Categories
Prayer Rabbis

Texas: Unexpected Moments of Awe

It has happened to me (more than once in my lifetime) that a person will come and tell me something about what will happen next in my life. It is most often a very specific bit of advice from someone I know but not well; it is normally not someone I would seek out for counsel. And every time it is the same thing: the person will see me out at a social gathering – often at a gathering in which it was not a given that I would be there – and announce to me ‘I have a message for you,’ as if they had just listened to a voice mail addressed specifically to me.

When that happens, I know to listen: the person will invariably tell me something that I need to know about what will happen next.

The most recent example occurred right before I started my job search a few years ago. At a party, an acquaintance came up (someone who did not know that I was looking for work) and told me the following: ‘You will leave here; there is a move in your future. It will be some place – like Texas – that you’ve never considered before.”

“Texas?” I asked, wondering, “Why Texas?” It’s not the first place I would pick.

She shook her head: “It’s not Texas specifically; it could be Texas, or it could be somewhere else; I can’t tell you where exactly. But it’s a part of the world that you have never considered before. They need you, and you need them. They need to hear what you have to say, and you need them to hear it. You will both benefit.”

Okay.

At that point in the process, I had not even mapped out what I wanted to do. So I took her comments under advisement.

A few months later, I had come to the (somewhat surprising) conclusion that I really wanted to go back to congregational work. I love academics, of course, but I realized that I missed that element of transcendence that hovers over the work of a rabbi.

So I called the Director of Placement and told him that I was thinking of returning to congregational work. After he quizzed me about my general background and interests, his first question regarding my search was: “Have you ever considered living in Texas?”

Okay.

“Texas is fine,” I tell him. “I am open to living in any location.”

It did not turn out to be Texas, but my move was to a place I’d not known existed. Nonetheless, the advice to be open to new places, to leaving, to going somewhere I had not considered before was indeed helpful. When the option came open, I was in a place spiritually and emotionally to accept it, and to do so joyously, without doubt. I left with a clear heart.

I cannot give you a good reason why this phenomenon takes place; I simply cannot explain it. I can tell you that the Bible records several instances of a person – ‘ish’ – who appears mid-narrative with instructions as to what will happen next. Joseph, for example, finds his brothers after encountering such a person.

The person’s instruction is not necessarily one that makes the road smooth; rather, it is an announcement of what needs to happen next. And it has happened enough times now that I heed its call.

And it can be subtle. Recall, for example, the story of Elijah the prophet’s encounter with God. Elijah has retreated to a cave after a difficult set of circumstances to try and regroup. He is a wanted man, and he is experiencing grave doubt. And then he seeks God. This is how the text describes the encounter:

“There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.”

“After the wind – an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake.”

“After the earthquake – fire; but the Lord was not in the fire.”

“And after the fire – a still, small voice.”

Elijah encounters God as a still small voice after the fire and noise and trembling.

There are things in this life that you just know intuitively, in a spiritual way, in a ‘still, small voice’ kind of way. There is an element of God in that knowledge.

Our perception of the world, as we move through our lives, involves this interplay of presence and absence, of articulate speech and of silent wonder. But we do not ever capture its fullness; in truth, we simply cannot.

As I said: I cannot tell you why it happens, any of it. I can only stand in awe and listen.

Rabbi Kari Tuling, PhD serves Temple Beth Israel and teaches at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh.

Categories
General CCAR Healing Rabbis

Rabbinic Soul Maintenance

I recently met with a colleague who informed me that she really doesn’t like to ask God for help, especially during Tishrei, because there’s already so much on God’s plate. It reminded me just a little bit of the old story with the punchline, “look who thinks she’s nothing?” I am reminded as well of a poignant piece by Jacob Staub on the difficulty of asking for help, available at http://firstdaypress.org/asking-for-help/: “And it is, for many of us, so difficult to ask for help. We may feel things slipping away from us, or the color bleeding from life. But all too often we wait until everything has already hit the fan to pick up the phone and say, ‘I need you.’”

Seth Bernstein posted a beautiful contemplation regarding the gift that Ruth Alpers and he offer our members as the Hotline rabbis of our CCAR Rapid Response team. I am honored this year to be able to join them as CCAR Intern for Member Care and Wellness, as part of my training at the NYU School of Social Work, where I am pursuing an MSW. Seth offered up a list of the kinds of issues which might prompt you to pick up the phone and call one of the three of us. Additionally, I invite you to attend to the basic question of soul maintenance – how are you holding up on a day-to-day basis in the face of all you shoulder personally and professionally? We would never hesitate to encourage a congregant who tells us she is feeling listless or he is feeling joyless to consider speaking to a therapist? But how many of us wait until something has gone dreadfully wrong. Are we sufficiently attuned to the weight of compassion, fatigue and, even, vicarious trauma on our psyches?

