By Elliot Salo Schoenberg

Last week, I was privileged to attend the annual training course and spiritual retreat organized by the Jewish Welfare Board Jewish Chaplains Council and attended by 10 colleagues serving in the United States Armed Forces. Bill Lebeau was the scholar in residence. We met on the campus of the Naval Academy in the beautiful Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center in Annapolis MD. I left with pride in our rabbis and great respect for their mission as some of the 40 rabbis supporting 10,000 Jews serving in the US military.

We all can learn professional skills from the military experiences of these fine men and woman.  Let me share three insights from a talk by the three Chiefs of Chaplains:

Wear Multiple Hats
Chaplain (Major General) Donald L. Rutherford of the U. S. Army shared that military chaplains wear 3 hats every day: Officer, chaplain to all faiths, and rabbi. They are responsible for all those roles, at the same time.

As civilian rabbis; we too are constantly shifting between roles which we need do seamlessly.  It is hard work to officiate at a funeral, then prepare a Torah reading and then teach a class of 4th graders all in the same day. Military chaplains teach us that we need to be professional jugglers.

Be Present 
The Air Force Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain (Major General) Howard D. Stendahl, told of his visit to a base in Kuwait that was in operation 24/7.  It was just as busy at 3 am as 3 pm. He asked the chaplains on duty what services they provided the air men on duty after midnight, their response was silence.  The Chief then told the Chaplains that the best thing they could do is to be present at the change of duty. Be at the gate to say hello when the new shift starts. In his experience, soldiers would find those chaplains later if needed because they felt cared for in the moment. 

Being present is the beginning of a relationship. Civilian rabbis also need to be present in the lives of our people. Being present shows that we care.

Do Outreach 
Chaplain (Rear Admiral) Mark L. Tidd, U.S. Navy, explained that the military is changing and there is a need to do more with less.  Chaplains used to recreate a civilian parish on the base. With fewer resources now, the model is to take the parish out into the field. He used the metaphor of a ship, Navy ships are meant to out to sea and not stay in port.

There is great value in taking our rabbinate out of our buildings in to coffee shops, train stations and book stores. "Go forward." Sometimes, even rabbis on land need to go out to sea.

Our deepest appreciation to those rabbis who serve their country and their people in the military. Todah rabah.

Adapted from a d’var Torah by Gilah Dror, RA past president

Over the years, I have struggled with some of the "difficult" portions of Torah – portions that challenge my understanding of basic human equality, that raise up questions of morality, or that simply defy notions of logic and common sense. Yet, these same portions of Torah have often become a source of inspiration and of wisdom to me as I learned to revisit them year after year, continuing to delve into the mystery of their message and to immerse myself in commentaries that sought to illuminate these texts and shed light on their significance and relevance for each generation.

One of these "difficult" texts is in Parashat Emor. There, the Torah specifies various kinds of deformities, disabilities, and physical blemishes that would disqualify priests from functioning in their priestly capacity at the alter as the people of Israel brought sacrificial offerings to God. 

In ancient times, deformities, disabilities and physical blemishes were often understood to be the result of some spiritual lack either in the person who suffered from that condition or in that person's ancestors. Therefore, it may not have been considered proper to have that person included in the priestly service which is to represent spiritual wholeness and holiness.

In the modern world, we create frameworks – whether they are camps or programs, schools or synagogues, cultural centers or sports centers – that are adequately designed for those who seem to us to be physically, mentally, and emotionally unflawed, but less than adequately adapted for people with disabilities and challenges of various sorts.

We often fail to see that we are being exclusionary. In justification for what we do, we put forward explanations of practicality, and of fairness to greater numbers of people, that fall short of realizing that true holiness belongs to all human beings; that all of us are flawed in some way; that all of us are created in the image of God.

The Torah, in Parashat Emor, holds up a mirror before our eyes…

so that we shall see our reality more clearly;

so that we shall commit to greater inclusivity;

so that one day we will see a different picture when we hold up a mirror to our society – a picture in which all human beings have equal access to holiness and to wholeness.

Then, as a community, we may truly fulfill the vision of our Torah and we may truly become a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6)."

