The Tisch: Rabbi Menachem Creditor's Blog

Minyan, Breakfast, and Sufganiyot! Tomorrow (Thurs.) @ 7:15am!

2009-12-16T15:51:00.001-08:00

Rosh Chodesh Minyan, Breakfast, and Sufganiyot!
Thursday 12/17 @ 7:15am
Congregation Netivot Shalom!

This week presents the only time when Rosh Chodesh coincides with another holiday observance -- the final days of Chanukah. We will be observing Rosh Chodesh Tevet with a Shacharit minyan at 7:15am on Thursday morning, December 17th, in the library. Because of the two observances, the Torah reading will be from two scrolls, one for Rosh Chodesh and one for the sixth day of Chanukah. We will have a light breakfast following the minyan, including Sufganiyot!

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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a tallit for every person!

2009-12-16T08:52:00.001-08:00

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Alban: Why Pay the Preacher?

2009-12-13T22:48:00.001-08:00

Alban: Why Pay the Preacher?

by Dan Hotchkiss
http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=8796

"Pastor, I've always wondered: how long does it take you to prepare a sermon? As a board member, people ask me, and I'd like to be able to explain why we pay you so much. Could you keep track of how you spend your time and put a summary in your monthly board report?"

Such a request, coming from a member of the session, vestry, deacons, or trustees, can raise the blood pressure even of experienced clergy. It is a natural request in a society that considers "the days of a man's life" as a type of property to be exchanged for salaries and wages.

Most of us know that the smart response is a non-anxious one. Possible non-anxious answers range from accurate ("I find it varies from eight to twenty hours") to honest ("I'm not sure; it depends how much looking out the window and how many false starts you count") to whimsical ("Last week's sermon about aging took me sixty years").

But non-anxious is no easy thing to be, especially when lay leaders ask us about money, time, and preaching. As a denominational executive, I used to monitor church newsletters for signs of trouble, including clues that ministers had overreacted to such questions. Some clergy counterattacked, lecturing their congregants about how mysterious, intangible, and immeasurable our work is, and how wrong it is for lay leaders to oversee us as if our work were somehow comparable to that of common...well, to their work. Few congregations respond well to condescension or to scolding nowadays.

The other troublesome response I often saw was to over-comply by keeping the requested time log and publishing it not only to the board but to the congregation in the newsletter. Such a response buys into the time-clock way of thinking. It also telegraphs anxiety, making it more likely that a harmless—perhaps even innocent—question may lead to real difficulty.

An embarrassing truth about the work of clergy is that a lot of it looks like loafing. Who else gets paid to drink iced tea with a wise great-grandmother or toast the giddy joy of newlyweds? And little that we do looks more like goofing off than preaching. I don't mean, of course, the feverish final preparatory rush or the climactic 20 minutes on the podium, but the hours of hunt and peck, preceded, in my experience, by as many hours of what might appear, to the naïve observer, to be procrastination.

And yet, that lazy-looking process—which seems to take the best preachers a full day or two to carry through—is one of the main things as clergy we're paid for. Everybody seems to know this except clergy, who tend to undervalue this one aspect of our work.

Some years ago, a university divinity school appointed a faculty committee to review the school's success in "homiletic pedagogy," that is, teaching students how to preach. The committee, looking in the rear-view mirror, saw it was not the first to plow this ground. In fact, every eight or ten years since World War II the school had asked a committee to rethink how and whether to teach preaching. Most of the committees, after studying contemporary trends, declared that preaching was passé, or almost so, and so the school should focus its attention on the Next Big Thing—lay participation, worship arts, liturgical revival, radio, TV, small groups, the Internet.

Meanwhile, in the parishes, search committees kept on listing preaching at or near the top of what they wanted in a clergy leader. Governing boards kept putting preaching high among the qualities they praised in clergy or complained about. Despite the faculty committees' confident pronouncements of a post-sermonic age and the school's best efforts to prepare for it, preaching didn't die. If anything, it grew in importance as parishioners acted more like fickle restaurant customers. Preaching, it appears, is a big part of what the people in the pews pay for.

In theory, of course, this should be true only in traditions where the pulpit stands at the center-front, as in Reformed churches. In practice, Calvinism flows wide and strong through North America, affecting Lutherans, Jews, Episcopalians, Buddhists, even—partly through the influence of charismatic movements—Orthodox and Catholic Christians. In Pentecostal churches, perhaps the most distinctive and successful kind of Christianity yet to spring from New World soil, preaching lights the fuse for the explosions of the Spirit that quieter denominations envy.

In lean economic times, boards often fail to recognize that their desire for "good preaching" means they need to pay their clergy leader, not to put in certain hours, but to play a certain role in the community of faith. The best response to questions about how long it takes to write a sermon may be the honest one: it takes a lot of time, including time that looks like work and time that looks like goofing off.

Susan Brooks in the Washington Post: "Obama's new Just War/Peace policy"

2009-12-13T15:36:00.001-08:00

Obama's new 'Just War Peace' policy

President Obama broke with traditional Just War thinking in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, and so far almost no one seems to have noticed. The President said that the "old architecture" of thinking about war and peace is "buckling." What is required now, argued the President, is to "think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of just peace."

If there is an emerging "Obama Doctrine" on war and peace, it is contained in these "new ways," not in the older Just War theory alone. Just War theory, a doctrine first developed by St. Augustine in the early 5th century, has been around for a long time. Just War language was a significant part of Obama's Oslo speech, and it was used specifically to describe the kinds of structural violence that endures in the world, especially "genocide in Darfur; systematic rape in Congo; or repression in Burma."

The President is far from naive about the extraordinary challenge to ideas of both peace and war such conditions pose. But the President did not stop with his reflections on systematic evils. He went on to provide a specific introduction to a new concept for thinking about peace and war, a theory called "Just Peace." Just Peace is an emerging fourth paradigm that goes beyond Just War, Pacifism or Crusade. Just Peace theory actually outlines how you get to "lasting peace."

Most commentators on the President's speech haven't even noticed the Just Peace language. They zero right in on the Just War language. But the President is actually using Just Peace as a way to talk about how we cannot let the tragic nature of enduring violence in this world have the last word. We can act positively to create the conditions for peace. In contrast to President Bush's dualistic thinking about war and peace, evil and good, Obama is a far more subtle thinker and he refuses to be drawn into simplistic categories.

In his Oslo speech, the President systematically moves through Just Peace theory in technically correct ways. Just Peace theory has 10 "practice norms" -- actions that can be undertaken to increase the likelihood that peace will develop and be sustained. These include not only the proven methods of conflict resolution (nonviolent direct action and threat reduction), but also an emphasis on human rights and religious liberty, just and sustainable economic development, and support for the United Nations. The President touched on all of these Just Peace criteria in his speech, including support for human rights through "painstaking diplomacy," and a recognition that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means that "if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise."

The President moved on to other Just Peace criteria, noting that "a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."

Peace is the good we seek; war can never be a good. While individuals show courage, "war itself is never glorious." Indeed, "War promises human tragedy."

Complexity, realism and idealism together, a recognition that these times demand new thinking about peace and war, and a specific repudiation of the dualism of good versus evil: that's the emerging Obama doctrine.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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VaYeshev 5770: "Righteousness, Justice, and Reuben Fulfilled"

2009-12-13T15:01:00.001-08:00

VaYeshev 5770: "Righteousness, Justice, and Reuben Fulfilled"
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

with thanks for the work of Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster and Rabbis for Human Rights

I've found the multiple roles of citizen and rabbi difficult to untangle, despite a commitment to the separation of Religion and State. It is inappropriate to use my status as a religious leader to push a particular agenda in a civic debate. But, as I've encountered social ideas being shouted in God's name, I feel compelled to step forward into the discourse, title and all, perhaps a necessary violation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1863, "It is as impossible to extricate oneself from politics as it is to avoid the frost."

Human Rights Shabbat, as sponsored by Rabbis for Human Rights and K'vod HaBriyot: A Jewish Human Rights Network, was designed to promote an authentic Jewish voice for Human Rights. For despite the extremely positive way Jewish communities speak of our dreams, our highest ideals, there is a serious gap between what we claim and what we do. One need only to look at our ancient Jewish narratives to see that historic Jewish aspiration doesn't always lead to action.

In Parashat VaYeshev, what we would label "Joseph's Rights" are violated at least twice. He is sold as a slave (a condition which is all too alive today: 27 million people around the world are enslaved in forms of debt bondage, sex work, slave labor, and domestic servitude) and he is indefinitely imprisoned (which, despite the current US government's work to close Guantanamo Base, is the explicit policy of the current administration to continue holding prisoners without trial in Afghanistan).

These are rights, inalienable by any democratic government or king, which we, as a North American Jewish community, promote with our words. And we claim the Torah's and Jewish Tradition's moral authorities in our self-descriptions. But what do we actually do to addresses these violations of Human Rights?

A provocative midrash demonstrates this inconsistency with stark clarity: When Joseph's brothers plot to kill him (Gen 27:18-19), Reuben intercedes, saying ""Let us not take his life... Shed no blood! Cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves (v. 21-22)." But in the Torah's description of Reuben's actions, there is a clear inaccuracy: The Hebrew text says that Reuben "Saved him. (v. 21)" We know this isn't the case. While his intention is explicit in the text ("to save [Joseph] from them and restore him to his father (v. 22)"), we see that Reuben leaves his brothers, returns, discovers saw that Joseph is not in the pit, tears his clothes, and says "The boy is gone! Now, what am I to do? (v. 29-30)." He didn't save Joseph, despite the Torah's wording.

The Rabbis in VaYikra Rabbah write, concerning the obviously false claim of Genesis 27:21: "Reuben said [upon reading the Torah's account of his actions], 'If I had only known that the Torah would say that I saved Joseph, I would have done it.'"

This is only too true in our communal and individual lives as Jewish, as Americans, and as Global Citizens. As President Obama stated in his Inaugural Address, there is a "price of citizenship." In using this approach, he actually stepped into a faith-based framework: There are no "rights" in religious tradition, there are "obligations." The Jewish concept of universal justice is Tzedek/Justice, wherein the individual in Jewish tradition is, has the right to expect, and is commanded to achieve Tzedek, as in: "Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof/Justice, Justice, Shalt Thou Pursue! (Deut. 16:20)"

The trickiest part of that approach is the notion of "commandedness." Not all of us believe in God. But then again, no one must. This is one of the supreme values of Judaism - ours is a nondogmatic spiritual system for enhancing particularism in service of the universe. And the very language of our sacred text can meet us where we are, as a whole. God sits, according to Psalms, on Tzedek and Mishpat, on Righteousness and Justice (Ps. 97:2). Without human work to actualize Righteousness and Justice God is not present in our world. It is up to us. But there's just so much to do. Our world has so much need. Could we possibly eradicate slavery? Can we change the practice of indefinite imprisonment?

A famous Jewish legend involves the concept of the Lamed Vavnikim, the 36 righteous people without whom the world would cease to exist. When one of the 36 dies, another takes his place. But one of the definitions of a Lamed Vavnik is that they don't know that they are one of the 36. (Thinking you embody righteousness often gets in the way.) A dear friend, Dan Schifrin, has a forthcoming book which will likely change the way many Jews (and others) see themselves. In it, he weaves a parable of a young man who, upon learning the legends of the Lamed Vavnikim, decides to become one. He spends an entire day unceasingly helping people across the street, picking things up when people drop them, cleaning litter, until, by the end of the day, he doesn't have any more ability to care. His compassion is completely depleted. He just can't do it all.

And neither can we. But that's no excuse for not trying. We can find one area of advocacy, one of the things we've always claimed to believe in, and start the work. Today.

Reuben didn't fulfill his obligation, the one we know he believed in. Will we?

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Ha'aretz: "Settler group brings Korans to Palestinians after mosque attack"

2009-12-13T12:23:00.001-08:00

Ha'aretz: "Settler group brings Korans to Palestinians after mosque attack"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/iht_daily/D131209/Froman.jpg
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1134687.html

By Chaim Levinson, Amos Harel and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondents

A delegation of Israelis from the West Bank on Sunday brought copies of the Koran to the Palestinian village of Yasuf, where two days earlier a mosque was torched and vandalized allegedly at the hand of angry settlers.

The delegation from the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, led by peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, met the village elders at a nearby checkpoint after being held up for several hours by the Israel Defense Forces.

The delegation said they brought the Muslim holy books to show their condemnation for the attack and to replace those burnt by vandals.

Security officials say they fear that the torching of a mosque near Nablus on Friday could lead to reprisal attacks by Palestinians on Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel's security services to find the people behind the arson, which Jewish extremists are suspected of perpetrating.

Immediately after the attack on the mosque at the village of Yasuf, Palestinian residents scuffled with members of the Border Police, a few of whom were lightly wounded. Several Palestinians were also hurt.

The arson prompted army and Border Police commanders to increase their presence in the Nablus area to prevent further attacks by Jewish extremists and reprisals by Palestinians. Security sources said such reprisals were a concern because the arson attack offended Palestinians' religious sentiments.

"The attack on the mosque was a dangerous provocation that could cause a further and unnecessary conflagration," one security official said.

Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank say that some settlers may escalate their opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population - the "price tag" policy.

Attacks like the arson have provoked similar attacks by Palestinians, which the Shin Bet security service calls "popular attacks." These include acts that require little planning like stabbings, stone throwing and the hurling of Molotov cocktails.

The assailants - whose acts drew condemnations from U.S., Palestinian, Israeli and settler leaders - entered Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to the police.

They burned prayer carpets and a book stand containing Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading "Price tag - greetings from Effi." The vandals escaped. Police officials said they had no definite leads. The Shin Bet declined to discuss the investigation.

