Yes, You're Right, Too (Redux) - January/February 2022

הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה, וּבְטוֹב הָעוֹלָם נִדּוֹן. וְהַכֹּל לְפִי רֹב הַמַּעֲשֶׂה:

Everything that will happen has already been revealed AND we have been given free will.

Pirkei Avot 3:15

One of the expectations of religion is that it will provide answers. I do not think it does.  Rather, I would say that Judaism helps us pose and explore the best questions.  In fact, one could argue that the Jewish stereotype of answering a question with a question goes back to when Job laments to God, and God replies, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4)  In addition to asking questions, one of the strengths of our Jewish tradition is that it lifts up the dichotomies of existence, and brings them into the light for us to examine.

Dr. Michael Zeldin, of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and my teacher, brings up the concept of “Enduring Dilemmas” (see this article with Dr. Lesley Litman, in regards to Jewish institutions, re-opening, and COVID). “Enduring Dilemmas are managed; unlike problems, they cannot be solved. This means that when an issue arises again, it does not happen because you have not adequately addressed it the first time or because the leader has failed in any way. Rather, it is baked into the nature of the issue because it is an Enduring Dilemma.”  Enduring Dilemmas are endemic to the situation. They are naturally in opposition.  The Sages of the Mishnah understood this when they indicated (as quoted above) that we both have free will and can determine our own actions, and yet, everything that will happen was known from the beginning of creation.  (I argued this one in my Confirmation class for hours.)  How can both things be true?  Not only does Judaism not try to reconcile these Enduring Dilemmas, it embraces them.  In the interplay and opposition of two (or more) equally true statements, we see more deeply the complexity of being human.

At a recent planning session for our new Temple Sholom Sichot Conversations (monthly open conversations about issues in our world - watch for more publicity), we confronted two truths: First, wee have all been deeply affected by the COVID pandemic and its accompanying quarantine, and we need help to process what we have been through and to carry on.  Second, and equally true, we are sick and tired of talking about COVID.

We as a congregation are trying to manage this Enduring Dilemma - we desperately want to be together again, in person, laughing, celebrating, and supporting each other.  We also care deeply for the health of the members of our community and do not want to put anyone at risk. When opinions fly on what we need to do, those on one side often characterize the other as caring for only one of these values, not for both.  What we try to do, in making our congregational decisions is not (as Zeldin and Littman warn) balance between these two - failing one in lifting up the other, but in finding a new way that acknowledges both of these difficulties and finds a new solution.  Hybrid services are only one example.  More activities outside are a way to do both.  We have to re-imagine what we have done, in order to do better in the future.

Even if the (secular) New Year leads to more freedom, as we hope, we still have a new world to build together.  Let us embrace all these dichotomies of our community and find a way to give and to get, to be together and to build up.  As always, life will be different, but some of the basic dilemmas will endure - we are strengthened not by how we fight against them, but how we find ways to understand.

Time to Rededicate our Temple? - November/December 2021

 

וְאַחַר כֵּן בָּאוּ בָנֶיךָ לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶךָ וּפִנּוּ אֶת הֵיכָלֶךָ וְטִהֲרוּ אֶת מִקְדָּשֶׁךָ וְהִדְלִיק נֵרוֹת בְּחַצְרוֹת קָדְשֶׁךָ וְקָבְעוּ שְׁמוֹנַת יְמֵי חֲנֻכָּה אֵלּוּ לְהוֹדוֹת וּלְהַלֵל לְשִׁמְךָ הַגָּדוֹל

And afterward, Your children came to the Holy of Holies in Your House, and they cleansed Your Palace and purified Your Temple and they kindled lights in the courtyard of Your Sanctuary and they established these eight days of Hanukkah to give thanks and to praise Your great name.

from Al haNissim - the prayer added to the liturgy during Chanukah

When the Maccabees finally drove off the Syrian Greeks, the first thing that they wanted to do was to get back to regular worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.  They had missed the holiday of sukkot that year, and wanted to make sure that they gave thanks for their harvest and prayed for the rainy season to begin.  So, more than a month late, they celebrated seven days of sukkot and one day of shemini atzeret.  As the Maccabees became the ruling dynasty known as the Hasmoneans, they made this extra sukkot a regular holiday, known as chanukah.

