As I commented on Rabbi Balin’s post, the early Reformers deserve high marks for the institution of confirmation as a replacement for bar mitzvah, even though over the long haul their innovation did not “take.” Mr. Shainker pointed out confirmation extended, typically by two or three years, the years of Jewish education a youngster received. More important, it was applicable to girls as well as to boys; and it was a communal event rather than putting a spotlight on an individual.

And by making the wondrous connection between the acceptance of Torah at Mount Sinai on Shavuot and the acceptance of Torah by teen-agers at confirmation on Shavuot, those prescient rabbis even found a way to fill seats in their sanctuaries on the least observed of the shalosh regalim, the three festivals. (At least some did. In my once Classic Reform congregation, to the consternation of those who believed that confirmation on Shavuot had been proclaimed at Sinai, confirmation had often been held on the nearest Sunday morning, which at that time was the best-attended of the weekend worship opportunities.)

Today, confirmation is a shadow of what it once was. When my son was a religious school student 35 years ago, not all the boys in his religious school classes were aiming at observing a bar mitzvah, and none of the girls. But by the time I became president of that congregation, some 15 years later, both bar and bat mitzvah had become virtually universal.

As president, I was approached by Associate Rabbi Donald Rossoff, now Senior Rabbi at B’nai Or in Morristown, NJ, and religious school principal Barbara “Cookie” Gross, soliciting my support in implementing the radical proposal  that we move confirmation from 10^th grade to 12^th grade. They pointed out that all of the kids in the high school/youth group (you couldn’t be in one without being in the other) had had b’nai mitzvah ceremonies; and those that didn’t drop out immediately after tended to stay until high school graduation, and thus couldn’t see any relevance or significance to an intermediate ceremony.

What was Temple Sholom’s secret weapon that kept those teens throughout high school? Don and Cookie tied it to the youth group trip to Israel, which was held every three years. To be eligible to go on the trip, you had to be in the high school program. If you had just missed a trip, you hung on the extra years so you could go; if the trip’s timing let you go early in your high school career, you bonded so much with your traveling companions – both adults and peers – that you wanted to keep the connection.

Although I understood and liked the idea, I foresaw it as being potentially very contentious and divisive. Accordingly, the three of us sat down with Senior Rabbi Fred Schwartz z”l to map out a strategy to make it happen. What we did was to make everybody a stakeholder, and thus have the proposal examined not just in the Religious School Committee, but also in the Worship Committee (because of its presumed impact on Shavuot services) and in the House Committee (because of its presumed impact on facility utilization) and by the Sisterhood (because of their role in gifting each confirmand). By the time we actually brought the proposal to the Board for action, everyone had been exposed to the issue, had had time to geet used to it, think about it and discuss it, and we believed we had the votes to move forward with it.

We were right. The motion passed almost unanimously, but two members of the Board asked to be recorded as having been in opposition.

I would not have been surprised by opposition from those whose mantra was “this is the way we’ve always done it.” But the two naysayers were both people I considered as Jewish education maximalists, and thus their opposition was a puzzlement. However, after the meeting, each came over to me to explain himself. Ed said originally he had favored the motion, until someone pointed out that the idea of adding two years to the confirmation process had originated with the students. He didn’t want it thought in the community that policy was being made at Temple Sholom by teenagers. Norman’s negativism came from a totally different direction. Confirmation, he said, is a very goyish (gentile) concept, and we shouldn’t be moving it, we should be getting rid of it altogether!

In actuality, Norman’s position came to pass; after a year or so, the term “confirmation” was dropped, along with the Shavuot connection, and the high school graduation ceremony became part of a Shabbat evening service toward the end of May. That’s also the minhag at Beth Emet, my current congregation, where the Friday night ceremony for 12^th graders is called Kabbalat Torah (receiving Torah). Being a relative newcomer, however, I don’t know when 12^th grade was established as the terminal point, nor when the C word left the congregation’s vocabulary, nor if and when a separation from Shavuot took place. (I know the congregation had confirmation, because class pictures are on display in the religious school corridor.)

The important point, however, as others have said, is that whenever the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony takes place, and whether it is an individual or a group event, our challenge is to make it a beginning and not an end point. I’m proud of having been part of possibly the first congregation to institute 12^th grade confirmation, and to have done so by recognizing that retention is relationship-based. We used to call ourselves “the people of the Book.” But at any age, our Jewish connection to the Book is tied to our connection to people; and the way we foster Torah is by fostering community.

