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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Being but a Cog in the Work to Make our World a Better Place

On August 1, 2015, I was lucky enough to pronounce the final benediction at a ceremony beginning the NAACP‘s 45-day American Journey for Justice. This was the day when I was able to share words of Torah in Selma, AL before marchers undertook the first steps of an 865-mile trek to make the world a better place. This was the day I was truly honored and overwhelmed by the privilege of carrying a sacred scroll of the Torah over the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, taking about 700 of the million steps that lay ahead on the sojourn to Washington, D.C. This was the day I walked12 miles down a highway in the blazing 98-degree Alabama heat.

“We are now bonded,” said my new friend, Mary Sorteburg, in a remarkable embrace that topped everything else. That’s how I felt after my day, only one day, one in a series that will be marched by my compatriots who yearn for justice, by my new partners and friends in the NAACP leadership, and by my CCAR colleagues who will march that same Torah scroll all the way to D.C. I felt bonded.

Bonded to Mary and her remarkable husband Jeff Merkley, who–despite being the Senator from Oregon–is now my spiritual representative in our nation’s capital.

Bonded to the remarkable Cornell William Brooks, the President of the NAACP, with whom I walked that remarkable road as we shared our stories in the blazing sun.

Bonded to leaders Leon Russell and Dwayne Proctor, with whom I shared continuing conversations; bonded to Sierra Club President Aaron Mair and a man named Middle Passage, both of whom I came to know as they carried the Torah down State Highway 80.

Bonded to Rabbis Denise Eger, Bruce Lustig, Beth Singer and Jason Roditch—who previously had been at best a quick ‘hello’ at convention or sometimes just a disembodied voice on the other end of the phone—and who are now brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

Bonded to Susan Solomon, Merle Terry, Jill and Grant Peters, who traveled with me from Chicago Sinai Congregation to help our Torah scroll take its place in the American Journey for Justice.

Bonded to the struggle to prove that Black Lives Matter.

Bonded to the fight to end racism, to fight racism, to talk honestly about racism.

And bonded to the Torah scroll.

I am not a rabbi overly focused on ritual, often moved by symbolism. But carrying this sacred scroll down an open highway, playing a small, literal role in a massive, literal journey erased any capacity for me to relate to Torah only metaphorically. Even having passed the scroll to a beloved and esteemed colleague, I now feel as if I have a missing limb: part of my mental energy is constantly wondering where the scroll is, in whose treasuring arms it rests. But with the Torah on that historical highway, I have never felt smaller and bigger: I was one brief person carrying the Torah down a long road for one brief time; I could hardly see the end of the day’s walk, let along the final destination. I have never stood so proud and tall as I did as the clock approached 6:00 and my feet were blistering. I was able to carry the Torah proudly, to serve my role, to play my small part. The knowledge of being but a cog—but a vital part of the machinery to make our world a better place—is exactly the lesson of our American Journey for Justice.

August 1 was filled with love, with hope, with solidarity and community. It was also filled with anger, confusion and disappointment. It was a day of contradiction. We were so generously and safely guided and granted passage by Alabama State Police; how different, not only from 50 years ago when police presence on the other side of the bridge signaled danger, but also what a vast chasm from the terror black people continue to face in nearly every encounter with law enforcement. The Chicago Tribune published a wonderful story about my colleagues’ choosing to walk in support of the NAACP; the only ink the Tribune spent on the American Journey for Justice was to document the participation of white people. In one day, I feel as if I built real relationships on the road that will last into the future; in 13 months in Chicago, I have built precious yet few relationships with black leaders. The contradictions of the day still puzzle me; it is upon me now to work towards their resolution.

On September 15, I will fly down to D.C. to meet up again with my comrades in justice, to carry that Torah scroll again in my arms as we bring it together into the very seat of our American democracy. I will travel with members of my congregation, my daughter and my determination to bring about racial justice. I look forward again to being with Cornell, with Jeff, with Bruce, with Dwayne, with Leon, with Mary, with so many more: the handshakes, the hugs and the commitment to end racism. A commitment that binds us as tightly as hands clenched together in hope and love.

—

Rabbi Seth Limmer serves as Senior Rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation. He is also the Chair of the Justice and Peace Committee of the CCAR.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog.

Categories
News Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice Torah

Why We’re Marching in America’s Journey for Justice

We are participating in the N.A.A.C.P.’s “America’s Journey for Justice” is, individually and as part of the collective of 140+ Reform rabbis, a giant step for Justice. This 40 day march from Selma, AL to Washington, D.C., with 5 final days in DC, focused on racial and structural inequality under the banner, “Our Lives, Our Votes, Our Jobs and Our Schools Matter,” is more than a Journey of many rabbis over 860 miles. With at least one rabbi marching every day of the American Journey for Justice, a sacred scroll of the Torah will experience the entire length of this journey. Our sefer Torah that teaches of our 40 year journey through the wilderness will accompany us on this 40-day journey for the justice our Torah demands.

