Tag: Social justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: The Obligations of Our Exodus

Post author By Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
Post date March 14, 2018
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In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we’ve invited Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, co-editor of the book, to share an excerpt of the book on Passover. Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

A couple of months ago I was arrested in the grand rotunda of the Russell Building of the United States Senate. Nearly one hundred Jewish clergy and leaders joined in song and prayer, demanding that the United States Congress pass the DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to the nearly eight hundred thousand Dreamers who came to the United States as children and are every bit American as my own daughters. As we sang “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” (“We will build this world with love”) over and over again, hundreds of Dreamers stood cheering us on from the balcony, ringing us like a human halo. In an intentionally ironic twist on the famous cry from Moses to Pharaoh, we chanted, “Let our people stay!”

When we were handcuffed, removed by the Capitol Police, and placed under arrest, we understood that we were following directly in the footsteps of our ancient Israelite ancestors. Ironically, our being put into fetters was inspired by the Hebrew slaves, who rose up from their slavery in Egypt and cast off the chains of Pharaoh’s bondage in their journey to redemption. As our hands were locked in cuffs and we were led away, we chanted the verse taken from the Song at the Sea “Ozi v’zimrat Yah, vah’yi li lishuah,” “God is my strength and might, and will be my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). There seemed no words more fitting than those our ancient Israelite ancestors sang as they passed through the parted seas of their redemption.

Even as we were led into police custody, our group understood that we were walking in the footsteps of countless generations of Jews before us, generations who internalized the Rabbinic mandate in the Passover Haggadah that “it is incumbent on every generation to see itself as if they themselves—every person—had personally escaped from Egypt” (Babylonian Talmud, P’sachim 116b). Our deeds of civil disobedience were an act of moral resistance to the injustices being perpetrated on the Dreamers, along with tens of millions of other immigrants and refugees. We acted on the spiritual authority inherited from recent leaders like Rabbis Richard Hirsch, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Maurice Eisendrath, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because they internalized the most often repeated commandment in all of Torah: “You shall love the stranger, because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). Jews have marched throughout history because the core narrative of our people, the defining master story of our tradition, is the archetypal tale of redemption. Our Exodus from Egypt is the story of the transformation of the world-as-it-is, in which “strangers” are continually crushed by oppression, into the world-as-it-should-be, one where all people know justice. The power of the Jewish master narrative lies in its inherent call to every generation to live empathy; because our ancestors were strangers, we—in this era, and in every era—are to love the stranger.

Jews not only retell the master story of redemption throughout our ritual and cultural life; we have relived it throughout history. Our history has served to reinforce the most central exhortation of our Exodus narrative: we are obligated to love the stranger as ourself.

Among the many gleanings of the Exodus narrative that ground Jewish life and values, three stand out as the sources of the spiritual authority demanding that Jews resist injustice and champion morality in every age (and regardless of the challenges we face). First, we learn not only that resistance is required by our faith and experience, but also that it is always possible. Second, we are reminded that our empathy extends beyond the “stranger” to all those who are vulnerable in our midst. Finally, we instill in our souls that the Exodus is not simply about freedom from bondage; our master story culminates with the agency to enter into a covenantal community in which all people are bound to one another.

—

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for social justice. Rabbi Pesner is the co-editor of CCAR Press’s upcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, as well as a contributor to Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

Tags Books, CCAR Press, Jonah Pesner, moral resistance and spiritual authority, Passover, Pesach, RAC, Social justice

Social Justice

How Social Justice Work Blossoms in One Congregation

Post author By Rabbi Suzanne Singer
Post date January 4, 2018
1 Comment on How Social Justice Work Blossoms in One Congregation

I have always had a passion for social justice, both in my career as a television producer and in that as a rabbi. Over my nearly ten years at Temple Beth El (TBE), I have pursued this work with interfaith partners but rarely with my own congregation. There is a twofold reason for this. One, when I first arrived, the congregation had been through a decade of revolving door rabbis and was emotionally scarred and diffident. I determined that my job was to heal the wounds, not to rally folks around causes. Two, TBE had no history or culture of social justice engagement. I make a distinction between social justice and social action. Feeding the homeless is social action, and many of our congregants are involved in that. Addressing the causes of hunger or homelessness is social justice, and this is where we have not participated.

