from PJA: On Health Care, Our Fundamental Principles this Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur and Healthcare: What's the Connection?

On Health Care, Our Fundamental Principles by Elissa Barrett The Jewish Daily Forward "We know that we bear collective responsibility for building a just and holy community (kehilla kedosha)...collectively we bear responsibility for our neighbors vices and well-being." As the nation fights over the details, the need for comprehensive medical care for all remains a fundamental tenet of Jewish tradition, as PJA Executive Director Elissa Barrett explains in her Yom Kippur themed Op Ed. Click here to read the article.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Standards for Magen Tzedek Released

 

Standards For The Magen Tzedek

Released by the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission

 

The revised Standards for the Magen Tzedek Service Mark have been released.  Click here for the press release and here for the standards. There is a period for public comment on the standards and we would appreciate your feedback.  Email comments to certification@hekhshertzedek.org prior to December 9.  For more information about Magen Tzedek click here. 

 

In this week's Forward, Nathaniel Popper's article entitled, "New Kosher Food Certification May Be Most Detailed In the Industry" about Magen Tzedek describes most favorably the work of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission.  The article quotes Scott Exo, director of the Food Alliance, discussing the impressive breadth of the Heksher Tzedek Certification which bills itself as the "most comprehensive third-party certification for the production, processing, and distribution of sustainable food." The article notes that the Magen Tzedek targets products with hashgahah "is in addition to, not instead of, the kosher hekhsher mark.  You may remember that Propper first wrote about Postville in the Forward several years ago.

 

As you know, there have been several postings on RA-News updating you on the Magen Tzedek project and the work of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission.  Two weeks ago, we sent out a letter asking for funds so that we may bring the Magen Tzedek seal to market. As an Assembly we are thrilled that this initiative of such importance has made such progress. Our colleagues continue to respond enthusiastically and we are receiving pledges and contributions from dozens of colleagues and we hope to add you to the list.  If you have not made a pledge, please contact either Jeff Wohlberg (202-362-4433) Julie Schonfeld, or Jan Kaufman and make your pledge today.  You can also reach Julie or Jan at the phone number below.   If you have made a pledge, we thank you very much and ask you to send your contribution to the RA office. 

 
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JTA Blogroll: "Conservative movement and AJWS play on Yom Kippur practices in charity initiatives"

Conservative movement and AJWS play on Yom Kippur practices in charity initiatives

By Jacob Berkman · September 22, 2009

http://blogs.jta.org/philanthropy/article/2009/09/22/1008052/conservative-movement-and-ajws-play-on-yom-kippur-practices-in-charity-initiatives

I've received a couple of emails regarding interesting Yom Kippur charity initiatives that play on the various prohibitions of the holiday.

The American Jewish World Service is asking that its supporters take the money that they would have spent on food, were they not fasting on Yom Kippur, and donate it to the AJWS to help fund its projects that build farming capacity in the developing world.

The organization is asking its supports to give $36 to its "Fighting Hunger From the Ground Up" initiative.

On the other foot, the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly is using the prohibition of wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur to try to help buy shoes for children in the developing world.

The RA is suggesting that its members but non-leather shoes from TOMS Shoes,  an eco-friendly shoe company that gives one pair of shoes to a child in the developing world for every pair of shoes that it sells.

More information about the "Heart and Sole" initiative is available here.

Here are the press releases for both projects

AJWS Asks Supporters to Fight Global Hunger With Money Saved from Yom Kippur Fast

Donations will be Awarded by AJWS as Grants to Grassroots NGOs

New York, NY; September 21, 2009— As part of its recently launched campaign, Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) has issued an appeal asking supporters to donate the money they would have spent on food, were they not fasting on Yom Kippur, to AJWS-supported communities building local farming capacity in the developing world.

Invoking the prophet Isaiah, the appeal reads: "'This is the fast I desire…To let the oppressed go free; to share your bread with the hungry.'

"These are the 2,000-year-old words that we hear chanted in synagogue every Yom Kippur," AJWS's Yom Kippur appeal continues. "But what can we do to put them into practice? This year, bring the Yom Kippur liturgy to life by donating the 'cost' - we suggest $36 - of your fast for people in the developing world for whom hunger is an ongoing reality."

Everyday, more than 1 billion people worldwide go hungry and one child dies every six seconds from hunger-related causes. AJWS has launched Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up in order to build awareness in the American Jewish community regarding the political roots of hunger, to emphasize that Jews have an obligation to participate in the struggle against hunger, and to provide channels for Jews to get involved through grassroots advocacy and financial support for sustainable food production in the developing world.

"Hunger is not a result of depleted food supply," said AJWS president Ruth W. Messinger in a statement. "Ample food is produced each year to feed the world twice over."
 
