Categories
Books Death spirituality

What is Your Concept of Soul and Afterlife?

As we ask big questions during the High Holy Days, Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, presents a range of Jewish responses to both theological and philosophical questions pertaining to God, humanity, and the Jewish people. In the spirit of the High Holy Days, we would like to share some of the inspirational responses included in the book, for a thoughtful and meaningful New Year.

In yoga class we do an exercise where we imagine holding a basketball in our hands. With minds focused on the present, feet planted, and hearts lifted, with our hands we trace the shape, push against the edges, even toss it into the air and catch it. We can feel the ball even though we can’t see it; we interact with it even though it is not there. The same is true of the souls of our loved ones after they have died.

At the first Yizkor service led by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, nearly twenty-five years after my mother died, he taught something that has taken me twenty-five years to understand: “Our relationships with our loved ones continue even after they are gone.” Like the basketball at yoga class, we can’t see them or feel them, but we can hold them, and our relationships with their souls, with our own souls touched by them, continue.LITFXXX_Page_1

For many years I thought my soul, the sparkling sacred essence of who I am, was a response to my mother’s death, that I am who I am because she died, that I took on her soul when we buried her young body. But now I know that isn’t entirely true. I have my own soul, formed and shaped, expressing my own values, dreams, and personality, breathed into me by God on the day I was born, not on the day she died. I am a wife and mother, a friend and a rabbi, not only because my mother died when I was a child, but because in the eleven years that we had together in this world, she shared her soul, her passions and commitments, with me—and because in the years since I have made them my own. She was clear and consistent about her core values, and they endure and find new expression in my life: hospitality, Jewish life in America and Israel, teaching and learning, nurturing friendship, being part of a complicated family, expressing creativity, being organized and in charge. With my feet planted, as I breathe deeply, focus quietly, lift my heart, feel confident and supported, I can see her soul and my own. I feel and embrace our ever-evolving and deepening relationship, life and after-life, breathing together for eternity.

—

Rabbi Debra J. Robbins serves Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, TX.

Excerpted from Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, edited by Rabbi Paul Citrin and published in 2015 by CCAR Press.

Categories
High Holy Days

Blank Pages

At this moment of writing I sit in my study at Temple Emanu-El, the early morning quiet contoured by impending rain clouds that promise a wet Atlanta morning.

The clock on the wall, set above my ordination degree bearing signatures of my teachers before me, softly ticks and tocks with each second.  The sound both soothes and beckons me with potential and with challenge.

And in front of me, a blank page stares back, demanding words to share that are ripe with inspiration, aspiration, and meaning.

Perhaps in the space between the ticking seconds, and through the glaring white page, the metaphor calls out to us, “Yes, it is right here. Open your eyes and be awake!”

The High Holy Days are around the corner.  Each year the weeks leading up to them are heavy with a certain weighted intensity that our Jewish tradition fosters as a positive and necessary experience.  The backdrop of the harvest (yesteryear), the new semester, and a return to the fast- paced workplace after the summer lull is part of the atmosphere. But the real pressure that Judaism prescribes is the proverbial tick of the clock and glaring white pages of our lives still to be lived.  There is a spiritual urgency that stirs in us.

What will we do with our time to make the very most of the days that we have left? (tick… tock)

In the Book of Life (Sefer HaChayim) where we implore God to inscribe us each new year, what will we choose to write on that glaring blank page?  For the pen is in our hands, as are the stories, words and deeds…

These questions form the backbone not only of our High Holy Days, but of our collective lives.

The stakes presented in these existential questions are far from hypothetical, but rather are intensely personal.

For this reason, The High Holy Days are often referred to as the Yomim Noraim, the Days of Awe, for it is with ‘awe’ that we are cautioned to approach the honest assessment we are asked to make of ourselves and our lives.  Our liturgy calls this a Heshbone HaNefesh, an Accounting of the Soul.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel helps us understand the concept of ‘awe’, and our approach to it, by asking us how we might approach the Grand Canyon. Perhaps you have been there.  Imagine standing right on the edge, looking out and down.  It is vast.  It is truly incredible.  It makes us simultaneously feel insignificant and luminous.  With our toes on the edge of the precipice, we gaze into the abyss, all the while knowing that our feet rest on firm and unshakable ground.  That is ‘awe’, a mixture of elation and fear.

Elation for what we could yet achieve with our lives, our relationships, and our ability to appreciate the invaluable worth of each moment.

Fear of falling far short of our potential, squandering our relationships, and closing our eyes to the beauty and meaning that permeates our precious days.

On Rosh HaShanah when we pray to be inscribed in the book of life, we are not just praying for more time on earth, but we are jolting ourselves awake to really, truly live!

