Tag: Convention

Categories
CCAR Convention Rabbinic Reflections

Healing, Restoring, and Renewing: Rabbi Lewis Kamrass’ CCAR Convention 2022 Sermon

The 133rd annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis was held March 27-30, 2022 in San Diego, where 300 Reform rabbis gathered in person with several hundred online. Here, we share CCAR President Rabbi Lewis Kamrass’ powerful, moving sermon addressing the Reform rabbinate.

In Masechet B’rachot, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi taught: One who sees his friend after thirty or more days have passed recites “Blessed is the Eternal One who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this time” (B’rachot 58b). Commentators have debated whether it should be recited if some correspondence or conversation took place in the interim. But as I look at each of you gathered here, 350 rabbis, joined together for the first time in three years, and those of you joining us virtually, with the most genuine sentiment I say,

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה  

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, shehecheyanu v’kyimanu v’higianu lazman hazeh! It is so renewing for us to be together again: studying, praying, laughing, learning, debating, and probing questions of meaning. Perhaps now more than ever, we understand the wonder and the joy of being together as colleagues. 

After two years of isolation, of weddings and b’nai mitzvah without guests, of Zoom holidays and classes, of services led with only a camera or a screen before us, and of funerals with no one present to comfort the mourner, I would suggest that on the heels of a pandemic, we feel depleted, not simply because of endless redesigning of our work, but also because we were deprived of the renewing spirit of community found in serving others in person. Now, at this gathering, our thoughtful study or the simple conversations in the hallway or over a meal will have even greater resonance for us, as we seek to replenish and be restored. 

To be restored—that is very much what Torah speaks to this week, in Parashat Tazria. While some would say it is that portion that only a dermatologist can love, perhaps these instructions of priestly leadership may also bring heightened meaning to us at this time. For we have known the residual effects of isolation from a plague, of being separated from community. And we rabbis now sense what the ancient priests must have felt: the exhausting responsibility of keeping those isolated in contact, reassured that they would be reconnected to community, that the צרעת tzara’at would pass, that all might be restored.  

But of course, even in being restored, nothing can be exactly as it once was. Because we are not the same as we once were. And neither is our world. Since we were last together, we have experienced massive disruption in our work, in our families, and in the larger world. We have known tzara’at of the fabric of society. Consider for a moment a quick review of the last two years: the first pandemic of our lives, widespread illness and death, a threat to democracy, racial tension, rejection of past injustice, the rise of nationalism and antisemitism, terror aimed at synagogues and even our brave colleagues, a war that threatens Europe and brings with it an unparalleled refugee crisis, and so much more. Chaos is the backdrop that drapes our daily lives. Our tzara’at is disruption that afflicts the order in which we once labored.  

These headlines of our day deeply impact our lives. Our tradition teaches that a tzara’at is not only to the affected patch of skin, but extends to the thoughts and the emotions, the fears and the hopes of everyone it touches. Our congregations, schools, Hillels, chaplaincies, and communities are not immune from this. As rabbis, we keenly feel the cultural pressure of skepticism of authority, polarization and the diminished value of giving others the benefit of the doubt. Further, the contemporary plague of disruption has touched every individual. There is widespread vulnerability and fragility. Frustration or anger bubbles up too easily. Relationships are frayed.  And for so many, mental health concerns proliferate. 

Our Torah enumerates the job description of the priest to examine and decree the tzara’at, the affliction. The procedures are detailed with the uncomplicated clarity of an instruction book. Yet, if we place ourselves in the shoes of the priests, we can imagine what might have been in their hearts as they carried out their tasks. More than making a simple pronouncement of tzara’at, that priest stood face to face with the afflicted, looking into their eyes. That priest saw the anxiety and fear of the afflicted person, the disruption to their lives and to their family that isolation brought, the pleading uncertainty written upon their faces. And what they saw there had to unsettle the priests, who, after all, accompanied the afflicted both to isolation and subsequently to their return to the community.  

We rabbis stand in the shoes of the ancient priests in our contemporary cultural affliction, the tzara’at of disruption. With tender care and sometimes with heavy hearts, each day we have the privilege to look into the eyes of our people.  And we stare in the mirror, seeing reflected in our own eyes our moments of deep and revealing thoughts. Colleagues, we are all מצורע m’tzora—afflicted with the plague and its ensuing dislocation. So many of us have struggled through the added demands and the lengthened hours, and received the frustrations of those we serve, even as we experience our own. The lesion of disruption has shaken us with our own vulnerability. We are burdened with self-doubt, overwhelmed by the demands, and seeking to balance so much in our lives when even the ground beneath us feels unsure. With our high expectations of self, we wonder if we are up to the enormity and complexity of the task.   