The Maccabees had an exact date that they could go back to regular worship, once they had purified and rededicated the Temple.  Following our COVID banishment from our Temple, we have kind of dribbled back, gradually doing more or less in person, depending on the COVID transmission rate.  On the one hand, we never closed - we held Shabbat services, celebrated holidays, marked students becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Confirmation.  On the other hand, we never really re-opened, as we are, even now, not yet back to what we used to do back before Purim in 2020.  Perhaps, if we had been able to re-open completely, and declare a victory over the plague, we could have had a celebration of our own - one so big that we might want to recreate it year after year.

We should not allow the descendants of the Maccabees to be denied our celebration. We are making it through.  Some of those students who led services from their homes to celebrate Bat or Bar Mitzvah are beginning to have receptions and parties.  We had High HolyDay services both in person and on-line this year - truly a victory only enabled by many dedicated volunteers, staff, and participants.  Eventually, we will all be able to be back in our building, to hug each other (if appropriate and wanted), and to share food.  That day will be joyous indeed.

However, it is ok to take the shine off of that eventual celebration by also celebrating what we are doing now - by coming by for a Shabbat service, joining in an outside oneg, or any one of the other safely distanced activities that we are and have been doing.  Our Temple Sukkah - about 20 years old - was put up by our Men’s Club and Sholom Again was one of the groups who had a celebration inside.  We have a wonderful fire pit, where we are planning a havdalah for the congregation - with s’mores and hot cider.  We have brought back our monthly take-out dinners, and that line has been a little parade of its own.

We will have a chance to all celebrate together again - but do not wait for that day.  Take the opportunities to come back to Temple now - in person or on-line - and celebrate the community that we have.  Rededicate yourself to our sanctuary - Temple Sholom.

Time Again to Turn - September/October 2021

  הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יהוה אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה חַדֵשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם

Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha v'nashuva. Chadesh yameinu k'kedem.

Turn us, Eternal One to you, and we will return! Renew our days, as in days gone by. 

• final line of the book of Lamentations

As I write this column in July, just before heading off on sabbatical, I am focussing on the thought of return: my own return in August to the congregation; the continuing return to public interaction following the COVID vaccine; the anticipated return of our congregational family to our sanctuary for the High HolyDays and our classrooms for Religious School.  I am both hoping for that return and realizing that any return requires hope.  

The history of our people is a cycle of exile and return.  As I write this article, we commemorate the 9th day of the Hebrew  month of Av, the day when our history tells us the first Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE and the second Temple in 70 CE.  During the first exile, in Babylon, our ancestors took comfort in the story of the Exodus - that God could reach out and remember our people and bring us home.  Upon that return, Ezra implemented the regular reading of the Torah scroll.  In the second exile, the Sages created the Rabbinic Judaism that we practice today - exchanging one central location for animal sacrifice for prayers in our homes and gathering places called synagogues.  Study became one of the main ways that we transmitted our Jewish heritage from one generation to the next.

Successive historic events have led to changes in our Jewish practice.  Pogroms in Europe led to a massive immigration of Ashkenazic Jews, overwhelming what had been a majority of Sephardic Jews, who had fled Spain centuries before. Here, on American shores, we created a new Judaism, to fit with the democratic ideas of the country that we joined.  The terrible events of the Shoah also shook Judaism and led to a renewed commitment to the people AND the land of Israel.

