Before Shabbat

My friend Marcus and I were in rabbinic school together. He was a rebel, a guy who reflexively said no if anyone said yes. No one could tell him what to do. He was raised in a predominantly Jewish community in New Jersey that unceremoniously fled en masse for the suburbs when the first black family moved into town. (We don’t like discussing this, but Jewish families were certainly in the first waves of white flight). He says that he was the only white kid whose family stuck around. Within four years, he was the only white kid on the block. This, Marcus says, is the crucible in which he learned to be his own man.

Marcus exercised his rebellious philosophy at various times in rabbinic school. His biggest ‘no one can tell me what to do’ was his girlfriend, Nonnie. Nonnie was not born Jewish. She came from a hippie family that lived for a time on a commune and who worshiped the sacredness of the cosmos in a pretty eclectic way that included cannabis and ‘shrooms. Nonnie was what demographers call unchurched. She rarely went to Jewish/school events with Marcus. Then again, Marcus rarely went.

When the dean of HUC took Marcus aside a year before ordination and told him that to be ordained Nonnie had to convert, he was, as you might imagine, a tad exercised. Marcus fought and cursed, but in those days the notion that a rabbi could have a non-Jewish significant other was ludicrous. But Nonnie converted, albeit without much joy. They got married, had a kid three years later and divorced two years after that. It still makes Marcus angry that he was forced into a series of actions he opposed.

According to Professor Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at HUC known for demographic studies of American Jewry, “in-marriage” has historically “been central to what it means to be a Jew.” Its modern importance, he explains, is amplified because of the ongoing population decline among non-Orthodox Jews, which he attributes largely to intermarriage.

Cohen also argues that American Jews put “rabbis at the top of the symbolic hierarchy.” As a result, “it is logical for rabbinical schools to hold rabbis to higher standards.” While Cohen affords some merit to the suggestion that intermarried rabbis could serve as models for interfaith communities, he cautions that “we don’t know for sure what the impact of having intermarried rabbis will be upon those families.” We do know, he says, that “intermarried rabbis will have no chance of teaching the next generation the importance of marrying Jews.” Or at least, so he said in 2009. http://goo.gl/oHnmWs

Nearly all of the country’s rabbinical colleges have firm policies that prohibit the admission and ordination of students who are in committed relationships with non-Jewish partners. Even as interfaith couples are increasingly being welcomed into congregations of all denominations, they are effectively barred from pursuing the rabbinate. http://goo.gl/8vUEWQ

But as Bob Dylan adjures, “the times they are a’changing.” The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which ordains rabbis for the denomination’s more than 100 congregations across the country, just ended their policy prohibiting applications from students in interfaith relationships. Says Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, “We believe that the only strategy that will work in today’s world of choice is one that engages rather than polices, one that actually welcomes and provides role models for intermarried Jews rather than one that disowns them.

And Keren McGinity, a former member of TBA opines, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s new policy to welcome and graduate Jewish students who are in committed relationships with partners of other faith backgrounds is an excellent, forward-thinking decision. http://goo.gl/U9U35I

But Jane Eisner, editor of the Forward, disagrees with McGinity’s assessment and she disagrees with the RRC as well. Eisner, a friend and fellow Wesleyan grad who spoke here for the Margaret Miller Memorial Lecture series, hangs onto the atavistic belief that intermarriage is the biggest crisis for American Jewry. She writes that letting interfaith people get too involved, too close with Jewish life is dangerous. She says that “… at some point… inclusion leads to diminishment. At some critical point, boundaries become so porous that they no longer function as boundaries, and standards become so vacuous that they lose all meaning. This decision brings the Reconstructionist movement to that point, and to the degree that it places pressure on other denominations — and history suggests that it will — then it risks damaging our religious, moral and spiritual leadership at a time when we need it the most.”

http://goo.gl/xx5nCO

It would be wonderful to find a true whipping boy for the various phenomena that plague postmodern American Jewry. If we could just say intermarriage is the cause of our troubles we can spend a lot of money trying to fix it, lest we damage “our religious, moral and spiritual leadership” beyond repair. But as Rabbi Waxman says, “For those of you still fighting, the battle was lost years ago. The Pew report, citing that 58% of marriages since 2005 are intermarriages, has disabused all of North American Jewry of the notion that Jews intermarrying can somehow be stopped by pressure from families, rabbis, or editorials from editors of Jewish publications.”

http://goo.gl/fI8quS

Reconstructionist rabbis will choose the partners they choose. If their partner is Jewish, I hope their partner will support them in their work. If their partner is not Jewish, I hope their partner supports them in their work. Intermarriage will not make or break American Jewry. The more open hearted a temple is to welcoming interfaith families, the more likely that synagogue and their interfaith families will thrive.

The genuine threat to American Jewry, and to mainline Protestant denominations and to Catholicism is the extent to which Americans consider religious and church/synagogue affiliation relevant. More important than soccer practice, ski trips, or sleeping late on weekends. For Jews, a synagogue must be a place that provides meaning and community and connection and fun. A synagogue must be like Cheers, where everybody knows your name. That’s the real work of Jewish survival, not who the rabbi is married to. And to provide that kind of institution is hard and will only become harder.

