Passover is about the redemption in the here and now.

http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/04/07/2027587/passover-a-time-of-ritual-and.html#storylink=misearch

Here is another column that appeared in the Island Packet newsletter last Shabbat. It is part two in the Passover series. I hope you have time to read it and share any comments you may have about the article.
I wish every one a peaceful and reflective Passover. Remember Yiskor for Reform Jews is on Friday morning and Saturday morning for the Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism.
Take care and chag sameah Passover.

Passover thoughts: Meditations on Preparing for the Seder

Passover thoughts

It is the eve of Passover and the preparations are fast coming to a conclusion. I have made the trips to Savannah to buy the kosher brisket and all the rest of the Passover foods that typically become part of the week’s dietary regimen. Tomorrow morning we will have services at Temple and then over 130 for the second night seder. No doubt it will be a grand weekend for my congregation and the rest of the Jewish world sitting down in homes to retell the story of the Passover Exodus.

The most important aspect for me in preparing for the Seder and for Passover itself is reading the Haggadah. There are many kinds of Haggadot that represent all kinds of ideologies across the spectrum of Jewish life. It is interesting how creative we have become with designing Haggadot not only from an arts perspective but from the content itself. I have seen such Haggadaot as the vegetarian Haggadah, the Holocaust survivors Haggadah or the socialist Haggadah, just to name a few. There are hundreds more that one could amass a small library of Haggadot. It is the Jewish love affair with books that might fuel this passion for Haggadah. Maybe another reason is that it is the one traditional book that allows for each generation to stamp its print on the text and reinterpret it in a way that no other holy book has allowed for over the generations.

Each day this week I sat down and studied a portion of the most traditional edition of the Haggadah with all the rabbinical commentaries. I feel refreshed and engaged as if I am visiting my old friends again who wait for me each year to open the pages (not digital) and pour through their interpretations. It is not that I don’t want to read the new age commentaries, but, I just feel drawn to traditional ideas. I want to speak of redemption and of the coming of our deliverance today from the all the metaphors that contemporary thinkers, including myself, can come up with to make the text apply to our times. At the same time I am looking to go back in time sitting besides other sages who poured over the same texts and dreamed of their own vision of how the Exodus happened and what it was like to sit down in ancient Temple times to sacrifice and then eat the Pascal offering.

I want to imagine the children and the mothers, the grandparents and the aunts and uncles sitting down to Seder in Poland as well as in Cairo. I am wondering if they had the same pressures to finish at a reasonable hour as we do today. Did they discuss the well being of the Jewish community living under their rulers with the same trepidation and hope centuries ago as we did up until the creation of the state of Israel and the destruction of the FSU?

In so many ways I cannot separate the world of the Haggadah from Jewish history or our world today. I feel grateful that I can as a Rabbi allow myself to follow a melody of God that draws me back in time and at the same time causes me to look at Jewish life today.

I believe that there is a trajectory that history follows. Jewish history was about following a pathway that began with our servitude and concluded with our redemption. That is why living in these times with the existence of Israel makes the Passover story so exciting.  We are all witnesses to an ongoing story that begins a new cycle of history which I call the Redemption Cycle. We are only at the beginning of our Redemption and it will go in many different directions. That is also what preserves the mystery where God’s presence and teachings intersect with the choices we make as a people and with the actions that other nations in the world take towards the Jewish people.

This is why I love Passover because it is a moment in time to look upon the Seder table into each of the items that lay innocently before our eyes and see into them our history so as to meditate on what the future brings us.

I wish everyone a joyous and insightful Pesach.

Passover and Easter:" two faiths and one spirit"

http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/03/31/2019704/two-faiths-two-holidays-one-spirit.html#storylink=misearch

Here is the link to the column I wrote that appeared in the Island Packet Newspaper and the Beaufort Gazette this past Shabbat.
Have a good read.
Brad

A meditation on the Jews of Toulouse, France

In Memorium: Toulouse, France.-A Meditation

Students asked their Rabbi, “Why did God create a single person at the time of Creation? The sage answered to teach us that whoever destroys a single life, Scripture reckons it to that individual as though the person had destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves a single life, Scripture reckons it to the person as though that individual had saved a whole world” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5).

