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When will we be able to bensch gomel for gun violence?

This week’s d’var Torah on parashat Tzav and the March for Our Lives. Cross-posted to the This is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

This week’s Torah portion continues our conversation about the zevach sh’lamim, the offering of well-being. Parashat Tzav separates this offering into three categories: n’davah, a voluntary offering; neder, a votive offering; and todah, a thanksgiving offering. Each offering is sacrificed at a time when one wants to acknowledge God as the source of one’s good fortune.

What makes the todah offering different from the other sh’lamim offerings is that this offering is made when a person or family has survived a treacherous situation, such as a long journey or a life-threatening illness.

While we no longer offer such sacrifices–or any sacrifices, for that matter–the rabbis transformed the practice of the todah offering into a prayer some Jews know as bensching gomel. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yehudah and Rav tell us: “Four must offer thanks to God with a thanks-offering [by this time, “offering” probably meant giving to charity] and a special blessing. They are: Seafarers, those who walk in the desert, and one who was ill and recovered, and one who was incarcerated in prison and went out” (Berachot 54b). They add that this should be done in front of a minyan, a community of at least ten adult Jews, who, like the neighbors with whom one shared the todah offering, bore witness to the miracle and shared in the survivor’s joy.

While we don’t do it too often in our congregation, nowadays it is customary for a person or family who has survived an ordeal—an illness, an injury, an accident, or a long journey—to come up to the bimah and recite these words: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, sheg’malanu kol tov. Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has bestowed every goodness upon us. The congregation then responds Amen, adding, Mi sheg’malchem kol tov, Hu yigmolchem kol tov. Selah. May the One who has bestowed goodness upon us continue to bestow every goodness upon us forever! This blessing appears in our liturgy right after Mi Shebeirach, a reminder that, just as we plead for help when we are in distress, so should we give thanks we have come through a dark time.

The custom of bensching gomel may help us to process any guilt we might feel, for surviving when others did not. It might be a space in which we can express both our profound relief, and our lingering fear. For the community, hearing this prayer reminds us that life is fragile, and that everything can change in an instant. Thus, we must be grateful for every moment we are not bensching gomel.

I thought of this prayer this week, when reading about yet another school shooting, this time in Great Mills High School in Maryland. When someone told me that another school had been attacked, I braced myself for the worst. But nothing could have prepared me for what I felt when I read that the gunman had been taken down by the school resource officer, and that only two students had been shot. At that time, there had not been any fatalities aside from that of the shooter, though this morning, I learned that one of the victims has now died.

But in that moment, all I could think was: Thank God. I felt relieved. I was relieved that it hadn’t been worse. I was relieved that it hadn’t happened here, or to anyone I know. This feeling of relief is yet another indication that such incidents have become far too common.

Our rabbis taught us to give thanks for surviving illness, incarceration, and dangerous journeys. How long before we are bensching gomel for surviving a week at school?

Over the course of my adult life, I have watched the occasional tragedy turn into an epidemic. I graduated from high school less than two months after the Columbine High School massacre, in which twelve students and one teacher were killed, in addition to the gunmen. This shooting was the first of its kind, and sent us into a tailspin over gun violence, bullying, mental health, heavy metal music, goth culture, and violent video games. Measures were taken to reduce bullying and ensure school safety—someone I knew was banned from attending prom for making a joke about selling guns in school. But there was not a single student protest in 1999 that I can remember.

Recently, a contemporary of mine asked why we did not take to the streets, as high school students are preparing to do right now, all over the country. Some said it was because we didn’t have access to social media at that time, and it would have been difficult to coordinate action both within and between schools.

But I had a different realization: we didn’t take to the streets because we had every reason to believe that this massacre was an isolated incident. We had no reason to believe that something like this—something that had never really happened before—was likely to happen again, or often. We certainly didn’t have any reason to believe that it would happen 17 times in three months, as it has this year. And we didn’t have any reason to believe that the adults in our lives, including our nation’s leaders, would not do anything to protect us from harm.

But less than 20 years later, I find myself sighing with relief, giving thanks to God, that at least only two people were shot this time. At least one of them survived. At least the school resource officer did his job. At least this shooter only had a handgun. School shootings and mass shootings have become commonplace. But we must never allow them to become acceptable.

The North American Federation of Temple Youth, or NFTY, has for many years run a campaign on Gun Violence Prevention. Now, the students of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School have emerged as leaders in the national conversation on school safety and gun violence prevention. It is no wonder that our children are taking to the streets. We have failed them.

These students are not protesting because their classmates were killed. They are not protesting because they do not feel safe at school. These students are protesting because there are simple and concrete ways that we, as a society, could stop this from happening, and we have refused to do so.

Samantha Haviland, a survivor of the Columbine shootings who is now a school counselor, expressed a similar sentiment: “Nineteen years ago when Columbine happened, we didn’t understand it. We were shocked by it. We didn’t think this was a thing. We thought we were outliers…We adults, myself and my generation, have failed these students where we have learned this is a thing and we still haven’t done anything.”

After the nation-wide school walk-out on March 14th, some students in our high school program mentioned that their teachers told them that instead of “walking out,” they should “walk up” to students who look lonely or isolated, as many school shooters were reported to have been. Encouraging students to be kind and welcoming and compassionate is never a bad thing. But telling them that kindness will serve in place of common sense gun laws is ridiculous. Similarly, encouraging teachers to carry guns in place of providing real school security measures and mental health resources is unconscionable.

I mention these proposed solutions in the same breath because they are two sides of the same coin. Both suggestions place the burden of preventing school shootings on the shoulders of the victims. Don’t our students, and our teachers, already have enough to worry about? Isn’t hard enough to be a teenager without having to prevent gun violence on your own? Isn’t it hard enough to teach teenagers, without also having to be prepared to take on a gunman? Both proposals are attempts to shift the responsibility from where it belongs: it belongs on us.

At some point, we have to think long and hard about what we owe to our children. We have to decide whether we truly believe that we, as a nation, are responsible for their safety. We have to decide whether we, as parents, educators, and concerned citizens, would really do anything to protect our children from harm. Because if that is what we believe, then we are failing them every time we do nothing.

If we believe that our children deserve to be safe at school, then we need to advocate for increased funding for our schools in general, and for mental health and security in particular. We need to fight for common sense gun laws that ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines. We need to close loopholes that allow purchasers to sidestep background checks and restraining orders. We need to promote research on gun violence as a public health crisis. And in order to do this, we need to hold our local, state, and national leaders accountable for prioritizing donations from the NRA over the lives of our children.

I won’t be joining the March for Our Lives tomorrow—except in spirit—because I’ll be celebrating a bar mitzvah. We are welcoming one of our children into the covenant of Jewish adulthood, and in the process leading up to this moment he’s learned a lot about being responsible and caring for others in our community. As we celebrate with him, I ask us to consider: Are we modeling responsibility and concern for our community for him and his peers? And are we doing everything we can to ensure that they will grow up in a safer world than we have currently put in front of them? Or are we turning our faces away?

Tonight, we are going to sing one of my favorite healing songs tonight, “Don’t Hide Your Face from Me.” The words come from a psalm asking God to be present with us, and answer us in our time of distress. This is, in essence, what our young people are doing. They cannot offer praise to God for their survival, because every day we are still putting their lives at risk. They are asking us, from a place of deep pain and trauma, to stand with them, to care for them, and to help them to emerge from this dark place to a future free from violence and fear.

How will we answer?