אב’נו מלכנו כתבנו בספר ח”ם טוב’ם

Avinu Maleinu, kotveinu b’sefer chayim tovim.

Our benevolent God, inscribe us (and may we have the courage to inscribe ourselves) in the Book of Lives Well Lived.

May our congregations everywhere, and our congregants be blessed; and in turn bless one another.

And may this year be a sweet year for us all.

—

Rabbi Spike Anderson serves Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta, Georgia.

Categories
High Holy Days spirituality

High Holy Day Self-Care: A Rabbinic Primer

My ex-boyfriend used to joke: I love you every week of the year, except for the week between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Oh, and the day before Rosh HaShanah. I find it challenging to love you then too.

I get it, and I bet you (and your significant other, or kids, or cantor, or assistant, or all of the above) do too. As a Rabbi’s kid, who’s herself worked for some very anxious senior Rabbis, I can attest: the high holy days often make us crazy. And not just crazy but angry, unpleasant, overtired and sometimes even nasty. My mom (who, strictly speaking, as a pediatric surgeon had a far more stressful job than my father) used to say, “I just try to stay out of your dad’s way during the month before the holy days.”

The irony is, of course, this: ‘tis the season of cheshbon hanefesh, of checking ourselves, apologizing to others, and guarding, a bit more closely, our words and actions. It’s what we preach from the bima, but far, far too often fail to practice in the lead up to the days of awe.

So, in the summers leading up to Elul, I’ve gone above and beyond to set aside some time to prepare myself – not just with cues and sermons and music – but spiritually, emotionally, and physically, for the chagim.

A few suggestions, based on trial and error:

1) The next time you’re agonizing over a sermon, or impressing your biggest donors with your Yom Kippur appeal, or figuring out the perfect balance between the political and the pastoral, stop. Literally. Stop it. Get out of your office. Step away from your computer. Put down the David Wolpe or Jonathan Sacks sermon you wish you’d written, and go for a walk. Get a massage. Hug your kids. Pick up Annie Dillard, or Wendell Berry, or Brene Brown, or Mary Oliver’s new book of poetry, or Yehuda Amichai, or whatever, whoever, inspires you. And then forgive yourself for not being able to produce utter brilliance in one sitting. If you have a creative hobby outside of the rabbinate, do it. Paint. Go to a yoga class. Go for a hike. Walk the dog. Give back to yourself so you have something to give to others.

2) Take your own preaching to heart, and forgive. Forgive the temple president who drives you crazy, the assistant who forgot to mail out the yahrtzeit notices, and yourself, for everyone you’ve failed – knowingly, and unknowingly this year. Be like God: balance your judgment of yourself – and everyone else – with mercy, compassion and gentleness. And then, once you’ve forgiven, apologize to those you need to apologize too. And don’t yell at anyone during the ten days, or you’ll have to do it again. (Yes, even you, Rabbi.)

3) Daven, just a little, just a bissel, every day of Elul. For me, this means mindfulness meditation. For others, it means selichot – prayers of forgiveness. For still others, it’s a niggun that connects us to our hearts. Because if you can’t give to yourself spiritually, or connect with what brought you to the Rabbinate in the first place, you can’t give to your congregants, or your students, or your patients.

4) The morning of Erev Rosh HaShanah, if you can, take an hour, or maybe even two, for yourself. Do something that gets you out of your head, out of your neuroses, and into your body. Last year, I woke up early and went surfing for two hours, which put me (very small person) in perspective (a very, very big ocean). (How important could my own mishegas about everything going off without a hitch be in a world so big?) This year, I’ll go for a trail run. Whatever it is that nurtures you (maybe even watching your favorite comedian for an hour), get out of your anxieties and fears and into a place of joy, and contentment, so that when you’re on the bima, welcoming the new year with all the joy, and excitement that a new year deserves, you mean it. The Jews in the pews can tell when you mean it.

5) Once the moment comes, try to enjoy it. Try to pray while you’re leading services. Try to set aside all of the madness that led up to the moment when tefilot begin and simply be present to the birthday of the world. It’s the climax of our spiritual year, the peak of the arc of our Jewish yearly lives and too often we’re too busy looking for our next cue or trying to make eye contact with the cantor to take it all in. So take an extra breath when you’re facing the ark, or pause for just a heartbeat, and remember what a tremendous privilege it is to lead hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Jews in letting go, starting over and beginning again. Even when it makes us crazy, it’s still the best work in the world.

Oh, and finally: Shanah tovah u’metukah – may it be a sweet, happy, healthy and meaningful new year for all of us.