A little over a year ago, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) offered a Community of Practice called “Bringing Justice to the Center.” This was a two-year training program in how to engage one’s congregation in this work. I immediately signed up with two lay leaders, Diana Goldman and Dalia Martinez. Over the past year, we attended monthly webinars, consulted with our coach, Lee Winkleman, and began the process of community organizing. This involved finding folks who would hold one-on-one conversations as well as house meetings with other congregants to determine how they viewed the brokenness of the world and what their vision of a more perfect society looked like. Eventually, the idea would be to find an issue we could all work on together, an issue that would represent systemic change.

Our congregation is pretty solidly middle class. There are not many people of means and leisure: the vast majority of our younger families have two working parents who also spend a great deal of time shepherding their children to a wide variety of activities. Our older congregants have, for the most part, been there, done that. They want to enjoy life and spend their time with friends, family and, particularly, grandchildren. All to say that this model of community organizing, where people need to step up as leaders and take ownership of the process on a consistent and long-term basis, did not work for us. We conducted some one-on-ones and some house meetings, but the appetite for undertaking advocacy work on the part of a majority of the congregation was not there.

On the other hand, through this process, we were able to identify 15-20 people who were enthusiastic and eager to become involved in some way. It became clear that a different model was appropriate for us: rather than a grassroots effort which characterizes community organizing, we needed a more grass tops one. I found that, if I proposed an action, I could rally these 15-20 congregants to join me in the work of Reform CA whose leadership team I am on. Reform CA, the West Coast arm of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, determines which California legislation to support, and educates our congregations about the issues involved prior to lobbying our state representatives to vote in favor of these bills. I have had success in bringing TBE members for legislative visits, both here in Riverside and in Sacramento, to make phone calls to constituents, to educate other congregants, and to attend a regional meeting of Reform CA. Indeed, with 11 people from TBE attending the Los Angeles area gathering of Reform CA in early December, we had the largest delegation of any congregation by far.

My congregants and I learned that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to be effective social change agents, and that it is absolutely essential to work in coalitions. With Reform CA, we have been able to join forces, not only with other Reform congregations, but also with partners such as the national network of faith-based community organizations, PICO, and the ACLU.

I am grateful to the URJ and to Lee Winkelman for helping guide us on this path. I know we will continue to do important work in the year ahead.

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, CA.

Tags Reform CA, Social justice

Social Justice

Social Justice in 2018: Not for Ourselves

Post author By Rabbi Barry Block
Post date December 29, 2017
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A cherished friend of mine, a Christian working as a Synagogue Administrator, once asked me, “How are the same people both conservative with the congregation’s money and so liberal politically?” Her observation was mostly accurate; the Board members eager to grow the Temple’s budget were as much in the minority as the political conservatives.

I answered: “Jews are commanded to remember the heart of the stranger. We take that seriously. Yes, we may fit in here in America now, but Jews acutely remember when we were despised, outcast, and impoverished. Therefore, we identify with those who are vulnerable, and we advocate for their interests more even than our own.” Viewed in this light, our social justice priorities are largely shaped by the welfare of others. Temple finances, on the other hand, are strictly about the health of our own institution.

Upon reflection, though, my answer was too simplistic. A political conservative may be just as concerned about the poor as the liberal, with different philosophy about how best to benefit those in need. Moreover, some of our social justice advocacy – on behalf of Israel, for example; or protecting the separation of church and state – is self-interested.

Perhaps the most problematic part of my answer, though, was that we are far from the only Americans with a history of persecution. Unlike other ethnic or religious groups that are mostly white and at least middle income, though, American Jews remain strongly identified with our historic vulnerability and that of many people around us. What makes us different?

Why are so many American Jews deeply worried that Dreamers may soon face deportation? Yes, a Jewish DACA beneficiary or two has been identified; but most American Jews today are neither immigrants nor the children of immigrants. Why have we made a priority of compassionate immigration reform when so many other groups who share our immigrant history have not?

Why is our Reform Movement mobilized to protect access to health care for the tens of millions of Americans who gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act? Yes, more than a few of us have ACA policies, but still more of us benefit from the tax reform that imperiled ACA’s viability by removing the individual mandate. Other demographically-similar groups tend to take the view opposite our Movement’s.

At the dawn of 2018, a century removed from the end of the last mass wave of Jewish immigration, we may think that we are motivated by our immigrant history, but we are more likely inspired by our religion itself. Torah is the reason. Thirty-six times, Torah reminds us that we must pay attention to the welfare of the stranger, having been oppressed as strangers in Egypt.

As we welcome 2018, in an era when the fastest-growing religious identity in this country is “none,” American Jews, even the self-proclaimed atheists among us, still believe: We are here to make the world a better place. We are duty-bound to seek the welfare of the most vulnerable in our midst. We are grateful that most American Jews are neither needy nor oppressed, and Torah turns that gratitude into action.

