So last week I was at the CCAR conference in San Francisco. I LOVE these things (I've only missed one--last year's--since my ordination in 2003, and that was because of my transition and my senior rabbi's sabbatical. And laziness). I love the study, the camaraderie of being with colleagues, catching up with friends, and seeing the city (it helped that my wife was able to come to this one--thank God for inlaws!).
It was neat meeting the new ordainees (last year's class) and spending some time with them. The new colleagues I met had a very positive vibe and terrific energy, and there were probably as many of them as my class. It was wonderful being with classmates (both from the Israel year and who were ordained with me), especially with many of us either in our first year in a new place or about to transition to one. I even enjoy the plenaries (I know, right?). And, frankly, it was great seeing colleagues I don't necessarily plan on connecting with. First day of a conference is a lot like Trafalgar Square; stand in one place long enough and you'll see EVERYONE.
Not much of this conference was particularly controversial. Study, obviously (or maybe not). We rewrote our governance rules and revised our ethics code (which either will make a difference or was the rearranging of the deck chairs, depending on who you talked to), talked about the future of placement and the conference within the larger context of the Reform Movement. Oh, and we talked a little about intermarriage.
The report from the Taskforce on Intermarriage was a long time coming. A little history; while the conference essentially discouraged the practice of reform rabbis officiating at a ceremony of a Jew and a non-Jew in 1973, there have been voices to mitigate that stricture, including a reaffirmation in the 1980s that still put out guidelines for those rabbis who would choose to officiate, resolutions embracing converts, non-Jews, the children of 'mixed' marriages (to use the old term) etc. When the Taskforce was formed, there was a concern in the Conference that its mission was to rescind the previous resolutions and open up the possibility for (or even require) officiation.
Instead, recognizing that to decide such a personal choice so aggressively would alienate one or the other half the Conference, they chose to build consensus. For some, that means they didn't go far enough. For others, I'm sure, there is a sense that they went too far. In my case, they were just right.
I'm not going to discuss the issue of officiation now (yeah, I know, I'm chicken). Suffice to say in this moment that it's something I'm always struggling with and I have enormous respect both for colleagues who don't and colleagues who do under certain circumstances, and have come to their positions with thoughtfulness and a sense of kedusha. What's more important, for me, is the sense of creating a welcoming atmosphere. To embrace and bless couples on the bimah regardless of religious orientation (or any kind of orientation, for that matter), to open up the possibility for conversion at any time for those who would choose to affiliate, creating opportunities to celebrate those non-Jews who raise their children in Jewish community and create Jewish households, providing programming and education for those who would want it, both for those in so-called 'interfaith' relationships and those whose children are in those relationships, are not only paramount and critical for a congregation, to me at least, they're no brainers. Not because they'll boost membership, but because ethically and spiritually they're the right thing to do.
This past week we celebrated a bat mitzvah of a girl who's great-grandmother (thank God, still living), grandmother, and father all grew up at Beth Emeth. Four generations of this family stood on the bimah together, passing the Torah from generation to generation. But something else happened as well; the mother of this girl, herself not Jewish but active in the Jewish upbringing of both her daughters, who knows the service probably as well as anyone in the congregation, stood on that bimah as well. She participated in that ritual of passing the Torah to her daughter. She read the parents' prayer that she and her husband had written. She stood proudly next to her daughter as she read from Torah, a smile full of pride and emotion beaming from her face. Perhaps those are controversial choices, to have her participate in this service. For me as a rabbi, as a Jew, as a parent, it was a no-brainer.
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