That night, my wife, Dana Gershon, the outgoing president of The Rashi School’s board of trustees, will be honored at the school’s annual dinner. Dana has been president of the board for two years and, with four daughters, all of whom are Rashi students, we spend a lot of time at 8000 Great Meadow Road in Dedham, where we’re all part of the wonderful kehillah that is Rashi. Needless to say, between meetings, classes, sports, parent-teacher conferences, plays, t’filah, and more, it’s very often where our family hangs out.

What a wonderful opportunity that evening will be for me, as a husband and a father, to celebrate the people I love.

What a wonderful opportunity it will be for us as a family to celebrate the school we love.

That celebration, though, will only happen after a day at The Rashi School. Instead of hanging with Dana and the girls as I usually do there, I’ll be spending the day with incoming URJ President Rick Jacobs, NATE President Lisa Barzilai, PARDES Executive Director Jane West Walsh, and other leaders from the Union, the CCAR and HUC-JIR. We’ll be joined by 10 HUC-JIR students, future rabbis, cantors and educators who were selected from a host of applicants to visit Rashi for a week of experiential learning about Reform day school education in the 21^st century.  They’ll attend classes, participate in t’fillot, and confer with teachers and administrators as part of the Reform Day School Externship, jointly sponsored by Rashi, the URJ, HUC-JIR and PARDES: Day Schools of Reform Judaism.

I’m excited to introduce my colleagues to Rashi and to show them the power and potential of Reform Jewish day schools as we meet with students, parents and administrators, and attend the school’s Memorial Day commemoration. Even more exciting to me, though, is that 10 HUC students—my future colleagues—will, over the course of a full week, see this power and potential firsthand.  I am confident that by the time they return home, they’ll have acquired a deep understanding of many facets of Reform Jewish day schools that they’ll share with fellow students now and incorporate into their future work as rabbis, cantors, and educators.

Prior to my appointment as senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, I spent a decade as a community organizer, first at Boston’s Temple Israel and more recently as the founder of the Union’s Just Congregations initiative. One of the central tenets of community organizing is to build capacity for the future. Without a doubt, Rashi’s Reform Day School Externship is capacity-building at its best.

What a wonderful opportunity that day will be for me, as a rabbi and a community organizer, to share and celebrate the work I love.

As a typical teenager, I do a lot of extra-curricular and academic activities, attend high school, and spend lots of time with my family and friends.

However, I spend minimal to no time learning about Israel. I know very little about Israel; my knowledge is extended to what I have learned from my years in Hebrew school and what I know from my Middle Eastern History class.

While I have had the limited opportunity to learn about Israeli politics, I have no idea what the culture and land itself is like.

I am incredibly excited to travel with NFTY to Israel to learn all about Israeli culture, people, climate, land, terrain, and many more things that I would never be able to truly understand without visiting Israel. Visiting such a beautiful country is one of the things I am most looking forward to.

Additionally, I am very excited to spend time with other Jewish teens. I don’t belong to a youth group at home, so this trip will be one of the first times I am surrounded by kids my age that all share the same religious background. I am also ecstatic to make new friends, and I know my Israel trip will be a memory I will keep for the rest of my life.

I know my group will be a great team of kids. I’m sure we will have a blast traveling, hiking, camping, shopping, and learning while on this trip. I expect to learn more about Israel as a place and to get to know what life as an Israeli teen would be like. In addition, I can’t wait to find out all about the beautiful land in Israel. All in all, I am incredibly excited and cannot wait for this upcoming summer!

Ruby Macsai-Goren is a 2012 NFTY in Israel Participant from Evanston, IL.

This is the first in a series of profiles of participants who will be joining us this summer in Israel on NFTY in Israel, KESHER Taglit-Birthright Israel, and the NFTY-EIE High School in Israel. We asked people to share what they are expecting, anticipating, and most looking forward to. If you’ll be joining us in Israel this summer and would like to write for this feature on our blog, send us an email at rjisrael@urj.org!

