25 April 2023

We Must Still Will It, or It Will Be No Dream

Celebrating 75 Years of the Modern State of Israel

In Israel, as the sun sets tonight, Yom haZikaron will transition into Yom haAtzma'ut.  In Israel, Memorial Day (Yom haZikaron) is marked the day before Independence Day (Yom haAtzma'ut), so that we remember those who gave their lives so that the modern state of Israel could come into being and survive.

According to the Hebrew calendar, tonight marks the 75th anniversary of the declaration of the modern state of Israel - the return of sovereignty to the place where our people began, thousands of years ago; where we returned after the Exodus from Egypt, the exile in Babylon, and where we direct our prayers when we gather together to pray.

That ideal Israel, for which our ancestors prayed for almost two millennia, has become a real place - with real currency, real stamps, real taxes, and real problems.  Conflicting ideas of a Jewish state have warred with each other for decades, but have come to a head in recent months.  Those who believe the state must be founded solely along religious lines war with those who want to create a modern secular state.  Those who believe that Jews and Arabs can live together as fellow citizens war with those who think that a Jewish state should be solely that. Protests have filled the streets of Israel - as Shabbat ends each Saturday, and as Israelis gather to celebrate this momentous anniversary.

What is the relationship between Jews who have chosen not to live in Israel, and those who do?  Is the Jewish state a state for all Jews?  

We are Jews - traditionally we argue the most ferociously among ourselves, but we can agree on this:

The modern miracle of a Jewish state is celebrating 75 years, despite all the forces arrayed against it.  We may have differences with the current Israeli government; with the opinion of many Israelis; but we acknowledge that the ties our ancient homeland unite us in ways deep and meaningful.

In Altneuland, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, said, אם תרצו, אין זו אגדה  (Although he said it in German, as Hebrew was not yet the language of Zionism.) - If you will it, it will be no dream.  75 years later, the words are still true - we must move from dream to reality; we must work to make the state of Israel into the idea.

(If you want to read my reflection on my most recent trip to Israel, you can find my Temple Topics column here.)

11 July 2022

Work Gods

    I finally got around to reading a fascinating piece forwarded to me by a Temple Sholom congregant from the New York Times, entitled "When Your Job Fills in for Your Faith, That's a Problem" by Dr. Carolyn Chen.

    I was reminded of a High HolyDay sermon series that my father gave decades ago at Temple Beth El in Somerville.  He brought up how people exercise (in those ancient days, he noted playing tennis, not pickleball) "religiously" and wondered what the metaphor meant when people no longer practiced their religion religiously.  (I personally have always been fascinated by the American mindset that takes a spiritual practice like yoga, culturally appropriates it into an exercise practice, and then re-spiritualizes it as a spiritual discipline.)

    The article talks about how people's free time that they previously gave to religious and service communities is now taken up by work (without even mentioning how e-mail has put everyone to work 24/7) but emphasizes how companies have built up work cultures that fill particular personal needs that religious communities have heretofore filled, such as personal fulfillment and a moral framework.  I am reminded of certain drugs that fit into dopamine receptors in the brain that mimic natural body processes of feedback, that create shortcuts that lead to addiction and cut off healthy response.  The piece mentions what happens when a person who has found this type of faith community in their work moves on to another job, and the loss of support.  I would argue that one of the points of a faith community is not just to find a place to strengthen your moral code, but also to find people outside of the other cohorts of your life (in different fields, of different ages, in different life situations) to balance the mono-cultures in which we may find ourselves for the majority of our weekday hours.  It is tough to find support for losing your job from the people you no longer work with and see everyday, all day.

    The more insidious aspect is the creep of workplaces consciously proselytizing themselves as sources of purpose and meaning in life. Certainly, it is hoped that as many of us as possible can find meaning in our employment, and even feel that what we are doing makes the world a better place and is good for others as well as ourselves.  However, most work is for companies that, in the end, need to turn a profit or benefit their shareholders.  Even in the non-profit world, there is still a bottom line in the budget.  The ideal may be benefiting the world, but the paycheck is still slave to the means to do so.  For many, the idea of volunteering - of giving without getting any money back - is actually a welcome change, and needful contrast to the daily grind.  We must also lift up those who work long hours, with little rest, in unpaid positions - giving care to family members - who may find the chance to volunteer outside of home and family a welcome breath of fresh air and a place to have different conversations with different people.

    We talk a great deal about "work/life balance" as if the two are opposed.  Perhaps companies have begun to respond to this dialectic by coopting life into work.  We need not hold the two as opposites, but we can also spend the time to find communities of purpose (and faith) that give us other ways to engage than those we are being compensated for.

02 May 2022

Made Up God

It has been a while since I last posted here.  I want to get back to sharing what congregants have shared with me, to broaden conversations, especially those that help us and give life, rather than diminish it.

    Susan Sedwin shared with me this morning, an Op-Ed from the New York Times by Scott Hershovitz, which you can find here.  I had also read it this morning and thought about God, and how we discuss God,* as well as thinking rather positively about how we teach God here at Temple Sholom.

    Michelle and I have a difference of approach.  When someone tells her, "I don't believe in God," she follows up with the question, "Exactly which God do you not believe in?"  On the other hand, when someone tells me they are more of an atheist, I ask if they are a strict a-theist (and do not believe in a theistic God - one who created the world and answers individual petitions or prayers) or not?  Usually this leads to a longer conversation, as many members of the congregation can tell you - one or two of which has extended the conversation to a regular lunch habit.