"We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," the U.S. State Department said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future," he said on Friday.

President Shimon Peres urged officials to do "everything in their power to bring to justice" the people behind the attack, which he said ran contrary to Israel's fundamental values.

"The government, the security forces and the law-enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts," Peres said in a statement.

According to opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a speech in Herzliya on Friday, "while a human rights march goes on in Tel Aviv, in Samaria extremist elements set fire to a mosque in a severe, despicable act of provocation."

In a statement yesterday, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, added that the "profanation of the mosque and the torching of copies of the Koran found in it, and the spraying of racist graffiti on the mosque's walls against Islam and Muslims represent blatant aggression against the sanctity of sacred places."

Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of settlements, said the vandalism was "a wrong and foolish act." He added that "whoever did this does not wish for the good of the settlements in Judea and Samaria."

But far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said that "Netanyahu must freeze these racist edicts to calm the atmosphere."

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) added that "those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned."

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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david brooks nytimes oped: "The Hanukkah Story"

2009-12-11T13:09:00.001-08:00

December 11, 2009

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Hanukkah Story

By DAVID BROOKS

Tonight Jewish kids will light the menorah, spin their dreidels and get their presents, but Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. It commemorates an event in which the good guys did horrible things, the bad guys did good things and in which everybody is flummoxed by insoluble conflicts that remain with us today. It's a holiday that accurately reflects how politics is, how history is, how life is.

It begins with the spread of Greek culture. Alexander's Empire, and the smaller empires that succeeded it, brought modernizing ideas and institutions to the Middle East. At its best, Hellenistic culture emphasized the power of reason and the importance of individual conscience. It brought theaters, gymnasiums and debating societies to the cities. It raised living standards, especially in places like Jerusalem.

Many Jewish reformers embraced these improvements. The Greeks had one central idea: their aspirations to create an advanced universal culture. And the Jews had their own central idea: the idea of one true God. The reformers wanted to merge these two ideas.

Urbane Jews assimilated parts of Greek culture into their own, taking Greek names like Jason, exercising in the gymnasium and prospering within Greek institutions. Not all Jews assimilated. Some resisted quietly. Others fled to the hills. But Jerusalem did well. The Seleucid dynasty, which had political control over the area, was not merely tolerant; it used imperial money to help promote the diverse religions within its sphere.

In 167 B.C., however, the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, issued a series of decrees defiling the temple, confiscating wealth and banning Jewish practice, under penalty of death. It's unclear why he did this. Some historians believe that extremist Jewish reformers were in control and were hoping to wipe out what they saw as the primitive remnants of their faith. Others believe Antiochus thought the Jews were disloyal fifth columnists in his struggle against the Egyptians and, hence, was hoping to assimilate them into his nation.

Regardless, those who refused to eat pork were killed in an early case of pure religious martyrdom.

As Jeffrey Goldberg, who is writing a book on this period, points out, the Jews were slow to revolt. The cultural pressure on Jewish practice had been mounting; it was only when it hit an insane political level that Jewish traditionalists took up arms. When they did, the first person they killed was a fellow Jew.

In the town of Modin, a Jew who was attempting to perform a sacrifice on a new Greek altar was slaughtered by Mattathias, the old head of a priestly family. Mattathias's five sons, led by Judah Maccabee, then led an insurgent revolt against the regime.

The Jewish civil war raised questions: Who is a Jew? Who gets to define the right level of observance? It also created a spiritual crisis. This was not a battle between tribes. It was a battle between theologies and threw up all sorts of issues about why bad things happen to faithful believers and what happens in the afterlife — issues that would reverberate in the region for centuries, to epic effect.

The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics. They were not in total revolt against Greek culture. They used Greek constitutional language to explain themselves. They created a festival to commemorate their triumph (which is part of Greek, not Jewish, culture). Before long, they were electing their priests.

On the other hand, they were fighting heroically for their traditions and the survival of their faith. If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions. They had no interest in religious liberty within the Jewish community and believed religion was a collective regimen, not an individual choice.

They were not the last bunch of angry, bearded religious guys to win an insurgency campaign against a great power in the Middle East, but they may have been among the first. They retook Jerusalem in 164 B.C. and rededicated the temple. Their regime quickly became corrupt, brutal and reactionary. The concept of reform had been discredited by the Hellenizing extremists. Practice stagnated. Scholarship withered. The Maccabees became religious oppressors themselves, fatefully inviting the Romans into Jerusalem.

Generations of Sunday school teachers have turned Hanukkah into the story of unified Jewish bravery against an anti-Semitic Hellenic empire. Settlers in the West Bank tell it as a story of how the Jewish hard-core defeated the corrupt, assimilated Jewish masses. Rabbis later added the lamp miracle to give God at least a bit part in the proceedings.

But there is no erasing the complex ironies of the events, the way progress, heroism and brutality weave through all sides. The Maccabees heroically preserved the Jewish faith. But there is no honest way to tell their story as a self-congratulatory morality tale. The lesson of Hanukkah is that even the struggles that saved a people are dappled with tragic irony, complexity and unattractive choices.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Forward.com: "The Great (and Imperfect) Hope That Is Chabad"

2009-12-10T23:17:00.001-08:00

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Forward.com: "The Great (and Imperfect) Hope That Is Chabad"

The Great (and Imperfect) Hope That Is Chabad
By Shmuley Boteach
http://forward.com/articles/120594/

Back when I was serving as a Chabad emissary at Oxford University, the great British philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who had befriended me, once told me that while he admired my work bringing Jewish students closer to their tradition, he was utterly opposed to the large menorah I erected in the city center each year. "My cousin" — by which he meant his relative, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson — "is a missionary. But this is not our country, and we have no right to impose our religion on its citizens." Sir Isaiah was voicing the discomfort felt by some with Chabad's high-profile Jewish outreach.

Indeed, for all its outstanding work, and even as it slowly assumes a position of mainstream world Jewish leadership, the Chabad–Lubavitch movement surprisingly still arouses suspicion, even among many of those it serves. The refrains are common: Aren't Lubavitchers a little bit too idolatrous in their hero-worship of the Rebbe? Haven't many crossed a line in their messianic zeal and insistence on the Rebbe as the messiah? And aren't they contemptuous of non-Jews and American law, as evidenced by the recent Agriprocessors trial?

I am necessarily defensive on the subject. Chabad has been the love of my life since I was 10 years old. I gravitate toward its passion for Judaism, its emphasis on love for every Jew and its members' preparedness to spread their movement's message throughout the world, often at great personal sacrifice.

That does not mean that in the intervening period I have not come to see some of Chabad's shortcomings. I would prefer that there was less pressure toward conformity, however subtle, in a movement in which people dress alike and often think too much alike. And I wish that Chabad more fully embraced the Rebbe's own outreach to non-Jews in spreading the light of Jewish values. This, in particular, is a sore point with me since my own falling out with the Chabad leadership in Britain centered around the thousands of non-Jewish Oxford students who had joined my L'Chaim Society.

But none of this has diminished my enthusiasm for the Chabad movement, which I view as the great hope for the Jewish future. And it is high time that Jewish officialdom got beyond its suspicion and showed some real appreciation for Chabad's work.

Yes, Chabad messianism is deeply misguided, and many within the movement regard it as a source of embarrassment. But it is mostly benign. For me, the people in Chabad who believe the Rebbe is the messiah do so largely as an expression of deep emotional attachment to the memory of a leader who was irreplaceable. The messianists cause discomfort, but they advocate no changes whatsoever in Jewish law or practice. So are they really bothering anyone, or is this just another cudgel with which to knock a movement whose tremendous growth has fostered no small amount of resentment?

To be sure, the Rebbe-as-messiah notion does not appeal to me in the slightest, and I personally welcome an emphasis on the Rebbe's humanity rather than his saintliness. I never tell stories of his alleged miracles. It was his righteousness as a man that inspired me. And the Rebbe struggled far more than his followers are prepared to let on. He often spoke of his predisposition toward melancholy. He loved his wife deeply and never fully recovered from her loss. The deaths of Israeli soldiers made him heartsick, and toward the end of his life he feared that short of the advent of the final redemption, his work had been in vain. But human frailty for me is not a liability but a virtue.

The Rebbe-as-man is far more compelling than the Rebbe-as-superman, and I predict that in the next few years Chabad scholars will go beyond the myth, and we will see portrayals of the Rebbe that capture him in all his flesh. Rather than be diminished, his universality will be established by this change. He will cease being the Rebbe of Lubavitch and will instead become Rebbe of the Jewish world.

And why? Because what the Rebbe understood more than anyone else is that ideologies are perpetuated through charismatic leadership.

To most people today, Judaism is simply not compelling. So we keep searching for ways to make synagogues and Jewish classes more interesting, forgetting all the while that it's not the subject which is boring but rather that many of the teachers seem lifeless.

The Chabad model of charismatic leadership is the single most important ingredient in its success. While most Jewish kids are playing Nintendo Wii at 13, Chabad youth are on the streets of Sydney and Los Angeles asking people if they are Jewish. Do you know what it takes to ask someone, when you are a foot shorter than they are, if they would like to put on tefillin or light a menorah? It's torture. But you get beyond your shyness, and after doing it for a couple of years, what emerges is a bold and confident personality that is ready to go out to, say, Baton Rouge, La., and erect a menorah right there in the heart of Dixie.

If you can plant the flag of Judaism in some far-off corner of the world where you look funny to most of those watching, let's just say that by that time you have a pretty sturdy identity, and it is inspiring to all those around who struggle with who they are nearly every day. That is something that the Rebbe understood, even as some of Oxford's greatest minds missed it.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Channukah 5770: "Holiday of Rights"

2009-12-10T21:26:00.001-08:00

Channukah 5770: "Holiday of Rights"
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
in memory of Rabbi Yochanan Muffs, z"l

My teacher, Rabbi Yochanan Muffs, was a very special person. He taught Bible with unconstrainable passion, and doggedly continued offering small classes for decades at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America despite his long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. He died this past Sunday, and I would like to connect an experience I had with him to Channukah and Human Rights Shabbat.

First, a memory of my teacher: Due to his impeded mobility, most of Professor Muff's teaching took place in his JTS office. In one of the final classes of my rabbinical school career, he asked us a question: "Why do you think I named my most recent book "Love & Joy?" This collection of essays by Professor Muffs explores the involvement of God in questions human morality. We tried valiantly to interpret the title, to no avail. Whereupon Professor Muffs smiled a cherubic smile and said: "It's just so beautiful - that's why!"

If a scholarly book analyzing the anthropomorphic and moral implications of the Torah's vision of God can be beautiful and joyous, then so can our world - including all its moral questions. This coming Shabbat has been designated Human Rights Shabbat by Rabbis for Human Rights and K'vod Habriot: A Jewish Human Rights Network. We are, as Netivot Shalom, committed to this vision of a just world, free of slavery, human trafficking, and torture. When would be a more appropriate time to affirm this than Channukah, a holiday in which light banishes darkness?

The original instruction to place the Channukah lights in the window was called "Pirsumei deNisa/Publicizing the Miracle," echoed in public menorah lightings which today speckle a complex North American landscape. But every tradition is part of our shifting emotional lives. Whereas Jews were once marginalized against their wills, resulting in hidden demonstrations of particularity, today's candles-in-the-window are different. We don't hide our Jewishness - we are proud and present. But what of those whose particularities are still marginalized? Which moments call us to symbolically be the Shamash, illuminating the lives of others?

This Friday night, when we light our Channukah lights, who are they for? Do they light our way out, or invite others in? Professor Muffs, in his life's pursuit of Torah, called for a remythologizing (not a demythologizing) of our theology - one that challenges us to delight in the mythic character of God as a poetically formulated model of our own emerging humanity. Not all of us believe in God, and no one must. But if we could imagine a God worth believing in, we might perhaps describe a inclusive, dynamic, force for universal justice. And then, when we bless the Channukah lights, we would be, in fact, pointing to the One who somehow provides a model for what Humanity could - and should - be. And the world would be a much better, brighter place - for everyone.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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This Shabbat: "A Case of Pikuah Nefesh?: A Jewish view of the environmental justice challenges facing Israel and Berkeley."

2009-12-10T13:07:00.001-08:00

This Shabbat: A Case of Pikuah Nefesh?: A Jewish view of the
environmental justice challenges facing Israel and Berkeley

Join Justin Garland in the Library this Shabbat for a post-kiddush discussion about the environmental justice movement in Israel and the Bay Area. Justin, the Program Coordinator for Global Community Monitor, an environmental justice non-profit based in El Cerrito, will speak about his recent work in Haifa and Berkeley. Justin will lead a discussion about the appropriate Jewish responses to environmental atrocities, while suggesting some halachically-based solutions to today's environmental justice crises.

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
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jewishexponent.com: "At Conservative Confab, Prayer's on Radar Again"

2009-12-10T12:42:00.001-08:00

jewishexponent.com: "At Conservative Confab, Prayer's on Radar Again"

December 10, 2009 - Bryan Schwartzman, Staff Writer
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/20174/

Discussing a movement's present and future at its biennial are (left to right) Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Cantor Stephen J. Stein, Rabbi Steven Wernick and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson.

Do Conservative Jews need a new, perhaps even jazzier way to pray?

Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, apparently thinks so.

During his much-anticipated installation speech at the USCJ's biennial gathering, which concluded earlier this week in Cherry Hill, N.J., he called for the immediate creation of a movement-wide task force to tackle the issue of prayer.

"Many of our congregations report that tefillot in many of our synagogues do not speak to them, do not inspire them, and do not reach their heart or their souls," said Wernick, who took over the helms of national organization in July.

