Reform Judaism

Ageless Rite of Passage

2008-08-27T19:18:17Z

By JanetheWriter
From the matriarchs to Judith, Esther and Ruth, right up to some of the more recent pioneers in our own Movement--including Rabbis Sally Priesand, Elyse Frishman, Stacy Offner, Laura Geller and Janet Marder, among others--our tradition is filled with great Jewish women.

To this list I'd add the names Henrietta Blend, Dolores Wyde, Diana Wuntch, and Harriet Newport. Recently, these four seventy- eighty- and ninety-somethings culminated nearly a year of Jewish study and learning with a joyous b'not mitzvah celebration in an assisted living community in greater Houston.

Mazel tov and yasher koach to each of them. May they continue to go and grow from strength to strength, and, as they already have done for me, teach and inspire the rest of us along the way.

Doing Pushups with Judaism on Your Back

2008-08-26T18:08:15Z

By dcc
A group of friends were sitting around a lunch table at a Hava Nashira a few years back, wondering how their teacher Dan Nichols got so strong; this group was admiring his very shapely biceps. Jay Rapoport, a Jewish professional and musician working in New York City and the DC Metro area, said simply that "he does pushups, with his Judaism on his back."

Thus was born "Pushups." According to Jay, the group just started singing the chorus of the song. "We had been studying Kosher Gospel with Joshua Nelson, and this song was just a burst of inspiration." But in the end this cute, funny tribute to a mentor turned into a song for kids about Jewish empowerment.

The song transformed into a story about a boy named Danny who needed to find strength in his Jewish identity. Jay wrote the song to teach kids that it is alright to be different. "I have seen the power that music has to connect Jews and make experiences meaningful. I really have found my niche in the Jewish world not only in education but for music as well."

Just last week Rich Recht, one of North America's most famous and prolific Jewish musicians, said he sees himself first as an educator and secondly as a musician. Jay says he feels the same way. "I draw my inspiration from working with kids. I started as a song leader at the camp I now run during the summers, and seeing the kids who I taught become the counselors and still requesting old songs is very powerful."

Jay's forth coming Jewish music album will include kosher gospel "Pushups" (listen below) and rockabilly "B'chol Le'vav'cha," that teaches through music about the V'ahavta, (also below) along with new songs that were written for his youth programs and camp over the years. For more info on his album contact Jay at his website.

"Pushups"

"B'chol Le'vav'cha"

* * *

Do you know an up-and-coming Jewish musician who has a great story or are you that person? Let me know. Send an email to rjblog at urj dot org to set up a time for us to talk. dcc

Musical Education

2008-08-25T18:50:40Z

I spoke with Cathy Rolland, director of Early Childhood Education, late last week about an exciting new book, Songs for a Jewish Head Start. This book incorporates the music of Rita Gold adapted by Peter and Ellen Allard. Along with a team of other Jewish singer/songwriters, the Allards took these universal educational songs and made them perfect for a Jewish audience. Click play to listen into our conversation.

Sunday School is a Bummer

2008-08-25T17:51:03Z

By Mary Hofmann
I went to a workshop this week aimed at giving Sunday School teachers insight into and assistance in instituting and utilizing Union's Chai Curriculum. As the only teacher from a tiny congregation (we have six to eight kids in our whole "school") I listened sadly to the tales of woe from the urban teachers. As the facilitator said, Jewish education has always been considered supplemental education--not supplemental to public school, but supplemental to what kids get at home. Sadly, it is no longer a supplement. In many, if not most, temples, Sunday School is the whole ball of wax.

What a bummer.

Made me nearly reel in gratitude for our little Shabbat School. Bucking all trends, my grouplet meets Saturday morning, a fact which met with a chorus of "but what about soccer?" from the big city folk. While in little Merced I may moan about numbers, it seems everybody else is worried--and horrifying so--about trying to jam into their Sunday mornings the child's entire Jewish identity and experience. No wonder camp has become the Holy Grail, you should excuse the expression, of Jewish identity for modern liberal Jewish kids. And I always sorta thought the big camping push was really just a slick marketing trick. No. I guess camp really has become the make-or-break for most Jewish kids' identity because it's the only place where they get an immersion experience.

My class may be tiny, but they show up with their parents to my house every Saturday morning for two hours. And most show up with their parents every Friday evening for services, often driving us to distraction, but they're there. They've been able to at least parrot the Shabbat table blessings in Hebrew since they were two or three and Shabbat is part of their little lives, not something their parents drop them off for hoping somebody else will give them what they aren't bothering with at home.

I'm really excited about starting this fall with my little guys and Chai, which will be a great supplement to their lives. But what about all those other kids out there? The kids with the "advantage" of having a building and lots of members and a real school?

We always bemoan how small we are and try to figure out ways to grow. Is that what we have to look forward to if we do?