    Thoughts like these are what led us to make theology (and God) a central topic of our Temple Sholom trimester curriculum.  We spend one trimester of our four holiness trimesters on the holiness of God.  Why?  The story that I like to tell is that when we just teach Bible stories, or the simplified versions often found in older textbooks, students develop what I call the "third grade idea of God".  You can all fill in the details - throne, big white beard, book with everything written inside.  This God is formulaic - do good, get reward; do bad, get punishment, with some leniency for those who pray well.  Mature observation of the world around us leads us (as it led our Biblical ancestors who placed this question in the book of Job) to the question that Hershovitz and his son raise - theodicy (If God is good AND all-powerful, then why is there evil?).  

    Therefore, if the only understanding of God that Judaism provides for you is the simplistic and you challenge its premise, your obvious conclusion is not to believe in God.  However, our ancestors, and Judaism as a whole, have had many different understandings of God (all gathered under the umbrella that the entity behind the word "God" is beyond our human understanding) that often tell us more about the person theologizing than the object of their philosophy.  Arthur Waskow coins the term "Godwrestling" to lift up the Jewish idea - from the very beginning in the book of Genesis - that we are named Israel after a literal struggle with humanity and God that our ancestor Jacob experienced.  I also commend again the work of my classmate and college, Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer, who talks about engaging (The) God (of Your Understanding).  So, we teach different theologies to kindergartners - because who knows when their personal theology will be challenged and they need to know that they are still comfortably within the bounds of Judaism, or that there are many ways to understand and struggle with the Divine?

    Back to Hershovitz, who propounds a "fictionalist" theology - that we know God is not real, but believing in God makes/challenges us to make the world a better place, and helps us live our lives, so we might as well believe or act as if we believe.  I cannot say that is too different from my own theology, although I would never call it fictional.  As human beings, we have created the words and concepts by which we order the world.  Even when we analyze and quantify natural laws, we doing so with our own symbols and logic.  All of it is fictive, created.  I do not know for sure about the God who created the universe in which I dwell.  Yet, it is here and, miraculously, I dwell in it.  For that I am thankful, and will continue to search for meaning and believe that if given a gift, my responsibility is to extend that gift to others, while doing what little I can to make it better for all.  I call that a real Jewish theology.

*I use the term "God" here as a pronoun, referring to a concept that we all may not agree on exactly.  "God" is not God's name, and has no holiness in and of itself, only in the meaning that we give it.

01 November 2020

Planning Ahead for a Moment of Civic Healing

I was asked to write an article for the Union County Clergy Interfaith Coordinating Council November newsletter, which was themed "Reconciliation".


    I am currently in a Doctor of Ministry program at Drew University Theological School.  In our introduction to the Doctor of Ministry course, we were invited to collaborate to create a public witness or liturgy.  This public witness or liturgy had to confront a contemporary issue, give participants time to reflect, as well as provide an impetus and invitation to growth and change.  With five classmates, Revs. David Clark, Laurel O’Connor, Mia Sloan, Tirzah Turner, and Ellen Witko, and myself, Rabbi Joel N. Abraham, we created a Multi-faith Meditation for Civic Healing After the National Election.  It was obvious to us, no matter what the results of our upcoming November election, there would be a need for healing on all sides, and we hoped to provide a template for a liturgical moment to bring people together. 


As Rev. O’Connor stated in the introduction, we strove to invite voices not only of different faith traditions, but also to create a space that would welcome those of different political views, whom might have different feelings at the results, or even if there was turmoil and results were not yet clarified: 


The day after an election day is filled with stark contrasts. Within one national context, there are people who are mourning, and people who are celebrating. There are people who are angry, and people who are joyful. There are people who are confused and disillusioned, and people who are feeling triumphant and victorious. 


One question we asked ourselves when coming to a multi-faith space of healing and hope was “how do we keep this service from being unbalanced?” In our context, we are a mostly Christian group, with a Reform Jewish Rabbi, that does not want to appropriate other traditions’ prayers without their consent or participation.


But that question can be extended even further to political thought and doctrine, so I will repeat it again: “How do we keep a service of healing from being unbalanced?” We want to be clear: difference isn’t something to sweep under the rug in hopes of homogeneity. Whether it’s politics or religion, we find hope in the fact that diversity creates a beautiful tapestry of thought and belief across our landscape.


Our service (the text and video of which are provided in links below) began with a contemplative prayer, and included prayers from African, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian tradtion. The idea was not to be comprehensive, but to provide a model, so that other communities might bring in the prayers of their own members, or those they wished to lift up.  We acknowledged at the beginning that we asked our participants to bring prayers from their own faiths.  We knew that such a practice might make those of different faiths uncomfortable, but made clear that we were presenting and offering prayer, not forcing others to pray with or in the manner that we might offer. We appreciate that it is often easier and more authentic for prayer leaders to use the tropes and words of their own tradition, rather than try to find a neutral medium that avoids offending anyone, but also often fails to inspire.


From the Jewish tradition, I offered two prayers. The first was gomeil - the prayer that is offered upon returning safely to the community by a person who has experienced a traumatic experience - such as illness, or a difficult journey. This prayer gives the one who prays the opportunity not only to give thanks, in front of the community, for having survived, but also gives the community the opportunity to echo that thanks, and share their own gratitude. The second prayer was a prayer for our country. Traditionally, this is one of the only prayers that is expected to be in the vernacular, rather than in Hebrew. The prayer is meant to be transparent - not only to the worshippers, but to the outside community, so that the congregation is known to be patriotic and loyal. This formulation (from L’chol z’man v’eit - the Reform Movement of Judaism’s order of prayer for clergy) combines the calls for justice from the Torah (“Justice, justice shall you pursue.” - Deut. 16:20 and “Proclaim liberty throughout the land.” - Lev. 25:10) which are part of our American lexicon, but also words from the Declaration of Independence (“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”) while calling for all of us to do our parts to maintain our democracy and thanking those who have risked or given their lives for those values.