It would be so much easier to make intermarriage the bugaboo. But it’s not. To make a synagogue relevant and worthwhile for millennials as well as baby boomers is complicated and will require more and more nontraditional solutions. Eisner’s idea that too much inclusion leads to diminishment is an outdated Conservative movement cry – that has led them over the cliff.

As Tevye said to Golda, “It’s a new world.” That must be our mantra now as we consider our trajectory as American Jews, and as a Reform temple in Newton, MA. We are going to have to be courageous and audacious as we dare to move in new ways. Looking back with yearning is not a recipe; just ask Lot’s wife.

It’s 57 degrees tonight. The chill in the air is a signal from the stratosphere that it’s transition time. Short sleeves to long ones. Sweaters out of storage. Jackets out of the closet.

Of course the transition is not only external, driven by meteorological factors. It’s happening in our souls, too. What’s your temperature? Are you feeling the warmth of connection, of family and friends? Do you feel the chill of separation? Do you sense distance between you and the rest of the world? Are there storm clouds of impending loss and dissolution? Is there a struggle going on in your soul, 2 competing weather systems bound to cause thunder and lightning?

Yom Kippur is the annual internal weather report for carefully tabulating the temperature of our souls. I know most of us don’t set a lot of time aside to do this. And I am certainly not going to try convincing you to start now.

So rather than make elaborate plans for what you’re going to do during services tomorrow night and all day Wednesday, let’s just focus on this moment of your reading right now and the immediate moments afterwards. Here are some questions to ponder:

1 What was a joyful moment in your life over this past year? Don’t get hung up in trying to choose the most joyful. Just pick one particular memory of the past year that still makes you feel good.
2 What was a terrible moment, one you’d rather forget – but you can’t?
3 What’s something you want to do in this new year, something that will make your life better? Again, it can be something small – it doesn’t have to be the cure for Ebola.
4 Who is one person you want to make things better with?
5 Who is one person you know you need to forgive?
6 Who is one person who needs to forgive you?

If you’re up late tonight, do this now. After all, if this is your only pre-Yom Kippur planning besides carbo loading and extra hydration, what have you got to lose? And if you are reading this before breakfast, wait until you drink at least half of your coffee. Some folks like to do this with someone else. Don’t succumb to that urge unless this person will hear what you have to say without judgment.

Listen: you are a precious soul blessed with the gift of life and the consciousness to understand just how extraordinary that fact is. Don’t waste it all on the superficialities western culture bombards us with 24/7/365. Resist the urge, for at least a few minutes if not more, to look at the world through no one else’s lens but your own. Embrace the joy. Acknowledge the struggle. Give in to the only thing we know about the future, and that is: we have no idea what’s out there, just beyond tomorrow.

Answer the six questions. Take the time to focus in a bit. Use this moment, at least this moment for some soul-searching and some soulful reassuring. Give yourself the expansiveness of mindfulness. Be worthy of this gift of life that is yours.

On early maps when cartographers drew up to the limit of what had been confirmed by explorers, they would write Hic sunt Dracones. Here be dragons. Well my dear friends and TBA hevreh, as I look out into the darkness of 5776, I say “Here be dragons!” And I say, “So let’s go.”

The Stern Gang and I all together pray that you have a meaningful fast and a promising weather report.

rebhayim

In just a few days, I’ll be standing on the bimah, wearing my kittel. It’s a 35-year-old traditional Jewish cotton garment that I put on for the first time as I stood under the huppah, waiting for my bride to walk down the aisle. And ever since I wear it every Passover Seder and every Yom Kippur. The last time I will wear it is when the Hevreh Kaddisha dresses me in it before they lay me down in my coffin.

Until recently, the fact that my kittel is my death shroud has felt very abstract if not surreal. I’ve talked about it from the bimah for decades without any kind of hesitation. But I must admit that it seems just a bit different these days. No, I’m not sick or enfeebled – in fact, I feel great! It’s just I’ve attained a growing recognition that I’ve lived the majority of my years.

I now understand why the rabbis suggested the kittel for Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a call to death. Throughout the 25 hours of this day, we descend into death as we fast, eschew bathing, and spend the day in the synagogue, turning our backs on the world. We leave both the natural and the material worlds, distancing ourselves from commerce and community, from the cacophony of the marketplace and the comforts of home. We enter into the subdued light of the synagogue, read prepared liturgies, and chant the Torah with the particular trope of these Awesome days. The day stretches on, and we go more deeply inward, discovering, perhaps, a well of quiet of which we were unaware… http://goo.gl/aDpNeD

In this peculiar and challenging space we have a few options. One of them is to truly contemplate the finitude of life. This can be instructive in that it forces us to reflect on what we’ve done with our lives. From this vantage point however, we can also encounter no small amount of despair. We can begin to count off regrets and failings.

Or we can use the time to say, in effect: Here I am. I acknowledge that I am mortal and that everyone I know and love is mortal, too. How do I want to live? There’s not much utility in actively contemplating all the ways I might die. But there’s a whole lot of things that can happen when I contemplate all the ways I might live.

