By JanetheWriter
Tuesday was Yom HaShoah. In addition to attending services, I used Facebook throughout the day to share my memories as a witness to history.
At 9:22 p.m. on Monday, I wrote, "JanetheWriter is remembering her visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau -- July 1, 2007 -- and recalling so many experiences and images from that unforgettable day." You can read a bit more about it here.
On Tuesday morning at 11:31 a.m., I was "remembering Chaim Glasberg whose name is painted on the wall of the Pincus Synagogue in Prague." I've written about Chaim Glasberg on this blog before, and you can read about him here.
And from the day on which you bring the omer offering - the day after the sabbath - you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week - fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Lord.
-Leviticus 23:15-16
As principal of a Jewish school in the US, I always felt that once we hit Tu Beshvat, the year is over - there is no time or energy left to do anything except cope with the succession of holidays, get ready for the end of the year, and work on the plans, hiring, etc. for next year. Any kind of continuity, of concentration, of orderly instruction is pretty much shattered by one special day after another, with their associated preparations. And if that is true in the microcosm of the Jewish school in the Diaspora, imagine what goes on in the Jewish state!
By Marge Eiseman I've always wondered why the Torah reading about the Exodus didn't occur at the time of year when we celebrate Passover. And shouldn't we be reading about receiving the Ten Commandments at Shavu'ot? Doesn't that make more sense? Why are we in the midst of all the rules for the Levites and how to properly offer sacrifices, when it's time for us to act "as if" we were there at the plagues and the preparation for crossing the sea?
Like many of you, I am a regular reader of Ten Minutes of Torah--Reform Voices of Torah on Mondays, Mishnah Day on Tuesdays, Israel Connections on Wednesday, Delving in Liturgy on Thursdays and the Jewish World and Social Action on Fridays...regular as clockwork. (I still miss Kevin Proffitt's Tuesday essays about the Jewish American experience, but that's a post for another time.)
Last Wednesday, the last day of Passover, I attended the festival shacharit and yizkor service in my home congregation, where I still daven from time to time. When it was time for the Torah service, Rabbi Bravo invited the congregation to the bema, where we passed the scroll one to the next before she opened it, we recited the blessing, and she prepared to read. As she did so, she told of rolling quickly to the right spot earlier in the week, as a few b'nai mitzvah students looked on.
"How can you find it so fast?" one asked. "It's easy," she said she told them. "You'll see."
The ocean sounds, O Lord, the ocean sounds its thunder, the ocean sounds its pounding. Above the thunder of the mighty waters, more majestic than the breakers of the sea is the Lord, majestic, on high. -Psalm 93:3-4
Many Israelis spend Pesach in Sinai (despite both the irony of returning to Egypt for Pesach, and the government warnings of terror attacks). That's always seemed a bit extreme to us, but this year we did repeat an adventure of several years ago, transporting our seder to a beachfront kibbutz guest house south of Haifa. Not Sinai and not the Red Sea, but plenty of sand and sea nevertheless. With two other families we prepared and brought with us all the symbols and the foods, and organized the seder in one of our rooms (after a bit of furniture-moving). The circumstances forced us to keep food and utensils simple, releasing us all from some of the "bondage" of Pesach preparation. Since no one had to leave for home afterwards, we could drink wine and sing as late as we wanted. And we could take long walks along the beach, by sunlight and by moonlight, a setting conducive to thoughts about freedom.
Passover is one of the holidays most closely associated with food.
When thinking about this holiday, there are two key words to remember: matzah and chametz.
The Departure of the Jews from Egypt came about so hastily that our ancestors had no time to prepare their bread in the usual manner. Because the dough needed to be baked so quickly, it did not leaven (rise). Matzah is the unleavened bread that they ate.
Chametz, "leaven," literally means "souring" or "fermentation." The Torah says, "Seven days you shall eat unleaved bread; on the very first day you shall remove lean from your houses" (Exodus 12:15). The forbidden grains are: barley, oats, rye, spelt, and wheat (except when making matzah).
Doctors say that scar tissue is much stronger than tissue that has never suffered trauma, and the same is true of covenants. After the sin of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32, God, Moses, and the people Israel are reconciled. The covenant that was broken through idolatry is mended and emerges even stronger in our holy day Torah portion. How does a betrayal of the covenant, about which God threatens to destroy the people, result in a new doctrine of divine mercy?
It begins with Moses's passionate advocacy on the part of his erring people. In the Talmudic tractate B'rachot 32a, Moses is portrayed as one of the heroes of prayer who "hurled words at heaven," using chutzpah to move God to mercy. God drops the hint that Moses needs in Exodus 32:10: "Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation." Moses hears, "Now, let me be," and thinks, "What if I don't let God be?" That is his cue to begin arguing. In the Talmudic passage, Rabbi Abahu comments on the outrageousness of Moses's behavior with an equally outrageous analogy: "Moses took hold of the Holy One like one who seizes his fellow by the garment and said, 'Ruler of the universe, I will not let You go until you pardon them and forgive them.'" Moses is, as it were, grabbing God by the suit lapels and demanding mercy.