Dear colleagues, you offer yourselves up so generously to help others bear the burdens of their lives. The CCAR offers you the same. Ruth and Seth are available for moments of crisis. And for those who would like a few sessions of listening, sharing and examining where you are right now in your life and in the center of your being, I am here for you as well. I am also available for a small number of sessions of spiritual direction and will be facilitating some group work over the course of the year as well.

For more information, go to:  http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-communities/personal-resources-chevruta/rapid-response/

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

Categories
News Reform Judaism Social Justice

Sarah’s Missing Voice: When Women’s Voices Are Silenced

This week’s Torah portion is Vayera, Genesis 18 to 22. It is the same Torah portion that we read on the morning of Rosh Hashanah. As I said then, this Torah portion might be seen as a three-act play.  The story begins with three angels visiting Abraham and Sarah and proclaiming that, even in their old age, Sarah and Abraham would have a son. Hearing this news, Sarah laughed in disbelief and skepticism. But we don’t usually read that part of the story on Rosh Hashanah. In a Reform synagogue, celebrating one day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac, from Genesis 22, the third act of the play. It is as if we walked into the theater after intermission. We looked down at our Playbill and noticed that a central character of Act One was absent in Act Three. Most significantly, that character’s voice was missing, silent.

But Sarah is not here in the Akedah, and I suggest that her absence adds to the tragic nature of this tale of near sacrifice of a child.  The Akedah is a story of action, not emotion.  Abraham displays no introspection or doubt. He is not a skeptic. The fact that Sarah is not in this story is, itself, a tragedy. Who was Sarah in that first act?

“The Eternal One appeared to Abraham while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent. Abraham looked up, he saw three men standing near him. Abraham ran to meet them, to welcome them into his tent, to feed them with the finest of his grain and the choicest of his calves, with yogurt and milk.

They asked, “Where is your wife, Sarah?” God said: “I will return to you when life is due, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, the way of women had ceased for Sarah. She LAUGHED within herself, saying, “After I have become worn, is there to be pleasure for me? And my husband so old?”

Sarah LAUGHED. She was the skeptic. She doubted the word of God. Sarah questioned God’s promise and laughed at the very idea of a miracle. Sarah laughed at the seeming absurdity of the prophecy from God. She showed no intimidation or fear. But Sarah is not around when God tests Abraham by telling him to take his son, Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice on Mt. Moriah. Abraham answered, “Hineini”—“I am here.” Abraham is commanded to do the unthinkable, to sacrifice his son, and Abraham responds without a question. There was no doubt, no skepticism. Abraham did not laugh.  At the Binding of Isaac, the skeptical voice of Sarah is not heard.

If only Sarah were present in this third act of the play. Perhaps if Sarah had been there, she would have questioned this test as well. The rabbis in the Midrash recognize Sarah’s absence. They look at the text and ask: Why does it say: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning.” Why early in the morning? Because Abraham said to himself, “It may be that Sarah will not give permission for us to go. So, I will get up early while Sarah is still asleep. It is best that no one sees us.”

The rabbis of ancient times recognized that Sarah was missing from the story, so they wrote her back in and acknowledged that she never would have allowed this frightening story to play out as it did. I am also suggesting that the story is a cautionary tale, telling us that Abraham’s blind obedience is an example of what happens when the voice of the woman is silenced. The story seems to cry out for the mitigating presence of the voice of Sarah. I am certainly not saying that there are no women who are blind believers. Not every woman would doubt the voice of God, or be skeptical or laugh, but Sarah is that paradigm. She is the voice of the skeptic. The story of the Akedah reminds us of the danger inherent in not hearing her voice.

A number of recent events have reminded me of the need for the voice of Sarah in our world. We are hearing the voice of women on the college campuses, demanding that they be heard in cases of sexual harassment and violence. Emma Sulkowicz, a senior at Columbia University, has been recognized for her performance piece, “Carry That Weight, ” as she has carried her mattress around the campus as a protest against sexual assault on campus and the failure of university officials to adequately address those assaults and punish the perpetrators. Similar voices are being heard on other campuses, in the military, and in other fields.