The liturgy that we created was a collaborative offering - an offering to the moment that we see quite clearly in the road ahead.  We do not know what will happen in November, but we do know that we face a choice about going forward.  We can come together again as a nation - recognizing that we may live in different Americas, but our dream of equity and justice for all is the same, or we can continue to put our own needs over others, and segment our fragile democracy into shards of former freedom.  The challenge is ours - how we decide to meet that challenge will determine not only our own futures, but those of our children, and those around the world.


As the prayer for the nation that I shared concluded, “We pray for .wisdom and moral strength,that we may be guardians of these rights for ourselves and for the sake of all people,

now and forever.”  Amen.


The video template of this service can be found here - https://bit.ly/2SELuiO - and the texts here - https://bit.ly/2SFXiS7


Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

Temple Sholom of Scotch Plains

UCICC Board Member

 

12 September 2017

Standing in the Rain/Speaking Truth to Power

Temple Sholom congregant David Richmand* just shared with me David Brooks' latest OpEd in the New York Times about the universal imagery and lessons of the flood narrative.

As always, I find Brooks to be knowledgeable and willing to go beyond the surface level in his thinking - especially in areas concerning morality.  While the texts about Noah are not new to me - and hopefully not new to our congregants (I've cited them a few times in classes and sermons.) - he does explain them well and they are very useful to bring forward.

Rabbinic commentary goes back and forth about Noah.  As a human being in an extraordinary situation, there is sympathy for what he is able to do.  On the other hand, with the benefit of hindsight, the comparison with Abraham (vis a vis standing up to God to reconsider the punishment) is highly critical.  I view this dichotomy with one lens and two lessons.  The stories that have been preserved for us in Jewish text are those that we are meant to learn from.

The first lesson is that we should show compassion and understand the humanity of others.  Our tradition has a concept that what might be proper to say before someone makes a decision, might not be the right words after the decision is in the past.  We have guidelines on how to behave - prescriptively; and then a process for repentance (t'shuvah) when we realize that we may have made the wrong decision.  We act with sympathy, even if we disagree with the decision.

The second lesson, that Brooks brings out, is that we are called upon, by our tradition, to speak up for others.  Abraham becomes a model for that - compared with both Noah and Abraham's nephew, Lot.  They are not condemned by the text. Rather, Abraham is held up, in that instance, as a better model.

Brooks' takes this argument in a bit of a different direction - that the lesson is that we must not blindly accept ANY authority.  Remember, as we will read next week at Rosh haShanah, Abraham later follows God's command to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, without an explicit word of protest.  (Rabbinic commentary does attempt to find an implied argument in God's detailed description of who is to be sacrificed.)  Living under Roman authority and trying to find a way to justify a Jewish Rabbinic authority at the same time, the Rabbis walked a tightrope.  I would read the more nuanced idea that we should not blindly follow authority that acts in contradiction to the morals that we have been taught to not only espouse, but bring into the world.

An early shanah tovah to you all.

*Update - Natalie Darwin also called to let me know about this article.

02 May 2017

Israel, Thy Very Name is Struggle - Yom haAtzma'ut 5777

Today is Yom haAtzma'ut - Israeli Independence Day.  In Genesis, when Jacob receives his eponymous name for our people, we are told that it means the one who struggles with God and humanity.  [Gen. 32:28]  Nowhere else is this more apparent than in our modern day redemption in the state of Israel.

For millennia, our people have lived by the oft-repeated Biblical exhortation to remember that we were strangers in Egypt, and to empathize with those not in power; who felt like strangers in their own land.  Without political and state power, there was little to put this maxim to the test.  For the past 69 years, Israel has given us the blessing of a real, physical homeland - a source of pride and the ultimate redoubt for our people. However, we have also been given the opportunity to apply the politics of  minority to the power of the nation-state.  In many ways, we have succeeded.  Israel is a democracy, surrounded by dictatorship.  Yet, not only does the shadow of religious fundamentalism tinge the democracy of its Jewish citizens, but the increasing insularity of the Jewish populace continues to encroach on the rights of all the non-Jews - citizen and non-citizen alike - who find themselves sheltered with Israel's borders.

This year is also the fiftieth anniversary of the miraculous victory of the Six-Day War, which brought with it the dubious benefit of increased territory and a vast refugee Arab population.  When its neighbors washed their hands of responsibility, Israel became the breeding ground for a Palestinian resistance - one which dominates the political landscape of Israel - both within its pre-1967 borders and without.  The miraculous underdog of 1967 and 1973 is now perceived as the bully of the Intifada. Israel has failed to find a solution for the Arab population that it finds itself in control of, and we are being changed in ways that only a few (Moshe Dayan, for example) imagined.  Force and repression have become our only tools.

The Palestinians, separated now by name from the rest of the Arabs in the Middle East, have become the underdogs.  Americans, always sympathetic to the underdog, are torn. Many American Jews turn away from an active engagement with Israel because the situation is too divisive, too fraught with difficult moral issues, so different from the David and Goliath story of 1948, 1967, and 1973.

Yet, today is Yom haAtzma'ut.  Atzma'ut - independence - comes from the root ayin-tzadi-mem - which is not only the self-reflexive term in Hebrew, but is also the root for "bone".  Israel is in our bones.  We, as Jews, no matter what our genetic origin, pray for the peace of Israel at every service, and long to return to mythic Jerusalem at every seder.  We cannot ignore our connection with Israel, lest we lose our backbone, our support and structure.