Now colleagues, as I look into your eyes, this I know: like the ancient rabbis before us and the priests before them, we are up to the task. We are the ones to rise to the moment, because this is the moment to which we have been called. But neither you nor I can do this alone. How much we need to turn to our colleagues with the vulnerable and searching questions of the heart, to help us clarify the direction we seek. We need to discover our strength not in appearing to stand tall through the storm, but in offering a generous hand to lift one another up to this moment. Even rabbis need a rabbi. So let us look to one another to comfort, challenge, teach, and guide us. And we need our Conference as well, not only for resources or knowledge, but for wisdom, strength, support, and care. Along with our volunteer leadership, our extraordinary and compassionate professionals—led by our rabbi, Hara Person—are endeavoring to shape a CCAR that is ever more responsive to those urgent needs of the rabbinic soul. And we look to you to help us do so. We all need to be kinder to one another, to give the benefit of the doubt, and to shape a nourishing environment of understanding and care. That is what a rabbinic chevra is at its essence. So, in these days together here and in the year that unfolds, let us be deeply honest and boldly vulnerable with one another, and let us respond with an equal generous measure of kindness and caring. In an age where k’vod harav כבוד הרב is devalued, we must elevate that fundamental principle within our own discourse. 

And colleagues, as our people in the wilderness relied upon the priests, our people today need us more than ever. I can assure you: that need will only grow. If we are to restore our people to faith in the bedrock strength of our tradition and in the comforting care of community, we will need more rabbis in every venue of rabbinic leadership. So, as I did last year, now even more urgently do I sound the warning that we are not raising up enough disciples. It has always been the rabbi who has identified and inspired Jews to become rabbis and to assure our future. We dare not wait for a young person to come to us to ask about the rabbinate, or we will leave Jewish life starved for leadership and strength. The crisis is upon us now, not for the next generation, but now and for the next years before us. We must look past the urgency of today’s many problems that confront us, to the longer horizon in which we lead and serve, for you and I are the solution to this looming crisis. We should engage in rabbinic קירוב keiruv (outreach), with our personal invitation to those we find promising. In this moment, reflect and consider those people to whom you could turn: promising teens, college students, young adults, and those in engaged in Jewish life in our communities. Initiate conversations. Invite them to enter a life of unparalleled meaning. We secure the future of Jewish life not only by our teaching and our deeds, but in the disciples that we inspire and invite to join us. Our history, our community, and our faith hold us accountable to that. 

In the rabbinic midrash of Sifra, (Parashat Nega’im 4:4) the text interprets the words לכל מראה עיני הכהן l’chol mareih einei hacohen (Leviticus 13:12) to mean that the priests could only carry out the sacred task if their vision was undiminished and their sight was undimmed. While the midrash meant blindness or visual impairment, I would suggest a different interpretation, that the priest could not serve the proper leadership role with a diminished sense of purpose.  And neither can we. 

So let us renew that in ourselves. Yes, our world is not the same as when we last gathered, nor are our daily tasks. But our role remains steadfast and clear. This beacon of light and faith still shines undimmed as our steadfast vision: I believe that the destiny of Jewish life is in our hands as rabbis. I believe that as rabbis we must restore ourselves, so that we might restore hope, clarity, vision, and resolve to every corner of our work and to every set of eyes into which we peer. I believe in the undiminished promise and meaning of what we rabbis do. I believe in our impact: in the teaching that can inspire, the word fitly spoken with a person we counsel or comfort at a bedside, or in what someone remembers years later of that moment in which we guided them. From all that I see, more than ever, I believe in what rabbis do, who we are, and to what we aspire. And I believe in us. For we are meaning makers. Our words, our wisdom, and our work can be enduring. And we would do well to remember that, all of us, especially at this moment in time. 

To the disruptive tzara’at of our day, may we bring healing. Let us begin with restoring ourselves, turning to one another, reconnecting to a chevra that inspires us with energy, learning, and support. Let us reconnect our people to that reservoir of meaning so desperately needed in their lives. Let us move beyond the exhaustion of the day to embrace the invigorating responsibility of shaping tomorrow. It is that courageous leadership that rabbis have always been called to do, especially in uncertain times.  

For colleagues, we are not simply employees with job descriptions in organizations or congregations. As rabbis, we are “builders of our people,” “restorers of the breach,” and the priests who look into the faces of others and who see reflected in their eyes the divine image.  We are the guardians of Jewish life and guardians of its light. So together, let us walk with confidence and courage toward that light to restore what we were ordained to do. Amen. 

