URJ Biennial Blog

Talking The Talk Together

2007-12-19T02:51:23Z

Press the play button below to hear Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, address the Biennial on Sunday December 16, 2007. (Read the text here.)

Thanks From Local Arrangements Committee

2007-12-17T17:47:52Z

On behalf of our local arrangements committee and the almost 600 volunteers from our 10 host synagogues in San Diego and Orange County who worked almost 800 three-hour shifts throughout the week at the Biennial, we want to wish each one of you, a n'siah tovah, safe travels back to your homes. We all had a wonderful time being a part of this amazing experience called the Biennial. We loved being a part of the volunteer crew and enjoyed making all of you, Biennial attendees and guests, feel welcome in San Diego. We all felt very appreciated for our volunteer efforts. Thanks to all of the staff and lay leadership in New York and in the Pacific Southwest Region for their support. And a special thanks to all of you for attending the Biennial--learning, singing, laughing, crying and sharing. Thanks for the memories! We will cherish them! L'Shalom, Judy Fisher, Sharon Lash and Lila Pesner Biennial 2007 Local Arrangement Committee Co-Chairs

Part of the Dialogue

2007-12-16T20:50:23Z

Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America addressed the Union's Biennial this morning. The text is below. The audio version is online here.

Good morning and greetings of peace from the members of the Islamic Society of North America. It is a great honor to have this opportunity to speak to the members of the Union for Reform Judaism at this wonderful convention. Almost four months ago, Rabbi Yoffie stood in front of a general audience of attendees at the 44rth annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, the organization of which I have been President since 2006. Our membership is diverse: it includes Muslims with origins from all parts of the world, men and women from different schools of thought and practice within Islamic tradition. We are an umbrella organization for Muslim individuals and organizations who wish to identify with and contribute to a larger vision of what it means to be a Muslim in North America, and who cooperate to develop strategies for achieving that vision. In the 44 years since we held our first convention, our umbrella has expanded and the voices included in dialogue have diversified: more women, more scholars representing different schools of Islamic thought, both modern and traditionalist, as well as leaders from other religious traditions.