Dr. Adler describes the interaction between God and Moses following the apostasy of the Golden Calf and perceptibly depicts Moses's demeanor as "passionate advocacy."
Passion appears to dominate in both God and Moses. Emotion, not logic, is the primary ingredient in their exchange. As Dr. Adler elucidates, their dialogue is replete with words like "anger," "pardon," "forgive," "faithfulness," "compassion," "mercy," and "kindness." Moses's plea, "Let not the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he [You] delivered them'" (Exodus 32:12), is hardly an appeal to logic.
Encamped at Gilgal, in the steppes of Jericho, the Israelites offered the Passover sacrifice on the fourteenth day of the month, toward evening. On the day after the Passover offering, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the country, unleavened bread and parched grain. On the same day, when they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna; that year they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.
-Joshua 5:10-12
We learn in chapter 5 of Joshua that while the generation of the Exodus had been circumcised in Egypt, their children and grandchildren born in the desert had not been. And since only the circumcised may eat of the Passover sacrifice, it seems that this ritual too was not maintained during the forty years in the desert. Anyway, we couldn't have eaten matzah in the desert as we had no grain - only manna. Thus, the first Passover in the land of Israel was rather a significant event, a new experience for the people.
by Natalie Seltzer As Passover approaches, so does that age-old question: "What are we going to do with all of this left-over matzo?" Little do most people suspect that matzo can be exciting, tasty, and infinite, a truth I discovered when I found out I had an allergy to yeast. I started cooking and eating matzo year-round and discovered that matzo answered many of my cooking and eating dilemmas. Hence, my newly-launched blog that takes matzo to a new level, Matzo Outside the Box.
Matzo is an old food product (biblical, even). It is extremely versatile... more then just a platform for peanut butter, jelly and cream cheese. Jazz up your Passover Seder this year with this nouvelle cuisine matzo recipe from my blog:
By Rabbi Phyllis Sommer
(Originally posted on Ima on (and off) the Bima)
I know many of my very Orthodox readers (and even some of the less practicing folks) are going to cringe at what I'm about to say:
I'm so excited to start getting ready for Passover!
There's a full lunar month between Purim and Pesach (Passover) and most Jews spend the whole month getting ready for the holiday. In fact, it takes the whole month to get ready and the holiday itself is only one week long. Sometimes I wish it were (gasp) longer, so we could put all that prep time to some use.
by Marc Rosenstein (Originally published in Galilee Diary and Ten Minutes of Torah) Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget. -Deuteronomy 25:19
There were criminals in Rabbi Meir's neighborhood that so bothered him that he prayed for their death. Beruriah, his wife, said to him: "What's with you? Psalm 104:35 says, 'May sins disappear' - does it say 'may sinners disappear?' No, it says 'sins,' so you need to pray for them to repent; the Psalm continues 'and may the wicked be no more.' So he prayed for them and they repented. -Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 10a
Haman, according to the Scroll of Esther, was a member of the tribe of Amalek. Thus, we learn the consequences of disregarding the Torah commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek - as long as they are allowed to continue to exist, they remain a threat, the enemy who for no rational reason constantly plots our destruction. And we read the above passage on the Shabbat before Purim every year, to keep the lesson alive. The basis of this image of the Amalekites is found in the previous verse: we are told that right after we left Egypt, they attacked us cruelly and without provocation. The story of Amalek - and of Purim - posits a view of history in which there are forces of evil that can only be combated by means of violence, by destroying them physically. Their evil is inherent and immutable, and so, like some kind of virulent microbe in a horror movie, as long as even a few cells are left alive, there is the potential that they will regenerate into a monster. We may believe, in principle, that all humans are created in the Divine image, but apparently there are some who have so lost touch with that image that they are unredeemable.
"... this year as I sample the foods traditionally eaten at the Tu B'Shevat seder to commemorate springtime in Israel -- dates, almonds and figs, to name a few -- I'll not only be thinking about the farmers who planted them but the distance the foods traveled and the amount of greenhouse gases associated with their journey.
By Jill Zimmerman (First posted on the RACblog) Jill Zimmerman is an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center.
"When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Leviticus 19:33-34)
Thirty-five times this principle is repeated in the Torah. Thirty-five times we are reminded of our own immigrant history. Thirty-five times we are commanded not only to welcome the stranger, but to "love them as yourself."
Today, we face the enormous task of fixing our nation's broken immigration system. Over 12 million undocumented immigrants live as "strangers" in our communities. U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids, such as the one in Postville, Iowa at the Agriprocessers kosher meatpacking plant, have torn apart immigrant families. Detention centers across the country leave thousands in legal limbo and offend our sense of humanity. It is time to tell Congress and the Administration to enact solutions.
Tu BiSh'vat in the Age of Green
January 29, 2009
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By Rachel Cohen, Eisendrath Legislative Assistant (Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah) Each year, even as many of us struggle against the cold winter days of February, we engage in a celebration of nature's renewal with the ritual of Tu BiSh'vat. Just as Israeli farmers begin to see signs of spring, Jews worldwide celebrate an ancient tradition marking the age of trees. With the rise of the environmental movement, Tu BiSh'vat has been branded the "Jewish Earth Day" and transformed from a minor observance into a mainstay of the Jewish calendar. Tu BiSh'vat has taken on many meanings to many people: a celebration of natural wonders, a chance to recommit ourselves to environmental stewardship, and a day to reflect on our role in the complex ecosystem that is planet Earth.