By Elliot Salo Schoenberg

My father's yahrzeit is the week before Passover. He is gone now 26 years. He always led the seder wearing the same white and blue kippah. He loved eating boiled potatoes for karpas. He would read from the Silverman Haggadah. He filled a glass goblet with wine for Elijah. He would ask questions to which he already knew the answers. My mother always cooked a turkey.

We keep their traditions. We eat boiled potatoes and turkey. We use the very same Silverman Haggadot. Over the years, we have added some new ones, but we have some that are now more than 40 years old too.

But we have added new rituals too. At Dayeinu we follow the Afghani custom of distributing green onions symbolizing the whips of the Egyptian taskmasters. Each participant taps his neighbor with the scallion declaring something they feel gratitude for. We add a Kos Miriam next to our Kos Eliyahu. Filling this cup with water, we recall the life giving waters of Miriam's well that accompanied our ancestors as they wandered in the desert. We ask each participant to share a brief comment about a person who has nurtured, inspired or helped us on our journey. We put an orange on our seder plate. 

We ask those gathered at our table what each of these symbols mean, and since most have been there before, they are all familiar with the answers. The orange symbolizes those who are marginalized within the Jewish community. It is statement of solidarity with women rabbis because legend has it one rebbetzin once said, in anger, that a "woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on the seder plate." The orange is a symbol of the juicy vitality of Judaism. The orange is the mark of our confidence in the Jewish future.  

My seder continues the tradition of my parents. We use my mother's Passover dishes. But we have added to it. My parents would recognize their seder and yet also acknowledge how it has grown and blossomed over the years. 

Judaism is about tradition and change. Judaism is a constantly evolving religion. We respect the past and constantly move forward. The task of congregations and their religious leaders is to honor tradition while also bringing new vitality to the community. May you have a zissen Pesah.

By Gerry Skolnik

Every year, as we prepare to celebrate the festival of Passover, I find myself struggling with the same issue. More than any other Jewish holiday, Passover lends itself to “universalization.” The theme of “from enslavement to redemption” seems to have become a part of the intellectual property of virtually every group which longs to see better times, as opposed to its being the theme of our historical experience in Egypt. I always find myself resenting this co-opting of our story.

I think I’m changing my view.

Without a doubt, the theme of mei’avdut l’heirut – from enslavement to redemption – has a historical dimension that is uniquely our own. It was our ancestors who were enslaved, and our ancestors who were redeemed. We have the right to own our history! The exodus was, after all, the origin of our identity as a nation, and it launched us into our epic journey to ultimate, messianic redepmtion. 

But… it is equally true that, in every generation, we must interpret the Torah anew. If the historical experience of ancient Israel inspires those who face oppression in our time to live another day in hope, or believe that redemption is possible, then not only is the timeless message of Passover alive, but it is renewed in meaning again and again. Even if the application of that message takes on a life of its own, its rootedness in our own historical experience attests anew to God’s redemptive power.

And, to take it one step further, it need not be a nation or a people who draw hope from our story. It can also be an individual.  

We all know people who live with unremitting physical pain, or the pall of inconsolable grief. The burden of those afflictions can deprive a person of any hope for a better tomorrow, not to mention making every day a nightmare. It can be difficult to even imagine a day where there will be more light than darkness, more hope than despair.

For the individual who suffers, Passover is a welcome reminder that, no matter how bitter the enslavement, whether to a cruel taskmaster like Pharaoh or pain spiritual or physical, the hope for redemption is a powerful vehicle for catharsis. It will not, in and of itself, solve all problems. But it can help us to believe that we can be helped, and often times that is the largest piece of the struggle.

To all I wish a chag kasher v’sameach. May your celebration of Passover be sweet, and meaningful.

In May 2012, Yair Lapid addressed the Rabbinical Assembly Convention in Atlanta. This post contains video, photos and quotes from the event. Lapid is the founder of the Yesh Atid Party in Israel.

A major focus of his address was on religious pluralism in Israel.

Video Excerpt:

From Yair Lapid's address to RA rabbis at the 2012 RA Convention in May

The full video is available at the bottom of this post.