True, my kittel is a reminder of death’s slow and inexorable approach. But it doesn’t have to be a garment of mourning. It reminds me that, like standing at the Sea of Reeds on Passover, like standing under the huppah, Yom Kippur is about redemptive moments yet to come. Rather than mourn about how little time I may have left, I can exalt in every minute that is about love and connection.

Today is what they call an overdetermined day. It is the last Shabbat of the year. It is a milestone marking an ending. How can it be that a new year awaits, just over the threshold?

It is three days until Rosh Hashanah. This is the day to prepare to celebrate the birthday of the world. And it’s the day to begin preparing ourselves for deep soul diving, that is, for making services count by using the time for reflection. It is the time to begin accounting for how we’ve treated others over the last year.

Today is the 14th anniversary of 9/11. And every anniversary brings a sense of deep sorrow. So many were lost. So much has changed since then, so much more distrust, and a growing edge of discord in the very fabric of our culture and even of our souls.

We mark this day with tears and laughter, with hope and despair. It is a time of endings. It is a time of beginnings. If one feels a bit teary and overwhelmed on this day, September 11th, 2015/28 Elul 5775, then join the club. It is the club of remembering and mourning.

The Psalmist teaches, “Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” It all goes by so fast. The cruelest irony must be that by the time we truly comprehend just how fleeting this life is, we’ve already used up so much of it.

But I’m not complaining – not really… I’m just saying that today is an overdetermined day, filled with enough ambivalence and sadness and joy as to be utterly overwhelming. This evening, as Shabbat begins, we will sing together, thankful for our community, one of the few true constants in our lives. Our individual stories are all so different, our experiences so precious and unique. In the end, however, we are joined by a common sense of perseverance.

We are in this place, right now, giving thanks, seeking solace. Even as life accelerates forward, one way only, we are comforted to know that we are not in this alone. And that, by the way, is why one joins a synagogue – to be a part of a collective that stands together, that shares a sense of purposefulness and destiny. On an overdetermined day like today, the certainty that we are here for each other is a comforting balm.

Liza and I and the whole Stern Gang wish you a sweet new year. May it be a year of peace and wholeness and health. Yes, there will be bumps and jolts. But please God, may we gather next year and reflect on the end of 5776 together, remarking just how precious our lives are, especially when we live them together in our TBA community.

A viral YouTube post from yesterday shows Toya Graham, a very intense single mom of 6, yelling at her son. They are standing on an urban Baltimore street, surrounded by lots of adolescents and adults. Her son, dressed in black and wearing a hoodie and a mask, appears ready, along with some others, to begin throwing stones at the police. His mother does not approve. She begins to scream at him and he struggles to get away from her. Ms Graham does not back off.  She pursues her son and strikes him – hard – 3 times in the face. Again he tries to get away. His mom does not relent, striking him twice on the back and shoulders. Throughout this 45 second video clip Ms Graham is shrieking and swearing at her son.

What a fearsome experience to be in Toya Graham’s position. To see your child poised to do something that might have dire, even life threatening consequences. What can you do? What must you do?

Over 6.5 million views later, not a few have deemed Toya Graham to be “mom of the year.” They find her mother bear ferocity praiseworthy.  They find her unequivocal condemnation of her son a statement that more such kids need to experience. They find her moral courage to go grab her son to keep him out of harm’s way a true act of affirmation. Ms Graham’s son, they suggest, was getting what he deserved: a beating for a wayward son from a loving mother.

The notion that physical violence and public humiliation are a tried and true part of the armamentarium of parenthood is a commonly held belief. How many generations of children have been beaten because they needed to be punished? What are the ways children have been mortified, called ‘Stupid’ or ‘Fat’, or ‘Disrespectful’ by a parent because they had to be put in their place?

While one can empathize with Ms Graham’s situation and her fear, it is utterly unconscionable to treat another human being – particularly one’s own child! -like she treated her son. There is never justification to hit a child. Indeed, the moment that boundary is crossed, when a person of superior size or strength or age or status uses force, violence becomes a symptom of that person’s loss of control. This is true between parent and child. Ultimately it is also true of an armed policeman and an unarmed victim.

Perhaps this same principle extends to the death penalty. The state is in a superior power position to the prisoner. The state can potentially do anything, imprison you or beat you in the back of a police van. It can The state has the power to invoke the death penalty.

Isn’t the truest measure of mercy and compassion to be found not in the exercise of violence, but rather in restraint? Isn’t resorting to violence, not for self-defense but rather out of anger or racism, an abuse of power? To use violence indiscriminately is to be no different than the perpetrator of the crime itself. To choose to execute another human being is to emulate the murderer. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may deserve to die. That’s not the point. The point is that we don’t have the right to kill him. A life sentence without possibility of parole yes.  

Homo sapiens is a violent species. We have learned to kill efficiently. And yet the hope is that whatever sacred and/or biological imperative keeps us evolving is moving us towards the ability to make peace and not to make war. The hope is that one day Toya Graham could say or do something to her son besides shame him and hurt him publicly or privately. This is not a lion laying down with the lamb kind of thing. This has to be more than some sort of Messianic wish. More than ever this is what we need. This is something we must do.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim