Saturday, June 7, 2014

Here is the newspaper article on our commemoration.

http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/06/05/3148746/70-years-after-d-day-veterans.html

This is the correct article on our congregation's commemoration as reported in the newspaper article.
Sorry for the confusion.
Brad
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My recent newspaper column on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/06/06/3150308/among-d-day-stories-are-those.html

In addition to the newspaper article written on our congregation's special service, I am posting my newspaper column on the same subject with special emphasis on the role of chaplains.
Thanks for reading the piece and for any comments.
shalom
Brad
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D-Day 70th Anniversary Newspaper article

http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/06/06/3150308/among-d-day-stories-are-those.html



This past Shabbat our congregation held a 70th anniversary commemoration. It was awesome. The local newspaper did this article and it includes several of my congregants including my Dad. Enjoy the read and comments are appreciated.
Shalom,
Brad
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Monday, June 2, 2014

the Supreme Court Weighs in on Prayer in public meetings.

Y RABBI BRAD L. BLOOM
www.bethyam.orgMay 23, 2014 
Supreme Court Town Board Prayer
People walk on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 26.
JACQUELYN MARTIN — File, The Associated Press
The U.S. Supreme Court recently weighed in on whether clergy's speech should be restricted when delivering invocations at government meetings that are open to the public.
In the case of the Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway, the town can continue its practice of invocations without establishing any rules in regard to being sensitive to minority faith traditions.
The majority decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, explained, "To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech.
"A rule that would involve government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town's current practice of neither editing or approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact," he wrote.
In other words, the government has no business telling clergy what their prayers could or couldn't say. If government has to establish rules for giving an invocation at a council meeting, then that could potentially represent a government encroachment in the expression of freedom of religion.
Kennedy concluded that the only way the court might have ruled for the plaintiff is if there was "a pattern of prayers that over time denigrate, proselytize or betray an impermissible government purpose." Those kinds of criterion could very well violate the Constitution.
After the court handed down its decision, I was invited to deliver the invocation and benediction during commencement exercises at University of South Carolina Beaufort. As I prepared both prayers, I sensed that almost all in attendance would not belong to my faith tradition.
There might have been some there who might have preferred a prayer leader closer to their own faith tradition. Likewise, there could have been others who would have chosen not to have any religious prayers. Yet, we are a nation that reveres God, and by having clergy deliver an opening prayer one hopes the right tone is struck, one that says the event is sacred as well as secular.
The underlying issue with the Supreme Court case was not about stopping the grand American tradition of clergy giving prayers to open meetings. Rather, it was to establish an ethos that clergy should be less concerned about representing their own beliefs and more concerned that their language strikes a balance between the duty to create a sacred moment and saying a prayer on behalf of others who might not share their beliefs.
The problem should not be about restricting freedom of religious speech, rather, the challenge should be to encourage and expect clergy to be sensitive and exercise responsible religious speech.
Whatever happened to being ecumenical? Don't clergy have a responsibility to stretch themselves when they are asked to participate in a prayer occasion like a town council meeting or the board of education? Why can't government bodies issue a simple guideline for inclusiveness?
Let's not forget that the podium at a city council meeting, for example, is not a pulpit.
So who is it all about? Isn't this about the meeting attendees who are supposed to be embraced by the heartfelt words that create an ecumenical tent through the prayer?
This issue belongs to the longstanding and ongoing conflict in American culture regarding how high the wall separating religion from the state should be. Some Supreme Courts will build up that wall while other courts, for example, such as the current one, choose to lower it.
The issue is not freedom of speech, but responsible speech. Public institutions should send the message that being ecumenical is a good value and that clergy at public or state-sponsored events are expected to step outside the box when they are praying on behalf of people who belong to many different religions.
I urge clergy to ask themselves, "Am I betraying my own faith tradition if I write an invocation in a way that does not make reference to the particular beliefs of my faith?"
Answering this question will demonstrate just how far we have come and how far we need to progress. Yes, clergy always represent their own faith tradition no matter what they do, but adapting their prayers into a broader framework to deliver an invocation at a state-sponsored meeting does not automatically mean diminishing their own integrity or that of the faith they hold dearly. On the contrary, it may at the end of the day, garner even more respect for them and their faith tradition.
Columnist Rabbi Brad L. Bloom is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Yam on Hilton Head Island. He can be reached at 843-689-2178. Read his blog at www.fusion613.blogspot.com and follow him attwitter.com/rabbibloom
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The Supreme Court weighs in on prayer in public meetings.

http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/05/23/3126061/supreme-court-ruling-doesnt-lessen.html



This a link to my most recent newspaper column on the recent Supreme Court decision regarding prayer in public meetings. Thanks for taking the time to read it. Your comments are always welcome.
Shalom,
Brad
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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Israel Independence Day and Holocaust Memorial Day take on their own religious identity

http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/05/09/3102631/modern-history-creates-unofficial.html

I want to remind everyone that the editors at the Island Packet determine the titles of the my newspaper columns. In addition in no way am I suggesting that these two sacred days equate to the Holy Days in the fall but that they represent more and more energy to accomplish the purpose of remembering something critical not only to the Jewish people but to humanity as well. Thanks for taking the time to read it and as always your comments are welcomed and appreciated.
Shalom,
Brad
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Sunday, May 4, 2014