Highlights:

9:00: "This is really important because I believe that Jewish identity is in danger and you are the gatekeepers… you are part of the last line of defense that believes that Judaism shouldn’t be the jailhouse of ideas, but the liberator if ideas. Judaism should not be the disintegrator of people but what gets people together. And Judaism shouldn’t be subordinated to small politics because it answers a higher rule."

19:34: “I’m going to do whatever is necessary, whatever is in my power, to make it feasible to women, Conservative or Reform, to pray at the wailing wall, wearing their prayer shawls.”
“Why? Because Israel cannot be the only country in the Western World that has no freedom of religion for Jews. This is just wrong.”

20:20: “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that there are going to be civil marriages in Israel”
“The total dominance of the Israeli Rabbanut over marriage and divorce in Israel is an insult to every free man. This is just wrong.”
“I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure the equality of all movements of Judaism in Israel…in conversion, in budgets, in the eyes of the law.“

21:45: “The majority of Israelis are actually Conservative, they just don’t know it.”
“The majority of Israelis want a pluralistic, sane, welcoming Judaism; they are just not aware of the fact that there is such a thing.”

Photos:

Mauricio Balter, Yizhar Hess, Yair Lapid, Julie Schonfeld, and Gerald Skolnik
Photo: Ashira Konigsburg 

Mauricio Balter presents Yair Lapid with Mahzor Lev Shalem

Full remarks:

Yair Lapid addresses RA rabbis at the 2012 RA Convention in May

Julie Schonfeld spoke today at the National Cathedral Gun Violence Vigil, where leaders in the Jewish community joined together with Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Muslims, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Evangelicals, Sikhs and other faiths to call for increased gun control. Her remarks follow below:

By Julie Schonfeld

All of God's children are born with eyes at full size.

This is how the Creator assures that our babies will be irresistibly beautiful to all of us and that adults will protect all of our young. 

Last Thursday night, I brought my first grader, Gabriel, to a holiday party in Washington where he hoped to shake the President's hand. He was one of the first to arrive and spent the whole evening at the rope line, waiting to fulfill the fantasy that all little boys and girls share in this great country. I told Gabriel that there are millions of children in America and that we had done nothing to make us especially deserving of this privilege, but that from the gratitude that the Jewish people feel to live in America, he had a duty to bring the message of the future, the message of children, to Washington.

When the President finally came out a few hours later, he reached for the many outstretched hands behind me and above my head, and I called out to him -- Mr. President, there's a little boy right here, excuse me, Mr. President, right down here, just want to make sure you see him, a little boy.

President Obama looked at me with a warm smile and said, "I never miss the little kids, don't worry, I never miss 'em."  My Gabriel, whom we call Gabi, got his handshake.

Last Friday morning, still exhausted, Gabi fell asleep on the train lying on my lap at just about 9:30 and woke up when we arrived, insisting that we go to his school so he could tell his big brother and his teachers and his friends what he had done.

It was there, at about 12:30, with hundreds of children running past me for early dismissal before the Jewish Sabbath, and my children's beloved teachers coming over to give me a hug and kiss, that I got the first tweet of what had happened in Newtown.

All faiths share many things in common – one of them is a recognition of a certain type of religious experience, whether in joy or anguish when the boundaries between ourselves and other people melt away.

Such an experience I had, and my mind and heart cannot turn away from last Friday morning, spent with my first-grader, and his first grade. I cannot comprehend God's inscrutable presence in the world, but Judaism has reasserted for 3,000 years in the face of every tragedy that we are all God's beautiful children, and we are all responsible. 

Americans are one people in one great country, and we are all the parents of all of our children. 

I can only pray to God for the strength and courage to fulfill these responsibilities. A month before Yom Kippur, the solemn day of atonement, Jews begin to recite s'lihot, prayers that ask God's forgiveness for our sins. Jewish tradition teaches that we must first face ourselves and ask for God's forgiveness in order to fulfill our sacred duties, the most important of which is to protect the infinite sacredness of every human life. 

One week later, I have come back to Washington, to bring not only to the President, but also to Congress, the message of my first-grader, the message of Gabriel, the message of children.

