Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles...

Baruch Atah, Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, she'asah nisim lavoteinu bayamim haheim bazman hazeh

Blessed are You, Adonai, Our God, Ruler of the world, Who made miracles for our ancestors in those days at this time

from the Chanukah candle blessings

Last month, a congregant asked me about miracles and what Judaism thought about them. I said that Judaism said many things about miracles, but gave a short explanation of Maimonides' understanding of the supernatural. Maimonides, the medieval Jewish scholar from Arab Spain was a neo-Aristotlean. As such God was perfect - the ideal form. If, therefore, God was perfect, then God could never change - as that would imply that God had not been perfect in the first place. Miracles, which are supernatural - outside the realm of nature, would be changes for God. In another way, if God needed to suspend the rules of nature, which were created by God, then God had either made a mistake or overlooked something - neither of which was possible. So, by this logic, there could be no miracles. The question then arises of how to deal with the miracles described in the Bible. According to my teacher at Hebrew Union College in New York, Dr. Leonard Kravitz, Maimonides thought that the Bible was good, as far as it went. For those who needed miracles, there they were. For those who did not, they could see that it was for literary effect.

The problem that I have with miracles is that they are inherently not fair. Why should one person merit a miracle and another not? It is not that there are too many miracles, but not enough. I'm not comfortable with a God who decides to save this child and not another. I am much more ready to believe in evolution and genetics.

But, lest one say that a world without miracles is uninspiring to live in, I would not cast out the miraculous with the miracle. I may not believe in events that are contra-indicated by reality, but I still revel in those wonderful things that we see all around us. The very fact of our existence - one random mutation leading to another and another - is a wonder to be appreciated. Human beings able to communicate with each other, sharing feelings that go beyond words, are much more than random chance.

Now, back to Chanukah - one could easily be persuaded that the survival of the Jewish people, after the attempts of countless enemies to destroy us physically, religiously, culturally, politically, is evidence of many miracles. The Rabbis of the Talmud, uncomfortable with the miraculous victory of a dedicated band of guerillas over a mighty army, thought we had better focus on a supernatural miracle of oil. The survival of Judaism is no supernatural event - rather it is a proof of our ability to carry on fundamental values while adapting ourselves to the current situation in each and every generation.

In this Chanukah season, we should celebrate not what is beyond our power - or beyond nature, but rather what we can do, and have done, to build and re-build Jewish life. We take time, for eight days, to bless the God who created us able to re-make ourselves in this season, in every season, in our ancestors' time, in our time - to recognize the miraculous in our shared story.

Chanukah sameach

And a Time to Say Thank You...

Hayamim holchim, shanah overet (2x), aval hamanginah (3x) l’olam nisheret.

The days march on, years pass, but the melody is sung forever

Israeli children’s song

I was very touched to find out that the congregation has marked the last Friday of October to celebrate my (first) ten years with Temple Sholom. I am deeply honored and look forward to the event, which may have happened by the time that you are reading this column. I would like to thank everyone involved – those who helped to plan, who attended, sent regrets, made donations, or in any way participated. (As much of what is happening is supposed to be a surprise, I regret that I cannot give any more accurate thank you’s at this time.)

However, looking back over my time here as part of this congregation, there are many I would like to thank. I have learned a great deal from each of the Presidents that I have had the privilege to work with: Cathy Gilbert - who showed me a haimische welcome as my family joined the congregation; Brett Neuhauser – who began as president just before I started as Rabbi and whom I still miss for our weekly lunches; Susan Weiseman – who was ever-present and indefatigable during her three years’ tenure; Susan Sedwin – who continues to set an example by her tireless devotion to the Temple; Mark Isack – whose passion for this community has brought it far; and Steve Saltzman – who is constantly thinking of ways to strengthen the Judaism of our congregation. I also could not have done anything without the help of the Temple staff – from Mildred Goldblatt to Barbara Cooke and Larry Berman – and I am indebted to Norman Pianko, our former educator, and Rabbi Gerald Goldman, our Rabbi Emeritus, for their guidance.