We are Israel - those who struggle with God and with humanity; nowhere more evident than in the modern state of Israel.  Right struggles with left; Ultra-Orthodox with Reform and Conservative; Ashkenazic with Sephardi/Mizrachi/Indian/Ethiopian; Jew with Arab; Diaspora with Sabra.  The struggle is not new.  Judaism teaches us that - but also that we engage in the struggle with certain values to guide us - love your neighbor as yourself; help even your enemy with his fallen burden; and treat the stranger as the native.  The passage in Genesis says that Jacob not only struggle with God and with humanity, but that he prevailed.  Prevailing is not necessarily winning.  Let us hope that we, too, can find a way to prevail  - a way that preserves not only our own rights and dignity, but those of the ones we, today, find as enemies.  Then we can truly live up to the name which has been bequeathed to us by the generations - Yisra'eil.


30 January 2017

Hevel, Hevel, haKol Hevel and I'm Not Sure What's New under the Sun

I have a tallit that my family made for me to wear when I planned to march with the NAACP's Journey for Justice in the summer of 2015.  I could not make that trip, due to illness, but I wore it one or two times at rallies since then and at at the opening of the Reform Movement's Nitzavim campaign in August.

Since last week, I've decided to keep it to hand in my car.

I had a congregant angry at me yesterday because I did not tell her in the morning that I would be speaking at an immigration support rally that afternoon.  That morning, I did not know.

Last Thursday, I attended a meeting of statewide clergy to talk about the sanctuary movement and how I could help to keep people from being deported.  I learned at that meeting that a man that I had helped to keep from deportation three years before was now being called in for an emergency meeting with ICE.  Two days later, my colleagues and friends were demonstrating at airports all over the country to let people with valid papers who had already arrived leave airport detention.  The next day, I marched with groups focussing on both issues - "No Ban, No Wall."

Many of the faces that I am seeing at these meetings and rallies are those of people I have met in local interfaith groups, testifying for marriage equality in New Jersey, organizing for reproductive rights, rallies against hate.  Are we preaching to the choir, or is it strengthening to standing with stalwart companions?

I am also seeing congregants, colleagues, college and high school classmates, former congregants, parents of my children's friends, old youth groupers.  Faces that are new in these places are a joy to behold.

On Facebook, there is live video feed from friends all over the country chanting and marching in separate places, together.

Today I had a phone call with an organizer I have worked with in the past and all that kept running through my head was that the old organizational math was no longer valid.  What used to add up now subtracts, and the rules of the political game seem to be quaint memories.

I do not know what to do - and I have spent a life time learning.

I do not know what is next - and each news item spins me in another direction.

Kohelet, the voice of the book of Ecclesiastes begins by saying, "Hevel, hevel, ha kol hevel" - the King James' Bible translates this as "Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity!".  The new Jewish Publication Society as "Utter futitilty!"  Mist, unsubstantial mist - we are tilting at shadows, sparring with ghosts.

And yet, the book ends, in what I would argue, is a fourth-wall breaking wink, "The making of many books is without limit, and much study is wearying of the flesh."  We can only rail in our libraries for so long and then the time comes to put down the book and go out into the world.

You'll find me out in the cold.  I hope you join me there. We'll warm each other with the fire of righteousness.

16 October 2016

The Collateral Damage of Love-Bombing

Susan Sedwin forwarded this NPR article  to me:
Black and Jewish

Black, Jewish And Avoiding The Synagogue On Yom Kippur


My first thought is that I do not have an answer that will either heal the deep pain and alienation felt by the author, or, more importantly to me as a synagogue rabbi, that will avoid replicating this experience for other non-white Jews entering our places of worship.

My second is to say to Leah Donnella, "Please come back.  The organized Jewish community is not so good at this, but we are really trying to get better.  If you have the strength, we'd love for you to teach us how to do better."

My third, upon reflection, is to remember a story from our own congregation that comes from a different vector, but really illustrates the same problem.

When I came to our small suburban New Jersey congregation almost twenty years ago, we thought we were a very welcoming congregation.  The truth was that we really were not so good  - for very real, human reasons. A ninety year-old congregation of around two hundred families, our members did not actually know each other that well.  Most members knew some other members, but they did not know everyone.  Therefore, on a given Friday night, one member might be reluctant to introduce themselves to someone else at the oneg (the after service fellowship), because they feared embarrassment in showing their ignorance in not recognizing a long-term member.  People who were guests, because members assumed they were long-term members they just did not know, were not welcomed or sometimes even spoken to.  The bright shining exception was the day a black woman walked into services.  Immediately, she was surrounded by well-meaning congregants who wanted to show her how the prayerbook worked, introduce themselves, explain the blessings before we ate the oneg cookies, and on and on.  [Thank you to April Baskin, VP of Audacious Hospitality from the Union for Reform Judaism for informing me that this sometimes intrusive and overbearing behavior is called "love-bombing".]  I imagine the thought process went, "Well, she's black, so she's not Jewish, so she's not a member, so, thank God, I can welcome her and show us how nice and welcoming we really are."  Thank God, she was not Jewish - otherwise she might have been having exactly the same reaction and experience that Ms. Donnella recounts in the article above.  My point - even though we were attempting from the bottom of our hearts to be well-meaning and welcoming - our assumptions might often give the opposite effect.