Across the aisle and across the country, we are the mothers and fathers of all of our children whom we must protect from the ravages of gun violence. Gun violence is taking a huge toll on our society, and the easy accessibility of firearms causes more people to be killed or injured than in any other developed country. While we continue to grieve for the families of those lost, we must also support our prayers with action. We should not allow this kind of firepower in our society. 

• We must ban the sale of assault weapons
• We must institute appropriate background checks
• We must cease the online sale of ammunition

Join me, today, in signing the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ petition to end gun violence, so that as a united force, we can work together with local, state and national leaders to honor the victims while supporting comprehensive action and meaningful legislation.

The s'lihot, or forgiveness prayers, offer God our best reasons for why we deserve to be forgiven so that we may better do God's work. And so for centuries, we have called out to God with these words: 

Forgive us, O God
"Do it, for the sake of the babies who were just weaned
Do it for the sake of the babies who are still nursing
Do it for the sake of the small children of the schoolhouse who have never sinned
Do it for your sake, O God
Save us
Save us and answer us 
Answer our prayers today, for we live only to praise you.

By David Lerner

Last Friday morning, I was sitting in my study writing a sermon as I heard the unfolding nightmarish news about a school shooting in Newtown, CT. Watching our preschoolers running around the playground, I was overwhelmed by sadness. As a father, I thought of my own children. Silent tears fell on my desk. 

Why can we not protect the most vulnerable and the most valuable: our youngest children?

“Do not murder” calls out from the Ten Commandments. That is because every life is precious, created in the divine image and therefore, of infinite value. Judaism frames it as: one who saves one life, saves an entire world and one who destroys one life, destroys an entire world.

The United States excels in many ways. More than most Western democracies, it is country that is infused with religion and spirituality. But, tragically, it is also distinguished by its widespread gun violence. 

Even when compared to other countries, like Canada, where there are many guns, we, in the United States, use them more against each other with sprees of mass murder all too often polluting the land – Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and now, most devastatingly, Newtown.

Some of the roots of this may lie in our revolutionary past. Here in Lexington, we take particular pride in our historic role staving off the British Redcoats. On April 19, 1775, the ragtag militiamen were told ill supplied, so they had to husband their bullets. 

It was that motley band and what eventually became the American Revolutionary Army that defended this land against Britain, helping us attain our independence. The significance of defending ourselves against outside invaders was enthroned in the in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which gives us the right to bear arms.

In the succeeding centuries, much has changed in our world. While there are still external threats, one of the greatest internal threats we face is Americans with guns and bullets.

Guns have become more and more prevalent in our society, and we have been afraid to challenge the status quo. Sadly, in our great country, it’s much harder to get help for mental illness than to buy semi-automatic weapons. Guns do not kill people, but people with guns do. The availability of guns and bullets makes it far too easy for people to kill. 

Our religious traditions call us to act.

This is a moral and ethical issue that demands a religious response. All clergy – men and women, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Baha’is, Sikhs – have to publicly demand change. We must come together as Americans moved by this tragedy to act and to rally for change. 

People of faith across the country will do just that on Jan. 5-6, 2013 which has been designated a Sabbath to Stop Gun Violence.

There is no excuse for silencing the shots heard in Newtown.

Thankfully, President Obama spoke out forcefully, calling for immediate action, but he needs to hear our voices as well.

Let us take a page from the Minutemen and husband our bullets by banning high capacity cartridges. Let us reinstate the sensible assault rifle ban. Let us close the loopholes so that all gun purchases require background checks. 

In 1775, Lexington’s “shot heard round the world” freed us from British tyranny; as horrific as the Newtown shots were, let those shots be heard as a call to free us the tyranny of gun violence.

David Lerner is the spiritual leader of Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA, and is active in Faiths United Against Gun Violence and is the founder of ClergyAgainstBullets.org.

Gerry Skolnik participated with over a dozen colleagues in the Masorti Solidarity Mission to Israel. 

By Gerry Skolnik

As the festival of Hanukkah approaches, hanukkiyot - Hanukkah menorahs - seem to sprout from every public building in Israel, from where I am writing. As often as not, the hanukkiyah is framed, physically, by four seemingly simple words from a special Hanukkah prayer: bayamim hahem, ba''z'man hazeh.

