Categories
News Rabbis Reform Judaism

Ham is Not Kosher: The Creationism Debate

Two weeks ago there was a nearly three-hour debate in the greater Cincinnati area. It went relatively unpublicized, but it was quite a site to be seen. Bill Nye the Science Guy went to Petersburg, Kentucky to debate Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum. If you want to watch the debate on YouTube, it will be an invigorating and infuriating two hours and forty-five minutes, but enjoy.

The debate was over the question, “Is Creationism a viable model of origins in today’s modern, scientific era?” In short, the debate went as follows: Bill Nye tried to rationally answer the question presented, and Ken Ham tried to redefine the terms used in the question. Ham spent his time presenting the theory that scientists had hijacked the word “science.” He suggested that there are two types of science: observational and historical. He further suggested that lumping both types into one realm is a disservice to Creationism, because Creationism is a historical science, while “Bill Nye and his friends” are focused on observational science. Condescension aside, Ham says that since Nye’s field is based on observation (what we can see, hear, feel, touch, etc. right now), it does not have the right to assume what happened in the past. Historical science is based in Creationism on the knowledge of what happened as we were told by God in the Bible, while in “science taught in our public schools” is based on “the ideas of man such as Darwin.” He makes it difficult to have a debate because instead of answering the question he creates more issues. He says, basically, “You can’t call my science anything but viable because I’m redefining science to force Creationism into validity.” He never answers the questions his definitions create, such as, “Isn’t reading the biblical account also an observation?”

I have been to the Creation Museum in Petersburg. The modus operandi of the museum is identical to how Ken Ham tried to debate this month. They present a series of events from the Bible and show how the biblical account “debunks” evolutionist theories. I blogged about our experience several years ago, but this is what I clearly remember: they try to use facts that we observe in today’s world to “prove” the truths found in the Bible.

Take Noah’s story, for example. The Creation Museum suggests that the immense pressure from the entire world being covered in water for forty days created layers of strata under the surface of the earth. The pressure also created the animals trapped under the sediment to be fossilized faster than they normally would have been, which tricked the “scientists” into thinking that each layer represents a different era. Bill Nye, during the debate, asks why the fossils trapped in each layer are constant to each layer. In other words, why didn’t any animals try to swim up in the flood?

There are two major problems with Ham’s presentation. First, he conflates truth with fact. Facts are about collecting data. Truths are beliefs. On a crisp February morning here in Southern California, my wife Natalie might tell me, “It is so cold today!” I might respond with, “It is 54 degrees outside this morning.” Natalie is speaking the truth, and I am speaking a fact. You cannot even determine by my response whether I agree or disagree with her truth. My response, therefore, is inadequate because it does not serve the purpose of the conversation she started with me.

Our Holy texts are not concerned with facts. The Torah does not serve our purposes if it is a historical account of the world from the beginning of time to the conquest of Canaan. If it is only about the past, it loses meaning. The Torah is about us, now, today. We call it Torat chayim because its ideas are ever-pertinent to the things we face in our daily lives. It is a compendium of truth, not facts.

The second problem with his presentation is that he focuses so heavily on children. Before the debate even begins the museum shows a commercial about how children get free admission in February. Inside the museum the animatronic displays and focus on dinosaurs and dragons are clearly geared toward wooing youngsters in to the museum. It is almost scary to see that Ham actively works to get the most impressionable minds to buy in to his truth, and even scarier that he presents it as fact.

Rabbi David N. Young is the rabbi for Congregation B’nai Tzedek of Fountain Valley, CA. He spends all of his non-congregational time with his wife, Cantor Natalie Young, and their children Gabriel, Alexander, and Isabella. They also have a fish that their daughter named “Rabbi Litwak.”

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor

Machzor Blog: Rediscovering the Sh’ma

When I pray, words wash over me.  The ideas they carry fill my brain.  The images they convey float through my mind.  The feelings they evoke dance in my heart.  But I don’t even notice the letters that comprise them — the shapes and the lines — because I’ve been trained to fuse them into words, and to treat the words only as springboards to ideas, images, and feelings.  I rarely pay attention to the letters themselves; they simply dissolve as my eyes pour over them.