When the NFL domestic abuse scandals occurred, the New York Times ran a story on the front page of the Sports section, titled: “In coverage of NFL scandals, Female Voices Puncture the Din.” It mentioned ESPN anchor, Hannah Storm, Rachel Nichols of CNN, and Katie Nolan of Fox Sports. The Times pointed out that the domestic abuse story was seen differently through women’s eyes, and their voices helped to define the issue of a culture of violence and misogyny.

In my own profession, the American rabbinate has been transformed by the presence of women rabbis. I consider myself fortunate indeed that I became a rabbinic student and then a rabbi at the very beginning of that movement. Sally Priesand had been ordained the first woman rabbi in the Reform movement in 1972. I have spent my entire career working with women rabbis as equal colleagues. I still remember my first CCAR Convention in Pittsburgh in 1980. Reverend William Sloane Coffin spoke and stated that the most important issue in the Women’s Liberation Movement was liberating the female within each male.

The American rabbinate has been profoundly changed for the better by the entrance of women rabbis who have been fully integrated into the leadership of the American Jewish world. That is true for the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, but it is still not the case within Orthodox Judaism. While some progress is being made in the Open Orthodox group within Orthodoxy, it still does not approach equality in the role of women.

A recent scandal in Washington demonstrates the danger of exclusive male rabbinic authority. Rabbi Barry Freundel, a highly respected Modern Orthodox rabbi, was arrested and charged with setting up cameras in the showers and changing areas of the mikvah, the ritual bath, attached to his synagogue. This was an incredible violation of privacy, trust, and authority. Rabbi Freundel was a leading figure in conversion within the Orthodox community, and it appears that he particularly targeted women studying for conversion, as well as the many Orthodox women who use the mikvah on a monthly basis.

The human impact was enormous. The female victims of his voyeurism were often in their most vulnerable and powerless state. Indeed, the very nature of Orthodox Judaism creates a power imbalance between male rabbis and their female students and congregants. Women studying for traditional conversion are particularly dependent on Orthodox male rabbis who exercise complete control of the process.

Within Orthodox Judaism, women still cannot be rabbis, judicial witnesses, or members of the court determining conversion status. The voice of the woman is largely silent within Orthodoxy. The Freundel case is a result of an all male system of religious authority. Male rabbis maintain exclusive control over the laws of Orthodox conversions, and that power can too often be used capriciously and irrationally. While Orthodox rabbinic authority seldom results in sexual abuse, the power imbalance is very real. It might be possible to argue that Rabbi Freundel was a deeply flawed individual whose alleged sexually exploitative acts have no wider implications. But I would disagree. The absence within Orthodoxy of women rabbis of equal stature and authority to the male rabbis creates a culture where abuse of authority is more likely. When women’s voices are silenced, it can lead to terrible consequences. In contrast, the role of women rabbis in liberal Judaism serves as a counterbalance to an anachronistic patriarchal tradition.

So I return to this week’s Torah portion of Vayera. How might the story have been different had Sarah’s voice been heard? What would the mother of Isaac have answered if she had been the one to be tested by God? Where was her laugh, her doubt, her skepticism? We regret not hearing Sarah’s voice, but we do know the result of that silence. The very next chapter is Chaye Sarah—Sarah’s life. But the story isn’t about Sarah’s life. Genesis, Chapter 24 begins: “The life of Sarah came to 127 years. And Sarah died in Kiryat Arba—Hebron.”

If there were an Act Four to this play, it would be very brief. Sarah died. The curtain descends. The lesson is learned. Sarah’s voice brought life, laughter, skepticism, and doubt.  Without that voice, there was silence; there was death. So it is that we must hear the voice of women and men, of children and the aged, of the native born and the stranger.

Categories
Ethics Prayer

“Rabbi, How Can I Pray if I Don’t Believe in God?”

Many of us find it difficult to think of the world as having any kind of metaphysical aspect to it at all. But if that’s the case, then there’s no room for God if the empirical world is all there is. And if that is the case, then why should we pray?

Consider the Sh’ma, for example. It is a Biblical text that we recite in each of our services: Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord Your God the Lord is one. That’s what it means – it gets called the ‘watchword of our faith’ in the old Union Prayer Book, because it’s a foundational text for us. If you don’t believe in God, how can this statement be meaningful to you?

There is a way to approach it even if you don’t want to adopt a grand metaphysical view of the world. Let me explain.