Why are we working for racial justice at this time? Why are we marching?

We march because we say enough. Enough of the tragedies. Enough of the subtle and overt racism. Enough of standing by. We march not only in the name of those whose deaths woke up our nation’s consciousness, but for the millions of others whose loss of life, loss of home, and loss of dignity never made a headline. Our hearts break for the world as it is–parched by oppression–constant, crushing, and unacceptable. We remember the slavery and oppression that bloodied our own past even as we recognize the privilege into which many of us were born. We, therefore, march arm-in-arm with other people of faith in our humble attempt to live up to our tradition’s demand to be rodfei tzedek, pursuers of justice, equality and freedom.

We feel called by our God, our tradition and our consciences to march. At the same time, we know that simply marching in this remarkable forty-day Journey to Justice is not enough. We march for the forty-first day, the one-hundred and twentieth, and the years and generations to come. We march, as our ancestors taught us, to get from Egypt—the world as it is, filled with injustice—to the Promised Land. We march toward a vision of this land’s promise: our world redeemed, overflowing with chesed, tzedek, umishpat—compassion, justice and righteousness.

Thank you for joining us.

Sincerely,

Joel Abraham, David Adelson, Erica Asch, Peter Berg, Shoshanah Conover, Wendi Geffen, Sam Gordon, Asher Knight Esther Lederman, Seth Limmer, John Linder, Greg Litcofsky, Ari Margolis, Joel Mosbacher, Mark Miller, Jason Rosenberg, Adam Spilker

On behalf of the ROR Leadership Team

—

This blog was originally posted on the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s blog

Categories
Rabbis Social Justice Statements

Bearing True Witness: Raising the Collective Rabbinic Voice

Late last week, the New York Times treated us to a column featuring two Reform rabbis, Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig and Rabbi Yoel Kahn, along with other religious leaders who have been pioneers in the struggle for LGBT equality. The article’s title suggested a problem it was striving to correct: “Push Within Religions for Gay Marriage Gets Little Attention.”

Reading the news, one could easily develop the impression that religion itself opposes LGBT equality and reproductive liberty, while demanding easy access to fire arms, to name just a few examples. Consider discussion around the Boy Scouts of America’s policy change, permitting gay and lesbian adults to serve in leadership capacities. We have all heard much about religious groups’ demand that they be permitted to bar gay men and lesbians from serving in these roles in the Boy Scout Troops they house, but precious little about religious groups that will only host Boy Scout Troops with clear, enforced non-discrimination policies.

Amplifying the progressive religious voice is hard work. As the New York Times’ headline writer suggests, our endeavors often garner “little attention.”

This week, I experienced the power of our collective rabbinic voice. On Monday, I had a phone call from a friend who works for Planned Parenthood. Her voice was filled with frustration, even loneliness, as she articulated the pain of being accused of gross inhumanity. Later that same day, our Reform rabbinate issued a statement, “CCAR Condemns Deceptive Campaign against Planned Parenthood.” I sent it to my friend. She was deeply moved that a group of clergy had rushed to Planned Parenthood’s defense. Not Jewish, and not being religious at all, her principal association with religion is in the claim of many that God hates Planned Parenthood, its work and its advocacy. Suddenly, a group of clergy has rushed to Planned Parenthood’s defense, boldly asserting “truth” to combat the lies that threaten to cripple women’s reproductive liberty.

In its 2015 session, the Arkansas Legislature, like many before it, resolved to welcome tablets of the Ten Commandments to stand on the grounds of our State Capitol. While I oppose doing so, in this week of reading Parashat Va’etchanan, which includes those Ten Commandments, I would suggest that the very people behind such efforts have much to learn from those commandments. When they claim that God commands that we discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, they take God’s Name in vain. When they charge that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit, they bear false witness against their neighbors.

When I posted the CCAR’s Statement about Planned Parenthood to Facebook, one of my friends asked whether mainline Protestant groups had made similar declarations. I don’t know the answer, but I’m not aware of any. What I don’t do is take the bold truth-telling of the CCAR for granted.

Whether the issue is racial justice or gun violence, religious freedom in the United States or Israel, LGBT rights or reproductive liberty, we may be grateful that our CCAR President, Rabbi Denise Eger, and our Chief Executive, Rabbi Steve Fox, among other leaders, are prepared to raise the collective rabbinic voice to bear true witness: God loves all, created in the Divine image; and God demands truth.

And let us pray that, some day, no longer will a headline writer for the Times or anyone else have to say that our collective religious voice for truth “gets little attention.”