—

Rabbi Jordie Gerson serves Adventure Rabbi in Boulder, Colorado.

 

Categories
News

How Netflix’s Stranger Things Helped Me Understand the Un’Taneh Tokef

The Un’taneh Tokef calls to mind the profound uncertainties with which we live each day, and the reality that life often unfolds in ways beyond our control.   The words reflect the blinding fears we speak of only in the darkest hours of night and the questions we harbor deep inside: What is our fate and how does it all end?  Who among us will survive?  How do we proceed, knowing that the balance between life and death is far more delicate than we might ever have imagined?

The language of the prayer is blunt and unembellished: “Who by fire and who by water? /Who by sword and who by beast?/ Who by hunger and who by thirst?/ Who by earthquake and who by drowning? /Who by strangling and who by stoning?....”  With its harrowing imagery and chilling propositions, it leaves very little to the imagination.  As listeners, we are left to confront the image-reel in our minds, filled with horrors of wildfires burning out of control and floods overtaking cities, blood shed at the hands of man and beast, and violence populating the earth.

The Un’taneh Tokef speaks to the way we live and the realities we encounter, every day.  It reflects the suffering and the sadness, the destruction and the devastation, the terror and the loss we see all around us, all the time.  It speaks about the cruel nature of randomness and the inexplicable misfortune of chance.  Its words emphasize, unequivocally: Though we are a part of this world, we do not preside over it; and neither the whims of nature nor humanity can be foreseen.

The Un’taneh Tokef is, for some, an exercise in anguish and distress.  Many experience intense grief in the wake of its poetry, and helplessness in the face of its prognostications.  Indeed, the language is so graphic, I found myself searching, like many others before me, for different ways to decode its message.

How could I have predicted that my inspiration would come, from of all places a sci-fi television series?  But oddly enough, it was while watching Netflix’s Stranger Things, that I was moved to look at the Un’taneh Tokef differently.  There I was, scared out of my wits, when a light bulb flashed in my mind (and for those of you watching, I assure you it wasn’t a Christmas light!). Stick with me (and yes, spoilers do follow).

One of the fascinating hooks of this series is the revelation that our world exists, side by side, with a parallel universe called “The Upside Down.”  As Dr. Clarke, the show’s trusty science teacher, explains: “Picture an acrobat standing on a tightrope, and the tightrope is our dimension, and our dimension, has rules.  You can move forwards or backwards.  But right next to our acrobat, there is a flea. Now the flea can also travel back and forth, just like the acrobat, right?  But here’s where things get really interesting.  The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope.  He can even go, underneath the rope.”  Just beyond the surface, just below the rope, lies a completely separate universe that we never even knew existed!!  For this uninitiated student of sci-fi, this was WILD!

Now, what do parallel universes and “The Upside Down” have to do with the Un’taneh Tokef?  Well, I got to thinking about these parallel universes and unseen worlds and thought, what if we looked at the Un’taneh Tokef through this sci-fi lens as well?  Could it help us see the “unseen” elements of the prayer?  Could it help us delve deeper into the mire, knowing there is another side to every word printed on the page?  Could we find the life amidst the death, and the hope amidst the despair?  If we immersed ourselves in its words, investigated their many sides and corners, and turned them over again and again, could we come up with an alternate vision of the prayer?  I think so.

The “Upside Down” approach urges us to think beyond the page and behind the words, so to speak.  For example if the Un’taneh Tokef teaches us that life is unpredictable in frightening and unsettling ways, we can extrapolate and surmise that life must also be unpredictable in wonderful and reassuring ways, yes? Unpredictability is a neutral condition, neither positive nor negative.  Moreover, just as we cannot foresee the sadness and grief and misery that will befall us, neither can we predict the joy and gladness and wonder that will enter our lives.  Indeed, just as bad things will inevitably happen to us, it is also inevitable that good things will happen too (the law of averages has got to play a part in this scenario, don’t you think?).

The “Upside Down” lens doesn’t re-write the prayer or negate the plain meaning.   But it opens the prayer up to a broader context and a wider plane of interpretation. It is a tool, an agent for mining deeper meaning and substance.  We know that the world can be a harsh and uncertain place; we live that every day.   We also know that death and destruction and devastation are ubiquitous; we need only open our doors to see such misery.  But, in this very same world, there is also a real chance we will stumble upon decency and kindness, and a real possibility of friendship and community and love.

That is what we find on the “Upside Down” of the Un’taneh Tokef—still a world of unpredictability, but one marked by hope rather than despair and love rather than fear.  “Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day,” we shall say, it is both awesome and full of dread.