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I've been involved with interfaith dialogue since my first year of college. So when I signed up for Rav Siach, an interdenominational rabbinical student discussion group in Jerusalem, I expected an interesting and smooth experience. The past two months have definitely been interesting, but I could hardly call them smooth!
For the past eight weeks, four fellow HUC rabbinical students and I have been traveling to Melitz, a pluralistic education center in Jerusalem, to meet a handful of our future colleagues from other denominations. There are about a dozen participants with three facilitators, and we come from Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, "orthodox," and non-denominational backgrounds. Thus, we come to the table not only with our personal perspectives but also with the weight of our "movements" on our shoulders. And all that weight has made for some very heavy conversations. We discuss and debate issues like commandedness, the role of the rabbi, and denominational distinctions, and we strive to keep our minds open while attempting to understand the thoughts of the others. This can be a significant challenge, but our mutual respect gives us the motivation to try our hardest.
Chanukah is my favorite holiday. I know that involved, intellectual Jews like myself are supposed to declar that Pesach is their favorite or something, but I think that we do Chanukah a disservice these days. Undoubtedly, Chanukah's proximity to Christmas has made it a more major holiday in recent decades as American Jews have sought to include themselves in winter holiday festivities, but I'd argue that Chanukah's popularity cannot be reduced to such a disdainable cause.
If Yom Kippur or even Simchat Torah came at this season, we would not have been able to seize upon them and say, "Yes, goyim! We are just like you! We too have an uplifting winter holiday!" Chanukah is a great holiday all on its own and I'm here to tell you why.
by Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes A Story (learned from Rabbi Cheryl Peretz) There is wonderful Hasidic story, told of a conversation between the rabbi and a member of his community. The man once asked: "Rabbi, what is a Jew's task in this world?" The rabbi answered: "A Jew is a lamp-lighter on the streets of the world. In olden days, there was a person in every town who would light the gas street lamps with a light he carried on the end of a long pole. On the street corners, the lamps sat, ready to be lit. A lamp-lighter has a pole with a flame supplied by the town. He knows that the fire is not his own and he goes around lighting the lamps on his route." The man then asked: "But what if the lamp is in a desolate wilderness?" The rabbi responded: "Then, too, one must light it. Let it be noted that there is a wilderness and let the wilderness be shamed by the light." Not satisfied, the man asked: "But what if the lamp is in the middle of the sea?" The rabbi responded: "Then one must take off one's clothes, jump into the water, and light it there!"
Here, in an exclusive interview for RJ.org, Michelle sits down with Molly Kane, a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR to discuss Michelle's new Chanukah video sensation "Pass the Candle", her involvement in Reform Judaism, and more. Click below to listen in, and watch the video after the jump.
Technically, it is true that Chanukah is a "minor holiday," in the sense that it does not contain a yom tov, a day on which work is forbidden. However, this reflects the fact that Chanukah is post-Biblical more than its importance or lack of importance.
None the less, there is indeed ambivalence about the importance of Chanukah in Jewish tradition. On one hand Chanukah is traditionally viewed as a critical event in Jewish history. But on the other hand, our tradition hasn't wanted to talk too much about it.
by Andi Rosenthal This article was originally published on InterfaithFamily.com In the midst of packing up the apartment where I've lived for the past seven years, I found them right where I knew they would be, in a box at the very back of the hall closet.
Sighing, I opened it. There they were, bells and angels, stars and glass balls, shimmering in every color of the rainbow, shining out of the depths of the cardboard darkness. My Christmas ornaments, every single one with its own story, its own memory. I picked one up--a goofy orange ceramic lobster my sister had brought from Maine--and gazed at it, remembering my final Christmas tree in 2001, the year before I converted.
"Throw them out," said my friend Chrissy, as she folded up the clothes I would be donating to a local charity. "It's not like you're going to use them ever again."
"No," I replied, a note of stubbornness coming into my voice. "I want to keep them."
(First posted at RACblog) by Micaela Hellman-Tincher Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Over Chanukah, we all look for thoughtful, useful and interesting gifts for our family and friends. Amid the ads for watches, sweaters and digital cameras this winter, you might notice an ad for another kind of gift. A bed net. As part of our goal to deliver 50,000 nets abroad, the Union for Reform Judaism will be advertising Nothing But Nets in Jewish media around the country this winter.
While you may not know anyone who wants their bed covered in insecticide-treated mesh, there are people abroad to whom this gift won't simply be nice and thoughtful, but life-saving. A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds, and the use of a bed net can reduce disease transmission by up to 90%. The bed nets donated through the Union for Reform Judaism's Nothing But Nets initiative will go straight to refugees of conflict in Africa-one of the populations most vulnerable to malaria. It takes only $10 to send a net.
by JanetheWriter It seems plausible that Thanksgiving as we know it today derives originally from our tradition's Sukkot. Whether or not this is, in fact, true, in our consumer-driven, must-have-the-latest-greatest-gadget, me-me-me society, this autumnal chag is a wonderful opportunity to step back, to reflect on what really matters and, individually and collectively, to celebrate our many blessings.
