Reform Judaism

"Buy the Boat!"

2010-09-02T14:14:14Z

by Rabbi Marla Feldman
Director of Development, URJ

Several months ago, I received a panicked email from our contact at the International Medical Corps, one of the URJ's grant recipients from our Haiti Relief Fund. The URJ, along with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), had funded a clinic in the underserved coastal region around Petit Goave, west of Port-au-Prince, as well as a mobile clinic - a boat - that provided medical services to nearby coastal villages that have been inaccessible since the earthquake. As the hurricane season approached and the seas became rougher, their boat was no longer sea-worthy. They had a lead on a used boat that could serve their purpose, but only if they acted quickly. The cost was $12,000. "Buy the boat!" I said. We already had authorization from our allocations committee for this project and ample funds remained within the designated allocation. Two days later, just as I was heading to Shabbat services, I received another urgent message - the used boat would not work out, but they found a new boat that could serve their needs. The cost was a bit more -- $19,000. Could they purchase the boat? "Buy the boat!" I said again in my final text before turning off my PDA for Shabbat.

Since that time, the "URJ boat" has ferried doctors, nurses, mental health professionals and supplies to five isolated communities and transported critical patients to the hospital in Petit Goave. The IMC mobile clinic team provided primary health care and education, stabilized emergency patients and assessed mental health needs. Since May they offered 1,624 primary healthcare consultations, public health programs serving 1,868 individuals, dozens of reproductive health consultations, including pre- and post-natal care, and successfully advocated for local health authorities to begin immunization for all children under five years old. They brought essential pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, water, hygiene kits and other items to thousands of villagers. They integrated community-based mental health care and nutrition programming into primary health services for villages that had never seen a doctor before, let alone a psychiatrist or nutritionist.

Many thanks to the generous donors to the URJ Haiti Relief Fund who made this possible. Together we bought a boat. Together we made life a little easier along the earthquake ravaged coast of Haiti. Together we save untold lives. Not a bad way to start the New Year!

A healthy, happy 5771 to all!

Congregational Life

2010-09-01T18:38:35Z

by dcc

I was recently asked by someone I very much respect to address "the" question. So I started to write the answer in a post...about five times without any luck. The "Why does a 20-something join a Reform Congregation" question. I have no kids and am Jewishly connected in my life, so why join a congregation? Some may say it is a legitimate question. I say you are missing the point of congregational life.

The myth that young Reform Jews are not joining a temple because they don't find it useful or meaningful is bunk. The real issue is that Reform Jews as a whole aren't joining congregations because they don't find something useful or meaningful within membership. In many communities within our Movement, synagogues have become bar and bat mitzvah factories. We are, in fact, in great danger of becoming what our more conservative and closed-minded co-religionists call "Judaism Lite." If we challenge our communities to learn, grow and take responsibility, my bet is we will see some more folks filling the seats on Shabbat.

I originally joined Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York City for three reasons. 1) I needed a place for the High Holy Days and my sister couldn't get me into Hillel services at Columbia anymore. 2) The location is three blocks from my apartment. 3) The congregation values young people making a commitment to the community so much that they set membership costs for people in their 20s at only $18 a year. (For a few years...)

But that isn't why I stayed.

Temple Shaaray Tefila is big and it has its traditional "big" issues. It is dominated by middle aged and older people. But there is also a strong group of 20 -30 somethings, with and without kids, called "JeTSeT" or Jewish Twenties and Thirties at Shaaray Tefila. We mostly attend the cohort-based alternative rock-n-roll inspired services called Shabbat Unplugged (if you are in the City during one of these you should come by), but we also participate in Mitzvah Days, Purim Parties, Chanukah Events and other stuff. I don't think we do enough of it but there are a number of us (probably about the same percentage as that of the "general population" taking part in these programs) who participate in the community wide events.

Just like anyone who remains a member of an organization, I like being a member of my temple and I am proud to support it.

The issue at hand is the possibility of not providing anything of meaning in our congregations. So I guess this is a challenge that must go back to our leaders. Stop trying to tweet to us. I don't need to be your friend on Facebook and the "turn off your cell phone" jokes at the beginning of services were never funny. Teach me something. Make me think. Make me repent. Don't play to our collective weaknesses, play to our strengths and make us stronger. Then I will come back to your services and even read your blog. But first, be my rabbi, cantor or teacher.

For there to be meaning there must be substance. My generation has grown up in a time of instant information and somewhat lackluster content. Our religious experience should be more than just a Jewish version of what we get elsewhere. I want to be challenged. I want to learn. I want to be made to feel a part of something ONLY if I work at it. The problem isn't why 20s or 30s aren't joining congregations; the problem is the lack of substance, content and meaning in our congregations that results in Reform Jews of all ages staying out of congregational life.

So please stop asking me why I joined a congregation. Ask me why I stay. That will provide a much more useful answer.

Why Talk About Christmas in Fall?

2010-08-31T20:14:42Z

by Arlene Chernow
Outreach Specialist, Union for Reform Judaism

Ah, the memories! The smells, the food, the cookies, the craft projects, the family decorating together, the company coming over to celebrate, the smell of freshly cut tree branches while building the sukkah!

Wait. Did you say 'building the sukkah?' Weren't we talking about Christmas?

When adults share childhood holiday memories, the stories are similar regardless of which holidays they are recalling. The warm memories are about time: Time spent with family members, time spent making meals or cookies, time spent sharing a family meal.

Sukkot offers Jewish families an opportunity to create all of the warm family memories that are often associated with Christmas, Easter and other family holidays.