Originally posted at Youth and College Israel Programs: The Blog

Last week I was in Israel attending the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Summer Staff Seminar where, together with many of the URJ Camp Directors, I met with and helped to prepare the Israeli staff who have been hired to come and work at our  URJ camps this summer.  During the seminar, we provide the Israeli staff the opportunity to participate in a camp like Shabbat service that might take place at one of our camps. I was asked to present a D’var Torah, and I chose to relate the Parsha to everything that we have done at Coleman over the past five years to advocate for the release of Gilad Shalit who was returned to his family last fall after being held for 5 years in captivity by Hamas.

Hanoch Greenberg, Bobby Harris, and Ronen Ganel Visit with Gilad Shalit

Ironically, just three days later, I was surprised and amazed to find myself  visiting with Gilad  in an apartment in Tel Aviv. Eitan Winerich, a former Coleman Shaliach and Basketball specialist from 1998 and a family friend of the Shalit family, arranged for the meeting to take place. During the meeting, I had the opportunity, along with Ronen Ganel and Hanoch Greenberg (two longtime Coleman staff members from Israel), to speak with Gilad about movies, travel, the NBA, and Camp Coleman.

At the end of last summer, I told the Coleman community that if we keep on working for his release and never forget,  that one day, maybe even by next summer, Gilad might be able to celebrate Shabbat with his family or even with us at Coleman – you never know.

D’var Torah- Delivered May 4 at Kibbutz Shefayim to 2012 URJ Israel Delegation

In the Torah portion of this week, Emor, we read “when you reap the harvest of your fields we need to leave the corners of our fields.” In order for us to have bountiful fields and a fruitful harvest , experience has taught us that we need to plant everything in its proper season. We  also have learned how to work with various types of soils and what to add to them in order that they may yield a rich harvest.

The story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree told to me by my friend and colleague Rabbi Mark Covitz illustrates the connection between patience and agricultural success. It seems that  when the Chinese Bamboo Tree is planted, watered, and nurtured for an entire growing season it doesn’t outwardly grow even an inch. Then, after the second year, a season in which the farmer takes extra care to water, fertilize and care for the bamboo tree, the tree still does not sprout. So it goes as the sun rises and sets for four solid years. The farmer and his wife have nothing tangible to show for all of their labor trying to grow the tree.

Then, along comes year five.

In the fifth year the Chinese Bamboo Tree seed finally sprouts and the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet in just one growing season!

To  enable wonderful things to happen very often requires patience, hard work, and usually struggle. It is in this spirit of recognizing that great things can happen even when we think that they may never happen- even after 5 years, when we are about to give up.

I want to show you a photo that looks like it could have been taken in Israel but was actually taken in Cleveland, GA, a town of 1907 people.

This past summer, our Mishlachat [Israeli staff] at Camp Coleman stepped up and educated a community of 800 children and 200 staff from all over the world about an Israeli prisoner of war that few if any of them had ever heard of.

Outside our Dining Hall at Camp Coleman we set up a tent for Gilad Shalit, modeled after the tent that was created here in Israel, to remind people of Gilad’s captivity and to advocate for his release from the hands of Hamas.

The campers all learned about him, wrote letters of support to his family, petitioned the UN for his release, raised money to support organizations dedicated to educating about his plight, and held a a silent march–which believe me, in the 50 years of camp might be the most silent that camp ever was. This march is what is captured in the photo, and we also videotaped the march. Make no mistake about it, it was the Kavod [respect] that our Kehillah [community] has for the Mislachat that made this silence and this Kavod for Gilad possible.  After the march, many of the campers came up to me and many members of the delegation thanking us for teaching them about Gilad…IF the story had only ended there, DAYENU.

But it doesn’t. During the summer our  video specialist, David Chernak, accompanied our NFTY teens on their pilgrimage  to Israel and showed Gilad’s parents a video clip of the march that we had at camp. He told the parents that all ages of kids learned about Gilad’s situation and showed them a book of letters that the kids wrote to them. Gilad’s father told David to say “Todah Rabah to Camp Coleman” for doing what we did.  While David was with Gilad’s parents he taped them watching the march at Coleman (which had occurred just a few days earlier). David emailed the video clip back to us at Coleman, and the Coleman kids and staff actually had a chance to see firsthand that Gilad’s parents genuinely appreciated their concern. But the story does not end there, as you know, because Gilad was released in October, and on October 11, I received the following Facebook message from one of the members of our delegation:

Hi Bobby,

In this special day for the Jewish people around the world i wanted to say a big thank’s to you! When i see the hundreds of coleman members- campers and counselours from all over the world publishing status of happiness and excitement for the returning of the kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit i have to confess it makes me feel like we did something important. Thank you for the opportunity of bringing this important topic to the Coleman family!! It’s a holiday for the Israeli nation and the jewish people around the world!! And the Coleman family!