The sad truth is that Jews who do not fit the internal stereotype are often supposed not to be Jews by the Ashkenazic majority present in the synagogue.  The reality is that Jews never have and certainly not in today's America all look the same.  We should have learned from my great-aunt Mary that there are many people in our community without Jewish sounding names - now reflected in Hendersons, McNallys, Wangs, and Christiansens listed on our membership rolls.  Jews with Asian ancestry have been telling us for a generation that when they walk in the synagogue and show some familiarity or expertise with Jewish practice others assume that they were adopted or converted to Judaism.  I even admit, as a rabbi, that from the bimah, I have to remind myself when I speak of Jews and our relationship with the African-American community that it is not us and them, but that there are some of us who are both.

[I just interrupted typing this post to step out of my office, this Sunday morning, as I listened to a teacher teaching about American Jewish history, say, "Most of our ancestors came from Russia" to change that to "Many of us", and mention ancestors of all different types from all different places, some Jewish, some not.]

We have a long way to go - and there are some who, justifiably, may have neither the patience for us to change, the fortitude to help us make the necessary change, or the forbearance to deal with those who have not yet heard or will not change.

We - all of us - Jews of all backgrounds - can only try to do what we should in most situations - live up to the dictum to love your neighbor as yourself, by truly placing ourselves in their perspectives.  We need to ask ourselves, how is what we say, in the best of intentions, being heard?  Because we truly want to be welcoming, not to push people away.

10 August 2016

Do Not Let Baseless Hatred Destroy Our Society

Because most synagogues have less activity (including no religious school) in the summer, the holiday of Tisha b’Av (the Ninth of the Hebrew month of Av) often passes by unremarked.  While most Jewish holidays celebrate a massive deliverance, Tisha b’Av* marks not just one national tragedy, but several.  It is believed that the first Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon, was destroyed on this date in 586 BCE by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar.  The second Temple, built by Ezra and Nehemiah after the return from the Babylonian Exile (and rebuilt by Herod), was also destroyed on this date by the Romans under Titus.  The Arch of Titus in Rome is a commemoration of this Roman victory.  Jews, however, mark this moment as the beginning of the Diaspora, when the Jewish community, previously centered in the land of Israel (the Roman province of Judea) is spread out all over the known world.  Since that time, Jewish traditions of mourning have included not using musical instruments in worship, lessening the celebration and joyous occasions, and fasting for twenty-four hours on this date.

The Biblical books of the Prophets, especially Jeremiah, explain that the reason for the destruction of the first Temple was that the Israelites were not worshipping correctly.  However, the Rabbis of the 1st century knew that the rituals of the Temple were being properly followed, and determined that the destruction of the second Temple was a result of a different sin - sinat chinam - or baseless hatred.  Hatred of others without cause is what the founders of rabbinic Judaism considered to be the reason that the Jewish polity was destroyed.  Sadly, we see the signs of modern polity being destroyed by the same cause.

Baseless hatred, in our time, is not hating others without a justification.  Sadly, we can often find justification for any hatred - of those who have more money, or those who have less; of those who speak differently, look differently, or worship differently; of those who came to this country a generation or two before or after our ancestors; of those who have strongly held opinions different from our own.  Rather, baseless hatred is hatred without need.  There are things which we need to hate - injustice, poverty, hunger, disease  - things which sap our strength and we can combat.  People, we do not need to hate.  Other people, we need to understand.  Baseless hatred destroys our society by moving us apart.  We do not listen to those we hate.  We do not see the pain in their hearts.  We do not acknowledge that though we disagree with them, they come to their beliefs with their own passion and logic.

The subtle wickedness - the perfidy - of baseless hatred, is that it allows us to justify ourselves and those whom we believe are with us, while we can ignore those who we think are not.  But, this realization gives us the key that we need to fight baseless hatred.  If we decide not to assume that everyone with a different opinion is a moron; if we stop de-friending those whose posts rankle us; if we take even a moment to listen to the deeply-held feelings of others, we break through that hatred.  Importantly, even if we disagree, we need to listen with an attitude of empathy.  

Do not be the one who shuts the other out; who denies another person their voice.  That is the true hatred - the walling of those we disagree with - and we should be building bridges, not walls.  Open up a conversation, and close the door on hate.

*Tisha b’Av will be marked this year beginning the evening of Saturday,August 13th - actually the 10th of Av, because the 9th is the Sabbath, when fasting is generally prohibited.

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham is the spiritual leader of Temple Sholom of Scotch Plains/Fanwood, a Reform congregation.  He is a past-President of the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Ministerium, and co-founder and current Vice President of Social Justice Matters, Inc..  He is also part of the leadership of Rabbis Organizing Rabbis - a national group of Reform Rabbis working together for racial and economic equity.

11 September 2015

We Must Speak Out against ALL Terrorism (Even When It Hurts)

Natalie Darwin brought this article from yesterday's New York Times (Israeli Terrorists, Born the USA) to my attention. Just like many stories we see in the headlines, she hoped it wasn't true.

Sadly, regarding some American Jews living in Israel, I believe it is.

I lived in Israel and was there the Purim that Baruch Goldstein opened fire on innocent Arabs.  That year, I had a large beard and looked American.  Every time I went into the Mashbir (the big department store in downtown Jerusalem) and other stores, the security guards would look at me and ask if I was carrying a gun - as many of the settlers did and still do.

Don't get me wrong, there are many American (and other nationality) Jews living beyond the green line, in territory captured by Israel in 1967, who are good people - and would never dream of carrying out a "price tag" attack.  Yet, even in those communities, even twenty years ago, I heard the demonization of the Arab population; the children taught to think of their neighbors as "other", not quite the same, dangerous.

