Tag: 10 commandments

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Books CCAR Press Holiday News Shavuot

Author Interview: Rabbi Oren J. Hayon, Editor of Inscribed

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Rabbi Oren J. Hayon of Congregation Emanu El in Houston shares insights on the process of editing Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments.

What inspired the creation of Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments?

I contributed an essay to the 2017 collection Seven Days, Many Voices, which was a compilation of articles focusing on each of the first seven days of creation, as described in Genesis 1. That project sparked my interest in editing a similar collection of essays, from a diverse lineup of authors, offering different complementary perspectives on the Ten Commandments.

What was the most challenging part of editing this book?

From its earliest proposal, one of the most important aspects of the book for me was that it include contributions from a diverse list of authors. I wanted the chapters to come from writers within the Reform Movement and beyond it, those who work as Jewish professionals and those who don’t. It was a challenge to secure contributions from such a diverse group of authors while still producing a finished book that would be comfortably at home in Reform settings.

What is something new that you personally learned while working on Inscribed? Did any of your own perspectives change?

I learned so much! The best part of my role in editing this book was that it gave me the ability to learn from amazing teachers with extraordinary expertise and insight in areas I had not explored deeply before—philosophy, military ethics, journalism, and so much more. For me, an educational imperative is at the center of Jewish life, and it was a joyful experience to spend so much time with so many marvelous writers and scholars.

What do you want readers to take away from the book?

As a literary bloc, the Ten Commandments have endured and remained stubbornly relevant for thousands of years. I don’t think it’s impious to suggest that this is not because these Commandments are especially inspiring; instead, it’s because hundreds of generations have worked energetically to build relevance into the Ten Commandments. The beautiful and provocative writing of Inscribed’s contributing authors shows how this process of meaning-making continues to grow and unfold even in our own day.

If you would like the opportunity to learn more, six authors from Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments have created short video teachings based on their chapters in the book. These videos and the free downloadable study guide can be used for Shavuot study with your community!

Rabbi Oren J. Hayon serves as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Emanu El in Houston, Texas. He is the editor of Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments, from CCAR Press.

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Books News

New CCAR Press Book ‘Inscribed’ Provides A New Look at the Ten Commandments

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It is not an exaggeration to characterize the Revelation at Sinai as the prime foundational experience in the life of the Jewish people. At Sinai, Jewish law, peoplehood, theology, and ethics were all conceived simultaneously amid thunder, smoke, and the blare of the shofar. With the first syllable reverberating from the mountaintop, Israel assumed a new relationship with their God, who would—for all time—be their unique, transcendent Teacher.

But for the Jewish people, the mechanics of revelation do not unfold merely in a vertical dimension between the Commander and the commanded; Torah is also revealed in the horizontal dimension, through the democratic, communal bonds between study partners. From Sinai until now, in every Jewish community, each successive insight that Jews bring to their study of Torah makes it possible for God’s self to unfurl in new ways. In this way, the beliefs and practices of Jewish life take on sharper clarity in every generation of Israel’s peoplehood.

Initially, of course, our Israelite ancestors were not eager to embrace their relationship with God’s word; they cowered from God’s voice and retreated from Sinai, leaving Moses alone to receive the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:15–18). Despite Moses’s high hopes about the inspiring power of divine speech, its sheer force terrified the first generation of God’s students huddled at Sinai’s foot and might have ironically led to their spiritual impoverishment if the people hadn’t quickly developed the skills of interpretive and imaginative Jewish learning.

Creativity and innovation are critical skills for Jewish learners, and these skills were inculcated in us by Moses himself at the very beginning of our relationship with Torah. Looking down at the frightened Israelite masses at the base of the mountain, Moses must have realized quickly that, in order to worship an invisible God who demands faith in the not-yet possible, he would have to nurture Israel’s capacity for interpretive imagination. Moses needed to demonstrate that the exercise of Jewish learning can bring the impossible and the intangible into being—and so, immediately after the commandments are revealed, he goes on to teach his homeless, landless people about cisterns, vineyards, and olive groves (Deuteronomy 6:10–11).

The rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud (B. Makot 23b–24a) suggest that at Sinai, the Israelites heard only the first two of the Ten Commandments directly; the rest were heard only by Moses and translated faithfully to the people. But Moses refers to the entire Decalogue as having been heard by “every one of us who is here today” (Deuteronomy 5:3), not only those who stood at the mountain. Thus, each subsequent repetition of the words of Torah comprises a miraculous, eternal act of religious witness, and every opportunity for learning Torah is an endeavor of radical imagination. For the generation of Sinai, this meant molding their minds and hearts to accommodate things that did not yet exist; for us, the imaginative work of Torah study may mean imagining versions of ourselves that do not yet exist, and then working to bring those selves into being.

Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments, a new publication from CCAR Press, was conceived to simultaneously recognize the primacy of the Sinai moment and embrace the multivocality of contemporary Jewish learning—both within and beyond the Reform Movement. The book presents two or three chapters focusing on each of the Ten Commandments. The essays are written by a diverse group of authors, who explore the ways in which those timeless utterances led to the formation of law and ethics, and continue to inform the lives of modern Jews. The contributors represent a broad range of religious beliefs and professional specialization: in chaplaincy, law, technology, journalism, social activism, and the armed services. They live all across the United States and serve many different sorts of communities and constituents; the diversity of these contributors helps give voice to the richness and variety encoded in the Revelation moment, and their voices highlight the ongoing impact and eternal relevance of Torah that flourishes in today’s world.

Although we can fairly assume that God’s words no longer sound the way they did at Sinai, their echoes still continue today. And, in a beautifully ironic turn, millennia after our ancestors hid from the sound of God’s voice at Sinai, today we hold a unique ability to keep that ancient sound alive each time we learn or teach the words of Torah. Our willingness to remain attuned to the hum of a holy presence in the world is what preserves our heritage as a timeless nation of learners. As we continue the process of sacred study that began at a smoke-wreathed mountain in the desert, the work of radical spiritual imagination inscribes itself continuously into our hearts and minds.

Rabbi Oren J. Hayon serves as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Emanu El in Houston, Texas. He is the editor of Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments, now available from CCAR Press.

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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.”

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