part of the experience of being human.

We may draw solace in the thought that the Divine weeps with us too sometimes.  God is present in our tears and fear.  With this consolation, we are no longer alone. Here we find peace in the unknown.

The Sefat Emet, a nineteenth century Hasidic rabbi, claimed that the destiny of the Jewish people lies precisely in our openness to the continual revelation of the not-yet-revealed.  The constant quest is openness to the Mystery.  Openness to the unknown.  And we can choose for it to be terrifying and miserable.  Or we can use it as an invitation to feel God’s presence—from gratitude, remaining present, and communal support.

There will probably be many more times when I will holler at the stick figure on my bathroom vanity.  In these times, my thoughts will be projecting all sorts of terrible possibilities in the future, or that a particular situation feels intolerable.  Instead, may these moments open us to the continual revelation of the not-yet-revealed– with patience, with acceptance, and with wonder.

—

Rabbi Jessica Kessler Marshall joyously serves Temple Beth Or in Everett, Washington.

 

[1] http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/from-belief-to-faith/

[2] Ibid.

Categories
Rabbis

My Rabbinate at 50 years

The gift of being a Rabbi was not a conscious decision but rather a tender and loving commandment “This is what you will do!”  This “command” came from the unknown, yet illuminated depths of my soul.

My life was not to be in medicine, as I had previously thought, but to be a servant to my people, Israel.

The more I came to know myself,  the more compassion,empathy, honor and respect I had for those I was privileged to serve.  I chose to be an advocate for choice, acceptance and love; an enemy of rejection, authoritarianism and control.

My rabbinate was nurtured by my spiritual father, Ellis Rivkin who opened up worlds to me too numerous to mention; opening my soul to the supernal and material. His understanding of the dynamics of Jewish and human history as an ever changing balance between preservation, adaptation and mutation grounded in the Principle of Unity in Diversity was and remains the leitmotif of my career.

So, my rabbinate from ordination to now was to welcome the different,encourage diversity and encourage and embrace novelty. My commitment to Jewish tomorrows demanded of me to embrace what was repulsed and rejected for decades by our Jewish community.  Thankfully that is changing.

Serving Temple Sholom for 28 years was a gift filled with blessings and love.

But no blessing is greater than my wife, Ann.  Her love, nurture and support have sustained me to today. She is my life! Our children, grandchildren, and great grandsons keep our cup of life filled to the brim.

As I confront the ever present reality of mortality and discover other dimensions of my soul  now coming to light, I say with joy and gratitude my life has been a Shehecheyanu.

—

Rabbi Mayer Selekman serves as Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sholom in Broomall, PA.  He is celebrating 50 years in the rabbinate.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Prayer

Mishkan HaLev: Trying the New S’lichot Service

I am sitting in the Metropolitan Opera House waiting for my favorite moment.  Those majestic crystal chandeliers start rising high into the sky and the spotlight reveals an elegantly attired conductor.  The house goes silent, the baton lifts, and the orchestra begins.  The sounds of the music go straight into the hearts of the 3,800 people who are enraptured.  This is my favorite moment:  the overture.

S’lichot is the overture for our High Holy Days and my favorite part of the holiday.  With sadness, I wrestle with the fact that roughly 0.001% of my congregation is present for the overture.  Would those same congregants walk into the Metropolitan Opera House late?  I have to wonder.

How could we draw more people to be present for S’lichot?  Yes, I know.  It’s the food.  Bring them in with food.  But even food won’t keep them there and wanting to come back.  Neither will a good performance.  They can go elsewhere for good food and good performances. We can only hold them with what we do best:  focus on meaning, tradition, faith, and a touching of that spot in the heart where no one else can go.product_image-4

When the chance came to pilot the CCAR’s new prayerbook for Elul and S’lichot, I jumped.  My biggest challenge was going to be bowing out of the regional S’lichot service that had been a tradition for years, notwithstanding that it was a tradition that, if the feet do the judging, was not working for us because no one came.  The opportunity to pilot the prayerbook for Elul and S’lichot was my chance to make a radical change and offer our own S’lichot service.  Our Cantor was game to try it.  Our Ritual Committee was game to try it.  We decided to try it.  One benefit of our regional S’lichot was that our lack of participants wasn’t so noticeable, but if no one came this time it would be patently obvious for all to see.  But they did come.  And I am convinced that Mishkan HaLev is why they will come again next year.