What we saw this week in Toulouse, France was how one man, so filled with hate and so callous to humanity, destroyed an entire world. As a matter of fact Mohammed Merah destroyed at least four Jewish worlds. The worlds and dreams of children, worlds just beginning to form, were destroyed on Monday. The world of a young Rabbi who committed his life to swim in the Yam HaTalmud, the ocean of Jewish knowledge was destroyed this week. And what we have left today are tears of bereaved mothers, fathers, schoolmates, grandparents, extended families, nations and maybe even HaKodesh Baruch Hu who will shed tears for the fallen. Yes the world has been destroyed for all those who have fallen and certainly for us our world should feel diminished.

Yes the Shabbat commands us to rejoice and not to mourn and so how can we mourn the loss of life on this day? Shabbat is a respite from the work of humanity. It is a day of rest, but, on this night can we share some of that sacred time reserved for our Creator with the Jewish world that is reeling in pain? Can we share that precious time in solidarity with Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, who are praying and reflecting upon the meaning and meaninglessness of these murders? Again we are perplexed as to how one man can destroy so many worlds? Unfortunately we know all too well what it feels like to struggle but never fully grasp evil in humankind.

There are more questions than answers to these recent murders but isn’t that always the case when we try to understand human cruelty and barbarism? We look at the Mishnah wondering out lout ‘why God must we share the same human ancestry with men like Mohammed Merah? Judaism teaches in the same Mishnah that God created a single person for the sake of peace among human beings, so that a man should not say to his fellow:  “My father is greater than your father.”  When we read that phrase in this ancient text, we sadly acknowledge how far humanity can fall from this ideal.

The next part of this Mishnaic statement exclaims that” one single person was created to prevent the heretics from saying that there are many divine powers in heaven, each one responsible for the Creation of a different human being. “History is replete with religious wars and conflicts in the world. Today we see that the battle is not one religion against the other but a group of adherents who claim the one God belief but who besmirch the goodness of the monotheistic religions and corrupt them by the way they behave. The fact that someone like Mohammed Merah and others who fall into his psychosis of religious fervor and who do not hesitate to shoot children and their father at point blank range or their three co-religionist French paratroopers. Is their end game to foment chaos that will turn French society against itself? That, I believe, is their plan and their perverted messianic hope when someday that kind of violence will spark a revolution to achieve their political and theological goals.

The final part of this Mishnaic maxim is “To proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, praised be He.  If a human being stamps several coins with the same die, they all resemble one another.  But the Sovereign of Sovereigns, the Holy One, praised be He, stamps all human beings with the die of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles the other. 

Therefore every human individual is obligated say; “For my sake was the world created.”

When people perform criminal acts like murder in the name of their faith they destroy that faith and, in particular, they destroy the idea of God is Great.  If human beings violate the teachings and show so little regard for human life they not only discredit themselves and their cause but the entire religion they claim is so sacred.

This passage is trying to teach us that we are all unique and special even though we share all the physical attributes of human beings with each other. Religious fanatics reject the belief that each person is sacred and rob a person from the opportunity to make holy this world. I was somewhat relieved to see the chief Imam and Rabbi of France joining together with the nation’s political leaders to condemn this brutal attack. We need to see more clergy standing together to condemn wanton violence in the name of religion. It is the silence that we have too often read about from Muslim authorities in the face of terrorism in America or around the world that only stokes the hatred.

The Sandler children and Miriam Monosengo will never achieve the awareness that the world was created for them. Rabbi Sandler will no longer be able to teach that lesson to generations of kids and adults. And neither will the three French Muslim soldiers who Merah also murdered have the chance to see the wisdom of their faith traditions’ teachings through to their children and grandchildren.

The politicians have spoken this week. The families have laid their loved ones to rest on Wednesday. What are we left with now? What will the remaining family members do to preserve their sanity? How will they cope with the feeling of being so tragically alone? How will the survivors travel a new pathway of grieving so that one day they can live their lives?