Today, we live in a different world than we did a year and a half ago.  Who would have imagined that our Judaism could survive more than a year of no physical gathering?  Yet, as we prepare to return to our sanctuary (God willing), we have made a commitment to take the lessons that we have learned in this brief exile with us as well.  Many of our congregants who found themselves unable or unlikely to attend an evening service, if it meant leaving the house (perhaps again) or traveling at night, are regulars on our Zoom services.  We do not want to lose that connection to the living rooms, kitchens, dens, or homes of our congregants.  While we hope to continue to gather in person, we have pledged to keep this connection, to build a community that is both on-site and on-line.  Members who were hesitant to participate in Temple meetings - classes, committees, or other gatherings - have found when they can stay at home (and perhaps not worry whether their children have brushed their teeth) and still participate remotely, that there is meaning and purpose in joining.  We hope to update our capabilities so that Board members and others can join us, and participate in our governance and learning.

There is no return without hope.  If our people had not carried the dream of Eretz Yisraeil in their hearts and prayers for almost two millennia, there would be no state of Israel today and, perhaps, no Jewish people.  We return not to the same place, but to a point further down the road.  Many things will be comfortable and familiar, but some things will be new.  As we enter this New Year together, let us remain full of hope. Let us restore what we may have lost.  Let us rebuild the future we could not have imagined.

L’shanah tovah,

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

Thanks for Everything, Barbara - Summer 2021

 Rabbi’s Column - Summer 2021

How wonderful to find a heroic woman! Her worth is much higher than pearls.* -Proverbs 31:10

I am not the biggest fan of the section of Proverbs known as Eishet Chayil - A Woman of Valor.  The qualities which are lifted up are sexist**, contradictory, and frankly unlikely, but at this moment, when contemplating what our Temple Administrator, Barbara Cooke has been to our community, her value to our Temple community is obviously more than pearls.

The protagonist of the Biblical text is utterly selfless in her dedication to her spouse, her family, and her community. Even before the recent pandemic, Barbara was not only in the office many more than her assigned hours, but also answered e-mail and phone calls (on her personal cell phone!) at all hours.  As much as we tried to tell her that she deserved her rest, and could at least take off Shabbat, she often checked in to make sure that everything was set up, or even to see how a service had gone.  Once the Temple office was closed, Barbara went from just about full time to on all the time.  I think she felt guilty that she wasn’t able to be physically present in our building and wanted to make sure that we were there for everyone, especially in such a difficult time.

One of Barbara’s greatest gifts to our congregation has always been her presence.  No matter what urgent task she was in the middle of, when the phone rang, Barbara picked up the line and was fully focussed with whomever she was speaking, for however long they needed - that ranged from sharing important information about the Temple, registering RSVP’s, taking tributes, to helping people with their computers and e-mail. Barbara was often not only the first contact for congregants reaching out, but for prospective members and members of the outside community as well. 

It is a great joy to know that Barbara is not leaving our Temple family.  When she first started as secretary, Barbara felt it was important to also be a member of the community that she was serving.  As soon as her youngest child celebrated his Bar Mitzvah, they joined us formally.  Jordan was confirmed at Temple Sholom, Lou has been an active member of our Men’s Club, Religious Practices, and Re-Opening Task Force.  We’ve even seen Chelsea occasionally.  Barbara is a part of our Temple family, because her family is ours as well.  

Barbara has not only served on several committees (membership, fundraising, 100th anniversary - to name just a few), but also has been the one to step up and do the work that needed to be done, when volunteers were unable or unavailable.  So many things at Temple Sholom happened - to all outside appearances, smoothly - because Barbara was always on top of everything.  Just one small illustration - Barbara was sad last Friday that she was plating her last batch of oneg cookies for the congregation - something which she took care to do to make sure that our post-service Shabbat gathering was that much more special.

Barbara has been an invaluable support to me, as your Rabbi, and as a fellow member of the Temple Sholom community; always trying to make what I was doing easier, and flowing more easily; always sharing reminders and gentle hints about with whom I should be checking in.  We are all human beings with human faults - everyone should have a Barbara to help minimize them.

I also had a chance to see a bit of a different side of Barbara when she served as chaperone on our Confirmation trip in 2018.  She was not only an excellent chaperone - providing just the right amount of organization with the ability to be a role model to the students.  It was a joy to watch her enjoy what she had often worked so hard to make sure was a great experience - both for her son and for so many of our congregants.

Barbara, we are incredibly grateful for what you have shared with us, so overjoyed that you and your family are not going anywhere, and wish you luck in your new position. You are truly our hero. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

Rabbi’s Column - Summer 2021

How wonderful to find a heroic woman! Her worth is much higher than pearls.* -Proverbs 31:10

I am not the biggest fan of the section of Proverbs known as Eishet Chayil - A Woman of Valor.  The qualities which are lifted up are sexist**, contradictory, and frankly unlikely, but at this moment, when contemplating what our Temple Administrator, Barbara Cooke has been to our community, her value to our Temple community is obviously more than pearls.

The protagonist of the Biblical text is utterly selfless in her dedication to her spouse, her family, and her community. Even before the recent pandemic, Barbara was not only in the office many more than her assigned hours, but also answered e-mail and phone calls (on her personal cell phone!) at all hours.  As much as we tried to tell her that she deserved her rest, and could at least take off Shabbat, she often checked in to make sure that everything was set up, or even to see how a service had gone.  Once the Temple office was closed, Barbara went from just about full time to on all the time.  I think she felt guilty that she wasn’t able to be physically present in our building and wanted to make sure that we were there for everyone, especially in such a difficult time.

One of Barbara’s greatest gifts to our congregation has always been her presence.  No matter what urgent task she was in the middle of, when the phone rang, Barbara picked up the line and was fully focussed with whomever she was speaking, for however long they needed - that ranged from sharing important information about the Temple, registering RSVP’s, taking tributes, to helping people with their computers and e-mail. Barbara was often not only the first contact for congregants reaching out, but for prospective members and members of the outside community as well. 

It is a great joy to know that Barbara is not leaving our Temple family.  When she first started as secretary, Barbara felt it was important to also be a member of the community that she was serving.  As soon as her youngest child celebrated his Bar Mitzvah, they joined us formally.  Jordan was confirmed at Temple Sholom, Lou has been an active member of our Men’s Club, Religious Practices, and Re-Opening Task Force.  We’ve even seen Chelsea occasionally.  Barbara is a part of our Temple family, because her family is ours as well.  

Barbara has not only served on several committees (membership, fundraising, 100th anniversary - to name just a few), but also has been the one to step up and do the work that needed to be done, when volunteers were unable or unavailable.  So many things at Temple Sholom happened - to all outside appearances, smoothly - because Barbara was always on top of everything.  Just one small illustration - Barbara was sad last Friday that she was plating her last batch of oneg cookies for the congregation - something which she took care to do to make sure that our post-service Shabbat gathering was that much more special.

Barbara has been an invaluable support to me, as your Rabbi, and as a fellow member of the Temple Sholom community; always trying to make what I was doing easier, and flowing more easily; always sharing reminders and gentle hints about with whom I should be checking in.  We are all human beings with human faults - everyone should have a Barbara to help minimize them.

I also had a chance to see a bit of a different side of Barbara when she served as chaperone on our Confirmation trip in 2018.  She was not only an excellent chaperone - providing just the right amount of organization with the ability to be a role model to the students.  It was a joy to watch her enjoy what she had often worked so hard to make sure was a great experience - both for her son and for so many of our congregants.

Barbara, we are incredibly grateful for what you have shared with us, so overjoyed that you and your family are not going anywhere, and wish you luck in your new position. You are truly our hero. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham*translation mine.  “Heroic for chayil can be found here - https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/hebrew-humanities/woman-valor-speak-hebrew-wonder-woman-superpower/

** Some feminist translations/interpretations of this text can be found here - https://jwa.org/node/23715

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

*translation mine.  “Heroic for chayil can be found here - https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/hebrew-humanities/woman-valor-speak-hebrew-wonder-woman-superpower/

** Some feminist translations/interpretations of this text can be found here - https://jwa.org/node/23715

Thanks for Nothing - April 2021

Which is more important: struggling to mend our broken world or appreciating what we have been given? We cannot do one without the other.