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by rebleah18 on March 23, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Opinion, Rabbi, Social Action

Posted by rebleah18 on March 23, 2018

https://vassartemple.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/when-will-we-be-able-to-bensch-gomel-for-gun-violence/

When the Ordinary Becomes Tragic, and the Tragic Becomes Ordinary

A d’var Torah on parashat Terumah, in response to this week’s shooting in Parkland, FL. For the Jewish texts, I relied heavily on Dena Weiss’s “From Table to Grave.” Cross-posted to This is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

The name of this week’s Torah portion is Terumah, which means “gift,” and it refers to the gifts that God requests from the Israelites for the purpose of building the mishkan. The mishkan is a dwelling place for God, also called a mikdash, or holy place. The Torah tells us:

“The Eternal spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Tell the Israelites to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved….and let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it” (Exodus 25:1-9).

The instructions that follow deal with the interior furnishings—the ark, the table, and the menorah—as well as the external structure—the coverings, frames, and textiles, the altar and the enclosure.

The juxtaposition of the instructions for the aron, the Ark of the Covenant, and the shulchan, the table for the bread of display, caught the attention of 14th century Spanish Rabbi Bachya ben Asher, and reminded him of a peculiar custom of his French neighbors:

“It is the practice of the pious in France that they make their casket ([also called an] aron) for burial out of their table. [They do this] to show that a person will not take anything in his hand and nothing of his labor will accompany him, except for the tzedaka that he did in his life and the goodness he bestowed at his table. Therefore the Rabbis said, ‘One who sits at his table has his days and years lengthened’ (Berakhot 54b).”

At first glance, this custom reminded me of a story I told last month at Tisch Shabbat, in which a miserly man finds himself poor and hungry in olam habah, the afterlife, because he didn’t send anything ahead for himself (except for a piece of cake that had fallen on the ground). Whether we believe in such a model for the afterlife or not, stories like this remind us to share what we have while we are here, because we can’t take anything with us when we go.

This custom is, in a way, one step beyond the humility normally required in a Jewish burial. While our custom is to bury our loved ones in a plain pine box, here the aron must not only be plain, but recycled.

While for Rabbi Bachya ben Asher, the connection between ark and table signifies what awaits us after our death, forDena Weiss of Mechon Hadar, this custom might impact how we live our lives. An aron is a place of storage, whether we are talking about the Ark of the Covenant, our household closets, or our final resting place. As such, an aron has a sense of permanence and stasis, rather than of change and movement. A table, on the other hand, is “the domain of the temporary,” and as such, items—and people—are in constant motion, coming to the table, and being cleared away. Weiss writes:

“If your table becomes your coffin when you die, every time you see your table, eat at your table, set something upon it, or remove something from it, you are reminded that you are still alive. So long as your table is still a table, it is not a coffin, and you still have the option to do what you want and need to do with the days that remain. Yes, life is short, but it is not over.”

I had this realization myself about a year ago, when I asked the funeral director for a ride to a graveside burial during a snowstorm. He ended up putting me in the hearse. Someone later asked me what it was like, and I said, “Well, if you’re in the front seat, I guess there’s nothing to complain about.”

Sometimes it takes riding in a hearse, having a near miss, or realizing that your table will be your coffin, to shake us out of the fog of routine that keeps us from seeing clearly.

Weiss tells us that, if we let habit control our lives, our table can easily become a coffin in our lifetime. However, she adds, the reverse is also true: “You can look at your life’s course, look at your habits, and decide to revive what feels dead, hopeless, and irrelevant.”

When I initially read this interpretation of the Torah portion, I planned to give a lovely, upbeat little drash on how we can transform our coffin-like ways to a more table-like existence of movement, possibility, and generosity. And I hope that you do take that message away with you. I hope you take time this Shabbat to think about how you can make sure you are living your life fully present at the table, and not with one foot already in your coffin.

But this week, in the wake of the 18th school shooting in 2018, I can’t help thinking about how easily one’s table can become one’s coffin. On Wednesday morning, thousands of high schoolers in Parkland, FL woke up, probably reluctantly, checked their social media, showered, got dressed, did their hair and makeup, grabbed something for breakfast as they rushed out the door. It was Valentines’ Day: maybe they were engrossed in some romantic drama, their own or their friends’. It was Ash Wednesday: Maybe some of them stopped at Church on their way to school, felt the priest’s thumb on their forehead as they said, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” How many of them fought with their parents over hugging or kissing goodbye, since, as far as they knew, it was just going to be an ordinary day?

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What ordinary coursework were they studying—or not studying—when the fire alarm went off? How many of them were staring at the clock, willing it to be the end of the school day, as they always did, when 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered the campus, armed with an AR-15, and began shooting?

Nearly 3,000 students went to school that morning, thinking it was an ordinary day. As of this writing, 17 of them will only come home in a coffin. Many others have been injured, and for everyone at that school, their family, their friends, and their neighbors—life as they know it has been changed forever.

All of these children are our children, but particularly close to our hearts in the Reform Jewish community was Alyssa Alhadeff, a fourteen-year-old freshman who spent her summers at URJ Camp Coleman. Her cousins go to synagogue with my cousins, at the Reform Temple of Rockland, just over an hour from here. She is part of our family.

Her mother, Lori Alhadeff, wrote on social media:

16victims-alyssa-master180“My Daughter Alyssa was killed today by a horrific act of violence. I just sent her to school and she was shot and killed. Alyssa was a talented soccer player, so smart, an amazing personality, incredible creative writer, and all she had to offer the world was love. She believed in people for being so honest. A knife is stabbed in my heart. I wish I could [have] taken those bullets for you. I will always love you and your memory will live on forever. Please kiss your children, tell them you love them, stand by them no matter what they want to be. To Alyssa’s Friends honor Alyssa by doing something fabulous in your life. Don’t ever give up and inspire for greatness. Live for Alyssa! Be her voice and breathe for her. Alyssa loved you all forever!”

Alyssa’s death, and the death of her classmates, is a painful reminder of how quickly our table—our ordinary routine—can become our coffin. But it is also a disturbing reminder that our coffin has become our table.

This is the 18th school shooting in the first six weeks of 2018. That means that, on average, children are being shot in our schools three times a week. We have allowed the tragic to become the ordinary.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. As long as we are still alive, we owe it to those who have died to use our voices and our votes and our resources to bring about meaningful change.

This might take many forms. We can advocate for safer schools, not just with the presence of metal detectors and law enforcement, but with funding for social workers and psychologists who can address mental health issues, at school and at home, before they lead to tragedies like this one.

We can advocate for better mental health care in our communities, something that is always on the chopping block in state and national conversations about health care.

And we can and should demand sensible gun laws, particularly regarding background checks and the sale of assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. Many recent shootings have been carried out with AR-15s, what some call a consumer version of a military-grade weapon. It is lightweight, affordable, and capable of penetrating a human body and the wall behind it. It can quickly fire off multiple rounds, particularly when modified with a bump stock, which is also legal, despite attempts to ban them following the Las Vegas shooting in 2017.

An AR-15 is not a handgun. An AR-15 is not a hunting rifle. An AR-15 is designed to kill people, quickly and efficiently, and it can legally be purchased many places in the United States. AR-15s, as “semi-automatic assault rifles,” were part of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004. Now they part of the epidemic that is killing our children, nearly three times a week on average. We have allowed them to become ordinary.

But as long as we are alive, we can still, as Dena Weiss suggests, “look at the priorities that [we] have stored away in [our] closet and restore them to [our] table.” After Shabbat, I encourage you to visit the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Everytown for Gun Safety to learn more about what you can do to remove the stain of gun violence from our table.

I offer, in closing, the words of Rabbi David Wirtschafter:

“It is the word gift, t’rumah, … that this Torah portion, Parashat T’rumah, takes its name. The slaughter of more young people, the squandering of yet more gifts, constitutes a level of grief that we cannot accept. The spilling of innocent blood can never become acceptable. It can not be tolerated, rationalized, trivialized, marginalized, or stoically endured. No one should have to endure it. So, may every person, whose heart so moves us, consider the cost of our current state of affairs.

May we be moved to ask if this is how God intended us to use the gift of life.

May we be moved to go beyond thoughts and prayers.