He reported that many participants of Ramah Camps and United Synagogue youth programs, for example, "come home to find the excitement and spiritual engagement they experience elsewhere missing in their own communities."

USCJ is undergoing a structural upheaval brought about, in large part, by the dissatisfaction of congregations, which relayed that they weren't getting necessary programmatic and other kinds of guidance in exchange for the dues they paid to the organization.

Many of the more than 500 lay leaders and professionals who came from across the country to the area did express hope, tinged with a bit of skepticism, that USCJ can transform itself into an entity that helps congregations become more dynamic, welcoming and, of course, fiscally stable.

At the conference, USCJ decided to adopt a new set of bylaws with the aim of becoming more efficient; these included reducing the size of its board by about half. It's also decreasing the number of offices it has nationwide from 15 to six.

Talks were also held about changing the formula for determining the dues that congregations pay, though no formal proposals were put forward.

'The Best Product'
The biennial also served as to jump-start a nine-month process in which USCJ will adopt a new, long-range, strategic plan.

"While we have considerable problems, I think we continue to have the best product," said Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

Artson sat on a panel about the future of the movement with Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the first woman to head the Rabbinical Assembly; Cantor Stephen J. Stein, executive vice president of the Cantors Assembly; and Wernick.

During the hourlong discussion, the audience raised many of the most pressing questions confronting the movement at this juncture in its history.

These included: What does it mean to be a Conservative Jew in an age when far fewer Jews identify with denominational labels? How can the movement attract more members in their 20s and 30s? Is the name itself outmoded? How can the arms of the movement work more closely together?

When the issue of prayer came up at the discussion, Stein took a slightly different tact.

"You can start by coming to shul. It's like any other skill set -- if you don't practice it, you aren't going to be able to do it," said Stein, adding that cantors are far more open to experimentation than many realize. "Come to shul, and I'll do anything; I'll stand on my head and sing 'Yankee Doodle' to 'Adon Olam.' "

Wernick said that, too often, worshippers feel that they are "prisoners" to the traditional prayerbook, and more diversity needs to be encouraged. He also said that clergy need to do a better job of explaining the poetry and symbolism inherent in the liturgy.

"Adon Olam," for example, is all about offering worshippers a measure of comfort as they leave sanctified space and head back into a world that can be tense and even frightening.

"We need to really open up the prayers in that kind of way," he said.

"Whether we sing them to 'Yankee Doodle' or the melodies of the great chazzanim," declared the rabbi, "they become more than just sing songs, and more than just rushing through the words."

A New Definition
Sounding at times like the most traditional member of this impromptu quartet, Stein also noted that while synagogues must try to bring in as many new people as possible -- while, of course, still appealing to its core -- the movement as a whole should only count as Conservative Jews those who follow Jewish law, as opposed to any individual that belongs to a USCJ-affiliated synagogue.

Stein also pushed some buttons when he suggested that spouses of clergy members -- even those with highly demanding careers of their own -- need to contribute more time and energy to their individual congregations.

Schonfeld said that in an age when many are asking if movements and denominations have outlived their usefulness, Conservative Judaism can offer up a new working definition of what a denomination can look like.

"That new denomination," he said, "as opposed to being boxes in which we put people, is going to be more like an ecosystem -- more like an interdependent and complex world in which there is room for all different kinds of Jews."

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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NJNews: "Rabbis debate rabbis over gay marriage bill"

2009-12-09T18:33:00.001-08:00

NJNews: "Rabbis debate rabbis over gay marriage bill"

Jews from opposite sides of issue testify as measure advances

http://njjewishnews.com/article/statewide/rabbis-debate-rabbis-over-gay-marriage-bill/?source=enews

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

December 9, 2009

Jews debated Jews as a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in NJ moved one step closer to the governor's desk.

Before, during, and after an eight-hour hearing of the State Senate Judiciary Committee Dec. 7 in Trenton — where the bill was passed by a seven-six vote — opponents and supporters gathered to engage in intense debate over the legislation's moral and religious implications.

Jews from liberal denominations, including the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, declared their support for the bill, while a number of Orthodox Jews came to the capital to oppose it.

At a breakfast pep rally in a hotel ballroom three blocks from the State House, Steve Goldstein, a Reconstructionist rabbinical student who chairs Garden State Equality, a leading advocate of the measure, revved up hundreds of his troops.

Goldstein said he rejected the biblical text that calls homosexuality an "abomination" and that motivates much devout religious opposition to gay equality.

"As a person of faith, I agree with 90 percent of what my faith stands for," he said. "All right, you blow up the 10 percent you don't agree with and make a big deal out of it," he joked. "That's my Jewish way."

Other Jewish clergy in the audience were in agreement.

"I can speak for Reform Judaism, and our understanding embraces a variety of levels of equality," said Rabbi David Levy from Temple Shalom in Succasunna. "We as a Jewish people know clearly the experience of discrimination and what that can mean. It is very important that we stand with our gay and lesbian brethren and their right to marriage."

Sitting together were Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster, two Jewish women who won a legal battle against the Methodist Church for the right to hold their civil union ceremony at a church-run facility in Ocean Grove.

"We were blessed by a rabbi with traditional blessings," said Paster. But Bernstein complained that "every time I fill out a form, if I have to list 'civil union' as my marital status, I have to declare my sexuality. That has caused me grief and anxiety."

Later, standing near the front of a long line waiting admission to the Judiciary Committee hearing room, Rabbi Jacob Newman of the Yeshiva of Lakewood said his opposition to gay marriage was deeply rooted in his Orthodox beliefs.

"The Torah says God created the world and nature. If you are doing something against nature, that is breaking the creation," he said.

Religious freedom

The debate made for some unusual alliances. Standing beside Newman was Jan Rosenberg, who has the title of "rabbi" at the Beth Zion Messianic Synagogue in Jackson.

"I am for traditional marriage," said Rosenberg, whose followers believe Jesus is the messiah. "The foundation of Torah is the fabric of everything we see from the beginning."

Later, in the hearing room, Rosenberg and Newman sat side-by-side at the witness table with Rabbi Joshua Pruzansky, director of the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel in New Jersey.

The three faced pointed questions from State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Dist. 37), one of the bill's two sponsors.

"Elevating same-sex unions to the status of marriage would convey an unmistakable message that homosexuality occupies the same moral plane as heterosexual unions," Pruzansky argued. "Not all expressions of sexuality are morally equivalent."

In response, Weinberg said, "I as a woman am allowed on the bima and I am allowed to read from the Torah. If I were in one of your synagogues, perhaps I would not be allowed."

"You wouldn't," said Pruzansky.

"But I respect your right to do what you choose in your own synagogues," she said. "That's why I chose to join the synagogue to which I belong."

Earlier, Weinberg had begun the lengthy afternoon and evening of hearings with a tearful reflection.

"I was married for 39 years to Irwin Weinberg. He was the love of my life. Losing him was the hardest adversity I've ever faced," she said. "What we are voting on today is for every citizen to have what Irwin and I had — the right to live with the person you love with full peace and security."

Later, Rabbi Elliott Tepperman of Bnai Keshet, a Reconstructionist congregation in Montclair, and congregant Gina Pastino of Montclair took a turn at the witness table.

She told of her near-fatal bout with encephalitis, during which her civil union partner, Naomi Cohen, was denied consultation with Pastino's doctors.

"While it pains me that New Jersey does not yet recognize my religious freedom to perform those weddings," said Tepperman, "it especially pains me that as the rabbi of a couple…in the hospital with one person potentially facing death, I have to spend time counseling them about the fact they were discriminated against, instead of giving them comfort in a moment of pain."

An hour later, Marcia Shapiro and Louise Walpin of South Brunswick spoke of the death in July 2008 of their son, Aaron Krakow, 20, of multiple handicaps and medical issues.

"We had to watch our beautiful boy Aaron get sicker and sicker until he finally went into a coma and died," said a tearful Walpin. "With all this, our relationship continued to flourish and still thrives. If this isn't a marriage, what is?"

The bill now heads for a vote by the full Senate and State Assembly. Supporters, led by Goldstein, are racing the clock: If the law is not passed before Gov. Jon Corzine leaves office on Jan. 19, it will most certainly face a veto by his successor, Chris Christie.

A day after the committee vote, the Orthodox Union issued a press release calling for the bill's defeat.

"We fear that same-sex marriage poses a grave threat to the fundamental civil right of religious freedom" and will "create widespread and unnecessary legal conflict that will reverberate across the legal and religious landscape," it said.

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
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Rally for the Berkeley REALM charter school! - Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 6pm (2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way)

2009-12-09T16:00:00.001-08:00

Join BOCA in support of the REALM charter school at an education rally outside of the Berkeley Unified School District office.

What: Education Rally and School Board Meeting

Where: 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 6pm

Why: To show support for the approval of the REALM charter school and educational opportunities for our Berkeley youth

We invite you to continue your support and solidarity with BOCA in front of the school board immediately following the rally, at 7pm. Your presence at this meeting is important because the school board will formally be presented with our petition for the charter school. The vision for the charter school is to provide our students with innovative, culturally relevant and rigorous educational programs. The goals are to increase graduation rates, test scores, and admissions to college, while empowering youth with 21^st century technology skills and activism in social justice issues. Our students need this opportunity; our students need YOU!

For more information call: 510.665.5821 or email: berkeleyboca@gmail.com

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Jewish Week: "Conservative Leaders: ‘This Is Our Time’"

2009-12-08T22:15:00.001-08:00

Jewish Week: "Conservative Leaders: 'This Is Our Time'"

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a17432/News/New_York.html

Conservative movement leaders Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Rabbinical Assembly head, left, Cantors Assembly head Stephen Stein, new USCJ head Rabbi Steven Wernick and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. ©Scott Weiner 2009

by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer

Cherry Hill, N.J. — The most often heard words here this week at the biennial convention of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism were "transform," "transition" and "revitalize."

Leaders of the organization — which has seen its membership drop in the last 10 years from 720 congregations to 670 — insist that the Conservative movement will be rejuvenated because of structural changes that were overwhelmingly adopted Monday and the fresh ideas of a new executive vice president and CEO, Rabbi Steven Wernick.

"My goal is not simply to maintain United Synagogue," Rabbi Wernick told the 500 congregational leaders here Sunday night. "My goal is to work with you and provide the necessary leadership to enable your congregations and communities to create a rich Jewish environment

for individuals and families — to see and feel what it means to be part of a community of serious Jewish learning and living committed to Torah, God and Israel."

He went on to admit that "Conservative Judaism has its work cut out for it." But he said the changes that will be made over the coming months are crucial "if we are to revitalize United Synagogue and Conservative Judaism."

Richard Skolnik, the group's incoming international president, had a simple messages to the delegates: "This is our time. We must feel proud we are Conservative Jews; we shouldn't hide under a rock."

The financial crisis helped to prompt the structural reorganization of United Synagogue, according to Steven Wolnek, a past president of the group. That reorganization has seen the firing of scores of employees, a reduction of the United Synagogue board from 200 to 75 members, and the elimination of the 15 regional offices in favor of six district offices.

"We understood there is a financial crisis and that we had to downsize and do the job better and more efficiently," he said. "About 80 to 85 percent of our budget is personnel."

On Wednesday, a new management consultant was to be announced to officially launch a nine-month process that will develop a strategic plan for the organization's future.

"Working together with professional and lay leaders from a number of our synagogues, we are dedicated to the very serious work of engaging our congregations more deeply about what business we should be in, how best to structure ourselves to achieve maximum success, and how to finance it," Rabbi Wernick said.
In an interview, Rabbi Wernick was enthusiastic about the movement's future, emphasizing morale more than specifics at this point.

"There is a pervasive sense that now is the time for a renaissance of Conservative Judaism," he said. "Why? As we see in the general culture there is a move back to the center — a balance between the extremes."

He said that since succeeding Rabbi Jerome Epstein in July, he had crisscrossed the country to speak with synagogue leaders about their needs and what they hoped to get out of United Synagogue. He said they told him they were looking for expertise in sustaining vibrant communities, sharing models of success with one another, reinvigorating their youth groups, and receiving the administrative and spiritual support necessary "for bringing bold change while holding onto the traditions that we cherish.

"We need to be able to articulate to ourselves and others what we are about, and what we care about," Rabbi Wernick added. "One of the key questions for revitalization is to determine what is United Synagogue's mandate. What role is it expected to play in nurturing and supporting Conservative Judaism?"
Once the strategic plan is complete, he said, he would expect the organization to have a "clearly defined mission, a vision for United Synagogue, and a structure of how to accomplish and pay for it. If that process is done well, I expect to grow United Synagogue and reach out to congregations that have not felt so confident about us in the past."

During a question and answer session with leaders of the key arms of the Conservative movement, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the Rabbinical Assembly's executive director, was asked about the "conflicting positions of the Conservative movement" and whether "if we stand for everything, can we truly stand clearly on anything?"

"This is one of the challenges our movement faces," she replied. "We'd fail if we had pat answers. We have to live according to the ideals of Torah, ritual and ethical mitzvot, and to study and care about one another. ... Conservative Judaism's adherence to the basic principles of our tradition remains true and unambiguous."

Asked by another delegate if the movement shouldn't change its name to be more relevant, Rabbi Wernick said one of the biggest challenges facing the movement is its "need to find a way to articulate its values more consistently and what we believe in and why. We're going to be judged not only by what we call ourselves but by what we do."

When a delegate questioned whether rabbis should support the Conservative movement's Schechter schools and Ramah camps, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in California replied that the Schechter schools work for some children.