To name just these few is not intended to slight any of the past-Presidents, Trustees, committee chairs and members, congregants and families who have inspired and enlightened me as I have (hopefully) grown in the job of spiritual leader, but I would hope that you know that I have learned from each of you and treasured our interactions together.

Over the years, and not just in interviews, I have been asked why I decided to become a rabbi. Although my stock answer has been lack of imagination, the real answer is that I enjoy getting to know a child at a b’rit ceremony, watching that child grow, officiating when they become bar/bat mitzvah, hopefully meeting a fiancé/e and helping to celebrate the holiness of their marriage, and meeting a new generation at another b’rit. But I also know well that part of that role is being there in sickness and sharing sorrow and memories at a time of loss.

In that spirit, I look forward to March 15, 2012, when I will get the chance to officiate as Andrea Leitner, who was the first child I met in the congregation and my first b’rit bat here at the Temple, becomes a Bat Mitzvah. The Sunday before this Shabbat celebration, I will officiate at the b’rit bat of the youngest daughter of David and Allison Blitzer, who came to my first High HolyDay service at the Temple, asked me to marry them and then traveled with my second Confirmation class to Europe. I continue share the naches of parents as I watch their children grow – whether David Harris (now at college), one of the first B’nai Mitzvah at which I officiated, or my first Confirmation Class – Aaron Cohen (working in NYC), Sarah Gilbert (teaching in Boston), Elliot Kaplan (playing with nuclear fusion), Ricky Ringel (in the Coast Guard), Shelly Schwartz (with a lovely daughter of her own), and Lauren Scaduto (recently married). I am glad that I was there to help with the funeral of Irv Taylor, whom I did not get a chance to know, although I have studied with his widow Mildred regularly over the past decade, and Hazel Tepper, who sent my daughter, born just after we arrived, a card signed, “from the oldest member of Temple Sholom to the newest” and whom we buried this month.

My children, too, were born in this congregation and celebrated their b’ritot in this community. In October of 2012, Michelle and I hope to celebrate Avital’s becoming a Bat Mitzvah with all of you (10/13/12 – save the date). My parents have joined this congregation. We have all grown together – celebrated life’s joys, clung together at life’s sorrows, and held together to meet the challenges of being Rabbi and congregation.

As we say in Hebrew, ad me’ah v’esrim – until one hundred and twenty (which for Temple Sholom would be 2033).

This I Believe.. and You?

The firm faith in and admission of acknowledged truths will best promote a correct course of life; for by being impressed with holy feelings we will be best able to withstand temptations and the inclination to sin inherent in man.

– Isaac Leeser, Catechism for Jewish Children (1839)

Almost four months ago, I began my year in the fourth cohort of Synagogue Transformation and Renewal (STAR)’s Good to Great program. The program means to take rabbis who have finished ten years in congregations and help them through a process of self-reflection, peer encouragement, and revitalization of their rabbinates. It consists of two retreats – one at the beginning of the program and one, at the end, a year later. The program is directed by Rabbi Terry Bookman and Dr. Bill Kahn, two brothers-in-law, one a congregational rabbi, the other a professor of Organizational Behavior. Realizing (over several years’ discussion at Thanksgiving) that rabbis received little training in how to work inside of organizations, the formed Eitzah – A Center for Congregational Leadership – to bring the cutting edge tools of organizational theory, with a Jewish spin, to congregations. Looking at the “Good to Great” model, my cohort was told that great rabbis dream big dreams.

As I said in my High HolyDay sermons, as part of that process, I started to think about why we all think we are here – members of Temple Sholom at this time in our lives. I wondered if there were core things that all of us could agree on. I imagined that we might create a creed – a statement of our belief – that we could stand up and say together to reinforce our community and clarify our path together. As part of that process, I engaged in a study of the idea of creed in Reform Judaism and tracked my journey on a blog. As part of my final High HolyDay sermon on Yom Kippur, I asked everyone present to contribute something that they believe – either with their name or anonymously – for posting on the site. My hope is to help everyone learn about what a creed might be and what a shared creed for our congregation might look like. (As I write this column, it is not yet Yom Kippur, so I can only hope that many of responded.) Please, go to the website, read the articles and links, and make comments and suggestions so this study can go on together.

Finally, I quoted above from Isaac Leeser, one of the first Jewish educators in the United States. He created a catechism – a curriculum of religious doctrines for the instruction of children or converts – and argued very strongly for a creed. As he stated above, a commonly agreed upon standard that can be remembered at need and referred to when facing a moral dilemma can only lead to living a more moral and purposeful life. We would do better in almost any situation if we could easily articulate that which we believe – be it how we treat our fellow human beings, our ideals for the world we live in, what we find valuable, or what our purpose is in life. So often, we meander from choice to choice and can only define what we believe when we look back at what we have done. Join me in taking time to define who we are – and who we want to be – by what we believe in.

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

The discussion of a Reform creed can be found at www.reformcreed.blogspot.com. My High HolyDay sermons can be found at sholomravsermons.blogspot.com.

A Time to Ask for Forgiveness

I’m sorry. I will try to do better. - Rabbi Joel N. Abraham (and others)

Let me start off by saying that other than not apologizing at all, apologizing through a Temple bulletin column is probably about as weak an apology as you can offer. Even in a sermon, there is at least some measure of eye contact – sadly lacking in the printed page which you are now (hopefully) reading. I’m sorry for that, too.

However, if I have not yet had a chance to speak to you in person, or over the phone, or I have erred or failed to do what I should as your Rabbi, please take this apology as the beginning of t’shuvah – the Jewish process of repentance.

T’shuvah may be one of the most underrated of Jewish innovations. Consider for a moment – other religious systems consider errors (whether classified as “sins” or otherwise) as either permanent or as removable through the intervention of an outside source. Again, once you do something wrong it is either held against you forever; or some other Divine entity can absolve you of that sin, without you even having to speak to the person that you may have offended. Not in Judaism – the Mishnah tells us that the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) atones for sins between the human being and God, but for sins between one human being and another, the Day of Atonement does not atone, until that person has made peace with the other. T’shuvah may not be as easy on the individual. (After all, having to figure out whom you may have wronged, building up the courage and humility to speak to that person, and having the strength to make that wrong right, can take great deal of effort.) However, there is no better model for a healthy community with strong interpersonal relationships than a society in which its members can admit their errors and heal hurtful ruptures. Perversely, a much better future can be created by those who have made the effort to fix the errors of the past than by those who would close the door on previous actions, as if there was no possible redress.

A further benefit of t’shuvah is that, although it is available and encouraged all year, there is a special calendrical moment that reminds us to engage in that process. As individuals in a community, we prepare separately and together to put our best foot forward in the new year, by healing our past. The time is now – as the Hebrew month of Elul leads into Tishri – to review our (mis)deeds, to take responsibility for our actions, and to seek forgiveness from those whom we have wronged.

I take this precious gift very seriously, and I implore you – if there is anything that I have done in the past year to offend, or have not done that may have insulted or slighted, please let me know – that I may seek t’shuvah from you and that both of us may go into the sweet new year together.

L’shanah tovah u’mtukah,

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

Don't Cut Yourself off from the Community -You Might Need It

Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community. And, do not rely on yourself [alone] until the day of your death. And do not judge your fellow until you have come to where s/he has been. And do not say something that is impossible to hear, [hoping] that in the end it will be heard. And do not say, ‘When there is free time, I will study.” It is possible that you will not have the free time. Pirke Avot 2:4

I believe that it was in one of the first of my Rabbi’s columns that I first used the beginning of this quote from Hillel, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” Then, I was talking about the relative position of Rabbi and congregation in prayer, and the expectations of one upon the other. As is the great gift with all Jewish texts – as Ben Bag Bag said – Turn it, and turn it, and turn it, for all is contained within it – at a different time, the same words can have a different, but equally compelling meaning.

Looking again at the first lines – and continuing through the rest of the quote – it seems obvious that Hillel was speaking to us, today, in these difficult economic times. Our society has perhaps changed and human nature may have changed along with it. This world, in which we pull into our driveways, open the garage doors with our remote controls, drive in and close our doors, has removed the contact with our neighbors. Our communities may be on-line, may be scattered across time zones, or may be tenuous or non-existent. When times of trouble come, rather than reach out to others, we shut ourselves in. We try to remain self-sufficient. We do not feel the right or the reason to burden others with our problems, our difficulties. We cannot ask for help – and we suffer the lack thereof.

Picture the typical congregant – and it may be you – who has suffered some economic reversal: the loss of a job, the sudden decrease in formerly fixed income. We cut back on our activities, because we can neither go out with friends as easily as we once did, nor afford to entertain in our homes. We see less of others; we turn down invitations; we find ourselves more and more isolated. [The monthly statement arrives from the Temple bill and rather than call and ask for relief, we move it to the bottom of the pile.]

For this very moment, Hillel has said, “Al tifros min ha-tzibur – Do NOT remove yourself from the community.” The congregation that you have invested your time, your effort, your love and your life in – is ready to return that investment – with interest – when you are most in need. If we can provide social networking to find a new job, economic assistance, or a referral for a handyman, that is all to the good. If we can provide a shoulder to cry on, a kind ear to listen, or even a place to stop the world and listen to the prayers of others, so much the better. The reason to belong to a congregation – to be part of this community – is not only to give when you can, but also to get when you need. All of the good times that you have shared with this community have been stored up for this moment of trouble, when you can find the caring support of your fellow congregants. Perhaps you have already paid for this help in advance – by volunteering at the Temple, making a meal for a family in need, or even just helping out at services. If not, get what you need now and pay back in the future – comfort a family in shivah, help set up for a Shabbat dinner, deliver shalach manot to a homebound family.

Al tifros min ha-tzibur – do not turn away from your community – not when our hands are reaching out to help.

You've Got a Rabbi - Now Use Him

Aseih l’cha rav v’kanei l’cha chaver.

Get for yourself a rabbi and [then?] acquire for yourself a comrade.

R. Yehoshua b. Perechaia Pirke Avot 1:6

This past month I received a phone call from someone who needed to discuss an ethical dilemma. We spent a good hour on the phone – not only talking about the issue involved but also about their family and what else was going on in their life. I was very honored by the phone call – not only by the trust shown by sharing a personal decision with me, but also by the fact that this person saw me in that role – a person to turn to when seeking help for an important decision. As I reflected afterward, something occurred to me that might have been obvious – I was that person’s rabbi. Further reflection made me face another truth – if that was such an important rabbinic role, why wasn’t I engaging in such conversations with others more often?

In the beginning of Pirke Avot, there is the interesting injunction quoted above. Since Pirke Avot, and especially its first chapter, focuses on the transmission of Rabbinic knowledge, one can interpret the phrase as the description of the classic mode of Jewish study. First, find a master – one who knows more than you do and can therefore direct your studies and then find a study partner, someone who is at your level, who can challenge and encourage you as you learn. In Judaism we call this chevrutah study – you find a chaver – a friend or partner, with whom you study. Jewish study is not meant to be done alone. It is in the dialogue – the questions and answers – that real learning happens.

Researching further, however, the Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) has the following definition of “rabbi” - (noun) By metaphor from the Jewish religious role, an older, more powerful or higher-ranking person in the corporation where one works (but usually not in the chain of command) who can give good advice about office politics, and may be able to pull strings, remove heads, or otherwise provide protection from hostile forces. William Safire’s Political Dictionary has the following definition: rabbi – Sponsor, or sage adviser; mentor. When given a unique political sense, this word has no religious or spiritual significance. In political relationships a rabbi is primarily a sponsor or protector, although there is a second meaning of mentor or teacher. “Who’s his rabbi?” is a question often asked by wary hatchetmen before cutting loose at a target… Dating back to the 1950’s in New York police slang, rabbi was used in a 1989 CNN commentary…

Obviously, the role of rabbi has changed much since the time of the Talmud and is even different today among the different branches of Judaism. I do not expect congregants to bring me their chickens to determine whether they are treif or not. Nor can I realistically help someone get a promotion. However, a rabbi does much more than lead religious services. In addition to teaching in the religious school, being involved in our general community, visiting the sick, and riding herd on the Temple office, I very much enjoy the personal interaction with congregants. I thought over why the individual above might have chosen to discuss this ethical dilemma with me. Over the past few years, the two of us had many discussions together about various different subjects. Together, we had created trust and a safe space for a difficult discussion because of the time that we had both put in together. There are a few congregants with whom I have spent that amount of time – whether through volunteer work in the Temple, crises in their lives, classes, or one-on-one study. I would like to build such a relationship with each and every congregant. Of course, there is a limitation on the time that I have available in a given day, week, or month, but I do not think that I am yet at capacity for such encounters.

Therefore, I would like to make explicit what I consider an implicit invitation of my role as rabbi. I would like to invite each and every one of you to begin a deeper conversation. Give me a call (908 889-4900) or send me an e-mail (rabbi@sholomnj.org) and let’s set a time to sit down and talk. I have had a few congregants who wanted to pursue Jewish study – I would suggest a book which they would read and then we would discuss. I have sat down for lunch with different congregants and learned about who they are and why they are part of Temple Sholom. I have answered questions, shared stories, and even taken walks. Let me know how you want to get together, and I will meet you there.

I look forward to speaking with you in person.

Hands and Words across the Sea...

Im eshkacheich y’rushalayim, tishkach y’mini. Tidbak l’shoni l’chiki im lo ez’k’reichi.

If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand fail.  May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you.                                                                                                                     Psalm 137:5b-6a

 

    In last month’s column, I anticipated my trip to Israel for the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ convention at the end of February.  If you want to learn about the details of the trip journaled as they happened, please go to sholomrav.blogspot.com.  Here, I hope to give some more general impressions, now that I have returned.

 

    As I said last month, as a commitment to the State of Israel and our brothers and sisters who live there, the CCAR has made a commitment to hold its convention there at least every seven years.  In addition, Hebrew Union College, the seminary that trains Reform rabbis, cantors and educators, requires those students to spend their first year studying on its Jerusalem campus.  When I was there in 1993-4, exciting things were happening in Israel.  There was almost another invasion of Lebanon; the Oslo Peace Accords came out of nowhere; Madonna gave a concert in Tel Aviv.  Personally it was exciting, as I not only met my wife, Michelle, but also came to understand Israelis and the land of Israel in a much more real and intimate way.

 

    Why is it that we Jews so encourage travel to Israel?  A main reason is that the questions of Judaism and its universality or parochialness are approached in a completely different way.  In the United States, to be Jewish is to be different – to stake out an ethnic, cultural and/or religious claim in contradistinction to most of one’s neighbors.  In Israel, being Jewish is the easy thing – the government pays the rabbis, a horn blows in Jerusalem to signal Shabbat, and everyone comes to a standstill when the air raid siren blows commemorating Israel’s Memorial Day – Yom haZikaron.  (Our Director of Education, Michelle Shapiro Abraham created a book, My Cousin Tamar Lives in Israel, to show some of the differences in the celebrations of Jews in the United States and abroad.)  But more than that ritual difference, the basic approach of Jews to their self-identity is fundamentally different.  For many Israeli Jews, it is enough to live in the land of Israel to be Jewish.  The religion of Judaism, say these secular (or chiloni) Jews is what was created after the destruction of the Temple to keep the hope alive to return one day to the land of Zion.  Now that we have returned, there is no longer a need for such ad hoc practices.  Judaism is the culture and life of everyone living together, doing the same things at the same time.

 

    On the other hand, one of the geniuses of Reform Judaism is the definition as above, of Judaism as something that sets us apart.  Whether we speak of being chosen or not, our children certainly feel the differences of being Jewish year round.  Reform Judaism tells us that being different is better than ok, it is the point of our prophetic calling.  We cannot allow ourselves to follow the crowd, to fall to the level of the least common denominator. Instead, we must strive to live up to our values, to make the world a better place.

 

    Israel struggles with these questions too.  In dealing with humanitarian refugees, foreign workers, economic minorities and recent immigrants, Israelis are challenged to live up to those values we hold in common.  Truly, it is the interplay between our embracing of difference and the Israeli desire to build a common society that creates the narrative of Judaism in modern times.

 

    The reason to remember Jerusalem is not solely to cling to a long-distant past, but rather to reach outside of ourselves and to find commonality in our unique approaches.  If not, it is as if we cannot speak, as if our hands have lost their strength.