May we be moved to act on behalf of our children, our students, our neighbors, and our communities to demand a more responsible use of our most precious resource.

Children are among God’s greatest gifts to us.

Our ability to cherish, protect, nurture, love, and value them, is among the greatest gifts we have to offer in return.

To receive a gift is to accept the promise that comes with it.

To give a gift is to express the expectation that it will be received with gratitude and utilized responsibly.

For the sake of our children, past, present, and future let us become better guardians of our gifts. May this be our blessing, and let us say:

Amen.”

 

 

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by rebleah18 on February 16, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by rebleah18 on February 16, 2018

https://vassartemple.wordpress.com/2018/02/16/when-the-ordinary-becomes-tragic-and-the-tragic-becomes-ordinary/

#MeToo: Dinah’s Story

Rabbi Berkowitz’s drash on this week’s Torah portion. Cross-posted to the This is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

Genesis 34 is the ultimate revenge fantasy. After the son of a local tribal head assaults Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, concoct a plot to retaliate. The attacker, Shechem, professes his love for their sister, and his desire to marry her, no matter what bride price they ask. Simeon and Levi respond that it would be disgusting for their sister to marry an uncircumcised man. “Only on this condition will we consent to you: if you become like us by having everyone of your males circumcised. Then we would give you our daughters and would take your daughters and settle among you and become one people” (Gen. 34:15-16). Poor Shechem, he must really have wanted to marry Dinah. He convinces all the men in his clan to be circumcised. Then, three days later, while the men are still recuperating, Simeon and Levi attack. They kill all of the men in Shechem, and take their women, children, property and livestock as spoil. Their father Jacob is horrified, fearful that this will make it impossible to live peacefully among their neighbors. But Simeon and Levi are unrepentant. Nobody treats their sister this way and gets away with it.

In light of recent events, it wouldn’t be wrong to indulge ourselves in a little revenge fantasy. How much would we enjoy seeing the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore go under the knife for what they’ve done? Sadly, it is still somewhat of a fantasy to imagine even Simeon and Levi’s bold statement: that their sister’s honor is worth fighting for.

Genesis 34 is a revenge fantasy, but unfortunately, it is also a mirror, and we aren’t going to like what we see when we take a look in the glass.

First of all, we see that the impulse to “take” women is as old as the Bible. Three times in this narrative, the word lakach is used, the Hebrew word for “take.” First, Shechem “takes” Dinah sexually (34:1). Then he asks his father to “take” Dinah for him as a wife (34:4), perhaps thinking that a high bride-price will undo his previous wrongs. Later, after killing all the men in Shechem, Simeon and Levi “take” Dinah back home (34:26).

Even Jewish texts that discuss the consequences of sexual violence do little to dispel the notion that a woman is an object to be “taken.” The punishment, in all but a few cases, is either marriage to the victim—clearly not a desirable outcome for her—or a payment to her father, who now has the burden of marrying off a daughter whose value has depreciated. The woman’s suffering is not addressed. She is only her father’s property, until she is her husband’s, even if her husband became so by assaulting her.

Shechem’s offer to pay for what he’s taken reinforces the idea that she is property of her family, not an independent individual. We may think we’re past that, but how many times in recent weeks have we seen a price put on the suffering of a woman, after she was violated. Is $100,000 enough? A million? The price is immaterial.

This idea of “taking” is still prevalent in our culture today. Even in benign settings, we often portray women as prizes to be won, commodities to be traded, or worse, territory to be conquered. This strips women, not only of their dignity, but of their agency. When a woman is an object to be “taken,” she is not an individual capable of self-determination.

In fact, there is only one place in the biblical narrative where Dinah has any agency at all. At the very beginning, we learn that Dinah, “went out to see the daughters of the land” (34:1). There is a subtle implication that this is not the proper way for a good Israelite girl to behave. She is leaving the safety of her family compound, and mingling with the common folk in Canaan. Maybe if she’d stayed at home this wouldn’t have happened. Even in the Bible, we already have the propensity to blame the victim.

This line of thinking is still common today. How often do we ask the victim, “What were you wearing?” or “Why did you invite him into your house?” or, “Why didn’t you leave when he started acting strange?” How many of the women in this room have gotten the email forwarded list of “safety tips,” telling us not to wear our hair in ponytails, or sit in our car in a dark parking lot, because this makes us easy prey?

There is a story about Golda Meir, the first female Prime Minister of Israel, in the wake of several sexual assaults during her tenure. When asked if she would impose a curfew on women for their safety, Meir replied, “But it is the men who are attacking the women. If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home.”

Unfortunately, Meir’s thinking is still in the minority. While it is good to teach women how to protect themselves, the only way we are ever going to bring an end to sexual violence is by addressing the behavior of men. And we need to start very young.

I’d love to say I’m delighted to see that powerful men are finally being held accountable for decades of harassment, intimidation, and sexual violence. However, as the rash of accusations grew and spread, I began to feel queasy. Not only because it revealed the bad behavior of people I admire and respect very much. But because I don’t think that firing every accused news anchor, actor, or politician will do one iota of good.

This isn’t to say that I think this people deserve to keep their jobs. I want every single one of them to be held accountable for what they did, through a thorough investigation, a fair trial, and appropriate consequences. But at this point, we are just playing whack-a-mole. We know that for every powerful man we topple, there is another man behind him about to fall. And for every powerful man revealed to be a threat to women, there are dozens more, harassing and even attacking women and going unpunished, often in lower-status positions that don’t make them newsworthy. We have created—or at the very least, permitted—a culture in which this kind of behavior is normal.

Roy Moore likely knew what he was doing was wrong. But he also is the product of a culture that didn’t bat an eyelash at a 30-year-old man dating a teenager, hence he thought he could do if only her mother gave permission. Harvey Weinstein probably also knew that his actions would be considered disgusting by most. But he is also the product of a culture that allows powerful men to prey on vulnerable women, and then to pay to make their problems go away. Dozens of people enabled him, and it’s impossible that none of them knew what was happening.

Both men were also part of a culture that silenced women who spoke up against powerful men, such that many women were, and still are, afraid to come forward and tell the truth. Even though the proclivities of these men were an open secret, women who spoke out against them were not always believed, or their accusations were laughed off as typical gross male behavior, endemic to the profession they had chosen. Which meant that a lot of women chose to leave their profession. And that’s not fair.

So what do we need to do? We need to change the culture. I would argue that, no matter how many politicians and producers there are still to be voted out or fired, changing the culture is going to be harder.

Changing the culture means holding people accountable for their actions, giving both accuser and accused their day in court. It means breaking down the wall of non-disclosure agreements and making it easier for people to report harassment and assault. It means believing women. But it also means teaching our children to think differently about sex, about their bodies, and about their relationships.

It means teaching our children that harassment is not a form of affection. Saying, “He teases you because he likes you,” teaches girls (and boys) to tolerate bad behavior, and honestly, it teaches both genders that it’s okay to make someone uncomfortable in the pursuit of pleasure or love.

It means teaching our children about consent. I now have this talk with students prior to bnai mitzvah, telling them that I will ask if it’s okay to hug them because they are in charge of their bodies. I realized the other day that it starts much younger. I was visiting my friends and their children and I started tickling their five year old’s belly. He squirmed and giggled hysterically. But the minute he said, “Stop!” I held up both hands and said, “You said stop, so I’m stopping.” Because learning about consent and bodily autonomy starts that young.

It means teaching our children that sex is not a conquest. It is not progress for women to become more like men in this regard. Both genders need to understand that sex is something that should be desired, and enjoyed, by both parties. This means that both parties have the right to say, “No,” if they aren’t enjoying themselves. It means that both parties have the obligation to secure an enthusiastic “Yes,” to any physical contact.