"For us to fixate on one form of education is a tactical and religious mistake," he said. "I'm for the best interests of each individual child. I'm a big lover of Camp Ramah. ... ... I'd like us to recognize that multiple portals are necessary. Success is when we bring them to the portal that allows them to flourish as Jews."
Cantor Stephen Stein, executive vice president of the movement's Cantor's Assembly, told the synagogue leaders that he would like to "create many more authentic Conservative Jews ... who adhere to halacha [Jewish law]. One is not a Conservative Jew by virtue of the fact that he or she is a member of a USCJ congregation."

And to help attract Jews, he suggested that the movement "take a few pages from the Chabad playbook. They have attracted many who are unobservant; individuals who observe neither kashrut nor Shabbat. There is a lot of Chabad-bashing that goes on within our ranks. I, too, am troubled by much about Chabad, including their philosophy and practices. But, at the same time, we would be foolish not to learn from their success. In short, we need to do whatever we can within reason and without compromising our principals to grow our congregations."

At the same time, Stein warned that in their desire to compete against neighboring synagogues that demand much less of their members, "we cannot forsake our values, especially in areas such as Jewish education." And he called upon the spouses of Jewish professionals to "step forward as leaders in our congregations [because] our congregations need as many positive Conservative role models as they can muster."

Mindful of all the gray hair among the leaders here — the vast majority of whom appeared to be over the age of 50 — the last questioner asked what the movement planned to do to attract Jews in their 20s and 30s. Rabbi Wernick pointed out that attending the convention were 35 young adults under the age of 45 who were members of the newly created Young Leadership Institute. And he said professionals in the newly created six districts across North America would also be asked to identify and nurture young leaders.

Incoming president Skolnik said young leadership development would be among his highest priorities as he assumes office, succeeding Ray Goldstein. He said he has asked the 35 young leaders at the convention to join a United Synagogue committee.

"We're looking for emerging leaders," he explained. "Somebody who comes to shul every Shabbat or is on a youth education committee. ... It's like the Yankee's farm operation."

Rabbi Wernick said the movement is now developing a "system-wide leadership development program to train North American synagogue leaders" just as it now trains synagogue presidents."

One of those attending the Young Leadership Institute, Ron Abelow, 45, of Manhattan, said he found the convention productive.

"How often are you able to get men and women in their 30s and 40s from all over the country to come and have dinner together" to exchange ideas about the future of the movement, he asked.

Rabbi Wernick added that many of these young people are already leaders in their chosen professions and so the need is to teach them "how to interact with the particularism of synagogues. ... Being a synagogue leader is a sacred task. It can't just be about budgets but about improving the sacredness of the community."

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Forward: "Uncertain Territory: Conservative Judaism’s Pioneering Gay Rabbinical Students Tread Carefully In Israel"

2009-12-07T23:14:00.001-08:00

Forward: "Uncertain Territory: Conservative Judaism's Pioneering Gay Rabbinical Students Tread Carefully In Israel"

By Beth Schwartzapfel

Published December 07, 2009.

When the first openly gay rabbinic students came through the doors of Conservative Judaism's Jewish Theological Seminary in 2007, there remained in the back of everyone's mind one sensitive, still-unresolved issue:

What would happen when they went to Israel?

All understood that their curriculum, like that of all JTS rabbinic students, would include a third year spent abroad in Jerusalem, where the Conservative movement has so far refused to ordain gay rabbis.

Now, Ian Chesir-Teran and Aaron Weininger — the pioneering gay students — are poring over their Talmuds and arguing the fine points of Jewish law at Machon Schechter in Jerusalem, JTS's sister seminary. And so far, say both the students and their school, the year abroad is proceeding smoothly, at least on the surface.

"We haven't encountered blatant homophobia," Weininger said. "And yet, there's a history there. There's that challenge of, a little bit, walking on eggshells."

This month marks three years since the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards opened the gates for gay rabbis. Six of the committee's 25 members voted for the landmark responsum, or religious position paper, advocating the move—the minimum number required under the movement's rules to allow individual Conservative institutions to adopt the gay ordination position as their own.

The change, however, was not complete. Another responsum taking the opposite view also met the voting threshold, leaving Conservative synagogues and schools free to adopt either position.

The two American Conservative seminaries, JTS and Los Angeles's Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, began admitting gay students the semester immediately following the change. But the movement's two international seminaries—Machon Schechter in Jerusalem and the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires—declined to change their policies.

Despite this disparity, "We certainly anticipated that all of our students would continue to study in Israel, including our gay students," said Rabbi Daniel Nevins, dean of the JTS Rabbinical School. After opening enrollment to gay and lesbian students, he said, "We promptly commenced conversations with our partners in Israel and were reassured that they would welcome all of our students."

Still, some of the challenges they would face rose to the surface even during those discussions. Chesir-Teran, a former attorney who entered the seminary at the age of 36, recalled one meeting that he, Weininger and Nevins had in New York with Rabbi Einat Ramon, then dean of Machon Schechter's Rabbinical School. Upon being assured gay students would be treated equally when they came to Schechter, Chesir-Teran said he told Ramon, "I'm assuming that means we're going to be allowed to lead services and read from the Torah like everyone else," Her answer, he recalled, was, "I don't know. I have to get back to you."

Ramon later confirmed in an email to Nevins that the gay students would, indeed, be allowed to do so. But the equivocation, said Chesir-Teran, was another "red flag" that made him leery about going there.

Ramon's public pronouncements against gay ordination also stoked the two students' concerns. In a Washington Jewish Week opinion piece shortly after the committee's historic vote, Ramon, explaining her opposition to the change, avowed, "Judaism has always been clear and unambivalent toward the centrality of the heterosexual family." And in a September 2007 policy statement, Ramon wrote, "If we permit [gay marriage and ordination of gay rabbis], we should, in all intellectual fairness, permit also all other forms of prohibited sexual activity and allow the marriage of brothers to their sisters."

Ramon, who still teaches at Schechter, left her position as dean this past September. And though no one claims the move was connected to her pronouncements on gay ordination, supporters of the historic change say Ramon's departure has eased the atmosphere for gay and lesbian students at Schechter considerably.

Ramon declined to comment for this article. "I have written and said what I had to say," she told the Forward.

Nevertheless, during her tenure, the relationship between the two schools was sometimes strained. For example, Schechter put its foot down in March of 2008, when several JTS students studying there sought to mark the one-year anniversary of the change in JTS's admissions policy. The students invited Yonatan Gher, then the incoming director of the gay community center Jerusalem Open House, to speak about his experience as a gay man in the Israeli Conservative movement. But after a dispute with Ramon and others in the administration, the students were forced to hold the event off campus.

Nevins cringed when asked about this event. "That was an incident where no one was at their best," he acknowledged. "It was a very painful moment."

Heading into their year abroad with this history in mind, Chesir-Teran, Weininger, and several other students lobbied the JTS administration for alternatives to Machon Schechter.

"The very thought, frankly, of being told by my home institution that I have to study at a school that wouldn't ordain me, that wouldn't confer on me the title of 'rabbi,' is very challenging," Chesir-Teran said.

But one option JTS never considered was allowing the students to study at another school. This is a route the Ziegler School took when it announced in January of this year that it would end its 10-year relationship with Machon Schechter. The shift, says Ziegler dean Rabbi Bradley Artson, is unrelated to Schechter's stand on gay ordination. But Ziegler now sends its students to the Conservative Yeshiva, a co-educational, egalitarian school for Diaspora Jews in Jerusalem.

JTS, said Nevins, is committed to sending its students to an Israeli institution, where they can take classes, taught in Hebrew, alongside Israelis. "The other options out there were American environments, not Israeli environments," he said.

Nevins himself was in a delicate position. As one of the co-authors of the responsum that overturned the ban, he has long been an advocate for gays and lesbians in the movement. But as dean of the movement's flagship institution, he also had to deal with the fact that JTS's relationship with Machon Schechter has implications for the Conservative movement as a whole.

Schechter was founded in 1984 as the Jerusalem campus of JTS, and remains the only institution in Israel that ordains Conservative rabbis. The place of gays and lesbians in the movement is only one of several issues, including that of non-egalitarian congregations, that in the last few years have highlighted the growing differences between more traditional and more progressive wings of the movement.

"The relationship with Schechter is very complex, and has far-reaching implications for our overall relationship with the Masorti [Israeli Conservative] movement in Israel, something very precious to us," said Adam Roffman, a second-year JTS student who is a member of the campus group Keshet (Hebrew for "rainbow"), which advocates for gay and lesbian inclusion in the movement. "Balancing that relationship with students' needs proved very difficult for our administrators."

Though Schechter's policy against gay ordination continues, the two rabbis selected to fill Ramon's position this past July are seen as friends to the cause of gay students. Rabbi Moshe Silberschein, appointed dean, was ordained at JTS in 1981 and taught for many years at the Reform-affiliated Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, which has admitted gay students since 1990. Rabbi Tamar Elad-Applebaum, appointed associate dean, is a member of Keshet, the Conservative group pushing for gay inclusion.

Among their reasons for taking their new positions, said Silberschein, is a desire "to unite the movement."

"I'd like to think that we're bringing a new spirit of conciliation," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a new page."

Nevertheless, Silberschein says, the school's ordination policy is unlikely to change anytime soon. While Ramon was dean, she also served as Schechter's posek, or halachic decision maker. When she stepped down, the two positions were split, and Rabbi David Golinkin was appointed posek. Golinkin decided that Schechter would continue to abide by the more conservative responsum. And Silberschein, whatever his personal views, defers to Golinkin. "I took this job knowing clearly that Rabbi Golinkin is the posek for Schechter," he said. "But I wanted to once again build bridges with the movement and Schechter and the movement with JTS."

Now that they've settled into their time in Jerusalem, both Weininger and Chesir-Teran are taking stock.

"Having lived now in Jerusalem for almost four months, and really having adjusted well with my husband and three kids here, we've indulged a little bit in fantasies about what it would be like to make aliyah, to move to Israel, and to make a home for ourselves here," said Chesir-Teran. "But I know that that's really impossible, because I couldn't continue my studies at Machon Schechter."

That said, "having a place at the table is a blessing and a privilege," he said.

Both rabbinical students say that simply being who they are and telling their personal stories has had a profound impact on many of their teachers and fellow students. Being at JTS and at Schechter, said Chesir-Teran, has meant "having opportunities to interact on a daily basis with future rabbis, and to let them see how I live my life, just as I see how they live their lives—to show that my life is equally as holy and equally as mundane as their lives."

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Rabbi Steven Wernick's Address to USCJ Biennial Convention

2009-12-07T11:23:00.001-08:00

Rabbi Steven Wernick's Address to USCJ Biennial Convention

December 6-10, 2009, Cherry Hill, NJ

Thank you Ray for your kind words, for your leadership of United Synagogue these past several years and for your guidance and friendship these past six months in particular. And thank you Rabbi Lindemann. Since the day we met you have been my friend, my frequent source of counsel, my teacher and it seems my go to guy for installations! Let me also thank the Biennial chairperson Carole Korowitz, the entire convention committee, and Rabbi Paul Drazen for all his work as the convention professional. I must also acknowledge and thank the entire staff of United Synagogue, who through a very tumultuous time continue to demonstrate great professionalism and commitment to all of us through their dedication to their work. Thank you. And let me also acknowledge and thank Rabbi Jerry Epstein for his 30 years of service to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 23 as the executive vice president and CEO. During this transition you have been a great source of support. Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge the many friends, colleagues and family members who are here with me tonight for all of your hizuk and support. I owe special thanks, and probably a lot more, to my wife Jody and my three beautiful daughters, Ziva, Hannah and Alana, with whose love and support I am here with you in this new role. Jody, you have given so much to our family and to me during this time and at all times. You've even given up a birthday celebration, "choosing" instead to spend your special day here this evening with 500 of our closest friends. I didn't want you to be totally left out so I bought you this gift (from one of the vendors), there's a birthday cake for the reception and I thought we'd begin this evening with Yom Huledet Sameah. We'll see how that goes over later!

It's a pleasure for me to be here with you today in Cherry Hill and in this hotel in particular. The very first USY international convention I ever attended was held here. I have many fond memories of that convention and continue to maintain very close personal relationships with the people I shared it with. At that time I never could have imagined that almost 30 years later I would again be at this hotel in Cherry Hill, but this time as the executive vice president and CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. And through all the years that I was a rabbi in this community, I must have driven past this hotel thousands of times. Not too long ago the Cherry Hill racetrack was across the street. Every time I would pass it I would be reminded of a story told by one of this area's and Conservative Judaism's great rabbis, Rabbi Sidney Greenberg.

The man sitting on the park bench across the synagogue was a picture of dejection. His shabby clothes looked as if he has slept in them, and his tired face was covered by a scraggly beard. The rabbi, overcome with pity, pressed a five dollar bill into his hand, whispered, "Godspeed," and was gone.

A few hours later the stranger burst into the rabbis study, and with obvious delight threw a fistful of bills on the rabbi's desk and shouted, "Thank you. Thank you rabbi!"

The rabbi was confused. "Thank me for what?"

"Rabbi," he exclaimed, "Godspeed paid fourteen to one!"

Now, clearly the rabbi was not encouraging the man to go to the racetrack when he said Godspeed, but gambling is not foreign to Jewish tradition. Here's a little item many of us will encourage our children to play with starting this Friday night—a dreidl. You all know the game. It traces to medieval Germanic countriesand probably was taken from a game of chance that was popular in the general, non-Jewish culture of the time. Jews adopted it to pass the time on long, dark, cold winter nights, and it became associated with Hanukkah in particular because of the letters of the words by which the game is played: Nicht – nothing, Gans – take everything, Halb – take half, and Shtel – put in. The letter sounds of those words became Nes Gadol Hayah Sham – A great miracle happened there. And perhaps this implies that there might never have been a miracle if the Maccabees hadn't been willing to take a gamble, to risk their future on a course of action that we have come to celebrate as Hanukkah. They bet their lives on it – and we, the Jewish people, won.