Messinger added: "Inequities in control over the means of food production and distribution— byproducts of public policies, such as free trade and subsidies— encourage the co-opting and degradation of indigenous farmland by large agribusinesses. These policies also enable farming conglomerates to overproduce food and dump their surpluses onto markets in the developing world at cheap prices.

"As a consequence, local farmers trying to compete alongside subsidized conglomerates are squeezed and local agriculture is choked. We're talking about a deeply flawed global food system rooted in politics and thus eminently fixable.

"In Pirkei Avot, we are taught that without sustenance there is no Torah. Without food, it is impossible for communities to thrive, and as Jews in the 21st century, where proximity alone does not define community, we must be concerned with the well-being of all who share our very small planet. We can help end hunger by advocating for policies that protect local farmers in the developing world and by providing impoverished communities with the resources they need to grow their own food."

AND

The Rabbinical Assembly and TOMS Shoes Create "Heart and Sole" - A Yom Kippur Tzedakah Project
 
Prohibition Against Wearing Leather Shoes Provides Shoes to Children in Need
 
September 21, 2009 (New York, NY) -- For the 2009 High Holy Day Season, the Rabbinical Assembly in partnership with other Conservative Movement organizations* is pleased to announce a new Yom Kippur initiative that will allow people to fulfill the mitzvah of tzedakah while honoring the prohibition against wearing leather shoes.
 
Due to the rabbinic injunction against wearing leather, it is customary to see Jews wearing sneakers, sandals and other non-leather footgear on the Jewish Day of Awe. This year, we became aware of the work of a company called TOMS Shoes (http://www.tomsshoes.com) that gives away a free pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold.  Our project, "Heart and Sole," is a Conservative movement-wide project that encourages Jews to wear non-leather shoes this Yom Kippur and will double their mitzvah by enabling children in need to receive a free pair of shoes for each pair of TOMS shoes purchased.
 
Though many of the shoes manufactured by TOMS Shoes do contain leather, the company has a vegan line of shoes that are entirely leather-free and therefore ideal for Yom Kippur.
 
"Heart and Sole" is entirely voluntary and will be publicized throughout the schools, synagogues and organizations of the Conservative movement. The company has created a special webpage dedicated to the initiative with comic book-style artwork by Jordan Gorfinkel of Avalanche Comics. The artwork is available on PDF on the webpage (http://www.heartandsole.net) to enable synagogues, schools and organizations to spread the word.
 
In a letter to the Rabbinical Assembly membership, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly commented, "The power of Conservative Judaism is our passion to link our ancient cultural traditions to current issues that give additional meaning and purpose to the practice of ritual. Not wearing leather on Yom Kippur reminds us that the purpose of the day is reflection and not personal comfort. Furthermore, by wearing non-leather shoes that also allow a child elsewhere in the world to walk to school with shoes on and to live free of the diseases caused by going barefoot, a ritual mitzvah becomes an ethical one as the goal of tzedekah is also being fulfilled."

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Hayim Herring in the Jewish Week: "Challenges Of An Open-Source Age"

Hayim Herring in the Jewish Week: "Challenges Of An Open-Source Age"
by Rabbi Hayim Herring
Special To The Jewish Week
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a16742/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html

About three years ago I received a call from a stranger who had a heartfelt dilemma. He wanted my opinion about whether digital davening with a minyan would fulfill his obligation to say Kaddish for a parent who had just died. He was concerned that saying Kaddish at his synagogue every day was not feasible and wanted to dedicate some days to gather a minyan via the Web. If so, should he ask his synagogue for help to sponsor a digital minyan? I vaguely recall making a comment about the idea being worth exploring and referred him to his congregational rabbi.

So much has changed since that telephone call, and today's open-source environment, where information is increasingly open, available and less controlled, has
led to a big leadership dilemma.

Let's imagine how this digital davening dilemma might play out today. The rabbi who gets the call may be empathetic but may discourage the idea, explaining the high value of being together in a community.

A week later, the ritual director, quite concerned, asks the rabbi if he has heard about "the rogue media minyan." The rabbi is surprised to learn that after the congregant called him, he contacted 50 friends (Facebook, Twitter, texting — pick your social media method), inviting them to be a part of digital davening group, so that he can say kaddish a few days a week. Some of the congregant's friends are members of the same congregation;  others are from across the country. He is quickly able to form a minyan. He and his friends use an electronic platform which enables them to webcast the service so that everyone can see and hear one another.

The rabbi meets with the congregant, perplexed by his behavior. Didn't the congregant believe in the value of community? Now the congregant is confused. He explains that it was precisely the rabbi's comments about community that prompted him to contact some of his father's friends from out of town to participate in a Web-based minyan in his father's memory. He says it was particularly meaningful to him to also have fellow congregants volunteer, especially those who would otherwise never participate in the synagogue's daily minyan. It was this expanded notion of what community meant to the congregant that motivated him to act.