Wishing you all a Shana Tova, a happy and healthy New Year.

—

Rabbi Sara Sapadin resides in New York City.  She most recently served Temple Israel of the City of New York.  Sara now volunteers as the CCAR RavBlog Member Volunteer.  Interested in writing something for RavBlog?  Email Sara.

Categories
Books High Holy Days spirituality

What is God’s Relationship to Suffering and Evil?

As we ask big questions during the High Holy Days, Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, presents a range of Jewish responses to both theological and philosophical questions pertaining to God, humanity, and the Jewish people. In the spirit of the High Holy Days, we would like to share some of the inspirational responses included in the book, for a thoughtful and meaningful New Year.

I imagine that God weeps at the sufferings of the whole disharmonious natural world. If God does weep with us, it is with a heart that we wrote into the story. We invented God’s heart, our greatest contribution to God’s tale.

I cannot know why suffering and evil exist. No work of fiction is free of it. It is the stuff of timeless story. However, our greatest spiritual resistance to suffering is metaphor and interpretation. To interpret is divine. God breathed that ability into us.

LITFXXX_Page_1A traditional Jewish ritual response to nightmares is called “the Amelioration of a Dream” (Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 55b). The ritual requires three friends to declare that the dream be interpreted for good. The text explains that all dreams have a hint of prophecy; however, all dreams can be interpreted positively. In fact, the prophecy of the dream lies partially in its interpretation. The dreamer says three times, Adonai shamati v’yareiti—God, I heard what You made me hear and I was frightened. Three friends respond with the prescribed words, “Choose life, for God has already approved your deeds. Repentance, prayer, and charity remove the evil of the decree.”

We dream, but we are also dreamt. We are written, and within that story, we write. It is said in Torah and our liturgy: U’vayom hash’vi-i shavat vayinafash, “On the seventh day God ‘rested.’” Translators struggle in translating vayinafash, suggesting, “On the seventh day God rested and was refreshed.” Vayinafash, however, literally means God “ensouled.” On the seventh day God rested and created spirits. Out of God’s dark, void chamber before Creation, God suddenly dreamed a dream/nightmare and based on that dream/nightmare, the world was sketched and animated in full color. We are the dream/ nightmare. We have little control over the outcome except to interpret it for the good.

A congregant had a double mastectomy and did not know how to love herself afterwards. She would stand before a mirror naked, seeing herself as grotesque. We sought a metaphor that would help her to see herself in a new light. We imagined her body as a sacred altar and that her breasts were the sacrifices that redeemed her life. Years later she told me that now when she stands before the mirror, she thinks “sacred altar” and has found a love for herself inside that she thought had disappeared. She reinterpreted her nightmare through metaphor.

—

Rabbi Zoe Klein serves Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, CA.

Excerpted from Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, edited by Rabbi Paul Citrin and published in 2015 by CCAR Press.

Categories
Israel Reform Judaism

My Recent Visit to Israel

Rabbi Mordecai Schreiber, Celebrating 50 Years in the Rabbinate.

When I first attended HUC-JIR in Cincinnati back in 1959, Reform rabbis were still divided in their commitment to the new Jewish state. In the 60s and 70s, we became solidly united in our support of the homeland of the Jewish people. While we are yet to become fully recognized by the state, we have been sparing no effort standing by her side no matter what. As a native of Israel whose parents were among the founders of the state, and as someone who was there at the birth, to me Israel is a gift from God to the martyrized Jewish people. Since 1970, when the CCAR held its first conference in Jerusalem, I’ve been back nearly every year, and even went back to do military service. In recent years, as I did this year, I’ve been going there strictly to visit family.

In late August my wife and I spent ten days at a nice resort hotel in north Tel Aviv, minutes from my two sisters’ homes in Ramat Aviv. My children and grandchildren are very attached to their Israeli nephews and nieces, and my oldest granddaughter was just there with her camp group for a month as part of her CIT experience, and got to spend one evening with the family. My oldest Israeli grandniece just turned eighteen and was proud of her acceptance to the ranks of Israel’s military intelligence.

It is hard for me to believe that in a few short decades Israel went from a community of half a million Jews with a ragtag army to a nation of over six million Jews with a mighty military and a world leader in high tech. But at the same time I find myself bemoaning the fact that what started out in my day as a socialist Utopian dream of an egalitarian society reaching out a hand of peace to its neighbors, has become a materialistic, intolerant and aggressive society with a growing gap between rich and poor and a societal code of conduct which reminds one more of third world countries than a progressive democracy, what with a former prime minister and a former president serving jail terms.

Where do progressive Jewish movements like Reform Judaism fit in this contemporary picture of social decline?