Tonight, I want to talk about taking risk and how calculated risk when infused with wisdom and courage can pay off in important and significant ways.

We find Conservative Judaism today at a moment of great complexity. We all know the challenges that face us: a competitive marketplace of ideas and allegiances in a nano-second culture; shifting demographics; intermarriage, assimilation and apathy; an increasing polarization of the right and the left; limited resources exacerbated by a kind of economy that most of us have never seen in our lifetimes; and varying perspectives on how to address these challenges both within our organizations and among them. Due to these demographic, social and economic realities our numbers have decreased and many of our synagogues and institutions are struggling or are performing less effectively than we know that they are able to and that they would like to. As a result of all of this some have prophesized our imminent demise. I'm sure the Maccabees had to put up with plenty of false prophets too. There are always those who would prefer to curse the darkness rather than kindle a candle.

But you know what…you're still here, and I'm still here, because, like those who have gone before us, we find Conservative Judaism a compelling way of life and we're betting it has a bright future. Conservative Judaism has influenced every significant element of my identity: from growing up in a home with a father who is a JTS ordained rabbi and a mother (z"l) who was a religious school principle; to community of friends formed through USY and at Camp Ramah who I believe redeemed me spiritually and emotionally in very real ways; and the privilege of serving as rabbi of two great local Conservative synagogues – Temple Beth Sholom here in Cherry Hill and Adath Israel in Merion Station, PA.

I am a Conservative Jew because of what Conservative Judaism is – we seek to uphold our sacred Jewish traditions while embracing the liberty and wisdom to be found in modern North American life. I am a Conservative Jew because living such a life allows me to be fully rooted in modernity while constantly experiencing the sacred and reaching toward heaven. I am a Conservative Jew because seeking to simultaneously uphold tradition and embrace modernity demands that we focus on honest, open and respectful discussion on almost any issue. And we do. When it came to the role of women, the acceptance of homosexuality or the welcoming of those who are intermarried into our communities we learned from each other, we debated each other and we reached conclusions that were not always neat, but precisely because we focused openly and honestly on them, they are always authentic Jewish responses to the challenges of our day. As a community that values pluralism we celebrate the vitality of a Judaism that is built upon a foundation that fuses our classical texts and modern sensibilities in informing the lives we live. This is what makes an authentic, emotionally enriching, ritually relevant and intellectually satisfying modern Judaism. In many ways the struggle over the relevancy of United Synagogue is a struggle over the relevancy of Conservative Judaism itself. And this is why I chose to leave a congregation that I valued and that I believe valued me to assume the leadership of United Synagogue at a time in which the landscape of the organization is being greatly tested. We are here because we want all Conservative congregations and communities to succeed. And I can think of no greater challenge and no greater calling than that. And I'm betting that you feel the same way, and together we can take some calculated risks that will pay off big for the Judaism we believe it.

I'd like to say one more thing about why I believe the challenge that we must engage in now for the future of Conservative Judaism is critical. In particular I want to say something to those who suggest that the middle has not and will not hold. The middle is an indispensable part of every social structure. I believe represents the ideal or the practice of promoting moderate practices that lie between different extremes. It is graduates from the Jewish Theological Seminary that created the educational basis for every Jewish studies program in every major university in North America. Much of the leadership for Jewish causes on campus, in federations, at the head of Israel advocacy and in many other significant national and international Jewish organizations is made up those who grew up in Conservative synagogues. And a majority of the much-talked-about and successful independent minyanim are made up of the children of Conservative Jews. Just think for a moment, then, what the demise of the middle would mean in practical terms to North American Jewry. Our struggle to reinvigorate Conservative Judaism is also the struggle to reinvigorate the center of North American Jewish life. We are, therefore, an essential element of K'lal Yisrael together – the community of Israel.

As the new executive vice president and CEO I believe that the United Synagogue can and will play an important role in the future of Conservative Judaism. But before I speak about that, let me acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room. In recent years we haven't been all of what we could be; we haven't been enough of what you wanted us to be. We understand, I understand, very clearly that we have much to do to merit your support and approval. You are we and we are you. So let me state unequivocally that my goal is not simply to maintain United Synagogue. My goal is to work with you and provide the necessary leadership to enable your congregations and communities to create a rich Jewish environment for individuals and families to see and feel what it means to be part of a community of serious Jewish learning and living committed to Torah, God and Israel.

Since July, when I began this new job, I have crisscrossed the continent listening to what congregation members, rabbis, presidents, executive directors, cantors, educators, board members, federation leaders, Hillel students and professionals want from United Synagogue. In all of our visits together you've told me that you share this passion and love of Conservative Judaism and that you want United Synagogue to be better than it is. It is striking that in every place I go I am told the same thing. Members of our affiliated synagogues – in other words, you – want the same four things, as surely as there are four facets on this dreidl.

First, you've told me that you want bold initiatives to create and sustain vibrant communities that care for one another, communities that share uplifting prayer experiences and communities that study Torah together not just as an intellectual exercise, but as motivation for greater Jewish living. You've told me that you want a United Synagogue that is skilled in areas of synagogue management, leadership development, board governance and strategic planning. And you want us to provide ongoing, relevant and expert consultation in order to support your communities. Nicht. Nothing less will do. No Halb. No half-way measures.

Second, you've told me that you want to see the type of transformation that will allow us all to share best practices and models of success so we can learn from each other.

Third, you've told us that you want to reinvigorate our youth groups so they are once again as good as they possibly can be. And you've told us that you want to make sure we're reaching out to and engaging our college kids on campus and making connections to young adults. All the literature suggests that this new generation requires different approaches and techniques to engage their interest and commitment. We must employ all the options available to find our youth where they are and bring them closer to our communities.

Finally, you want us to work together with the other groups that make up Conservative Judaism so we can all share a vision and have the words to describe it, both to ourselves and to others. We, as the leadership of Conservative Judaism, must work together to provide both the spiritual and administrative support necessary for bringing bold change while holding on to the traditions that we cherish. Shtel Ein – you are willing to put in, to contribute to making the future for all of us. Ganse – all, we are in it together. And that, of course brings us to the critical difference from the way we play driedl. we are not going to just spin the top and let it fall at random. We cannot and will not leave the future of Conservative Judaism to chance.

The more I hear, the more sure I am that we all know where we want to go and how to get there. I am listening, really hearing what I'm told, and trying to responding honestly and openly to the message. The message that I am hearing is extraordinarily consistent, and I want you to know that we get it.

While it is true that today we face great challenges, like generations before us we are going to confront these challenges courageously and we hope wisely. First, the lay and professional leadership of United Synagogue has made some difficult, important decisions in order to meet our budget. We have launched a process of consolidation to create six districts from our current 15 regions and restructure our central staff to better meet your expectations of us. This change is based primarily on a previously developed management reorganization plan informed by several years of additional thinking and work. Doing this has not been easy. We are keenly aware of the very real human impact of these decisions.

Second, we've begun to take necessary steps to further refine our mandate and seek input on the preparation and the implementation of a comprehensive plan that will best position the United Synagogue to not only meet the challenges of 21st century Conservative communities, but to lay a solid foundation for future growth. This is the work of our long range Strategic Planning Commission, formed in partnership with Hayom: The Coalition for the Transformation of Conservative Judaism. Working together with professional and lay leaders from a number of our synagogues, we are dedicated to the very serious work of engaging our congregations more deeply about what business we should be in, how to best structure ourselves to achieve maximum success, and how to finance it. This Wednesday during the USCJ: Hear and Be Heard session we will introduce our new management consultant and officially launch what we estimate will be a nine month process from fact-finding to a final implementation plan culminating in a renewed United Synagogue that we can all be proud of. The circumstances in which we find ourselves today were not created overnight and they will not be fixed overnight either. We understand the urgency of the moment and we are taking very serious steps to address it, but we need your partnership and patience in this process to fully realize our potential. Moreover, this is not a one time process. We plan to be continually reflective engaging in heshbon hanefesh on a regular basis. We are betting that you will all be with us in this effort as you are here tonight.

The rabbis of the Talmud understood the message of Hanukkah very well, and they didn't want the story of the oil or the Maccabees to lead people to believe that Jewish survival and continuity could come about simply by waiting for God to perform miracles. That's why they taught: Ein Somkhim Al HaNes – We don't rely on miracles. Two thousand years after the Maccabees, a Jewish leader was fighting for a Jewish state, and probably unintentionally he spoke in the same spirit as the Talmud. Chaim Weizmann, who was to become the first president of Israel, said: Miracles sometimes occur, but we have to work terribly hard for them. I would add that this confirms that some risks have to be taken.

We are energized by the new opportunities all this provides us, but we also know that we cannot wait for the outcome of a long-range plan. We cannot wait. For example, one of the essential elements of our plan is to create what is known as a double matrix management system. In such a system district staff members will have two primary responsibilities. The first will be to become a congregation-centered consultant. Beginning next month, as we complete the first stage of our reorganization, we will begin the work of refocusing our efforts on you and on creating a proactive relationship in which we will learn to anticipate what resources will have the greatest impact. Second, district staff will have a particular area of specialty in synagogue strengthening, from the nuts and bolts of synagogue operations to the core issues of building sacred community and exploring ways to make tefillot more engaging.

In each specialty area we will be most successful when we work closely with you. We will seek partners who have particular skills in each area to imagine with us what excellence will look like and to create a plan to achieve it. We know that as we consolidate, figuring out how to marshal our resources to do more with less is a challenge, and we pledge to confront it head on. One way to do so is to engage with each other as adjunct consultants, as we currently do with NAASE through the Congregational Consulting Service for administrative guidance and review.

We are going to focus on two specific areas in the next few months. First, leadership training. From our conversations I know that many congregations feel they need it. Three years ago I established the Tuttleman Leadership Institute of Adath Israel, which trained emerging leaders to identify their own personal leadership styles, to understand how those skills can best serve their own synagogues, and to filter both through a Jewish lens. In collaboration with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Outreach Partnership of Philadelphia and with input from UJA Federation of New York we have begun to adapt this model to the international arena. We aim to bring this to you by the end of this fiscal year.

Tefillot is the next area we need to address. Many of our congregants report that tefillot in many of our synagogues do not speak to them, do not inspire them and do not reach their hearts or their souls. Many of our kids, particularly those who have been most involved in USY, Ramah and Koach, come home to find the excitement and spiritual engagement they experience elsewhere missing in their own communities. We have to change that. It's time for a movement-wide task force to confront this issue and deal with it. We have to start on this immediately.

Conservative Judaism still has its work cut out for it. The problems and complexities of our generation and the opportunities that they generate, therefore, are going to be best addressed in collaboration. Just as someone can pray without a minyan and in any setting, an individual synagogue could address all of the challenges of our day alone too. But our tradition advocates for communal prayer, for praying in a minyan, because we know that being a part of a community -- that being a part of something larger than the self -- adds to the holiness of the experience. It heightens our joys and deepens our comfort.

That's why the first word of our name is also, perhaps, our first priority. UNITED we are the synagogues of Conservative Judaism. We are the organization that unites Conservative synagogues. We represent the minyan of Conservative communities. We are a congregation of congregations. The synagogue is the only place where everyone meets: congregant and professional, Woman's League and Men's Club, USY and Camp Ramah, Israel experience and Masorti, JTS, AJU; everyone. You name the "arm;" it connects to the "body" in shul. United Synagogue is the muscle that connects all of our "bodies" together.

According to the Book of Maccabees, Mattathias rallied the Jews with his stirring cry: Whoever is zealous for Adonai, follow me. I am not Mattathias; I do not pretend to be that brave, nor do we need to be called to war – thank God.

I am not Mattathias. I am merely Rabbi Steven Wernick, but as I assume the leadership of the United Synagogue, I call upon all of you, upon all of us to be zealous in our commitment to Conservative Judaism.

Now is the time, therefore, for all the arms of Conservative Judaism to unite and build upon our collective successes while we create new models to assure healthy, vibrant and spiritually fulfilling Conservative communities locally, regionally, in Israel and around the world. United Synagogue looks forward to its role in all of this as the group that unites, as a facilitator and as a conduit of Jewish life through which all our congregations, all our communities and all our organizations will be able to share and replicate the great ideas and successes of the many members of our communities who identify with and support us.

None of this has been nor will be easy. In many ways you could call it a gamble, because it seeks a commitment to new ways of thinking and new approaches to accomplishing our goals. Kol hathalot kashot, says the Talmud, all new beginnings are difficult. But these are beginnings we must take if we are to revitalize United Synagogue and Conservative Judaism. And we will be successful only if we come together and we make a new and renewed United Synagogue a priority. So I ask you to do so. Make a commitment to share your experience at this biennial and with new ideas and skills to unite the individuals and families of your congregation in the task of building sacred community locally and throughout United Synagogue. And I ask you to join with us in reshaping United Synagogue to be a greater value to you in confronting the challenges of our times with wisdom and courage.

Ein Somkhim Al Ha Nes. We do not count on miracles, but we can count on each other, on the meaning we find in Conservative Judaism's message and on our continuing capacity to make Conservative Judaism speak to others as it speaks to us, such that it continues to be the strong center of Jewish Life. I believe we can accomplish all this and more. You can bet on it.

Godspeed. And Happy Hanukkah. Thank you very much.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Sunday @ 1:30 @ CNS: Channukah Event / Holiday Gift Drive!

2009-12-03T14:49:00.001-08:00

CNS Presents

Netivot Shalom's Channukah Fair and Concert

& Holiday Gift Drive!

This Sunday @ 1:30!

In addition to the Raffle for 1,200 towards CNS membership, a Yamim Nora'im parking space...