What a jolt, then, to turn to Page 14a in the draft of the Yom Kippur Evening Service in Mishkan HaNefesh, the new CCAR machzor currently being piloted. That’s where I re-discovered the Sh’ma.  Just as in Mishkan T’filah, the lettering of the Sh’ma gets special treatment.  It’s the largest in the book and the font is distinct, at once elegant and archaic.  It unfurls like a parchment buried for millennia, unseen by human eyes until just now, by me.  It demands my attention.

shema

 

The font evokes the calligraphy of a caravan-leader’s map, with its curvaceous lines and serifs.  At the same time, it’s modern, clean, and strong.  The lines swoop to the left, creating the feeling of forward movement.  The black of the top line is darker than the second, mimicking the volumes with which we sing them.

The unique font of the Sh’ma helps me see how Hebrew letters are constructed from fundamental strokes.  It shows me the ‘yud’ in the ‘vav,’ and the ‘vav’ in the ‘tav’ and ‘chav sofit.’  ‘Hay’ contains a ‘reish,’ and there’s an ‘ayin’ in the ‘sin.’   

Some letters in this shema are pictograms for me.  The ‘lamed’ looks like a tulip, celebrating spring.  The ‘shin’ reminds me of a Viking vessel, crashing through the ocean.  In the ‘sin,’ my husband sees God’s “hand” holding the world.  The ‘reish’ is a cat, rresting on a mantel, purring contentedly.  The ‘mem’ is the same cat, stretching after her nap, meowing energetically.  The ‘mem sofit’ is the bearded face of an Assyrian trader.

Torah is written in black fire on white fire.  That image, from the Zohar, asks us to pay attention to the negative space created by a letter, not only its form.  Negative space is the space that surrounds and penetrates a subject.  It provides boundaries and contrast.  When we notice it, we come to understand that Torah is shaped by what’s missing as well as what’s there.  The negative space in this font is bulbous, bounded by curving lines.  It’s as if blocks of black have been burrowed into by critters.  The lacunae look like little cul-de-sacs, adding to the sense of travel.

No matter how it’s printed, the Sh’ma unifies all Jews, bringing us together like the tassels of a tallis.  When we recite it, divisions of time and place disappear.  We are all One.  This font, at once ancient and timeless, invites me to see with the eyes of the ancestors and to contemplate the hearts of our descendants.  It reminds me to broaden my scope.

I’m excited for my congregants to encounter the Sh’ma afresh in Mishkan HaNefesh.  As the Sh’ma is supposed to do, it calls us to pay attention.

Rabbi Dean Shapiro serves Temple Emanuel in Tempe, AZ

For more information on Mishkan HaNefesh or on piloting, please write to machzor@ccarnet.org

Categories
General CCAR Rabbis Reform Judaism

Mazel Tov, You Failed!

My kids used to love the Disney movie, “Meet the Robinsons.” The scene I love in this movie is where young inventor Will Robinson, at dinner with his future family, destroys a ketchup-and-mustard-gun, squirting them all over the table, walls, and people. He gets very embarrassed, and looks completely dejected until the condiment-coated cousins start singing about how well he failed.  They explain that their father is a great inventor, and he teaches them that in order to make any progress they have to “Keep Moving Forward,” and every time they fail they know they are a bit closer to their goal.

To put the same thought in the words of Michael Jordan, “It’s not about how many times you fall, it’s about how many times you get back up again.”

There is a story from the Babylonian Talmud (Taanit 25a), that tells of Chanina Ben Dosa and his wife while they are suffering great financial stress. In order to get through this hard time, Chanina, a known miracle-receiver, is asked by his wife to pray for a miracle. A hand comes down holding a golden leg from the table at which he will sit in olam habah (the world to come).  That night he dreams of how wife and himself in olam habah, forever condemned to wobble at an unbalanced table.  He tells her of the dream and he immediately replaces the golden leg, promising her that he will find other means to earn money rather than jeopardize their share of the world to come.