Consider the following ways to create great Sukkot memories:

Acquiring or building a Sukkah

Buy a kit

Decorating the Sukkah

Sharing Sukkot

ushpizin

Sleeping in the Sukkah

Saying Sukkot blessings together

blessings

lulav

etrog

If this is your first year celebrating Sukkot, pick one idea and then add more each year. You may wish to begin by decorating a part of your patio and build up to creating a free standing sukkah. The important thing is to begin, small and simple. In a year or two, your family will be telling stories about your memories of Sukkot.

Let us know your thoughts:

What are your strongest Sukkot memories?
Your home sukkah: Best made from wood and leaves or PVC piping and fabric netting?
If this is your first year celebrating Sukkot, what memories are you most looking forward to making?
Share you memories or plans in the comments section below.

Hurricane Katrina and Jacobs Camp

2010-08-31T17:35:38Z

by Jonathan "J.C." Cohen
Director, URJ Henry S. Jacobs Camp
Originally posted on the Jacobs Camp blog

For more info, see Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans 5 Years Later

With the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina upon us, so many memories from that time have come flooding back - and I know all of you who were close to that experience are also taking time to reflect.

I continue to be tremendously proud of the work that Jacobs Camp did. We were really out there making a difference in a time of tremendous need. We were blessed by the opportunity to provide shelter for more than 250 people in the days and weeks following the storm, and doubly-blessed by the opportunity to launch the Jacobs' Ladder Relief Project that brought 4 Million pounds of relief supplies, and hundreds of volunteers into the region - and helped shine the spotlight of the Reform Movement and the organized Jewish community on the Gulf Coast Region.

We felt the storm's wrath in other ways, too.

So many of our camp families experienced tremendous losses -- and some of them are still recovering. Thanks to the Foundation for Jewish Camp, the Habayita Fund was set up to help kids return to Jacobs in the summers of 2006 and 2007; but, between the families who took major financial hits, and the others who found relocating the only way to move forward, our camper registration took a hit. Our registration has recovered -- this summer we served the most campers we ever have &mdash but who knows when our New Orleans numbers will rebound to pre-Katrina levels.

And, as a result of a tree destroying the lake's emergency drain system, we lost Lake Gary. While a very small matter in the midst of a very big catastrophe, the symbolic value of an empty lake for more than a year after the storm was not lost on anyone.

As I go through all of the emotions that are brought on by thinking about that tragic day, and the days and weeks that followed, my thoughts also turn to the whole five year span, and what it has meant for Jacobs Camp. As the Gulf Coast Region has rebuilt and recovered, the Camp has been rejuvenated as well.

The Jewish community of the region took great pride in the work that we did at Jacobs Camp; and, as a result, there continues to be so much good will for the Camp -- yes, we've always been held in high regard, but since Katrina I think the pride and confidence has never been stronger.

The work we did also received a tremendous amount of attention from the organized Jewish community across the country. Jacobs Camp now has a national profile -- people know about our little camp, and have great things to say about it.

Our efforts post-Katrina drew the particular attention of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which invited us to be part of their great work on behalf of Jewish camping. The first opportunity they brought our way was a donor-matching program that allowed us to raise the funds we needed to repair and revitalize Lake Gary. But that was just the beginning: Encouraged by the folks at Grinspoon, and inspired by our success with the Lake campaign, we launched our 40th Anniversary Capital Campaign which to-date has raised $3 Million, much of which was already been spent on a range of improvements both big and small. The results of this very successful campaign can be seen all over camp! We feel our campers deserve the very best camp facility and camp program possible, and are striving to make that dream a reality.

These last five years have been an incredible time for Jacobs Camp. What started with a disaster of devastating impact has evolved into a period of growth and opportunity. Right after the storm it was hard not to feel hopeless. But now the Jacobs Camp family is filled with hope and excitement about what the future has in store for this little plot of land in Central Mississippi.

Galilee Diary: Summer holiday II

2010-08-31T17:08:43Z

by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)

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...Zebulun did not dispossess the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites dwelt in their midst, but they were subjected to forced labor. Asher did not dispossess the inhabitants of Acco or the inhabitants of Sidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, and Rehob. So the Asherites dwelt in the midst of the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not dispossess them...
-Judges 1:30-32

Prague: We're not really into goulash, dumplings, and beer, but the feast for our other senses was satiating: cathedrals and synagogues, castles and bridges, monuments and art exhibits; you get a stiff neck walking around looking up at all the amazing buildings. To a layman, keeping track of all those dynasties and their machinations - and trying to keep straight all the different architectural styles in their chronology - can be quite daunting.

As we referred again and again to the guidebook, and read the writings on the walls of the museums, we became aware of what we probably learned in 10th grade European History but forgot: like other peoples in central/eastern Europe, the Czechs have been involved for centuries in an ongoing struggle for self-definition. Already in the 14th century, the drama surrounding Jan Hus was not just about religious reform, but also about culture - Hus spoke Czech, and his struggle is remembered as national as much as theological. In the ensuing centuries there was a constant tension between the impulse to maintain and develop Czech language and culture, and the influence of German, which, in the centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Prague was even the capital - and its successor the Austro-Hungarian empire - was the official language of the country. Remember the Habsburgs? This was their turf.