A Coney Island Shabbat

2008-08-25T14:45:48Z

By JanetheWriter
If Shabbat is all about taking a divinely commanded breather from the work-a-day routine to celebrate God's rest following creation, then surely this past Shabbat was nearly as good as it gets for me and a few of my friends.

We had longstanding plans for a visit to Coney Island (a first for all of us) and so, at the appointed hour, we assembled on a specific corner in midtown's Herald Square, descended into the subway and boarded a train bound for the southernmost tip of Brooklyn. At the end of the line, we emerged from the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station to late summer sunshine, perfect boardwalk-strolling temperatures, a gentle breeze and the salty sea air--a magnificent day that only God could create.

Hungry from our journey, our first stop was the original Nathan's for hot dogs and fries. So smothered in sautéed onions and sauerkraut that they were barely visible in the buns, our dogs were grilled to perfection, and worthy of a photo. Indeed, before we ate, we snapped pictures of our fare--a motzi and a Shehecheyanu all rolled up into one digital image of gratitude for both the mouth-watering food and the opportunity to enjoy it together in this famous place.

Our hunger satisfied, we continued with a leisurely jaunt through the Astroland Amusement Park, where only one of us was brave enough to ride the Cyclone, but all of us were more than willing to watch other visitors take on such attractions as the Break Dancer, the Tea Cups and the gravity-defying, stomach-churning Top Spin.

A stroll on the boardwalk led us to the pier, where, enveloped on all sides by churning green water, salty sea spray, brilliant sunshine and a refreshing breeze, we--individually and collectively--basked in the beauty of the day, savoring our surroundings and the many blessings in our lives.

As we headed back to the subway, a kosher hot dog vending machine caught our eye. Because it was Shabbat, though, the machine's electronic display pad indicated that it was "Temporarily out of service." Its service status mattered not at all to us, however; we continued to joyously celebrate Shabbat and, in our own way, to make it holy.

Keva, Kavanah, and Back to Keva

2008-08-25T14:02:42Z

By Larry Kaufman
As part of introducing Mishkan T'filah at Beth Emet several months ago, Rabbi Peter Knobel gave us "permission" to wander away from whatever the congregation was reading or singing, and to go anywhere else on the two-page spread that felt more comfortable, or for that matter, wherever our individual thoughts and prayers might lead us. In doing so, he reminded us that in a world where multi-tasking has become commonplace, we might very well be able to join our voices with the community, while our minds were somewhere else.

I thought about this at Shabbat services, less than a year into our use of the new, yet by now taken-for-granted, siddur. We know when and how to follow the liturgy on the printed page; and we know (since we are a worship group of regulars) when we will deviate from the text and follow from memory the lashon (language) and minhag (custom) of our former home-made prayer book.

But my own thoughts yesterday went even further afield - guided in part by our discussion here at RJ.org of the progress in Reform worship, and especially by BZ's reminder that the service doesn't happen only on the bimah. The shlichey tzibur, the messengers of the community, are charged with guiding the keva, leading us through the fixed liturgy. In a departure unparalleled by predecessor siddurim, Mishkan T'filah facilitates the kavanah, the inner meaning and personal understanding the worshipper is expected to bring to the prayer experience, by suggesting alternate interpretations or different understandings, or even by stimulating new pathways to conversation with the Divine.

My own reveries, when my mind drifts away from the printed text, tend to be inchoate and transitory, and I rarely find myself in prayerful mode when I am not in a prayer group setting. (I purposely use the term prayer group rather than minyan, because I am insufficiently halachic to invoke quorum requirements - and I do not consider myself in "prayerful mode" just because the occasion calls for motzi or shehechayanu.) While I cheerfully and somewhat casually compose blog posts, and more carefully but less frequently prepare divrei Torah, the creation of liturgy would not be my thing.

This does not lessen my admiration for folks whose kavanah leads to keva - who write down to preserve and share the meditations of their hearts. I'm not talking here about clergy, where the composition of liturgy may be considered part of the job description, but of laymen, or more accurately, laywomen, since the three practitioners of the art whose names come to mind are female.

As it happens, two of those women are from my congregation. (The third is Ruth Brin, whose work can be found on Page 126 of Mishkan T'filah.) Might it be something in the Beth Emet water? Or the influence of a liturgically-focused rabbi?

Debbie Perlman z"l, whom I did not have the privilege of knowing, was called our Resident Psalmist. Betsy Fuchs, who sits in front of me at services each Shabbat, is the eloquent author of Betsy's Prayers. I differentiate their work from that of people whose writings found their way into siddurim (like poets Katya Molodowsky and Adrienne Rich in MT) but who, when they wrote, were thinking poetry, not liturgy.

I have only once or twice since we began using Mishkan T'filah read the left-hand pages during the silent section of the T'filah. It's not that I don't like what's there; it's that I miss the resonance of the Hebrew prayers on the right-hand pages if I leave them by the wayside. (Side note for bringing kavanah into the keva: lose the sight-reading, and sound out the Hebrew words. It really makes a difference; and I am eternally grateful to Jerry Kaye for this teaching. And yes, I am well aware that this is precisely the kind of disgraceful indecorum that precipitated the birth of German Reform.)

I can hardly wait to read the comments on this blog post from our resident liturgy wonk, David A.M. Wilensky. Without having his scholarship or analytic skills at my disposal, I can only share that I am left-handed, and politically left-wing, but when it comes to Mishkan T'filah, and in fact to liturgy in general, I veer to the right.

An Unusual Family Bar Mitzvah

2008-08-20T16:00:00Z

By Marge Eiseman
The preparations for my youngest son's bar mitzvah celebration are getting underway. I am not feeling stressed about it, nor will we spend a fortune (that we don't have). Here's a peek at some of the process.

We are admittedly an unusual family -- we began our preparations over a year ago, and never hired a party planner, a caterer or a disc jockey. I think the first thing Zach and I did was read through the Torah portion together, Shofetim, to see which section Zach wanted to read. He saw the most famous verse, "Tzedek, tzedek tirdof" (Justice, justice shall you pursue), and owned it!

Last August, I had brought home a Tzedaka Village Charity Box Kit (from the Creative Judaica Kit Company), which I had seen at the CAJE conference in St. Louis. He enthusiastically covered every square centimeter with the colorful stickers, and declared his intent to raise lots of money for a variety of causes. I went back to CAJE this summer, and bought 50 more kits to use as centerpieces (with the obvious hope that people will use them to further their own pursuit of justice).

During December, we went to see "The Great Debaters", and I suggested that he watch this through his "Shofetim eyes" -- to see what felt just and unjust, and how some people actually pursue justice, and others look away. This phrase became code for "pay attention" and has become part of his philosophical outlook. (Yes, my 12-year-old is quite articulate about philosophical thoughts.) Some of these conversations have made their way into Zach's d'var Torah as well.

As we went along, I recruited his older brothers to chant Torah, and then I offered that Dad and I would also each prepare three verses. I'm pretty sure this will be a first at our synagogue!

When it came time to invite people to celebrate with us, we sent email invitations -- and put a note on the bottom about Ba'al tashchit the commandment not to waste. We are thrilled to say how many people commented positively -- and everyone replied via email as well.

My friends and I are catering the luncheon, cooking in the temple kitchen over the next weeks, and using as little single-use materials as possible. When people offer to help, I actually say "Yes, thank you." The desserts will be home-made with love -- it doesn't get any better than that!

Now we're in the home stretch -- and since Rabbi Cohen recently agreed that we could do Storahtelling during the service, my theatrical, musical and very Jewish family is collaborating on creating a meaningful heart of the service. We still have the tzitzit to tie on his home-made tallit, and then Zach will be prepared to lead and teach, and take his place as a member of the tribe of creative Reform Jews. I'm so excited!

Strengthen Reform: 11. Making Judaism Meaningful to Teens

2008-08-20T13:20:40Z

By William Berkson
As I explained in previous posts, Reform Judaism can become much stronger by serving families. And it can do this by showing how the personal ethics of the Talmud, updated, can powerfully assist sacred relationships, strong marriages and families.

However, before this we first have to convince teens that Judaism can make a difference to their lives. As is well known, there is a huge drop off of students attending religious school after Bar and Bat Mitzvah. What can we teach teens that will be compelling evidence that it will help them to have Judaism as part of their lives?

I have been working on a solution for over ten years, in part shown by my Becoming a Mentsh Workshops, which show teens and their parents how to apply Jewish values to improve life today. These teach how to creatively apply values in Torah and Talmud to issues such as: parent-teen relationships, relationships between the sexes (love, sex and marriage), and how to deal with the stress of the struggle for success in school and career. The distinctive thing about my approach is that it synthesizes the insights of the sages of the Talmud with insights of modern psychology--particularly insights on communication and problem-solving skills.

I am now starting to expand these into a full classroom curriculum for Temple Rodef Shalom of Virginia, and the first of the full classes will be on Peer to Peer ethics. I will come later to issues of the place of psychology, but let me state by explaining why Talmudic ethics is, I believe, so crucial to success in relating Jewish values to modern life.

Currently a lot of teaching in ethics is done by teaching 'middot' or virtues. The 'virtue' approach to ethics comes from Aristotle, and was brought into Judaism by Maimonides, who tried to synthesize Aristotle and Jewish tradition. Much of this synthesis didn't stick, but the virtue ethics did. The Hebrew 'middot' is a translation of the Greek 'arete' or virtue, made by the translator of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, in consultation with him. In this approach the meaning of 'humility' 'truthfulness', and so on are taught.