There are those who move to this Israeli frontier with the goal of making the land a permanent part of Israel, and to whom the current inhabitants are an infestation, and who need to be encouraged (however strongly) to leave.

We cannot stand silent when such violent acts are perpetrated by others in our name.  We cannot allow Judaism - the religion and culture that we hold dear - to be used as an excuse to attack others, to terrorize, to burn families out of their homes.

This is not Judaism.  I stand with the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin.  These are crimes, and those who carry out these actions are terrorists - and should be treated in the same way that the state of Israel treats all terrorists (and if that leads to a re-examination of those policies, so much the better).

The path to peace and safety for all is not through violence and escalation.  We should be ashamed of this New York Times Op-Ed - because it had to be said, and we should be loud in our denunciation of such acts as well.

01 August 2015

An Opportunity to Pray with Your Feet

[E-mailed to Temple Sholom members on 7/31/15]

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the modern American Jewish prophet, famously said of his time spent on the Voting Rights March in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, that "I felt my legs were praying."  We pray a lot in the synagogue, sitting and standing, but perhaps we do not take enough time to walk the walk; to pray with our feet.
Along with (at latest count) 150 other Reform Rabbis, I have been asked to participate as part of the Reform Movement's contingent in the NAACP's America's Journey for Justice March which begins tomorrow, August 1st, in Selma, Alabama.  Over 40 days (a number which has great resonance for us as Jews), this march will continue to Washington, DC, where it will conclude with a rally on September 16th.  I, along with Rabbi David Levy from Temple Shalom in Succasunna, and Rabbi Tom Alpert of Temple Eitz Chayim in Franklin, MA will be carrying a Torah scroll (which is making the entire journey) on Friday, August 21st. 
I invite you to join me.  I hope to travel down to Greenville, South Carolina on Wednesday, August 19th, to join the state rally at noon on Thursday, August 20th.  I will march on Friday, August 21st, and celebrate Shabbat with the Greenville community - leaving either Saturday evening or Sunday morning.  If we get enough people, we will rent or borrow a van to drive down together.  Local worship communities have offered free floor space, or there are rooms that can be reserved at local hotels.
Sunday, August 16th begins the Jewish month of Elul, the last month before Rosh haShanah.  Traditionally, we, as Jews, are asked to examine our conduct in the past year as we begin our journey to repentance.  What better way to prepare for the High HolyDays than standing up and walking forward to make our country a better place for all its citizens?  What better way to fulfill the prophetic calling of Isaiah that we read on Yom Kippur, than to work to build civil rights protections for everyone?
If you are interested in joining me for this historic journey, please let me know, and register on the link through the Reform movement. If you cannot join us, but would like to contribute to our effort - please make a designated donation to the Temple Sholom Rabbi's Discretionary Fund, which I'll use to defray the costs.  You can also support the march as a whole through the NAACP site.  
Thousands of years ago, Jewish tradition teaches us that we all marched together to Mount Sinai.  Every Jew who ever was or will be shared in that moment.  There have been many moments since then, when Jews have stood together - with each other, or with other communities in solidarity and shared belief.  This is one of those moments and your presence counts.  
On the front of our building, we have placed the words that God has given us as a challenge to live in our daily lives - Create Justice, Love Mercy, Humbly Follow Your God.  The word "follow" can also be translated as "walk in (God's) path" - let us walk this path together.

23 July 2015

A Lamentation and a Journey

עַל אֵלֶּה | אֲנִי בוֹכִיָּה עֵינִי | עֵינִי יֹרְדָה מַּיִם כִּי רָחַק מִמֶּנִּי מְנַחֵם מֵשִׁיב נַפְשִׁי הָיוּ בָנַי שׁוֹמֵמִים כִּי גָבַר אוֹיֵב: פֵּרְשָׂה צִיּוֹן בְּיָדֶיהָ אֵין מְנַחֵם לָהּ
For these things, I cry out.  My eye, my eye pours down water, because the comfort that would restore my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed. Zion spreads open hands, but she has no comfort. Lamentations 1:16-17a

Churches are burning again in the United States, and I am swept back two decades.

It was June of 1996 and I had just arrived back on the East Coast and was trying to integrate into my community at Hebrew Union College in New York.  I received a note from Rabbi Nancy Weiner, one of the faculty at HUC, who invited anyone who was interested to travel with her and some other student volunteers to Boligee, Alabama.  There, working out of a Quaker Workcamp, we would volunteer for a week to help re-build some of the churches burned in a wave of hate-filled arson that had swept through black churches in the South.

The experience was transformative.  Travelling with cantorial and rabbinic students, I felt proud that this could be my job - to travel with my congregants to place ourselves and our hands in service of others in need. The hospitality was humbling. The church women refused to let us bring our own food the jobsite - they insisted on cooking for us, every day.  They said it was the least that they could do.

I felt good about the spackling and sanding that I was doing, but I did not quite understand until Tisha b’Av.  Named after the date at which we are told that the Babylonians destroyed the first Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the Romans burned the second Temple in 70 CE, it is the only other full day of fasting and mourning in the Jewish tradition, besides Yom Kippur.  As a Reform Jew, the holiday had been of historical interest to me, but I failed to grasp the visceral impact of losing one’s house of worship - until our group decided to hold our Tisha b’Av commemoration at the former site of the church we had come to rebuild.

These churches were small - hardly more than a central room for worship, an office, and a kitchen.  We stood on the blackened ground of the sanctuary and, as the sun set, were surrounded by the grave markers of at least a century of parishioners.  These local churches were small in population as well - only a few families, who had been members for generations, whose families were buried surrounding their worship home.  The law did not allow this community to build in what had become a cemetery, and so their new house of worship - although strong and clean, would stand alone several miles down the road, without the presence of loved ones.