Indeed, one significant feature of the American Muslim community is that it is dynamic, open to learning new ideas, and interested in expanding our understanding of what it takes to be an ethical and balanced Muslim in contemporary America. There are two major factors that have contributed to the positive transformation of the immigrant Muslim community especially: First, the important role that religion plays in American history and culture. Muslims in the United States, unlike many Muslims in Europe, have found that religious affiliation and practice, in general, is valued in America. True, it was not and is not always easy finding ways to accommodate our specific religious practices in an overwhelmingly Christian society, but at least religion itself is not derided and marginalized. Muslims therefore are indebted to those who have championed the two twin pillars of religious vitality in American society: freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. We also are should be grateful to faithful believers, to Christians and Jews, who have demonstrated through their good works the positive power of faith in American society. The second major factor that has contributed to the dynamic transformation of the American Muslim community over the past few decades is the diversity of our community. As Muslims from different parts of the world came together in America to worship and fulfill the tenets of their faith, they did not always find themselves in agreement about the true Islamic position on many issues. Indeed, sometimes, the conversations became rather heated – and those disagreements have not yet ended in many places. Still, engaging in that conversation yielded two positive results. First, Muslims were forced to confront the reality that many cultural practices and beliefs contrary to our faith have been integrated into many traditional understandings of Islam. By confronting the differences, we became aware that sometimes the Islam that was been taught in Muslim societies was not in harmony with the ethical teachings of the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad, but were, in fact, misogynistic, authoritarian or extremist views antithetical to true Islam. Secondly, the very act of discussing these differences, in a free society with no state-enforced religion, encouraged more respect for diversity within Islam, less support for authoritarian tendencies and a greater feeling of responsibility on the part of the ordinary Muslim to learn more about his or her religion. I have to emphasize that not all Muslim Americans have embraced this perspective. We continue to receive new immigrants from other countries, some of whom are still deeply attached to their customs, and we have others who are simply ideologically opposed to dialogue and change. It is because that many members of the Islamic Society of North America have gone through this process of transformation that our community is now ready to engage in a meaningful way with Jewish communities in this dialogue project. I suppose I should not have been surprised then, when the Muslims assembled in the hall at our annual convention on August 31 gave Rabbi Yoffie not just a polite response, but a standing ovation. In the weeks following the convention, I was approached by many people who were excited by our engagement with the Union for Reform Judaism. Many of our members have already established some connection between their local congregation and a nearby Jewish community – some of these relationships began a number of years ago. Others have been interested in reaching out, but did not know where to start. Most of our communities are severely limited in resources to develop such programs. Indeed, as we move forward with our dialogue project, I ask our Jewish partners to keep this in mind. Muslims are not new to America – indeed, a significant number of the Africans brought to the Americas as slaves were Muslim, but of course, they were neither allowed to practice their religion, nor to transmit it to their children. It is only in the last few decades, therefore, that our community has been able to begin to establish institutions that support our religious life and allow us to teach our children our practices and values. We are still in the early stages of our development. Many communities are still building mosques, while others have moved to other basic facilities like community centers and schools. Our human resources are even less developed. We are blessed to have many wonderful people who volunteer to serve our communities, but, of course, they are limited in their time as well as the expertise needed to minister to and support American Muslim communities. We do not yet have a full-time Islamic seminary in America. Although this lack of development might seem to be a drawback, because it limits the capacity of many of our communities to fully engage with neighboring Jewish congregations, in fact, the very existence of this gap in development provides a wonderful opportunity for constructive engagement. Jewish communities can offer practical advice and suggestions at this formative stage of the institutionalization of Islam in America. In many cases, Muslims have instinctively turned to the example of Jews in America to understand how to deal with the challenges we face as religious minorities – whether these challenges involve securing the right to religious accommodation in public institutions, or dealing with workplace discrimination. At the same time, I believe that the Jewish community will also benefit from having Muslim partners in the struggle to uphold the Constitutional separation of church and state, to promote civil liberties, to extend religious accommodation to minorities, and to counter prejudice and hatred. In his speech at our convention, Rabbi Yoffie discussed the increasing hatred and intolerance that is being expressed in public forums, in the media, and even by politicians towards Muslims. When Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to congress chose to have his ceremonial swearing of office using a Qur’an, he was attacked as un-American and a terrorist sympathizer. Now, during the presidential primaries, we see candidates being asked to prove that they comply with an ever narrower definition of what is means to be a Christian – forget about being a Muslim or a Jew. Alarmingly, many Americans implicitly or even explicitly are using a religious test for who should be President of the United States. This and other issues involving the separation of church and state and religious freedom are important areas of cooperation between American Jews and Muslims. The American Muslim community is well aware, after 9/11, that much false information about our community as well as our religion, has been disseminated by religious and political ideologues. It is also true that many Americans simply know little or nothing