#createdintheDivineimage - February 2019 - Liturgy #5

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, who has made me in the Divine image

Nisim b’chol yom (Miracles of Every Day), Morning Blessings

In his book, The Three Blessings, Rabbi Yoel Kahn traces the history of three of the blessings of the prayer that we call the nisim b’chol yom - the Miracles of Every Day, found in the morning blessings section of the daily and holiday morning service.  He traces them to an aphorism common in Hellenistic influenced civilizations, and ascribed to the philosopher, Aristotle: “There were three blessings for which he was grateful to fortune: First, that I was born a human being and not one of the brutes; next that I was born a man and not a woman; thirdly, a Greek and not a barbarian.”  Perhaps one could imagine that Aristotle was grateful to be a part of society which allowed him to engage in study and philosophic contemplation, which he imagined might be impossible were he any other than those three things, although in our modern eyes, he comes across as a xenophobic misogynist.

Later Jewish liturgical development took these three blessings and adapted them for inclusion into the blessing recited each morning, that became the nisim b’chol yom.  The Jewish formulation was more of a glass half-empty version: “Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, who did not make me a slave; ... who did not make me a goy (non-Jew); ... who did not make me a woman.”  Again, a charitable interpretation would imagine that we were supposed to thankful for being able to take up ol mitzvot - the yoke of the commandments, which neither slaves nor non-Jews are obligated to do, and which is not fully required of women (at least not the positive, time-bound mitzvot).  However, one might also imagine how this appeared to Jewish women, who watched their sons, fathers, and husbands rejoice each morning that they were not of the same gender as their sisters, daughters, wives, and mothers.  In modern terms, we call this a micro-aggression (although this might be more of a macro) - a statement that, perhaps unknowingly, makes others feel separate, apart, denigrated. 

Kahn notes that he found a medieval prayerbook that had been created for a woman that said the opposite, which might indicate that the blessing was about celebrating one’s own nature, but it is also possible that this change was a protest at the normative formulation.  When the Reform movement brought the nisim b’chol yom back into its liturgy, a few changes were made to make the prayer more affirmative.  We thank God for having been created free, for making us of Israel, and for making us b’tzelem elohim - the phrase from the first creation in Genesis, which we translate as in the image of God.  The reference is even more pointed because the rest of the line states, “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the image of God - male and female, God created them.” [Gen. 1:27]  This was actually the second revision.  The first was thanking God for creating me male/female, where the reader could choose their preference.

The earliest Reform Jews in Germany began the process of equalizing Judaism for men and women.  A conference was scheduled on the role of women in Judaism, which was never held, but the early Reformers did proclaim that, contrary to traditional halakhah, men and women were equally bound and equally able to fulfill the mitzvot of Judaism.  Despite that, only one woman was ordained in Germany (and privately, not by a seminary) just prior to World War II - Rabbi Regina Jonas.  The first woman ordained in a Reform seminary was Rabbi Sally Priesand, in 1972.  It has been one of the great privileges of my life to have had the opportunity to learn from Rabbi Priesand and her successors the g’dolei hador (great ones of the generation) and the challenges they faced finding their place in Jewish life.  Their stories are horrific.  What is even more horrific is that many of the prejudices they faced almost fifty years ago are still prevalent today.

The Lutheran Church in North Carolina put together a video this past year that detailed only the tamest of things that had been said to female pastors, called, “Seriously?” I commend you to watch it.  Students at the Conservative Jewish seminary, JTS, created a Purim Spiel called “If Men Rabbis Were Spoken To The Way Women Rabbis Are Spoken To”  But for confidentiality, I could share with you the horrifying statements made to female rabbis and, worse, the situations of harassment and sexual predation that colleagues have endured which shocked me when a thread was created on our Reform Rabbis’ Facebook page. 