In my family, Thanksgiving minhag dictates that someone (usually my mother) reads a poem, prayer or other seasonal passage before we dig in. Last year, a few days before the holiday, Connecticut Governor Wilbur L. Cross' 1936 Thanksgiving proclamation crossed my desk and it was I who read it at our Thanksgiving table.
It's the last weekend before Thanksgiving, the first weekend when there's no more pretending that winter's cold and dark days are not just around the corner.
But it was sunny enough today to go out into the garden one last time and take down the tomato plants that froze earlier this week and put the garden to bed. Once the tomato and pepper plants were gone, only one bright green spot remained: the carrots I'd planted so many months ago.
With a deep push from the pitchfork they came to the surface. Bright orange carrots, what seemed like hundreds of them!
By JanetheWriter With more than a week to go until Thanksgiving, we're already well into the incessant advertisements for Barbies, Chia Pets, Pictionary, Scrabble, and, of course, the seasonally popular Norelco electric razors. (Can you even buy one of those things in July?!) Our mailboxes are stuffed with catalogs, catalogs and more catalogs -- Lands' End, L.L Bean, Harry and David and the Vermont Country Store -- and soon enough, we won't be able to escape endless refrains of those silver bells, the chestnuts roasting or the I'll be homes...if only in my dreams.
By Larry Kaufman A recent discussion in these precincts about Lashon Hara, intended to present a Jewish "take" on permissible and impermissible political discourse, gave rise to a peripheral discussion about the propriety of using words and phrases from languages other than English.
That article provided a literal translation of lashon hara as "the bad tongue," and provided as English explanations defamation, character assassination, or 'bad mouthing." The subsequent discussion suggested another meaning, malicious gossip.
As a relatively new entity, this blog had not previously articulated any "rules of the road," but the discussion provoked messages from the blog managers at the Union for Reform Judaism reminding bloggers the Union is not and cannot be in the business of endorsing or supporting candidates, and that the blog exists to look at the world through a lens of Reform Judaism. I propose an additional rule - we should follow the minhag (custom) that prevails on the Union list-servs, and translate expressions from languages other than English.
By Marge Eiseman The sukkah we were sitting in had history - the galvanized pipes and green oilcloth walls full of tape residue were probably 35 or 40 years old by now, imported to Wisconsin from their original home in suburban Chicago by my brother-in-law. The "chandeliers" were the original light fixtures from the bathroom at my step-mother's old house, and it looked especially festive with the new strings of colored mini-lights that aren't really in season in stores yet (if you know what I mean).
By David A.M. Wilensky (First published on The Reform Shuckle) This year, intoxicated by the coolness of the videos at this post at Jewlicious, I decided that I wanted to not only get my own Lulav and Etrog, but that I wanted to assemble the Lulav myself. Jonathan Golden, a a professor here at Drew and our wonderful Hillel adivsor, had his brother, a Sephardic rabbi, pick up the parts for me in Brooklyn while he was picking up several other peoples' sets of Sukot magic rain stick wand things.
The Rabbi put it together Sephardic-style. This involved a single-cradle handle thing. The Ashkenazic version that we see most often in the US, has three parts that hold the palm, willow, and myrtle seperately. The Sephardic version has a single-compratment braided handle that all three plants go in together.
By David A.M. Wilensky (First published on The Reform Shuckle) Over at the excellent blog FailedMessiah.com, a whistle-blowing blog out to expose far right wing orthodox Judaism as a harmful force in the world (by covering stuff like child molestation and Agriprocessors), there's a really interesting post about the ancient Mesopotamian holiday of Kapuru, held in the Babylonian month of Tashritu. Sound familiar? It's a cool post. Here's an excerpt:
Our ancestors borrowed a great deal from a towering, imperial Mesopotamian culture that for centuries dominated the Fertile Crescent. That we used Babylonian calendar names is widely known. Semitic peoples had used the lunar calendar from time immemorial, but named their months differently. What the (Hebrew-speaking) Canaanites called Aviv, Ziv, Eytanim and Bul, the practical-minded Hebrews first renamed months One, Two, Seven and Eight. The Babylonians called them Nisanu, Ayaru, Tashritu and Archasamnu. In time, our ancestors replaced their numerals with the Babylonian names, many of which are named in honor of Mesopotamian gods.
By William Berskon The last few days have dramatized the gravity of the sin of lashon hara, literally "the bad tongue." Known in English as defamation, character assassination, or in slang 'bad mouthing,' lashon hara is part of the vidui, the confession at Yom Kippur which we have all just said. It has traditionally been seen as one of the most common, yet also most serious of sins.
It is a frustration to me that public discourse in America has lacked this concept: that it is wrong to say something bad about another person, even if true, without a compelling reason. Such compelling reasons include testimony at a trial, preventing serious harm to others from a bad actor, and self-defense against lashon hara.