—

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees.

Tags 2018, Social justice

Books Social Justice

Recharging Judaism, A Partnership with My Rabbi

Post author By Judy Seldin-Cohen
Post date November 17, 2017
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A single sermon cannot heal our world. A single person cannot heal our world. Social justice is a collective endeavor. We need partners to make systemic change in our communities, our states, and our nation.

More than three years ago, Rabbi Judith Schindler invited me — a lay leader — to co-author a book with her on Jewish social justice. I was not an author by profession, but I wanted to help her mobilize other congregations to effect meaningful change such as we had accomplished together in our community.

The existing Jewish social justice books we found were targeted to rabbis, rather than synagogue boards or social justice committees. Rabbis and congregants hear sacred texts differently, see community issues differently, and operate in their synagogues differently. Collaborating, we could write a book to guide rabbis and congregations to travel together on their own journeys of synagogue civic engagement.

Recharging Judaism calls American synagogues to take institutional stands on social justice issues, explaining why with deep discussions of Jewish texts, and showing how utilizing our primary research — fifty interviews with lay leaders and clergy from congregations immersed in this work. Our intended audience included rabbis, of course, but also their lay boards and social justice volunteers, three groups with diverse agendas and a broad spectrum of Judaic backgrounds.

The writing process taught us how to reach these dissimilar audiences because our own perspectives were so different — hers as a rabbi, mine as a former synagogue board member and social justice committee co-chair. For example, my co-author would draft a paragraph referencing God and I would recommend we substitute the word “divine.” I would enumerate the details of a successful process and she would suggest we edit it down to a key anecdote. Whether we were parsing a text or illustrating a framework for action, we debated every word so that our book would speak to all its readers.

I laughed out loud while we were writing the preface. I had drafted the sentence encouraging more exploration of the modern rabbinic works that we had excerpted. When she edited the paragraph, she added the same suggestion about the writings of the Jewish sages — a thought that had not occurred to me.

I was not the only one attuned to modern issues rather than the timeless relevance of Torah and Talmud. When asked which Jewish text inspired their social justice work, lay leaders we interviewed were more apt to quote some version of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel “praying with his legs” as he walked in Alabama for voting rights fifty years ago than they were to cite an ancient text that their clergy had shared at the start of a social justice committee meeting.

Do I believe that sharing these texts is important? Absolutely. Establishing the basis of civic engagement causes in Judaism is a unique responsibility of synagogue clergy. Recharging Judaism provides discussions of our ancient texts that are accessible to lay leaders like myself who are eager to live our Jewish values outside our sanctuaries. To assist this work, Sefaria Source Sheets with Rabbinic texts are available as companions to every chapter.

Recharging Judaism uniquely guides the rabbinic work that ensues from applying those teachings in America today. We share examples of how rabbis recruit capable lay leaders and align with their board while leading the congregation and the community. Our frameworks also enlist the participation of your congregation — rather than solely your social justice committee — and guide you to do this work outside your synagogue building where many American Jews are rallying to stand for our values.

Perhaps your congregation already accepts civic engagement as its fourth pillar alongside Torah study, worship services, and acts of loving-kindness. If so, kol hakavod. Yet you might find that the examples we cite from other successful congregations — and the cautionary tales of missteps — inspire even more effective and sustainable work. The polarizing political climate today may also warrant rethinking how you navigate your congregation’s journey of civic engagement.

This book was my sixth major collaboration with Rabbi Schindler over the course of more than a decade in which I was enjoying early retirement from the business world. Just over a year ago, I realized that I was no longer retired, but an author charged with a new mission — as a Jew, as an American, and as a synagogue leader. What Dr. Susannah Heschel wrote about clergy and congregants in our foreword spoke to me personally: “We are partners and we are Jews of passion. To pray and keep silent on the injustices of our world is blasphemy – and utterly un-Jewish.”

—

Judy Seldin-Cohen is a community advocate and first-time author in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her prior professional life included management consulting at Booz Allen in Chicago and vice president of ticketing at the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team. She and Rabbi Judith Schindler co-authored the newly published book, Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement Is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America, available now from CCAR Press.

Tags Civic engagement, Recharging Judaism, Social justice

Books Social Justice

Recharging Judaism: Strengthening Synagogues through Civic Engagement

Post author By Rabbi Judith Schindler
Post date November 16, 2017
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Each morning we face the news of the evening before. I often pick up my smartphone with dread. Who will be cast into fear and despair today? The undocumented student fearing deportation? The person victimized by racial bias in policing? The person made homeless by the most recent storm? There are days when I feel emotionally sapped before finishing my coffee.