The problem is not one-way.  There are rabbis who make inappropriate comments and put congregants and staff members in uncomfortable situations.  There are congregants and volunteer leaders that put each other in such situations. Our tendency is to sweep such incidents under the rug, imagining that we must have heard wrong, or that the person offending is just a product of their upbringing or culture.  In doing this, we further victimize the recipient of the offense, rather than making our congregation a safe place for them, and for everyone.  When we make people uncomfortable in our synagogue home, and compound the offense by not sympathizing, or worse, not believing them, we drive them out not only of our community, but often from Judaism.

We must commit, as a congregation, to do all that we can to make our community a place where no one feels threatened or lessened because of their gender (or background, or race, or sexual identity or preference, or even politics).  To do that, we need to set clear guidelines for staff and members that allow us to call people out when they are making our space unsafe.  But guidelines are only words on paper.  We need - staff and volunteer leaders alike - to commit to training: training on how to recognize such behavior - in ourselves and others; how to react in the moment; and how to follow up after.

Finally, a word about sexual, physical, and psychological abuse and harassment.  I was told recently by a female colleague, whose father was a rabbi, that her father only had two incidents in his career where people came to him to share personal experiences of abuse or harassment.  As a female rabbi, she had over twenty people come to her in her first year.  We have created a society where people do not feel safe seeking help and comfort, especially by those who are perceived to perpetuate the culture that sweeps such behavior under the rug.  On my part, I pledge to listen, not to judge, and to believe; to be a non-anxious presence and to offer whatever help is requested, not to impose my own solutions.  We need to create a congregation that truly supports and shelters its members.  We can only do that if we recognize the defense mechanisms already in place around us, and consciously tear them down.  Only then will we be able to truly give thanks for the blessing that each and every one of us was created in the Divine image.

I Pledge Allegiance - January 2019 - Liturgy #4

Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God; Adonai is One. - the Sh’ma

Each morning in public school, just before the announcements, we would stand up as a school body and together recite the Pledge of Allegiance. What always moved me about the Pledge was the words “and to the Republic for which it stands”.  For me, that meant that we were not pledging ourselves to the piece of fabric hanging off the chalkboard in the front of the room, but to what it symbolized - the idea of the United States of America, as embodied in the Constitution.  We were not idol-worshipping the flag, but rather recommitting ourselves to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

Reform Judaism in America viewed the sh’ma in the same way.  In the Orthodox tradition, the custom is to rise for the bar’chu, then be seated for the rest of the section of the sh’ma and its blessings.  The Reform Movement, which called the sh’ma the “watchword of our faith”, innovated standing through the first line (sh’ma) and its response (baruch shem kevod), and then being seated for what we separated out as the v’ahavta.  In truth, the line we know as sh’ma (Deut. 6:4) is immediately followed by the beginning of the v’ahavta, without the later added response (baruch shem kevod, which is said under the breath, in Orthodox tradition).  For that reason, non-Reform custom is to say the v’ahavta in whatever pose, standing or sitting, one was saying the first line, sh’ma.  Reform custom, which envisioned itself as the Judaism of the United States and its democratic ideals, is that one would stand particularly for the sh’ma, and that this declaration was tantamount to a public profession of faith, a pledge of allegiance.

In context, the line in Deuteronomy is a command from Moses.  Having recapitulated the Ten Commandments, Moses explains how the covenant is that the people will follow God’s commandments; that this covenant is binding on future generations; and that following these commandments is what will allow us to inherit the land promised to our ancestors.  He then reminds the people of their relationship to a particular divine being.  “Listen [up], O [people who will call themselves] Israel.  [The god designated by the name] yod-hey-vav-hey is our God [and that aforementioned God] yod-hey-vav-hey is [unique and solely] one.”  This statement is immediately followed by a command to love that God.  That love is not an ineffable emotion, but rather a practical endeavor which includes following commandments, teaching them to those that will come later, and using various tools to remember to follow those commandments in all places and times - public and private, night and day.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that our American Reform ancestors saw the sh’ma as not just as a moment of worship, but as a reaffirmation of our commitment to carry out the mitzvot that mattered, the ethics of prophetic Judaism.  Standing up to say the sh’ma was not about clarifying which particular god we worshipped, but rather a communal stance to fulfill our part of the bargain of tikkun olam.  “Listen,” we say to each other, “we worship the same God and agree that God demands of us a path of ethical behavior that is the same for all of us.”  Reform Jews therefore, contrary to others’ custom, kept their eyes open during the sh’ma in order to hold each other to the pledge of behavior.  The sh’ma was not to be an interior moment, but a mutually supportive bonding opportunity.