Now let's fast forward to a year later. Within the year, two other members of the bricks-and-mortar congregation, who are also members of the digital davening group, lose a loved one. They don't remember to inform the rabbi because they are already a part of the digital minyan, a satisfying experience for them. In fact, other people from across the country who have no original connection to the group are participating in it because the digital davening story went viral, and digital davening groups sprang up across the country and also spread to other countries.

The synagogue community is divided over their value, but these media minyanim continue to grow.

This illustration is about rabbis and synagogues, but you can imagine how it can be rewritten for any Jewish setting. The issues this scenario suggests are complex. If you're the rabbi in this situation (or executive director or CEO in some other organization), you probably feel loss and displacement. If you're the congregant who wanted to honor a parent and say Kaddish, you're likely to feel good about what has transpired.

But this scenario is not so black and white. The rabbi could be asking, "How can I help to facilitate and empower synagogue groups, so that I have more time for studying, teaching and outreach?" If you're the congregant, you could be asking, "How can I help the 'bytes and click' minyan and the 'bricks and mortar' minyan be mutually enriching?"

As heavy re-thinking is required for these conversations, we need every person who cares about the immediate and long-term Jewish future to ask the question, "What does volunteer and professional leadership look like in an open-source age?

The search for an answer to this question can be like an action research project, with multiple sites for experimentation. For example, we can:

• Partner with leadership institutes and universities to develop programs that certify open source leaders;

• Network with business leaders who work in open source companies to gain real-world insights;
• Apply open source principles on a small pilot basis to Jewish organizations and evaluate how they work;

• Create a Jewish values framework for these principles so that they fit more organically into Jewish settings.

Today, we're fortunate to have many Jewish startups that are energizing the Jewish community. Some mainstream organizations are also serious about remaking themselves for this century. But as all organizations are going to incorporate, at least minimally, some open- source principles and compete with those that are more fully open-source, we must consider how the Jewish community can foster a new kind of leadership.

Open-source leadership is much larger than knowing how to be entrepreneurial. Rather, it involves a radical revision of the rules of leadership, awareness of the centrality of this task and a commitment to invest the resources that it will take to change existing leadership patterns.

Hayim Herring is executive director of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal) and is writing a book tentatively called, "Tools for Shuls: A Guide to Makeover Your Synagogue" (www.toolsforshuls.com).

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Kol HaKavod to Rabbi Steven Wernick & Forward: "United Synagogue Chief Apologizes for Perceived Slight"

Dear Chevreh,

I share this Forward article not for the sake of attacking Rabbi Wernick, but to admire him publicly for apologizing - that is a model of professional and personal accountability which would make a big difference if practiced on the local and national levels in our movement as well.  It feels completely appropriate in this moment of the Jewish calendar to acknowledge mistakes and then restate the committed relationship we celebrate together.

Shannah Tovah,
Menachem

Forward: "United Synagogue Chief Apologizes for Perceived Slight"

By Gal Beckerman

Published September 17, 2009
http://www.forward.com/articles/114345/

The new head of Conservative Judaism's congregational arm has asked his fellow rabbis to forgive him in a Sept. 17 letter apologizing for a recent interview with The Forward in which he said Conservative rabbis lack "missionary zeal," and work instead "to get paid."

"I talked before I thought," wrote Rabbi Steven Wernick, the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism's new CEO and executive vice president, in the letter, sent to Conservative rabbis across the country. "What I said came out as flippant and hurtful to our many colleagues and partners who strive each day to create the dynamic communities to which we all aspire. I am sorry. They were my words, and I own them, and I apologize for them."

Wernick addressed his letter to the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative rabbinic association, which distributed it to its national membership.

In his Sept. 10 interview with The Forward, Wernick, discussed relative success Orthodox Judaism has had with outreach to unaffiliated Jews compared to the Conservative movement and said, "We don't have that missionary zeal. They're missionaries! We want to get paid. We don't believe. What do we believe in? That is the problem of progressive Judaism."

He now writes," What I was trying to say is that we are not missionaries. We are not enflamed with missionary zeal, and we do not have a network of people ready to swoop in for no money to win souls. Instead, we try to give our congregants meaningful, moving, engaging programming, free of hidden agendas and our congregants look for a high level of intellectual sophistication, expertise, and professionalism in the speakers and scholars we choose. All that costs money."

In his regretful letter to Rabbinical Assembly, written just before the High Holiday Days of Awe, when Jews traditionally review their conduct and seek forgiveness, Wernick criticized himself for being "too loose lipped," explaining, "In reading these comments, I understand that I was not clear enough."