By Larry Kaufman A topic in our discussion of Haazinu at Torah study on Shabbat was the survival of the Jewish people over the millennia, in the face of all the odds against us.Shlomo, our resident scholar, suggested that this was because of the Jewish capacity for "making do."Aryeh supported his position, pointing out that this had even been enshrined in Mishkan T'filah, albeit spelled differently:morid ha-tal, making dew.
Of course, with Sukkot upon us, the dew will make way for the wind and the rain - but we pray our capacity for making do will not abate.Ken yehi ratzon - so may it be.
By JanetheWriter Last year on Yom Kippur, my father and I ducked out of temple following the morning service, drove down the road to the mall and--while the children's and tot services were underway--spent time browsing in Barnes and Noble, comparing notes about our most recent (and not so recent) reads, discussing what's on each of our "to read" lists and seeking out new treasures to add to those lists. Among the books we thumbed through that afternoon was Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost,which, later in 5768, I subsequently purchased and we both read. So profound was its impact on me that I wrote about it twice for this blog--once before the read and once after.
This year, the day before erev Yom Kippur, I sent my father the following email:
Dear Daddy,
Do you want to go to Barnes and Noble again on YK afternoon the way we did last year? That's where we saw The Lost. Who knows what we might find this year!
By Gardening Grandma A story in this morning's New York Times about the growing army of "eco-kids" not only grabbed my attention, it made me proud: "Pint-Size Eco-Police, Making Parents Proud and Sometimes Crazy" highlights how children are teaching their parents a lesson or two about caring for this earth, sometimes to the frustration of their parents.
While Judaism was not mentioned in the story, nothing could be closer to our hearts than protecting the earth and working to repair the damage we've created. As today's emailed Ten Minutes of Torah by Rabbi Marla Feldman notes, "to neglect our role in maintaining the fragile balance of nature is to default on our very first commitment in our covenant with God - our sacred duty to be stewards of God's Creation." She goes on to note that Sukkot is a perfect time to reinforce our connection to the natural world around us.
For more ideas about what to do this Sukkot, check out www.urj.org.
Some of the more chazanishly demanding parts of the Yom Kipur liturgy at Chavurat Lamdeinu were tackled this year by one of our members, a guy named Steve. Steve grew up in the Conservative movement and later studied super-amazing-loud-operatic chazanut in a yeshiva. He later served for many years as a chazan at a conservative synagogue here in New Jersey.
Of course, I know that during a particular Aleinu on Yom Kipur, we're supposed to prostrate ourselves. But after years of a Reform synagogue on Austin, HUC in Jerusalem, and, last year, a Reform synagogue in New Brunswick, I've never seen it done.
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By Gardening Grandma As Yom Kippur approaches, many people have wished me an "easy fast."
I find it very strange - and disconcerting.
The fast is meant to force us to do some deep and not-so-easy reflection and self-examination. It's meant to push us beyond our normal comfort zone. Why then, should it be easy?
I think I'll stick with G'mar Chatima Tova when I'm at temple tonight. And so, to you, the readers of this blog, "may you be sealed in the book of life."
By Rabbi Lynne Landsberg (First posted on the RACblog) Rabbi Lynne Landsberg is the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Senior Advisor on Disability Issues. She is a former Associate Director of the RAC and a former regional director of the URJ's Mid-Atlantic Council.
In 1999, I sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury when my Jeep skidded on a patch of black ice and wrapped around a tree. When I awoke from a six-week coma, I was unable to remember how to live. Through years of intensive rehabilitation, I re-learned how to walk, talk, concentrate, read and perform daily activities. Now, I walk with a cane, speak slowly and require assistance with minor tasks.
By David Singer Yes, a good year and a happy year. But to whom? To my family everywhere and to my friends also, and to colleagues, clients, and those I will meet this year. It goes without saying; I want all to have a good year with health and peace for them. And for myself, don't forget myself, who needs good health, who seeks peace for his daughter and wife and clients. But for whom else is L'Shana Tovah said?
It depends where you listen. If you were to visit a synagogue today, would you hear L'Shana Tovah said in honor of families who lost loved ones at wars fought today? Indeed, you would hear thoughts for those Americans fighting in Iraq. But would you hear thoughts of health and peace for Iraqi citizens in their country? Perhaps you would hear words for them, perhaps not. Some Iraqis are part of the war there; most are not and simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do you hear L'Shana Tovah for them? Not much, I say.
By David A.M. Wilensky (First published on The Reform Shuckle) I've said it before and I'll say it again: The man is a genius. Check out a transcript of Rabbi Andy Bachman's erev Rosh Hashanah sermon here. Here' an excerpt:
Surrendering total control is never easy-especially as members of a synagogue community founded on principles that value the intellect over the experiential; the rational over the mysterious; Reform over Tradition. Of course, as we continually need to remind ourselves, the historical circumstances that founded this community in 1861 are quite different from those that demand action in the world today. Our membership, ever growing, comes from all walks of Jewish life-Reform, Conservative and Orthodox and non-Jewish life as well. I find that fewer people have an intellectual ax to grind with Tradition and Reform is not much more than: 1. a commitment to egalitarian values for men, women, gays and lesbians; 2. a rationalist and historical view of the authorship of Torah; and, 3. devotion to the principles of Tikkun Olam, Social Justice and Social Action. But "Reforming Judaism?" I've yet to encounter in my years here a single Jew who truly wants to Reform Judaism. After all, in humility, we could easily spend the next 50 years just figuring out what Judaism IS!
By Gardening Grandma Most everyone I spoke with today was putting the finishing touches on holiday preparation: Slicing the brisket...making the kugel...ironing the tablecloth...arranging the flowers.
With all that is out of the way, I found two hours to sit outside in my garden, enjoying the warmth of a fall sun and doing some private soul-searching in advance of tonight's erev worship. I found myself letting go of the anxiety I'd been feeling all day as the market dropped and Congress failed to pass the bailout passage--and instead feeling deeply grateful for my health and the health of my family and friends.
No one knows what the new year will bring, but I am confident I will continue to find balance in the joys my garden gives me.
And so, before the sun sets, Shanah tovah. May it be a good year for you.
By JanetheWriter When my sister was in college, one of her friends who wasn't Jewish always referred to Rosh Hashana as Rosh-a-Homa because, from her perspective, that's what everyone always did.
Indeed, today is the day to Rosh-a-Homa. Interestingly enough, though, my 10-block foot commute to the office this morning revealed only two potential Rosh-a-Homers--one woman pulling a small wheeled suitcase and one young man toting a garment bag over his shoulder.
No matter. Wherever you find yourself on this Rosh-a-Homa, may you be surrounded by good companions with whom to usher in a year that brings us all many blessings.
By dcc My fiancée and I recently joined a congregation about a block from our home. We went to the new member Shabbat, were called by the rabbi, welcomed by members and Abby (my future bride) was called this morning to read an Aliyah on Rosh Hashanah. But even after such a warm welcome still it is kinda strange.
This will be our first High Holidays as "adults" and I for one am freaking out a bit. What should we do for dinner on Erev Rosh Hashanah and Kol Nidre? More importantly do we host our own or seek an invitation to a well-established-bagels-lox-cream-cheese-kuggle-and-caffeine-filled brake-the-fast? For sure I won't be asked to blow the shofar signaling it is (finally) time to eat.
By Larry Kaufman My uncle Sidney Pazol was a dropout from Hebrew Union College, who later found himself a secular rabbinate as the leader of a Great Books discussion group. He told me once about-can we call her his congregant?-Mrs. Guggenheim, who came regularly to the sessions, but who never participated in the conversation, no matter how hard he tried to engage her.
Plato? Mrs. G had nothing to say. St. Thomas Aquinas? Mrs. G had nothing to say. Certainly, Uncle Sid thought, she would have something to say when they came to Macbeth-everybody has an opinion about Macbeth--but again, nothing. Finally, he turned to her and asked point blank what she had thought of the play. "Well," she replied, "I don't understand what makes this a great book - it's just a bunch of famous quotations strung together."
by Marge Eiseman So far, every day of Elul, I have gotten emails with messages about dreaming from Craig Taubman's project, "Jewels of Elul", and challenging questions to prod me into thinking about how I am preparing for these High Holy Days from Rabbi Simon Jacobson of the Meaningful Life Center, and Sefirot-based poetry by Gloria Krasno to direct my attention to the combination of Divine attributes that are energizing each of these days.
Today, I got extra doses of inspiration from a most unexpected place -- the comics page in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I was struck by how many really deep messages there were, hidden in the guise of entertainment. One strip focuses on domestic violence, and how to recognize it in an acquaintance or friend and what to do in response. Others are tackling the big issues of the cost of being middle class in this time of increased gas prices, sexism, racism, intra-familial political differences, ethnic pride, and so much more. This doesn't even include Doonesbury or political cartoon, which our paper puts on the editorial page, lest we be confused about what is supposed to be commentary on modern life.
It's the synchronicity of life, such that we are asking for some insight from one place, and finding it all around us. May you all be blessed with the opportunity to hear the messages of hope and forgiveness from every person and situation in your life.
L'shanah tovah tikateivu - may you be blessed with an awesome New Year!
The start of the month of Elul brings our community into its preparation for the High Holidays. Now the pace of communal life starts to change and our focus is on reflection, reconciliation, repentance and the annual response to new beginnings.
For too many in our community, however, this season will hold more angst than joy.
The economic situation in our country presents us with challenges unseen for nearly a generation. Too many will sit in synagogues next month and be equally concerned with their own economic situation as they will the state of their soul. Increasingly senior citizens on fixed or limited incomes are seeing their resources challenged. Young adults are concerned about job security. Too many of our people of all ages have lost jobs, been downsized or live on the edge of job and financial uncertainty.
By Sybil Schwartz I came to the 11 pm S'lichot Service at Beth Emeth in Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday night at the suggestion of Rabbi Grumbacher during Torah study. I came frankly, out of curiosity and to see if I could stay awake at that "unGodly" time. I had no idea of what a S'lichot service was. But the Rabbi had said "come" and when asked indicated it was a short service.
When I entered the sanctuary I was somewhat surprised to see about 35 other insomniacs. I noticed that some of the participants were members of the Beth Emeth Torah study group, chaverahs, temple leaders and probably others who were just inquisitive. I continued to wonder why all those people were not in their beds sleeping
By JanetheWriter One of my favorite High Holiday foods is the pomegranate. That's right, the pomegranate--not the apples and honey that kick off dinner on erev Rosh Hashana, not the noodle kugel that marks the big meal before Yom Kippur and not even the salty whitefish salad of our break-the-fast. I'd trade them all for the smooth roundness of the pomegranate, its pale speckled skin barely hinting at the brilliance of the tart, juicy seeds within.
By Micaela Hellman-Tincher This past week marked the first week of the Hebrew month of Elul. During Elul, my mom calls me every day to blow the shofar over the phone, to get us ready for the High Holy Days. I have always been taught that the shofar was meant to be a kind of alarm that roused us from our normal lives and instructed us to prepare for the new year and the days of awe.
For me, Elul has also always marked the end of summer and the beginning of school, and shofar phone calls usually coincided with figuring out my workload for the upcoming year. This year Elul's shofar blasts mean something different as I start my work at the RAC. Elul's shofar calls come at a time when I am being shaken awake to realize the urgent issues facing the world around me.
By JanetheWriter Last week, we marked both the unofficial end of summer and, with the arrival of Elul, the unofficial start of the High Holy Day season. Indeed, with each Elul, each Simchat Torah "Bereshit" and each seder-concluding "L'shana ha-ba-ah b'yerushalayim," our tradition graciously offers us an opportunity to seize a new beginning, a fresh start, a reason to look forward.
Six years ago at this season, just as I was closing out a difficult chapter in my own life, I had an opportunity to begin again in every way--a new job, a new home, and what I still think of as an entirely remade life back home here on the east coast.
By Larry Kaufman In our wonderful American fusion of calendars, one of the signals we get from Labor Day is that the High Holy Days are coming, and their harbinger is selichot - the term applied both to a religious service devoted to penitence and to the prayers of forgiveness themselves. In the Sephardic tradition, selichot are recited nightly throughout the month of Elul; in the Ashkenazic tradition, nightly from the Saturday midnight preceding Rosh Hashanah by at least ten days.
By JanetheWriter The third entry in today's Metropolitan Diary section of the New York Times featuring two people's "nanosecond of bonding" over High Holy Day Torah text study in the subway reminds me that as we approach Tishah B'Av in less than a week, Elul and the High Holy Days can't be far behind.
Indeed, as Rabbis Ken Chasen and Josh Zweiback, the singing duo known as Mah Tovu, tell us in the chorus of their song "Round and Round:"
By David A.M. Wilensky Yesterday a post by Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman appeared on this blog titled "Ten More Minutes of Torah." It was a response to Lewis M. Barth's recent Ten Minutes of Torah for Masei, in which Barth argued that the current Haftarah cycle of three haftarot of destruction followed by seven haftarot of consolation suggest that Reform Judaism should reassess its relationship with Tishah B'Av. Rabbi Schwartzman's post expressed strong discomfort with this idea.
Rabbi Schwartzman's first argument is typical of Reform Jews who are uncomfortable with even talking about the Temple in a Reform context. He tells us that, "Given the importance of the Temple in the Conservative and Orthodox movements, whether spiritually or practically, we Reformists would do well to consider exactly what we would be tying onto ourselves were we to adopt Tishah B'Av observances."
By Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman In this week's comment on the parashat hashavuah (weekly Torah portion), in Ten Minutes of Torah, Professor Barth suggests that for the sake of the Haftarot that appear this time of year and are centered on Tishe B'Av (the Ninth of Av) that we in the Reform movement might re-consider observing this day as well.
While not a Classical Reformer myself and while I can appreciate the devastation that the destructions of the First and Second Temples meant to the Jewish people, I am not taken with the idea to instate this day into my Reform calendar.
By David A.M. Wilensky As readers of Reform Judaism magazine will recall, the RJ Magazine's summer 2008 issue included a series of important questions regarding the Reform Movement and their answers as given by 30 adult members of the Reform Movement.
I'm currently at the URJ Kutz Camp with a group of people who will be the future lay and professional leadership of the Reform movement in North America. I'll be featuring many of them as well as many of the younger Kutz staff members this summer in a series of posts here on the RJ.org blog, in which I will be asking Reform high school and college students (and perhaps a few 20-somethings) for their take on Reform Judaism via questions similar to those used in the Magazine.
Tyler Benjamin is a 16-year-old rower/ultimate Frisbee player from Tampa, Florida. He is in love with the opportunities that are afforded him via NFTY, especially as the President of the Southern Tropical Region, and overall his life as a Reform Jew in America.
By David A.M. Wilensky As readers of Reform Judaism magazine will recall, the RJ Magazine's summer 2008 issue included a series of important questions regarding the Reform Movement and their answers as given by 30 adult members of the Reform Movement.
I'm currently at the URJ Kutz Camp with a group of people who will be the future lay and professional leadership of the Reform movement in North America. I'll be featuring many of them as well as many of the younger Kutz staff members this summer in a series of posts here on the RJ.org blog, in which I will be asking Reform high school and college students (and perhaps a few 20-somethings) for their take on Reform Judaism via questions similar to those used in the Magazine.