Perhaps this action is something we miss in our modern world; perhaps this moment is the true reason to attend worship together.  Currently, the time at which the largest number of our congregation stands together is at the moment of kol nidrei - a time not when we pledge to do better, but rather a moment when we ask God to forgive us, in advance, for not living up to our promises in the year to come.  Maybe we need to come together more for sh’ma.  Maybe we need to spend more time looking into each other’s eyes and pushing each other to make the world a better place for all, as well as promising to work together, as a community, in that endeavor.  The secular New Year is a time for resolution - let us resolve together to hear this ancient call, and make the pledge together.

We Need to Keep Building this Sukkah - December 2018 - Liturgy #3

Adonai, our God, let us sleep in peace; our Watchkeeper, let us wake up to life. Spread over us a sukkah of peace. Hashkiveinu, evening liturgy

At a recent clergy meeting, convened by Reform Jewish Voice of New Jersey, the rabbis around the table were asked what they felt to be the most pressing social justice issue.  One rabbi said that we could not tackle any of the other vital issues until we first restored civility in our discourse; until we found a way to listen to each other with respect.  That has long been a goal here at Temple Sholom.  As opposed to congregations that shun conversations about politics, we have tried to be a safe place where we can all share our views, no matter how diverse.

We have not always succeeded - and we need to do better.  The Sages teach that the Second Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago, because of sinat chinam - baseless hatred between one and another.

The prayer hashkiveinu was meant to be said each evening before going to bed.  The Sages viewed sleep as one sixtieth of death.  When we are asleep and unconscious we are vulnerable and there is that fear that one morning we may not wake up.  Each night, we ask God to construct a shelter of peace for us - a sukkah.  That sukkah is our protection, our blanket of comfort, but each morning it disappears and that night we have to ask for it again.

Peace is a sukkah - a temporary structure that only lasts so long, and that we must rebuild.  The safe conversational space is also a sukkah.  With each person, in each conversation, we must remember our guidelines of kavod (respect) and b’tzelem elohim (that each of us is created equally in the Divine image).  A conversation in which we respect another’s right to hold a different opinion and acknowledge that they are as human as we are takes constant attention, rebuilding, and has to go both ways.

Both ways - not only must we be able to listen to opinions that are different than our own, without judging the person who is speaking, but also, when speaking, we should not imagine we know how are words are being received.  

In Pirkei Avot 1:6, Yehoshuah ben Perachayah says, “ וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת Judge each and every person as if they had full merit.” We may not understand what they have chosen to believe.  We may be baffled by the way they have reached their beliefs. However, that makes them no more or less human than we are.  If we are hurt by someone else’s belief, or perceive their belief as harmful to us or someone we care for, we can express that, but we must also acknowledge that our beliefs - or even our disbelief of their positions - might make them feel fear and hurt as well.

The requirement of the sukkah is that it be open - open to admit others, a shelter for all, but also, we must be able to look up through the roof of our sukkot and see the stars.  The safe space of peace that we build and rebuild together is a place where we can look together to the heavens that we imagine as our goal on earth. On Shabbat, the chatimah of the hashkiveinu ends: Blessed are You, Adonai our God, the One who spreads out a sukkah of peace - over us, over Jerusalem, over all Israel, and all the world.

(See this column from summer 2016 for our Temple Sholom Jewish values for respectful conversation.)