The first word is often translated as ‘Hear’ – but it could also be translated as ‘Listen’ or ‘Pay heed.’ That means: don’t just hear it, but put down your phone or your magazine, stop thinking about something else, and really listen. This is important. Are you fully present? Are you fully engaged?

Listen, Israel. The Lord, your God.

‘The Lord’ is actually a euphemism. We are avoiding saying what’s literally written there. The text says Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is the unpronounceable name of God. It’s God’s first name, if you will, and only the High Priest may say on Yom Kippur. Otherwise, we say Adonai in place of that unpronounceable name. Adonai is our way of addressing the transcendent divine creator – the God of everyone – in the context of our own uniquely Jewish relationship.

But you could also think of it as the name for the creative force in the world, the energy that drives evolution forward that allows chemical reactions to become life. You could decide to say ‘my Lord’ instead of ‘blind chance.’ You are naming a process here; it does not have to be a person.

The Lord is one.

When we say that the Lord, Adonai, is one, echad – what does that mean?

The point of saying echad is the idea that God is singular. By singular we mean unique, unlike anyone or anything else. Extraordinarily different. Transcending time and space, beyond our definitions of it, more than our imaginations allow.

This might not seem like a particularly important point, but it is actually most crucial. When we try to define God – when we try to tame our God-concepts so that they might be comprehensible – we imagine things that are not God.

It’s like creating a small box and asking God to step inside so that we might carry God around with us like a good-luck charm.

God is so much bigger, and grander, and wilder than our charms and incantations. What most folks call ‘God’ is just a subset of the whole.

What do you do, then, if that’s a bigger statement than you want to make? Is it necessary to take it literally? Perhaps you might think of it this way: every human being is created in the image of God.

Imagine, then, that it says, ‘Listen, O Israel: every human being, your fellow-humans, every human being is singular.’ Take that message to heart and act upon it.

In other words: if you find it too much, to grand, to foolish to contemplate God, the universe, and everything in the macro scale, then think about God in the microcosm. Value human life, each individual you meet. Listen carefully when people talk. Put down your phone, and stop thinking about what you are going to say next, and listen. Every human being is singular, created in the very image of God. Listen.

If you listen long enough, eventually you might see that person as an individual, rather than as an example of a category. A person rather than a stereotype.

In other words, if you are not sure how to love God with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your being, then direct your attention to the individuals around you, find what is godly in them, and love them for it.

Rabbi Kari Tuling, PhD., serves Temple Beth Israel in Plattsburgh, New York and teaches at SUNY Plattsburgh.

Categories
Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Using Mishkan HaNefesh in a Retirement Home

When I received access to the pre-publication CCAR  trial machzor Mishkan Hanefesh for use at the Lincolnwood Place retirement home where I was scheduled to lead Yom Kippur worship, I also took on the obligation to report my experience.  This is my report.

My focus on erev Yom Kippur was on “t’shuvah,” the return to a life of kindness, living generously, and forgiveness of self and of others.  I used the liturgy to teach “Musar Judaism.”  My sound bites were largely based on the key words of the Godlike attributes: “rachum,” “chanun,” “chesed,” as well as on Kol Nidre with its haunting melody, acknowlegement of sin, and appeal for forgiveness.  I used a recording of Richard Tucker chanting Kol Nidre.

It was received well.  The residents responded enthusiastically to the service, interacting with questions I posed and reading and singing avidly.  They joined in with gusto with its melodies: the High Holy Day nusach, the “v’al kulam,” the “Avinu Malkeinu,” the “Oseh Shalom,” and even the Debbie Friedman “mishaberach.”  At the end of the service, practically everybody stayed around to wish me a “good Yom Tov” and to tell me how much they enjoyed the service.

For Yom Kippur morning, my focus was two-fold.  My first focus was on the message of the opening prayers “Ma Tovu” (how good it is to be alive and praying with fellow Jews), “Modeh ani” (thankfulness for life’s blessing), and “Nishamah shenatata” (awareness of our finiteness and the need to make our lives count). My second focus was on the message of the Torah and Haftarah readings: “Atem Nitzavim” and “Is this the fast?”  They speak of how to make our lives count, particularly through “g’milut hasidim” which I translated roughly as “living generously,” and I embellished this with anecdotes. It was heartwarming to me to see one of the residents, who had to be wheeled in to the service, arise from his wheel chair to answer my call for a volunteer to accept an Aliyah. He stepped up to the Torah table, draped himself in a tallit and recited the b’rachot over the Torah.