The Jewish people are given two names in the Torah. Leah names her fourth son Yehuda, “gratitude.” “Yehudim” means “Jews,” or more literally, “the thankful ones.” Jacob struggles with an angel who bestows upon him a new name, “Yisrael,” meaning “struggles with God.” We are wrestlers. We will fight until dawn and not despair, no matter how bleak it looks.

How can we be both the thankful ones, grateful for what is, and also be the ones who struggle because it isn’t good enough? How do we live in awe of life if it is also in our nature to say, “this world should be better”? We must be comfortable living in the paradox.

It has been suggested: a person should carry in each pocket a slip of paper with one of our names. One reads, “I am Yehuda: I am grateful for what is,’ while the other reads, “I am Yisrael: I will always fight to make it better.” - Rabbi Mychal Copeland, Pirkei Imahot 3:2

Gratitude is one of the coping mechanisms that has been helpful to some of us as we make our way through this difficult period in our lives.  (For some that is the pandemic, others may be experiencing difficulty in many ways.)  We have been advised to be grateful for what we have, and our Jewish prayerbook reflects this - grateful for the roof over our heads, a place to sleep, food to eat, and clothing to wear; grateful to have loved ones (of birth or chosen family) with whom to share, even if they may not be close; grateful for employment, for diversion, for the ability to move from day to day.  There is a challenge in gratitude.  Not only can it make us feel complacent, sometimes it makes us feel guilty when we know that as bad as we may have it, there are so many who have it so much worse.  It is important to validate - it is okay to feel bad. It is okay to not be thankful at every moment.  Being grateful can be a worthwhile tool, but that does not wipe out the difficulties we may be living.

This month, however, I wanted to push the envelope of gratitude a further step.  We are often grateful for the presence of others, or for the gifts the others bring, but I would encourage us to appreciate the patience of others.  In dealing with tempers near fraying and emotions on the edge, when we reflect, we say to ourselves, “It is okay.  This is a difficult time. People are having to cope with more than they may have ever had to cope with.  We need to give them some space and be forgiving.”

Sometimes, we are that person - at the end of our rope, on the fourteenth Zoon call of the day, without a plan for a meal to feed ourselves or our families, not sure about whether it is allergies or time to stand in line for a COVID test.  Still, in those moments, we are sometimes able to take a breath and choose not to take out those valid frustrations on other human beings.  We can not only be grateful for that ability in ourselves, but also in others.

In this month, over a year since our lives so drastically changed, let us take a moment of gratitude for the Instacart employee who did not text us expletives, after we asked three times in a row (after they already left the aisle ten minutes before) for the other size of sliced cheese.  Let us take a moment of gratitude for the Amazon delivery people, with aching backs, who took the time to ring our doorbell, rather than leave our package to tempt a passing porch pirate. Let us take a moment of gratitude for our teacher (or child’s teacher) who, being asked the same question, by e-mail, the fourth time in a row, took the time to answer, long after the school day had ended, while dealing with their own family’s needs.  Let us show gratitude to our friends and acquaintances who, when we call or text them with things that are vitally important and timely, at least to us, they do not snap back a surly answer, but take time to listen and to think and be there as a friend.

It has been a long year.  That we are still here and relatively sane (How sane, we may not know for a while yet.) is a miracle not just because of our own ability to go with the flow, but because of countless others who allowed us to freak out, without freaking back out at us.  There is a wise lesson there for us to learn from this time - that as we are thankful for what we have, and energized to change the world to how we want it to be, that we live in a world filled with others who want to do the same, and we all need to do so, together, if it is to work out, in the end.

Thank you to all of you who have dealt with the challenges and mistakes that we on the Temple have made as we have tried to be there for you.  Forgive each other as we (hopefully soon) emerge from our cocoons.  May we come together again with a new appreciation not only for who we are, but for who we have tried to become.