about Islam and, perhaps, naturally extrapolate from the nasty figures they see in the news to Muslims in general. Of course, it is our responsibility to reclaim Islam from the terrorists and extremists. That is why American Muslims have been public in our views on terrorism and extremism in the name of our religion. We have published fatwas – religious verdicts – proving that suicide bombing, vigilante operations, terrorism, and hate-mongering is prohibited in true Islam. We have issued press releases, we have published articles and books, we have delivered sermons, we have given lectures to Muslims of all ages, we have held workshops and seminars, we have met with government officials in the US and abroad – all with the goal of spreading the message that mainstream Muslims oppose the extremists and we are putting our efforts, individually and institutionally, to marginalize those who misuse our religion for nefarious purposes. The sad reality is that, no matter what we do, there are some who will choose to continue to characterize us and our religion as essentially evil. There is a long tradition of anti-Muslim discourse in European history and culture – from Dante to Don Quixote to Orientalism. I will never forget my visit to the Cathedral of Zaragoza a few years ago, where I was confronted with an image of a Muslim literally being crushed under the feet of Santiago. And on the other side of the Cathedral was a statue of Saint Dominguito – the patron saint of choir boys, who, according to our tour guide, “the Jews of Zaragossa conspired to murder;” all the alleged conspirators – all falsely accused – were executed. This story and these images are still being told and seen in this European church today. We all know, of course, what happened to the Muslims and Jews of medieval Spain. In modern times, other forms of communication: newspapers, cartoons and films have continued to produce hateful images of Muslims, as they did with Jews before – sometimes the caricatures are almost identical. Medieval and modern European images of Jews as deceptive, conspiring to overthrow Christian rule, odd in their manner and dress, dehumanized Jews, thereby softening the ground to allow the atrocities of the Holocaust. Six million Jews in the heart of Europe , in the 20th century, brutalized and killed in the most despicable manner – how could that happen except by a successful campaign of propaganda, as well as a ruthless but efficiently rational system of identifying, classifying, collecting, moving and then exterminating Jewish men, women and children. This is one of the greatest tragedies of modern history and ISNA will witness to this truth, anytime and to anyone in the Muslim world who denies it. Today, I do not fear that such a crime could happen to the American Muslim community. Yet I am anxious about the level of dehumanization of my community. I am worried that it is politically correct to mock and insult Muslims in the media and in public. It concerns me that, when I spoke in a church recently, one man likened the Muslims of the world to ants in a colony – saying that, like them, we may be working separately, but it is known that we are working together for a common purpose. To analogize my community to a group of insects is deeply disturbing. The implication that we are conspiring towards a common nefarious goal is upsetting to say the least. But these ideas are necessary to allow atrocities. It is, I believe, why most Americans have not protested waterboarding, sensory deprivation and other forms of torture of Muslim detainees and even Muslim American citizens. I believe that hatred and intolerance is easily transferable. I am not surprised that some young men who responded “Happy Hannukah” to “Merry Christmas” were attacked on the New York subway. I am happy that it was a Muslim who jumped in to defend the Jewish men. This small incident highlights our common threat at the same time as it highlights our common interests and shared humanity. This is why I am delighted that ISNA and the URJ are embarking on this dialogue project, so our communities can learn about each other, to rid ourselves of the ignorance we have of the other, and move on, God willing, to work together for the greater good. I am not naïve about the challenges we face as we undertake this project. Certainly my Muslim community will need to draw upon the skills we have developed to distinguish true Islam from cultural biases and medieval accretions to our religion when it comes to the Jewish community. Muslim anti-Semitism was never like European Christian anti-Semitism, but it existed in any case. And unfortunately, there are ambitious political rulers in the Muslim world who manipulate religious sentiment against the Jewish people to extend their authoritarian rule. At the same time, Jewish Americans need hear the concern that Muslim Americans express about the suffering of the Palestinian people as genuine and justified, and not assume that such concern originates from a hatred of the Jewish people. I have seen the tears of elderly Palestinian men as they spoke about being forced to leave the homes of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers during the founding of the state of Israel. I have been moved by those tears as I was moved by the site of numbers tattooed on the forearms of elderly men who survived the Holocaust. If religion is about anything, it should be about the ability to extend empathy beyond our own family or tribe or religious community to humanity at large. Certainly our children know this. Our Jewish and Muslim children meet each other in school and in sports and they care about other. The question is, will the religious teachings that we impart to our children serve to expand their empathy and encourage solidarity with each other, at the same time as these teachings serve the very important purpose of giving them a deep sense of attachment to their specific communities and traditions. Polls show that in the last decade, fewer numbers of Americans identify with any religious tradition, and more Americans view religion as a negative force in society. If our religious traditions are going to survive, they have to demonstrate not only that they are good in themselves, but that they are good all together. That religious difference does not lead to conflict and disorder in society, but that religious differences only serve to enrich our collective understanding of the Creator who is beyond the comprehension of any created being. The Qur’an states, “To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way. If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He has given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God. It is He who will show you the truth of the matters in which you now dispute (5:48).” Let us strive for good, to improve each of us, and to improve all of us. May God help us in this effort.