Finally, the First World War ended the "old order" in Europe, and the Czechs, like many others, became free to create an independent state (well, actually, together with the Slovakians, but that's another story) whose official language would be Czech, and whose culture would reflect a particular local identity and no longer be submerged or subjugated by German/Austrian culture. However - and the Czech story is not unique - it was impossible to draw ethnically "clean" borders, and all over Europe the Versailles Treaty left pockets of ethnic minorities inside states that defined their identity and culture according to the majority. Despite elaborate negotiations to protect national minority rights, minority-majority tensions throughout the region festered between the wars. Indeed, Hitler's excuse for annexing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia was the oppression of the German minority living there - and after the war the Czechs solved the problem by expelling the Germans in short order. This process of trying to match political boundaries to ethnic identities has continued, and in the past twenty years the map of central and eastern Europe has bloomed with still more colors, as smaller and smaller entities have become ethnically defined nation states. And the wars of secession continue.

There are still places where national minority cultural rights are protected by treaty, as we learned when we visited Slovenia on an earlier vacation. But after a century of bloodshed one is entitled to wonder if this system can work in the long run. What are the alternatives? Large political entities in which local ethnic groups have only limited autonomy, but not sovereignty (as under the Habsburgs, or the Soviets)? Relegating ethnicity to the private, voluntary realm, as in the US (i.e., no autonomy at all)? A patchwork of small, ethnically "pure," independent states, which seems to be the current trend? And if the latter, is purity possible? Is it worth the moral cost of the "cleansing" required to attain it?

What does this have to do with us? After all, the Middle East is not Europe (or so we keep being told); as Sharon's advisor Dov Weisglass famously said, peace will come when the Palestinians turn into Finns. Ask a Finn about the Roma (Gypsy) minority there and you are likely to discover that the dilemma of finding a model for the co-existence of different ethnic groups in close quarters is universal, and not just our problem. It was comforting to learn, in Europe, that we are not alone in our quandary; it was daunting to learn that the European experience has not yielded much applicable wisdom to help us solve it.

Remembering Katrina: A Reflection

2010-08-30T16:12:29Z

by Leslie G. Woods
Representative for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C.
Originally posted on the RACBlog

[Editor's Note: for more on the Reform Movement's Gulf response efforts in the five years since Hurricane Katrina, visit our Katrina & New Orleans: 5 years later resource page.]

I arrived in the faith-based advocacy community in Washington, DC, fresh out of divinity school. I had moved to Washington to take an internship in the Public Life and Social Policy Office of the United Church of Christ - a public policy ministry that I was excited to join after three years of study and preparation. I had been told that I would be working on issues of domestic poverty and economic justice. My first day in the office was August 29, 2005.

The first day of a new job is always nerve-wracking, but this day was also tinged with the collective sadness of watching a tragedy unfold. The 24-hour news cycle blared the news of recent and impending hurricane landfalls and of inadequate evacuation plans. I remember sitting with my new colleagues that morning discussing the domestic poverty policy agenda for the coming session of Congress, when Hurricane Katrina came up. In that Monday morning meeting, a collective intake of breath seemed to still the room as we all contemplated what was happening at that very moment. My Presbyterian colleague, in whose chair I sit today, observed that it was the poor who were being left behind to weather the storm. As Hurricane Katrina approached New Orleans, the residents who could, fled, with good reason. Those who owned vehicles jammed the northbound highways, while those without means were left to fend for themselves as a storm of epic proportions bore down on their city.

The evacuation orders had come too late and that morning, there was no time left to escape - one of the levies was already breached and by 9 A.M. the Lower Ninth Ward was under eight feet of water.

Of course, as we contemplated a natural disaster that morning, we had no idea of the human tragedy that was yet to unfold. We did not know how severely the levies would fail, that water would rise to cover the rooftops of houses, that fellow Louisianans would reject at gunpoint their neighbors as they tried to escape the devastated city, or that thousands would be stranded in trees and buildings or trapped for days without food or water in the Convention Center and the Superdome. We did not know that fear and racism would become the ruling principles in the days to come. We could not yet imagine just how woefully inadequate the city's evacuation and disaster-response plans would prove to be.

Now, five years later, I am sad to repeat a truth we all know too well: the Gulf Coast has not enjoyed a smooth road to recovery. Indeed, recovery has been glacially slow and many residents still have not returned home. Some have no home to return to, while others have no wish to return to a city where infrastructure fails to provide basic necessities, such as a functioning health care system and decent public schools. Many have chosen to make a new home in the place where they landed after a botched evacuation left them unsure of where they were going, but certain of what they left behind.

And to add insult to injury, yet another calamity has been inflicted upon the Gulf Coast and its disaster-weary residents: no natural disaster this time however, but a full-fledged human-made catastrophe. The largest oil spill in U.S. history has poisoned Gulf waters and wetlands, shut down the local economy and once again left uncertainty and anxiety in its wake.

And yet, these disasters do not belong only to those who live and work in the affected region. These are national tragedies, shared collective heartbreak that requires us to reflect on our own complicity in the structures that make such catastrophes possible. Poverty and environmental racism are culprits in the Katrina disaster, as is woefully short-sighted government planning. An insatiable appetite for fossil fuel is a culprit in the oil spill, and we see environmental racism at play again as we ask unanswered questions about oil spill waste disposal. Doubtless there are other culprits, and any number of actors in the Gulf and around the nation that will contribute to or hinder what now promises to be decades of recovery and renewal.

It is my prayer that I may contribute constructively to the renewal; that I may confess my culpability and work to combat the structures that tie people into inescapable cycles of poverty and racism. I pray that my small efforts to reduce my own carbon footprint will help to end our national infatuation with fossil fuel. I pray that the little I can do as an individual and an advocate will, combined with efforts of others, amplify our collective intention to change our ways. And I hope that when future storms approach the Gulf Coast, they will be natural disasters, not human ones, and we will rebuild again...together.