In the Talmud, the rabbis have an argument over the phrase zeh dor dorshav m’vakshei panecha from Psalms (24:6). “Such is the generation [and] its leaders that seek Your face.” One said that this means, “The character of the generation parallels that of its leader,” while the other says, “The character of a leader parallels that of their generation.” Finally, they agree that both are true. The leader is responsible for setting an example for the people, while the people are responsible for holding their leader accountable for their actions. If one of these were to fail to do their part, they are to blame when the other is not righteous (Arakhin 17a, as interpreted in Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, “Making a Window for the World,” IJS Torah Study Vayishlach, 2017).

If we are to root out harassment and assault in our communities, we need to take a good look in the mirror. Only when we, personally, take responsibility, can we hope to see any change. We need to be the ones who hold our leaders accountable, and we need to be the ones who raise up the next generation to be righteous.

 

Uprising
By Rabbi Annie Lewis

Me too, Dinah,
me too.
If only you could
see us now,
all the great men falling
like the idols of your
great, great grandfather,
egos slain
like the men of Shechem.

If only you could
see us now,
your sisters
taught to make nice,
take care –
shouting,
me too.
No more.

All your sisters trained
to harbor shame
for going out,
claiming space,
craving more.
Because we asked for it
so we deserved it.

If only you could
see us now, Dinah,
our truth
rising up like song.

 

 

 

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by rebleah18 on December 1, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Rabbi

Posted by rebleah18 on December 1, 2017

https://vassartemple.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/metoo-dinahs-story/

The Story Begins When the Stranger Arrives

This week’s d’var Torah on parashat Vayera, in observance of Immigrant Justice Shabbat. Cross-posted to This Is What A Rabbi Looks Like.

The story starts when the stranger comes to town.

This is one of the cardinal rules of storytelling. The arrival of a stranger can be a breath of fresh air, a new love interest, a source of tumult, or, in most plot-lines, some combination of the three.

The arrival of the stranger is also a recurring theme in the Bible, especially in this week’s parasha. This week, we read several stories that start with the arrival of strangers: the most famous of which are the announcement of Isaac’s birth, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorroh.

Parashat Vayera opens with the arrival of three strangers in Mamre, where Abraham lives with his wife Sarah. Seeing three men approaching from a distance, Abraham leaps into action: preparing—or having his wife and servants prepare—food, drink, water to bathe, and a place to rest for his guests. Abraham doesn’t know that the strangers are there to bring good news—that Sarah, long barren, will finally give birth to a son. The story gives the impression that this is just what Abraham does for all weary travelers.

This act of hospitality will result in a tremendous reward, but Abraham has no way of knowing this when he does it.

Cut to Sodom and Gomorroh, where two strangers have just arrived at the city gate. Here they are explicitly described as “angels,” whereas in the previous story, it is not clear whether the strangers are human or divine. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, doesn’t want the men to sleep alone in the city square—he knows his neighbors aren’t the most hospitable people. Indeed, no sooner does Lot invite the strangers in, than the townspeople come pounding on the door. They want Lot to surrender the two strangers for their own nefarious purposes, but Lot refuses, offering his own daughters instead. The townspeople reject this offer, and are about to attack Lot, when the angels intervene, blinding the townspeople and rescuing Lot’s family from the condemned cities of Sodom and Gomorroh.

Lot’s hospitality temporarily endangers his entire family, but Lot has no way of knowing this when he does it.

Later in the parasha, we see the tables turned, and Abraham’s family become the strangers: Abraham and Sarah, sojourning in Gerar, find themselves in a vulnerable position as strangers in a strange land. Hagar and Ishmael, once an integral part of Abraham and Sarah’s family in spite of Hagar’s foreign origin, are banished from the household and nearly die of thirst.

The story begins when the stranger arrives. Sometimes it turns out for the best, sometimes it leads to something traumatic. But we have no way of knowing, until we see how the story unfolds.

The rabbis tease out of this parasha two very different approaches to welcoming strangers. Abraham is what we would probably today call an outreach and engagement specialist. According to rabbinic legend, Abraham kept the four sides of his tent open, so that strangers coming from all directions could enter right away. But he also went out in order to find strangers and bring them home with him. Moreover, he set up well-stocked way-stations all over the desert, so that he could serve the stranger even when they weren’t going to cross his path (Avot De Rabbi Nathan 7).

Taking the opposite approach were the people of Sodom and Gomorroh. Legend has it that these cities held unimaginable wealth: the roots of their vegetables were literally encrusted with gold flakes and jewels. But this led them to take a protective stance, putting up barriers to keep strangers out, and harshly mistreating them if they dared to come in. They attackedthem physically, robbed them of their property, imposed ridiculous tolls and fees for entry, and even executed those who dared to help them (Sanhedrin 109a-b).

The Jewish tradition praises Abraham’s behavior, which we call hachnasat orchim, welcoming the stranger. But it’s not difficult to see why we often take a more protective approach.

This week, we watched in horror as the news unfolded, regarding a terrorist attack in New York City. Eight people were killed and 11 injured when a man plowed a pickup truck into the bike path along the Hudson River. As the story developed, we learned that the man had been radicalized and committed this heinous crime as a purposeful act of terror. Some voices are choosing to emphasize that the man was an immigrant, and that incidents like this wouldn’t happen if we had higher walls or closed borders.

But that is just untrue. Putting aside how many acts of terror originate from native-born Americans, we must remember that, for every person we let into this country who ultimately hurts another person, there are thousands of people who come here to live peacefully with their neighbors, and contribute positively to the country we all live in. Like Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael, each of these immigrants took great risks coming here, sustained by their dreams of a better life. And when that better life is threatened, it falls on our community to speak up.

The Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism has marked tonight as an Immigrant Justice Shabbat, with a particular focus on DREAM-ers. Dreamers are immigrants between the ages of 16 and 31, who have been in the country for at least five years. There are currently 800,000 people in this program, 87% of which are currently in the workforce. Their average age upon arrival was six and a half. The 2012 DREAM Act, also known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, made it possible for young immigrants to get work permits and attend school without fear of deportation.

Just two months ago, it was announced that this program would be terminated in six months. The only hope for DREAM-ers now is for Congress to pass a Clean DREAM Act, which would grant conditional permanent resident status for all DREAM-ers, as well as lawful permanent resident status and a path to citizenship for those Dreamers who attend college, work in the US, or serve in the U.S. military.

The Religious Action Center has also declared this Monday, November 6th, as a call-in day, to encourage our senators and representatives to co-sponsor the new DREAM Act. After Shabbat, I encourage you  to learn more about this legislation, and how you can help turn these immigrants’ dreams into reality.

Because our news cycle is so often dominated by stories of immigrants who do harm, let us consider the stories of immigrants doing good:

Benita Veliz came to the U.S. from Mexico with her parents in 1993, when she was 8. Benita graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class at the age of 16. She received a full scholarship to St. Mary’s University, where she graduated from the Honors program with a double major in biology and sociology. Benita’s honors thesis was on the DREAM Act. She dreams of becoming an attorney. In a letter to Senator Durbin (IL), Benita wrote: “I can’t wait to be able to give back to the community that has given me so much. I was recently asked to sing the national anthems for both the U.S. and Mexico at a Cinco de Mayo community assembly. Without missing a beat, I quickly belted out the Star Spangled Banner. To my embarrassment, I then realized that I had no idea how to sing the Mexican national anthem. I am American. My dream is American. It’s time to make our dreams a reality. It’s time to pass the Dream Act.”

Sometimes the stranger brings something bad…and sometimes the stranger brings something good. But, like our biblical ancestors, we don’t get to know that in advance. This leaves us with two choices: do we take an Abrahamic approach, letting everyone in in hopes of doing good? Or do we follow the example of Sodom and Gomorroh, shutting people out, even when it means committing an act of cruelty, even when it precipitates our own downfall?