Rabbi Yoffie's Sermon

2007-12-16T19:56:05Z

Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie delievered this address during the Shabbat Morning Service of the 69th Biennial Convention. See the "Quick Links" for more information.

Shabbat shalom. Once again, I find myself overwhelmed by the power of this day. Here we are, united with men and women from many congregations but of one faith, bound together by our mutual sacred task. Our spirits soar when we join in the chorus of nearly 5,000 voices intoning the prayers of Shabbat. There is a magical quality to Shabbat at Biennial. When we ask our delegates what was their most powerful experience during their five days here, the great majority say “Shabbat.” We treasure these twenty-four hours together, because, for once, we celebrate Shabbat as it is meant to be—a respite from errand running and clattering commerce, a day when we pay attention to the holy and the pull of Jewish time. We also treasure the fiery enthusiasm of our Shabbat t’filot. Supporting one another in our prayers, we experience together an outpouring of soul, transporting us into the embrace of God. Of course, it was not always so. For most of our history, delegates came to the Biennial to debate and deliberate but not to pray. At our Biennials, as in many of our congregations, prayer was often boring and lifeless. But then, more than a dozen years ago, we began a Movement-wide conversation about worship. Focusing our attention on Friday evening, we undertook to create services that were heartfelt, inspiring and community-building. And we succeeded. The glory of Reform Judaism has always been its ability to reinvent itself to meet new spiritual situations, and we did exactly that. In a mere handful of years, our Erev Shabbat services were radically transformed, changing from somber to joyful and from passive to engaging.

Continue reading "Rabbi Yoffie's Sermon" »

Sunday Has Come

2007-12-16T15:38:09Z

By Barbara Shuman We’re out of the closet! Over 4000 Reform Jews observed a 24 hour Shabbat at the Biennial. What a wild and beautiful day we had – filled with music, prayer, learning and dance. Yes – we were dancing in the aisles, praying with our feet, celebrating with all our limbs. And we were challenged and charged by Eric Yoffie to commit to a fuller observance of Shabbat when we return to our homes. We go home with a full deck (52 cards – one for each week of the year) of suggestions for transforming Shabbat into a special day. The Shabbat initiative has the potential to transform each of us, our congregations, the Reform movement. It will be very interesting to hear reports of our experience at the 2009 Biennial in Toronto. It’s hard to single out a single experience from the past day, but one stands out above all others. I went to a performance of the Mikveh Monologues, an extraordinary theatrical and musical piece that beautifully conveys the stories of the men and women who have immersed in the living waters of Mayyim Hayyim, a community mikveh and learning center in Newton MA, founded by author Anita Diamant. It evoked laughter and tears and a profound respect for the power of the ritual bath. I go home with a head full of ideas and melodies, and a heart full of joy. It is an honor to be part of this vibrant movement.

Its Over - The Jay and Shirley Report

2007-12-16T15:12:00Z

So, here we are - Last day, time to pack, time to head home. This has been a remarkable event - for me, of course, and more importantly for you. Last night's tribute to Debbie Friedman with a performance by Joshua Nelson and his group absolutely brought the house down! I had never heard Joshua Nelson before and let me tell you, it was an experience - Jewish Gospel! If you're reading this and didn't have a chance to attend the Biennial, find a CD of his - you will be wowed. This morning the plenum hears from Ingrid Matson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America. This will be a groundbreaking presentation and will help launch Rabbi Yoffie's new dialogue initiative between the Union and the North American Muslim Community. Also to be considered are more resolutions from the Resolutions Committee and Rabbi Yoffie's Shabbat speech. So, now, a moment of personal privilege. I want to publicly acknowledge and thank the Union staff for the absolutely incredible job they did putting the Biennial together. I remember my first Biennial in Houston in 1983 when I was awed by the Biennial program but really didn't think a lot about what goes into to making the Biennial a success. Having worked closely behind the scenes on the Houston and now the San Diego Biennials, I can tell you that it is an incredibly huge understaking that has so many critical points where things can go wrong. Miraculously, with our incredible staff led by Rabbi Elliott Kleinman and Robin Hirsch, this Biennial went off without a hitch. One veteran Biennial attendee who has been attending Biennials since the 1950's told me that this Biennial if not the best, was one of the best - EVER. Finally, I want to thank Bob Heller, the outgoing Board Chair, for giving me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to chair this Biennial. It is an experience I will always cherish. I hope you had a fantastic time here, if you didn't attend you were able to have a virtual fantastic experience and now, it's on to Toronto in 2009!!