To start with, it is paramount that we become fully recognized Jews in our own right, and not lapsed Jews who need the imprimatur of Orthodoxy to be accepted into the fold. The Orthodox minority in Israel has political power far exceeding its numbers and its contribution to society, making life difficult not only for us but for the majority of Israelis, like my own relatives. This has become an intolerable situation which corrodes the institutions of the state.

Second, we need representation in the Knesset. While in the Diaspora we are not a political movement, unfortunately in Israel all groups, from Orthodox to Russians, have their own political parties, which is the only way to have a voice in Israeli society. We could also become part of an existing liberal party, which would provide us with a voice.

Third, we should rally around the cause of peace. It should be clear to any thinking person that Israel cannot go on forever as a military fortress. The peace with Egypt and Jordan needs to become a productive force, rather than merely a formal relation. There are great benefits here to all parties. But even more important, the two-state solution must become a reality. We did not establish the State of Israel to occupy another people. We Reform rabbis need to work not only with our fellow Jews in Israel but also with the Palestinians, to promote the cause of peaceful coexistence. In the 60s in the United States we took the lead in the struggle for social justice for people of color, and we need to do the same in Israel. Much good work has been done already by our colleagues in Israel, but have only just begun.

—

Rabbi Mordecai Schreiber, a member of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, Florida, is celebrating 50 years as a CCAR rabbi.

Categories
Rabbis

[RABBINIC] RETIREMENT; WHY? WHEN?

At the end of the last Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (2016), Michael Phelps, 30, a highly decorated US competitive swimmer with 28 gold medals to his name, announced that this would be his last international competition. Mind you, this is the second retirement for Michael. The first one was after the 2012 London Games.

Some, like Michael, retire multiple times. Others retire but do not know what to do with themselves. And there are those like me, who call it quits without hesitation, after a satisfying career, but this one takes time and advanced planning.

Why and when people retire depend on various circumstances: e.g., health issues, moving to other communities, or sadly because they are terminated by their bosses. Others, however, choose to retire and often plan for it. I am among the fortunate ones who thought about ending my full-time career as a congregational Rabbi when I turned 65, about 13 years ago.

Throughout my life, I have always been associated with synagogue life. In my youth, even during Law School in Turkey, I acted as hazzan kavua (a permanent prayer-leader) in my Orthodox congregation in Istanbul. During my rabbinic studies at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, I held student pulpits in McGehee, Ark.; Jonesboro, Ark.; and Kokomo, Ind. After ordination I served in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Philadelphia, Pa.; Chicago, IL and, finally at Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, MA. But when I was about to turn 65, I decided it is time to stop.

The inspiration for retirement came from a rabbinic teaching. According to an ancient source, when Rabbis sat in the Sanhedrin (rabbinic court), they took their seats in a semi-circle fashion, with three rows of scholars facing the Chief Judge. When an opening occurred, they would move a judge from one row to a closer one from the front (Sanh. 4: 4). Later on, Rabbis, commenting on the significance of this move, stated, “It is better for people to say to you ‘go up,’ than for them to tell you to ‘go down’” (Midrash Rabba, Vayikra 1:5). What a wonderful insight, I said to myself. Having accomplished most of what I had intended to do in my professional life, I would retire at will, at the top of my career, instead of waiting for someone telling me, “Rabbi, you are getting older; it is time to take it easy!”

When Ines and I decided to take the plunge, we first went to a retirement seminar sponsored by the Pension Board of our rabbinic association (CCAR) to learn how to say good-bye. Then I approached my lay leadership and informed them of my plan. My president and board accepted our decision with regret, and offered us a wonderful retirement package, including health benefits, convention allowance and, most importantly, a “reserved” spot in the parking lot of our synagogue. This whole process took about a year.

After announcing my retirement to the congregation, we had a special celebration in May of 2003, which we enjoyed very much. On June 30, 2003, I turned in the keys to the office manager and walked away. Ines and I also decided to leave town and move to another suburb in the greater Boston area in order to allow my successor, Rabbi Jay Perlman, a total immersion in the life of the synagogue.

What to do after retirement? I now had more free time to spend with family. I taught, part-time, at Boston College, and now I am on the faculty of Framingham State University, much closer to my home in Ashland. MA, teaching Ethics to two different classes. Ines and I travel more, visit our children and grandchildren in California, and spend more time with our daughter and grand kids in our area. I help out Bet Shalom of Barcelona, an emerging liberal congregation in Spain. I also blog and lecture on a variety of topics. Recently, I learned how to play bocce!!!