When Elie Wiesel (z”l) visited Charlotte in 2007, he met with twenty local religious leaders in a lengthy, powerful exchange. He discussed with us our responsibilities to counter the injustices that we see. One pastor asked him, “How can we respond to the enormity of the world’s problems?” And he said to the assembled clergy, “All of you, because of who you are, know how to use words.”

I continually strive to fulfill Wiesel’s charge. As rabbis, we know how to use words – to craft classes, sermons, and editorials, and to speak from podiums across our cities. That is a critical first step to responding to the issues of our day. But it is not enough.

To ensure the values that we teach inside our synagogues are lived outside its walls, we need to work not harder, but smarter. And as we do –- as we partner with our congregants engaging them fully in this work — we recharge our synagogues, we strengthen our congregants’ Jewish identity, and we engage meaningfully in democracy.

Recharging Judaism states the case for how civic engagement can recharge the synagogue. As we extend our congregational work into our communities by addressing systemic issues and unjust policies, we create “minyans on the move” where Jewish friendships, community and memories are nurtured. I value the friendships I created long ago travelling to Albany with Westchester Reform Temple’s sisterhood to argue against a harsh Welfare Reform Bill and the relationships nurtured from a caravan of congregants driving with me to Raleigh for Moral Monday protests.

Recharging Judaism also demonstrates how civic engagement can strengthen Jewish identity. While theology and mitzvot are not always hot topics for conversation, the issues of our day certainly are. Actualizing our prayers by working for justice creates a Judaism of meaning and relevance for my congregants — and for me. My father and grandfather lived their Judaism fighting for the marginalized and oppressed. With their words and work, they saved lives and created greater justice, equity, equality, and peace.

Lastly, Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement Is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America, offers a path for becoming engaged with democracy as Jewish institutions. We need that now more than ever. Democracy is fragile and requires our voices and vision.

From the moment I was named Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth El in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2003, I had a clear goal of expanding my congregation’s mission to include social justice. I was not alone. Rabbis and congregations across our country have been doing the same. Through more than 50 interviews, my gifted co-author Judy Seldin-Cohen and I bring to you the wisdom that clergy and lay leaders in congregations large and small spanning the country have gleaned from their work. We learn from their successes, their failures, their models for congregational engagement, the ways in which they garnered support from their Board and lay leadership, and from how they sustained and evolved their work.

Like the study of Torah, successful civic engagement requires continual learning. Like the cycles of Torah, civic engagement is not linear. Issues arise and issues subside. There are always new politicians, new political realities, and new partners with whom we can work.

The words of academic Michael Walzer, lifted up in our liturgy, ring true: “…wherever you live, it is probably Egypt; …there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land; …the way to the land is through the wilderness. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.”

Each morning, I sense we are in a wilderness. But during the day, when I stand with others drawing strength from their wisdom and experience, I know we are moving forward. As Rabbis, collaborating with our congregants, with our interfaith community partners, and with others across our country, we can indeed bring our nation closer to being a place of promise for us and for so many who have been left behind for far too long.

—

Rabbi Judith Schindler is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte. She served for thirteen years as Senior Rabbi and is now Rabbi Emerita at Temple Beth El in Charlotte, NC. She and Judy Seldin-Cohen co-authored the newly published book, Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement Is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America, available now through CCAR Press.

Tags Civic engagement, Recharging Judaism, Social justice

Social Justice

A Narrow Bridge

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav[i] taught: “All the world is a very narrow bridge; the key is not to be paralyzed by fear.”

I have been on a narrow bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver, Canada is only wide enough for single file, spanning its 230 feet, hanging 460 feet above a river gorge. Not afraid of heights, I wasn’t scared when I crossed, enjoying magnificent scenery. Trusting that engineering had permitted millions to cross before me, I never considered the possibility of not arriving safely on the other side.

Our world, though, is full of less secure, narrower bridges.

When a devastating hurricane drops four feet of rain or threatens deadly winds, a person’s world can suddenly become a frighteningly narrow bridge – from security to survival, from a roof over one’s head to the peril of homelessness.

When armed white supremacists march in the thousands, people of color rightly fear for their lives. Is America a safe home?

When we hear the phrase, “Muslim ban,” America may quickly become precarious foreign land, even for a citizen.

