An Open Letter to Alice Walker

WARNING: Some folks aren't going to like this, are going to seek to read between the lines, and the like. Apologies in advance. But read the lines themselves. :)

Refuah Sheleimah

Phyllis and Michael were among the first of my classmates in Rabbinic school to get married (excluding such wonderful folks as the Katz and Linder families, who came celebrating anniversaries already). They were the first in our class to bring new life into the world, their son David, in the fall of our fourth year. We spent our downtime in CPE talking about how she wanted to fill a minivan with children. So it was natural that she and Michael, now serving congregations in Chicago and among the rising stars of our movement, would have four children, two minivans, and the kind of joyous, chaotic household that seem to only appear on television.

So it was with the most profound sadness that they announced that their second child, Sam (age 6) was diagnosed with leukemia. As a parent, as a colleague, as a friend, it sends my head spinning and makes me sick to my stomach, so I can't imagine how their world has turned inside out.

They're blogging their experience (Phyllis has always been very social media and technology oriented) so that people know how to support them. The blog can be found at http://supermansamuel.blogspot.com/. In the meantime, please offer prayers of healing for Shmuel Asher ben (HaRav) Pesach Esther.

In praise of beer at annual meetings

"So B. and I were thinking about getting beer? Thoughts?"

Believe it or not, this was the text I got an hour before our annual meeting from S., a board member and one of the organizers. 

Now, let me explain. 

This year, our intrepid president Jan decided that our normal format for the annual meeting (weeknight, light dessert, no one comes) should be eschewed in favor of a Saturday night Havdallah picnic, outdoors, complete with grilling (we own a grill as a congregation for such events). We'd had barbecues for the beginning and end of school, and Selichot, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility, and most people thought it was a Very Good Thing. So good, in fact, that we had 100 RSVPs and the membership committee made it into a prospective member event. 

So we were planning on a casual evening, with beautiful weather, a camp-style Havdallah service, and goodies on the grill, when this text came in. 

My response was immediate: "Sure!" And so there was beer at the annual meeting, or rather, the picnic that proceeded it. 

I'm sure there are those who would poo-poo such a thing, encouraging drunkenness (I think a few people had all of two beers, and that was the max) but let me tell you why it was a good idea. 

Our tradition is one that believes in moderation (go as Maimonides), and beer in moderation is something that adults enjoy. More than that, seeing the beer, even if people didn't imbibe, signaled to people that this was more like a family gathering--a reunion or summer barbecue--than a stuffy, formal 'synagogue' event. It's not about the alcohol, it's about the tone that's set, and seeing a Sam Adams Summer ale in the hands of the rabbi (or one of our oldest members) signaled to people that they could let their hair down and relax a little, and behave as if they're in someone's backyard and not an 'annual meeting'. 

And it did have a backyard feel: kids running around and playing, older 'family' members reminiscing (some with a bottle in hand), a wonderful mix of longtime and our newest (and even some prospective) members milling about and sharing with one another. 

I'm not saying we need beer at everything (though I think it would make our onegs more interesting!); what I am saying is that an annual meeting--or any gathering at the synagogue--should have that feeling of family and friends and neighbors coming together--COMMUNITY coming together, and sometimes you need simple signifiers--like what's available to drink--to help people achieve that sense of belonging. Or, to misquote Ben Franklin: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. 

David Bryfman on The Consequences of Free | eJewish Philanthropy: Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

David Bryfman on The Consequences of Free | eJewish Philanthropy: Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource: "
“So congratulations to all of you out there who have managed to get large numbers on your free programs. All you’ve managed to do is prove the point that people will do absolutely anything for free. And the numbers are staggering. But now ask yourselves, why would anyone who has been thrown free Jewish life milestones now think they are valuable enough to pay for others of more or greater significance?… Are we as a community brave enough to hit ‘pause’ if not reset’? Can we take a step back and look at the consequences of free and see if we can utilize its undoubted power, its magnitude, to really transform the Jewish community as a whole?”"

'via Blog this'

Sermon from Friday: T-Shirts and Torah

For those who missed my sermon from last Friday, here it is!

As those who see me regularly at the JCC gym or in my ‘civvies’ can attest, I am a fan of the snarky T-shirt. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my vintage nerd t-shirts as much as the next Gen X-er, with Star Wars and Marvel Secret Wars shirts pulled out for special occasions. But it is the ones with text-based silliness that make me the happiest; T-shirts that say, for example, “White Text on a Black Shirt”. Then there’s my “Rabbi-Ninja” shirt, of course. Or Debra Steinberg’s favorite: the one that looks like an old Apple query box that asks “would you like to destroy the universe?” with “OK” highlighted, ready to be clicked on with an imaginary mouse. Or “Republicans for Voldemort” for you Harry Potter fans (and those who aren’t can ask those who are). I have yet to get the T Shirt of ultimate disambiguation (it says “NO”) but it’s on the list. My latest and most favorite shirt at the moment, however, reads “Non Flammable? Challenge Accepted.” 

I love this shirt, not only for its adolescent bravado and promise of pyrotechnics—although that’s good too. I love it because there is a deeper meaning to the shirt as well. In our tradition there is a word—‘farbrent’, literally on fire, and to be called farbrenta is to be passionate, in Hebrew, Kanah. Fire is often used by the Chasidic writers to indicate passion, but not just for any thing or person. It means, for them, passion for God, for holiness, for that pure, unadulterated joy that comes from deep connection to the spiritual and living that connection in everyday life. And this week, we read of people who were full of that passion: the nazir. Nazirites, if you recall, were people who pledged to take on extra restrictions and responsibilities for a set period of time—a year, for example—out of their piety. As a sign of their status, they were to wear their hair long, and refrain from drinking alcohol, and avoid contact with the dead. They are to be, as the text says, holy to God. 