The 'virtue' approach has a lot to recommend it, particularly with younger children, but it does not enable one to really engage the heart of Jewish ethics, and see how it can lift up relationships and make them more holy. This is because the real challenges and rewards of living an ethical life only become clear when we engage specific issues, as the Talmud does. Then it becomes clear that the challenge of doing the negative mitzvot, such as not standing by when others sin, is a matter of moral courage. And then it also becomes clear that the challenge of doing the positive mitzvot, such as doing justice, are a complex matter of choices that involve right vs right, and the lesser of evils. These choices require thoughtfulness and creativity to find the right way, as well as courage to follow it. General concepts like 'justice' are essential, but more specific guidance is needed.

A small example of this is an issue that comes up in one of the peer-to-peer ethics case studies in the class. In this case, 'The Purloined Exam', a student has stolen an advance copy of an exam, and is giving it to friends. The difficult choice for the 'mentsh' is whether to report the thief, and to whom.

Interestingly, keeping secrets and not informing is generally speaking preferred in rabbinic ethics. This is because saying bad things about others, even if true, is generally prohibited, and is known as lashon hara, the 'evil tongue'. Now the theory of lashon hara appeals to some 'proof texts' in the Torah, but it is largely a Talmudic and post-Talmud Jewish creation. Most famously, a Rabbi known as Chafets Chaim wrote a treatise on it at the end of the 19th century. And he, like earlier rabbis, regards it as one of the most common yet also grave sins, a sin that does great harm to relationships.

In this case, the rule against lashon hara is in conflict with the mitzvah not to stand upon the blood of your neighbor (Lev. 19). This is interpreted by later Jewish ethics as prohibiting being passive in the face of any wrongdoing. We have a positive obligation to stop the wrong, if we are able to. In this case, the wrong will be done to the students who don't get the exam, the teacher, and the society at large. Such deceit, known as geneivah da'at or "stealing the opinion" of another, is viewed as quite wrong, of course. So what is the student to do? My current thinking is that the right thing to do is for the student to tell a parent or a school counselor, so the scheme will be stopped, without 'fingering' the student who stole the exam. But it will be interesting to see what students and other teachers think. -And how the obligations would change if the student brought drugs, or worse, a gun.

My point here is that generalized virtues like 'truthfulness' do not give positive guidance in what to do in the way that the fuller development of Jewish ethics in the Talmud does. Now in other cases, we have to develop the ideas beyond what they are in the Talmud, and sometimes even modify them. But the key thing is that by being issue and case-oriented, as the Talmud is, we enable students to see how Judaism can guide and uplift their lives.

Unfortunately, such Talmudic concepts as lashon hara, though it is in the confession at Yom Kippur, are ones that most Reform Jewish are not familiar with. We need to do more than just quoting the great saying of the prophet Micah--to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God--and give some specific guidance to teens. This kind of engagement with our tradition engages both their critical thinking and their idealism, and is I believe our best hope of showing teens that Judaism is something that will be a treasure to study and live throughout their lives.

Theological Summer Camp

2008-08-19T15:33:48Z

By dcc
David A.M. Wilensky, RJ.org blogger, Kutz Campus regular and liturgy-wonk, was a bit offended by yesterday's post from the Society for Classical Reform Judaism's Executive Director Rabbi Howard A. Berman. His post on the Reform Shuckle outlines and deconstructs the argument that the SCRJ is a vital and important aspect of present day Reform Judaism.

My perusal of the rest of Rabbi Berman's post and of the Principles page of the SCRJ website leads me to believe that beyond [supporting] an increasingly outmoded aesthetic, there are no differences between SCRJ and the mainstream of the movement. Certainly the ideology the SCRJ labels Classical is no more than standard Reform ideology.

While I am not sure which theological camp is right (or more to the point if any camp can be "right"), it does seem a bit out of place to go to the extremes that have often been supported in posts and comments this blog. My hope for the future of Reform Judaism is that we move past these broad stroke definitions and focus on our mandate to be the light onto the nations, have our youth see those vision and do justice while we walk humbly with our God.

Kiev Revisited

2008-08-18T18:53:29Z

By Larry Kaufman
As regular readers of this blog may have noticed through my comments on other people's posts, I've recently returned from a river cruise through Ukraine -- fortunately arriving home before the Georgian crisis erupted -- and want to share some thoughts in three general areas:

Differences between Jewish and secular travel

The changes that appear to have taken place in Ukraine since my prior trip in 2001

Ukrainian roots for American Jews

Differences between Jewish and secular travel
Our trip was organized by Alumni Holidays International, and sponsored by several university alumni associations. Although open seating and general mingling prevailed aboard ship, our busses for shore excursions were organized by school, with passengers from less represented schools assigned arbitrarily to the busses of the dominant institutions, University of Chicago (my alma mater), Cornell, Dartmouth, Tufts, and William & Mary. Substantive content beyond that provided by very good local guides came through two lectures each from three professors, covering history, identity, and language issues. The role of the Jews is integral to talking about Ukrainian history, and was discussed both by the guides and by the academics. My guess is that about 20% of the audience was Jewish, with the percentage probably a little higher on the University of Chicago bus.