In this week’s Torah portion Leviticus we read how people expiate their sins by offering sacrifices. Belief and faith was central as the high priest officiated over their animal sacrifices that would enable them to find atonement and forgiveness or express gratitude to God.  Is there a formula that is as clear cut for healing a broken heart as a result of an act of terror? Where is the sacrificial ritual to require divine let alone human justice for the perpetrators of such crimes?

Again all we have left are more questions that we can share together. Worlds have been destroyed forever and at the same time can we pray for the Community of the Jewish people and Israel in particular to find the inner strength to support the survivors of this tragedy. Let our psalms and prayers and the love of the memory of the deceased provide consolation. And if God is in mourning too then let us also pray that God causes those divine tears to descend upon the survivors to bring them consolation and hope.

Can we pray that God will call out to us all to be aware that the terrorist act in one part of the world impacts us all wherever we live? Please God if You cannot answer our questions on Why or How this all could have happened then will You please just listen to our questions anyway? Maybe that is all we can expect from You?

Shabbat Shalom

Day Three Blogging the CCAR Convention

Day Three

Today I leave and return home. I have mixed feelings about it. It takes two days to get into the flow of a conference. So I wish I could stay one more day. On the other hand there is much to share and the work of our congregation calls me home. And so we say Heneni- I will be here!

 It is not so difficult to imagine that our conference’s effervescent spirit has been diminished today.  The recent killings in Toulouse, France at the Otzar HaTorah Jewish day school call out to us to stand in solidarity and communal mourning. Sometimes words don’t capture the depth of emotions. For this reason I ask that at noon on Friday that we take one minute out for silent reflection no matter where we are or what we are doing on behalf of these souls who are now, in the words of the Jewish memorial prayer el maleh rachamim, “bound up into the bonds of eternal life.”  I also hope that everyone who reads this blog post will join me at Temple this Shabbat to recite Kaddish for Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two children Arye 8, Gabriel 6, and Miriam Monsonego, 8, who is the school principals’ daughter. If you are an out of town reader of this blog, then I urge us all to attend a temple and say kaddish.

Besides attending morning services at the convention, I went to a session led by the famous and respected Rabbi Harold Kushner who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He is a conservative rabbi and is an expert at interpreting the Torah. For those of us from Conservative backgrounds, Rabbi Kushner edited the recently published Conservative Movement’s Tree of Life Torah.  His topic was what did Moses learn from leading 600,000 unappreciative congregants?

You can just imagine the discussion that ensued with all the colleagues!

Day Two Blogging the CCAR Convention

Day Two-CCAR Convention

We are sitting in the large convention hall praying the morning service. One rabbi leading the service is playing the guitar leading our group in communal prayer. During the Torah service another rabbi officiates standing at the dais donning tephillin as well as talit and kippah. On two sides on the walls behind the service leaders there is a computer generated image of the prayers in Hebrew, English and transliteration of Hebrew. When the Torah is read, we can watch on either of the two large screens the inside of the Torah text as it is being read. Welcome to the Reform Rabbinate of the 21^st century. High Technology now is permeating the entire worship experience. Ritual and tradition give us many choices as to how we are going to conduct our public worship as well as develop our own personal spirituality.

One of the highlights of that service was the honoring of the rabbis who are celebrating 50 years in the rabbinate. Four or five rabbis ascended the bimah during the Torah service. One of them Rabbi Ronald Milstein came up with his wife, son who is a rabbi and daughter in –law who is also a rabbi. Just watching them all standing with dignity and pride as the congregation blessed them and they recited the Torah blessings. It was truly a moving experience. Just to survive that many years in the rabbinate is a true blessing.

It is interesting to behold just how diverse reform rabbis are these days. Age, gender, sexual orientation are all issues make our assembly look very different than what we appeared to be two decades ago. It was also a solemn moment when we prepared ourselves to say kaddish and intoned the names of our colleagues who passed away since last year’s convention. It struck me this year when I gazed up to the screens and saw their names. When I read the list I discovered about five of them who I knew quite well. One of the rabbis was my thesis director in rabbinic school. Two others I got to know over the years.