Chosen? What Did I Do to Deserve That? - October/November 2018 - Liturgy #2

Let us now praise the Sovereign of the universe... who has set us apart from the other families of the earth, giving us a destiny unique among the nations....perfecting the world. - Aleinu, trad. Liturgy

The aleinu has always been one of the more controversial prayers in the Jewish prayerbook. Although we see the prayer as a moment at the end of the service to recommit to a vision of a more perfect future, the beginning of the prayer focuses on the idea of being a chosen people, different from others.   During the Middle Ages, under pressure from the Church, lines that were construed as critical of non-Jews (“worshippers of mist and emptiness”) were expunged.  The Reform movement removed the original wording of the first paragraph and moved up wording from the second paragraph which praised God for being the sole Creator of the world.  The Reconstructionist movement, at one point, removed the prayer completely from their liturgy.  This summer, at our movement’s youth leadership camp, I spoke with a few students who had decided to remain seated and not to participate when the prayer was sung. They told me the particularism of the prayer was offensive to them.

What does it mean to be “set apart”?  To be a chosen people?  I would argue that one of the challenges to the relationship between Israeli and Diaspora Jews is that those abroad expect Israel to live up to Jewish ideals and act better than other nations.  Israelis reply that they are a nation like any other, and to act otherwise is suicidal.  Remember Tevye’s plea, “For once, God, can’t you choose someone else?”  We are criticized for being elitist and thinking ourselves better than others, when often the reality is we are set apart from whatever nation we find ourselves among.

The early Reformers decided that we could be uniquely chosen, but that meant we had a special path and task, not that we were better than any others.  Our history - from slavery in Egypt, through covenant at Sinai, and continuing throughout our wanderings - gives us a unique insight into humanity.  Our sovereignty in Israel ended not as a punishment, not in exile, but so that we could live among the other nations of the earth and teach the message of “what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor”.

In the end, the aleinu is a message of hope.  For the Orthodox, the prayer is a hope for the arrival of a physical messiah who will usher in God’s rule on earth.  For us, we believe that our human role is to bring us all closer to a messianic age - an age in which those ideals we imagine are manifest on earth.  L’takein et ha-olam b’malkhut shaddai - to repair the world until it reaches the Divine ideal.  As Reform Jews, this prayer takes us into the world, rather than out of it.  This prayer comes at the end of our service for that very reason - to remind us that whatever we pray for inside the walls of our synagogue will not come to be unless we do the work to make it possible when we go back outside those walls.  If our synagogue is a sanctuary, we are not meant to hide here.  Instead, we come in to recharge and to rededicate; to strengthen ourselves after a brief respite from our labors.

Bayom hahu yihyeh Adonai echad ush’mo echad - and on that day, God will truly be one and the nature of the Divine will be understood by all.

Entering Elul with Empty Hands - September 2018 - Liturgy #1

[For this year, 5779, I thought I would theme my Temple Topics articles with quotations from our liturgy.  Although we say the prayers very often, rarely do we take the time to stop and think more deeply about their meaning and purpose.  The Jewish prayer service has been a vehicle for the hopes and aspirations of our people for millennia.  Hopefully, we can find strength and guidance in the words that have provided comfort and challenge to Jews for generation after generation.]

Hineni he’ani mima’as
Here I am, truly with nothing [to show for myself] Erev Rosh haShanah, Mishkan haNefesh

This month of Elul, the four weeks prior to Rosh haShanah, are for self-reflection.  The idea is to head into the New Year ready to ask atonement for the t’shuvah (repentance) we have already made.  The liturgy of the High HolyDays often seems harsh, pushing some of us deeper and broader than we would push ourselves.  We begin by abasing ourselves - we say we are without merit.  But this level of abject humility seems unhealthy.  If we spoke with someone who said they were worth nothing, we would immediately, as armchair psychologists, assume that they were suffering from depression.  When we are mentally healthy, we have a robust ego.  We imagine not only that we have worth, but that our value is intrinsically important to ourselves, our family, our community and our world.