I still keep an association with my former Temple. I am the “Rabbi Emeritus.” I give the sermon on the second day of Rosh HaShanah, a talk on Yom Kippur in the afternoon, and lead a discussion during an old-day Kallah (study session) for temple members. We, obviously, continue to see many of our friends in the Boston area, and our Rabbinic Study group of more than 30 years meets every Monday morning at our Temple building in Needham. But otherwise, I am not involved in any details of our congregational life. This is ably handled by other rabbinic colleagues.

This pattern has worked well for us. But it took thinking, planning, understanding and good will on both sides, mine and the temple leadership’s.

I highly recommend it to others who wish to follow a similar path.

—

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D. is celebrating 50 years as a CCAR Rabbi. 

Categories
Books gender equality

Inclusive Voices

On Tuesday, July 26th, as Hillary Clinton officially became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party, I tried to explain to my five year-old daughter the import of the moment. This was not the first time I have shared with her the legacy and history she carries as a girl, and one day a woman, in this world. “Women couldn’t always wear pants,” “Women couldn’t always vote,” and “Women couldn’t always be rabbis”—just a few of the things my daughter, and I, have the opportunity to do through the pioneering of the women who came before.

When I was younger, I did not fully appreciate this legacy. AftWTC - Jewish Book Award - Updateder all, I took for granted that as a woman I would have opportunities equal to any man. I was then exposed to the realization, little by little, that I have a woman’s voice in a world that is not always ready to listen. As a woman, a daughter, a sister, a wife and now a mother, my worldview is shaped by these roles and my identity as a female. It is only in recent years that I have embraced my role as “woman rabbi” and the opportunities to raise the feminine voice—my voice—with pride and strength.

With the headlines in mind, that week I began preparing that weekend’s Torah study which included teaching about the daughters of Zelophehad. While every Torah commentary teaches about these women and the influence they had through their actions, I turned to The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (URJ Press, 2008), knowing that it is women talking about our text unapologetically through a feminine lens. I often use this commentary when preparing for teaching or preaching, because it offers a perspective unlike other commentaries and helps me to read the text in a different way.

The Torah: A Women’s Commentary invites all of us, regardless of gender identity, to learn Torah with an ear towards women’s voices and interpretation. It should be one of many Torah commentaries we use—I believe that we are the best keepers of our sacred texts when we push ourselves to listen to many voices besides our own.

During that historic week we heard a lot about women and girls, but we as we have heard, when we break down the obstacles for one group, it clears the way for everyone. The same is true for our interpretation of Torah. The more inclusive we are of the many voices speaking from our texts, the stronger our tradition and our communities will be.

—

Rabbi Loren Filson Lapidus serves The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia, and Social Action and Advocacy VP for the Women’s Rabbinic Network.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Reform Judaism

One Is Silver and the Other’s Gold: Precious Gifts of Mishkan HaNefesh

“Make new friends, and keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.” We all heard and likely sang that ditty as children. We were not thinking of prayer books, but about friends.

For many people, though, a prayer book is an old friend. I recall an older Temple member, who was ill and unable to attend services here on the High Holy Days. When I visited, she showed me the prayer books that she and her family had used for a private service on Rosh Hashanah eve, and planned to use again on Yom Kippur: Union Prayer Book, of course.

I suspect that those High Holy Days were the most meaningful of that family’s life, as their matriarch neared the end of her life, but still able to celebrate and enjoy her family. Only immediate relatives were present, with one friend: that prayer book, which had been a part of their lives for generations, linking them to all who had come before, and to their memories of Rosh Hashanah in the Temple that has been their family’s synagogue home for a century and a half.

For many, Union Prayer Book was and remains a friend. Though a generation or more has passed since that book was used for regular High Holy Day services here, many return to its special place in our homes, to seek comfort and guidance.

Gates of Repentance was a hip, contemporary friend for its era. That decade, the 1970s, was characterized by low regard for anyone over 30; and Union Prayer Book was far older than that. Radical change was in the air in the years immediately following the moon landing and Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights Movement and the dawn of Women’s Liberation. While young adults of that era embraced the change, throwing off archaic language – you know, all those thee’s and thou’s – offering more accessible English for a new generation, others mourned the loss of an old friend.MhN Standard - RESIZED FINAL

The 21st Century is sometimes called post-modern, meaning in part that we embrace advances without throwing away the gems of the past. Mishkan HaNefesh preserves more of Jewish tradition than any previous Reform prayer book, while also embracing more of our Reform heritage than Gates of Repentance.

On the one hand, Mishkan HaNefesh includes more traditional Hebrew than its predecessors. On the other hand, the Hebrew is all transliterated on each page as it appears, making it more accessible, as we have become accustomed with Mishkan T’filah.