Wernick, who assumed the helm of USCJ on July 1, recently pushed through a sweeping reorganization plan for the congregational umbrella group to deal with a $1.3 million deficit and a percolating dissatisfaction among constituent congregations with the organization's performance. Affiliation with USCJ dropped to 676 constituent synagogues from 710 just two years ago. The reorganization, approved by the USCJ board Sept. 13, involves staff cuts of 10% and a $1 million budget cut that will bring next year's budget down to $13 million. At the same time, Wernick plans to increase funding for the organization's youth programs.

Referring to his ambitious reform plans, Wernick wrote, "My unfortunate choice of words seems to have obscured the real accomplishments of the last few days. On Sunday, I stood before United Synagogue's board of directors and I said that if we do not take care of congregations, if we do not help our communities achieve the excellence they desire and deserve, then what are we? We'll continue to be irrelevant. And the board agreed with me overwhelmingly. That is a decision that we should celebrate as we move forward together."

One prominent Conservative spiritual leader said that Wernick could have expressed himself more delicately in discussing the outreach intensity gap with the Orthodox.

"What upset the rabbinate was the statement about wanting to get paid, which suggests that Conservative rabbis are fat cats and Chabad shlichim [outreach representatives] are the real deal," said Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, the Congregation Anshei Chesed in New York. "It's a foolish thing to say, even if it is partly true."

Contact Gal Beckerman at beckerman@forward.com.

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a Yearlong Sunday Morning Series at CNS with Rabbi Menachem Creditor and Rabbi Shalom Bochner!

Announcing a Yearlong Sunday Morning Series at CNS

with Rabbi Menachem Creditor and Rabbi Shalom Bochner!

 

During the coming year Rabbi Menachem Creditor and Rabbi Shalom Bochner will explore six subjects on six Sunday mornings during the coming year, part of the larger celebrated CNS Sunday Morning Minyan and Speaker series!  The themes of these six presentations will connect to exploring the concept of a Jewish Community.  Shacharit begins at 9:30 AM, followed by breakfast and a talk/discussion from 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM.  Everyone is welcome!

 

·         Oct 25: Rabbi Menachem Creditor: "The Necessity of Windows"

·         Nov. 8: Rabbi Shalom Bochner: "Jewish Obligation/Relationships Beyond the Self" 

·         Dec. 6: Rabbi Menachem Creditor: "Jewish Leadership" 

·         Jan. 10: Rabbi Shalom Bochner: "Jewish Communal Education"

·         Feb. 7: Rabbi Menachem Creditor: "Jewish Norms/Values" 

·         Mar. 21: Rabbi Shalom Bochner: "The Place of Generations" 

 

October 25: Rabbi Creditor: "The Necessity of Windows", celebrating Rabbi Creditor's chapter in the newly published book: Torah Queeries  (NYU Press).  The portrayal of Jewish tradition as a self-contained system freezes a naturally evolving civilization into a limited legal tradition based on one moment in its history.  This reduction of tradition not only translates inherited tradition into the realm of "untouchability", it also rejects the validity and holiness of the outside world.  Join this conversation discussing a Judaism most authentically practiced when its religious leadership, in a process of healthy assimilation, combines the best of the inside with the best of the outside.  

 

November 8: Rabbi Bochner:  "Jewish Obligation/Relationships Beyond the Self"
As we continue our series on what Jewish Community means, we'll examine the question of defining our obligations to our fellow and examining our relationships with people beyond our immediate family. Through exploring traditional texts that inform our approach to these concepts we'll also examine how we live these values at Netivot Shalom and how we can define and refine what it means to be part of a healthy, engaged community.

 

December 6: Rabbi Menachem Creditor: "Jewish Leadership" Jewish leaders, professional and volunteer, care very deeply about their communities.  But how many of us have experienced a Jewish Leadership training program?  Based on one such program he created and led in Boston ("J-Lead"), Rabbi Creditor will present a basic overview of Jewish Leadership Core Competencies, as well as suggest reading material for further developing leadership skills.  

January 10: Rabbi Bochner: "Jewish Communal Education"
Generational continuity and teaching our children are core Jewish values.  As part of our continuing series on exploring Jewish community we'll examine the role of education in Judaism and how we approach LifeLong Learning here at Netivot Shalom.  What are the central values we are to teach?  What should be the curriculum in our diverse community?  Where are we meeting the challenges and where do we need to put more emphasis as a congregation of teachers and learners?

February 7: Rabbi Creditor: "Jewish Norms/Values"
What are our norms?  What does that mean anyway?!  In a world where rules are more likely to be questioned than followed, how do we decide if choices we make are right?  What determines the authenticity of communal policy?  During this conversation, Rabbi Creditor will touch on Kashrut, Interfaith Relationships, Jewish Burial and Birth Practices, and more.