My 2001 trip didn't focus on Ukraine, but it did start in Kiev, where this trip ended, and then went on to St. Petersburg and Moscow. That trip was organized as a leadership mission by ARZA World Union, the short-lived combination of the Association of Reform Zionists of America and the World Union for Progressive Judaism - with the expectation that we travelers would return to the U.S. as missionaries for strengthening Progressive Judaism in the Former Soviet Union.

As might be expected, on the ARZA World Union trip, Jewish content was central, although we also got excellent coverage of key tourist sites in Kiev like the Friendship Arch, the Founders monument, and the Great Gate - but no churches. (We did visit churches in Moscow and St. Petersburg.) The first stop in Kiev on the Alumni trip was Babi Yar, where the local guide was open not only about the Nazi round-up but also about the Soviet effort to memorialize the tragedy without reference to Jewish victims. As the guide was concluding the visit with an eloquent recitation of the Yevtushenko poem, I asked those of my traveling companions who wished to join me in reciting Kaddish.

But beyond Babi Yar, the Jewish content in the professors' lectures and guides' commentaries was essentially peripheral, as part of discussing Ukraine's incredibly polyglot history. Nor were we shown any of the Jewish landmarks of Kiev: No Sholom Aleichem statue, no plaque marking Golda Meir's birthplace, no Brodsky synagogue.

The other contrast came in terms of creature comforts. Think dorm rooms and dorm food for the alumni trip; think four and five-star hotels when you travel with the Reform movement. (For a trip I was thinking of organizing, the travel counselor at ARZA's favored trip arranger advised nothing less than four-star hotels - our clientele likes its luxury.) My bottom line on this, as someone who travels three-star when I travel on my own, is that I'll go to France or Italy or the British Isles on a commercial tour, or an alumni tour, but if I'm going to places rich in Jewish history and culture, I'll choose the Jewish tour for its content, and accept the luxury as a bonus.

Changes in Ukraine since 2001
On our first night in Kiev in 2001, we came back to the hotel after Shabbat services at Congregation Hatikvah, and were having dinner in the glassed-in rooftop restaurant when the night skies lit up with fireworks. It turned out we had arrived on the tenth anniversary of Ukrainian independence and the city was alive with excitement and patriotic fervor....but it was still very much a Russian city. Three years after that visit, Kiev became the rallying point for the Orange Revolution, a successful peaceful uprising with its roots in protesting election fraud, but whose outcome placed in power the faction that looks towards Europe, ousting the faction that looks towards Russia.

We sensed a little more prosperity on this trip, but that may have been a matter of what we were shown each time - in 2001, a Joint Distribution Committee soup kitchen, in 2008, the riverside McMansions of the Ukrainian oligarchs. The city has grown about ten percent, to three million, in these seven years, including major expansion on the other side of the river, and the years since the Orange Revolution have seen a new emphasis on tourism. Only in Kiev, among the five Ukrainian cities we visited, did we find restaurants with English menus and with serving personnel who had a little of our language at their command.

As part of the move to identify more with Europe than with Russia, the push is on to grow the use of the Ukrainian language in preference to Russian. Historically, Russian was more prevalent in the cities, Ukrainian in rural areas, especially in the western provinces, farther away from Russia. Both are Slavic languages, with Ukrainian more heavily influenced by Polish and by the Russian dialect of Belarus. Both languages are written in Cyrillic, but there are subtle differences between the Russian and Ukrainian alphabets. (As a side note, I taught myself the pronunciation of the Cyrillic letters by using a siddur that included Hebrew transliterations.)

Whatever growth in affluence the city may have experienced, it has not rubbed off on the Progressive congregation. We visited Hatikvah's new home - which Rabbi Duchovny explained is half the size at twice the rent of the prior facility. Membership has been stable, which apparently is also true of the two Orthodox congregations, one Lubavitch, one not. Kiev has an estimated one hundred thousand Jews, about the same number as before the Nazis and the Soviets - but in the pre-Nazi days that hundred thousand represented about twenty percent of the population; where today it's about three percent. The Progressive movement has a great opportunity in Ukraine, as throughout the former Soviet Union, but only if we North Americans subsidize its development. One change that hasn't taken place in these seven years is the FSU budget of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, approximately $1.5 million compared to Chabad's $70 million. But that's a topic for another day.