A Women's Voice is Heard - March 2021

What would it look like if we challenged ourselves to build source sheets that include at least one woman’s voice? - Jewish Educator, Danielle Kranjec

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-kranjec-test/

There is a wonderful story of B’ruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, one of the few non-males cited as an expert in the Talmud: Rabbi Yosi from the Galilee [a known misogynist] was walking by the way and encountered B’ruriah. He asked her, “By which way should we travel to get to Lod?” B’ruriah responded, “Foolish Galilean, don’t the sages say, ‘Do not speak much with women?’ You should have said, “Lod, where?”  B’ruriah is not only able to best Rabbi Yosi, but also to gently point out to him what he is missing in usually avoiding conversing with women, even at the moment when he is forced to do so, because he is relatively ignorant.

The challenge of sharing not only a balanced but diverse range of the voices that have made up our tradition is that so few of those non-male voices have been preserved.  Here and there in the Talmud, we can find the occasional witty repartee of a B’ruriah but, as in our modern world, for a woman (or any minority’s) voice to be uplifted, they must often be extraordinary. And, as extraordinary, they are equally as rare in any gender, and therefore, present only in the rare instance.

A group of Hillel educators, inspired by their teacher, Danielle Kranjec, created in her honor the “Kranjec Test”.  Looking at the prevalence of source sheets (sheets that quote different Jewish texts and are often handed out and used as the basis for any Jewish class or discussion), she asked what it would be like if, for any sheet that quoted more than two sources, at least one would be a woman.  On the face of it, the challenge seems easy.  However, when the time comes to create the source sheet, however, the ideal runs smack into the real.  Pirkei Avot, the go to collection of mishnaic wisdom, contains no quotes from women.  The Talmud, as mentioned above, has a few unnamed women, some women named by their relationship (daughter, mother, wife) to others, and a very, very few, like B’ruriah mentioned by name.  The classic collections of commentary on the Torah, the mikrot g’dolot - do not contain any women. In fact, it was the Women of Reform Judaism who challenged the then UAHC to create a Women’s Commentary on the Torah, to lift up those voices, not only to learn how the text might be viewed differently, but also to create a locus of where such commentary might be found.  I even searched the Google for “quotes by Jewish women” - the results were unsatisfying. (The first that came up was as celebration of Jewish women that featured a quote by actress Natalie Portman: “Not all girls have to be scientists, not all girls have to be tough, you know. It's cool if they want to be moms or be more shy or vulnerable.”)

In reaching out to my (female) colleagues for help, I was given many places to study the work of female scholars.  I have tried to bring that work forward, most notably in recent High HolyDay sermons and in what we study in our Tuesday morning class.  However, there is more work for me to do.  I hope that you will not only join me in this journey, in this column, over the next few months, but continue to share your wisdom, your findings, and to keep challenging me.

I’ll end with the words from the article laying out the challenge of the Kranject test, cited above:

Learn women’s Torah. We cannot teach what we haven’t learned, and so we have an obligation to actively seek out women’s Torah. If you’re not sure where to start, this list includes resources that we have found powerful and inspiring.

Elevate women’s voices. We must give platforms to women who have been otherwise relegated to the sidelines. Not only does this include (re)discovering female memoirs from generations past, but also celebrating and centering the Torah of contemporary female scholars, rabbis, and educators.

Teach women’s wisdom. We all have materials we like and return to frequently. But if those sessions do not include women’s voices, we must be ready to revise them so that they more accurately reflect the collective teachings of our people and traditions.

As we continue the work of bringing forward the voices of those unseen and unheard in our communities, we must remember that gender is only one axis for inclusion. Our hope is that The Kranjec Test will be a step in thinking and acting critically about the texts we study, the voices we cite, and the ways we teach.

We are committed to a 5781 in which our teaching more regularly passes the Kranjec Test. We invite you to join us.