Rabbi Lewis Kamrass is President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Senior Rabbi of Isaac M. Wise Temple of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he has spent his entire rabbinate.

Categories
Convention

Learning in Order to Teach and Act: Rabbi David Ruderman on 50 Years in the Rabbinate

Each year at CCAR Convention, we honor members of our organization who were ordained 50 years ago or more. In advance of CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, we share a blog from Rabbi David Ruderman.

I must admit I was initially quite ambivalent about attending HUC-JIR some fifty-five years ago. I came to the College with significant Hebraic skills and knowledge of Jewish history, and I was already certain I wanted to be a historian, not a communal rabbi as my father had been. But I needed more rabbinic skills, and I was destined to have the great scholar, Shmuel Atlas, z”l, as my teacher of Talmud.  HUC-JIR allowed me to accelerate my studies and even offered me the opportunity to begin my doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem at the same time I was a rabbinic student, and then supported me in Jerusalem after I was a rabbi. In the end, the greatest reward of my ordination was to have my late father, Rabbi Abraham Ruderman, bless me at the ceremony at Central Synagogue.

My father always insisted that the most important degree I would earn was the rabbinic one. I grew to appreciate what he meant in viewing my almost fifty years of university teaching as an extension of my rabbinate. What greater joy was there for me than to study Jewish texts, to reconstruct the Jewish past, and to write books that laid out my fresh ideas on the importance of what I had studied! How meaningful it has been to encounter thousands of students in my classes at Maryland, Yale, and Penn, and to guide their discovery of our people’s lives and spiritual treasures! And how exciting it has been to create programs in Jewish studies at every university with which I was affiliated; to build institutions of Jewish learning which hopefully will continue for generations to come!

I never abandoned my love of K’lal Yisrael, the synagogue, and the Jewish community. My goal was always to connect town and gown, to bring scholars into the synagogue sanctuary, to connect them with rabbis and laypersons, and to demonstrate that academic learning [wissenschaft] is not devoid of spirituality and emotional energy. Along these lines, I visited congregations all over the U.S. to teach and share my own versions of Torah; I even produced two courses on Jewish history for the Great Teachers Courses that still circulate even several decades after they were created.

Our present world offers serious and perplexing challenges to human existence, and we Jews are hardly immune from them while facing squarely our own particular ones. In old age, I am hardly a prognosticator of the Jewish future, only a mere historian who has tried to excavate the Jewish past in light of the present world in which I have lived. But I do know one thing which my abba taught me about our precarious condition then and now: the rabbi still executes a critical function in the performance of Jewish life. A rabbi learns in order to teach and in order to act. By studying, applying, and living Torah, the rabbi remains—in the language of the great historian Salo W. Baron (1942)—the chief protagonist in the drama of Jewish communal survival. I am proud to have been a small part of that drama with my own classmates and we proudly pass on our legacy to the next generation of rabbanim b’Yisrael.

Rabbi David B. Ruderman is the Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and Darivoff Director at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is celebrating 50 years in the Reform Rabbinate.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
CCAR Convention Torah

A Career Dedicated to Teaching and Learning Torah: Rabbi Norman J. Cohen on 50 Years in the Rabbinate

Each year at CCAR Convention, we honor members of our organization who were ordained 50 years ago or more. In advance of CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, we share a blog from Rabbi Norman J. Cohen.

Though it has been fifty-three years since we were ordained by Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, z”l, at Central Synagogue, it seems like yesterday. But as I look back and remember the emotions of that day, which were heightened for me by my mother’s death only months before, little did I know that fifteen years later, Dr. Gottschalk would ask me to join the Administration of the College-Institute. And, as I stood on the bimah of Central Synagogue with Dr. Gottschalk, seated on the bimah was his ultimate successor, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, then a rabbi at Central. What an amazing snapshot! Three presidents of HUC-JIR on the bimah at one time. Who would have thought that I would also have the honor of serving for a brief time as Interim President of the College-Institute.

At that moment of Ordination, it surely would have been impossible to imagine how my life as a rabbi would play out. My goal then was simply to enter our graduate school in Cincinnati and immerse myself in rabbinic text study, hoping to gain a deeper understanding of its various genres. The years studying Midrash and Rabbinic Literature were such a blessing, and in great measure, it was due to the knowledge I gained and the passion I imbibed from wonderful mentors, chief among them, Drs. Eugene Mihaly, z”l, Ben Zion Wacholder, z”l, and Ellis Rivkin, z”l.