On My Way Home

2007-12-16T15:06:31Z

By Rabbi Phyllis Sommer I write this in my cab home from OHare airport at 1am Chicago time. The weather sure is different here! But so is the feeling of being back in the real world. It's a little like leaving camp - going from being surrounded by Jews and wearing a nametag to being a little (okay a lot) more anonymous. I was sad to have to leave early but glad I was able to hear Eric Yoffie's sermon this morning. What a remarkable man he is. I feel so blessed and safe with him as our fearless leader. I look forward to rereading his sermon when it is posted online and sharing it with my congregation. The Biennial was great - buzzing with energy and life and friends who are like family. May blessings follow each and every one of us as we travel in safety back to our homes. Signing off for now but please continue to visit me at my regular blogs: imabima.blogspot.com and rabbiphyllis.blogspot.com. Shavua tov and see you in Toronto!

Biennial Jane Walks Again

2007-12-15T22:04:12Z

As of 9:40 AM on Saturday, Biennial Jane has walked 6560 steps. That is just shy of three miles...with one more meal to finish up (the Shabbat Study Lunches) Biennial Jane may have walked a full marathon!

Shabbat Shalom - The Jay and Shirley Report

2007-12-15T21:58:43Z

As the week progressed, the blog has been written later and later - a very typical occurrence for the Biennial. Friday was a magical day - starting with Rabbi Yoffie introducing outgoing Union Board Chair Robert Heller and Bob's stirring remarks about this tenure as Board Chair. Following on Bob's remarks, Rabbis Peter Rubinstein of Central Synagogue, New York and Josh Davidson of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, Chappaqua, New York presented a Eisendrath Bearer of Light award to Michael J Fox who spoke eloquently about his battle with Parkinson's disease, his close connection to the Reform movement and his hopes for the future. The afternoon brought us a speech from Jeffrey Sachs, Diretor of the Earth Institute who was honored with the second Eisendrath award. Professor Sachs spoke eloquently and passionately about eradicating hunger and poverty and the Nothing But Nets Initiative to help eradicate malaria in third world countries. His presentation was riveting! Reslolutions were debated and approved and more will be on tap at the plenary on Sunday morning. Kabbalat Shabbat was, as it always is at Biennial, a magical and spiritual experience. For the first time, the service opened with a Sephardic ritual of marching in the Torahs under a Chupah. The Union honored Shirley and me as well as the three San Diego/Orange County local arrangement chairs as chuppah holders. It was a thrilling and outstanding experience. After services, everyone (well, hopefully everyone!) enjoyed a relaxing Shabbat dinner followed by a rousing song session. Shabbat dawned bright and sunny in San Diego and the day was off to an early start with Torah study breakfasts, followed by Shabbat services with Rabbi Yoffie's call to action on making Saturday Shabbat more meaningful, creating dialogue with the Muslim community and working on health care reform. The Shabbat lunch study sessions were extremely well attended and informative. And, this brings us to 3 p.m. on Shabbat afternoon. One more blog tomorrow and the Jay and Shirley report will enter the annals of Biennial history!!

Ruach Recorded

2007-12-15T15:09:31Z

Listen into a live recording from the stage of the Shabbat Song Session from San Diego. Press the play button to hear the energy and feel the excitement of the evening.

What does Shabbat Mean To You

2007-12-15T03:37:25Z

As we prepare for our Shabbat here in San Diego the Biennial Blog spoke with two rabbis about their personal Shabbat routines and how they make the Sabbath Day holy. Click on the play button below to listen in.