Later in the day, I returned to the retirement community for Yizkor and for Ne’lah.  These were well attended.  Participation in discussion, prayer, and song seemed to be even better, if that was possible, than in the previous services.  The residents kept me after the conclusion of the service for over an hour taking turns to shake my hand, to wish me “hatimah tovah,” and to tell me what the service had meant to them.

I need to extend my sincere kudos to all those who are working together to make this new machzor happen.  Our colleagues performed a MONUMENTAL task, and I love it!  Kol Hakavod to them for their creative achievement!  I believe that in generations to come this machzor will take its place with previous prayer books of our Reform movement to define who we are and what we believe at this period of our Jewish experience in America!  In my opinion, a copy of this machzor, once published, ought to be in every major public Judaica library and in the hands of every liberal rabbi who leads a congregation in High Holy Day worship!

When I personally read the PDFs of the machzor, I was in sheer awe over the beauty of its content: its spirituality, thought-provoking discussion, stimulating readings, and comprehensive footnotes.  All of these were gems.  As a rabbi whose main employ has been as a clinical chaplain, I especially loved the innovation of the seven paths of grief found in the Yizkor service:  it stimulates reflection; it is potentially interactive; it acts as a catalyst for the grieving worshipper to break his silence and open to fellow worshippers his own personal journey through that valley; and it paves the way towards the support of a caring group beyond Yom Kippur.  No other machzor has ever done that.  In providing this material, and in doing so in this manner, our new machzor goes well above and beyond the traditional “Yizkor Elohim” silent prayers of which we are all familiar!  As a Jewish educator, I was delighted that the new machzor provides so much study material to be investigated individually or as a group beyond Yom Tov worship. It fixes so many little things that have long needed fixing, such as finally restoring “God” to the Jewish trinity in the popular song “Yisrael V’oraita.  Kol Hakavod!”

Mishkan HaNefesh makes an important contribution, and I am grateful to CCAR for allowing me the opportunity to use and enjoy this print worthy text. It meant so much to the residents of this retirement home to participate in their new initiative.

Categories
General CCAR Healing Rabbis

Don’t Let Me Struggle Alone: CCAR’s Rapid Response Line

We are blessed to have family and friends whom we rely upon, just as they rely upon us.  As rabbis, we also are blessed to serve others in the context of a community that widens and deepens our relationships.  Nevertheless, despite all the relationships that we have and nurture, unfortunately there are times in the course of our rabbinate when we and those we love find ourselves in a free fall.  That could be due to sudden illness or trauma, employment setbacks, familial problems, congregational or personal crises.  There are a host of ways and a variety of people within the CCAR which can help.  On the CCAR website under “Rabbis and Communities” there is a tab that reads “Personal Resources & Chevruta.”  Here CCAR members can find contact information for the Rapid Response Hotline for contacting me or our colleague, Rabbi Ruth Alpers.

Our colleague, Rabbi Richard Levy, paraphrased the “Ahavat Rabbah/Ahavat Olam” prayer found in Mishkan T’filah, “As You Taught Torah”. The prayer states a plea that we all feel at times in the course of our lives and rabbinate, “Don’t let me struggle alone.”  When the rug is pulled out from under us, we have the choice to struggle alone or to call upon assistance.  As one of the CCAR’s Rapid Response members, we are available whenever you or your family is in need.

What are some of the reasons why colleagues place the call to the Rapid Response Line in the first place?  It could be trouble with an employer or congregation, a family crisis, the beginning of an alleged ethical violation, marital or family conflict, job placement, and health issues, just to name a few reasons.  For example, colleagues have shared:

“Everything has been going downhill since my divorce. I was just told I will never see my kids again.”

“I can’t find a job, even after all of these months and years of trying.”

“I’m a dead man.  When does this stop?”

“I know my marriage is tenuous and my spouse needs stability, but I am in a dying community, and I don’t see as if we have any choice, or there is any way out of here.”

“My spouse (the rabbi) was asked to give a large sum of money back to the congregation if he wants to keep his job.  We’re being blackmailed.”

“I live in Shmini Atzeret, seventy-five miles, from a city. Can you refer me to a good psychiatrist whose office is close by?”

“Do I inform my congregation about this psychiatric issue in my life? And if so, how do I go about it?”

“I should have called you a while ago.  Where do I begin?”