Little did I know then that my entire rabbinic career would be bound up with the College-Institute, as a faculty member who also spent twenty-three years working in the administration. And it began with my return to the New York School in 1975, due in large measure to the faith that Dr. Gottschalk had in me, as well as the efforts of Dr. Paul Steinberg, z”l, and Dr. Eugene B. Borowitz, z”l. For thirteen years I served as a full-time member of the Faculty, teaching and advising rabbinic and cantorial students; trying to impart to them not only the knowledge that I gained, but a sense of what it means to be a rabbi, a cantor, really a Teacher of Torah.

Serving as the Director of the Rabbinical School and then Dean of the New York School, and finally as Provost of our College-Institute was indeed a wonderful way for me to channel my rabbinic aspirations. Helping to shape the training and growth of future rabbis, cantors and educators provided me a tremendous opportunity to ensure that future Reform Jewish leaders would become the newest chuliot, links in the Shalshelet HaKabbalah, the chain of tradition and help ensure Jewish continuity. And in the process, I gained so much from so many of the students with whom I was truly privileged to study.

During the years I spent working in the administration, it meant a great deal to work with clergy, education and administrative staff, and faculty who embodied supreme dedication to shaping a seminary which could be a bastion of creativity and commitment to Jewish life. They, in turn, would train leaders who would make a significant difference in the lives of all those whom they were blessed to serve.

Yet, as I reflect upon almost five decades of work at our alma mater, it has been clear to me that the greatest joy and personal fulfillment I experience comes in the myriad of moments in which I share my love and passion for words of Torah. Studying with students and laypeople alike—opening ourselves to every element in the text, biblical and rabbinic, and having it teach us who we are and who we aspire to be as Jews and as human beings—has given me indescribable pleasure. Through my teaching at the College-Institute and in congregations, and the six books I have written, I’ve tried to demonstrate the power of words suffused with k’dushah, the holiness latent in every textual element, which have been transformational for me in my life. The most important insight I have ever gained about the importance of the teaching of Torah came from a comment by Franz Rosenzweig, who noted, “Teaching begins when the subject matter ceases to be subject matter and changes into inner power. We truly teach when we ourselves are drastically changed in the process. We truly learn when our autonomous self is pierced and we move beyond ourselves to the Other.”

And so we praise the power in the universe, in us, which is the source of mayim chayim, life-giving water, Torah:

Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu laasok b’divrei Torah.

Rabbi Norman J. Cohen is celebrating 50 years in the Rabbinate. Rabbi Cohen serves as Professor Emeritus of Midrash at HUC-JIR New York.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 582-X-190-convention-footer_1.jpg
Categories
CCAR Convention Convention

Convention 2021: Enter with Intention

During a recent CCAR Board meeting, our colleague and board member Rabbi Mona Alfi selected a pasuk from Parashat T’rumah on which to d’rash: “ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). Included in her chosen source texts was a passage by Mordecai Kaplan, a segment of which follows:

“The presence of the multitude in public worship creates an atmosphere that profoundly influences the individual participant. It stirs up emotions of gratitude and confidence that one could not experience in isolation” (A Year with Mordecai Kaplan, p. 73).

The ensuing discussion invited an evaluation of Kaplan’s (and other commentators’) assertion amidst this continuing stretch of isolation when the concept of “presence” has taken on entirely new meaning. Can a “multitude” comprised of silent individuals, visible in small boxes filling our computer screens, still engender an atmosphere rich with emotion, gratitude, and confidence?  For many, the answer was a definitive “yes.” Even in their silent Zoom sanctuaries and classrooms, colleagues noted that the mere presence of engaged and participatory congregants and students effects greater spiritual meaning and enhances the level of joy for all involved…with one caveat. The present multitude to which Kaplan is alluding is achieved when, virtual or not, individuals actively engage and participate in the worship (or learning, or community-building, or meeting, or…), and not simply log in to check a box or listen passively while trying to work simultaneously on other tasks.

Admittedly, the learning focused my attention as much on events to come as it did on experiences during the past year, in particular, our approaching CCAR Convention. Contemplating the potential and hoped-for impact of our Convention, even as we gather from our respective homes and individual spaces, the aspirational qualities that Kaplan describes aptly named are a now-familiar longing for countless among us—an atmosphere that profoundly influences the individual participant, one that stirs up emotions of gratitude and confidence not experienced in isolation. That we happen to be gathering by virtual means is, in truth, an inconsequential variable. With the stellar leadership of our colleagues Rabbi Amanda Greene (Convention Chair) and Rabbi Peter Stein (Vice-Chair), this year’s Convention possesses the undeniable potential to make a genuinely needed, positive and enduring impact in each of our rabbinates. However, the remaining variable in the realization of a spiritually renewing, heartening, confidence-boosting, enriching, educational, and joyful gathering rests not in the hands of the Convention planning leadership, but in each of ours. It is our collective determination to be present that will enable the restorative atmosphere we seek.