In addition to the release of stunning greeting cards, created by Netivot Shalom members & produced by Lisa Sibony...

In addition to music with Rabbi Creditor, stories from Liora Brosbe, and a concert with world-famous Fran Avni!

We are very excited to present a Holiday Gift Drive as part of the Netivot Shalom Channukah Event this Sunday!

Make this holiday season a little brighter for needy families in East Oakland! Just a few miles away families are struggling to meet basic needs. Bring NEW (or gently used, in PRISTINE condition) * toys * books * games * clothing * electronics * sports equipment *musical instruments * art supplies * etc. for toddlers to teenagers to the Channukah event this Sunday at 1:30-4:30 at Netivot Shalom! A special collection box will be set up in the social hall during the Channukah fair and concert!

See you on Sunday -and an early Chag Sameach!

Jweekly.com: "[Gillman's] Theology book is one for the study, not the nightstand"

2009-12-03T14:12:00.001-08:00

Jweekly.com: "Theology book is one for the study, not the nightstand"

Thursday, December 3, 2009
by howard selznick
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/40700/theology-book-is-one-for-the-study-not-the-nightstand/

Theology is a Greek term meaning "God study." If it were only that simple.

Just as any academic discipline has many elements, theology includes creation, revelation, redemption, halachah (the body of Jewish religious law), authority (to make and interpret that law), God's and man's relation to the physical world, rituals, rabbinic education and even resurrection.

Rabbi Neil Gillman, a retired professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, deals with most of these topics in "Doing Jewish Theology: God, Torah and Israel in Modern Judaism," a book of essays reprinted from previously published articles in scholarly journals or other books.

Some of the essays are deep and abstract, others more straightforward. None are easy bedtime reading. The audience appears to be other scholars, not the general public, although his writing is usually clear enough for intelligent laypeople to follow. Gilman presents theology in three major parts:

1. Revelation: Was God invented or discovered? Was revelation an historical event or a literary book review?

2. Authority: Who has authority in Judaism to select the criteria for how to be an authentic, halachic Jew?

3. Halachah: When do Jews obey the law and when do they ignore it?

Gillman's essays also cover other aspects of "God study." He notes that Judaism can be authentic and religious without a theology or philosophy because that authenticity should be defined by adherence to mitzvahs. However, no satisfactory theology explains punishment as a consequence of sin; limits of God's power; and suffering as a result of God's love. On such matters, Gillman declares himself at a "theological impasse."

As a professor at JTS, Gillman has much to say about education, especially the rabbinical curriculum.

Gillman points out that JTS's traditional curriculum emphasized the academic at the expense of the professional. Study of Jewish texts was becoming increasingly inapplicable to real life as a rabbi.

While the professional is now part of rabbinic education, the theological still lags. To remedy this, Gillman required that his students write their personal theologies. This exercise helps students to reconcile the word of God in the bible and Talmud with academic study of those texts.

If there is a theme in this book, it is theological tension: between rabbis and laypeople; between observing halachah and ignoring it; the bible as history or as myth or stories; order vs. chaos; or what to teach at JTS.

One of his chapter titles may illustrate this state of tension in Conservative Judaism: "A Conservative Theology for the 21st Century."

How ironic — this counting of centuries is based on birth of Jesus, codified by the Romans, and refined by the Church. Since this is the Jewish year 5770, shouldn't the title read "A Conservative Theology for the 58th Century"?

"Doing Jewish Theology: God, Torah and Israel in Modern Judaism" by Rabbi Neil Gillman (304 pages, Jewish Lights, $24.99)

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

JewSchool: Movement, Denominations, and Minyanim…oh my!

2009-12-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

JewSchool: Movement, Denominations, and Minyanim…oh my!

by zt [➚] · Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

http://jewschool.com/2009/12/03/18949/movement-denominations-and-minyanimoh-my/

A little while back, in addressing recent discussions of minyanim and reacting to Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, BZ posted:

Rabbi Kaunfer writes "New self-proclaimed movements sprung up — Reconstructionism, and the Renewal and Chavurah Movements." The "Chavurah movement" is not now and has never been a "self-proclaimed movement" parallel to the "big three" or the Reconstructionist movement. Rabbi Kaunfer himself has argued for why the latest wave of independent minyanim do not constitute a "movement" in that mold, and the same is true for earlier waves of havurot.

This has led me to think about the similarities and differences between what people tend to refer to as Chavura, Conservative, Independent Minyan, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Renewal. (note that I alphabetized them rather than forcing them into a spectrum that doesn't quite fit). Of course these labels have substantial overlap. Some are parallel. Some are not. They all come about because people want quick categories that they can use to label the Jewish approach of themselves and others.

–This next paragraph can be skipped, it defines a few terms and frames the issue, but some might find it needlessly semantic–Some of these labels are (what I'll call) institutional, ideological, and/or aesthetic. Insitutional groupings are based on a subset of Jews being unified based on connection to an institution(s). For instance, The Conservative movement is an institutional grouping since it's people are connected through camps, schools, youth groups, an other institutions. It is also an ideological grouping since it has positions on many questions that it endorses. Conservative Jews have tendencies to think about Israel in certain ways, egalitarianism, etc. Of course, some differ and there is some diversity, but certainly, you can see what I mean by ideological grouping. By aesthetic, I mean a preference for decision-making model, prayer approach, or something else which is not explicitly Ideological. In many cases these issues are deeply moral, so I don't mean to imply that this is in any sense superficial. Minyanim, for instance are united by a desire for lay-ledness and thus "Minyan" is an aesthetic grouping. This is a rather arbitrary nuance but there certainly is a nuance between how people think about the world (ideology) and how they prefer their prayer specifically (prayer aesthetic) that while influenced by the former is a slightly different issue.

Now I'll take a look at a few common groupings and examine what they are, where they come from, and which they are parallel too, and not.

Chavura

This term is especially confusing since it refers to two substantially disparate kinds of communities. Some use it to refer to lay-led communities which don't employ professionals. For instance, this label is often is often associated with the groups that sought a more organic, spiritual, and culturally relevant Judaism in the 60s and 70s such as Havurat Shalom in Boston (which began as a seminary of sorts), the New York Havurah, and Farbrengen in DC. All these groups had major learning and political components in addition to davening and social retreats. The critical writing in this do-it-yourself movement was the Jewish Catalog (and its 2 sequels). Many of these early havurot where like communes. The collective living aspects soon diminished but many still had consensus-based decision-making, specific membership, and intense community.

At the same time that these pioneers of lay-led intimate communities were striking out to build new kinds of independent models the term was also being used to refer to synagogue-based sub-groups. Harold Schulweis helped create this model.

The 20th century use of chavurah originateds with fellowship who met to study the writings of Moredecai Kaplan. More of the relationship between Reconstructionism and havurot later…

This is largely an aesthetic group. There is wide variation on every ideological issue. Havurot tend to be egalitarian but aren't necessarily. Really it's two different aesthetic groups (the in-shul and is-a-shul). Both though seek intimacy and intensity in Jewish life and have members who are willing to put in more time and energy to achieve those goals than many big congregation Jews are willing to.

Conservative

People often use "movement" and "denomination" interchangeably. In the case of the Conservative movement/denomination, this is reasonable. The Conservative denomination has institutional and ideological ties. It has a process for making movement-wide practice decisions (The Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards), its own seminaries (JTS, UJ, Schecter/Cons. Yeshiva), an organization of synagogues (United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism), and a pseudo-union for it's clergy (The Rabbinical Association).

Interestingly, the Conservative denomination has given rise to many of these other innovative groups (mostly unwillingly). Many of the early havurah-niks were former ramah campers/staff and Art Green, one of the main early leaders graduated from JTS. Mordecai Kaplan, founding thinker of the Recons, was a faculty member at JTS until his retirement. He influenced generations of Conservative rabbis and did not intend to start another denomination. Many of the current leaders of new minyanim have connections with the Conservative movement–specifically @ Hadar (of course, many minyanim have no connections to the Conservatives).

Independent Minyan

It seems that "Independent Minyanim" is the chic term for lay-led communities not based in synagogues. These groups have much in common with the kind of havurot discussed earlier. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s most of the leaders in the network of lay-led communities used "minyan" to mean prayer groups and "havurah" to mean a member-based group which was social, political, religious, cultural, and often residential or semi-residential. More on the nuances between havurot and minyanim here and here. It is a sad when words which formerly conveyed nuance cease to, since their usage blends. In contemporary terms the nuance between "havurah" and "minyan" is less well-known and that's a shame.

Back to the main point. Independent minyanim are categorized by their lay-ledness. This category contains havurot and minyanim (with the possible exception of those based in synagogues). It is an aesthetic category. There are a few institutions, the National Havurah Committee and Mechon Hadar for example, which help independent community members connect with folks from other communities both socially, for learning, and for mentoring each other on the mechanics of running minyanim.

I put "independent" in scare quotes since I think it is a silly term that doesn't do a good job describing what makes these communities different. More on why here.

Orthodox

Though Orthodoxy is frequently thought of as one of the "big three" along with the Conservative and Reform movements it isn't really analogous. The Orthodox world has many denominations. It is an umbrella containing a variety of ideologies with aligned institutions. For instance, Lubovitch, has its own seminaries, schools, places of worship, etc, and is parallel to C and R. Modern orthodoxy has some institutions (YU, Maimonides etc) and is somewhat parallel. This is a world linked by ideology (though the spread between Soloveichik, Salanter, and Schneerson is enormous). Many orthodox communities, as it happens, don't have paid clergy lead prayers and are, in this regard, lay-led making some orthodox prayer groups minyanim or even (ack!) havurot.

Reconstructionist

Reconstructionism is somewhat like Cons. and Ref. It has a seminary, Rabbinical Association, synagogue coordinating organization, youth group, and camp. It is somewhat different in that it has a commitment to local community process to create policy and construct ideology. it has a similarly wide spread to the havurot. Though it has just a smidge over 100 congregations some use a (the?) hechsher system for koshrut, others use an eco-koshrut approach, yet others are vegetarian as a means of making food match their values. Some have clergy-oriented services and others are chavurot or minyanim.

Reconstructionism differs from Reform and Conservative in that it was started primarily in a US context. As a result it prioritizes democracy at the national and local level to a very large degree. This may be part of why communal process is prioritized in the movements ideology. Recons have major aesthetic diversity but tend to be somewhat similar ideologically though the movement doesn't have positions quite the way the Conservative movement does.

Lastly, it's useful to not that in the early years of Reconstructionism (RRC and Havurat Shalom were both founded in 1968), there was a lot of cross-pollination. Many early Recon rabbis were Conservative-trained and had been part of the community-learning model in the Kaplanian Havurot. The NHC was originally located at the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot (FRCH was the USCJ equivalent). The director of FRCH was a member of a minyan. In the years since, the Recons became more focused on growth in suburban synagogues though there are major exceptions.

Reform

Like the Conservative grouping, Reform is an ideological, aesthetic, and organization grouping. There is diversity on all points.

Renewal

Renewal is an interesting case. It is somewhat similar to the Con., Rec., Ref. set since it has institutional, ideological, and aesthetic connections but is much smaller and has a different model for Rabbinic training. I understand that it is decentralized. In some sense, Renewal is more like an "independent" synagogue. It tends to have employed clergy but limited institutional frameworks. Of course the main nuance between havurah and Renewal is that the former is lay-led and the latter tends to be focused around charismatic leaders (rebbes).

It is useful to have labels that give us shortcuts in understanding the practices, preferences, and beliefs of others. These heuristics can help a lot but haven't kept pace with the times. We now have many which overlap. What kind of Jew are you? Well I prefer the structure of a havurah, the basic ideology of Reconstructionism, and pluralistic institutions. If you happen to go to a Conservative synagogue, send your kids to USY and Ramah, and like the prayer book/Rabbi's sermons you have a much easier answer than I do. As the years have gone by, and America has changed, people increasingly want embrace complicated identities. I talk a lot more, here, about how institutional decoupling will happen over time. Increasingly people will want to separate the organizations for Israeli politics, American politics, worship, camp, etc since our placement of one slides (israel, etc) doesn't strongly correlate with others, hence the interest in having several sliders rather than just one (Reform, Ortho, etc). More and more people will want to separate their Institutional, Ideological, and Aesthetic affiliations. This is why the old denominations are changing and most young people are looking for different solutions. The labels are changing because Jewish life is changing. We'll need to develop better organizations and better labels to keep up.

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Alban: Taking Control of Your Time

2009-12-02T21:43:00.001-08:00

Taking Control of Your Time: It's All About Priorities

by Bradford Agry
http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=8654

Being busy and fully scheduled doesn't always mean being productive. Too often we unknowingly become victims of what I call the "tyranny of busy-ness." We often are rapidly accomplishing things and crossing off projects on our various lists yet not always getting the bigger picture as to how these various activities really add up to reaching our larger goals. What happens is that we become passive about our time and its management and react to what comes our way versus strategically looking at what we really need to be doing and planning for it.

A very crucial skill in time management is sorting out how important various projects—both short and long term—are so that adequate time is given to each. This means striking a balance between attending to immediate deadline-driven work and projects which have a longer time horizon yet need to be worked on bit by bit. Obviously, if we only spend our days simply reacting and "putting out fires," we will never get to many other important projects that impact our organizations.

So how do you insure that you get to this important work? A good place to start is to make "appointments with yourself" for projects that are important, yet not urgent. Certainly, every day there will be unplanned interruptions that are often unavoidable. Many times in the scope of things these items may not necessarily be important but need to be tended to immediately. The trick is to leave space for these tasks but also hold fast to time for working on the more important ones. If you have a project due in a month, plan ahead by breaking the work down into a series of smaller chunks. By working in these planned smaller "work parcels" you will allow time for changes in direction down the line. What's more, you won't be forced to be behind closed doors for four days straight at the end and unable to handle the demands of your other day-to-day work.