Friday Afternoon Brief

2007-12-14T22:45:42Z

By Barbara Shuman Just a quick note about a wonderful session I attended this morning. Sam Joseph shared his vision of leadership - that leaders should be connectors, not controllers, heroes, or bosses. The job of leaders is to create space for congregants to talk about and act upon what really matters to them, not just on jobs that need to be done. We need to postpone problem solving and talk about possibilities for the future, to envision and invent a better reality, to invite people to give voice to dissent (rather than boring them with reports about what has already happened). What do you care about? Do the leaders of your congregation provide space for you to converse about meaningful issues? Do we acknowledge and value the various gifts that congregants might share with others? Lots to think about! Even those of us who have been in leadership positions for decades need to learn new ways of meeting others in our communities, and truly listening to them on deeper levels. Its good to be reminded of this . Shabbat is approaching soon and you can feel the energy shift as people prepare for what promises to be the highlight of the Biennial - a 24 hour Shabbat filled with prayer, song, fellowship and learning - a taste of the world to come. (I'm even going to change my clothes!) Shabbat shalom!

Rabbis Pop-a-Shot

2007-12-14T22:00:58Z

Rabbis Yoffie, Thal and Saperstein shoot some hoops to raise money for Nothing But Nets in this Biennial Podcast. Did Rabbi Thal beat Rabbi Saperstein? Did Rabbi Yoffie take it to the hole? Press the play button below to find out.

Michael J. Fox Bring the Light

2007-12-14T20:56:48Z

Michael J. Fox, principal figure in the fight to cure Parkinson’s Disease, received the Maurice N. Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award, one of the Reform Jewish Movement’s highest honors today. Below are his remarks:

I’d like to thank Rabbi Yoffie for inviting me to the Biennial, and for the tremendous honor of this award. It’s humbling to find myself in the company of the humanitarian giants who have been recognized by URJ before me. Some of you heard me talk about stem cell research at the Religious Action Center in 2005. In thinking about Bearer of Light and the legacy of Rabbi Eisendrath — his tireless commitment to the principles of tikkun olam, “repairing the world” — I wanted to talk today about how we all carry out this legacy, whether on a world stage or simply in the context of our own lives. (Or both.) We launched The Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000, shortly after I went public with my PD diagnosis. I can’t say that when we started we really knew what we were up against. Our original intention was to cut through red tape, get money to scientists fast and speed new treatments to patients.