This past Rosh HaShanah, our congregation’s first pre-recorded service began with an invitation to members to “enter with intention.” Appreciating that it would have been easy enough for people simply to watch passively, as if with popcorn in hand, we encouraged congregants not to allow the fact that the service was pre-recorded to dissuade them from engaging and participating fully and sincerely, as if they were sitting in the sanctuary.

Looking ahead to this year’s Convention, the sages remind us that our mutual commitment to presence, our decision to engage fully and participate actively—to enter the days with intention—will foster an atmosphere in which renewed gratitude, confidence, and joy can well up and flourish. So, if not done already, clear your calendars for the days of this year’s Convention. Treat the few days we have together as if we were sitting together in the grand ballroom of a Convention hotel. The commitment we make to be present—for ourselves and for one another—will ensure this year’s Convention with all of its virtual creativity, realizes its full potential as one of the best Conventions yet.

Rabbi Ron Segal is President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

CCAR Convention 2021 will take place online March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
CCAR Convention

Reflection on Lessons That Should Have Been Learned Decades Ago

Each year at CCAR Convention, we honor members of our organization who were ordained 50 years ago or more. In advance of CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, we share a blog from Rabbi Jay Heyman.

In the fall of 1974, the Chief of Police called and asked me to stop by his office. “Rabbi,” he said, “I don’t want to upset you, but we have an undercover agent in the Klan, and he has told me of a plot to kill you or someone in your family.” So, for the next several weeks, while white fundamentalist Christians, right-wing extremists, and assorted white supremacist groups burned books, blew up bridges, painted Nazi and Klan insignia on public buildings, and generally created mayhem in Charleston and Kanawha County, West Virginia, my family and I were guarded around the clock by at least two and sometimes more uniformed police.

That spring, the Board of Education had selected new textbooks, which included multiethnic and multicultural literature. Local evangelicals saw the new titles as anti-Christian, anti-God, anti-Bible, inconsistent with American values, pro-integration, and filled with doctrines to encourage their children to merge their racial identity with Blacks. Within a matter of weeks, the John Birch Society, the Christian Crusade, the KKK, and American Nazis had climbed out of the sewers to lend moral support. Nor was it long before the entire community found itself embroiled in conspiracy theories involving the satanic banking system and the cabal of the “international Jew.”

Such was the first uprising of white, fundamentalist Christians threatened by 1960s social changes: the civil rights struggle, banning school prayer, the anti-war movement, women’s liberation, sex education. ’Twas an unholy alliance of religious fanaticism and political grievance; not just fringe extremists.

That era remains an enduring memory with me and, since the events in D.C. this past January 6, it is now one that plays even more than a leitmotif in the back of my mind.

Since those opening shots of the culture wars between the urban cultural elites and the rural red state rubes, we have experienced unparalleled affluence and poverty, national insecurity and popular dissatisfaction, growth and consolidation of power, the concentration of wealth and the spread of poverty. But mostly we have been lured into a trance of false promises by an economic system, best characterized as neoliberalism, that has weaponized the struggling, poorly educated, gullible masses of this country, enrolled them to serve an ever more fanatical Republican party, and has now unleashed a demon that threatens the very future of the nation.

We who have benefited from the status quo for such a long time seem to have forgotten what happens when the populace becomes fed up with not being seen, being denied equal opportunity and a fair share of economic benefit. It is so easy to forget what has always happened historically when the peasantry becomes impoverished and starving. That’s when the pitchforks come out. And Jewish history reminds how easily that pent up anguish and frustration can be ill-channeled through propaganda by those in with money and power.

Even before our current health and economic crisis—when our politicians were reassuring us of the basic prosperity and health of the economy—soup kitchens were filled to the brim, homeless shelters unable to accommodate all those needing shelter, emergency rooms overflowing with the uninsured. Millions of Americans have worked two jobs for decades for minimum wage and still do not earn enough to provide for their family’s basic needs.

The Reform Movement in which I was raised in the 1950s and 1960s prided itself on the notion that “ethical monotheism” meant living an obligation to build a better world. The imperative of tikkun olam should have reminded us not to forget seeking justice, speaking truth to power, confronting evil, bigotry, and greed in the great tradition of our biblical prophets. We have had strong social justice narratives, but all too often we have been largely silent about the political changes and widening economic chasms. Our values of compassion, justice, and concern for the poor are inconsistent with any politics dedicated to helping the wealthy become even wealthier at the expense of the poor and the middle class. Support for politicians who want to cut services while keeping tax cuts for the wealthiest is not consistent with Jewish teachings about caring for the most vulnerable of society. Indifference to the suffering of others is ungodly according to rabbinic tradition. The work of repairing the world is holy work. The work of economic and social justice is spiritual work. And that is what we are called to do.