Ruth and I are just two colleagues here to assist CCAR members as you will see on the website under “Rabbis Caring for Rabbis.”  The prayer, As You Taught Torah continues, “Don’t let me struggle alone; help me to understand, to be wise, to listen, to know.  Lead me into the mystery, Baruch atah, Adonai, ohev amo Yisrael.”

Rabbi Seth Bernstein serves Congregation Bet Aviv in Columbia, MD

Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Praying for Rain: Marriage Equality in North Carolina

As we move toward Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, we begin to pray for rain.  We change from morid hatal to mashiv haruach umorid hagashem.  So this is a good time to recall that other outpouring called for by the prophet Amos: v’yigal kamayim mishpat utz’dakah k’nachal eitan, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Just before Shabbat, justice and righteousness began to roll down in North Carolina.  Earlier this year, the CCAR and several of our North Carolina colleagues joined in a litigation to challenge Amendment One, the prohibition on same sex marriage in the state.  Several other colleagues wanted to join but could not do so for technical legal reasons.  The challenge had two elements.  First, it claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred a state law that prohibited same sex couples from marrying.  Second, it claimed that, even if that ban was otherwise constitutional, it ran afoul of the First Amendment, in that it threatened clergy who performed religious-only same sex marriages with civil penalties.

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned Virginia’s ban on same sex marriage on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.  Because the Fourth Circuit also covers North Carolina, that meant that, as Daniel would have understood, the handwriting was on the wall.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, who was hearing our case, ruled that Amendment One violated the Fourteenth Amendment and had to be struck down.  This meant that he never had to decide the First Amendment claim.  It also meant that starting Friday in some North Carolina counties, and Monday in others, registrars began to issue licenses for same sex couples to marry, and marriage ceremonies started to take place.  Yesterday, another federal judge in North Carolina came to the same conclusion in another case.  Marriage equality in North Carolina is now a reality.

TomAlpertI used to practice law and serve as the amicus brief coordinator for the CCAR.  This meant that I had the privilege of being involved in our decision to take part in this case.  When I read Judge Cogburn’s ruling, I felt pride that our CCAR leadership and our courageous rabbis helped bring about this change for the better.  The attorneys in this case donated their time, and I felt gratitude for them.  And as I read of couples finally being able to marry, I sensed the rush of righteousness all the way from North Carolina to my home in Massachusetts.  May we continue to be inundated with it as we pray for rain at this season.

Rabbi Thomas Alpert serves Temple Etz Chaim in Franklin, MA. He was ordained from the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000 after a previous career as a lawyer.

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh

A New Year, A New Experience: Leading my First High Holy Days with Mishkan HaNefesh

In an interview for Sh’ma Journal in 2012, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi stated that he saw the Hasidic idea of “Rebbe,” as opposed to the ordained leadership role of a rabbi, as a fluid one. Rabbi Schachter Shalomi remarked, “I believe that in our day, living as we do in a democratic context, we need different people — men and women — in a community to function as rebbes at different times, helping people grow in their relationships with God… Mostly, I try to listen to what people say, how they say it, and when they say it, and then I ask what lies behind these presentations. What does this person’s neshamah (soul) need in order to live more harmoniously with God and creation?”

This High Holy Days, I was stepping into this position for the first time. This was only temporary, as Rabbi Schachter Shalomi would have it, but with definite purpose. As I approached Erev Rosh HaShanah, I was terrified. Had I picked the right prayers? Would my voice cause people to rush out of the room covering their ears? Would I come off as pompous, self-righteous, distant? Would I alienate this room full of college students at a Hillel just now finding its footing? This tornado of anxiety whirled around in my head, leaving me physically quaking as I began the service. Although I looked out at a sea of unfamiliar faces sitting with solemn expressions, unsure if they were solemn because of my terrible leading of prayer, or because of Rosh HaShanah, I tried to focus on my role: delivering the meaning of the holiday in translatable terms.

Sooner than I thought, the service closed without a hitch. My wife beamed with pride. Many strangers approached me thanking me and telling me I did a great job. Of course, this was expected – I couldn’t imagine these individuals saying anything disparaging no matter how much I had butchered their expectations. Then a woman, a stranger herself to the community just passing through on a road trip, came up to me and said, “You didn’t even look nervous at all! I would have been a mess up there.”