What we’ve learned, though, is that urgency and focused, high-risk funding only get us partway where we need to go. The process of translation — that is, moving a promising idea from discovery to FDA approval — is a long and complex one. All told, bringing a single drug to market relies on dozens or more specialists with hugely varied experience and expertise. And it turns out that there’s a lot of room to question how well we’re served by the system we’ve created to accomplish this. We’re all conditioned to think you solve complex problems by throwing money at them. Certainly finding cures takes a lot of money. But our Foundation believes driving translation is a question not of more money, but of more targeted money. After all, between government, industry and private philanthropy, over a hundred billion dollars is already spent on biomedical research each year. But only a fraction of that amount is deliberately allocated to converting basic science into groundbreaking therapies. In thinking about drug development, it’s helpful to envision a pipeline. All the way at the beginning, you have basic discovery research. This is largely funded by the government and conducted by academic researchers in university labs. At the opposite end, you have the much later-stage clinical research that’s funded and chaperoned primarily by the pharmaceutical industry. The questions that drive translational research come somewhere in the middle. These are questions that come too late in the process to be of interest to academics, who need to continually make new discoveries to survive and thrive in their publish-or-perish ecosystem. And the questions come too early to engage industry, which is necessarily motivated by the profit margin. But these questions are critical if we’re going to find solutions to benefit people living with disease. Our Foundation zeroes in on these exact questions because our mission is to do whatever it takes to drive development of improved, practical treatments that will have a tangible impact on patients’ lives. So what do we think it takes? For one thing, funding projects to “de-risk” 100 potential drug targets for PD so far. We don’t know the cause of PD, so we’re using our capital to broadly and systematically turn over every promising stone. And we use all the resources at our disposal — including funding, convening power, and partnerships with biotech and pharmaceutical companies — to keep targets with the greatest potential moving forward. Given how long and complex the drug development process is, patients’ interests require every player — federal funders, individual disease groups and industry — to put their strongest foot forward every day. In light of this it’s hugely frustrating to think of our government actively holding back any area of research with potential to transform lives. I think back to my brush with “less-than-compassionate conservatism” last fall while I was campaigning on behalf of pro-stem-cell candidates in the midterm elections. (It bears saying that the work I do on behalf of specific candidates and campaigns is entirely separate from my work with The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which is as it should and really must be.) First off, I have to say that I don’t mind getting a little bruised in a fight for something I believe in so passionately. And it occurred to me pretty quickly that the situation last fall — let’s face it — did us a huge favor. It turned what might have been a one- or two-day story into something that held the attention of the country for two weeks. Embryonic stem cells are in the news again because of the recent development in so-called “reprogrammed” cells. It’s an exciting step, and it’s work that could potentially have a huge impact on the entire field of regenerative medicine. It’s good news that scientists tend to be apolitical — they’ll keep looking for every path to get where we want to go, because that’s what scientists do. But the irony is that every big development in this arena in the past few years has involved finding methods to mimic embryonic stem cells. With the resources that have gone into recreating what everyone agrees is the gold standard, who’s to say how close we might be to new treatments by now if we could have been pressing forward with stem cells this whole time? Of course, we’re once again hearing the predictable voices calling for an end to all work with embryonic stem cells — even trumpeting the development as a triumph of the current administration’s anti-science position. On this I’d like to quote Jamie Thomson. He’s the scientist who first created human embryonic stem cells in the 1990s, and senior author of one of the two recent papers about reprogrammed cells. Here’s an excerpt of an Op-Ed he co-authored last week in The Washington Post: “Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy… the recent papers… described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both teams… depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.” It is vital that work continue moving forward on embryonic stem cells. As I understand it, Jewish tradition has always encouraged scientific and medical advances. Stem cell research is considered an embodiment of the mitzvah of healing. Of course I can’t speak on Judaism as a spiritual authority, only as someone for whom it has truly become my community. For nearly two decades now, my family, friends and many of my professional colleagues have come from the world of Reform Judaism. What I find myself drawn to, within this world, is the tradition of asking questions; seeking truth; and refusing to live according to a rigid dogma or to allow your life to be ruled by fear. Around the time I heard from Rabbi Yoffie about Bearer of Light and the Biennial, I was talking to my Rabbi about David and Goliath. When David was heading into battle, Saul and the Israelites wanted to give him a sword, armor and a helmet. (I have to say, as a father I can understand Saul’s impulse.) But David said no. He went in practically naked, armed with a rock. I think David understood something fundamental to the deepest ideals of “repairing the world”: The armor, the weapons and the swords — they’re all just so much flash in the pan. Distraction is not what wins the battle. You just need the truth. The truth is that patients have the right to expect more from our annual investment in biomedical research. They have a right to be out there as activists. And it is a human right — if not a human obligation — to insist that all paths of research be followed toward potentially life-transforming treatments for disease. Toward “repairing the world.” That is the humanitarian instinct at work in all of us. Thank you. It has been a privilege to speak to you today.

13 Things I have Learned So Far

2007-12-14T17:06:53Z

By Rabbi Phyllis Sommer 1. Drama is good. A little sparkle and flash goes a long way toward creating excitement! The Voice of God that speaks at the Oscars has joined us here at the Biennial as well. (you know, "now presenting...the President of ~~the Academy~~ the Union for Reform Judaism!) 2. There are so many Jews from so many places with similar experiences. 3. Even in California, you need a coat at night! 4. There is a desire amongst the participants (and hopefully translating into the rest of the Jewish community?) for creative and interesting worship and learning experiences. 5. Wearing a badge means that everyone will smile at you. Even if they don't know you. And you'll invite people you've never met before to join your table in a restaurant just because they're also a part of this grand shared experience. 6. Two Starbucks are still not enough for one convention center. 7. The coffee is cheaper a block away from the convention center. 8. The coffee is necessary. 9. Walking shoes are a must for the Biennial. An absolute must. 10. Even with all the potential and possibility of the new prayerbook, there is still a need for handouts. What happened to a Green Biennial? 11. The shopping opens at 11am today. Can't wait! 12. I still can't get over what a room full of Jews looks like. And I'm a Jewish professional! It's pretty amazing to me that I've been a rabbi for almost 5 years, I'm not new at this -- and yet I still find great joy in being in a roomful of Jews sharing in prayer, worship, study.... 13. It's impossible to see and do it all!