For me, that was when it hit home.  I thought about how I had felt when I lost the synagogue that I grew up in - the loss of a place to come home to at the High HolyDays; the place that I had known I would see the same faces (a little older), in the same seats.  But, that Temple still exists, I was just no longer a member.  How much more the loss by our ancestors, with no place to travel to at each pilgrimage holiday, no direction to turn when praying, no high hill to stand on and look out over the capital, the graves of ancestors, the history of generations, the promise of a people.

Three years later, in my first year at my present congregation, we learned of a fire set at a friend’s congregation.  That Tisha b’Av, I asked each congregant to find a place in our building where they had a special memory.  We travelled from room to room, picking up people and hearing their stories, building a mental map of our Temple.  Finally, we each made a fabric square, illustrating and completing the phrase, “A Temple is a House of....”, which were sewn together into a quilt which we sent to Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento.

We see Tisha b’Av as a grand historical moment - the transition from animal sacrifice to prayer and rabbinic Judaism.  Our Reform forebears saw it as a moment to be celebrated - the beginning of our mission into the greater world, to be a light among the nations, not apart.  And yet, there is the personal sense of loss that we have forgotten: the pew no longer present; the yahrzeit plaque melted into slag; the prayerbooks scattered and burned.

In reaching out to others, I rediscovered the loss of my people.  In feeling that loss, I was able to see not only what they had lost, but what it meant to them for us to be there, just to show with our physical presence that they were not alone, not abandoned, that not everyone wanted to wipe their home of worship from the earth.

On Tisha b’Av, we read from what is called in English, Lamentations, in Hebrew, Eicha.  Eicha is a barely articulate cry - “How?”  How can this have happened?  How can I deal with this loss?  How can I face a new reality, when my rock has been shattered?  We may have no answers to this plea, but we have actions to share the burden.  We will walk from Selma to Washington, DC with the NAACP’s Journey for Justice and we will say: Tell us of your pain.  We may not be able to fully understand it, but we can listen; we can try to carry some of that weight.  We can say, we will not let someone do this to you again, without putting ourselves in their way.

Eicha - how?  How can we do anything else?

-originally posted for Rabbis Organizing Rabbis on CCAR's Ravblog

17 April 2015

Returning to Auschwitz Again, and Leaving with Hope

Motzei Yom haShoah 5755

    It is dark now in Krakow.  The sun set while we ate our dinner after hearing the trumpeter blow the traditional peal at 7pm.  Yesterday, erev Yom haShoah, the five students in our Confirmation class, a congregant chaperone, and I held an early evening service in Birkenau - praying and reading El Malei Rachamim by Crematorium Number Two.  I have been leading this trip for sixteen years.  It is my fifteenth time taking fifteen and sixteen year olds away from their comfortable suburban New Jersey homes and dragging them on a whirlwind tour through Central Europe with three pedagogic goals - to learn about the long Jewish history of this part of Europe, to find out about the destruction of that community, and to discover the living Jewish communities of today.  To accomplish that difficult task, we tour the Jewish sites of each of our stops, some of the regular tourist sites, the Holocaust sites and memorials, and, if possible, meet with local youth to learn about their lives.  Over the years, we have traveled to Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Bratislava, Berlin and Budapest.   In Budapest, we have built a sister congregation relationship with Szim Salom, one of the Progressive Jewish congregations there.  

    Today, encouraged by the sign outside the JCC in Krakow reading, "Stop in and say hi", we did.  We were also amused by the sign that said, "Hey, March of the Living! Come inside and see Jewish LIFE."  The sign is a tongue in cheek prod to the thousand of Jews traveling this week through Poland, visiting all the sites of the Holocaust, on their way through a mandatory march from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), to culminate in celebrating Yom haAtzma'ut (Israeli Independence Day) together in Israel.  We met with the American born director of the JCC, Jonathan Ornstein, who told us that there is some frustration on the part of the Jews of Poland that March of the Living focusses on former Jewish life to the exclusion of present Jewish life.

    He was also quite proud to tell us that, in his eyes,  Krakow is the safest place to be Jewish in all of Europe.  The JCC of Krakow has no guards.  There is no password.  No membership card is required.  The door is wide open to anyone who wants to walk in.  There is no other Jewish institution, he told us, that is as open and free to enter as this one, which he called the JCC next door to Auschwitz.  The JCC is the most open in another important way as well - anyone who wants to affiliate is welcome, no matter how tenuous their status.  In Poland, like in Hungary and the Czech Republic a few decades before, young Poles are discovering that they have Jewish connections - a grandparent who was Jewish.  All the Jews of Poland - ALL the Jews of Poland - are survivors, or the children or grandchildren of survivors of the Holocaust and, on top of that, survivors of the secularization of Communism.  

    The main square of Kazimierz, the Jewish section of Krakow near where the JCC is located, is filled with Jewish themed restaurants.  In these locations, not run by Jews, not kosher, you can get "Jewish-style" food, surrounded, sometimes, by pictures of Jewish families and Judaica (or in one odd case, by the stuffed heads of game animals).  The entertainment is always Klezmer music, which is hugely popular in Krakow.  There are many Klezmer groups, but most are not Jews.  A few years ago, I decided to stop patronizing such restaurants, appalled by imagining where the photos and Judaica had come from; haunted by thoughts of what might have happened to former owners.  I asked Jonathan about the restaurants.  He said, that yes, they are like Epcot Judaism and that they might be tragic, if they were not surrounded by a revival of actual Jewish life, and of how they often served as a gateway for the large Krakow student population beginning to explore the possibility of a Jewish connection.  Two blocks away, with bright paint, inviting posters of hip events, and a sign that says, "Stop in and say hi" is the JCC of Krakow.