Davar Acher: Is That the Best You Can Do?

2010-08-30T02:41:17Z

by Yair Robinson
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

There is a story told by Winston Lord of a speech he wrote for Henry Kissinger. "[Kissinger] called me in the next day and said, 'Is this the best you can do?' . . . this went on eight times, eight drafts; each time he said, 'Is this the best you can do?' So I went in there with a ninth draft, and when he . . . asked me that same question . . . I said, 'Henry, I've beaten my brains out . . . I know it's the best I can do. . . ..' He then looked at me and said, '. . . now I'll read it.'" ¹

Doing one's best has come to be a cop out: something we might say, mealy-mouthed, to avoid improving ourselves. But as this story illustrates, it's actually a challenge--to commit one's faculties and abilities fully to the task at hand.

But what happens when our best isn't enough? At some point, we will say the wrong or hurtful word, we will duck our responsibility to others, we will be overwhelmed by the task before us. What then?

We find an answer this week in our parashah, where turning is mentioned twice (Deuteronomy 30:1?2). First, when our best isn't good enough, we turn to God (v'shavta ad Adonai, "and you return to the Eternal your God," Deuteronomy 30:2). Then, God turns to us (v'shav Adonai, "the Eternal your God will restore . . . ," Deuteronomy 30:3). That turning defines our High Holidays. When we falter we turn and say, "I did my best, but sometimes it wasn't good enough. I'm sorry, and I will do better in the future."

As the High Holy Days approach, ask yourself: when were you at your best this year? What do you need to work on? How will you turn again to God, and those in our community?

No one is perfect, but so long as we strive with all our heart and soul to do our best, we may turn toward blessing.

¹ Taken from an oral history project:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-15/lord1.html

Rabbi Yair Robinson is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington Delaware.

D'var Torah: Nitzavim/Vayeilech: The "Close to You" Mystery

2010-08-30T02:33:27Z

by Amy R. Perlin
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

All the Jewish endings come together every year. Here we are at the last Shabbat of 5770. We are almost at the end of the Torah, with just five chapters left to go. The old year is coming to an end. In just a few days, we will come into the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah seeking guidance and direction as we embark on a new year. If, as I proposed when I began writing these passages on Deuteronomy months ago, the Torah is our GPS for life, where is this week's portion taking us? How many options are we given for this last leg of our journey?

The answer in Deuteronomy 30:11-14 is that we do not have to travel by plane or spacecraft, nor do we need to book a cruise. The blueprint for a new year is closer than we think:

Surely, this Instruction [mitzvah] which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond your reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, "Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?" Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get if for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?" No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

I love that phrase, "the thing is very close to you."But, I ask myself, "What does it mean for something to be close to us?"

I found a passage by an unknown author that answers this question for me.

In Rabbinic literature, we find an interesting story attributed to Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah. Once, Rabbi Joshua was walking on a road seeking his way to an unfamiliar town. He met a young boy at the crossroads. I imagine that the boy was very much like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Rabbi Joshua asked, "Which is the way to town?" The boy, pointing his finger to the right answered, "This road is near and far." He turned to the left, pointed his finger, and said, "This road is far and near."

Now, let's stop right here. As an avid mystery reader, I know that the words used by people can be critical to solving a mystery. "Near and far" . . . "far and near"--which road would you take?

Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah clearly was not a member of the Agatha Christie Society. He took the road to the right, the one the boy told him was near and far, thinking it was the shorter, because he stopped listening actively after the word "near." Yet, soon the rabbi discovered that the way was obstructed by fruit gardens surrounded with fences.

Tired and frustrated, Rabbi Joshua returned and found the boy who had given him directions. "Why did you mislead me?" Rabbi Joshua admonished in a grumpy tone.

"You did not take heed of my directions," the boy responded respectfully. "Did I not say that the road to the right is near and far? It is the nearer road if you ask about distance on a map, but because of the garden barriers, it is the farther involving more time and effort to traverse. I told you that the other road was far and near. It is further on the map, but nearer because it is clear and unobstructed" (Babylonian Talmud, Eiruvin 53b and Midrash Eichah Rabbah 1, in Moments of Transcendence: Inspirational Readings for Rosh Hashanah, ed. Dov Peretz Elkins [Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992], p. 32)

God tells us in Deuteronomy that Torah and mitzvot are not far from us in the heavens or across the sea. We are too often like the impatient Rabbi Joshua, asking for directions but not truly listening to them, clear as they may be. Moreover, we do not ask very many follow up questions, an important tool in solving any mystery. Too often, we don't hear someone out before we act or jump to conclusions. God doesn't only say that the answer is "close to you." God actually tells us the location of this incredible gift of Torah: "[it is] in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it."

When we come into our synagogues on the High Holy Days, we will ask forgiveness for all of the times we took the long way through the fences and orchards and other obstacles with our mouths and the words that came out of them. We didn't let the Torah guide our speech or our writing, and it ultimately took us a lot longer to remedy a detour that could have been a straight path guided by kindness, compassion, and understanding.

We will seek atonement as we enter 5771 for all of the times we were deaf to our hearts' pleas for respite, when we knew that Shabbat would give us peace and rest. Instead, we took the seemingly shorter route by continuing our work and our responsibilities leaving ourselves no time for a Sabbath of rest. Yet, this "shortcut" ultimately created an over-programmed and far less-fulfilling life in which we expended great time and energy with little personal or spiritual result.