 

March 21: Rabbi Bochner: "The place of the generations"   "We tell of God's greatness from generation to generation."  What are the duties of one generation to another?  How do we best listen to and learn from each other?  As we conclude our series on Jewish community, we'll examine the role of generations and how we best provide for an organic community where the generations mix freely and also have their own specific needs attended to.  We'll look at texts that speak to these questions and see how these lessons can be applied to our Netivot Shalom community.

 

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3 amazing articles from the Jewish Week/NextBook Issue on Prayer

Standing Before God, Standing Before Community

by Sandee Brawarsky

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c228_a16657/Special_Sections/Text_Context.html

On the shelves of Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon's office are many editions of the siddur, prayer book, including a Farsi version with Hebrew and Perso-Arabic side by side. "I don't like to speak in denominational terms," he says, "I think we all have to learn from each other—the tradition is the same, the challenge is the same."

In a recent interview in his office, he spoke about the function of the shaliach tzibur, literally messenger of the community, referring to the prayer leader. Known widely as Roly, he is a rabbi of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun (BJ) in Manhattan, a congregation with a reputation for spiritual depth and vitality. The tradition there is that the rabbis and cantor jointly lead services.

Rabbi Matalon speaks with the accent of his native Argentina. After receiving his ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1986, he joined his mentor, the late Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer, at BJ, and together they revitalized the congregation.

How would you describe the role of the shaliach tzibur?

The role is to guide people in prayer—when you go on a journey, the guide is familiar with the road and the terrain, has studied the maps and guides people through the valleys and towards the peaks, warns them in subtle ways, motivates them and keeps the group together. If it's done properly, tefillah [prayer] is not always the same. It's always a different journey—depending on one's internal landscape, on the world's landscape, and where we are on the Jewish calendar.

Tefillah by itself is an adventure. One has to expect unexpected emotion, insights. We need to keep a balance between fixed prayer and the more spontaneous, allowing the spontaneous to happen.

In a technical sense, the shaliach tzibur should be knowledgeable about tefillot, about the order and laws; he or she should be competent, comfortable with the words, sensitive to the inner dynamic of the service. The shaliach tzibur keeps the community as one, not as disparate people.

The shaliach tzibur should also inspire people, draw them out, excite them. At the same time, he or she should not be so dominating as to suppress individual expression. It's a delicate balance.  One has to approach this role with humility—it could make you feel like you're in control, that it's all about you.

What's the responsibility of the sha-liach tzibur toward the community?

To help connect each individual into a community, to help fashion a praying community and to help to connect their hearts and their voices to God.

The shaliach tzibur is nurtured by the voice of the community, and vice versa, and together, they become something greater. Very often, what happens to me when I'm standing in front of the kahal [congregation] and—I've been here long enough that I have a significant trajectory with people—I know people in personal ways, I know about their struggles, the spiritual issues they are wrestling with, their anxieties and fears, loved ones who are sick. I know people who are sick, or who have difficulty making a living, caring for elderly parents; and also know their smachot [joys and celebrations]. That's all incredibly powerful for the shaliach tzibur, a precious gift, and very humbling.

How do you keep so many people in mind as you are davening?

Susannah Heschel once told a story at BJ about her father's great-great- grandfather, the Ohev Israel, Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt. He was a tzadik [righteous person] and many people would come to him on a daily basis, telling him about their issues and requesting that he pray for them. He was asked how, when so many people came to see him, he remembered all these things. He responded: "Every time a person tells me of his or her pain it makes a mark in my heart. When I stand before God in prayer I ask God to look at my heart, to see all those marks and to help people."

This is such a sensitive and powerful way to express this. Although I'm not a tzadik, in many ways I convey this prayer to God, "Look what You have here! Look into the hearts of this amazing group of people and help us."

If you were visiting another community where you didn't know the people well, how would you feel about leading the service?

Perhaps I could do it, but I usually decline. I don't know the kahal well; I may not know some of the customs and minhagim [customs] of this particular group. It's important for a shaliach tzibur to be part of the kahal, not to be an outsider. I go to other places to learn. I often go for Shabbat Mincha to the Sephardic minyan in our neighborhood. There I connect to my own roots, the ways that were part of my family as I was growing up. When I sit there, I'm not their rabbi; I'm one of the congregation. I really like that and have learned so much from their shaliach tzibur.

Are you able to have a personal tefillah experience when you are serving as shaliach tzibur?

I am able to do my own tefillah while being aware of what's going on in the room, I think that through experience one develops a sense—it's like a musician playing in an orchestra. The musician is involved in playing his or her music at the same time he or she has to have a sense of what's going with the rest of the musicians, to create music together. I also play in an orchestra and am learning that art.