    Jonathan said that the way that the JCC commemorates Yom haShoah is to remain open and run their regular programming.  The best answer the Jews of Krakow have to the Holocaust is to live Jewish lives, and to make that as growingly ordinary a phenomenom in Poland as they can.

    Kol hakavod.  We were touched to have been welcomed inside, for the director to have come down and shared his vision with us, to have met the staff.  What, then, could we do but join ourselves?  Temple Sholom is now an overseas member of the JCC of Krakow.  We joined right there, in the lobby, on Yom haShoah, and helped to mark this day of mourning by lighting not a yahrzeit candle, but another flame of hope. What a gift, to be able to leave this evening, not only in sadness, but with hope as well.  We will be back again - and, whether with adults next year or Confirmation students the year after.  We will say the Kaddish at Birkenau, and we will rekindle our hope with a stop at the JCC in Krakow.

26 October 2014

Stam Ish - I'm Just One Ordinary Person

Recently, I have imagined myself living in the nexus of a multi-generational debate over an interpretation of a passage in the Torah.  My teacher at HUC in Israel, Rabbi Ben Hollander (z’l), brought us the text of a pivotal moment in the Joseph story.  Joseph is sent by his father to seek the welfare of his brothers, who are off with the flocks.  Joseph arrives in Shechem and they are nowhere to be seen.  A helpful stranger asks Joseph what he seeks and, hearing he seeks the missing brothers, reveals that he has overheard that they have moved on to Dotan. (Gen. 37:12-17)  Without this stranger, who happens to be in just the right place at just the right time, Joseph would not find his brothers; they would not cast him in a pit; he would not be sold to slavery in Egypt and therefore not be able to save his family during the famine, nor set the events in motion that result in the Exodus, and thence the Israelite people standing at Mount Sinai - all because of this one man.  Early in Jewish history, the Targum (translation) Onkelos translates the Hebrew of the Torah text (which says ish or “a man”) as the angel Gabriel disguised as a man.  A thousand years later, the great Torah commentator Rashi agrees with this interpretation.  Such an event could not have been left to chance; the angel whose role was to protect the Jewish people stepped in to direct the course of history.  But, as Ben Hollander showed us (in my favorite commentary on a Torah text), Rashi’s contemporary Ibn Ezra says, stam ish “it’s just a person”.  At the time, I was impressed by ibn Ezra’s rationalism: Just read the text as it is written.  If the Torah says it’s a person, then it’s a person.  

A few weeks ago, a small group of rabbis attempting to form a New Jersey division of Rabbis Organizing Rabbis, met with a family in need of help.  Catalino Guerrero had lived and worked in the United States since the 1980’s.  Early on, he unknowingly received some bad legal advice and was unable to regularize his status, though he worked and paid taxes.  Now older and with children and grandchildren, he is ill and the United States has been attempting to persuade him to voluntarily return to Mexico, leaving his home and family.  With help from a local group from the national community organizing group PICO, he was trying to receive a new stay of removal to avoid being deported the following week.  We were asked to call the New Jersey office of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and let them know that we knew about Catalino’s plight and that he had community support.  The next day, several of us called and left messages or spoke to a helpful officer in the department.  However, Catalino still had an appointment early that Monday morning, and, late Sunday evening, we were asked to show our support by attending that meeting with him and his family.  I was conflicted and would probably not have gone, had my wife not, serendipitously, been watching a social justice video created by my colleague, Rabbi Rob Nosanchuk and his congregation, Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple in Cleveland.

So, I went. There was a small press conference.  Catalino spoke, as did his daughter, and representatives of other organizations.  Later I went in with Catalino and hand delivered a letter from the NJ-ROR rabbis to the helpful ICE officer.  Although I was told that my presence, as a rabbi, made a great difference, I felt that I had been more helpful by providing a chair for Catalino when he needed to sit, than that I influenced a vast government bureaucracy.  In the end, there was good news for Catalino and his family - he received a one year stay.  Since then colleagues have told me what a hero I am, and how great that I spent a few hours in the heat in Newark, but, I say, stam ish. I’m just one person, and I’m not sure that I did so much.  Joseph - or in this case, Catalino - is the real hero.  I’m just an extra in this scene.

Since then, however, I have been thinking.  I still do not know whether my presence, or the phone calls and letters of my colleagues, made a difference, or whether the facts of Catalino’s story would have led to the same result.  Much as others may think (and we may secretly wish) there is no powerful “rabbi card” that one can play to suddenly redirect the forces of the US government.  When I first read Ibn Ezra’s commentary, I thought it was a tour de force of rationalism; an argument not to mistake coincidence for Divine intervention.  Further reflection has changed my interpretation of what Ibn Ezra might have been teaching.  Lawrence Kushner (in Honey from the Rock) imagines that each of us carries not only the pieces of our own puzzle, but, unknowingly, the pieces needed for others’ as well.  In that chance encounter when we provide that piece, we are “a messenger of the Most High”.  What I learn from Ibn Ezra is that each of us, normal human beings, may be going about our own business, and, yet, unknowingly be the catalysts in the stories of others.  I hope that we were able to help Catalino Guerrero and his family.  I know that our presence made a difference to him, personally - and that is enough.  I do not need to play a greater, more heroic role.  Stam ish - I’m just one person.  So are you.  Maybe that is all that is needed.