Observance not only takes less time, but in the end, it offers a better, clearer, and unobstructed path. The observant Jew knows that keeping Torah close to you is the direct way to Shabbat and holidays, study and spirituality, mitzvot and acts of social justice. The mitzvot add meaning, purpose, and direction in a life filled with stress and struggles. As Reform Jews, we need to remember that a life guided by Torah is for us as well.

Often we are Rabbi Joshua, quick to blame the giver of directions--God, rabbis, teachers, tradition, or Torah. But, patiently and lovingly, a modern, authentic Judaism is the boy at the crossroads offering the way, if we would only listen, reflect, and seek answers when the way is unclear.

Sh'ma Yisrael, "Listen Israel!" This week's portion is offering you a direction: Take the road that is far but near. It is very close to you.

Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D. D., is the senior and founding rabbi of Temple B'nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, Virginia beginning its twenty-fifth anniversary year with the new year 5771.

A Call For A Moratorium On Shabbat Weddings

2010-08-26T18:55:33Z

by Rabbi Leon A. Morris
Temple Adas Israel, Sag Harbor, NY
(Originally posted on The Jewish Week)

The recent wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky has triggered a spate of articles about interfaith marriage, rabbinic officiation, co-officiation with Christian clergy and the like. Considerably less attention has been focused on the fact that the wedding took place on a Saturday before nightfall. Perhaps this was deemed less newsworthy because it has become so commonplace. I'm asking myself whether the most publicized Shabbat wedding in American Jewish history might have the unintended consequence of questioning anew the propriety of performing weddings on the Sabbath.

The need for Shabbat is greater now than ever before. Folks from widely divergent population segments are beginning to reclaim the Sabbath in a variety of ways. There are the hundreds of secular Israelis gathering at the Tel Aviv port to welcome Shabbat with prayer, poetry and song. There are the innovative hipsters of the Shabbat Manifesto declaring a "national day of unplugging," inspiring thousands of individuals to "put down their cell phones, stop their status updates on Facebook, shut down Twitter, sign out of e-mail and relax." A best-selling book on the Sabbath was published this past spring that prompted several stories in The New York Times about the reconsideration of the Sabbath. Families are looking for ways to connect with each other, and to re-institute the family dinner at least once each week. The time is ripe for us to be more strident in our embrace of Shabbat, particularly in the public domain.

In addition, our increasing environmental awareness reminds us of our own place in the larger universe. Deciding to officiate at Saturday weddings after 6 p.m. is not only arbitrary but represents a kind of environmental hubris in which human beings think that they have the power to make the stars appear earlier. With all of our human knowledge and advancement, we still cannot cause the sun to set. We experience awe of the cosmos when we make ourselves subject to time that lies beyond our control.

The prohibition of marriage on Shabbat is a rabbinic ordinance connected to the concern that the ketubah might be written on Shabbat. It is based upon the notion that traditional Jewish marriage is a form of kinyan (acquisition). To be sure, rabbinic sources from as early as the 12th century have in fact permitted weddings to take place in particular circumstances and under emergency situations on Shabbat. But Shabbat weddings in contemporary Jewish life today are not the unusual circumstance but rather de rigueur.

And while Reform rabbis may not be particularly concerned with writing, and do not view contemporary marriage as a form of kinyan, there are hosts of additional ways in which today's weddings, with their lavish array of photographers, florists, musicians, and caterers, are even more clearly incompatible with the sanctity of Shabbat.

In 1976, the question was raised with the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform rabbinical association. In a strongly worded responsum, the committee upheld the traditional prohibition on performing weddings on Shabbat. It noted that Shabbat weddings would weaken a revived effort within the Reform movement to deepen and intensify Shabbat observance, and went even further to discourage all Saturday evening weddings, even when held after dark, because "they involve preparations on Shabbat which are not keeping with the spirit of rest and holiness of Shabbat."

While we might expect a wholesale rejection of the notion of kinyan in contemporary marriage, thereby opening up the possibility of Shabbat weddings, the Reform Responsa committee's most interesting objection was anchored in this very notion. The committee recognized the economic considerations of marriage -- such as property rights and insurance benefits -- as aspects of kinyan that continue to this day and asserted that these constitute transactions inappropriate for Shabbat.

The boldest line in that 1976 responsum that sums up the committee's objection to Shabbat weddings is that "we prefer to give allegiance to a hallowed tradition rather than to honor mere convenience."

Shabbat is aspirational. It includes both the aspect of zachor (remembering the Sabbath), of honoring the day by what we do, as well as the aspect of shamor (keeping the Sabbath), honoring the day by what we refrain from doing. Yes, the overwhelming majority of Jews who ask us to marry them do not mark Shabbat in ways that curtail their activities. But people look to us to represent for them Judaism's highest religious aspirations. Our mission is to make our best attempt to represent the ideal. Our role as religious leaders presents us with opportunities to model what it means to take time seriously, to honor a day, to live in symbolic ways that speak to the kind of Jewish world we would like to see and are committing ourselves to creating.

Let's be as willing to defend the power and potential of Shabbat as we are about defending the right of couples to decide the precise hour and day of their wedding. I call on my fellow Reform rabbis (and cantors) to declare a moratorium on Shabbat weddings.

Receiving Torah

2010-08-26T15:51:09Z

by Virginia Avniel Spatz
Member of Temple Micah, Washington, DC

How does one receive the Torah? Not in a mystical, Standing-at-Sinai sense or even in an educational sense. In a physical sense: What is a Jew to do when the Torah scroll is in physical proximity?