The overriding reason why Mishkan HaLev works is that it is rooted in joy.  The season is so somber and the work so heavy, how refreshing it is to begin our overture for the High Holy Days in joy.  We actually celebrate the fact that we can change our lives.  The name of the prayerbook – Mishkan HaLev – promises a connection to the other Mishkan prayerbooks in our lives, but also the focus on the heart.  Mishkan HaLev focuses us on the joyful heart.

I am privileged to work with an awesome cantor.  He and I read through the pilot copy together.  We read it out loud with just each other.  We agreed that our purpose was not a concert by cantor or choir.  There was far too much material to utilize, so we had to edit ourselves down.  We were able to do so by noting the individual movements of the service: Havdalah, Entering the Gates of S’lichot, the Promise of Forgiveness, the Path of Return, the B’rit of Compassion and the Call of the Shofar.  We chose our selections from each of these sections to provide balance and direction for the service.  We chose musical selections that we wanted to teach prior to Rosh HaShanah and those that would be familiar and make the heart beat faster.

God bless the Yehuda Amichai poetry throughout the prayerbook.  How does he do it?  A profound tying of the ancient and the modern and a message that jumps out and hits you on the head without being moralistic or pendantic.  “From the place where we are right…” is but one example.  The appearance of that poem alone makes Mishkan HaLev worthwhile.

Praying with a prayerbook that we knew was not yet “cast in stone,” was part of the excitement.  Like our human selves who were present because of the possibility of changing ourselves, so too the draft prayerbook.  How will the draft version continue to change before going to the printer?  I don’t know.  I hope there may be more chatimot following English readings to better connect them to the original Hebrew prayers, and I hope that layout decisions may afford the opportunity, as in Mishkan T’filah, for the open spread to all reflect one body of work with the more traditional on the right and the interpretive on the left.

But most significantly:  I believe that Mishkan HaLev helps to open our hearts to the tasks at hand.  I saw it with my own eyes and our synagogue has already put in its order for the printed version.  It will be in our hands to open the gates of 5778.

—

Rabbi Stacy Offner serves Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison, CT.

CCAR Press offers special pre-publication discounts for Mishkan HaLev.  A preview of Mishkan HaLev is now available!

Learn more about the book on our website.  The order form for large orders can be found here.

Categories
Israel News

The Mistaken Equivalency of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

National blue and white flag of Israel outdoors

Earlier this year I had occasion to speak at a synagogue in Johannesburg, South Africa. The subject was my motivation and experience as an American Jew who made aliya to Israel more than thirty years ago. The presentation included a description of my Jewish and Zionist education and concluded with an explanation that my primary motivation was a personal desire to be a participant in the making of modern Jewish history. What better place could I do so, I concluded, than by living with my family in the State of Israel.

Immediately following my presentation the hands went up. One after another of the participants in the audience challenged me with biting comments and striking allegations all of which I thought were both surprising and of course incongruous. How could I possibly call myself a Zionist when to do so is to embrace an ideology advocating apartheid? How can I identify with a regime which is oppressive and dismissive of the human rights of the Palestinians? Is not Judaism and Zionism incompatible? Are not Zionists acting just like the white nationalists did in apartheid South Africa?

The people asking the questions seemed sincere. It appeared to me that they were genuinely struggling with themselves both intellectually and spiritually. On the one hand they were trying to find an acceptable way to identify as Jews. On the other hand they could not reconcile their identification with a Jewish State that in their minds, no less than in official political circles, was perceived as the very incarnation of evil. No doubt, there are growing numbers of Jews in other diaspora countries who share the same dilemma which may not be the case with many non-Jewish critics of Israeli policy.

It is true that many non-Jews throughout the world are bitter critics of Israeli policy. As such, many exaggerate and generalize about Jews and what they believe to be normative Zionist ideology. Their conviction is that Zionism is a racist ideology and the plight of the Palestinian people is proof positive of this fact. Thus, it is a short distance between identifying Jews as a group with the Jewish state and ergo their presumed support for the oppressive policies of the state. In their minds this legitimizes their struggle in support of the long suffering Palestinians.