I have a problem facing the kahal. Heschel, in "Quest for God," talks about the fact that the cantor or shaliach tzibur should be facing the ark, not the congregation. It's a personal moment. For me, it's embarrassing to be seen in such a moment of intimacy with God. I don't like to look at other people when they are praying, I don't want to intrude on that intimacy. I recognize the problem in liberal congregations where facing the kahal is the expectation. So I keep my eyes in the siddur, or I close them.

 At the beginning of the service I see who is there, and get a sense of what each will bring to the tefillah.

Then, from time to time, like after Shema when I'm waiting for people to complete it, I may look up and see where people are at. In those moments I get a visual sense of who is where, and then I go back.

Do the words in the siddur ever get in the way, or hold you back, from expressing what's in your heart? Are there times when you would prefer to be in silence or using your own words?

I love the words of the siddur; they hardly get in the way for me. On the contrary, they help me open my heart, my soul and my mind, and at the same time they invite me to infuse them with what is in my heart, soul and mind. I do appreciate the moments of silence in the tefillah, but I love language and in particular the language of the siddur, even those parts that require that we wrestle with them.

What do you do when your mind wanders?

When I catch my mind wandering—you don't always catch it—I try to bring myself in, to focus on the words. There's a focusing technique described by the chasidic masters, to close your eyes and see the written words, envisioning the letters.

What if you have feelings of doubt?

Doubt is part of tefillah; it's a place to bring questions. Sometimes we say to God, "Ayekah? Where are you? Let me feel Your presence, just let me know You are here. We are here, now. You must be somewhere. Would You make Yourself visible to us as we make ourselves visible to You?" Heschel said that tefillah is making ourselves visible to God.

Are there certain places in the service that are guideposts, places that always take you to higher places?

Yes, but you don't always want to go to the same place. There are higher places, deeper places. When I reach a wonderful place and feel such a high, I want to think that I can stretch to go higher. I take inspiration from athletes, who are always trying to surpass their own achievements and their own records. We need to stretch and exercise every spiritual and mental muscle, as athletes do, to be able to get to a higher place, to get more insight, to be more open, to get even closer to God.

When you experience those wonderful, glorious moments, you feel like something transformative has happened. But tefillah is about not staying with the emotion. It's about what you do with the emotions and the insight when you leave. It has to be translated into action—otherwise it's just a high. How is life to be lived outside of shul? How has the tefillah transformed you so that you're a different person? How has it moved you to do mitzvot and to meet the challenges of the world? How will it be reflected in the way we treat others? How will we make our community stronger?

What do you say to those who complain about the length of services?

I recognize that sometimes services are long and drag on, but I don't believe in quick services. You cannot do your spiritual work unless you go through a number of steps to remove the layers around your heart until it is open and exposed to God. The hard work then begins.

You have to respect the inner form of the service: it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Its inner dynamic has been developed, tried and tested over centuries and has a wisdom we have to respect.

Is the role of the shaliach tzibur different on the Days of Awe?

We put in a lot of preparation. In some congregations, the sermon is at the center but for us, the tefillah is at the center so we can do our work of heshbon nefesh [spiritual accounting] and teshuvah [repentance].

The very feeling of standing before God is different. It's Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. There's a great sense of awe, reverence, of the holiness of day; also a great sense of gratitude that we are here, we are alive, and also mindful of what happened to people who are part of our community and our family who are not here; the sense of who will live and who will die, a great sense of responsibility for our own teshuvah.

A rabbi candidly commented that if he gets in five minutes of real davening during a morning service, he's happy. Would you agree?

I would bring it from five minutes down to a moment. If there is one moment of real tefillah and real connection, that is the miracle of tefillah. That, in this huge universe, we are able to open up and feel God's presence is a great miracle.

Prayer As Poetry

by Rabbi Elie Kaunfer

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c228_a16658/Special_Sections/Text_Context.html

How can I pray what I don't believe? So much of Jewish prayer seems wrapped up in a religious worldview that takes God's active role in this world for granted: "God, heal the sick"; "God, grant us a year of plenty." What if I am not sure if God has a role in my life? Or worse—what if I actively disagree with assertions in the prayer ("God, bring the Messiah")? What if my very faith in God is uncertain? How can I possibly utter the words of the traditional siddur?

These objections have animated most of the alterations to the prayer book in many Jewish communities during the past two centuries. In 1945, Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan called on prayer book editors to "eliminate from the traditional text statements of beliefs that are untenable." But this strategy fundamentally misses the point.

Let me state my approach up front: Prayer is not meant to be seen as a flat statement of belief. It is a literary creation with all the power, nuance and complexity of literary creations. It is perhaps most useful to think of prayer as poetry.