When thousands, perhaps millions, cheer a border wall, we may ask: Why is America narrowing its bridge to the world?

When Charlottesville marchers shout, “Jews will not replace it,” American Jews wonder: “Will we have to get on a narrow bridge again, hoping to arrive safely at our next land of refuge?”

When young immigrants – who know America as their only home; and who have lived honest, productive lives in this land of opportunity – nevertheless face the prospect of deportation, they need look no further than their parents to see the narrow bridge that life in this country can be.

When a Black-majority school board is replaced by one white man, sixty years after the hard-fought but minimal desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, we may be frightened by the answer to the question: What temporal power is keeping this bridge from collapsing?

When LGBTQ Americans in many states can legally lose their jobs solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the supports on the bridge of LGBTQ life in this country, which seemed to be strengthening, may become wobblier yet again.

When the white working class sees industry change along with culture, they wonder if the sturdy highway of their lives has become a rickety bridge.

When millions upon millions of Americans, and billions around the globe, do not have access to adequate quantities of nutritious food or to excellent medical care, living paycheck to paycheck, if there’s a paycheck at all, then the slightest unexpected misfortune can destroy the bridge of life beneath one’s feet.

When climate change is denied, even as historically devastating storms rage, Rabbi Nachman’s words seem particularly prescient: The whole world is on a very narrow bridge, between a healthy environment and global self-destruction.

We who are on this bridge – and make no mistake, we are all on it – live in fear, and not because we are afraid of heights. We know about people who have crossed these bridges in the past. Too many did fall to their deaths. We cannot be secure about the engineering of the bridge we must walk to traverse oppression.

Tonight, we have come together to push the bridges’ boundaries, to make each one less narrow, and to shore up the infrastructure.

If an undocumented immigrant links arms with a Muslim, then the Muslim is not alone when her people are maligned, and the immigrant may imagine refuge rather than deportation.

If a cisgender woman of color brings a transgender woman with her into the restroom, then the transgender woman may feel more secure in her place of vulnerability, and the person of color will know she’s not the only target of white supremacists’ slogans.

If a white working class American and a descendant of slaves share their anxieties about our nation’s future, each may build a better future with the other.

If the wealthy nations of the world, beginning with our own, will take responsibility for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint, then we may all take responsibility for defeating the climate injustice whose victims are disproportionately the poorest people on Earth.

If the person of faith and the unbeliever share the diverse sources of their comfort, perhaps we can hearten one another.

We do not know what the months and the years ahead may require of us. Perhaps churches will need to transform parish halls into sanctuaries from deportation. Perhaps a synagogue will need to shelter threatened Muslims. Every single one of us will have to decide: Am I going to collaborate with oppression? Am I going to remain silent, imagining there’s nothing I can do? Or am I going to use my body and soul, my voice and any power I have, to stand in the way of injustice?

We do know this: All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the only way to conquer fear is to emulate the Children of Israel at the Red Sea, “joining hands, marching together,” to a Land of Promise.

We do know this: In order to fight injustice, we must be disturbed by it. If we are not personally suffering, then we are obligated to summon empathy for those who are. We must know the heart of the stranger, for all of us have been strangers in one Egypt or another.

Nearly two millennia ago, the rabbis of the Talmud made a decree about those who live in a community beset by suffering, a world like our own, on a very narrow bridge. Hear now the rabbis’ teaching: “When the community is immersed in suffering, a person may not say: I will go to my home and I will eat and drink, and peace be upon you, my soul. . . Rather, a person should be distressed together with the community. . . And anyone who is distressed together with the community will merit seeing the consolation of the community.”[ii]

A task lies before us. Let me suggest that each of us seek to sit down for a meal with a person different from ourselves, a person we may not know well, a person who may be afflicted during these difficult days in ways that we are not. May we enjoy one another’s company, but let us also hear each other’s pain. Let the bread we break together also be our bread of shared affliction. Then, may we build a bridge – a strong, broad bridge – and may we be consoled, together.

Amen.

—

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

[i] Unverifiable attribution.

[ii] Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 11a. Gratitude to Rabbi Paul Jacobson for pointing out the text.

Tags Social justice

Social Justice

DACA and Your Congregation: Ascend the Ladder

Post author By Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen
Post date September 7, 2017
4 Comments on DACA and Your Congregation: Ascend the Ladder

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: People were on a ship. One of them took a drill and started drilling underneath him. The others said to him, “What are you sitting and doing!” He replied, “What do you care? Is this not underneath my area that I am drilling?” They said to him, “But the water will rise and flood us all on this ship.” (Vayikrah Rabbah 4:6)

Some of us see the Dreamers as sharing our ship. They may be our children’s classmates or we may meet them in the community. We are moved by how hard these youth have worked to achieve success in school, work, or the military. We hear echoes from Biblical texts and our own history that compel us to help.