This topic was raised recently by Larry Kaufman's post, "Going Round in Circles," and it arises frequently on Shabbat mornings. During the hakafah [procession circling the congregation before and/or after the reading], some worshippers in our congregation actively approach the scroll to touch it, and some visibly draw back. On the bima, some participants comfortably handle the sefer Torah [the scroll], while some cringe through awkward moments of access. Our temple's Hebrew poetry group recently discussed, in the context of a Yehuda Amichai poem about childhood synagogue experiences, the concept of the scroll being "dressed" and "naked."

I recalled one week when a young person -- in the regular bar/bat mitzvah pre-reading hakafah -- held the scroll at a strange angle, so the cover was dangling off, leaving the parchment exposed. My seat was at the end of the procession, so I had to watch as a "naked" scroll was carried through the congregation before I could reach out to tuck in the cover and then touch the "dressed" scroll with my tzitzit [fringe of the prayer shawl].

As long as I can remember, I've been the one who quietly points out an unbuttoned blouse or closes the door while others cast nasty looks at noisemakers outside. But I think the urge and habit to interfere in that way is just part of the reason that I was the only person, as far as I could see, to attempt re-clothing the Torah. The issue of the scroll's exposure is a complex subject for another time. Instead, I'd like to tackle the relatively simpler idea of Torah "ownership."

I am among a dozen or so regulars who lead services during the rabbis' absence over the summer. When I first joined the temple, I was one of a small group that learned to chant from the Torah. As part of the temple's Kol Isha, a group exploring Judaism from a woman's perspective, I helped prepare and conduct services several times in years past. So, I physically interact with the Torah more often than many members of the congregation. Moreover, my children and I also worship in (non-Reform) havurot [fellowships]. In smaller groups, touching the Torah is a regular part of making things work: finding the reading; accepting an aliyah; holding, lifting, wrapping the Torah; and/or reading from the scroll or leading the service.

These experiences mean that I know how to approach a sefer Torah and feel an affinity that suggests a mutual ownership or belonging: I feel that the Torah -- even in a scroll that I've never seen before -- belongs to me and vice versa. Summer regulars and others who have more chances to interact with the Torah feel similarly, I believe. Can -- and should -- we foster this feeling more widely in our congregations? How might this be done?

One answer is education, formal and informal. For example, the independent Fabrangen Havurah (Washington, DC) used to have the practice of allowing hundreds of participants the opportunity to hold a scroll during the Yom Kippur Torah service. This hand-to-hand hakafah was preceded by instructions: put one arm under the round part of the eitzim [the "trees" or wooden holders], as if cradling an infant's bottom; lean the body into your torso and put the other arm lightly across the scroll's top as if protecting a child's head. Squeezing the scroll, potentially damaging the parchment, is no more welcome than squishing a child's stomach and/or ribs. The upright posture gives the child and the Torah dignity and allows for a comfortable hand-off.

The mid-service hand-to-hand process took a long time and had its detractors, one of whom often muttered, "Come any Shabbat, and I will personally hand you a Torah." But the lesson worked, I maintain, precisely because it took up a major chunk of prime time, showing that the skill was valued and conveying the dual message: "Anyone can do this; this is not an 'anything goes' situation."

Philosophical issues around the sefer Torah as a worship object don't disappear simply from learning to handle access to a scroll -- or, at least, they haven't disappeared for me. Instead, learning to "own" the Torah makes access to a scroll simultaneously more comfortable and more challenging, in short: more meaningful.

High Holy Day Challenge: Sing with Understanding

2010-08-25T16:56:54Z

by Linda K. Wertheimer
(originally posted on Jewish Muse)

We say, chant, and sing most prayers in Hebrew in my Reform Jewish congregation in suburban Boston. And during High Holy Days, as a member of my temple chorus, I sing two overstuffed binders of prayers almost exclusively in Hebrew. Sometimes, it gives me a headache to sort out the meaning of prayers. And yet, I don't really wish for anything else. Judaism has a gift - that the world over, Jews pray in the same language.

My temple chorus began rehearsals this week for High Holy day services. I relaxed as we sang Avinu Malkenu, so well known to me that the words flow easily from my tongue. I tensed when we started working on Sh'ma Koleynu, the opening anthem for Erev Rosh Hashanah. I knew neither the tune nor the words. I gave myself a challenge: By the time High Holy Days starts, I want to understand this particular prayer.

I will learn to treasure it. I do not want to sing this opening piece hidden behind my chorus binder. Nor do I want to sing the prayer as if it were just words and notes on paper. Experience what could be a majestic beginning to the Days of Awe. That is my goal - and challenge.

At rehearsal, our chorus stumbled some as we first sight-read a version of Sh'ma Koleynu written by an unknown composer. The piece called for singing with movement and energy. We sang it slowly and unsurely at first. Then our cantor at Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Mass., sang it. Even with a cold hampering her, she sang soulfully. We tried again as a chorus, and our second attempt was more melodic. And yet, I still felt wooden as I sang. I knew the words, "Sh'ma Koleynu," meant "Hear our voices." But that was about all I understood.

The cantor asked who knew the translation. A young man in the chorus translated it word by word, then the cantor summarized. By singing this piece, we are expressing a sense of longing that we want our prayers to be heard for a good year for us - and for the congregation. Realize, she told us, that this piece sets the tone for the High Holy Days. Ah, it is a prayer that issues a plea that the Lord hears our prayers for a good year, not just for ourselves but for everyone in the sanctuary. That I could grasp. I looked at the piece some more and recognized more Hebrew words. T'filah, I knew, meant prayer. So "t'filateynu" simply translates to "our prayers."