One of the ways in which poetry is different from prose is the multiple allusions within the poetic text. A poem is not meant to be considered only on its own plane, but on the plane of the allusion as well. Reuven Kimelman writes about prayer: "[T]he meaning of the liturgy exists not so much in the liturgical text per se as in the interaction between the liturgical text and the biblical intertext." (Kenishta Vol. 1)
Kimelman argues here that every prayer is in dialogue with a biblical text. By unlocking the biblical allusions in the liturgical text, meaning emerges. While this method can be employed for almost any line of prayer, as an example I will focus on the final line of the first blessing of the Amidah.

The fundamental theme of any blessing is often found in its final words, following the formula "Blessed are You, God." Here, those words are simply: "Shield of Abraham." Common objections to this line focus on the exclusive mention of Abraham—where is Sarah? Where are the other biblical characters? Of less concern is the word "shield," but a fundamental question is: in what way is God a shield for Abraham? God is a shield for Abraham in only one story: that of Genesis 15. It reads:

After those things, the word of YHVH came to Avram in a vision, saying: "Don't fear, Avram, I am a shield for you. Your reward will be very great. But Avram said: "Lord, YHVH, what can you give me, seeing that I shall die childless and the one in charge of my household is Damesek Eliezer!" Avram said: "Since You have granted me no off-spring, my steward will be my heir."

The word of YHVH came to him saying: "That one shall not be your heir; none but your very own issue shall be your heir . . . Then [YHVH] said to [Avram]: "I am YHVH who brought you out from Ur Casdim to assign this land to you as a possession." And he said: "Lord YHVH, how shall I know that I am to possess it?" (Genesis 15:1–8, based on NJPS translation).

The foundation of the relationship between God and Abraham is based on two promises: Abraham will have many offspring, and he will inherit the Land of Canaan. When God encountered Abraham for the first time in Genesis 12, these promises were made outright. But here in Genesis 15, Abraham is afraid that God will not make good on these promises. Abraham questions God: where is my child? God does not become angry, but simply reiterates the promise that children are on the way. But when God renews the promise of the land, Abraham does not fundamentally believe. He asks: Lord, God, how will I know? This verse is viewed in early Jewish tradition as the classic expression of doubt in the mouth of Abraham (see further, Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 32a).

We often think of Abraham as the "Knight of Faith," the one who was willing to sacrifice his beloved son on the altar to fulfill God's word. However the conclusion of the Amidah reflects a very different Abraham—the one who is plagued with doubts. In many ways this is the crux of the blessing that is the foundation of the Amidah. Read with the biblical intertext, the prayer can be saying: don't worry about your doubts. Even Abraham was filled with doubt, and he had a direct relationship with God. The project of prayer, this blessing could say, is that of holding your doubt and grappling with it, but not letting that be a reason to drop out of relationship with God.

Whether or not this particular interpretation speaks to you, the larger point is that an interpretive approach to prayer yields a tremendous amount of nuance to an enterprise that, on the surface, may feel like a piling-on of praise after praise for God. The experience of prayer is greatly enhanced if the siddur is treated like so many other texts in Jewish heritage, as a starting point for interpretation rather than a surface statement of dogma. We have the tendency to run down the words of the siddur and make a mental list of the phrases that do and—more significantly—don't speak to us.

But just as we engage in interpretation for Torah, we can hold the siddur in the same light. Seen as a book of poetry, with myriad allusions waiting to be unlocked, the question of "How can I pray what I don't believe?" becomes somewhat misplaced. We have not even begun to unlock the words of the siddur, so perhaps the real question is: "How can I interpret what I am praying?"

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is the executive director of Mechon Hadar (www.mechonhadar.org). A longer version of this article will appear in his forthcoming book, "Empowered Judaism: Independent Minyanim and the Future of Jewish Life" (Jewish Lights).

Long Distance Calls

by Shelly R. Fredman

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c228_a16659/Special_Sections/Text_Context.html

My mother is one of those twice-a-year Jews, but for some strange reason during a brief segment of my childhood, my sister and I went to bed each night with a prayer. A lavender elephant and a yellow giraffe that my mom and her best friend had painted on our bedroom walls floated above our heads as my sister and I chanted, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

The singsong rhythm of it, my sister's voice riding mine, the fact that it came every single night no matter what happened that day, were a balm to me, until the day we lost it—through apathy, or the hectic first weeks of my brother's life—a token of childhood, gone.

Although it is not a Jewish prayer, it is a classic children's prayer of the 18th century, and I still carry the phrase, unuttered, some 50 years later. I keep it, I think, as a vestige of a time when I dared to speak, one-on-one, with God. This was, once, how it may have been for all of us. Laden with the thousands-year-old heft and weight of the rabbinic take on prayer, the siddur, we tend to forget that prayer, originally, biblically, was about an impromptu moment of encounter with God.