Yet other congregants dissociate themselves from the issue of DACA. They worry about their own economic security — whether their own vessels are seaworthy — failing to recognize that we are all in the same boat.

If 788,000 Dreamers are forced back into the shadows, or worse yet, are deported to countries they don’t remember, we will all be affected — seeing our country act without humanity, coping with the economic repercussions from lost talent, and fearing who will be the next victims of xenophobia.

How do we speak out as Jewish institutions, recognizing that the polarizing political views in America today are represented within our congregational membership? How do we respond as rabbis when our conscience calls us to act? And if we find traction to move forward, how do we guide our congregations to respond to DACA so that our actions make a difference?

Over the past three years, we, Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen, have been researching how synagogues work for social justice in local communities, states, and our nation. We have seen multiple ways in which synagogues effectively respond to the critical issues of our day — the rungs on what we call the “Ladder of Civic Engagement.”

In Genesis 28:12, Jacob dreamed about angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven. Just as the angels were said to have dwelt on earth, congregations eager to support Dreamers would be wise to start from the more accessible lower rungs — volunteering, educating, and donating — and then some congregants may continue the climb with our institutional support.

In responding to the President’s phased termination of the DACA program, many synagogues are finding that their volunteer efforts have enabled them to hear and understand the struggles of the immigrant community. This rung leads us to build relationships with those most affected.

Another non-controversial rung is education. Create programs with professors, lawyers, experts, and Dreamers themselves to understand the issues and build support for further action. Your congregants will be inspired by the successes and aspirations of the Dreamers.

Philanthropy can also support social change. Some Jewish communities are considering raising funds to help DACA youth submit renewal requests by the October 5 deadline by paying the $495 filing fee — a steep financial barrier for any young person with four weeks’ notice. Others are working to fund lawyers so that these young people have legal advice and representation.

Ascending the upper three rungs becomes more challenging to many congregations. Advocacy is about using our voices to create changes in policies and laws. Examples include raising the issue at social events, posting responsibly on social media, and calling representatives.

Organizing entails joining with others as you strategize ways in which to protect our undocumented youth. Collaborating with other synagogues, other houses of worship, and immigrant rights organizations will guide and amplify your efforts.

Joining a movement is the fuel that helps us cross the finish line. The RAC — the voice of our movement — is supporting the most recent bipartisan Dream Act, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a bill that will pave the way to legal status for these youth.

We feel called to act — by our consciences, by our faith, by our history, by the Dreamers themselves. We will be most effective if we work with our lay leaders and boards to find the rungs they are willing to ascend, and then perhaps inspire them to climb one more.

Rabbi Tarfon urges us forward: The day is short, the work is much…it is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from working on it (Pirkei Avot 2:15-16).

—

Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen are the co-authors of Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America – now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. Rabbi Judith Schindler is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte. Judy Seldin-Cohen is a community advocate and author. She has spent the last ten years collaborating on social justice issues with Rabbi Judith Schindler, her then synagogue rabbi and now co-author.

Tags Community Organizing, DACA, Social justice

Social Justice

Minister March for Justice

Post author By Rabbi Hannah Goldstein
Post date August 29, 2017
3 Comments on Minister March for Justice

Yesterday I had the privilege of addressing the Ministers March For Justice. It was a day filled with inspiring moments. In these difficult months, marching with people of faith, seeing clergy decked out in their religious garb take the streets of Washington, gave me a renewed sense of hope. When we rounded the corner onto Pennsylvania avenue and the capitol dome came into view, there was new meaning to the words spoken by one of yesterday’s many inspiring speakers, “they have the position, but we have the power.” Yesterday was about harnessing the power of faith leaders of communities all around the country, and I left with an even greater sense of urgency to rally our congregations to do this work.

I am Rabbi Hannah Goldstein, I am a rabbi at Temple Sinai, in Washington D.C. and my congregation is like many of your congregations. We will not stand idly by.

This is a sacred season for Jews. We are in the month of Elul, when we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest days of the Jewish Year. At the very end of this period of soul searching and introspection, late in the afternoon on Yom Kippur, in the final hours of our fast, we sing words from Psalm 118. We conclude our worship on the holiest day of the year by crying out to God: Pitchu li sharei tzedek, open the gates of righteousness.