Often we look askance at the passionate person, much as we look askance at the person cackling while holding the book of matches. Kanah, of course, also means ‘zealous’, and we have no stomach for zealots. After all, as Winston Churchill wrote, they can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject. But for the Chasids, passion, fire, was a sign of piety, a sign that you took God—and God’s world—seriously. Not dourly, mind you: taking God’s world seriously means taking everything in full measure, including happiness, love, delight, celebration. And so if you could inspire that burning, that yearning, that fire in someone else, if you could encourage another to be passionate, encourage another to be holy to God, then you were a successful Chasid indeed. 

And so this T-shirt I see as not just a challenge to see if I can light the tablecloth on fire (which a confirmation student did one year, don’t ask). Rather, it’s a call to light people’s hearts on fire, to encourage them to be holy for God. 

And why not? It seems to me that so many of us strive to keep our hearts non-flammable. We resist moments of emotion, of connection, calling them ‘sentimental’, or knowingly resort to humor to dampen any perceived enthusiasm. We have been fooled too many times, watched too many heroes fall, gotten our hopes up only to have them dashed to the ground. As the Who sings famously: We won’t be fooled again.
And yet…when we do that, when we damp down the fires in our hearts, when we leave them cold to the warmth of prayer, of compassion, of connection to our fellow person, really we cheat ourselves out of the opportunity to warm others, to repair God’s world, to fulfill our nature as God’s creatures! We yearn for warmth and closeness, and can’t helped but be moved when we encounter real connection with another. And if you don’t believe me, hold the hand of another person, even for a minute, and tell me you don’t feel something. God wants us to be farbrenta for each other, and when we let cynicism enter our hearts instead, we put out the fires, and leave ourselves and each other, in the words of Ruth Brin, craven and cold. 

But, I can hear you say, it’s just a silly T-shirt! You’re making something out of nothing! Perhaps, but I would argue that Torah is where you find it, and that seeking, that yearning, requires us burn with love for one another and bring each other into the light—the warmth—of compassion and care. Would that we all sought to light on another’s’ hearts on fire, to walk by the light of our God. That is our challenge. Challenge, God willing, accepted. Amen. 

Be’chol Lashon: Educational Resources: Newsletter: Do we really love Ruth?

Be’chol Lashon: Educational Resources: Newsletter: Do we really love Ruth?: "I’ve heard people say that although someone converts, they will never really, truly “be” Jewish. They don’t really feel it in their kishkes the way “we” do. In the vast majority of cases, this is utterly false. In the vast majority of cases, it’s the passion, interest, skill, knowledge and commitment of the Jew-by-choice that threatens us to the core. It threatens our complacency. It threatens our jaded boredom with our own heritage. It threatens our smug sense of “I am a good Jew even though I don’t do a Jewish thing, ever.” It threatens our security when our kids cease being interested in anything Jewish. It threatens our romanticized picture of who we are as Jews."

'via Blog this'

For this Memorial Day

For this Memorial Day I present the full eulogy at the dedication of the 5th Marine Division Cemetery at Iwo Jima in March of 1945 by Roland Gittelsohn z'l, my father's childhood rabbi and the first rabbi to serve as a chaplain in the Marine Corps. His words resonate for us today. 

"This is perhaps the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the sides with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the man who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may now rest a man who was destined to be a great prophet–to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie here silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth in their memory. 

It is not easy to do so. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their places. Indeed, some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of such men as these is not easy. Of them too can it be said with utter truth: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here. It can never forget what they did here." 

No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All that we even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace that they did in war. To swear that by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours shall never suffer these pains again. These men have done their jobs well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. If that freedom be once again lost, as it was after the last war, the unforgivable blame will be ours, not theirs. So it is we the living who are here to be dedicated and consecrated. 

We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, negroes and whites, rich men and poor–together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. 

Any man among us the living who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts up his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the rights of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white men and negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them here have paid the price. 

To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America's fghting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of democracy at home. This war, with all its frightful heartache and suffering,is but the beginning our our generation's struggle for democracy. When the last battle has been won, there will be those at home, as there were the last time, who will want us to turn our backs in selfish isolation on the rest of organized humanity, and thus to sabotage the very peace for which we fight. We promise you who lie here: we will not do that! We will join hands with Britain, China, Russia in peace, even as we have in war, to build the kind of world for which you died. 

When the last shot has been fired, there will still be those whose eyes are turned backward, not forward, who will be satisfied with those wide extremes of poverty and wealth in which the seeds of another war can breed. We promise you, our departed comrades: this too we will not permit. This war has been fought by the common man; its fruits of peace must be enjoyed by the common man! We promise, by all that is sacred and holy, that your sons, the sons of moners and millers, the sons of farmers and workers, the right to a living that is decent and secure. 

When the final cross has been placed in the last cemetery, once again there will be those to whom profit is more important than peace, who will insist with the voice of sweet reasonableness and appeasement that it is better to trade with the enemies of mankind, than by crushing them, to lose their profit. To you who sleep here silently, we give our promise: we will not listen! We will not forget that some of you were burnt with oil that came from American wells, that many of you were killed with shells fashioned from American steel. We promise that when once again men profit at your expense, we shall remember how you looked when we placed you reverently, lovingly, in the ground. 

Thus do we memorialize those who, having ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves the living to carry on the struggle they began. Too much blood has gone into this soil for us to let it lie barren. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: this shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come–we promise–the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.       Amen."