The next major event was listening to a lecture in the same hall to Dr. Arthur Green. He is well known in the rabbinical world as a scholar who reads and teaches Jewish texts from the mystical and Hasidic traditions. He is a liberal Jew but not a Reform Jew. He is professor emeritus from Brandeis University and is president of a Rabbinical Seminary in Boston.

He spoke to the rabbis about cultivating our own personal theology.  He urged us to continue to learn for ourselves about what we believe and not be afraid to share it with the congregation. He said to us that most of our congregants will never think about God and the sacred texts the way we do. But that does not mean that our congregants are not hungry to hear what we are learning and believing.

He urged us to get beyond the ritual or the ethnic part and delve into the mystery of the unfathomable aspect of God as well as balance the journey to the intimate side of God.

The final aspect of the day was sitting down the at the CCAR tech table. This table was staffed all day long with expert rabbis in technology. I sat down for an hour with one expert colleague. He showed me how I can conduct a class in my Google plus- hang out room with 14 others who can listen to my class and to each other at the same time on their computers. This is I believe is cool! High tech strategies for high touch teaching. More to come on expanding our high tech future at Beth Yam. I was taken back to see how many rabbis downloaded an APP for the Reform Movement Prayerbook Mishkan Tephillah onto their IPADs. They were praying with it as their Siddur. Is this the future for us at Beth Yam?

Blogging the Rabbi Convention -CCAR

Blogging the CCAR convention

I arrived today in Boston to attend the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). The first aspect of the convention that brings me so much joy is being with colleagues. There are about 500 colleagues and spouses attending. We span the age spectrum and we are mostly congregational rabbis. We all went to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion even though we may have studied and received ordination at the HUC-JIR campuses of Cincinnati, New York or Los Angeles. Besides the collegial benefit of going to these kinds of conventions there is the all important networking and discussing issues that we encounter in our rabbinic work as well as learning new ideas or programs that represent best practices in the Reform Movement.

It is great to connect with old friends and classmates. The generation of my colleagues has all grown in different ways. Our children are now in college. We have carved out our niche in the rabbinate.
The congregations we serve know us well enough for our strengths and our areas of growth. We have had our tough times and our glorious moments of knowing that we have made a difference in the lives of our people. We still love to learn and teach.

This afternoon I attended the opening program which was a panel discussion on the future of the American Jewish community. Professor Johnathan Sarna of Brandeis University (formerly of Hebrew Union College and my teacher) is the leading historian of American Jewish history today. Barry Shragge, the director of the Boston Jewish federation is known as the most innovative and progressive visionary for sustaining and growing Jewish communities. Both sat down and discussed how Boston became one of the best examples of how Jewish communities can grow and work together transcending rivalries.

One lesson that spoke to me was talking about strategic planning.  Shragge spoke about the idea that communities and congregations needed to take the attitude that the entire fate of Judaism depends upon what that community does for its future.  That idea of planning as if world Jewry depends on what we do in Hilton Head is exactly what we need to imagine when we are imagining Beth Yam for the future. We are starting a new strategic planning process and it should inspire us to take the approach that what we will be doing is really setting the pathway for the entire Jewish community in the low country. That’s some imagination!

The two panelists talked about the longstanding challenges of trying to deal with financial support for congregations and Jewish communal institutions. Based upon Dr. Sarna’s history lesson he made an observation about the perennial issue of paying to pray on the High Holy Days. There are always complainers who say temple leaders should never charge unaffiliated folks to pray on the High Holy Days. And his response was, “This is the price we pay for the separation of church and state in America.” If the government paid for our services and our clergy then we would not have to charge anyone anything. But we would have to sacrifice some very important values in our country. So this is one of the consequences that we bear upon ourselves and fellow Jews for freedom of religion in our country.
Each community is ultimately responsible for its own survival.

Mr. Shragge was critical of the Reform Movements’ decision to close down so much of its infrastructure in its recent restructuring. One of the consequences was pulling away resources from Reform’s Outreach Movement. In fact the future is Outreach (Shragge is a modern Orthodox Jew). If we can reach out to the interfaith families and get them to affiliate and send their kids to camp they will raise Jewish children.

There was a lot more that the panelists discussed but  it is time to go now. Have a great day everyone.