As Jews we may prefer drawing a distinction between our religious or ethnic identity and the specific political policy of any given government of Israel. Nonetheless, such efforts are judged to be ingenuous by our critics. This is hardly surprising considering the fact that Israeli policy today is defined by right wing revisionists who have perpetuated the occupation of the Palestinian people for the most part of nearly 50 years. For the greater part of this half century, they have successfully advanced their ultra-nationalist and irredentist vision of Zionism. Sadly too, the contours of this policy have increasingly resulted in a growing number of separatist realities.

In spite of the aforementioned, I do not accept the idea that being critical of, or opposed to, Israeli policy, automatically makes one an anti-Semite. I would suggest that taking such a position is incorrect as it feeds the illusory idea that what is being alleged about Jews and Zionism has credence. After all, there are Jews who are Zionists and Israeli, like myself, who are strongly opposed to the principles and policies of the current Israeli government. We are in fact, passionate critics. I explained these positions to my South African Jewish interlocutors. I spoke about how I became a Zionist in the tradition of the Labor Zionist Movement. Our ideological vision is rooted in the principles of social and economic justice, liberal democracy and the pursuit of a just peace. I am opposed to the occupation and consider the settlement program to be destructive of our vital interests and threatening to our security. And of course I acknowledge the fact that settling Jews in occupied territories is in contradiction of international law as defined by the Geneva Conventions. For me and a not inconsequential percentage of Israelis and Jews worldwide, progressive Zionism is as legitimate and normative as Revisionism is for others.

Perhaps if Israel’s Jewish and non-Jewish critics were better educated about the differing streams of Zionism, they would be less inclined to generalize based on the policies of Israel’s current government.

Perhaps too, they would begin to understand the differences by learning about the accusations made by our right wing critics here in Israel. Among other allegations they assert that we are self-hating anti-Zionists and anti-Semites! It is likely that they make these charges because we expose their activities and reject their views as submissive to the ideological fantasies of intolerant political and theological extremists.

There is a profound distinction to be made between anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and criticism of the policies of a particular Israeli government.

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Rabbi Stanley Ringler is an Israeli Reform Rabbi and Social and Political Activist.

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Let The Optimism In You Die Hard

I‘m an optimist. I resist the “half-empty” glass. I look for the best in others. At times, I suffer the consequences, but seeing the good helps me to feel better and remain upbeat even in times of hardship and crisis. As a manager of people, I’ve found that it’s far more effective to encourage others’ sparks of creativity and goodness, intelligence and decency than to be overly critical and negative.

I’m well aware, of course, that everyone errs, uses bad judgment, succumbs to ego, appears foolish, behaves destructively, and gives license to their darker angels. But I stay hopeful anyway as a necessary hedge against despair.

The most effective means to counter one’s own demoralization and to help others do the same, especially as the election cycle has concluded and a new administration is about to begin, is to become more engaged in social justice advocacy work than we ever have been before, that we might help to prevent a deterioration in our democracy and our compassionate society.

There are so many just causes and just organizations as well as just officials at the local, state and federal levels who share our vision and democratic pluralist values with whom we can align.

Most especially, we Jews have no choice but to act as Jews and be ready to advocate on behalf of the vulnerable and the shrinking middle class, and to stand united against efforts to eviscerate the social safety net.

We have to push hard on behalf of the welfare of the 42 million food insecure Americans who have no idea when or from where their next meal will come.

We have to support women’s rights to equal pay for equal work, and their right to choose, as well as the equal marriage rights of the LGBTQ community.

We have to stand up for the environment, for science, for technological advance, for higher education for everyone regardless of their ability to pay, for critical thinking, and for fact-based truth.

We have to protect immigrants, peoples of color, and strangers, and to challenge those who claim that any human being is “illegal.”

The pendulum swings both ways and we can’t forget the ancient words of the Biblical prophet that called for justice, compassion and humility before God.

We have to remember Dr. King’s words that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

That is the message of hope. The optimist in me dies hard. I hope that it dies hard in you too!

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Rabbi John L. Rosove serves Temple Israel of Hollywood of Los Angeles, CA.