—

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

Categories
Social Justice

A Lamentation and a Journey

עַל אֵלֶּה | אֲנִי בוֹכִיָּה עֵינִי | עֵינִי יֹרְדָה מַּיִם כִּי רָחַק מִמֶּנִּי מְנַחֵם מֵשִׁיב נַפְשִׁי הָיוּ בָנַי שׁוֹמֵמִים כִּי גָבַר אוֹיֵב: פֵּרְשָׂה צִיּוֹן בְּיָדֶיהָ אֵין מְנַחֵם לָהּ

For these things, I cry out.  My eye, my eye pours down water, because the comfort that would restore my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed. Zion spreads open hands, but she has no comfort.         Lamentations 1:16-17a

Churches are burning again in the United States, and I am swept back two decades.

It was June of 1996 and I had just arrived back on the East Coast and was trying to integrate into my community at Hebrew Union College in New York.  I received a note from Rabbi Nancy Wiener, one of the faculty at HUC, who invited anyone who was interested to travel with her and some other student volunteers to Boligee, Alabama.  There, working out of a Quaker Workcamp, we would volunteer for a week to help re-build some of the churches burned in a wave of hate-filled arson that had swept through black churches in the South.

The experience was transformative.  Travelling with cantorial and rabbinic students, I felt proud that this could be my job – to travel with my congregants to place ourselves and our hands in service of others in need. The hospitality was humbling. The church women refused to let us bring our own food the jobsite – they insisted on cooking for us, every day.  They said it was the least that they could do.

I felt good about the spackling and sanding that I was doing, but I did not quite understand until Tisha b’Av.  Named after the date at which we are told that the Babylonians destroyed the first Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the Romans burned the second Temple in 70 CE, it is the only other full day of fasting and mourning in the Jewish tradition, besides Yom Kippur.  As a Reform Jew, the holiday had been of historical interest to me, but I failed to grasp the visceral impact of losing one’s house of worship – until our group decided to hold our Tisha b’Av commemoration at the former site of the church we had come to rebuild.

These churches were small – hardly more than a central room for worship, an office, and a kitchen.  We stood on the blackened ground of the sanctuary and, as the sun set, were surrounded by the grave markers of at least a century of parishioners.  These local churches were small in population as well – only a few families, who had been members for generations, whose families were buried surrounding their worship home.  The law did not allow this community to build in what had become a cemetery, and so their new house of worship – although strong and clean, would stand alone several miles down the road, without the presence of loved ones.

For me, that was when it hit home.  I thought about how I had felt when I lost the synagogue that I grew up in – the loss of a place to come home to at the High Holy Days; the place that I had known I would see the same faces (a little older), in the same seats.  But, that Temple still exists, I was just no longer a member.  How much more the loss by our ancestors, with no place to travel to at each pilgrimage holiday, no direction to turn when praying, no high hill to stand on and look out over the capital, the graves of ancestors, the history of generations, the promise of a people.

Three years later, in my first year at my present congregation, we learned of a fire set at a friend’s congregation.  That Tisha B’Av, I asked each congregant to find a place in our building where they had a special memory.  We travelled from room to room, picking up people and hearing their stories, building a mental map of our Temple.  Finally, we each made a fabric square, illustrating and completing the phrase, “A Temple is a House of….” which were sewn together into a quilt which we sent to Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento.

We see Tisha b’Av as a grand historical moment – the transition from animal sacrifice to prayer and rabbinic Judaism.  Our Reform forebears saw it as a moment to be celebrated – the beginning of our mission into the greater world, to be a light among the nations, not apart.  And yet, there is the personal sense of loss that we have forgotten: the pew no longer present; the yahrzeit plaque melted into slag; the prayerbooks scattered and burned.

In reaching out to others, I rediscovered the loss of my people.  In feeling that loss, I was able to see not only what they had lost, but what it meant to them for us to be there, just to show with our physical presence that they were not alone, not abandoned, that not everyone wanted to wipe their home of worship from the earth.

On Tisha b’Av, we read from what is called in English, Lamentations, in Hebrew, Eicha.  Eicha is a barely articulate cry – “How?”  How can this have happened?  How can I deal with this loss?  How can I face a new reality, when my rock has been shattered?  We may have no answers to this plea, but we have actions to share the burden.  We will walk from Selma to Washington, DC with the NAACP’s Journey for Justice and we will say: Tell us of your pain.  We may not be able to fully understand it, but we can listen; we can try to carry some of that weight.  We can say, we will not let someone do this to you again, without putting ourselves in their way.

Eicha – how?  How can we do anything else?

—

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham serves Temple Sholom of Scotch Plains/Fanwood, NJ. 