Another example of embracing both traditional and Reform practice is in the scriptural readings. Those of us who’ve been Reform for as long as we’ve been alive, or at least for as long as we’ve been Jewish, may imagine that the Binding of Isaac is the traditional Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah morning. That’s only partially true. In traditional synagogues, that section is read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Mishkan HaNefesh offers choices. This year, for example, we will read the traditional selection for the first – and in our case, the only – day of Rosh Hashanah, which is about the birth of Isaac. Then, we will immediately turn to a Haftarah designated by our Reform forbears, a selection from the Book of Nehemiah about an ancient Rosh Hashanah.

The evocative English of Mishkan HaNefesh is its greatest strength, whether in translations of traditional prayers or in the more interpretive sections on the left side of the page. We may find inspiration in prayer and poetry that is mostly new to us, and then turn to a reading that has brought meaning to Reform Jews since the first edition of Union Prayer Book.

The editors of Mishkan HaNefesh solved some nettlesome problems with grace. For some years, we have been awkwardly changing the words when Gates of Repentance refers to God as “He.” As with Mishkan T’filah, that problem has been solved in ways that are never noticeable.

The most important words on the High Holy Days are Avinu Malkeinu, previously translated, “Our Father, our King.” The solution in Mishkan HaNefesh is a thing of beauty: “Avinu Malkeinu, Sh’ma Koleinu, Avinu Malkeinu – Almighty and Merciful – hear our voice.” “Almighty and Merciful” is evocative alliteration, reflecting the opening “a” and “m” sounds of Avinu Malkeinu. More significant, the meaning is conveyed, even if not literally. We call upon Malkeinu, our Sovereign, to acknowledge God’s power to judge us when we have sinned. We call upon Avinu, our loving heavenly Parent, asking the Holy One to be merciful when we have gone astray.

Most creative is the placement of the shofar ritual. In Orthodox synagogues, the shofar is sounded during the mussaf service. Mussaf means “additional,” and it refers to a repetition of prayers, duplication eliminated by our Reform founders. Reform prayer books placed the shofar after the Haftarah reading, since traditional mussaf follows the Torah service. The shofar ritual has three parts – the first, emphasizing God’s sovereignty; the second, asking God to forgive us by recalling the merit of our ancestors; and the third, pointing toward amessianic, future. When the entire shofar ritual is compressed into one part of the service, whether in mussaf or after the Haftarah, each part loses its significance. Mishkan HaNefesh liberates us both from a tradition that is no longer meaningful to us and a decision of our 19th century Reform founders. We now separate the three sections, giving each its own special place in the service.

One is silver and the other’s gold. Mishkan HaNefesh enables us to make a new friend while keeping the old. It preserves our birthright, the old friends that are our Jewish tradition and our Reform heritage, with prayers from the ancient and medieval High Holy Day machzor and words from Union Prayer Book. It provides new poetry, a new friend, inviting our spirits to soar. Mishkan HaNefesh is art in our hands. The look and the feel of these gold and silver volumes are classic wonders, worthy to be cherished for generations, even in a future when these are the beloved old books on the shelf from a previous era.

We have received a magnificent gift, from our editors and from our Conference. Let our hearts, full of gratitude, find precious gems in the silver and in the gold.

—

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Rabbi Block chairs the CCAR Resolutions Committee.

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Meet the Editors of Mishkan HaNefesh: Rabbi Sheldon Marder

When Rabbi Sheldon Marder talks about finding the essential meaning in the traditional service and then innovating to make it relevant to the 21st century, he talks from years of expert experience. As one of the editors of Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe, Rabbi Marder played various roles, including taking on a lead role in the masterful translations. We asked him to tell us about his journey in becoming an editor of the new machzor, the process of working on the prayerbooks, and his favorite parts of the liturgical texts.

 

Q: Tell us about yourself and your background in Jewish liturgy.

A: My background in Jewish liturgy begins with the Union Prayer Book, my siddur from 1955 – 1975 (from first grade through my third year at HUC). In the late 1960s, my mother co-wrote a pamphlet for rabbis: a guide to degenderizing the prayers in the UPB, which was distributed to Reform rabbis by the UAHC. Her passion for the prayerbook made an impression on me. But, to my disappointment, the premise of the pamphlet—that the exclusive use of male language for God erected a false barrier to the already-difficult task of praying—was rejected by the liturgy committee that created Gates of Prayer in 1975. Nonetheless, I considered Gates of Prayer a great achievement for the Reform movement and enjoyed using it for thirty years.MhN Standard - RESIZED FINAL

In 1973 I began studying with Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, who exposed his students simultaneously to the primary liturgical sources (Mishnaic, Talmudic, Geonic, etc.) and to scholarship in the social sciences to enhance our understanding of ritual, culture, and belief systems (Mary Douglas, Edward Hall, and Gregory Bateson come immediately to mind); and at the same time I was exposed to contemporary trends in Jewish liturgy and spirituality (e.g., the 1972 feminist issue of the journal Response). By far, my most important—indeed, formative—experience in rabbinic school was the thesis I wrote under the mentorship of Rabbi Hoffman. It was a project that involved research into many dimensions of the medieval world of Jewish liturgy; it focused on primary sources: liturgical manuscripts from the Mediterranean region, where Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews met, mingled, and interacted. The main manuscript’s instructions were in Arabic, which added to my appreciation and understanding of the culture in which the document was created.

My liturgical skills and concerns have been deepened by reading, studying, reflecting, and teaching about two areas of great interest and meaning to me: Biblical poetry—the book of Psalms in particular; and modern Hebrew poetry. These interests go back more than forty years, but have increased in intensity and depth over time.

Every setting in which I have worked as a rabbi has had a liturgical/worship component.  Early in my career, I had a job in which I recruited, trained, and supervised Jewish volunteers to lead services in sixty nursing homes in the Los Angeles area. This was a profound learning experience. On a human and practical level, nothing has been more important.

 

Q: Working on Mishkan HaNefesh was a seven-year process. What made you want to take part in this project?

A:  The work seemed to bring together and draw on many things that I enjoy: prayer, poetry, Jewish study, and creative writing. I felt that I had not studied the liturgy of the High Holy Days Mishkan HaNefeshdeeply enough; this would be an opportunity to do some serious work in that area.  At the same time, as I thought about all of the other prayer books I’ve used and seen (probably hundreds of them), I was humbled by the overwhelming feeling that this was beyond me….  In any case, I decided to do it because I would be part of a team and, especially because the team of four editors would include my wife, Janet.  My mother – mentioned above – talked me into it!  And my participation in the CCAR’s machzor Think Tank in late 2008 whetted my appetite for the work.

 

Q: What was your role in the creation of Mishkan HaNefesh?  

A: There was no aspect of the machzor that did not interest me. I wrote faithful translations for the traditional liturgy, the Torah and Haftarah portions, medieval piyutim, and some of the modern Hebrew poems. Through my work on the machzor, I experienced translation on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels. It became, for me, a form of prayer. The machzor gave me the gift of developing a personal philosophy and method of translation.  I wrote “sublinear” commentaries—and especially enjoyed blending historical, linguistic, and literary approaches into comments that ultimately have a spiritual message and purpose. I wrote original prayers, creative readings, interpretations of prayers and midrashim, and essays that introduce services, liturgical rubrics, and the Torah and Haftarah portions. I enjoyed the creative work of conceptualizing several services for Yom Kippur afternoon. It was an incredibly meaningful experience to bring to life, in a new way, traditional services like Avodah, Eileh Ezk’rah, and Yizkor; it was very gratifying to bring new meaning to them.

 

Q: What is your favorite part of the books, and what would you like readers/worshipers to take away from the experience of using Mishkan HaNefesh this High Holy Days?   

A: I think the afternoon—from Minchah to N’ilah—is my favorite part of the two volumes because in those services – in addition to everything else – there was the aspect of finding the essence – the essential meaning – in the traditional service and then innovating to make it relevant to the 21st century.  Avodah, the theme of which is “discovering the holy,” is a good example; or Eileh Ezk’rah which is thematically a counterpart to Minchah: the first focuses on tikkun olam (repair of the world) and the second focuses on tikkun midot hanefesh (character development and self-improvement).  I also really enjoy looking at the pictures!  (Joel Shapiro’s art). I enjoyed weaving contemporary themes and ideas throughout the books – for example, our relationship to Israel; the urgency of saving our environment.

I would like Mishkan HaNefesh to provide people with significant, serious religious experiences and, perhaps, inspire them to study and pray more often and more regularly. And I hope it will lead people to the most important tasks of the Days of Awe: Cheshbon HaNefesh (self-reckoning and self-examination) and T’shuvah (repentance and return to the right path).

—

Rabbi Sheldon Marder is the co-editor, translator, writer, and commentator of Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe, published by CCAR Press in 2015. He is also the contributor to other publications, such as Divrei Mishkan HaNefesh: A Guide to the CCAR Machzor, published by CCAR Press in 2016; and CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Summer 2013 issue. He is currently the Rabbi and Department Head of Jewish Life at the Jewish Home of San Francisco.