Leslie Bass hails originally from Austin, Texas. This fall she will be a junior at the University of Denver, where she is a double major in Digital Media Studies and Journalism. This July, she will be travelling to Brisbane, Australia to study abroad at the Queensland University of Technology for five months. In high school, she was an active member of NFTY-TOR and board member of her local TYG. She attended the URJ Kutz Camp in the Summer of 2005 and spent the Summers of 2006 and 2007 as Kutz Camp staff.
My daughter graduated from high school Saturday. The weather changed from cold and rainy to a sunny 80 degree day. The plague of cicadas awaited for 17 years and due to arrive by now were yet to emerge from the ground. I arrived early and got a front row seat knowing that I could not miss seeing my beloved child on this special day. It was Shabbat and all was right.
A short piece on the editorials and letters page in Friday's New York Times suggests that according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, "the Lower East Side is one of the 11 most endangered places in America..." The article mentions several neighborhood landmarks, including The Eldridge Street Synagogue which, following a recently completed multi-million dollar restoration is now known as the Museum at Eldridge Street.
Dating from 1887 and widely known to be the first synagogue built "from scratch" in America by Eastern European Jews, the continuously operational Eldridge Street Synagogue is an architectural, cultural and historical gem. This Sunday's "Egg Rolls and Egg Creams" Festival celebrates the rich heritage and history of the immigrants--Jewish, Chinese, Italian, and others--for whom the neighborhood was the "Plymouth Rock" in their pilgrimage to America. Indeed, it was so for my grandparents, and on this Father's Day weekend, it is most fitting to honor them--our grandmothers and our grandfathers--for their moxie in making the journey and ensuring a better life for us all.
By Rabbi Stacey Blank In Israel, even in Reform synagogues, most of the kids who have an aliyah to the Torah when they turn 13 are boys. There are very few girls. It is still not common for girls to have an aliyah to the Torah in Israel (though everyone has a party!). In a country where women fought side-by-side the men in the 1948 War of Independence, where women hold important positions in government, and where women run major corporations, it is hard to believe that girls by and large are not encouraged to enter the religious sphere.
By JanetheWriter Today is the 47th day of the counting of the omer. And, although I do not possess David A.M. Wilensky's "hyper-awareness of Jewish time," I do, in my own way, mark Jewish time.
As much a part of my growing up as lighting Hanukkah candles and fasting on Yom Kippur was the pilgrimage my mother, my grandmother and I made each summer to Beth David Cemetery in Elmont Queens.
By David A.M. Wilensky I was born on the third day of the month of March in 1989. Much to the eternal dismay of my mother, I celebrated the nineteenth anniversary of that occasion on the twenty-seventh day of the month Adar of this year, 5768. This decision was one of several that I made over the last year that have led me to know always exactly when I am.
I'll explain.
At the end of August of last year I left my home of Austin, Texas to go to college at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Aside from the usual freedoms you might think of when you think of going off to college, I discovered a particular ritual freedom I hadn't quite thought of before. Of course at home no one stopped me from shuckling in synagogue, though it often garnered a few rather conspicuous glances from other congregants. No one stopped me from standing through the entire Amidah. I even met little resistance at home to the idea of wearing a talit katan every day. But, now, in college, not only could rituals be what wanted, they could be when I wanted.
I do not think any Jewish lifecycle event will ever mean more to me than my son’s conversion to Judaism. For days afterward I walked on clouds because my son was a “member of the tribe” and would be poised to inherit the great legacy of Judaism. Only as time has passed have I fully understood the profound impact this decision would have on our family.
Zachary was just over 2 years old when my partner and I decided we would raise him as a Jew. I remembered from my own conversion that the ceremony involved saying the Sh’ma, so Zachary and I practiced until he could repeat each word after me. At the mikveh, with each dunk of Zachary and each prayer or blessing recited, I became more and more overwhelmed by my belief that his conversion to Judaism—if he took full advantage of it—would be the best gift I could ever give to him.
I was raised in a small New England town almost completely isolated from Judaism—with few Jewish friends and almost no contact with Jewish experiences. By 1944 I—a kid who’d hardly ever dated a girl and had never been away from home by myself—was a soldier in the U.S. Army, trapped in the Ozark mountains of Missouri, a “million miles” from home, going through basic Signal Corps training in preparation to face our enemies overseas while I faced more immediate challenges on the home front.
My fellow soldiers hated my Boston accent. Basic training was very difficult. I learned to crawl through cold, wet mud and snow on my stomach while under live machine-gun fire. Although I was adept enough at carrying a heavy backpack along with a rifle on 25-mile marches, I consistently failed to keep step while marching in dress parades.
In the midst of all this misery came the announcement that all Jewish soldiers were invited to take part in a seder service in the small town of Neosho, Missouri, just outside our main gate.
And from the day on which you bring the omer offering - the day after the sabbath - you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week - fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Lord.
-Leviticus 23:15-16
I know many of my very Orthodox readers (and even some of the less practicing folks) are going to cringe at what I'm about to say:
You may know 