Every year, the High Holy Days remind me how long my journey closer to my faith will be - a lifelong journey. I did not attend High Holy Day services during childhood. My first experience with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services was in college when I went to a campus service with an Orthodox student. I understood nothing. I rarely went to a service again until about a decade ago when I became a regular at High Holy Day services as a chorus member. Singing in the services makes the liturgy more accessible to me. To sing something, I push myself to understand the lyrics, whether the piece is a prayer or a Broadway show tune.

Roughly three weeks remain until Rosh Hashanah. I will begin responding to my own challenge in the easiest way I know how - by understanding the first phrase of the song. "Sh'ma koleynu Adonai Eloheynu." Hear our voices, Lord our G-d.

Going Round in Circles

2010-08-24T20:44:33Z

by Larry Kaufman

A current discussion on the Union's worship listserv started with a simple question about Reform practice vis-a-vis hakafa-- marching around the sanctuary with the Torah before reading from it. Practice of course varies from Reform congregation to Reform congregation (and perhaps in some congregations between Shabbat and the High Holy Days). But perhaps a clear-cut clue to the acceptance of the Torah processional in today's Reform is that it is seemingly taken for granted at what is probably the best-attended Reform service anywhere in the Movement, including High Holy Day services -- Shabbat morning at the Biennial. (Remember the on-line furor last year when the officiating rabbi suggested the assembly sit for the Shma?)

I started attending Biennials in the early eighties, but didn't become conscious of the hakafa until I became a Torah carrier as a regional president in the early nineties. This is not to say it wasn't happening earlier, only that its presence or absence would probably not have registered.

At my current congregation, hakafa was already a given when I became a member there three years ago. At my previous congregation, I was involved perhaps twenty-five years ago in making it minhag hamakom, the custom of the place. Hakafa had already become part of the routine at the monthly Family Service -- apparently at the urging of the assistant rabbis and the religious school principal. I got a call one day from the senior rabbi -- I was one of the people he routinely consulted when he was "taking the temperature" of the congregation -- who said "the guys" (his affectionate term for his younger colleagues) were pushing to extend the minhag to every Shabbat, and what did I think.

I told him that, as a kid in a Conservative congregation, I had instinctively been distressed, not by the processional, but by the touching and kissing that occurred during the processional, which struck me even then as avodah zarah, idol worship. As an adult, I still had that reaction, but it was tempered by watching the fervor with which congregants rushed to the aisle to be close to the sacred scroll. So my response to the rabbi was, "I hate it. Do it." It seemed like a good way to give people an opportunity to connect to Torah physically and emotionally, since relatively few have the opportunity to have regular direct access or other proximity to a scroll.

I would give the same advice today. I still do not reach out to the scroll during the hakafa, nor do I touch it with my tallit when I am given the honor of an aliyah -- but I have learned to draw the distinction between reacting to a symbol and attaching undue importance to a physical object. This is partly because I interpret the acceptance of new-old ritual as a manifestation of the key change in Reform over the generations -- its metamorphosis from the austere intellectuality and rationalism that characterized its Classical period to the mellower spirituality and mysticality (if I may coin a word -- I don't mean mysticism) that is more reflective of today's approach.

This is not to advocate a feel-good approach, but to recognize a potential feel-good outcome as desirable. (See here for more about feel-good Judaism.)

Meanwhile I read on the web site of the nearby Congregation Hakafa that the word itself means encirclement. My Hebrew-English desk dictionary defines it as going around. But if anyone wants to characterize a discussion about hakafa as going around in circles, I remind you that an argument for the sake of heaven is itself holy.

Davar Acher: Preparing for Miracles

2010-08-24T20:16:28Z

by David M. Frank
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

Indeed, understanding is a central theme of Ki Tavo. Moses assembles the Israelites and, pointing out the great miracles they have experienced, he says: "Yet to this day the Eternal has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:3).

Why? Why, only many years later could the Israelites understand all they had previously witnessed and experienced?

In a poem called, "Miracles," Yehuda Amichai explains:

From far away, everything looks like a miracle,
But up close, even a miracle doesn't look like one.
Even a crosser of the divided Red Sea
Saw only the sweating back of the walker in front of him
And the movement of his large thighs . . .
(Modern Poetry in Translation, New Series, no. 4, winter 1993-94)

Often, we are just too caught up in the demands of the hour to perceive the miracle of which we are a part. Only later does understanding dawn and we realize that, in the words of our patriarch Jacob, "Truly, the Eternal is in this place, and I did not know it" (Genesis 28:16).

This is precisely why we all need a spiritual practice. For, the goal of a spiritually present person is to have a heightened awareness of what is happening at the moment, rather than delayed recognition. I have found that Torah and mitzvot prepare me for those moments of wonder, of holy encounter, of awe. They give me "eyes to see and ears to hear." They hone my sensitivity to the potential of a miracle arising out of any ordinary day.

Especially in our hyper culture, we need the perspective of Torah and mitzvot to draw coherence and understanding from our chaotic days and nights. So, accordingly, does our prayer book affirm Torah as that guide: "You grace humans with knowledge and teach understanding" (T'filah, Binah).

Rabbi David M. Frank, D.D., is the senior rabbi at Temple Solel, Cardiff by the Sea, California.

My Summer of Remembering

2010-08-24T17:34:59Z

by JanetheWriter
Originally posted on JanetheWriter Writes...

With my mother's death earlier this summer, I've become my family's "Keeper of the Yahrzeit List." So, while some of my friends may be having a summer to remember, I seem to be having a summer of remembering.