Ukrainian roots for American Jews
One of the highlights of our 2001 trip to Kiev was a visit to the residence of the U.S. ambassador, which was decorated with paintings and sculpture by American artists of Ukrainian descent like Louise Nevelson and Andy Warhol. One thing I hadn't realized prior to seeing that art was how many artists I had thought of as Russian were actually Ukrainian.
This shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. I had always thought of my paternal grandparents as coming to the U.S. from Russia - but actually they were from the outskirts of Kiev. My mother was born in what was then Poland, but is now Belarus. One tends to forget how fluid the borders were, as control of various territory shifted -- one day under the control of the Russians, another day of the Poles or of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

In fact, a story is told of the Jewish couple who were given their preference when the boundary line was being drawn between Poland and Russia - did they want to be in Russia or Poland. When Shmuel immediately opted for Poland, Rivke pointed out that the Poles were arguably more anti-Semitic than the Russians, True, Shmuel responded, but at least if we're on the Polish side of the line, we'll be spared the rigors of the Russian winter!

Looking at the borders as they are drawn today, and as they were in Czarist times, we have to remember that Jews could live only in the so-called Pale of Settlement, which included much of what is today's Ukraine. Whether our individual pictures of European Jewish life are drawn from family memory or from Fiddler on the Roof or similar literary sources, we have to remember that Anatevke/Kasrilevke and the rest of Sholom Aleichem-land lay somewhere between Odessa and Kiev - subject to the Czar, but in Ukraine, not in Russia.

Virtually every couple among our Jewish compatriots on the trip included at least one spouse who talked about a parent or a grandparent who had come to America from Ukraine. However, none mentioned adding an Everything is Illuminated excursion with a shtetl-shlepper in search of their roots. On our 2005 WUPJ trip to Poland, many of our travel companions visited the towns their ancestors had left sixty to a hundred years before.

My wife hopes eventually to visit Kamenetz-Podilsky, in western Ukraine, where her grandparents came from; our children adopted our grandson from Kharkov, in eastern Ukraine. But I have no family nostalgia, no sense of wanting to visit Kobrin or Bershtivke, partly because my grandparents and older aunts and uncles never wanted to talk about "the old country" with its apparently painful memories.

So why do so many of us travel to Warsaw, Cracow, Prague, Budapest, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and especially, I ask myself, why do I keep going back? It's more than the pull of the traveler's desire to see something new, or to see something old for the first time. I think maybe it's to fit a few more pieces into the jigsaw puzzle of who we are and of the forces that shaped us - and to gain an appreciation for our grandparents (or parents, or great-grandparents) who had the foresight and the courage to pull up stakes , bringing with them to America not much more than the treasure of Yiddishkeit.

But there's also some pleasure in seeing the resurgence of Jewish life, slow though it be, in places where so many efforts were made to eradicate it. My congregation in Evanston is Beth Emet, the house of Truth - but my congregation in Kiev is Hatikvah - the house of Hope.

Strengthening Clasical Reform

2008-08-18T18:35:21Z

By Rabbi Howard A. Berman
A number of comments in the current discussion on "Strengthening Reform" have referred to various dimensions of Classical Reform Judaism as an "early historic chapter" of our Movement's development, rather than a vital and viable position within the diverse religious community that the Union embraces today.

As the Executive Director of the newly organized Society for Classical Reform Judaism, I trust that many readers of this blog saw our first full-page advertisement in the current issue of Reform Judaism Magazine, introducing this new alternative voice in the national Reform family. The SCRJ has been founded as a voice of advocacy for the preservation and creative nurturing of the historic progressive principles, rich intellectual foundations, and beloved worship traditions of American Reform Judaism.

We believe that the universalistic ideals and deep personal spirituality of historic Reform liturgy, including it's great musical heritage, continue to offer a meaningful experience of Jewish prayer for many people today. We uphold the Prophetic commitment to the struggle for peace and social justice that has always inspired liberal Judaism. We share with all Jews a commitment to the wellbeing and security of Israel and its people, living in peace and justice with its neighbors - while we also affirm the centrality of the American experience in the shaping of our own Jewish identity and commitment, celebrating the contributions our faith has made to the founding and nurturing of the pluralistic, democratic society of the United States.

An important priority of the SCRJ is an active outreach and warm support for interfaith and multi-cultural families, and all those seeking to become part of the Jewish community, in the belief that the broad, inclusive and universal spiritual values of historic American Reform Judaism, offer an inspiring message for all people. I and other members of the Society's expanding national community will be participating in these important conversations on RJ.org.

We affirm the broad spectrum of belief and practice in our Movement, reflected in the many thoughtful postings on these pages. Our hope and commitment is that the historic tradition of Classical Reform, which embodies its own integrity and enduring significance in the midst of the many rich streams of Jewish experience through the ages, is recognized and honored for its continuing vitality and potential to speak to a new generation of Jews today.

We invite readers to visit our website: www.renewreform.org.