Now, that comment I hadn’t expected. Then I thought back and remembered Rabbi Schachter Shalomi’s idea of inhabiting the space of the Rebbe. Somewhere at the start of the Amida, I had entered a state of flow. The role of Rebbe had been placed on me by the many eyes switching their gaze from the machzor, to me, and back to the machzor, and I had stepped up to the challenge, similarly gazing down to the machzor, then back to the congregation, then back down to the machzor. In this exchange we entered into a moment of relation via the words of Mishkan HaNefesh.

The new machzor was my bridge into gaining a level of security in this new, alien situation. Had I been reading from Gates of Repentance, I almost certainly would have had greater difficulty finding my way into the role. The baggage that I carry connected to Gates of Repentance would have weighed me down significantly. Instead, I had been given the gift of ownership. Mishkan HaNefesh contains a great deal of alternative readings, from essays to poetry, written by people of all stripes. My services contained readings from individuals as disparate as Samson Rafael Hirsch and Richard Feynman. As the shaliach tzibbur, the prayer leader, I was given the opportunity to pick from the many different elements of the machzor to attend to what I thought the community’s neshama would need. Not only this, but I was also able to use the digital files of the machzor to help myself.  By importing them to my iPad, I was able to alter the machzor itself to fit my needs. Instead of having a binder full of papers, I was able to smoothly transition from page to page, removing pages I was not going to use, highlighting readings I intended on doing or had handed out to participants to do, and typing in iyyunim and congregational directions so that I could read them clearly.

Combining the multivocality of the machzor with the technology of my iPad, I was able to design a service that would speak to the congregation, as well as guide me through the motions of leading without my having to remove myself from the moment. I simply needed to continue scrolling through the digital files, knowing that I had prepared them with great thought beforehand.

In this way, Mishkan HaNefesh gave me the tools to successfully occupy the role of Rebbe for this community’s High Holy Days. I was able to take the time well before the services to reflect on what a congregation such as Gettysburg Hillel would need, choose from the machzor the pieces that fit best, and then allow myself to inhabit this new role with the machzor as my guide and bridge to the community. Not only did I come away from this year’s High Holy Days having accomplished a new feat on my way to becoming a rabbi, I was also able to be a part of some of the most meaningful services I had attended in my life. The community at Gettysburg Hillel had a great willingness to participate, welcomed those from outside of the college, and gave me the gift of accomplishment by entrusting me with their High Holy Day services. The warm community of Gettysburg and the utility of Mishkan HaNefesh ushered me into 5775 with a feeling of gratitude and accomplishment by providing the environment for my first step into the role of the Rebbe. May this year be one of great experience and accomplishment for all!

Andy Kahn is a second year rabbinic student at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. He is currently the intern at the CCAR. 

For more information on Mishkan HaNefesh, click here or write to machzor@ccarnet.org.

Categories
Death Healing Mishkan haNefesh

You Turn my Mourning Into Dancing

Yizkor on Yom Kippur is … not about human frailty or the futility of human endeavors. Yizkor on Yom Kippur is about the power of others to affect us, about our power to affect others, about the power of the dead and the living to continue to affect each other. Yizkor on Yom Kippur is … not simply about remembering the dead, by about attempting to effect change in our relationships with the dead and thus to effect change in ourselves and in our relationships with those who are still among the living.

(Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, in the CCAR Draft machzor, forthcoming 2015, Mishkan haNefesh, Yizkor service)

I’ve missed a number of days of Elul to blog because my father-in-law died last Wednesday. After his funeral in Florida on Friday morning, my wife and her sister returned to sit shiva at our home in Massachusetts. What happened over those days was a reflection of how love, healing, and change are truly what the rituals of remembrance are about and enable us to do. For those who joined us for multiple nights of shiva, the change that occurred over those days as memories and reflections were shared was quite evident and powerful for many.

Without sharing the specifics here, the journey we took was one that first confronted the past, and acknowledged the challenge of engaging with memory in the face of difficult relationships. Yet, with the honesty of needing to acknowledge the challenges, the blessings that emerged from those life experiences were also evident.  On the following night, more family members gathered and a broader range of perspectives and memories were shared. There were many moments of laughter. There was a release – the laughter not only lifted the weight of some of the challenging memories but also opened up the banks of memories that were positive and powerful. And so, by the third night, new stories had been laid bare and had risen to the surface. There were words of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.  By the fourth night, in a beautiful, spontaneous sharing and connecting of memories and reflections connected to the words of specific prayers as we davenned (prayed) the ma’ariv (evening) service, there was a sense of completeness. We were speaking of a life lived, and memories that we carry with us, but embedded into the heart of the tefilot that were so much a part of Mordecai’s being that, when advanced dementia had taken almost all else from him, davenning was the only activity that he could still do, in short bouts.