We are here, to open the gates- to open the gates of righteousness, to open the gates of justice.

We are here because it certainly doesn’t look like that’s what our justice department is trying to do. Lately, it seems like our justice department is working overtime to close those gates, and to barricade them shut.

To lock the gates to the voting booths, to lock the gates of the private prisons, after filling them to capacity. They want to lock the gates to this country, to lock the gates to our hospitals and our clinics.

Yesterday, I stand with my brothers and sisters, people of faith, to say that when our justice department closes the gates, together, we will push them back open.

Open the gates.

If they punish sanctuary cities, then we will open wide the doors of our sanctuaries to welcome in those who are vulnerable and afraid.

Open the gates.

If they ban courageous transgender Americans from defending the values of this country, then we will defend our values by standing with them in solidarity.

Open the gates.

If they’re going to send tweets about the devastating hurricane in Houston, we’re going to send food, and diapers, and people to help rebuild.

Open the gates.

If they want to build walls, well then we’re just going to have to lift each other up higher. “Open the gates”

If they want to teach hate, then we are going to have to love harder.

Open the gates.

Because, of this, we are certain. They are not truly the gatekeepers. They are not the ultimate gatekeeper. They can try to barricade those gates closed, but we will walk tall and unafraid. And we will keep marching right up to those gates, and we will push on those gates with our bodies, with our voices, with our words, with our songs, with our prayers, and we will open the gates.

Arm in arm, we will open the gates, and we will walk through those gates into a land of righteousness, into a land of justice, and into a land of love. Together, we will open the gates of justice.

—

Rabbi Hannah L. Goldstein serves Temple Sinai, in Washington D.C.

Tags Ministers March For Justice, Social justice

shabbat Social Justice

Shabbat and Social Justice

Post author By Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
Post date July 28, 2017
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In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation, we’ve invited several of the book’s contributors to share excerpts from the book. The book is now officially available from CCAR Press.

God then surveyed all that [God] had made, and look—it was very good! (Genesis 1:31)

When we think of Shabbat, we think of the smell of challah baking, festive singing, time with family, delicious meals, and sweet wine. The Sabbath is a day of such joy, that as Rabbi Theodore Friedman has shown, the classical Rabbis understood it as a taste of olam haba, “the world-to-come”[1]—a messianic time of perfection in which “every man will sit under his vine and beneath his fig tree, and none will make them afraid” (Micah 4:4).

For this reason I would argue that ultimately Shabbat is a call to action. Though on the seventh day we experience the world as it should be, the other six days a week we inhabit the world as it is. The “real world” is broken. Therefore, while Shabbat is a day of rejoicing, it also has the power to agitate. Shabbat pushes us to see injustice in our world—to worry for those who cry out in hunger around us, to mourn the loss of our natural resources, and to rage against the forces of oppression and injustice that plague humanity.

Our rituals, observances, and celebrations of the seventh day all seek to fulfill the promise of Creation, to inspire our hope for redemption, and to depict a vision of tikkun olam, a world repaired. The Rabbis understood the connection between appreciating God’s Creation and the human responsibility for stewardship. They taught in the classical midrash: “When God created Adam, God led him around the Garden of Eden and said to him, ‘Behold my works. See how wonderful and beautiful they are. All that I have created, for your sake did I create it. Now see to it that you do not spoil and destroy my world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.’”[2]

Just as Shabbat calls us to provide rest for the earth, it reminds us that rest for human beings is an imperative of social justice. Shabbat reminds us that we are children of God (created in God’s image), not instruments of Pharaoh or any other oppressor. The connection between Shabbat and freedom from the slavery of Egypt is first made in the Torah, Deuteronomy 5:13–15:

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Eternal your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the stranger in your settlements, so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Eternal your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Eternal your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath Day.

Perhaps the most radical aspect of the Deuteronomy text is that every being enjoys the Sabbath, including animals and slaves. Since its very inception, Shabbat obligates the Children of Israel to treat all workers ethically and, even more radically, to see every human being (Jew and non-Jew alike) as deserving of freedom, equality, and justice.

Let us remember Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the rabbi who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma and described it as if “my legs were praying.” He famously wrote, “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”[3] On Shabbat, we taste perfection—and then we are called to action, responsible for the well-being of the earth itself and for all those who suffer amidst the brokenness of injustice.

—

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for social justice. Rabbi Pesner is also is a contributor to CCAR Press’s newest book, Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation!