Tisha b’Av (July 25-26) is considered the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. It is the day when we mourn  our various destructions and exiles, and in many communities is marked by fasting, reading the Book of Lamentations, and the rituals of mourning. For the last several years, Reform CA has used this holiday as an opportunity to gather to reflect on the brokenness and alienation still present in society and recommit ourselves to the sacred call to repair.  Wherever you find yourself this Tisha B’Av– alone or in congregation, at camp or at home– we hope this resource, about the urgent need for racial justice helps you refocus and rededicate yourself, firmly rooted in our Jewish tradition.  This was created by Rabbi Jessica Oleon Kirschner of Reform CA and Rabbi Joel Simonds of RAC-West.

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News Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

America’s Continuing Journey for Justice

Rabbi Seth Limmer

Thirty summers ago, my family packed into the station wagon for a cross-country road trip.  One of the highlights of our entire experience was a visit to the old Universal Studios. My favorite part of the back lot tour, was this trick you could play, back in the day when Universal was a fun-filled studio tour and not a massive amusement park.  After driving through Amity Island and having Jaws attack your boat, after parting through the waters of the miraculously parted Red Sea, there was a random van sitting in an otherwise empty parking lot. This was just a standard seventies junk-mobile: no crazy Cadillac or even quirky VW Minibus. Still, this van was special: it was made out of Styrofoam. Therefore, quite easily, you could lift up the entire “vehicle” with just one hand and hold the rear bumper high over your head. A properly taken photo made it look like you were Superman: saving the day, rescuing whatever family member had the tawdry task of lying down on the ground so you could “rescue” them.  Somewhere there’s a picture of my dad rescuing me from such a crash; I remember thinking how cool it was, and how much I wanted to grow up and be Superman, rescuing the day, just like my dad.

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Fifty years ago, two other phenomenal photos were taken that continue to inspire me, too. This one’s more famous. It was taken on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Captured in the center is Martin Luther King, undaunted, returning to cross that bridge peaceably no matter whet Sherriff Jim Clark had waiting for him on the other side. In the crowd of leaders walking with King stands out a bearded face: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who later famously described the moment crossing the bridge as “praying with his feet.” The second photo, taken three days later in Montgomery—when the voting rights march had reached its destination—featured not only Dr. King with Rabbi Heschel on his right.  Standing immediately to the left of Dr. King was Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, President of the Reform Movement of Judaism. In his arms, Eisendrath holds a sacred scroll of our Torah.  Judaism standing for justice: these photos are the reason I became a rabbi.  

Three weeks ago, I participated in a conference call for the National Conference on Civil Rights.  Because too little has changed in 50 years, most of the call discussed strategy and tactics for a key Voting Rights rally in Roanoake, VA. Yet, towards the end of the call, NAACP President Cornell Brooks asked for “fifteen more minutes of our time” to share with us some important news.  By the time that quarter hour had concluded, I was inspired: the NAACP was undertaking a 40 day march from Selma, AL to Washington, D.C., calling it “America’s Journey for Justice.” The remarkably appropriate headline of the trek was, “Our lives, our votes, our jobs, and our school matter.” Every night of the 860-mile journey, travelers would come together in prayer, and study together in teach-in sessions on the compelling civil rights issues of our day.  A massive rally would celebrate the Journey’s reaching our nation’s capitol, and a large-scale advocacy day for civil rights would follow.

I was “in.” My mind immediately made associations: 40 days of walking towards the promise of a better America were so perfectly parallel with my people’s saga of walking 40 years towards our own Land of Promise.  The two pictures from 50 years ago entered my mind: I knew the Jewish community needed to be on this march, from beginning to end.  Inspired by the image of King and Heschel on the bridge, I wanted to find a way to make sure a Rabbi—most likely a succession of 40 different ones—shared the entire distance of this journey.  Compelled by the picture of Eisendrath, I thought it would be powerful if our Torah scroll didn’t just appear in DC for the final rally, but accompanied us the entire 860-mile journey. I knew I could no longer be inspired by pictures of the past if I wasn’t willing to walk the walk in the present.

This week, our Reform Movement went public with our support for and participation in “America’s Journey for Justice.” Coordinated by our Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., there will be countless opportunities for participation. Our Rabbis, through the work of our Central Conference of American Rabbis, and our Rabbis Organizing Rabbis campaign, will coordinate no fewer than 40 rabbis walking the distance of the journey, carrying the sacred scroll of our Torah (a scroll from my own Chicago Sinai Congregation, bearing the most appropriate cover “All its ways are Peace”).  The Congregations will come together not just to walk, but to be vocal participants in the many “rally days” to be held in multiple State Capitols along the way.  Learning resources and advocacy materials about voting rights, structural economic injustice, mass incarceration, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement will be brought to the institutions of Reform Judaism throughout America. Those who can walk will form relationships on the ground made through the experience of shared travel; the many who cannot attend will likewise be able to learn about the depths of racial injustice in America, and work to solve them. I cannot wait to see how I, how we, are changed by the experience. And how this shared experience of a Journey for Justice can change America.