Thirty-six times the Torah tells us to welcome the stranger, to live with our doors and our hearts open. We see in tonight’s stories how doing so can make us vulnerable. But let us not forget how opening our doors to the stranger can also open doors for us: doors of possibility and doors of blessing.

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by rebleah18 on November 3, 2017  •  Permalink
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Lech Lecha: Walking Each Other Halfway

This week’s sermon on parashat Lech Lecha. Cross-posted to This is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

“Go forth from your native land, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you…”

Imagine you are hearing these words for the first time, and that they are directed at you. Imagine they come from a voice that you’ve never heard before: a voice claiming to be the one true God. What is your next move?

I posed this question to our seventh graders, whose first response was, “New phone, who dis?”

But immediately afterwards—with only a brief interlude into “What do I wear?” and “What do I pack?”—came what is possibly the most important question: “Who do I get to take with me?”

Abram doesn’t ask any of these questions. In fact, he says nothing at all. He just listens, and starts walking. It is the text that provides our answers: “Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the persons that they had acquired in Haran; and they set out for the land of Canaan” (Gen. 12:5).

If we truly want to answer the question of “Who do I get to take with me?” we also have to address the question, “Who am I leaving behind?” To answer that inquiry, we have to flip back a few pages to last week’s Torah portion.

At the end of parshat Noach, we find out that, although God has not yet called Abram to “go forth,” his entire family has already started the journey. We read: “Terach took his son, Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there. And the days of Terach were two hundred and five years; and Terach died in Haran” (Gen. 11:31-32).

Why is it that they started on this journey in the first place, prior to God’s call? And, having done so, why did they stop in Haran?

This was no quick jaunt across town. Ur to Haran was essentially the Southeastern most corner of Iraq; Haran was located at the Northernmost tip of Syria. It is quite possible that Terach and his family were simply exhausted. As modern readers, we might read a bit into the word “settled”: he was comfortable, so he stayed where he was. Or Terach might have fallen ill, and died before he could continue on to his original destination.

But the rabbis point out that there are 65 years between when Abram left for Canaan and when Terach died at the ripe old age of 205. Why then, does Abram’s departure appear AFTER Terach’s death in the Torah? Rabbi Isaac says that, “the wicked, even during their lifetime, are called dead.” This hints at the rabbinic tradition that paints Terach as an idol-maker, who clashed with his son, the monotheist, at every turn. Terach couldn’t go forward. He was stuck in his old ways.

But Rabbi Isaac isn’t finished. “For Abram was afraid,” he says, “saying, ‘Shall I go out and bring dishonor upon the Divine Name, as people will say, ‘He left his father in his old age and departed’?’ Therefore the Holy One, blessed be God, reassured him: ‘I exempt you from the duty of honoring your parents, though I exempt no one for this duty. Moreover, I will record his death before your departure” so that no one will think that you left him alone to die (Gen. R. 39: 7).

Whether Terach was physically dead, or spiritually dead, when Abram left for Canaan, most rabbis agree that there was no way Terach could have completed the journey with Abram. My teacher, Rabbi Norman Cohen, suggested that it was psychologically and spiritually necessary for Abram to lose his father before answering God’s call. Many rabbis translate lech-lecha as “go to yourself,” become your own person, pursue your own destiny. Abram, Rabbi Cohen supposed, could only begin this journey of self-discovery after his father’s death.

The rabbis have many reasons for why Terach couldn’t complete the journey. But I wasn’t able to find any answers regarding why he started it. How did he know that he needed to move in this direction? Why did he undertake such an arduous journey, knowing he couldn’t complete it?

I hadn’t paid much attention to Terach before: he’s kind of an afterthought at the end of parshat Noach. But this week, I found myself thinking that, rather than deride Terach for not being strong enough to reach Canaan, we might instead give him some credit for walking his son halfway.

As some of you know, my great-uncle Billy passed away last week, and I went up to Albany for his funeral. Billy lived a long, full life: he was 92 years old, and was married for 69 years to my great-aunt Muriel. He danced at a few of his grandchildren’s weddings and met a great-grandchild. It was a good life, and a reasonably good death. But it was still hard on his family, and ours.

Though I hadn’t seen him in awhile, Billy was a fixture of my childhood from our annual pilgrimage to Albany. His snoring was audible throughout their ranch house. He made us Mickey-Mouse and Star Wars themed pancakes like we were his own grandchildren.

The loss was particularly difficult for my mother. She grew up spending family holidays going from house to house on the one street where her aunts, uncles, and grandmother lived. On Passover, she would eat three breakfasts so she could have matzah brie in every kitchen. The cousins all slept on rollaway cots in one basement. She attended college in Troy in part to be near them, and even changed her wedding date so that all of them could attend. When her own mother died young, her aunts and uncles took care of her as if she were their own child.

Their love was expansive. There was always room for one more.

The morning after Billy died, my mom told me a story she had never shared before. She was traveling by bus from New York City to Utica, so that she could visit her dying father. The bus made an hour-long stopover in Albany, and all of her aunts and uncles drove downtown, just to sit with her in the bus station, and then wave goodbye to her as the bus pulled away.

That is a special kind of love. It is a rare person who is with us on our life’s journey from beginning to end. Sometimes, all we can do is walk them part of the way. And sometimes, all we can do is sit in one place with them for a stretch of time.

At first, I wasn’t sure whether I could attend the funeral, given my own full schedule of meetings about other families’ life-cycle events (one great irony of the rabbinate). But when my mom told me this story, I decided to make it work, and I’m grateful that the community was so supportive. I hadn’t been able to spend much time with my Albany family over the years. I don’t even see my immediate family as often as I’d like. But for these few hours, I was given the opportunity to be with my mother while she was grieving. I couldn’t do anything to make it better. But I could sit with her, just for that hour.

Sometimes, that’s all we can do. And sometimes, that’s all that matters.

We might say that Terach got too comfortable, or stuck, or was too weak to go the distance. We might posit that Abram could only achieve his full potential when he left his father behind. But we might also see Terach’s journey, incomplete as it was, as an act of love.

The text doesn’t say that Terach and his family set out for Haran. It says that they set out for Canaan. Even though God had not yet called to Abram to tell him where to go, his father knew to start moving the family in that direction, even if they wouldn’t make it all the way there.

Maybe he was there to wave goodbye to Abram as the caravan pulled away, and maybe he wasn’t. Either way, Terach started a journey with Abram that he knew he might not be able to finish. Perhaps he loved his son so much that he decided to walk him halfway, and then sat with him, as long as he could, so that Abram could prepare himself to move forward on his own.

The spiritual teacher Ram Dass once said that, in life, “We are all just walking one another home.” And sometimes, we only make it halfway. Sometimes, that’s all we can do. And sometimes, that’s all that matters.

 

 

 

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by rebleah18 on October 27, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by rebleah18 on October 27, 2017

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The Stranger Within Your Camp

havdalah crane lake camp panoramaMy sermon this Shabbat on parshat Nitzavim-Vayeilech. Cross-posted to This is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

After each of the four summers that I attended URJ Camp Harlam, I’d get a terrible case of laryngitis. By my final summer as a camper, it was so bad that the only noise I could make for a week was a honk. This wasn’t just from screaming cheers during color war, or staying up all night talking with my bunkmates. It was actually because I, previously the quietest child in my family, talked for the entire two-hour drive home to Philadelphia. I told my parents every last detail, stories that I thought were hysterical, and that they likely didn’t understand, many of which I still remember today.

For example, one summer, we had a British counselor named Sarah, and there was a running joke where campers would try to get her to say “to-mah-to” so that they could make fun of her accent. By the end of the summer, she would say, in an exaggerated American accent, “to-may-to.”

One evening, while we were camping, our counselors decided to make banana boats: basically a s’more, stuffed in a banana, wrapped in tin foil, and cooked over an open fire. They got really hot, and Sarah was put in charge of warning us. She made each of us raise our right hand and repeat after her, in a proper English accent, “I will not touch my hot ba-nah-nah boat because it will buhrn my tongue.”