For this reason, the High HolyDay liturgy asks us to take a step back.  Much of the liturgy is purposely not for everyday or even weekly reflection.  Instead, if we are going to take one time a year to see things from a different perspective, then we are challenged to truly see things without any of our dearly held preconceptions.  We imagine that what we do each day -  the choices that we have come to accept and to live with - are, if not ideal, reasonable and acceptable.  Small accommodations may have evolved into major compromises.  Those compromises may be necessary; they may not.  Taking a chance to remove the glasses of familiarity and wipe off the shmutz of the everyday can give us a chance to see clearly what our eyes may have skipped past.

So, at the beginning of Rosh haShanah worship, those of us leading the congregation in worship are asked to be an example by acknowledging that what we consider of great worth, what value we have added, may not accrue to our actions; may not be something we can rely on to be credited to our account.  What we have accomplished is not by our hands alone, but by all the hands we have held as we work together.  A renewed appreciation of those who have helped us can give us the strength to see what we need to change in ourselves.

For the past two months, I have been on sabbatical, and I wish that all of you could be given the opportunity to step back from your work responsibilities to take up new tasks and see things with fresh eyes.  You have done that for me, but I regret I cannot do that for you.  What we can do, together, is take this High HolyDay period, with its enforced shabbat of a day or two or three, and create a space where we can see things differently and support each other in a resolve to change - to change in the ways that we would wish for ourselves.  Alone, I have nothing in my hands that can do that for you - but together, we can create a sacred space to welcome in a new year of growth and renewal.

Shanah tovah,

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham

A Learning Rabbi - Summer 2018

For learning wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of discernment; for acquiring the discipline for success, righteousness, justice and equity; for endowing the simple with shrewdness, the young with knowledge and foresight, the wise man, hearing them, will gain more wisdom; the discerning man will learn to be adroit; for understanding proverb and epigram, the words of the wise and their riddles.
Proverbs 1:2-6

In September, entering my nineteenth year as the Rabbi of this congregation and completing my fiftieth year since my birth, I entered on a process of reflection over my time at Temple Sholom along through the lens of the Biblical book of Proverbs.  Ostensibly, Proverbs was written by the middle-aged King Solomon, and I thought it appropriate to use that perspective to look back on my time here.  Over the months, I have taken different angles of the congregation and how we have grown together over the past two decades.  As I look forward to at least another decade (by contract) and perhaps another (before retirement), the time has come, once again, to step back and take a breather.

After ten years at the congregation, the Temple was kind enough to agree to give me sabbatical time - six months off (non-sequentially) over five years.  It took seven years to fit them all in, but I found them each to be of use.  My goals for sabbatical were three-fold: First to rest from the constant and overlapping concerns of the congregational rabbinate. Second to find a time for learning.  Third to see things from a different perspective.  Rest was a challenge.  It took about two weeks to wind down from the Temple, and then the next two weeks were often winding up again.  I thought of many learning projects:  I engaged in a study of Jewish graphic novels.  I worked with the Central Conference of American Rabbis to create guidelines and best practices for colleagues on sabbatical.  I worked with the Kutz Camp on program development.  I worked on my Hebrew.  I learned what it might take to create a Doctor of Ministry program in Social Justice for the Hebrew Union College.  To broaden my perspective, I visited different synagogues.  One sabbatical month, thankfully, came immediately after shivah ended when my father died, and allowed me to process and help out my family through shloshim. During another, I took his files to become a part of the American Jewish Archives.

With each sabbatical period, I brought back what I had processed and learned to the congregation.  Our new custom of taking time to find the bright spots in our week, after lighting the Shabbat candles, and sharing a word about those we have come to remember for yahrzeit or shloshim came from my re-thinking of the meaning of communal worship.

In my new contact, the congregation has again provided for sabbatical time - six months over the first seven years, and an additional six beginning in the last three years of the contract.  In order to get the most of the rest and renewal, the length of each sabbatical piece has been increased to two months.  I will be taking the first chunk this summer, from June 11th through August 10th, followed by a week as faculty at Camp Eisner.  This time, I will not only be travelling and visiting different camps - in our movement and outside - but also engaging in a Justice Ministry Education pilot through Auburn Seminary.  I will be working with a cohort out of Drew Theological Seminary focussing on Newark and the Arts.  Rabbi Goldman’s wife, Roberta, worked at the Newark Museum, and some of the program happens there.  I look forward to bringing back to the congregation the insights about art and social justice, the history and hopes of Newark, as well as what I will learn from the rest of my cohort.  When I return, I will continue with my coaching with Larry Dressler of BlueWing Consulting, who is helping me enhance my pastoral skills, and finish the second half of my Join for Justice clergy cohort.