First it was Grandma, my mother's mother, whose yahrzeit falls on July 25th. She's in my heart always, and in my writing frequently. You can read some of my reminiscences and reflections about her here and here and here.

Next was Uncle Irv's yahrzeit on August 7th. He too has been the subject of my musings.

Tonight is Tante Mina's yahrzeit. My sister Amy is named for her -- Leah Meryl -- but I didn't know anything more, so I asked Aunt Claire, my mother's sister. Here's what she had to say:

Tante Mina was a cousin. I don't know how she was related. She was a very short lady and we always used to measure our height against hers. At a very young age we found ourselves taller than her. To know her was to love her because she was so sweet and kind. She was widowed at an early age. I never knew her husband. She was rather poor, and as she got older she arranged to go to a Jewish home for the aged. She was very happy there; she loved the arts and crafts classes and also volunteered to feed those people in the home who were unable to feed themselves. She was a "gutte neshumah," a good soul. We try to remember her because there is no one else to do so.

And so it is that earlier tonight I lit a yahrzeit candle (that's it up there on the right) for Tante Mina. As I think about her on her yahrzeit, may her memory -- like those of so many others -- be a blessing.

A few days later, I received this email from my Aunt Claire:

Dear Jane,

Brian and Carolyn are here for a few days. I was showing Carolyn some old family pictures and came across this one of Tante Mina, which I scanned and am sending to you as an attachment. In the picture, which is dated 1959, Tante Mina (at age 80) received some kind of honor at the Home of the Daughters of Jacob. She is standing with Abe Ribicoff (at the mike), who was the governor of Connecticut at that time, and later became Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, in President Kennedy's Cabinet.

Since we just spoke about her a few days ago, I thought that you might like this picture.

I am not sure of my scanning ability, so let me know whether you receive the attachment intact.

Shabbat shalom and love,
Aunt Claire

In fact, the first version of the photo she sent did not come through, but as you can see, the second one most certainly did.

Not only am I pleased to see this photo of Tante Mina, but I am most impressed with the computer technology skills and persistence of my aunt!

Galilee Diary: Summer holiday

2010-08-24T14:54:47Z

by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)

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It was forbidden to allow the posthumous destruction of Man, God, and - this even for the most secularist of Jews - that hope without which a Jew cannot live, the hope which is the gift of Judaism to all humanity. To deny Hitler the posthumous victory of destroying this faith was a moral-religious commandment. I no longer hesitated to call it the 614th commandment.

-Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World (preface)

It was supposed to be simply a vacation, fairly last minute: we really didn't have the time or budget to plan a vacation this summer, so we found four days between obligations, added up our frequent flier miles, and booked a trip to Prague. We were looking for "escape," without email or cell phones, a different climate, different culture, pleasures of the senses. We had resigned ourselves to being surrounded by Israelis, as Prague is a hugely popular destination for 3- and 4-day packages from Israel. But apparently we were the last Israelis who hadn't been there, as we heard almost no Hebrew. And indeed, Prague is a breathtakingly beautiful city, where we walked our feet off, tried to keep straight the fascinating history, attended concerts, marveled at the architecture, shopped for souvenirs, managed to find decent food, and had a lovely time.

However, in reading the guide book, I discovered that Terezin (Theresienstadt) is just 50 minutes away by public bus, and though I have never been enthusiastic about Holocaust tourism, we both felt the need to go. The trip is through rolling farmland, through a few not-very-prosperous-looking small towns, to a town built originally as an 18th century fortress surrounded by brick ramparts and a moat; later it was a garrison town, and then finally just a town of a few thousand Czechs, who were driven out by the Nazis when they converted the place into a transit ghetto. Today parts of the massive barracks and storage buildings are crumbling; some have been restored. Czechs have returned to live in them, and as we ate our picnic lunch on a decrepit park bench (communist era?), semi-trailers rolled through the town and locals passed by on bikes and tractors and cars. The place feels semi-deserted, and sad. We were accosted twice by drunken beggars. There is an impressive museum that documents the horrors of the place - and the triumph of the human spirit, the spiritual resistance to tyranny that was demonstrated in the rich cultural life of the ghetto. The tour route through town includes the cemetery and the crematoria that were built when the cemetery couldn't keep up. The whole day felt surreal, an outing in the country to a place of such horror, where innocent people today live their lives in the same streets and buildings. Your mind can't really put it all together, and the dissonance of different experiences and feelings is numbing. And then you go out to the weedy bus stop on the highway and take the 3:05 back to Prague.

That was Friday. On Saturday we went to services at the Altneu Schule, a synagogue built in gothic style in 1270, that has survived fires and floods and religious wars, the Holocaust and communism, basically unscathed, and is today the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe. It is rather austere, with wrought iron railings and well-worn dark wood furnishings, a high vaulted ceiling, thick walls, and high narrow windows. The walls are beige plaster and stone, with almost no decoration. I sat a few seats away from the seat of the Maharal, one of the greatest names in European Jewish scholarship (16th century); there were about 100 people altogether, pretty much filling the place. Most were tourists or expatriates, though there was obviously a hard core of locals (there are about 6,000 Jews in Prague today). I was feeling sort of emotional about the transition - visiting the crematorium yesterday, praying in a thousand-year old synagogue today - when the gabbai asked me if I would take the maftiraliyah (meaning, to chant the Haftarah). Not because I was a rabbi or anything, just because I was a Jew, a guest, who came on time and sat near the front. I felt like a bar mitzvah boy, hearing my own voice echoing in the gothic vaults, keeping the 614th commandment.