Scholars of ancient Israel tell us that the proper translation of those words is "in those days, at this time of year." But whenever I see that translation, my mind goes back to an experience I had 40 years ago, as a student on a one-year program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

It was, to use a coined phrase, a cold and stormy night in Jerusalem, nasty in that uniquely Jerusalem winter kind of way. I was a long way from home, missing my family more than a little, and I had decided to take myself into town to try and find a better frame of mind. As clearly as if it were yesterday, I remember being on the number nine bus, which ran from the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University, where I was living, into the center of Jerusalem. As the bus passed by the Knesset - Israel's parliament building - I looked up to its roof, and there, lit brightly, was a hanukkiyah framed with those words:

ba-yamim ha-heim, ba-z'man ha-zeh.

It was then - fully four months into my year of studies in Israel - that I realized for the first time the full import of where I was, and why I was there. Were I to stay on that number nine bus for another half-hour, I would find myself at the Mount Scopus campus of the university, literally within viewing distance of where the ancient Macabbees had battled Greek soldiers for their religious freedom. Once upon a time in this place, against seemingly insurmountable odds, our people had shown themselves capable of enormous courage, and strength of spirit.

It was at that precise moment that I began to "get it" about Israel. Bayamim hahem, ba'z'man hazeh. Jewish statehood, Jewish pride, and Jewish courage were not something to be studied about as history, but rather living, breathing characteristics of the Jewish present as well. Whether there in Jerusalem in 1971, or wherever the Jewish spirit resides in a vibrant community in 2012, the message is as timely now - in our own time - as it was in ancient history.

That realization transformed a cold and lonely night in Jerusalem into a moment of transcendent meaning for me. My wife, whose year of college in Israel was just a few years after mine, came to this insight too - for her the moment came during the Yom Kippur War, which transformed her sophomore year into something she could never have anticipated.  Many years later, as each of our four children spent their own individual extended amounts of time in Jerusalem as students, they gained this insight on their own. Watching them "get it" about Israel brought us no small measure of joy. The torch was being passed to a new generation. I hope that Hanukkah continues to be as meaningful for each of us today as it was for me all those years ago, and for my family years later. It may be a "minor festival," but its message is major, and timeless.

Hag Urim Sameah! May your Festival of Lights be joyous!

Julie Schonfeld is participating with over a dozen colleagues in the Masorti Solidarity Mission to Israel. Her experiences on the first day follow below:

By Julie Schonfeld

In the United States, it often seems that our discussions about religious pluralism in Israel take on one of two tones: the conversation either explodes or falls silent. Disputes about issues of religious tolerance, pluralism, freedom, and understanding can erupt at any moment. These brush-ups quickly evolve into communal catharses of frustration whose patterned sameness makes us all feel that we are headed nowhere.

But here on the ground today with our Masorti brothers and sisters in Israel, there is a more natural sense of the possibilities. A presentation by young Noam leaders, including an American oleh (immigrant to Israel), included an inspiring slide show of the summer camp they built for teens over two weeks in the summer in the Ben Shemen forest. From what was simply a forest with only its natural elements, they built up a camp – a world where teens from across Israeli society have had the opportunity to experience a Judaism that is accessible to them.

The camp’s values include Zionism, meaningful army service, pluralism, and gender equality. Despite the fact that these are values we associate with our Masorti Movement, so small in Israel, Noam leaders shared with us that the 80% of the youth program’s teens are not from our Masorti kehillot! For every teen from a Masorti kehilah who participates in Noam camps, 4 Israeli teens are inspired, peer to peer, by a Judaism that engages and strengthens them. Perhaps this is one of the clearest points of light that comes from the Masorti movement: and its articulation of the possibility of making Judaism available and accessible to all Israelis – a Judaism they can encounter as we do – wherever they wish to seek it.