Proverbs teaches us that wisdom is found by always being ready to learn from others.  What I bring to the congregation comes not only from my five years at Hebrew Union College, but also from what I continue to learn - from within this congregation and without, from congregants and community members, as well as teachers and professors.  All of us can continue to learn to increase our wisdom.  As I leave you in the capable hands of our Cantor and Temple leadership, I look forward to sharing what I have learned when I return.

Rabbi Abraham

Wisdom from Building Our House - May 2018

A Homeless Congregation?

Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn her seven pillars. Prov. 9:1

Our congregation is ever growing and ever renewing.  When I first arrived at Temple Sholom of Plainfield in 1999, we had been in one location for almost ninety years.  The building was large enough to fit all that we needed, but was feeling a little tired. Finding new members was a struggle, and old members were moving away.  The month before I began, the new congregational president promised that we would move to Scotch Plains by the time his term was over.  The announcement was a surprise to some; of concern to others.  We spent the next two years deciding what it meant to be a thriving congregation, and then realizing we had a decision to make - would we move, merge, or maintain?  In the end, to save our congregation, we took a leap of faith and sold our building, finally leaving in 2003, and setting ourselves up as the guests of the Fanwood Presbyterian Church.  In the end, it took fifteen years (and almost seven presidents, with one repeat) to find our new home in Scotch Plains.

In the beginning, we thought the toughest part of a move would be getting to a decision.  We thought it would be easy to move from one old building into a new one.  It turns out that you need a pretty big float of money to do that.  We needed to proceed in steps: move out to temporary quarters, sell the old building, find the right new site, purchase the site with money from the sale of the old building; raise money, get approvals, build and then walk the Torah scrolls to our new home.

Many of our current members only know us in Scotch Plains, and are surprised we have been around for over a century.  While we were in Fanwood, many of our members only remembered the church and Union Catholic high school.  Only those who have been a part of the community for more than fifteen years remember our building in Plainfield, and the leap of faith it took to begin our journey.

In our wilderness period, we constantly told ourselves that our congregation was more than a building; that our community existed without walls.  It was ironic that our congregation, which had been one of the founders of a temporary homeless sheltering program found ourselves without a home and unable to house those in need.  We used that time to change our self-image - from a congregation that hired people to do things, to one that did things ourselves; whether it was listening to a talented cantor and organist, or serving coffee at the onegs.  We learned that our congregation was only what each of us collectively contributed.  In the end, that was the only way we could build a new home, by finding the means within ourselves.

In the end, it almost didn’t happen.  When faced with the uncertainty of a large mortgage, many congregants who had joined since Plainfield wondered why we needed to make such a leap of faith.  To those older members, we were already in the middle of the leap, and we needed to find a place to land.  We felt that we were starting to be seen as the little congregation that couldn’t, and each passing year would make it more difficult to stretch out and reach our new home.  So, we gathered ourselves together, and we took the leap - and here we are.

Here we are - but our journey and period of homelessness has taught us several lessons:  We need to keep our long-term goals in mind, and keep faith with those who helped us get to where we are today.  Sometimes, we need to take a risk and to trust that we will land safely.  We need to remember that however big the journey, we only make it by helping each other take the important steps.  Our congregation - building or no - is still only as strong as its members, and as healthy as we choose to make it.  Finally, we know what it was like to be without a home, and we feel more strongly to help others in an analogous situation.

Proverbs teaches us that Wisdom built a house and set a table to attract those who would learn.  We have done the same, but the shell is the house and the table, the real attraction is the wisdom.

Rabbi Joel N. Abraham