[1] Theodore Friedman, “Shabbat as a Preview of the Perfected World,” Judaism 16, no. 4 (Fall 1967).

[2] Kohelet Rabbah 7:13.

[3] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (New

York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 225.

Tags Justice, Shabbat, social action, Social justice

Social Justice

Religion and Relationships on the Road: A Deep South Pilgrimage

Post author By Rabbi Judith Schindler
Post date June 2, 2017
No Comments on Religion and Relationships on the Road: A Deep South Pilgrimage

Racial justice is preoccupying many religious leaders. As in too many other cities across the country, protests erupted in Charlotte last fall following the fatal police shooting of an African-American man. As clergy we are called to help our congregations who want to deepen their understanding of systemic issues of racism. Some of this education can occur inside our sanctuaries and social halls, and some requires building relationships across racial and religious differences outside our synagogue walls.

Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel learned that lesson well. They first met on January 14, 1963 at a Conference on Race and Religion in Chicago where they both were speaking and coincidentally quoted the exact same text from Amos (5:24) calling for “…justice [to] roll down like waters.” That moment sparked a friendship that would move them to stand together in countless other cities and settings and would inspire generations of advocates for justice to embark on a similar path of civic engagement.

This model of building relationships across racial and religious differences led me last week to participate in a Deep South pilgrimage with two churches (even though I had just visited Alabama for a Civil Rights trip with a group of women from the Jewish Federation three months before). I traveled to Atlanta, Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Memphis with Charlotte’s Mayfield Memorial Missionary Baptist Church which is a predominantly African-American church and Myers Park Baptist Church, a liberal largely white church. The clergy who lead both these congregations are my partners in social justice work of our city. When I first spoke of joining them, my colleagues immediately acknowledged the legacy of Rabbi Heschel and the historic place of Jews in the fight.

What was it like to go on a Deep South pilgrimage with a black and a white Church?

It was a journey of connection and building relationships. Each morning on the bus we sang freedom songs and pondered questions with a new person sitting next to us: “When was the first time you learned about the Civil Rights Movement?” or “What calls you to be here today: scripture, story or relationship?”

It was a journey of understanding another’s memories of pain. As we drove through Lowndes County, Alabama, through which the Selma-to-Montgomery March passed, Dr. Peter Wherry, Pastor of Mayfield, asked us to reflect on the fact that every tree could have been the execution place of an African-American soul, every stream could be where someone fled in fear seeking to clear the scent so that they would not be found by the police and their dogs chasing them, and every field could have been that of a sharecropper or a tenant farmer working for no wages. When we visited the museum capturing the tent cities where these sharecroppers lived after they had been kicked out of their homes and off their fields for registering to vote, the items on display there were not history but our African-American travel partners’ memories.

It was a journey of coming to understand each other’s vision for justice. Together as African-Americans and whites we crowded into the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Parsonage where Coretta Scott King and her husband lived and their first two babies were born. As the Civil Rights Movement gained traction, the phone calls of hate multiplied– sometimes thirty a day. We saw the remains of where a bomb hit their porch. We stood in the study attached to King’s master bedroom where he wrote. We crowded into the kitchen where Dr. King had a midnight moment of his fear leaving him knowing that whatever his fate would be, his mission of working for equal rights was his calling. Standing together, we recognized that the journey to justice was long and hard then and remains so today. It requires faith.

In some Civil Rights museums, the presence of Jews who partnered in the pursuit of Civil Rights in the 50s and 60s was present, and in other museums their images and voices were painfully absent – written out of history. I shared stories of Jewish freedom riders, the role of our Religious Action Center where critical Civil Rights legislation was written, the thousands of Rosenwald schools established by the Jewish philanthropist in partnership with African-American Southern communities, and the work of Jewish refugee professors at historically black colleges, opening the minds of some of the travelers to history they never knew.

Racial justice is high up on the agenda of many liberal religious denominations in our country. Yet our vision for equality and equity cannot be actualized in isolation – collaboration is required. Social justice and religion happen on the road — in relationships on the streets, in city halls of the community, even in courtrooms where cases are tried. The ladder of congregational civic engagement is rooted in relationships. The rungs expand to include social action, education, philanthropy, advocacy, organizing and being part of a larger movement. Each rung offers our congregants a Judaism that is expressed not only through uttering prayers in the pews but that is lived in the world.

—

Rabbi Judy Schindler is an Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte, and is co-author with Judy Seldin-Cohen of an upcoming book from CCAR Press, Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement Is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America.

Tags Church, racial justice, Racism, Social justice, South

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