I don’t know why I still remember this, but it still makes me laugh, every single time I think of it.

Now, you are probably thinking: Rabbi Berkowitz has run out of sermon ideas, and is now just telling silly camp stories. I assure you that is not the case. I told this story because I wanted to explain to you tonight how international staff have become an integral part of the fabric of URJ summer camps. This is important for you to know, because the current administration is considering doing away with the J-1 visa program, which would affect international au pairs, as well as international staff at summer camps.

The attack on the J-1 visa program is part of a “Buy American, Hire American” initiative in the White House. Encouraging us to spend our money on American products and American workers is a noble and admirable goal. However, doing away with the J-1 visa program would be detrimental to our summer camp programs, are an essential component to fostering Jewish identity and a relationship to Israel in our young people.

For starters, I’m not sure how many camps would be able to stay open without hiring international staff. Sadly, with the rise of the unpaid internship, fewer and fewer American college students choose to spend the summer being a camp counselor, let alone work in the kitchen or tending the grounds. But there are plenty of international candidates who would happily make thousands of gluten-free pancakes a day, teach arts and crafts, or supervise 12 eight-year-olds for eight weeks, in exchange for a subsidized trip to the U.S.

More importantly, however, having international staff at camp provides an important opportunity for cultural exchange. As the Jewish community becomes increasingly diverse, it can be incredibly moving for campers to relate to Jews from all over the world. It helps both sides to see that Jews around the world are very different, or in some cases, very similar, to them. Last summer, Crane Lake Camp hosted two Jewish girls from Uganda as counselors. How incredible it must have been, on both sides, for these counselors to interact with campers of color, who rarely see an adult Jew who looks like them?

Not every international staff member is Jewish, which means that often, we are teaching young adults from around the world about Judaism and Jews. As we experience global spikes in anti-semitism, one of the best things we can do is give people from other faiths and other nations a positive experience with American Jews.

For those staff members who are members of the tribe, meeting Jews from around the world gives both campers and counselors a different perspective on what it means to be Jewish, whether the staff in question comes from Europe, Australia, Africa, or Israel.

Having Israeli staff on camp is particularly important, and not only for the reasons you would think. Yes, Israeli staff teach our campers about real life in Israel, and introduce them to the language and culture of their spiritual homeland. They teach Israeli music and dancing, and design celebrations for the camp-only festivals such as Yom Israel Day. They also spend eight weeks with our children, building relationships that can long outlast the summer. One of our Israeli counselors at Camp Harlam later served as a staff member on our NFTY in Israel trip, and we came to know him as our protector. When there was an incident of hate near the camp in Pennsylvania, he kept watch on the porch all night so that we could feel safe. When there was an attempted bombing during our travels in Israel, he gave us a very real perspective about what it means to live in Israel and to be constantly under threat.

But there is yet another side to the Israeli staff coin. As a rabbi on faculty, I now realize that, as much as we want our American Reform Jewish kids to meet real live Israelis, it is imperative that Israelis meet real live American Reform Jews. Reform Judaism is often disparaged, and even discriminated against, in Israel. This may not seem like a big deal here, where there is friendly competition between all the denominations. But in Israel, where the line between synagogue in state is blurred, this distaste for Reform Judaism can have far-reaching implications. Israel is a country where many secular Jews allow an Orthodox rabbinate to dictate what is permissible in both public and private spheres. The rabbinate controls not only what goes on at the Kotel, but also marriage, divorce, and conversion, all of which have implications for citizenship, the equality of women, and the inclusion of LGBTQ individuals.

You might be aware that, for nearly three decades now, Women of the Wall and the Israel Religious Action Center have been fighting for an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall. In 2016, a plan for this space was agreed upon by all parties. But in June, the project was suspended. The rising tension came to a head when the chief rabbi of Jerusalem reacted to protests by calling Reform Jews, “evil,” an “abomination,” and “worse than Holocaust deniers.” Rabbi Rick Jacobs warned that such statements had the power to incite violence, as just over a week ago, he and two major Reform leaders in Israel received death threats from an Orthodox man in B’nei Brak.

We need secular Israelis to see—and to tell their families and friends—that Reform Judaism is not an abomination, or a joke, but rather a valid and vibrant way of practicing Judaism. And I would argue that that is something that happens at URJ summer camps more than it happens anywhere else. It doesn’t always mean that they stop being secular—in fact secular Judaism in Israel can look very similar to Reform Judaism in America—but it might mean that the sight of a woman in a kippah or holding a Torah scroll won’t seem foreign to them anymore. It might mean that they see a positive Jewish identity blossoming in a child of intermarriage–something the Orthodox rabbinate currently renders legally impossible, such that an interfaith couple could only be married abroad. It might mean that they decide to read from the Torah for the first time themselves, and realize that doors that the Orthodox rabbinate closes for them might yet be opened. And that might mean a change in how they think, feel, speak, and vote.

Whatever it means, it won’t happen if the J-1 visa program is canceled. There is so much going on in the world right now, and we are all fighting battles big and small. This is an opportunity for us to make an impact. After Shabbat, and after Selichot, I hope that you will contact our senators, the President, and the Secretary of State to let them know how important it is for us to continue the J-1 visa program, so that we can continue to have international staff at our summer camps.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read the famous passage listing all the people that Moses is speaking to in his final address: “You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your women, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer—to enter into the covenant of the Eternal your God” (Deuteronomy 29:9-11).

While clearly Moses was speaking about a different kind of camp, his words remind us that, when something really matters to us, we need all hands on deck, regardless of status. Whether they are scrubbing pots in the kitchen, teaching our children to swim, or making sure they don’t burn their tongues on hot banana boats, the stranger within our camp is an essential piece in the summer camp puzzle. And when we welcome them into our home and our hearts, we give ourselves the opportunity to become a part of their Jewish story as well.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

 

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by rebleah18 on September 15, 2017  •  Permalink
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Do We Trust Women?

Rabbi Berkowitz’s piece in this week’s Poughkeepsie Journal. To take action on this important legislation, visit Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts.

The debate over reproductive rights is nothing new. We’ve discussed it from a faith perspective, we’ve studied the economics, and we’ve debated it through the lens of public health. But all it really comes down to is this: Do we trust women?

I’m a woman in a profession traditionally populated by men, and I can say with some authority that there are a lot of times when the answer is “no.” I often have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously in my field. But who knows the “field” of women’s reproductive health better than a woman and her health care provider?

Reproductive rights are under attack on the national scale. Anti-abortion legislation is forcing clinics to close and forces women to travel out of state to receive vital medical care, or to go back to the unsafe, illegal methods used before Roe v. Wade. Our nation’s leaders threaten constantly to defund the vital services provided by Planned Parenthood, going so far as to shut female legislators out of the drafting of the AHCA.

So it’s time to ask again: Do we trust women?

Do we trust women to decide when the time is right for them to become sexually active? If that is the case, our only course of action is to provide young people with education about healthy relationships and safer sex, and provide affordable, accessible contraception.

Do we trust women to decide when and if they want to start a family? If so, we need to support legislation such as the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, which helps ensure affordable insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Do we trust women to decide how big they want their family to be, and how to space the births of their children? If yes, passing the CCCA can make this easier for women by allowing them to access 12 months of contraception on the same prescription, and to access Emergency Contraception at a pharmacy without a copay.

Supporting the CCCA shows that we trust women to be partners in the fight against STIs and unintended pregnancy. Trusting women to manage their reproductive health has been shown to reduce the need for abortion.

Do we trust women to consult with their medical professionals to make the best decision for themselves and their families? One overlooked aspect of the abortion debate is what happens when a pregnancy that was planned for and desperately wanted cannot continue. Abortion is a necessary component of women’s health care and should be treated as such.