We met with the mayor of Beer Sheva, where the RA Israel Region’s president, Mauricio Balter, serves as the rabbi of Kehilat Eshel Avraham. His congregation was greatly expanded and developed by RA members including our immediate past president Gilah Dror. The mayor, Rubik Danilovich, is a young man with much optimism for his region. In one breath, he noted both the ancient history and the spectacular potential for a thriving high-tech future. Hefzi Zohar, the deputy mayor, has a PhD from the education community with an eye on building excellence. Our regional president, Mauricio Balter, is a rabbi who, like his peers in the region, understands and exercises the central role of the rabbinate as a steadying and inspiring force in people's lives in all the places and moments when they need him most, even when rockets are falling. Only days later, with the most recent crisis behind us, the city of Beer Sheva, under some of the sharpest attacks of the most recent war, returns to the business of building  a high tech city at an affordable cost of living - hopefully an Israeli city that can help to address the outcry of the social justice movement and provide housing opportunities within Israel. Our Masorti leaders tell us that much potential exists for cooperation at the municipal level, where mayors and others are not as constrained by the political bureaucracy of the national government in the Knesset.

After driving past the location of one of the Iron Dome batteries nearby, we arrived at an airforce base where we had the opportunity to observe sorties being dispatched. As we watched, I was mindful of the thought that no one wants to live in a world where so many resources need to be spent on security. At the same time, we were all moved by the deep respect we felt at the discipline, skill, and courage that it takes for the pilots, many of them reservists, to take a day or a week from their work and fly missions with five minutes from siren to airborne.

As we observed the jets taking flight, the thought of the innovative and inspiring Noam leaders made us especially proud. Noam participants, in entering the army, are not only guided by the Jewish values that are at the core of the Noam program, but also by the potential to influence an even larger number of young people who serve alongside them to build their future. Helping the Masorti movement to build the Noam youth movement is an important way that we can work together as an international movement to share a Judaism that is available to strengthen the Jewish people.

By Alvan Kaunfer

By Julie Schonfeld
Originally published in The Jewish Week 

Judaism offers much wisdom to help people in our communities cultivate the resilience to recover from the aftereffects of Sandy, a storm that created a unique situation affecting an estimated 54 million people in 24 states.

Many of those affected are our youngest, who need the guidance and examples of adults and the larger community to understand their experiences in such a way that they emerge stronger. The Jewish community has much to turn to in our tradition for finding this safe space between upheaval and stability. It is precisely at such a time that people are most likely to turn to seek faith and hope in Jewish community and to see our institutions as a “holding environment” in which they might once again make sense of their experiences.

Judaism puts the questions of children front and center. As on Passover, we count on children to ask the hard questions, and we must take the time to address them – honestly, but in terms they can comprehend. Many families are now squarely in the midst of putting together their own journey from suffering to recovery. Kids need an outlet to communicate their fears and anxieties – by telling stories and drawing pictures of what happened, where they were, and with whom. One of the many lessons Jewish tradition teaches us through the “haggadah” or the telling of the Passover story, is that by claiming the story as our own, we are empowered to see details of help, of caring, and of redemption. Parents, teachers and adults can help to emphasize those aspects of the narrative so that it becomes less frightening and overwhelming and begins to reveal themes of comfort and strength.

Judaism also has much to offer in this transitional period of recovery. Our tradition is exquisitely sensitive to thresholds, “liminal” spaces that we occupy during a transition. Judaism marks transition in the worlds of both time and space. Judaism heralds the entry into such liminal spaces, whether with an amulet, such as a mezuzah marking a door, or a blessing for waking (“God who has restored my soul within me, you are faithful beyond measure”) or prayers for rain or dew through which our agriculturally bound tradition indicates its anxiety about our having enough to eat, or the traveler’s prayer that recognizes the vulnerability we experience when we are away from our homes and dependent upon others for our security. Perhaps the most important one for children is the bedtime shema, not only due to the evocative nature of the tefillah, but also the intimately personal conception of a God who is present with us even in the most vulnerable state of sleep that is comforting.

Each of these rituals and symbols teaches us to seek the presence of God, community and faith, even when it eludes us. It is through the lessons of these rituals and blessings that we can give our children, especially in challenging times, a sense that in spite of the difficulties, they have the ability to recover and move forward with life. We want them to emerge from the experience of the storm having a narrative of coping rather than a narrative of fear. Adding blessings to the day for regular activities such as eating and sleeping, in whatever language the family is most comfortable, can help bring a greater sense of faith and confidence to children.