Rabbi Jay Heyman is celebrating 50 years in the Reform Rabbinate.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
CCAR Convention Convention

Convention 2021: The Blessing of Four Days to Connect

CCAR Convention 2021 is coming. It is difficult to believe that it was just about a year ago that the CCAR staff and the Convention Committee worked furiously to figure out what it might mean to have our beloved yearly Convention online.

Now here we are, a year later preparing for a second online CCAR Convention. Your CCAR Staff and Convention Committee took the lessons from last year’s CCAR Connect 2020, the countless lessons we learned as rabbis who are now primarily functioning online due to Covid-19, and dreamed even bigger so that we talented, tired, and weary rabbis can recharge.

Now it is up to us CCAR members. We need to block off the full days in our work calendars. We deserve it. Accept the blessing of four days to connect with colleagues, to engage in worship as a pray-er not a leader, to learn and laugh. While the schedule is full, with sensitivity to CCAR members throughout the world, you may find yourself with a few hours before or after programming begins. Please, don’t schedule that time with work. Care for yourself. Step away from the screen so that you are ready to engage when the program day begins and ends. CCAR Convention is always a time to remember that in a profession where isolation can reign, we are part of a community of colleagues, and while we might experience loneliness, we are not alone.   

CCAR Convention, like always, will be what you make of it. We will remember and honor the treasured colleagues who’ve died in the past year and we will miss them dearly. We will honor our rabbis celebrating 50 and 51 years in the rabbinate, and we will install a new slate of officers to lead us. I invite you to join me online this year so that we can learn, recharge, and connect anew together.

Rabbi Eleanor Steinman is a doctoral student at the University of Southern California and serves Temple Beth Shalom in Austin, Texas as Visiting Associate Rabbi. 

CCAR Convention 2021 will take place online March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
CCAR Convention Convention

Convention 2021: Gratitude and Our Kahal

Last week, my Hebrew school students led our congregation’s Kabbalat Shabbat services. “Hebrew School Shabbat,” as it’s affectionately called, provides an annual opportunity for parents, grandparents, and community members to witness our youth recite the prayers they’ve been learning in Hebrew school.

And yet, this year was very different. Each child led from their computer at home, and nearly all of the students led their prayer as a solo voice with the rest of the kahal on mute. While many of us rabbis have become accustomed to leading prayer services online, I didn’t take for granted that my students would readily be prepared to sing and pray so publicly on the screen. And yet, my doubts were quickly assuaged as each rose to the occasion with confidence and ease. Their boldness and pride made this annual congregational gathering sweeter than ever. And my community and I are the better for it.

This year at the CCAR Convention, our kahal will gather each from our own homes or synagogue offices. This year our daily t’filot, kavanot. and meditation leaders will lead us from places across the globe. And in this strange new, or perhaps not-so-new reality, we’ll raise our voices to sing with gratitude, reflect on our lives, breathe deeply, ask for healing, and even perhaps shed a tear. Despite our physical distance, we’ll gather with rabbinic colleagues in prayer and song, as only we can do at our annual convention.

As I am planning for our time together and looking at my calendar, I am also trying to be very practical about it: What will it take for me to feel present at Convention despite the many distractions around me? What practical steps can I take to carve out the time and space for Convention?

While most of us are exhausted from life online, I believe that we, like my students, can embrace this opportunity with joy and gratitude. I look forward to seeing you in March!

Rabbi Lisa Vinikoor serves Beth Israel Congregation in Bath, Maine.

CCAR Convention 2021 will take place online March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
Convention

Hard-Gained Wisdom: Rabbi Ed Treister on 50 Years in the Rabbinate

Each year at CCAR Convention, we honor members of our organization who were ordained 50 years ago or more. In advance of CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, we share a blog from Rabbi Ed Treister.

They say a person will have seven totally unrelated jobs in their working life. Most of us will have but one—rabbi. We ordainees of 1971 have been rabbis for fifty years. That’s a long run, fifty years. Who knew when we left Temple Ema­nu-El or the Plum Street Temple that the run would be cross-country—literally and figuratively—and not a paved road marathon. But at the fifty-year mark, there is a sense of accomplishment for no other reason than for having crossed the finish line.