The Reproductive Health Act would update New York state law to ensure that access to safe and legal abortion will always be available in New York as currently protected by Roe v. Wade. The RHA provides for abortion after 24 weeks to protect the health of the woman or when a fetus is not viable. The RHA recognizes that advance practice clinicians, within their scope of practice, can provide abortion care and regulates abortion under public health law.

In 1970, New York was a leader in legalizing abortion. Now, in 2017, New York has the opportunity to make the statement that we trust our women to make the best decisions for ourselves and our families.

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by rebleah18 on June 2, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by rebleah18 on June 2, 2017

https://vassartemple.wordpress.com/2017/06/02/do-we-trust-women/

Some People Count, Some People Don’t

This Week’s Sermon on parashat Bamidbar. Cross-posed to the This Is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

“Some people count, some people don’t.”

It’s a line only a movie villain could say, in this case, the womanizing waiter in the movie Dirty Dancing (a television remake aired this past Wednesday, so I had to sneak that in there).

But these words might have very well been spoken by God and Moses, as we begin reading the book of Numbers. In Hebrew, this book is called Bamidbar, “in the wilderness,” because of where the events of the book take place. However, the English name, Numbers, is pretty spot on. The first commandment we receive in this book is, “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (Numbers 1:2).

The Israelites do what God commands, reaching a total of 603,550.  Though some call this figure “impossibly large,” it is still only a sliver of the Israelite community (Etz Chayim 773). In this census, some people count, and some people don’t. The distinction reveals a great deal about the priorities of the community. At this moment, when the Israelites are preparing for military action, it makes sense that the only people they care to count are men who can serve in the army. This census excludes women, children, and the disabled. It also excludes the Levites, the caretakers of the temple, who, though essential to the Israelite community, do not fight in the military. This particular exclusion makes it clear that not counting doesn’t mean you aren’t important (check out the triple negative!), but rather that you aren’t a necessary player in this particular mission.

Some people count, and some people don’t.

Nowadays, congregations have different ways of counting people. I recently learned that churches measure their congregations by ASA—“Average Sabbath Attendance.” By this metric, we are growing, so I happen to like it better. But it is interesting to put the two metrics side-by-side: do we count the membership of our congregation by who fills out a form or writes a check, or by who comes through the door and takes part in the life of the synagogue? For a house of worship to thrive, both metrics matter.

But more than the numbers themselves, what matters is whether or not people feel that they “count” as a part of our community.

This past week, I read a children’s book called Almost a Minyan. Someone had referred to the book as “groundbreaking,” and I wanted to see why. The story is about a girl anticipating the day that she can count in a minyan, one of the ten adults—traditionally men—needed to say Kaddish in the synagogue. At first, I was offended that anyone would think of it as “groundbreaking” to have a young woman “count” in a minyan, or to wear tallit and tefillin, as this young woman does in the illustrations. Women counting in the synagogue? That was sooooo 100 years ago!

But two things made this book special. The first was that there was no dramatic tension about the young woman counting in the minyan—the drama of the story came from someplace else. No one was against it. It was just a matter of her reaching the appropriate age. Once she turned twelve, wasn’t any question of whether or not she “counted.”

Moreover, the faces in the book represented different races and genders, though none of this was mentioned or explained in the text. This might not seem that groundbreaking to us—we have all kinds of people here in our synagogue. But imagine that you are a young woman, or a person of color, in a Jewish community where there aren’t many people who look like you. Seeing a face like yours, or a story like yours, on the page, reminds you (or maybe tells you for the first time) that you matter. You count.

We have come quite a far way from counting only adult, combat-ready males in the Jewish community. We give equal weight to men and women, to the disabled and the abled, to adults and to children, even if certain privileges only come with b’nai mitzvah. In the Reform movement, we have taken extra steps to make sure that individuals, and households, are counted equally, regardless of their size, shape, color, ability, economic status, or orientation.

This is the ideal, but there are times when we fall short. Each of us has probably known a time when we didn’t feel “counted” in a community: when our voice was not heard, or our needs were not met, or we did not feel welcomed because we were different in some way. It is our responsibility as a sacred community to consider who might still be outside our doors, because they don’t feel that they “count” here, and how we can communicate to every person in our community that they matter.

Some people count, and some people don’t.

We are also seeing this phrase play out on the national scale. We have our own census coming up in 2020, and there is a debate over who will be counted. While the 1990 census was the first to count same-sex couples, the 2020 census was going to be the first to include questions about LGBTQ individuals. But the Census Bureau revealed a few weeks ago that these questions would not be included in this census.

Why does this matter? It matters to researchers and agencies who serve these populations, so that they can have the best information about the people living in any given community, and address the particular challenges that each community might face. And it matters to LGBTQ individuals, who view this as an attempt to “erase” them. They want to know that they “count.”

This past week, the White House released a budget proposal for next year that has raised further questions about who “counts” in our society. The proposal suggests making cuts to programs that serve children, the poor, and the disabled. The White House Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, urged the public not to focus solely on the numbers:

“We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs. We are going to measure compassion and success by the number of people we help get off those programs and get back in charge of their own lives.”

This is an admirable goal. There is no higher form of tzedaka than empowering a person to become self-sufficient. But we must ask those in positions of leadership: how will you care for those who are counted as recipients of SNAP, Medicaid, and Social Security Disability? How will you bring them from public assistance to independence, and how will you care for them in the meantime? How will you say to these people: “You count”?

We might be focused on the big numbers, such as the 44 million people in the United States who receive food stamps, or the $192 billion dollar cut to that program. But for each individual or family, it’s the smaller numbers that make the biggest difference: a thousand dollar child tax credit, a dollar difference in the minimum wage, a student loan payment, a medical bill. I’m not callous enough to say that none of these programs could be run with less waste or more efficiency. We’re trying to do that here, too. But the huge scale of these proposed cuts sends a message to the people who rely on them: You don’t count.

Some people count, and some people don’t.

Elsewhere in the Torah it is seen as bad luck to do count people, so much so that, in another census, they collected a half-shekel from each Israelite instead of counting heads. So the rabbis ask, why, here, are the Israelites counted? They compare God to a dealer of precious stones. If the merchant is selling glass beads, they might not bother to count their inventory. But the Israelites, they say, are like fine pearls. God needs us to be counted because each of us is precious (Numbers Rabbah 4:2).

Similarly, another midrash explains that the number given in this week’s census is equal to the number of letters in the Torah. This shows the importance of each individual. If one letter in the Torah is missing, the scroll is invalid. Likewise, if one person is left out, the Jewish community cannot thrive (Itturei Torah on Genesis 1:1).

Some people count, and some people don’t.

It is an ugly truth in every society. But you know who counts? We do. As members of this community, and citizens of this nation, we can speak up for those who may feel like they don’t count. We must communicate to our leadership that each individual in our community, and in our country, is more than just a number. It is our responsibility to work towards the day that each person is counted, not as a half-shekel, but as a precious pearl.

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by rebleah18 on May 26, 2017  •  Permalink
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Vassar Temple Advocacy Group Goes to Albany!

Andi Ciminello, Howard Susser and Marge Groten joined other Reform Jewish Congregations in Albany on Monday, May 8th for a Lobby Day organized by Reform Jewish Voice of New York State.  The event was attended by approximately 30 people.