 

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

Following my heart, I think.

Libi b’mizrach, v’ani b’sof ma’arav

My heart is in the East, and I am at the uttermost West;

Judah haLevi

As you are reading this column, I will either still be in Jerusalem or else on my way back. The Central Conference of American Rabbis – the organization of the Reform Rabbinate – has had a long commitment to holding its annual conference in Israel every seven years. The number seven, of course, is significant. Just as the Torah commands that we rest every seventh day for Shabbat, a later commandment tells us to observe the sh’mitah year – every seventh year to let the land lie fallow and plant no crops. The idea is that the seventh year is a time for rest and renewal. We cannot demand the same productivity year after year, without taking time out for replenishment.

I am looking forward to this trip – the second time that I have returned to Israel since I lived there for my first year of Rabbinic school. The last time, I travelled with my father and found that a great deal had changed in the intervening years. The hope for peace that had existed when I left in 1994 had been ground down by the terror attacks, mostly centered in Jerusalem. There had been a respite before we arrived, but two cafes were bombed while were there. As we left, we all hoped that things would be better when we returned this year.

In some ways, things are better. Terror attacks have been dramatically reduced since Israel built its barrier fence. In many ways, things are worse. The hope that Israelis found out of desperation has been almost completely shattered. In the recent elections, most Israelis showed their disbelief in the possibility of peace anytime soon. They are more and more willing to adopt radical solutions to stop the continual bombing in the southwestern towns near Gaza.

As I prepare to leave, the Israeli President, Shimon Peres, has reached out to Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud Party, to form a national unity government – an attempt to avoid a government in which Likud is the most left-leaning partner. Perhaps, as Ariel Sharon was the leader able to withdraw from Gaza, it will take a right-wing Nixon to go to this China. In any case, there is much frustration in Israel – on all sides.

How then to find renewal in a land so fraught with tension and peril? We travel to Israel to find and to live our history. There have always been difficulties in the Jewish journey – yet we have found ways not only to survive, but to thrive. Who would have imagined that a people so scarred and dispersed could find the will and energy to (re)create a nation in the desert?

The challenge of being a Jew living in the Diaspora is summed up by Judah haLevi in the poem above. Whatever happens in Israel, it tugs at our heart. We want to be inspired and uplifted by our homeland. We feel torn when pictures of terror and destruction fill the news. I travel to the East, still being from the uttermost West, to bring these two parts of my identity together – to find some comfort and healing, to return more whole. I look forward to sharing my journey when I return.

Hold Fast to Dreams

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow. Langston Hughes

I write this column immediately following the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America. It is a moment of national hope unparalleled in my lifetime. Already, even before the inauguration, the questions began as to when President Obama’s honeymoon would end, when all these hopes would be dashed against the rocks of reality. Yet, at this moment, there is an island of hope, a moment when all of us feel the pull of national duty; when we see a glimpse of how things might be, if we can move beyond the way things have always been.

This weekend, I will be traveling with three of our high school students to participate in a L’takein seminar in Washington, DC at our movement’s Religious Action Center. We are scheduled to arrive a few days after the inauguration and I have naïve hopes to see a new Washington DC replacing the mythological bureaucratic swamp.

When you read these words, I hope that we have been able to maintain not only the hope, but the commitment to working together to making not just this nation, but this world a better place. Candidate Obama was derided for being a “hope-monger” – focusing too much on what might be done, rather than on what could be done. Thinking back on this cynicism at the moment of inauguration, I was reminded of a song that we often sang in my youth group days – which comes from the poem quoted above. Dreams and hopes can be synonymous. If we only focus on the barren field before us, we cannot hope to fly. It would be sad if the only thing that keeps our country from taking off is a failure to lift our eyes to the horizon.

Langston Hughes’ words are a caution. Combined with the words of the Zionist leader, Theodor Herzl, they can give us a confidence that hope can influence reality. Herzl said, “Im tirtzu, ein zo aggadah – If you will it, it is no dream.”

Let us commit ourselves to the will that can transform our hopes and dreams into reality.

Rabbi Abraham