I was lucky enough to visit Selma eight years ago. In its lovely Civil Rights Museum, visitors are greeted by a wall covered with post-it notes with the words “I was there” printed across the top.  The remainder of every note contained personal reminiscences of those who stood on both sides of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. It is a wall of powerful testimony.

I ask myself, “What do I want to put on the post-it note that will be read by the next generation?” That I watched the Journey on TV? That I read about it in the paper? No. I want to write, “I WAS THERE.”

This new generation can no longer look at pictures of the past to draw inspiration. We need a new generation of Reform Jewish leaders to step forward and to say, “We were there.” We need to be there today. There might be some who think the task is too big, be it the coordination of multitudes to march 860 miles, or making serious changes to the structural injustices so deeply ingrained in American society. However, if we really want to make our nation a true land of promise for all, we need to take a page out of the old playbook from Universal Studios: we need to think we are Superman, and we need to imagine accomplishing the impossible, we need to believe we can do all that is required to bring justice to our United States of America. And lest we think that is too long a road to travel, we need to remember every journey worth taking begins with a simple step.

I look forward to taking my simple steps on August 1, in Selma, Alabama.

Rabbi Limmer currently serves as Senior Rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation. He is also the Chair of the Justice and Peace Committee of the CCAR. 

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chaplains General CCAR Rabbis Reform Judaism

APA Mental Health Guide for Faith Leaders

The American Psychiatric Association has just released new resources on mental health for faith leaders. Thanks to our colleague Rabbi Edie Mencher for bringing these new materials to our attention. The linked resources are invaluable gifts from a partnership between the faith community and the American Psychatric Association (not to be confused with the American Psychological Association, in our awareness for very different and disappointing reasons this week.) The deeply informative manual as well as the supplementary quick reference guide should be required reading for all of our rabbinic work. For those serving in congregations, I call your attention in particular in the manual to the section on wellness, as well as the second portion of the manual focused on ways the congregation can become even more responsive to mental health issues.

I offer two additional foci for your consideration. One, mentioned briefly on page 17, cannot be underestimated. That is the power of the pulpit. On these kinds of issues, your power to open hearts and provide illumination is immense. I know of several of our colleagues who have spoken recently, often from very personal perspectives, of grief, depression and other mental health issues. They have reported to me the impact of these interventions and can feel the depth of the service they have provided.

The other focus, not mentioned explicitly, is of equal import. I speak of the importance of self-care. And, in this case, I am not back on my soapbox about wellness practice. Rather, I am referring to the importance of attending to our own mental and spiritual fitness when we are engaged with helping others attack these issues in their own lives. From compassion fatigue, through vicarious trauma to triggering of deep-seated conflict, our work both puts us at risk and REQUIRES of us that we make sure we are staying attuned to our inner lives and how they are affected by that work.

So, please, read the materials referred to here, and also take an inventory of your current state and support systems. And, as always, if you’d like to discuss these or any matters, please reach out by e-mail anytime at rperlmeter@ccarnet.org.

A Prayer of Healing for Mental Illness – check out this PDF from Mishkan R’fuah: Where Healing Resides from CCAR Press.

Rabbi Rex D Perlmeter is the CCAR Social Work Intern for Member Care and Wellness

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Rabbis Reform Judaism

We All Have Rivers to Cross: Learning Prayer from our Ancestors

This piece is from a summer sermon series at Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, exploring Mishkan HaNefesh, the new Reform machzor. 

When Roberta began to prepare for her Adult B’nei Mitzvah earlier this year, she felt especially draw to chanting Torah. It was then that her mother reminded her: Roberta’s great-grandfather was a hazzan–a traditional cantor. This powerful link to her roots — spanning time and space — deepened Roberta’s Torah experience all the more so.

This summer, as we encounter Mishkan HaNefesh, our new High Holy Day Machzor, we are posting a weekly question for your response. This week, we asked: From what person or event in Jewish history or in Jewish tradition do you draw inspiration? In other words, what are the lessons you learn from Jews of the past?

In Roberta’s case, a teacher of Jewish ritual who was a relative from her own family touched her. For many, teachers from Jewish history offer connection. We are not alone in our Jewish quest for meaning.

In several of your responses online this week, you reached far into Jewish textual history. One of you was inspired by Abraham and Sarah and the way they welcomed strangers into their home. One of you was moved by bold women in the Torah, such as Miriam, and by courageous women in modern history, such as Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel, and Hannah Senesh, who was killed saving Jews in the Holocaust. Responses included admiration for the Torah scholars of Jewish history such as Yochonon Ben Zakkai, Rashi,. And there was admiration for the people who have not made the history books, but have devoted themselves to Jewish identity and Jewish living.

Mindful of the question: “From whom in the Jewish past do we draw inspiration?” consider this text from our new High Holy Day prayerbook, Mishkan Hanefesh. This prayer introduces the Yom Kippur Amidah (p. 198):

In the depths of the night, by the edge of the river,

Jacob was left alone.

In heartfelt longing, in the temple of God,

Channah uttered her prayer alone.

In the barren wilderness, in doubt and despair,

Elijah found God alone.

On the holiest day, in the Holy of Holies,

the High Priest entered alone.

We are bound to one another in myriad ways,

but each soul needs time to itself.

In solitude we meet the solitary One;

silence makes space for the still small voice.

For the Psalmist says: “Deep calls unto deep.”

For the depths of our soul, we seek what is most profound.

Glendasan River, Wicklow Mountains“In the depths of the night, by the edge of the river, Jacob was left alone:” This scene recalls Genesis Chapter 32 when the night before Jacob is to meet his brother Esau, with whom he shares great conflict, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious being–perhaps it was with God, with an angel, a man or himself. When we in our lives face conflict, or when we toss and turn with our demons, or when we have rivers to cross, we are a part of a Jewish people who learns from Jacob that struggle with the divine is sacred.

Next verse: “In heartfelt longing, in the temple of God, Channah uttered her prayer alone:” …In this scene, Channah, in deep despair because she has not been able to conceive a child, prays to God for a child. When the priest sees her lips quietly move, he is so unaccustomed to seeing a woman pray spontaneously, that he mistakes her for a drunk woman. When we in our lives feel devastated and long for a new way to arise from our desperation, we are a part of a Jewish people who learns from Channah that our cries to God are sacred.

Next verse: “In the barren wilderness, in doubt and despair, Elijah found God alone:” In a dramatic story in the Book of Kings, Elijah sees a powerful wind tear apart the mountain, but God is not in the wind. He sees an earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire, but God is not in the fire. And after the fire, there was a still small voice. Elijah encounters God in the still, small voice. When we in our lives feel overwhelmed by the noise, drama and pace of this world, we are a part of a Jewish people who learns from Elijah that stillness is sacred.

Next verse: “On the holiest day, in the Holy of Holies, the High Priest entered alone:” When the ancient Temple stood in Jerusalem, on Yom Kippur, only the High priest could enter the the secret and holy center of the sacred space. When we in our lives feel conflicted between the Jewish calendar and the rest of the world’s schedule — when there’s a school program on Rosh Hashanah or a Pope’s visit that creates obstacles for Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shabbat (for instance!), we are a part of a Jewish people who learns from the High Priest that sometimes it is lonely to be a Jew, but also, that our Jewish holy days cannot be rescheduled; they are sacred.

Final verse: “For the Psalmist says: ‘Deep calls unto deep.”: That term deep is the very same word used to describe the primordial depths over which God’s spirit hovered in the creation story. When we in our lives, struggling just to keep pace with the routine, aren’t sure we have the time to focus on the deepest truths of our soul, we are a part of a Jewish people who learns from the Psalmist that heeding the call from the depths, is sacred.

When this Mishkan HaNefesh passage turns to our ancestors for lessons about prayers, this particular teaching emphasizes moments of solitude. This passage introduces the Amidah, a series of blessings meant for quiet contemplation. Interesting then, even in such personal moments, to find deep connection to the Jewish people and the Jewish past.

Even with all of this emphasis on solitude, and at this time of solitude, we are not alone. We are a part of the Jewish people and the Jewish story; so we list those on whose shoulders we stand in our spiritual search.

Prayer is hard. We don’t always know the words on the page, if we believe what we are saying, or if the sounds are really just mantras after all. We might not be sure if anyone is listening, or if prayer makes an impact. Yet, we can learn from the spiritual seekers who came before us. We can learn from their uncertainty, their loss for words, their doubts. We learn that there are some things that we share in common:

We have rivers to cross. We have longings for which there are no words. We seek to discover truth in the quiet. We discover the sacred when we interrupt our lives for holy time. We are connected; even when we are alone.

Even with all of this emphasis on solitude, we recall all of those from history who keep us company. Our tradition’s roots span time and space. In our quest for Jewish meaning and prayer, when we seek to connect to that which is greater than ourselves, may we never be alone.

Rabbi Jill Maderer serves Congregation Rodeph Shalom, in Philadelphia, PA.

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

HaBocheir B’shirei Zimra: The Ones Who Choose Song

We cantors had this crazy idea – well, I had this crazy idea: a new machzor deserved new music.  The process of creating a new machzor transformed the conversations about the narrative of the High Holy Days; that conversation should extend to the message and experience of its music as well.  So two years ago, we convened a group of cantorial colleagues to study Mishkah HaNefesh, to delve into its new texts, layouts, and flow of prayer and song.  This was truly an inspired combination of cantors with different backgrounds, experiences and talents; our study and dialogue was of great depth and excitement as we considered our current musical repertoire for the High Holy Days, where we wanted either a new musical expression of a familiar text or deliberating about what we would aspire to have for some brand new text.

The journey has been amazing.  We approached a cohort of composers from the Reform Jewish world, our friends and colleagues who are members of either the American Conference of Cantors or the Guild of Temple Musicians, with a bold invitation – to donate their time and talent to us through the gift of a musical composition to be part of what we hoped would be a ground-breaking anthology of new High Holy Day music.  Their generosity of spirit was overwhelming.  Our committee then proceeded to commission each composer with a text and genre of musical direction, specifically chosen for each composer.  And so, Shirei Mishkan HaNefesh was born, the newest music created by those who are called to express our deepest hopes and aspirations through music, the musical threads of Mishkan HaNefesh.

In the ensuing months, we spent time in dialogue with each composer as their creative juices flowed.  Together, we tweaked and refined each draft of the composition, bringing the text to life through the musical notes and voices; this partnership helped to create the extraordinary musical expression that we envisioned and hoped for.

Fast forward to our recent ACC-GTM convention in Fort Lauderdale – the first copies of Shirei Mishkan HaNefesh arrived!  In keeping with the goal of honoring the generous contributions of the composers, the volume also contains short statements from each composer about their musical inspiration for their composition.  We chose to present the entirety of its contents to the convention participants in order for everyone to have a more concrete experience of the music, and enable all of us to determine the ways we would use pieces in our services.

Of course, that presentation required rehearsal and preparation.  What an experience it was, to sing and hear the notes come off the page, springing to life as we began to sing. The resonance of the piano, the soaring voice of each cantor, the blending of choral voices, the rising and expansion of sound and word: we had seen it on paper, heard it in our heads, yet the layers of sound and the diversity of expression were so much more moving than I even anticipated.  As the Editorial Chair of the project, I had the opportunity to write some introductory words to the volume.  Experiencing the music coming to life, I feel even more confident in the hopes I expressed there, that these beautiful musical expressions of our sacred texts will inspire all those who hear them, helping them enter into the Mishkan of prayer in the Days of Awe, with a sense of fulfillment and peace.

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Cantor Susan Caro serves Northern Virgina Hebrew Congregation in Reston, Virginia.  She is also the Editorial Chair of Shirei Mishkan HaNefesh.

Categories
Rabbis

Transition: Two Years, Two Sides

I write on July 1, 2015, mindful that many colleagues begin new positions today, two years to the day after I commenced my tenure at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When I arrived, I found a transition-weary congregation, after eight months without a resident rabbi followed by a year with an outstanding interim rabbi. Staff and congregants had circled July 1, 2013, as the red-letter day when the “permanent” rabbi would arrive and transition would end.

I, though, was fresh from CCAR’s outstanding “First 100 Days” seminar for rabbis in transition. Steve Fox had told us that transition would continue at least for our first 18 months in our new positions, perhaps until our second contracts were signed. I emphasized to a receptive lay leadership that a new phase of transition was only beginning. I reminded everyone that even Rabbi Ira Sanders, z”l — whose tenure, including his emeritus service, had spanned six decades — wasn’t “permanent.” However, a key staff member had endured enough transition, giving notice only three weeks after I arrived. Another left after the fall holidays. At URJ’s terrific Shallat Seminar for rabbis and congregational presidents in transition, key lay leaders and I learned that our level of staff turnover or more was common and to be expected. Still, the loss of institutional memory in our office was often debilitating.

Our Transition Committee Chairs understood and would have been up to the challenge, but their committee had been constituted to fill in the gaps when the congregation didn’t have a resident rabbi. They were prepared to throw a party — several parties, actually, which were very helpful — once the new rabbi arrived. Then, though, the Transition Committee was determined to disband.

Much was awkward during the first year. In my twenty-third year as a congregational rabbi, I frequently felt like a novice. Lay partners and I often tripped over each other, with their deference to my rabbinic leadership often running counter to my eagerness to be true to the congregation’s traditions. I was new to certain roles that had been filled by others in a larger synagogue, and needed to develop new competencies. Often, services and programs felt like an uneasy mixture of my style and the congregation’s, not yet seamlessly meshed.

Complicating matters, the congregation wasn’t the only party going through a challenging transition. The loss of my previous position had been traumatic. Even though I had a year’s sabbatical before entering the new congregation, I was still reeling from losing my home of 21 years, where I expected to stay to the end of my career and beyond.

My own trauma was matched by my family’s dislocation. My wife and younger son adapted quickly and happily to Little Rock, but were giving up a great deal in the process. Our older son took longer, and that first year was rough. Meanwhile, my dad was nursing his dying wife in their home around the corner from where we had lived in our previous community. I was busy in Little Rock, but my mind was often directed to my father’s home and to grieving the loss of my step-mother of 29 years.