If you know the priorities, the other half of the equation is figuring how to optimally schedule your time to accomplish them. I advise clients to have a weekly plan and then a daily one which is adjusted accordingly. To be a better time manager, start with a simple diagnostic exercise. For a week, keep a detailed log of how you are spending your time in 15-30 minute increments. Pay attention to things that could have been avoided like an unimportant meeting or spending too much time on "busy" work such as low priority e-mails. Look to see what your overall goals and priorities for that time period were and how much of your effort went toward them. This is a very explicit way of figuring out which activities were perhaps getting short-changed and which may be getting too much attention.

Your calendar is a finite universe. Learn to prune activities that are less important to your job and your organization's mission. This may involve delegating or re-assigning tasks to others, sharing parts of the work, or perhaps making them a lower priority. If you and your colleagues are in agreement as to what the shifting set of priorities are, then all can plan accordingly. By explicitly making room and intentionally planning for the crucial items, you will begin to shift from being a purely reactive scheduler to a more proactive time manager.

Ministers Managing Time

by Ronald D. Sisk

Managing your time as a minister just may be the single most difficult issue you face. The problem of managing ministerial time has a long and not always hopeful history.

The minister's need for Sabbath rest, time away from the job, and personal and family recreation was virtually ignored until the middle of the 20th century. Relatively little thought was given to ministers' need for a life apart from their work. At that point, a number of cultural factors came into play, including changes in the secular workplace leading to an expectation of more balance between work and family life. In Christian circles the pastoral-care movement began to emphasize the need for ministers to be emotionally and physically healthy themselves in order to lead their congregations toward health.

Counterbalancing these factors that have moved toward support for ministerial time off is the persistent cultural expectation that a minister should always be available to the congregation. Nobody would fault parishioners for wanting their pastor with them at a time of devastating grief. Nor does anybody fault a church board for wanting the pastor present when important decisions are made, or the homebound for wanting the pastor to visit regularly. Nor does anyone deny that the pastor needs to socialize regularly with members of the church. Nor can one blame a family in crisis for wanting the pastor present in a time of need. The issue of ministerial time management grows out of this inevitable tension between the legitimate demands of congregational life and the legitimate need of ministers for a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

I contend that time management is best addressed sequentially, through a series of touch points that punctuate a minister's relationship with a congregation—times when mutual expectations and intentions can be shaped and spelled out. Those touch points include the negotiation of an initial contract; the establishment of a ministerial schedule; the observation of contractual vacations, holidays, and sabbaticals; the minister's daily self-management; and times of congregational change. For the most part, it is the skill with which we ministers address the issue at these critical points that determines our competence as time managers.

The problem of how you're going to manage your time as a pastor begins before you ever enter the parish. Most churches don't think of themselves as "hiring" a pastor. They think of themselves as "calling one. And they assume that serving as their pastor will be the consuming passion of your life. They're correct. But that doesn't mean they have a right to your attention 168 hours a week. What is required for competence in time management is the kind of mental toughness that recognizes that none of us is indispensable to the kingdom of God, but each of us is indispensable to our family and to our own mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being.

Time management is not an exact science. Nor is it the same for each person. But good time management can make the difference between a successful, fulfilling ministry, and one that seems to splash about aimlessly in the shallows. Most important, time management is a skill that can be learned, and learning it is worth the time.

__________________________________________________________

Adapted from The Competent Pastor: Skills and Self-Knowledge for Serving Well by Ronald D. Sisk

Israel Activities at Berkeley Hillel

2009-12-02T21:36:00.001-08:00

Israel at CAL 2009-2010

Berkeley Hillel is blessed with a vibrant community of students committed to engaging with Israel from a wide diversity of perspectives. We are all committed to a flourishing Jewish and democratic State of Israel, and apply a strategic approach to the critical area of Israel programming Berkeley Hillel believes in providing a broad spectrum of opportunities to interact and develop a mature relationship with the country and the citizens of Israel.

To help us carry out this vision, the Jewish Agency for Israel has sent us an amazing Israel Fellow, Chaya Gilboa. Chaya is in her second year as a Shlicha and has made an amazing impact on the Jewish community on campus. She is a resource to the three Israel groups on campus – "Tikvah, Students for Israel," the "Israel Action Committee" and "Kesher-Enoshi." All of these Israel groups meet regularly at Hillel. And our Hillel staff has worked with all of them to help them think strategically about their mission to provide meaningful and thoughtful programming to the Berkeley campus. Chaya's presence on campus and at Hillel has not only provided the community with quality Israel programming, but we are all benefiting from her commitment to creating a dynamic Jewish campus.

This year, the Koret Foundation is providing Berkeley Hillel with five student interns who have been, and will continue to work on campus supporting Israel activities. Their responsibilities range from working with our Israel Fellow to coordinate Birthright pre- and post-programming, to developing a new Israel trip, to supporting the variety of speakers coming to campus throughout the year.

Berkeley Hillel is also fortunate to have a MASA Intern on campus to engage with students and help them find opportunities to spend six or more months in Israel. The opportunities range from Yeshivot to volunteering on a kibbutz. This Intern's responsibility is to figure out the best fit for each student to have a successful and meaningful experience in Israel.

Taglit-Birthright

We had 70 applications for 40 spots for our Winter Taglit-Birthright trip! This year—as has been done every year—the students will spend several evenings speaking with alumni from the trip and staff to be prepared for the experience. Thanks to the Koret Foundation, we have been able to have a Taglit-Birthright Alumni who meets with every student and serves as the student liaison for the trip and answers questions about Israel. We anticipate that this position will make the experience more rewarding for each participant.

There will be three informational sessions for the students before they leave: one session focusing on Jewish studies, one session focusing on Israel, and one that will focus on group dynamics. When we come back, we will have two more reflection sessions. The first will be for the purposes of processing the experience on an individual level, and the second will be aimed at learning how their Taglit-Birthright trip contributes to their involvement with the Jewish community as a whole and their continued relationship with Israel.

Ongoing Israel Initiatives at Cal

Hebrew Hour – Twice a week, Kesher Enoshi and Hillel host a conversation group at Café Strada. The topics range from Hebrew poetry to life of the average student at Cal.
From Rambam to Yehudah Amchai – Every Friday, Hebrew speaking graduate students, facilitated by two Hillel staff members, study a wide spectrum of text. The forum is modeled after a pluralistic Yeshiva in Tel-Aviv which brings together both observant and secular Israelis that study text ranging from traditional Rabbinic to modern poetry.
Teaching Hebrew – All the Birthright participants who do not speak Hebrew and other students who express interest will meet on a weekly basis to study basic Hebrew in a casual manner.
Israeli Art exhibit – Hillel will host different art exhibitions from Israel around the building. The content will range from nature scenes, to typical life throughout the country, to artistic depictions of different Israeli communities.

Fall 2009

September 3 & 26 – Kesher-Enoshi held their kickoff event, followed up with hosting Friday night dinner at Hillel. They had dynamic and creative ice breakers and valuable information about the group to help new students orient themselves with the goals and mission.
October 8 – Professor Hanan Alexander, visiting from Israel, from the Education department spoke to students about the relationship between the holiday of Sukkot and the idea of Aliyah to Israel. 14 students from different groups came and discussed this topic, which led to interesting perspectives and ideas.
October 21 – Singer's from Israel's version of American Idol joined the students at the weekly BBQ. They shared their music and their amazing life journey's. We hope to meet up with them again in Israel on our Birthright trip this January.
October 22 - Mr. David Makovsky (Ziegler Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process) and Mr. Ghaith al-Omari (former senior advisor to Mahmoud Abbas) had dinner with a handful of student leaders from Tikvah and later spoke to the community about the process of moving to a true agreement of peace in the region.
October 23-25 – 5 students from campus attended the J street college track portion of the conference in Washington DC. Their hope was to get a better understanding and educate themselves about the organization. Our goal is to equally subsidize Cal students to attend the AIPAC and StandWithUs conferences.
October 27 – Linda Gradstein, National Public Radio reporter discussed the role of the media in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories.
November 3rd - Yariv Oppenheimer, Secretary General (Director) of Shalom Achshav, will come to speak with the campus community.

Spring 2010

Israel Film Festival – The First week of February there will be an Israeli Film Festival on campus. Hillel, along with the JSU will host a week long film festival at the theater on campus. The theme of the festival will be Tel Aviv, and we will screen four different movies that will touch upon a different perspective of life in Tel Aviv. Working with the Israel Fellow there will be a speaker to share insights of the film.
Food in the Bible – A hands on cooking lesson that focuses on ingredients and food related to stories from the Bible.
Betipul – In Treatment – This program will compare the Israeli and American cultures by contrasting the original Israeli TV show with the American version.
In Between – In Between is a semi-autobiographical one man show that portrays the complexities and contradictions inherent in Palestinian-Israeli identity. It recalls Ibrahim Miari's childhood in Acco, memories of his Jewish and Palestinian grandmothers, of war, and of the struggle to shape and understand his own multi-faceted identity.
Alternative Summer trip to Israel – Hillel will hopefully run a summer alternative trip to Israel for students who have already been to Israel. We hope to take 20 students and give them the opportunity to engage with Israeli society. Students will be required to take a Spring Decal course that will inform them about many aspects of Israeli society and after the ten day trip, each one will volunteer for an NGO in Israel.

This coming Sunday at CNS: "Jewish Leadership & Responsibility"

2009-12-02T16:20:00.001-08:00

Pre-minyan learning session from 9 - 9:30 AM with Rabbi Creditor: Rambam's Hilchot Tefillah/Laws of Prayer. Rambam (Maimonides) wrote "Laws of Jewish Prayer", a volume of his comprehensive Mishnah Torah so communities could study Jewish tradition together. This preparation for the Minyan, will be based on the original text in the Hebrew with English translation.

Minyan at 9:30 followed by breakfast thanks to Barbara Wezelman and at 10:30 AM we will move to the Sanctuary (because people will be preparing the Social Hall for the Pre-Chanukah Fair) and

Rabbi Menachem Creditor will discuss "Jewish Leadership & Responsibility". This is the second talk in the five-part series "Exploring the Concept of a Jewish Community". 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.

beautiful article by rabbi shawn zevitt: "Synagogue Governance as a Sacred Trust"

2009-12-02T12:01:00.001-08:00

Synagogue Governance as a Sacred Trust
Rabbi Shawn Zevit
From the Summer 2001 issue of the JRF Quarterly Reconstructionism Today.

http://jrf.org/showrt&rid=510

Reconstructionism Today Summer 2001
Volume 8, Number 4

By Rabbi Shawn Zevit

Three years ago, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) launched a series of innovative workshops to help affiliated communities clarify their mission and communicate about themselves and Reconstructionism to the larger Jewish community.

Rabbi Shawn Zevit with participants
in the May 2001 Sacred Trust workshop.

In the course of these workshops, we identified a number of additional issues of concern to our member congregations and havurot. These included the creation of values-based approaches to the development and management of financial and human resources and to the processes of communal leadership and governance.

JRF responded with a three-year series of repeatable workshops and resource books — about the challenge of growth, the role of money in congregational life, and the sacred nature of Jewish leadership and communal governance. More than 350 rabbis and lay leaders from 70 or more JRF communities coast-to-coast have attended these workshops, which seek to cultivate strategies based on shared Reconstructionist values of inclusivity, democratic participatory process, gender equality, study of traditional and contemporary Jewish sources, and conscious spiritual growth. (See RT, Summer, 1999 and Winter 1999/2000, for coverage of the first two of the workshops.)

A Sacred Trust: Values, Jewish Communal Leadership, and Congregational Governance, the third of the workshops, was designed to be responsive to the wide range of governance structures in Reconstructionist communities. Many of these communities are seeing tremendous growth — increased staffing, more physical space, and more programs and services generally — which requires an increase in funds, effective governance structures, skilled leadership and staffing. As a result, we are now grappling with our own biases about authority and organizational structures while striving to maintain our fundamental communal values and cultures.

In the "Sacred Trust" workshops, study, effective listening and open discussion helped bring forth the hard-earned wisdom of Reconstructionists, both lay and professional, about these matters.

We used text study to review the evolution of Jewish leadership models throughout history: Kohanim (priests), Leviim (Levites), the first born, the elders, Anshei Knesset Ha-Gedola (the "Great Men of the Assembly"), Sanhedrin (Council of Sages) and related courts; the geonim (leaders) of Palestine, the exilarchs of Babylonia; and, during the past three centuries, scholars, politicians, entrepreneurs, financiers, Hasidic rebbes, social activists, Zionist intellectuals, and so on.

From the beginning, religious and political authority were intimately connected in Jewish life, and communal leadership assumed two overlapping but distinct forms. On the one hand were religious judges or rabbis whose expertise in Torah gave them special authority. On the other hand, communal control over non-halakhic public affairs devolved upon the "elders" whose authority derived from their age, wealth, family lineage, gender, and personal qualities. They maintained public order, collected taxes for the local authorities and for the support of Jewish social services, and served as liaison to the Christian or Moslem rulers. By the 13th century, Jewish communities had so grown in size and complexity that these leadership roles were quite distinct, and a paid rabbinate gradually emerged.