Just Thank’s it means a lot!!

Shana Tova

So, in more ways than one, the journey comes full circle – for this Shaliach, for Gilad, and for Israel.

So, even when all hope seems lost, certain truths and certain connections can not be broken or lost. These truths and connections actually define who we are- in this case as North Americans, Israelis, and as Jews.

Across space, across time, if we are patient and work toward it, we can sometimes find the  way for wonderful things to happen. As it is written “to save one life it is as if we have saved the entire world.”

Bobby Harris is the Director of Youth and Camping Services for the Southeast Region of the URJ, and a Certified Camp Director from the American Camping Association. Bobby has been the Director of Camp Coleman since 1992 and has directed camps since 1986.

Originally posted at Summer Central: URJ Camp Coleman’s Blog

So who could have prevented our destruction? The messenger? The host? Bar Kamtza? The leaders? The emperor? All of the above?

Several years ago an Arab family, the Zabidats, applied for membership in Rakefet, a middle class community of 170 families a few miles from Shorashim. They were rejected and appealed to the Supreme Court, which found in their favor, arguing that if a community does not have a specific and clear religious or ideological character (i.e., Orthodox, or vegetarian, etc.) it may not refuse someone the right to lease state land for a homesite. General Jewishness is not an acceptable criterion for violating the freedom of residence. This outcome left many residents of Rakefet angry, and the story is not over, as the Zabidats are still only in the planning stages for their new home.

On the day before this past Memorial Day (which is the day before Independence Day), the Zabidats, who are both architects, came to make measurements on their lot in Rakefet. They found a large Israeli flag hanging on their next-door neighbor’s fence facing their property. During the weeks before Independence Day, flying the flag is a big part of the national culture – public buildings fly huge ones, many people hang them around their houses, and kids at intersections sell little flags that attach to your car. The Zabidats took it down, folded it neatly, and took it to the Rakefet office, saying that they preferred that people not hang flags on their property without their permission. ”We are good citizens,” they said, “but we are not Zionists, and choose not to fly the flag on Independence Day on our property.”

The response was fast and furious. The residents of Rakefet were quick to point out that this provocative act proves that they were right to try to prevent the family from joining the community. The mayor of Misgav county, which includes Rakefet, issued a statement: “Taking down the flag is an unacceptable act. We can accept no explanation for it. The flag of the state is the flag of all of us. This act constitutes a moral and ethical lapse.” On the other hand, the national newspaper Ha’aretz carried an editorial on the incident, arguing that “Whoever hung that flag in the Zabidats’ yard was guilty of brazen trespassing and of undermining freedom of speech. And the real moral and ethical lapse was forcing a clear symbol of Jewish nationalism on the Zabidats…”

Was the flag hung as a provocation? Was taking it down a provocation? Where is the boundary between moral lapse and political stupidity? Is it not possible to decline to be provoked by provocations? Is anybody around here interested in the common good?

And who will we say could have prevented our destruction – the Zabidats? The Supreme Court? The neighbors? The mayor? The leftist press? Those of us who read the paper and turn the page? All of the above?

Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah

Rabbi Pesner was honored for his work as a pioneer in the field of Jewish organizing and particularly for founding Just Congregations, the URJ’s groundbreaking community organizing effort. During his 20-year career, he has engaged thousands of synagogue congregants to join together in successful campaigns for health care access, affordable housing, public education, gay and lesbian rights, and rights for nursing care workers.

Photo courtesy of JOIN for Justice

Speaking at the ceremony were Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the URJ; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center; and Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Program Director, Jewish Life and Values, Nathan Cummings Foundation. Rabbi Rosenn’s remarks follow.