Personal adjustments were tough. Professional adaptation is more at the heart of this essay’s subject. During the first year, what may be called “post-traumatic stress” amplified my reaction to even the smallest and most limited criticism. Moreover, having done outstanding due diligence in the search process, my new lay leaders were well aware of my foibles and were understandably concerned when even faint hints of those issues arose.

What a difference the second year made!

In the second year, the less-new rabbi is no longer leading the congregation through any annual event for the first time. The congregation’s receptivity to what I had to offer was more easily combined with what I had learned about the congregation’s long-established patterns. Our staffing had stabilized, with a talented Administrator joining our team at the end of my first year.

At a personal level, I had begun — imperceptibly, at first — to let go of the traumas of the past. My family was now at home in Little Rock, including my father, in his own home on our very street.

Today, my wife and I are returning to Little Rock from a brief “kids at camp” getaway. By coincidence, we went to the same vacation spot three years ago at this season, shortly after I had resigned my previous pulpit. Perhaps “déjà vu” would be a better word than “coincidence:” During both of these trips, to a place we haven’t been any other time, others were moving me out of my office. The two moves couldn’t be more different. Three years ago, I was being moved out of an office I adored, where I had only three months earlier had every reason to believe I would spend the rest of my career. This summer, at my no-longer-new congregation, our offices are being remodeled for many reasons, not the least of them being to create a quieter and more private space for congregants to meet with me. Three years ago, at a retreat that was supposed to be relaxing, I was constantly on the phone, confronting compounding trauma. This week, even with a big move happening in the office, I didn’t make more than a handful of phone calls in four days, and none of them was frantic.

Ten days ago, at our congregation’s Annual Meeting, I was pleased to announce that I was ready to declare our mutual rabbinical transition complete. Yes, I was talking about a transition that many had imagined finished two years earlier. The truth is, though, that Steve Fox had been correct. Two years would be required for congregation and rabbi to feel fully at home with one another.

At that same meeting, the congregation approved the extension of my rabbinic term, for five years beyond the first three, in effect ratifying a contract already approved by the Board to take effect beginning next summer. Yes, after two years, transition is complete, for both rabbi and congregation.

___

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

Categories
Rabbis

European Conversions to Judaism

During the past 19 years I have witnessed the revival of European Jewry, especially the growth of Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism in Europe. Initially, in the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands were there established Progressive Movements able to organise National beit din.  But as new communities were formed in cities and countries, where there was only one or no rabbi, a need was felt to establish a central beit din to deal with issues like Giyur, Gittin and other rabbinic matters.  And so the European Union for Progressive Judaism established the European Beit Din (EBD). The EBD is based in London and is able to keep a database of conversion done in Europe and discusses common standards accepted by European Beit Din.

In the 1990’s, the amazing growth of the Progressive Movement in Germany meant that Germans could form their own national beit din.  Switzerland is also now able to form a national beit din.  At present, the EBD provides services for communities in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Spain.  In addition, it occasionally deals with candidates from European countries with no official Progressive congregation (e.g. Greece, the Balkans, and Norway.)  The EBD also keeps in close contact with the Israeli Progressive Movement Beit Din and with the frequent changes in conditions in place for aliyah by various Israeli authorities.

We have become aware that a number of Europeans have sought conversion by American rabbis.  These Europeans travel to America and appear before an established beit din. Other times, they are being converted by lone rabbis briefly traveling to Europe and interviewing the candidate at the airport. Some conversions are even taking place over the internet.

In some cases, American rabbis might not have been aware of the availability of Reform/Progressive beit din in Europe.  I have provided their contact details below.

I do urge our American colleagues not to consider converting Europeans currently living in Europe.  This conversion may not be accepted should the candidate seek to join a European Progressive congregation, and may cause problems if the person later wishes to make aliyah.  In addition, we find it less than collegial to consider converting people from outside of your country (or continent); and action that goes against the Halachic principle of ‘hasagat gevul’ (see: Walter Jacob, Contemporary American Reform Responsa, #1.) Of course, there is no objection to dealing with a European individual residing in North America.

Contact details of established European Progressive Beit Din:

European Beit Din
Convenor: Rabbi Jackie Tabick

Russia-Ukrain-Belarus
Rabbi Alexander Lyskowoy, Aw Beit Hadin

France
Av Beit Hadin: Rabbi François Garaï

Germany
Allgemeine Rabbinerkonferenz Deutschland
Aw Bet Hadin: Rabbi Henry Brandt

Switzerland
Coordinator: Rabbi Ruven Bar Ephraim

The Netherlands
Av Bet Hadin: Rabbi Menno ten Brink

United Kingdom Liberal Judaism
Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein

United Kingdom Movement for Reform Judaism
Convenor: Rabbi Jackie Tabick

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Rabbi Ruven Bar Ephraim serves Or Chadash Congregation in Zurich, Switzerland. He also is the Rabbinic Advisor to the European Union for Progressive Judaism.