Rabbi Moshe Idel and Mortimer Ostow note that even when Jewish authority was exercised collectively by the rabbinical judges, parnasim (Jewish civil authorities) and elders, the community was not a democratic body but an oligarchy run by the consensus of the elite. Yet in most lands it was a covenantal bond more than legal power that underlay the Jewish community board's authority. In both Spain and Ashkenazi communities, Idel and Ostow write, the culture of leadership included: emphasis on Torah knowledge over aristocratic lineage, and on artisan and commercial trades over "court culture" and political connections; the subordination of communal leaders to the rule of the bet din (rabbinic court); demonstrated concern for the poor and the vulnerable; commitment to Jewish education at every level; outspoken opposition to greed and excessive luxury.

From the 17th century on, Jewish leadership was often augmented by a measure of political power ceded by non-Jewish rulers. This included tax collection and greater control of business conduct (especially dealings with non-Jews), social behavior and religious observance. Fines, imprisonment, pillory and religiously sanctioned bans were used as tools of enforcement.

As modern Jewish life evolved from the 19th into the 21st century, Jews have experimented with different models of leadership and governance. Yet certain patterns internalized throughout the centuries can make contemporary leadership of Jewish groups a difficult task. Jews have relied heavily on their leaders' intervention with outside authorities and have often seen their leaders killed by, or forced to cooperate with, the most oppressive of those authorities. This has contributed to anxiety about "getting it right" at all times, and about the real or perceived dire consequences of our leaders' actions. Blaming authority, scapegoating, externalizing or denying problems, and focusing on marginal issues to avoid confronting major ones, are some common behaviors that have made leadership challenging in Jewish communal life.

The need to support and affirm leaders, not only to criticize them, is crucial to the overall health of a communal system. Both leaders and the community must encourage honesty, creativity, and the maintenance of healthy boundaries and structures that help avoid burnout and ineffectiveness. Leaders need to understand the defense mechanisms of congregational systems and help people learn from their resistance and reactivity. Leaders must also develop their own support systems inside and outside the community.

The "Sacred Trust" workshop built on perspectives offered in the recent report of the Reconstructionist Commission on the Role of the Rabbi. We advocated a "systems theory" approach to governance that examines the totality of the congregational system rather than looking only at individual roles and functions. From a systems perspective, while specific individuals may be responsible for exercising leadership in a community, leadership is an activity of the congregational system rather than the job of only one person. This concept broadens the traditional boundaries for leadership roles. Systems theory is fundamentally similar to what Mordecai Kaplan called the principle of "organic reciprocity" — that the whole acts upon the part, and the part in turn acts upon the whole. For Kaplan, this principle mandates mutual responsibility and ethical conduct. "What has been said of words in relation to their context," he wrote in The Future of the American Jew, "is true of human beings in relation to their communities; they are not 'pebbles in juxtaposition;' they have only a communal existence; the meaning of each interpenetrates the others."

In Reconstructionist communities, when we ask, "Who is a leader?" we are asking not only about personality traits but about values that inform feelings, thoughts and actions. We hope for leaders who hold and embody values that we respect. In contrast to the traditional leader who influences a community to follow his or her vision, a Reconstructionist leader is also defined by how he or she helps a community grow, face its problems and develop solutions. Reconstructionist leaders, in other words, help elicit and manage a community's vision, as well as inspire it. Mordecai Kaplan put it this way (in The Future of the American Jew): "Governance which is based not merely upon the consent, but upon the active participation of the governed, is in a position to verify the deepest insight of religion that every human being is created 'B'Tzelem Elohim,' in the image of God."

The governing documents of congregational life were an important topic of focus in the "Sacred Trust" workshop. These documents reflect dynamic processes of communal decision making and values clarification. They are, in essence, sacred texts that represent a covenantal relationship.

Mission/vision statements are the articulation of the shared values and goals of a community. A mission or vision statement is an ideal and unique image of the future. The more your articulated goals elicit and reflect emotional commitment, the more they are likely to qualify as part of your mission/vision.

Bylaws are documents by which a community is governed. Laws are institutionalized values. It is vital that the bylaws of a congregation reflect the sacred intent of the community and all of its articulated values, as well as necessary legal requirements. Among the questions we examined in the workshop were: How are Jewish values and terminology reflected in bylaws?

Minutes of board and committee meetings are very useful congregational documents that help create day-to-day continuity for a community and create a sense of organizational history. The ideal minute book is one with prenumbered pages, none of which can be replaced or substituted.

Finally, growing out of the mission statement and bylaws come the articulated policies and guidelines of the board. These should be developed in concert with the rabbi and the membership in general. Guidelines and policies should be the product of a process that includes communal study of traditional sources and special, intensive study by topical subgroups and committees. Sub-groups are empowered to formulate draft statements of principles and more detailed guidelines. Members are invited to provide input throughout the process, which may take a year or a number of years — as in our movement-wide commissions.

The next step in the "Sacred Trust" workshop was to look at how the documents we claim to live by are actually embraced by the community in making decisions and meeting change. This brought us to governance structures.

The ultimate governing authority in every congregation is the membership. The synagogue board and committees are comprised of individuals from the membership who are elected (or volunteer) to fulfill and preserve the stated goals and values of the community. Along with the paid professional staff, these governance bodies sustain the life and vitality of the synagogue. At the "Sacred Trust" workshop we examined a wide range of Reconstructionist governance structures. We noted that service on the board should also represent an opportunity to be spiritually nurtured and to grow in leadership abilities. Boards should not generate policies or micromanage committees; policies should come from committees to the board. The board's real work is to ensure that the vision of the congregation is being fulfilled.

Committees in congregational life ideally function like staff members in non-profit organizations: Once they have their mandates, they do not need to go back to the board unless they are asking for money, making interim reports or recommendations, or seeking additional information. A committee has relative autonomy as long as it is following congregational policies and acting within its mandate.

All of this work relies heavily on the effectiveness of meetings, which are often viewed as a "necessary evil." Unlike prayer services or adult education classes, meetings too often take on the air of the mundane and the secular, if not the painful and boring. Why should meetings be the one area of congregational life in which fun, joy, excitement and a sense of the sacred are absent?

The effectiveness of congregational leader ship and governance is often revealed most clearly in the relationship between lay leaders and professional and non-professional staff. Among the issues that our workshop explored, using theoretical articles and documents gathered from JRF congregations, were: the balance of power between lay and professional leaders; the importance of confidentiality, discretion and effective communication; the use of job descriptions; how to incorporate Jewish values into the management of staff and volunteers; the roles of the rabbi, executive director and other paid staff in the congregation; how to deal with conflict between staff and lay leadership.

Finally, we spent a good deal of time discussing the long-term planning process, through which communities prepare for growth and change and overcome a "crisis management" mentality. Planning for change requires consideration of the variables in congregational life and anticipation of future needs or goals. It means making things happen for the congregation instead of letting things happen to the congregation.

Most synagogue communities want to grow in ways that do not compromise or sacrifice the reasons and desires for coming together to form a Jewish community. Growth brings into the community greater diversity, additional resources, and more participation, but it also challenges intimacy and strains capacity. Many Reconstructionist communities struggle with growth management. Planning can be an effective antidote to the stress, fear and uncertainty that accompany issues of growth. (Even when a community desires to remain small, change is still an ongoing process and planning is crucial.)

The planning process involves more than establishing a committee. Ideally, the following steps should be discussed: a process of self-evaluation; development of the plan in a group or committee that represents the diversity of the community in age, class, gender, family structure, length of membership and other variables; implementation of the plan; and ongoing review of the plan's effectiveness, with measurable goals.

Planning should be vision driven, based on the mission of the community and supported by covenantal governing documents. In a participatory, democratic culture, the community simultaneously shapes and is shaped by its values.

The amount of commitment, energy and time that participants gave to the JRF leadership workshops is awe-inspiring. Over 70 percent of our affiliated communities have participated in at least one workshop, many in more than one of the series, and some individuals have been to all three. Many communities have purchased additional resource books from JRF to aid them in their approaches to conscious growth and financial, leadership and governance issues. Some communities have begun budgeting to send as many representatives as possible as part of their own commitment to leadership development. This level of participation deserves deep appreciation.

The process we go through to realize a common vision, and The Source we connect with along the way, have profound impact on where we end up. The conscious attempt to integrate process and practical outcome is what drives the programs and resources that the JRF is developing — and what attracted more than 350 people to take the time together to examine ways of making our Reconstructionist communities as healthy and as holy as they can be.

Cherry Hill paper: "Westboro Baptist Church to protest USCJ"

2009-12-02T07:56:00.001-08:00

Westboro Baptist Church to protest
http://cherryhill.injersey.com/2009/12/01/controversial-church-to-protest-in-township/

JOE MCLAUGHLIN/Gannett New Jersey)

Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, based in in Topeka, Kan., plan to protest at Cherry Hill High School East and the USCJ 2009 Biennial Convention on Monday, December 7.

The church has gained national notoriety in recent years for its picket lines at soldiers' funerals to present its message that their deaths are God's punishment for Americans' tolerance of homosexuality. According to a press release, the group will protest at Cherry Hill HS East from 7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 7.

The group's picketing schedule also states that protestors will be outside of the Crowne Plaza Hotel from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 7 to protest the International Biennial Convention for The United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism (USCJ).

---
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Jay Michaelson in MomentMag: On Fire with Love and Ecstasy

2009-12-01T11:00:00.001-08:00

MomentMag: On Fire with Love and Ecstasy
Jay Michaelson
http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-12/200912-Speaking_Volumes.html

Your Word is Fire: Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer changed writer Jay Michaelson's life.

Why do I write Jewish books, and articles for Jewish newspapers? I never set out to be a parochialist, and I have had some success writing for wider audiences. But there's something to Jewish languages, grammars and inflections that fits in a way that more general ones don't. I don't mean the kitsch of oy vey or the particularisms of intra-tribal speech. I mean the way I am drawn, seemingly inexorably, toward Jewish ways of seeing, speaking, maybe even thinking as well.

Back when I went off to Columbia University in the late 1980s, however, I had had enough of the Jewish thing. Judaism as I understood it was a bourgeois affectation, and a set of preposterous myths. If you wanted to be a good boy, you believed the stuff they told you, wore suits to synagogue and prayed to the God who cared if you played by the rules. But I didn't want to be a good boy. I believed in "their" God about as much as I believed in their golf courses, suburbs and narrow views of the world. And I wasn't interested in the kids who hung around the kosher dining room all the time. So I left.

Nothing like the privileged angry young man, right?

Then, in junior year, I picked up an anthology edited by Arthur Green and Barry Holtz entitled Your Word is Fire: Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer. On a lark, I'd taken a seminar in Jewish mysticism (20 years ago, this was weird and unfashionable). I'd waded through Gershom Scholem's prose, marveled at the baroque theologies of the Zohar—but it was purely a literary exercise. Call it cultural archeology.

Then I read Green's introduction, about how, because everything is in flux, every moment is a point of connection to the ineffable, the inexplicable. I read translations of texts analogizing prayer to sexual intercourse, to being on fire, to unifying with God. And I read about people so on fire with love and ecstasy that they cried, danced, entered trances. Sitting in New York's Riverside Park that spring, Your Word is Fire blew my mind.

Looking back, I think there were several things about the book that had such a powerful effect. First, Green and Holtz's translations were, and remain, works of poetry. The book is worth reading for the white space alone. Green was and is a leader in the Reconstructionist and Havurah movements and currently serves as the rector of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College. Holtz is the dean of the Graduate School of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Then there was the experiential, mystical element. The worldview of the Hasidim, unlike that of earlier Kabbalists, is elegantly simple, essentially pantheistic, and centered on ecstatic experiences of transcendence. As a 21-year-old college student interested in the kinds of experiences such students are usually interested in... I was interested.

But in retrospect, I think what really "got me" was that this book expressed a Judaism wholly different from the one I'd experienced growing up as a nice Conservative Jewish boy in Florida and New York.

Your Word is Fire wasn't about being a good boy—it was about breaking boundaries, even of the self. These Hasidic Masters were alive. "Be so stripped of selfhood that you have neither the awareness nor the power to say a single word of your own," one text advised. Yes! How different from the self-aggrandizement of Rosh Hashanah finery and social clubs in drag disguise.

No, these were texts about enlightenment. Ever since I'd learned about Buddhism and Hinduism (also at college, and in the sorts of books a certain kind of intellectual-spiritual kid reads at a certain age), I had been fascinated by mystical experience, enlightenment, awakening, and all that they entailed. Personally, I was tantalized. These altered states, and the truths they were said to impart—what were they? And how could I taste them for myself?

Part of this appeal, no doubt, was that I was a repressed (and closeted) college student, and conventional ecstasy was in short supply. But I was not the only one inspired by Your Word is Fire; it helped ignite an entire movement of "neo-Hasidism," which combines these old mystical forms with contemporary political, ethical and social mores. And even today, many years and many months of silent meditation later, I still open that well-thumbed volume, still use it in my own teaching, and still believe (and now know from my own experience) that spiritual awakening is both attainable and desirable. Precisely because it presented a Judaism so different from the one I had known as a child, Your Word is Fire was the first time I saw that my spiritual interests and my Jewishness could meet in a non-adversarial way. And when I saw how that felt, I saw how much was missing when the Jewish part was absent.

There are days I regard this addiction to Judaism as a predicament. Sometimes I wish I didn't feel so at home here, amid the ethnocentrism, the mediocrity, and the sheer ludicrousness that comes with this identity. Sometimes I wish I, like millions of other well-educated Western Jews, would just get over it.

But other times, of course, I'm grateful for this seemingly intuitive bond with an ancient tradition of letter and spirit. It's a gift, this access to—no, this immediacy of—generations of wisdom. And in part, I have Your Word is Fire to thank. Reading it was the first time I thought Judaism wasn't lame—and the first time I realized I couldn't live without it.—Jay Michaelson

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
-- www.netivotshalom.org
-- www.shefanetwork.org
-- menachemcreditor.org

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