Sermon from this past week: Parashat Emor Leviticus 24

Parashat Emor
Recent events in the news teach us again to be careful about the words that come out of our mouths.  This week’s fiascos in sports culture and foreign policy illustrate that when public figures spew out their anger or frustrations particularly in situations when they wrongly assume the conversation is private they are being self destructive. Private and public communication continue to be blurred in today’s world especially when it comes to public officials or celebrities let alone any of us who use of social media.
First I am referring to the racist and misogynist comments made by the LA Clippers magnate Donald Tokowitz or Sterling. Second we listened to unfortunate comments by the US Secretary of State suggesting Israel would become an apartheid state if it didn’t make peace with the Palestinians. Each man has felt the sting, incurring the public wrath of the nation in the Sterling case and as for Kerry- Israel and the American Jewish Community. The question is whether they realized how their words were in a modern sense blasphemous by stripping the dignity and humanity from their offended parties?
The Torah teaches us that blasphemous and volatile speech can create serious and adverse repercussions. In fact we learn in this week’s parasha Emor by reading Leviticus chapter 24 of a situation where one person speaking blasphemous speech was adjudicated by Moses to have committed a capital crime! The Torah describes a fight that broke out in the Israelite camp between two men. One was the son of an Israelite Mother and Egyptian father. The other was, I infer from the text, an Israelite on both sides. It appears that the former uttered blasphemous speech against God by actually pronouncing the unpronounceable Divine name of God which is only to be uttered by the Priests. He was brought to Moses for adjudication for this crime of blasphemous speech. Remember just by saying the Name of God one violates the ritual and spiritual laws of proper respect for the Deity in ancient times. In ancient religions great power underlay the authority and ability of a priest to invoke the actual Name of the Deity.
The sentence for this half Israelite man was, according the Torah and to God’s own words, to take him outside the camp and stone him. The Torah says that he shall be put to death and ultimately that is exactly what the text says happened to him.  We are at a disadvantage here because we do not understand this practice in today’s world nor why it is such a major sin.  Yet vestiges of it still survive in Orthodox Judaism where serious adherents to the tradition never say the word Adonai except in communal worship. They substitute other words like Hashem which means the Name.  They will, for example, write God’s name as G-D. The point is that they will not say the actual name of God unless it is in prayer and to do so outside of prayer is to diminish the respect and reverence for God.
What is a blasphemer? This is someone, in traditional terms, who speaks of god in an irreverent and impious manner. It can also mean to speak evil or even slander against someone as well as against God. We have seen the definition of blasphemy leveled against Salmon Rushdie by the Iranian Ayatollahs.  Do we recall the reaction to the Arab filmmaker in LA who came out with that film mocking the Prophet Mohammed? Judaism in its biblical foundations viewed blasphemous language as a capital crime. Christianity has a long tradition amongst its theologians dealing with punishments and reparations for committing the sin of blasphemy.
In a modern context speech which demeans the fundamental humanity or dignity of another human being or especially a religion could be viewed as examples of blasphemy. Briefly what Donald Sterling said about women and his black ballplayers and other African Americans fit into a narrative in our culture that triggered a secular kind of blasphemy which runs counter to proper and respectful speech today. In a sense the NBA director’s pronouncement of his lifetime ban from professional basketball seems to be the equivalent of taking him out to be stoned until death.
Secretary of State Kerry is a different situation altogether. He made the remarks likening Israel to an apartheid state in private during a report to the Trilateral Commission warning that if Israel did not embrace the two state peace plan it could become an apartheid state.  The criticism was enormous and he has since retracted the use of the word acknowledging that it was not the best word to express his vision for a shared peace. One could infer from his invoking this term apartheid a shift not only from Mr. Kerry but from the entire administration to a less supportive American position towards Israel. Yet once the word is out the damage has been done even if he did take it back. Mainstream Jewish organizations viewed his remarks as if they were blasphemous since they felt his comments completely stripped Israel of its legitimacy as a democracy.
Back to the torah portion for a minute, the rabbis in commenting on the verse where it says, “And the son of the Israelite mother and Egyptian father went out into the camp,” said that the phrase he went out really meant that “He had left his world which is the Divine Presence that invests himself in the worlds god created.”(Luria) Another commentator said, “He went out of his own world since a man is a world of his own.” (Bahya ibn Pakuda). I interpret their comments to say that they felt the blasphemer in the torah lost touch with reality, that is, the basic and fundamental norms and proper behaviors of his culture by pronouncing profane words about God. Similarly can we extend the lesson to the mindset of Mr. Kerry who should have stayed away from that kind of language knowing full well the reaction he was going to provoke?
Here we are close to the eve of Israel’s 66th birthday next Tuesday.  Does the use of this word apartheid suggest, even in a weak moment, that Israel has betrayed all its core values? Sadly, his remarks cannot take back the words and the unalterable effects they have upon Israel and all its supporters in this country and around the world. The word apartheid fuels the fires in the propaganda wars that currently rage on around the world. Some may agree with his viewpoint who are Jewish and who care deeply about Israel. My question is whether the use of the term apartheid by an American Secretary of State dehumanizes Israel and denigrates its purpose for existing?
The lesson here for Mr. Kerry, let alone for LA Clippers owner Mr. Sperling, is that one must be extremely careful and cautious about the words we say in public or private. Whether or not the intention is to denigrate or criticize someone else, one must beware of the severe consequences and volatile reactions of the community or the nation to harsh words which undermine the foundation of goodness and integrity of others let alone God. The upshot is that words matter.

Shabbat Shalom
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