I’ve learned a lot in the past fifty years. Most of it the hard way, but then those are the lessons that stay with you. There were other classes I attended—and repeated!—and still others where I never got their message. But here at the fifty-year finish line are some things I’ve gathered. Some of them I took in and benefited from and some, to my chagrin, I ignored. As to those lessons repeated or missed, all I can say is—pay attention!

1. There is a difference between being a rabbi and being in the rabbinate. Rabbi is who you are; the rabbinate is where you work. You’ll always be a rabbi even if you aren’t in the rabbinate. Be always mindful of how you tie your shoes. 

2. Carve out time to study and make it fixed. Shammai said it better than I. There’s only so much in the tank, and while your mileage may vary, at a certain point, you know you’re running on fumes. Not good for you, and not good for your people.

3. What you say and how you say it are the tools of your trade. Avtalyon said to be careful with your words. That has to include preparing your words well: well-thought-out, well-phrased, well-presented. Preparation shows: it shows you care about what you are saying and to whom you are saying it. Lincoln could do it off the back of an envelope; few of us are Lincolns.

4. Spend a lot of time with the kids in religious school and youth group. It is with them that you may have the greatest influence. They’ll remember what you taught them, and it will shape their character to an inestimable degree.

5. The rabbinate offers the rabbi opportunities to touch a lot of people in a variety of venues every single day. I can think of no other field, with the possible exceptions of broadcasting and publishing, that has that kind of reach. Take advantage of those moments.

6. The rabbinate is one of the last places where you can speak before an assembly without fear of interruption or challenge. Maybe a good thing, and then again, maybe not. 

7. The rabbinate offers the possibility for you to focus your energies towards goals that you establish. You can shift your focus as you see the need in you or in your community with relative ease. That’s real flexibility and freedom.

8. The rabbinate is a job with all the storms and stresses of being an employee. Often you’re viewed as a middle manager who is under the direction of other managers. It is an unsustainable position and you will need to define yourself for them by what you say and what you do.

9. The smaller the institution the greater the likelihood of transitions. The larger the institution the greater the likelihood of stability. Sailboats are easier to maneuver (and tip over) than steamships and that goes both for the rabbi and for the institution. Hamaskil yavin.

10. By the time you are ordained you will have at least nine letters after your name. You may even acquire more. Bear in mind that wisdom is not measured by degrees but by demeanor. Ed Friedman said it differently: at all times strive to be a non-anxious presence. 

There’s my ten. There are lots more. The point is being a rabbi is an opportunity to help people live meaningful, Jewishly value-laden lives. But being in the rabbinate also means dealing with highly diverse agendas, some that can be supportive, but others that can be highly destructive. In this long run, that is the rabbi’s career in the rabbinate. I wish you Godspeed.

Rabbi Edward Treister is celebrating 50 years in the Reform Rabbinate.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
Convention

Fulfillment Beyond Measure: Rabbi Alvin M. Sugarman on 50 Years in the Rabbinate

Each year at CCAR Convention, we honor CCAR members ordained 50 years ago or more. Here, Rabbi Alvin M. Sugarman reflects on his life and learnings in the rabbinate.

If there is such a phenomenon as a spiritual journey, I cannot think of a better way to do just that than being a congregational rabbi. For not only have I experienced my own spiritual life, but I have tasted the spiritual lives of my members. As I have stood under the chuppah, enabling two people to make holy and sacred the bond of love that will join their two souls, I too was touched by the powerful magic of their romantic love. 

And again, I found myself in their presence as I participated in the naming ceremony for their tiny infant. To see the look in their eyes, to view the countenance of grandparents and at times even great-grandparents, all of whose faces radiated with a kind of ultimate joy, was a special privilege granted to me as a rabbi.

Then, before I knew it, I was standing at the door of our preschool and watching bewildered parents letting go, for the first time perhaps, of their little one as their toddler walked down the hall to his first preschool classroom. Then in the blink of an eye, I was handing each member of the kindergarten consecration class their own little Torah, which they accepted so tenderly, holding their Torah close to their hearts. Then in three blinks of an eye, I was standing next to a thirteen-year-old chanting from the Torah at his bar mitzvah.

Two or three years later, I was with this bar mitzvah boy and his classmates, participating with them in a stunningly, beautiful confirmation service they had created. Two years later, I was privileged to conduct an “off-to-college Shabbat,” praying and hoping that wherever these students went, their Judaism would live in them and that I had somehow instilled in them a desire to live a Jewish life.

The next time I might see one of my confirmands might be when they once again are standing in front of the congregation, but this time instead of reading a confirmation prayer, they are speaking about their late grandfather at his funeral, a grandfather who meant so much to them. The young man tells those gathered for the funeral how much it meant to him to hold his parents’ hands in a circle with me as together with his grandfather we repeated the Sh’ma, the last words his grandfather said before slipping into a coma and dying.