RDS at DNC

2008-08-18T18:05:40Z

By dcc
This weekend Rabbi David Saperstein was asked by the Democratic National Committee to offer the Invocation on the night that Sen. Barak Obama accepts the nomination in Denver. Rabbi Saperstein joins a group of men and women who come from across the country and from churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and organizations that are as diverse as the population of the United States. Frank Lockwood, an Evangelical blogger, writes that the "prayer line up that looks, demographically, a lot like America."

To me this is the most interesting aspect of this "prayer line up." Regardless that these men and women of the cloth are leaders, and in some cases pioneers, they look like America. I suppose it is only fitting that when the Democratic Party nominates a man of African and American heritage, hailing from Hawaii via Kansas through New York, Boston and Chicago, rising from poverty into wealth, the people who offer prayers and words of faith during this nomination would also reflect America's growing diversity.

While the Republicans have yet to release their list of names, I hope that the diversity of people who offer words of inspiration and conviction at their convention will again mirror the fabric of the United States.

In many ways the Reform Movement, too, reflects America's diversity. (Yes, I know that's a bit self-serving but work with me.) We take pride in our history but learn from our mistakes in order to grow. We are culturally, socially and ethnically diverse. We also know that not everyone will always agree with us but we are proud of our openness, our values and our undying dream to make our world a bit better for the next generation.

Rabbi Steve Foster of Temple Emanuel in Denver and Rabbi Amy Schwartzman of Temple Rodef Shalom of Falls Church, Virginia will play major roles at an interfaith gathering on the first night of the convention. This event will bring together faith leaders from far and wide, men and women, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and more to speak truth to power, project a voice of empathy and peace and perhaps most importantly show that religion is not a political party but a way to bring people together to make the world a better place.

Finally, as someone who has worked with Rabbi Saperstein for the past three years, I must say I'm particularly proud that his zealous voice will be heard in Denver. Be prepared to hear passionate but sometimes brutal truth about the injustices that need to be addressed. Get set to be inspired and ready to take action to save the world.

I am a poem

2008-08-15T18:11:59Z

By David A.M. Wilensky
Thursday's 10 Minutes of Torah are all about prayer and this week's by Rabbi Edwin C. Goldberg, was about the left-hand-side-of-the-page (not the mention the left of the ritual spectrum) reading on page 41 of Mishkan T'filah. The reading serves as an alternatative option for what our Reform liturgists have aptly termed Nisim B'chol Yom (Daily Miracles).

In last week's edition, Rabbi Richard Sarason explained that the purpose of this collection of blessings is to bring a little kodesh (holy) into the chol (mundane) of our morning routines. Each one, with the exception of the three identity prayers, addresses a particular part of our morning, from waking up to putting on clothes all the way to the set of shorter blessings into Asher Yatzar, a prayer for going to the bathroom.

Rabbi Goldberg, in his 10 Minutes of Torah, as well as the reading he addresses ignore the morning routine-centric nature of Nisim B'chol Yom. I actually do like the poem, the "declaration of the early twentieth century poet, Edmond Fleg, 'I am a Jew,'" as Rabbi Goldberg says. It's a fine poem. I simply question its placement in Mishkan as an alternative for Nisim B'chol Yom.

Nisim B'chol Yom, as I've said, is all about waking up and readying ourselves to meet the day. "I am a Jew," on the other hand, is a statement pf Jewish identity.

Lest anyone think that I'm simply glossing over the three identity blessings, which Mishkan places as the first three of the last five of the blessings, I will mention that they might be seen as simply a part of the larger morning routine. If we keep in mind the traditional Ashkenazi order for Nisim B'chol Yom, we will see how that is. In the Ashkenazi order, the first blessing (who gives the rooster the ability to distinguish between day and night), a blessing about waking up, is followed with the three identity blessings.

If we consider this order, we see that the three identity blessings are not the point of Nisim B'chol Yom, but merely a part of the waking up process. Upon awakening, we realize who we are, what our identity is.

Though the expansion on this fraction of Nisim B'chol Yom that "I am a Jew" represents is nice and in no way objectionable in and of itself, it ignores the larger theme reprsented by the other more than three quarters of Nisim B'chol Yom: Waking up and getting ready for another day.

First posted at Reform Shuckle.

Forum on Decorum

2008-08-15T13:50:05Z

By Larry Kaufman
There is no question that the introduction of decorum in religious services was an important motivator in the early stages of Reform Judaism in Europe. (The other key liturgical changes were worship in the vernacular, elimination of repetitions, addition of a sermon, and excision of "unacceptable" content - Messiah, resurrection of the dead, restoration of the Temple.)

But what did the Reformers mean by decorum?

In seeking to answer that question, let's look at the basic requirements for Jewish communal prayer - a minyan, siddurim, a Torah scroll. Note the absence of a requirement that there be a rabbi or a chazzan (cantor) - any Jewish male above the age of thirteen could "daven for der omid" - stand up and lead worship by chanting the opening and then the closing words of each prayer, to maintain a semblance of togetherness as each worshiper read the intermediate text for himself. You can see this to this day at an Orthodox or Conservative minyan - and it's only to the uninitiated that it looks like chaos.