Think of Jacob fleeing Esau in the dark desert night and pausing to build an altar of stone. Think of Sarah, when God's messenger told her, after some 90 years, that she was to give birth to a child. Her laughter. Not a simple yelp of glee, Sarah's was a sound rich with emotion.

Between Sarah and ourselves lies the liturgical history of the Jewish people, a legacy that attempts to put us in touch with our highest selves and is potentially redemptive, and yet for many of us the liturgy often feels to be a burden.

Enter the 18th-century chasidic master Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav. Partaking as it does of both faith and doubt, an almost constant awareness of the absence of God from the ordinary universe of human experience and an equally intense yearning for intimacy with that Source of our being, Nahman's quest is one that mirrors my own. Born on the Sabbath into the family of the Ba'al Shem Tov, the young Nahman was dissatisfied with the prescribed prayers of the liturgy and so, alone in the attic of his parents' house, he composed his own prayers, in the Yiddish that he spoke, pleading with God to draw him closer.

This lone outpouring of the soul before God, a surging emotionalism that Nahman experienced in his prayer life is one I've touched upon only rarely, and not unsurprisingly, in my darkest hours. Falling airplanes and hospital rooms tend to bring out our most prayerful moments. Yet most of us show up in that room at a disadvantage—we arrive at the place where reason fails us as novices. Nahman's brand of engagement with God is one he suggests we attempt, at least, regularly. At the heart of it lies discipline—a willingness to enter into Divine relationship.

In the early days of my own spiritual quest, I lived for a time within the Orthodox community of St. Louis. Yom Kippur at the Young Israel synagogue on Groby was a place Nahman might have felt at home in. At the Ne'ilah service, as the last ribbons of light streaked the sky outside, over on the men's side—and yes—this only happened on the men's side, as the chazzan called out, "Adonai Hu Ha Elohim," one man at a time gave a g'shrai, a cry, a shriek, "Adonai Hu Ha Elohim," (God is God).

I, too, had been fasting for an impossible 26 hours, and in that vacuous, drifting emptiness that was my body and mind at the tail end of this prayer marathon—a sea of black-and-white prayer shawls swaying, rocking, stamping their feet before me—all the voices now, rising, it seemed the shul itself hovered just a few inches above the earth.

I could hear in these prayers the broken hearts we all carry, piercing the surface, finally, of our intensely secular lives. What the Orthodox Jews taught me, and any musician or ballet dancer worth her toe shoes knows, is that prayer, no matter how expansively I want to define it, that is, some act of relinquishing yourself to a higher Source of Mystery, whether that's Heschel praying with his feet in Selma or a poet with her pen in Cape Cod, has to occur every single day.

For Nahman, the most essential religious practice was that of hitbodedut, lone daily conversation with God. Akin to meditation, with one striking difference, Nahman said we should set aside a certain period of time each day, preferably out of doors, and always alone, amidst sky, pine, ocean, to "pour out before God," our most sequestered longings, desires, needs and frustrations. Nahman parts ways with the Buddhists, but asserts himself as a precursor to Freud when he says that we need to do this out loud, to verbalize our unspoken inner swirlings.

The Bratslaver seems to be speaking to our contemporary selves when he tells us that there will be times, perhaps many, when we set out to converse with God and will be able to do no more than call out. Other days, just repeating a single word over and over may be the most we can manage. And he told his chasids to do so not in Hebrew, but in their native language of Yiddish. He said, "In the Yiddish we use for ordinary conversation, it is easier to break one's heart."

Nahman seemed to know there is a purer distillation of who we are waiting at the still, broken center of each of us. The trappings and masks that adorn our everyday selves fall away when we dare to meet the Divine. This is a God I have known only in my most radiant, faith-driven moments, and I've only had glimpses. I came to know Her in my body—lying in savasana, or corpse pose—at the end of a yoga class. That sense of peace and wholeness and pure exhaustion the best of yoga teachers can give you. What's left when you let go completely of everything you don't need.

Or in the hospital room of a dying friend—her husband's book of Psalms, only half read—open on the hospital cart before me. Or in the marshes of Wellfleet in Massachusetts, with the poet and priestess Mary Oliver as my guide, feeling in the slow, patient filling-in of silver-green grasses and dark, muddy earth, the returning tide waters, a hint of Godness, a realm beyond reason, a place where faith is not so foreign. At moments like these, if we've been paying attention, the prayer will come.

And I think, perhaps, there is something transformational in these moments—a tie back to Sarah, Nahman, a childhood self in a room with lavender elephants—hoping for a connection, long-distance, even, a glimpse, at least, of Home.

 

Shelly R. Fredman teaches writing at Barnard and at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.  Her work has appeared in "Best Jewish Writing 2002," the Chicago Tribune Magazine and a number of anthologies and literary journals.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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