Sitting with families, listening to them speak about loved ones who have just died, about how they lived their lives, how they loved, how they struggled and sometimes failed, then strove again and succeeded, I’ve learned so much about how to live life, not just what I’ve read in books, but from sharing in my congregants’ lives.

The blessing I have received as a rabbi has brought me fulfillment beyond measure, but I am quick to note that whatever spiritual nourishment I have gained from my rabbinate would never have been possible without my life partner, Barbara, who has been by my side now for almost fifty-six years. Nor would it have been possible without the understanding and enlightened leadership of The Temple’s officers and board, as well as the deep support and understanding of our Temple family.

What I have described above, along with almost every imaginable type of counseling situation, became the heart and soul of my rabbinate.

I tried my best to keep not only the words of the prophets alive, but to turn those words into deeds, such as helping create a shelter for homeless couples and a shelter for  homeless newborns and their families. What wisdom did I learn? I learned when people are given a chance to allow the goodness of their hearts to bloom, they will do so. The night before we opened our shelter for homeless newborns and their families, we had an open house for our volunteers. The infant bathtubs were placed up high so mothers would not have to bend over to bathe their babies. On the side of each tub was a little yellow rubber duck that one of our volunteers had placed there. I smiled and I think God did too.

I pray that my rabbinate has been pleasing in God’s eyes….

Rabbi Alvin M. Sugarman received his BBA from Emory University and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1974 he was named senior rabbi at The Temple in Atlanta, Georgia. In December 1988, he received his PhD in Theological Studies from Emory University.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

Categories
Convention

Convention 2021: A Chance to Truly Be Present for One Another

I have two pieces of art that have hung on my study wall for many years. They’ve moved with me from place to place, and I often find my eyes wandering to them. Even though they are so familiar to me at this point, they continue to provide me with new inspiration.

The one piece is a black and white painting by Amos Amit with the words Da lifney mi ata omed, Know Before Whom You Stand. Amit is an Israeli artist, born in 1945 and raised in the Galilee.

The second is the famous picture by Norman Rockwell, with the verse “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The backdrop is filled with pictures of an array of faces, representing many different identities from around the globe.

Recently, I’ve been turning to these two teachings as I work with our extraordinary CCAR Convention chair, Rabbi Amanda Greene, the outstanding CCAR staff, and the dedicated members of the Convention committee.

The Talmud’s charge to remember God’s presence wherever we go has been at the center of our thinking about the upcoming convention. If it is a challenge to turn a hotel into a sacred space for T’filah and Talmud Torah, it is all the more so when we aren’t even together in a physical space. How do we ensure that there is kedusha in our online gatherings?

I am well aware that we’ve all been asking this question in our own communities in different ways over the last year, as the pandemic has restricted all of our gatherings. We will rely on the hard learned best practices of so many of you in many ways. One strategy in particular stands out for me. The March CCAR Convention won’t just be a series of webinars or a string of online programs. Rather, we have been looking very carefully at the concept of the “journey” of CCAR Convention 2021. How will we travel through each day and how will we travel through the entirety of the week?

Heschel has a beautiful framing of this teaching: that wherever we go we must cultivate the art of awareness of God. This is what we will do during our Convention.

This will be an impactful week. I look forward to truly being together, spiritually and emotionally. I plan to clear my calendar, set my out of office messages, and find a quiet space to sit undisturbed while I participate.

The second teaching on my wall, the so-called Golden Rule, is also very present in my thinking about convention. Simply put, the stress and strain of the last year has been exaggerated by not being with colleagues, classmates, and friends…those who have a unique understanding of rabbinic life and who have been a cherished presence in my life for 25 years.

Our online Convention will provide opportunities for us to share and connect…not just to catch up in the chat box while a presentation is happening, but to take time for real conversation. While we can’t actually share a meal or a cup of coffee, there will be built in opportunities, including some that use innovative technology, that create the experience of sitting together, chatting in the hall together, and opening up about our lives, our work, and our hopes and dreams. Our Convention will be a chance to truly be present for one another.

In the coming weeks, there will be more and more shared about the speakers, presenters, and program plans. For now, I urge you to give yourselves the gift of connection: register and carve out this time to be together as a Conference and as a family of colleagues.

Rabbi Peter W. Stein is the Senior Rabbi of Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY and an adjunct faculty member at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. He is the Vice Chair of the CCAR Convention Committee.

CCAR Convention 2021 will take place online March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.