What it doesn't look like, and didn't look like, was a Lutheran service. Decorum meant a service that was led from the pulpit, with clear-cut roles for the officiant and for the participants - I read, we read together, we read responsively, we sing together accompanied by the organ. (Check out the early editions of the Union Prayer Book that called out the text to be read by the Minister.)

You might look at what has elsewhere on this blog been called the Reformation as the Rabbinic Employment Act.

No longer would the rabbi be only the teacher, scholar, and Decider on questions of halachic practice - now he would parallel Christian clergy in leading the congregation in prayer, officiating at life cycle events, preaching (in the vernacular, of course), and rendering pastoral services. Now he would become the star orator for a congregation that was more audience than actors in a performance. Imagine the drama at Temple Sholom in Chicago in the 1930's and into the 1970's when the houselights dimmed, the spotlight shone down on the rabbi, as he pressed a hidden button and the ark door lifted slowly as if by magic. The silence was more than the silence of decorum - it was the silence of Awe.

Probably nothing better demonstrates the dominance the rabbi attained in American Reform than the situation in mid-twentieth century Cleveland, where the two big
Reform temples were frequently identified not by their Hebrew names, Tiferet Israel and Anshe Chesed, heaven forfend, nor even by their formal English names, The Temple and The Euclid Avenue Temple, but by the names of their rabbis. Where do you belong? I belong to Silver's Temple. And you? I belong to Brickner's.

It's a poor pendulum that doesn't swing in both directions. As smart and successful rabbis today practice tzim-tzum (contraction) and empower the laity, the gathering in the sanctuary today changes from a performance to a community happening. We dress less decorously (during these summer months, most of the men at Shabbat morning services at my congregation are wearing shorts or jeans).

When the clergy join us, they sit with the congregation and pray alongside us, not for us. We are cohesive, exuberant, into- the- moment participants - and we would run from the room if someone told us that good Reform Jews practice decorum, and we should put on our suits and ties to listen to the golden words of a silver-tongued orator, rather than to the dvar Torah from a lay person much of the time, but otherwise from a rabbi that we address not as Rabbi and not as Doctor, but by first name.

As I read the posts on this blog from the nostalgists for the Good Old Days of the Pittsburgh Platform and the Union Prayer Book, I'm saddened that they feel alienated by our refusal to be Reformed, and by the Reform mainstream's continuing evolution in the search for spiritual fulfillment. We live and worship against the backdrop of a different environment. We have the confidence to be eclectic and to accept good ideas from many sources.

As our rabbis said in 1885, We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion. And they told us to maintain ceremonies that elevate and sanctify our lives. In a progressive religion, not only can elevation, sanctification, and decorum take new shapes with the passage of time, but in fact, they must.

An iTunes Shabbat

2008-08-14T15:15:38Z

By JanetheWriter
This past Shabbat, I spent more than four hours aboard an Adirondack Trailways bus from New York City's Port Authority to Albany and then, after a quick change, on to Saratoga Springs to surprise a friend for her birthday.

Much to my own surprise and delight, the bus, together with my iPod, provided me with a most unique and enjoyable Shabbat. For starters, it was a glorious day, and from the minute we pulled out of the bus garage, brilliant sunshine flooded the coach from a bright cornflower blue sky filled with fluffy cotton candy clouds. As the city grew faint in the rearview mirror, we entered God's country--first the Ramapo and then the Adirondack Mountains, each covered with an abundance of lush, green foliage; summer at its peak.

With my iPod set on "shuffle," I tuned out the drone of the bus and the chatter of my fellow passengers and tuned into my "Jewish" playlist, which includes more than 360 different songs. And, although the order wasn't quite right, the Shabbat "service" was, nonetheless, all there. Thanks to the iPod's white ear buds, I heard and tapped along to Danny Maseng's Ma Tovu, Kol B'seder's La'asok B'divrei Torah, Elohai N'shamah from the Union's 2005 Biennial CD and more. Barchu, Sh'ma, Mi-chamocha, S'fatai Tiftach and Mi Shebeirach, too, all piped into my head. Oseh Shalom, Aleinu, Kaddish and one of my new favorite songs, Ein Keloheinu/Non Como Musetor Dyo, rounded out my iTunes Shabbat, leaving me spiritually refreshed and ready to enjoy the weekend.

* * *

If summer travel was good enough for Glikl bas Judah, Henrietta Szold, Joanna Eckstein and Ruth Gruber, it's certainly good enough for me.

Following in the footsteps of these (and countless other) Jewish women, I'll be doing some additional summer travel of my own in the next few weeks. I look forward to catching up on RJ.org--both reading and writing posts--when I return.

I'm outta here. See you in a few.

Shabbat shalom.