In the forthcoming CCAR machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, we find a version of precisely how we did our remembrances on the last night of shiva.  We are offered 7 paths, where readings, psalms and reflective texts are woven around the 7 thematic blessings of the Tefilah, or Amidah prayer, the central prayer of our Shabbat and Festival liturgy.  There is an abundance of material – many, many years worth of exploration and contemplation. There is a clear recognition that everyone remembers differently. There are ways to remember children who died too young. There is a prayer in memory of a parent who was hurtful. There are words to remember one who died violently. There are words to remember dearly beloved ones. And so many more.

As we return to Yizkor, year after year, we do not necessarily have to engage in the memories in the same way. With the passage of time and the ways we remember, may we, as invited by Rabbi Wenig in the reflection above, find the possibility to change our relationships with the dead and thus effect change in ourselves and in our relationships with those who are still among the living.

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA. She dedicates this blog post to the memory of Mordecai Lavow, her father-in-law.

 

Categories
Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer

Buying Forgiveness on Credit

Avinu Malkeinu – one of the central prayers associated with the High Holy Days. I remember a congregant in my last community commenting on how uncomfortable she felt reciting the long list of ‘asks’ that this prayer contains:

Avinu Malkeinu – listen to our voice!
Avinu Malkeinu – let our hands overflow with Your blessings.
Avinu Malkeinu – do not turn us away from You with nothing.
Avinu Malkeinu – listen to our voice; treat us with tender compassion.


On and on it goes – these are just a sampling of the lines. My congregant asked, ‘Isn’t this the ultimate act of chutzpah? What right do we have to make these demands of God?’

She had a good point. And it reminded me of a story that I once heard Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l tell. He describes a time when you would go to the General Store and you’d ask the shopkeeper behind the counter, ‘Can I have a ball of string?’ and the shopkeeper would go to the shelves behind the counter and bring down a ball of string. ‘Can I have a yard of cloth?’ ‘Can I have a dozen cans of this’ and ‘half a dozen boxes of that’.  So it would continue, and the shopkeeper would pull down all the items on your order list and pile them on the counter. At the end he would calculate the total bill. And, embarrassed but hopeful, the man would respond, ‘I don’t have any money to pay you, but may I take these items that I need nevertheless?!’

You can imagine how that would go in real life. But at the end of Avinu Malkeinu, we acknowledge as much in the closing line:

Avinu Malkeinu, chonainu vaaneinu, ki ein banu maasim – aseh imanu tzedakah vachesed, v’hoshieinu.
Avinu Malkeinu, Almighty and Merciful – answer us with grace, for our deeds our wanting. Save us through acts of justice and love.
(translation from the forthcoming CCAR machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh)

We ask for the response to our pleas to come as an act of grace. That’s not language that we are used to associating with Judaism, but it is, in fact, very present in our liturgy and many of our teachings. Ki ein banu maasim – because there isn’t anything in our deeds.  We showed up to the store without any money to pay for our requests.

Here is how I translate these words into more contemporary concepts that speak to our inner lives. When I really engage in the work of the High Holy Days and look deeply at myself, there is plenty to cause me disappointment. We are often pretty harsh judges of ourselves. And here we are, in an act of chutzpah, hoping that life will be good anyway. That we will be forgiven for our failings. Can we give to others what we ask for ourselves? Can we respond to others from a place of grace? We go to the store without credit, but one of the ways we can acquire credit is by paying it forward.

Living more of life with that awareness we understand that only through acts of tzedakah and chesed can we change the meaning of our lives. Its not about what we have or haven’t got. A lot of life ‘just happens’; we like to think we are in control, but that’s seldom the reality. So we’re never going to be able to ‘pay’ for our fate through our deeds. Because it doesn’t really work that way. Acting morally doesn’t buy us more life, but it does enable us to practice and to receive forgiveness because it gives us the tools we need to be authentically remorseful and try to make amends when we mess up. And that is the answer, from a place of grace, that we seek.  Remind us, as we pray, that we can change the quality of our existence, and the existence of others, through our acts. This is how salvation comes to this life and this world.

Avinu Malkeinu – our deeds are wanting; help us to do a little bit more in the year to come.

 Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz serves Congregation Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough, MA.