Like Michael Jordan and Will Robinson, Chanina Ben Dosa is able to get up and try something new, even after an idea that he thought was brilliant, fails.  This is our task as well. We often can trick ourselves into believing that the magical solutions we think of are the best way to fix our community’s issues. Sometimes we have brilliant, miraculous successes, and sometimes we can jeopardize our future with the mistakes we make. If we have the fortitude to get up, make amends, and dust ourselves off, our congregations will thrive as we keep moving forward.

Rabbi David N. Young is the rabbi for Congregation B’nai Tzedek of Fountain Valley, CA. He spends all of his non-congregational time with his wife, Cantor Natalie Young, and their children Gabriel, Alexander, and Isabella. They also have a fish that their daughter named “Rabbi Litwak.”

Categories
CCAR on the Road Israel News

CCAR Delegation in Ramallah: Learning, Listening and Questioning

Our CCAR delegation had the unusual but rewarding opportunity to travel to Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, to talk with Palestinian business and political leaders.  Each rabbi in our group took away something different from the day. I’ll begin with my own general impressions and then fill in the details. What I took away was: 1) we do indeed have partners for both economic and political engagement; 2) Palestinians are thinking creatively about building a sustainable economy in their emerging state and have been working successfully in mutual engagement with Israelis in universities and other settings; 3) Restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation such as freedom of movement of both goods and people are severely hampering economic development; and 4) Women are an emerging and strong force in the Palestinian work place.

Our leaders who arranged the meetings were Felice and Michael Friedson, founders of Media Line.  They first took us to meet with Kamel Husseini, the Managing Director of The Portland Trust.  Founded in London in 2003, the Trust is a “British non-profit ‘action tank’ whose mission is to promote peace and stability between Israelis and Palestinians through economic development.” Husseini is an ideal director for such a trust. For much of his life he has reached out to Jews and Israelis, moved by our shared humanity.  Husseini wrote a moving article about Hadassah Hospital as a model of humanity that we would all do well to emulate.  He spoke from personal knowledge, having taken his mother there for oncology treatments for 12 years.

The goal of Kamel Husseini and the Portland Trust in Ramallah is to work on 5 areas of economic development (tourism, energy, construction, information technology, and agriculture) that are realistic given the restrictions of the Palestinian reality under occupation.  It would not be realistic, for example, to work on manufacturing, since that requires access to resources and control of imports and exports through borders that are not available at this time.  His hope is that by focusing on things they can do, they can help prepare the Palestinian economy for a time when there is an independent state.  He is very eager to work with Israelis both now and in the future on economic projecCaryn Broitman 2ts.

Our next meeting took place at the beautiful new coffee house in Ramallah called Zamn.  The second of an Starbucks type chain, Zamn was started by the impressive and articulate entrepreneur and business woman, Huda el Jack. El Jack, who moved to the West Bank from the United States in 2003, went to business school at Tel Aviv University.  She wanted to go to a university where Palestinians and Israelis were together.  Watching the students work together, she learned learned that it is “amazing what Israelis and Palestinians can do together when they are free”. El Jack wanted to make a difference in the economy and she certainly has.  The food and coffee at Zamn were delicious.  She wanted to make sure we understood, however, that she was able to do what she did in spite of the situation (occupation).  “Don’t think there are a lot of opportunities here.”  Taking advantage of her education abroad, however, she is creating opportunities for others.

While enjoying our lunches we were given the unexpected opportunity of hearing senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath.  Shaat is a close advisor to Mahmoud Abbas and has been one of the key negotiators over the years.  Shaath expressed great respect for John Kerry and his efforts, however was dissatisfied with the direction of the negotiations.  While Palestinians, in his view, would overwhelmingly favor a plan of two states with 2 capitals and open trade between the two countries, what is being offered, in his view, is a state that is neither contiguous nor independent, and would not alleviate the restrictions of movement that he and other Palestinians suffer now.  He expressed the frustration that Secretary Kerry seemed to be negotiating with Bibi Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, rather than with Netanyahu and Abbas.

Finally, we visited the planned city of Rawabi, not far from Ramallah.  We were greeted by a woman, one of their engineers, who told us that there are 23 neighborhoods planned, 2 of them already completed with their 650 apartments already sold.  The city will include a hospital, many schools, an amphitheater, mosques and churches, a convention center and much more.  The building is on an almost unimaginable scale.  Its visionary, Bashar Al-Masri spoke to us of his desire to make a difference in the Palestinian economy.  He passionately explained that he does not want Palestine to be a state dependent on donations of other nations.  He wants to help build a self-sustaining economy of his emerging country.  Rawabi has become the number 1 private sector employer of Palestinians.  And while it is an expression of Palestinians’ independent spirit, it also is a model of engagement with Israelis and Jews around the world, who have come to both learn from and offer their help and experience.  While restrictions of movement and road building due to the occupation has been a major obstacle, Masri is still optimistic, and has received support from many in the Israeli public who can hopefully influence government officials to allow him the access to water and roads that the project requires.

We were all grateful to Felice, Michael and the CCAR for a day packed with opportunities for learning, listening and questioning.

 Rabbi Caryn Broitman is the rabbi of Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center.

Categories
CCAR on the Road Israel

CCAR Start Up Israel Trip: Learn What Makes the Impossible Possible

Walking through the late afternoon in Maktesh Ramon, breathing in air that is simultaneously warm and cool the way air in the desert in the late afternoon tends to be (but not at all the way the air in New Jersey tends to be), I overheard a colleague say: “if I’m not enjoying it, I’m doing the wrong thing”. I wasn’t really part of his conversation, more wandering alongside lost in my own moment, so I’m not entirely sure what “it” was. But whatever he meant, he got me thinking.

It is easy to throw around sentences like that one when you are on vacation and the only decision to be made is which of two equally gorgeous hikes to take through the desert. We can love either. But what about loving to do what we’re about the rest of the time: when the sun is not setting over the crater and the sky turning to colors we’ll never see in Princeton, or Joliet or wherever.

I don’t know well the rabbi who was speaking but from what I can tell he certainly seems passionate about the work of his rabbinate. And another rabbi on our trip told me today that she actually was prepared to hate the form her rabbinate had taken until she discovered that she loved her work with the people with whom she engaged day by day. The CEO of Friends by Nature, Nir, got involved in the Ethiopian community when in his post army wanderings he fell in love with an area, met the people there and loved those people even more than the surroundings themselves. He has dedicated his life to that love. Miri Eisen started our day talking to us about the geopolitical reality of Israel given the world in which it exists. She is a woman whose passion for the people of Israel, her love for them and the need to protect them is evident in all she says. In other words, what struck me today was the power of love.

When you love what you do and who you do it with, the impossible sometimes becomes less so. I know we don’t live our lives on vacation where loving what you’re about is easy. I understand that there are plenty of things that all the love in the world is not going to make possible. But I came here to Israel with the CCAR Start Up Israel trip to learn what makes the impossible possible. A MARAM colleague who met with us for lunch and is building in Caesaria one of the newest congregations in Israel — a place where she herself declared there could never be a reform community — told us that she didn’t let herself focus on what couldn’t be. She focused on what she knew in her heart there needed to be. And she shared that love with others. Guess what? They had 100 plus people at the high holidays last year.

My questions then: how do we make the impossible happen? And what’s love got to do with it?

Rabbi Carolyn Bricklin-Small serves Congregation Beth Chaim in Princeton Junction, NJ.
Categories
CCAR on the Road Israel

Discovering Israeli Patience during the Start-Up Israel Tour

People keep saying that Israelis don’t have any patience. Maybe not for the inconveniences of daily life, but everyday of this Start-Up Israel tour convinces me more and more that In the long run Israelis are tenaciously patient. Consider Daniel and Anat Kornmehl who began raising goats in 1994. It took them three years to find the right home to make cheese and sell it at their restaurant. They find their home in the Negev but are still waiting for a long-term lease from the government so they can build permanent housing.

High-tech entrepreneur David Guedalia, along with a variety of colleagues, including brother Jacob, has developed at least a half-dozen software products. Now the group is part of Qualcomm. The group, based in Beit Shemesh, credits its success as a startup to working with people from a variety of cultures; their background in the army — which taught a strong reliance on each other, improvisation and the ability to take risks; and letting the best innovators take the lead with others carrying out their vision.

In Be’er Sheva’s old city, we met university students who are taking a cue from their grandparents to create a new Zionism for the 21st century. These 20 students make up just one of the 14 villages of Ayalim dedicated to improving the lives of residents of socio- or economically challenged areas. In Be’er Sheva, the students are focused on providing residents mostly in their 20s with cultural activities, including music and art. But the students want to do more. Once they are done with school, many plan to settle in the area because they love it and they want to be part of helping the community continue to improve. Ayalim’s Deborah Waller said the area has already been rejuvenated as business activity has increased.

As the day drew to a close we neared our final destination of Jerusalem but stopped first to enjoy the patient work of Tzora Vineyards where we tasted a variety of delicious wines. We then concluded our day with a “Shehechiyanu” at the Haas Promenade overlooking Jerusalem — the golden city Israelis have been patiently guarding with their lives to keep and protect every day of the past 65 years.

Sara Goodman is a hospice chaplain in Los Angeles, CA.

Categories
CCAR on the Road Israel News

Marketing 101: The Product is…Israel

As our CCAR Rabbinic mission, “Start-Up Israel” started today, we asked two key essential questions:

1. How do we understand the changing face of Israel and bring that back to our communities?

2. How do we capture the spirit of entrepreneurship and use that in our communities?

We began by meeting a dynamic woman, Joanna Landau, the Executive Director of Kinetis, an organization whose mission is to market Israel to non-Jews who fall in the undecided category about Israel (in America this number is 69%, meaning they have not positive or negative feelings towards Israel).  What they have discovered is that in this generation as people decide what has meaning and value to them as individuals, Israel is in fact a product that can be “sold”. They have taken influential bloggers on various subjects, food, art, dance, music, sports, environment etc. brought them to Israel and have shown them that what Israel offers is among the best in the world.  These bloggers then share their experience, giving tangible stories about Israel.  These stories change the images that people have about Israel from concrete, barbed wire, a bunker to one that is more authentic.

As rabbis, we could not help but think how this applies to our own youth who fall in that undecided category about Israel?  We all know so many youth who see Israel as a far off place, that is inaccessible. What can we do to give them images about Israel?  We can find out what interests them and bring that face of Israel alive for them.

To that end, we took a VIP gallery tour, with art critic Vardit Gross, who showed us the beauty of the modern art scene.  Including how Israel can engage in Design Art and take concepts, design them and even manufacture them on a small scale.  What an incredible face of Israel to show art lovers!

Our meeting with Reuven Marko and Lior Ben Tzur (both IMPJ members in Netanya) further helped us connect with the notion of Start-Up as an engineer and a businessman, have teamed together to accelerate start up ideas.   They were involved early on with the PillCam and as well as the first “iPhone” an idea that came about that would use touch screen technology to surf the web.  The idea was born in 1994 and the iPhone produced then was roughly the size of a desktop computer with a phone attached to to it.

As we learned, the spirit of “Start-Up” is built on bringing people with different expertise together to create ideas.  This notion of teamwork is forged from the greatest teamwork experiment in Israel, called the Army.  It leaves us to wonder how we can capture that creativity. We should not be afraid to disagree, fail 2 or 3 times before getting it right, and focus on a key idea rather than a far reaching idea. (Reuven also mentioned how excited he was about the new 6 points Sci-tech academy, the URJ’s newest summer camp opening this summer that will put kids in a communal society and help them discover the tools towards ingenuity.)

Our challenge is how can we capture that innovation in our own communities? Perhaps some of the ideas mentioned above can be helpful and perhaps others will come to fruition.  As Joanna Landau taught us, Israel is built on a creative energy.

Rabbi Rick Kellner serves Congregation Beth Tikvah in Worthington, OH

Categories
High Holy Days Machzor Prayer

Machzor Blog: The Gates are Closing, and God’s Hand is Outstretched

The N’ilah service on late Yom Kippur afternoon is notable for its image of the Gates of Repentance closing their doors.  At this late and hungry hour, for the final time during the Day of Atonement, we are summoned to repentance.  The fact that many Sages argue we can actually delay our atonement to the end of the Sukkot holiday does not lessen the drama of the moment.

At the end of N’ilah, often as the sun has set, we will hear the final blast of the shofar.  We will also declare the most essential teaching of the entire season: God is Merciful!  We actually chant this seven times, just to make sure we get the point.  The Gates are closing, but the mercy of God never ends.

In our creative retrieval of oft-forgotten elements of traditional High Holy Day liturgy, the editorial team for the new machzor, Mishkan HaNefesh, have seized on a central image that is suggested by a traditional N’ilah poem: God offers a hand to meet us halfway in our journey towards return.

In our draft version we feature the following version of the traditional prayer:

You hold our Your hand to those who do wrong;
Your right hand opens wise to receive those who return.
You teach us the true purpose of confession:
to turn our hands into instruments of good,
to cause no harm or oppression.
Receive us, as You promised, in the fullness of our heartfelt t’shuvah.

As we note in the draft version, the prayer focuses on God’s constant presence and compassion, even when we have fallen away from God’s expectations for us.  We are never too far from the ability to make peace with God.  The gates do close, the day will end, but the opportunity for return is never taken away from us.

In the first month of the year 5246  (September 10-October 9, 1485), B’nai Soncino (the Sons of Soncino) began the printing of the first Hebrew prayer book, Mahzor Minhag Roma (A Prayer Book of the Roman Rite), in the city of Soncino.  This book’s “You Hold Out Your Hand” is the only prayer printed in large type throughout. Could this have been done with Conversos (also known by the derogatory name, Marranos) in mind, those who had been forcibly converted but retained loyalty to their Jewish faith?  If so, the gesture is a poignant example of the everlasting mercy that God extends to us.

The message is not only reflective of God’s mercy.  It is also a call to us to practice the same mercy with those who have hurt us.  When possible, we hold out our hand to them.  With such a hand, the gates need never close.

The core editorial team of the upcoming machzor include Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, Rabbi Janet Marder, Rabbi Shelly Marder and Rabbi Leon Morris.  For information about Mishkan HaNefesh or about piloting, write to machzor@ccarnet.org. 

Edwin Goldberg, D.H.L., is the senior rabbi of Temple Sholom of Chicago and serves as the coordinating editor of Mishkan HaNefesh.

This post originally appeared on RJ.org.

Categories
News

The Blessing of CCAR Chevruta

Much more than a decade ago, our colleague Rabbi Bob Loewy spoke to SWARR (Southwest Association of Reform Rabbis) members from the pulpit of Congregation House of Israel in Hot Sprints Arkansas, where we were gathered for a Kallah.  Bob was the President of SWARR at the time, and he described that position as the greatest honor of his career to date.

Truth be told, the SWARR presidency is determined by seniority, i.e., the President is the most senior member of SWARR who has been active in the region and not yet served as president.  Therefore, Bob wasn’t chosen as SWARR president as an honor, per se, nor was I several years later.  So why did Bob describe that position as כבוד (honor)?

Bob has served in this region throughout his career.  I have, too, except for one year.  I resonated strongly to Bob’s discussion of the importance of SWARR to his rabbinate.

SWARR is a far-flung region.  We gather annually, not monthly.  Our Kallot feature significant study and important communication from the CCAR.

More importantly, SWARR is an important place for sharing, in a way that our fabulous but very large CCAR conventions cannot be.

I write from SWARR, in Memphis this week.

This morning, over breakfast, a colleague and his spouse talked with me about their journey from the traumatic end of a congregational tenure to healing, now in their fifth year in a new position.  Their message was important for me to hear, at an earlier stage in my own similar journey.

The conversation then grew to include others at the table.  We contemplated a panel discussion of rabbis and rabbinic families who have lived through professional trauma.  We reflected on past SWARR conversations that have been particularly moving.  We met in Oklahoma City shortly after the bombing of the Murrah Building, and we heard from David Packman about rabbinic leadership in a community crisis. On the same panel, Ken Roseman, whose wife had died after a long struggle with cancer, talked about living through that tragedy in his family, congregation, and community.  We shared a similarly meaningful moment when we met after Katrina, hearing from our New Orleans colleagues, an encounter so moving that it was repeated at a CCAR Convention.  A couple years ago, we heard from a panel of Rabbis Emeritus about the joys and challenges they face in the pews of congregations led by their successors.

Each year, we lovingly remember recently departed colleagues who served in our region.  Often, few in the room knew the colleagues described, long since retired.  The personal אזכרות, each delivered by a rabbi who enjoyed a personal relationship with the departed, deepen our bonds across the generations.  Along those same lines, I am acutely aware that, at 50, I am no longer a young rabbi.  My encounters with new colleagues at SWARR, engaging in intentional conversation over dinner or in the hospitality room, have deepened my rabbinate meaningfully each year.

I am grateful for my SWARR חברותה (chevruta), and pray that all CCAR colleagues enjoy a similar opportunity.

 Rabbi Barry Block is the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.

Categories
Ethics General CCAR Rabbis Reform Judaism

Taking out the (Sacred?) Trash

Leviticus assigns some very messy duties to the Cohanim, the Priests of otherwise exalted status in the ancient Temple.  Not only is the Priest charged with slaughtering the sacrificial animal and sprinkling blood according to prescribed ritual, he is also required to clean up after the ritual is complete.

Yes, that’s right.  The same Priest who presides over the sacrificial ritual is the custodian.  He changes clothes, sweeps up the ashes, and takes them to the dumping ground outside the camp — to the dumpster, if you will.

We may be surprised that Torah assigns this garbage run to the Priest himself.  After all, Levites are charged to assist the Priests by taking on less exalted duties connected to the Temple service.

So what’s the lesson?

Recently, I transitioned from service as rabbi of a larger congregation of about 1000 households to a medium-sized synagogue of some 350 families.  My new congregation employs one full-time custodian who doesn’t work on Saturday or Sunday.  (I write “Saturday” rather than “Shabbat,” because he does work Friday evenings.)

We have a robust attendance at Shabbat Torah study, which always includes a breakfast snack provided by volunteers among the participants; and our Men’s Club assures that a lovely Kiddush follows Shabbat morning worship.  Shortly after I arrived, an insect infestation inspired a decision that the garbage from this Shabbat morning gathering would need to be taken to the dumpster at the end of the morning’s activities rather than sitting in the inside trash can until Monday.

As the only staff member regularly present on Shabbat morning, I’m often the guy who takes the trash to the dumpster.  Suffice it to say that I never took trash to the dumpster even once in 21 years at my previous congregation.

While I never reacted badly to this garbage duty, or imagined it beneath my station, I also didn’t find it edifying.  Slowly, though, I began to see קדושה in the duty.  No, I’m not a Cohen, but the trash is sacred:  It is the refuse of the holy endeavors or Torah study and worship.

At my new congregation, every member, including the rabbi, needs to be a custodian.  After Shabbat Kiddush, if I’m visiting with a congregant in need or a newcomer, or if I need to rush out to a pastoral or family obligation, a lay leader will take out our sacred Shabbat garbage.

The word “custodian” is often treated as a synonym of “janitor.”  However, if we pay attention to the word, we will note that a custodian is one who has custody, who maintains a responsibility, often for something holy.  Indeed, our most regular usage of the  word “custody” refers to children!

Being a custodian wasn’t what I expected when I became a rabbi, or even when I sought placement in a smaller congregation, but I am grateful to have found meaning in taking out the sacred garbage.

 Rabbi Barry Block is the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.