It feels most appropriate to be honoring Jonah in this sanctuary today. In 1996 I joined Jonah’s class for our final year of rabbinical school here at HUC. It just so happens that my most vivid memory of Jonah is of him sitting right there in the first row of that middle section. His hair down to his shoulders, he had a sort of, well, groovy air about him. Jonah had grown up in the bosom of the Reform movement, and was for all intents and purposes the quintessential poster child for the movement.

Though we respected each other from a distance, we really didn’t know each other well. Upon ordination, I went off to be a Hillel Rabbi at Columbia University, and Jonah became an Assistant Rabbi in Westport, Connecticut. And I think it is safe to say, we didn’t expect to see each other again outside of the occasional rabbinic conference.

Fast forward seven years. I had just come to the Nathan Cummings Foundation and as part of developing the field of Jewish social justice, I was thinking about how to grow congregation-based community oOrganizing beyond the handful of synagogues that did organizing back then. Everyone I talked with about it kept telling me about Temple Israel, this synagogue in Boston that really “got” organizing – and no one could tell me about Temple Israel without mentioning in the same breath a remarkable young rabbi named Jonah Pesner.

Around this same time, it became clear to me that the Reform Movement was key to bringing congregation-based community organizing to a larger scale. I began to have conversations with Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the then-president of the Reform Movement, and with Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center – conversations about what it would mean to introduce organizing to many more congregations across the country. I would say they were intrigued and skeptical in about equal measure.

It was not until Jonah came into the picture as a trusted Reform rabbi beloved by his community that Eric and David could fully get on board. And quite honestly, it was not until Jonah took a huge leap of faith leaving Temple Israel to start Just Congregations that the Nathan Cummings Foundation could fully get behind it. Over the last decade, first locally and then on the national stage, Jonah has played an absolutely pivotal role in the burgeoning of organizing in the Jewish community.

In a few minutes, David will speak about Jonah’s impact on the Reform Movement’s social justice work. But I just want to preface that by saying that beyond engaging scores of Reform synagogues across the country in organizing through Just Congregation, Jonah has been an inspiring teacher and mentor to seminarians, working with Jeannie Appleman and Meir Leikin, to train several hundred rabbinical students who in turn are engaging their communities in meaningful social change, joining together across lines of religion, race, and class, all while strengthening the fabric of their congregations. Just as Jonah has been central to the seminary training, so too JOIN for Justice has been blessed to have Jonah’s leadership at the helm.

Indeed Jonah’s leadership has been instrumental to making real the vision of a Jewish community that is developing leaders, building power, and bringing our world closer to wholeness. But what is it about Jonah that makes him such an exceptional leader and someone so many of us learn from? Is it his charisma? His passion? His incredible loyalty? Is it Jonah’s impressive ability to access to his inner preacher? Or how deeply he feels things? Is it his ability to be “relational” at a moment’s notice? Or who knows, maybe it’s the frequency with which he is moved to tears?

I am sure none of these things hurt!

But I actually believe that the power of Jonah’s leadership rests in no small part in the way in which his activism and Jewish life are authentically tied up with one another. This week’s Torah portion, Kedoshim, sometimes referred to as the holiness code, is unique in the way in which it indiscriminately mixes ritual mitzvot with social mitzvot.

In the same passage, we are told not to wear clothes made of two kinds of material and that we should leave the fallen fruit of our vineyard for the poor and the stranger. We are told the proper way to offer a sacrifice to God, what today has become prayer. And we are instructed that the wages of a laborer should not be held until the next morning.

Implicit in this quick succession of laws is the assertion that religious life and work of social justice are most powerful when woven together.

We are cautioned in this week’s parsha not to let organizing become a religion or let ritual distract us from acting justly.

And indeed Jonah’s life is a profound embodiment of the intertwining of the two. Every organizer’s fundamental tools are themselves and their stories. What is most powerful about Jonah’s stories are the way in which his commitment grows from a deep combination of the ethical and the religious. His is an activism growing out of faith and a faith that points towards action in the world.

To know Jonah is to know what it means to lead from a place of deep power that emerges from this union. It is why we honor Jonah this afternoon for his tremendous leadership and it is why we are inspired by him to look inside ourselves to find that place of meeting – that place where our spiritual lives meet our lives as activists. For it is in this place that transformation of ourselves, our communities, and our world is truly possible.

Thank you Jonah for giving us this opportunity to celebrate and honor you, our colleague, our teacher, and my friend.