The morning session was devoted to training the participants on the issues on the organization’s agenda for the day of lobbying and on lobbying techniques.  Presenters included the Co-chairs of Reform Jewish Voice; Assemblywoman Pat Fahey; staff from NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office and a legislative assistant from the Religious Action Center, in Washington DC.
We were asked to advocate for:
  • support of measures that curb the growing influence of money in politics,
  • support of the New York Votes Act to make voting more accessible to New Yorkers,
  • support of the Reproductive Rights Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act, and
  • opposition to the Education Affordability Act, which would provide extremely generous tax credits to those making donations to private and parochial schools.
In the afternoon we meet with Assemblyman Frank Skartados, a staff person working for Assemblywoman DidI Barrett (a Vassar Temple member) and a staff person in Senator Sue Serino’s office to discuss all of the issues on the day’s agenda.  We all felt the event was very worthwhile and encourage Temple members to take the opportunity—either in Albany or locally—to lobby our state legislators on issues identified by Reform Jewish Voice of New York. Speak to one of us if you are interested.
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by rebleah18 on May 26, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by rebleah18 on May 26, 2017

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Dress for Success: What Biblical Clothes Can Tell Us About Modern Leadership

This week’s sermon on Purim and Parashat Tetzaveh. Cross posted to This Is What a Rabbi Looks Like.

Every year, when I sit down to do my taxes, I scroll through my Amazon history to determine what I spent on books, office supplies, and other work-related items. When I get to February and March, I am filled with gratitude that I am in a profession where a Marilyn Monroe wig is a business expense.

Purim is upon us, and that means we are paying special attention to our clothing. We dress in costume, of course (a reminder that this year we will have prizes for doing so!). But the theme of clothing is also woven through the Purim story: who is wearing it, and who isn’t wearing it. The King asks Vashti to appear before his friends wearing her royal crown—perhaps, the rabbis suggest, only her royal crown—and she refuses. After banishing Vashti, the King places that same crown on Esther’s head. Mordechai wears sackcloth and ashes when he hears of the edict to execute the Jews of Shushan, and the king’s own royal robes, when a jealous Haman is forced to honor his rival. Esther employs perfumes and cosmetics to win the king’s heart, and puts on royal robes to change the king’s mind. And while Haman’s famous hat doesn’t appear anywhere in the biblical story, we all know to associate its triangular shape with evil, or possibly, with prune filling.

Clothing is more than what covers our bodies. It is part of what defines us as human beings. As Nechama Leibowitz points out: “Humans are the only creatures in the universe who do not rest content with their natural skin” (Etz Chayim, p. 504). Clothing sends a message both to the wearer and to the outside world. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, where we learn the design of the clothing of the priesthood, particularly the elaborate garments of the high priest.

In a society where most clothing would have been overwhelmingly beige, the colorful design of the high priest’s outfit indicates his elevated status. The embroidery alone requires the work of many dedicated Israelites. Gold, blue, purple, and red dyes—all expensive to produce—figure prominently in the high priests’ outfit. Precious stones and metals decorate his forehead, shoulders, chest, and ankles.

These fancy pieces did not just serve to show the Israelites who is boss. In fact, it is likely that they did exactly the opposite.

high priest outfitWhile the other priests wore simple, modest linen garments—tunics, sashes, turbans, and pants—the high priest’s outfit included a more decorative item called an ephod, which resembles a heavily embroidered apron. The centerpiece of this ephod was the choshen mishpat, the “breastpiece of decision,” containing the Urim and Thummim, a pair of stones used to divine God’s will. The choshen is embellished with 12 precious stones, each engraved with the name of one of the tribes of Israel. Furthermore, on each of his shoulders, the high priest wears one of two onyx stones, each engraved with the names of six of the 12 tribes. “Thus Aaron shall carry the instrument of decision over his heart before the Eternal at all times” (Exodus 28: 30).

Why would God insist that the high priest be so…bedazzled? Wouldn’t all that bling be heavy to carry around?

While the use of precious stones was an indicator of the high priest’s status, the engraving on the stones serves a dual purpose. The first is so that, when the high priest appeared before God, God would remember the covenant God had made with all the Israelites. The second is so that neither the high priest nor the Israelites would ever forget that the high priest was their representative. Biblical archaeologist Carol Meyers writes that the breastplate, “symbolizes the presence of all Israel in the decisions made with the ephod and gives authority to those rulings; it also carries the implicit hope for divine awareness of the people and their needs” (The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 478). One rabbi adds that the gemstones “serve as a perpetual and humbling reminder to him that he is the representative of the entire community of Israel before God” (Etz Chayim, p. 506).

This means that, every day, when the High Priest puts on the ephod and the choshen, the gemstones force him to literally feel the weight of his responsibilities bearing down on his shoulders. He may be, as the gold piece on his forehead states, “Holy to the Eternal,” but he is also, in essence, a servant of the people.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had something like that for our leaders today?

When I was training to be a camp counselor at URJ Camp Eisner, the director read us a letter from a first-time camper’s parent. I don’t remember exactly what it said, only that the parent was grateful, and that the child’s name was Emma. I remember this because, after reading about the great summer the camp had provided for her, someone printed up stickers saying, “I do it for Emma.” I still have the sticker on my now rarely-used camp counselor clipboard. While I’ve long since forgotten who Emma was (I don’t even know if I ever met her, though she’s probably 25 by now) the sticker still serves as a reminder that a great deal of what we do as leaders needs to be remembering whom we work so hard for.

No matter what our profession or calling, it helps to keep a reminder of why we do what we do, and whom we do it for, close to our hearts. And no one needs this reminder more than our elected officials.

As I was reading this Torah portion, I couldn’t help but imagine what a choshen mishpat might look like for our government leaders. Would the president wear a stone for each of the 50 states? Would a senator’s breastpiece feature the names of all of their districts? Would a representative engrave their constituents’ zip codes on their shoulder stones? What would it feel like if a local, state, or national leader had to carry the weight of their constituents with them wherever they went?

We don’t have ephods or breastpieces today: not for our Jewish leaders, and not for our political ones. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to remind our leaders whom they serve. Rabbis get these reminders when we meet with our lay leadership, and when people come to us directly to tell us what they need or want. Although we cannot possibly please everyone, even in a small community, knowing what our community is thinking and feeling helps us to be better rabbis. It helps us to point ourselves in the right direction, not necessarily where we want the congregation to go, but where we believe the congregation itself wants to be.

Politicians get these reminders when we visit, call, or write to them. In the wake of recent events, some organizations are suggesting we do this every day. This is relatively new territory for me, as I previously only spoke to my representatives on a handful of designated advocacy days. Now I receive daily reminders to call, write, or visit our local, state, and national leaders, to remind them who I am, what my values are, and that I will support any effort the government makes to take better care of the people.

On the flip side of this, as a leader myself, I am feeling the weight of our community’s needs. Many people we serve here at Vassar Temple have expressed a desire to advocate publicly for Jewish values in partnership with our synagogue community. Just as many of our people have expressed a desire for the synagogue to be a refuge from political activity, and we respect that desire as well. With six on one shoulder and a half dozen on the other, we aim to strike a reasonable balance.

This Sunday, at 7 p.m., the Vassar Temple Advocacy Group will be meeting to set its course for the coming year. While this group does not represent Vassar Temple as an institution, it provides an opportunity for our members to engage in advocacy that is in line with our Jewish values, in partnership with our sacred community. We work in conjunction with Reform Jewish Voice of New York State, which is a non-partisan group that advocates on issues including hunger, reproductive rights, and equality for women and the LGBTQ community. While we do not expect the entire Reform Jewish community, or even all of Vassar Temple itself, to be aligned on how we approach these issues, we cannot deny that these are concerns we all share, and that part of being Jewish is standing up for what we believe in, whether we do this individual, or together.

Like the stones on the choshen mishpat, we are called to remind our leaders who it is they serve, to be the weight on their shoulders, and the precious stones that they display proudly to the world.

Tomorrow, we celebrate Purim, which, if we look beyond the elaborate costumes, celebrates the different ways we stand up against injustice. May we be like Vashti, who stamps her feet in protest. May we be like Mordechai, who supports and guides a new leader as she finds her voice. May we be like Esther, who uses her position of power to protect the vulnerable. And let us even give a little credit to King Ahasheurus who, when challenged by those he respects and admires, manages to do the right thing.

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by rebleah18 on March 10, 2017  •  Permalink
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