As we enter the holiday season this week, let us look to find ways to embrace it as we do every year. Let us be thankful for what we have, who we have, and who we are. For many families, things have changed. And yet we are hopeful that with time, things will get better.

The last four lines of Adon Olam ring particularly true at this time of recovery: “I place my spirit in God’s care; my body too can feel God near. When I sleep, as when I wake, God is with me; I have no fear.”

By Elliot Salo Schoenberg

This year’s National Career Development Association (NCDA) 2012 conference took place in Atlanta GA. Career professionals attended from all over the world. I spent a day studying social media and sharpened my skills with LinkedIn, Twitter, SurveyMonkey and Hootsuite. Another session of particular interest was entitled “The Secret of Effective Negotiation.” The session was packed and I learned that even career counselors are uncomfortable about negotiations. I learned how to deploy leverage to help employees negotiate for more money and I am ready to share this information with colleagues as necessary. Richard Knowdell, a well known career coach, presented models on career coaching: the coach as an assessor, information provider, referral agent, guide, and tutor. The key point he made was that the role of the career coach is to ask the right questions, but it is the client who does the work.

10 Tactics for a Terrific Transition

All of the presenters at NCDA 2012 were fellow career coaches except for the two keynote speakers. I tested the water and made a presentation on transition. I was interested to see if our work on transition, specifically the creation of transition committees would translate to the business world. With the use of a PowerPoint presentation I reduced the 7 hour Eit Ratzon conference to a 70 minute slide show. The presentation was well received and many people asked for copies of the presentation. I was invited to Maine to teach at their state conference on transition next year.

By Elliot Salo Schoenberg

Adapted from The Highway,
a complete search manual for rabbis seeking new rabbinic positions

New Beginnings

William Bridges, an internationally acclaimed transition consultant, teaches us that the “New Beginning” does not start right away, but is a process that takes time. In the transition, both the rabbi and the organization are creating a new identity together. The New Beginning can set the tone for the relationship and the future.

What can you do to manage the “New Beginning” well?

The search committee needs to become a transition committee. When you first enter a new community, there will be all kinds of questions. Some members of the transition committee dedicated to your success should be available to supply practical information in a timely fashion. Questions of a personal or private nature will likely come up, such as which dry cleaners your family should use. The transition committee should supply a list of doctors, dentists, accountants and other professionals that your family might need.

Create Relationships

The most important thing you can do to build success is establish many relationships with numerous people as soon as possible. Creating relationships is priority #1 for both the rabbi and the institution. New rabbis and institutions often rush to create new programs, but the rabbi, the transition committee, and the officers need to slow things down and emphasize building personal relationships. Stakeholders want you to know their name more than to propose a new activity. People are more important than programs. Building relationships takes time.

The rabbi’s role is to be open, to listen, to learn about the community’s needs. You should speak about values, not specific programs. The goal is to make people feel heard and appreciated for their prior achievements in the institution. Afterwards, there will be moments to reflect on all the different observations and see if patterns emerge or priorities appear that can become the basis for future programming. You should try to meet one-on-one with as many members of the leadership as possible to create relationships and begin to build trust.

Learn the Culture and Identity of the Institution

It is important for you to learn the community's culture promptly. It can be difficult to learn local institutional culture and customs since they may be hidden or not yet formally articulated by the lay leadership.

When rabbis appreciate the community’s culture, they build trust and rapport with the membership. If there is a conflict between the culture and a proposed change, the culture wins. If a rabbi wishes to introduce a change, the rabbi should position the change as congruent to the existing culture. Learn the new culture so later the change process will proceed smoothly. 

Communication

First impressions count. Research continues to teach that first impressions make long lasting impressions that are difficult to change. What do you want your first act of leadership to be? Your first visible act should showcase your rabbinic talents. Consult with your leadership in order to determine the best opportunity to make the first impression.

It is my experience that one of the greatest tools to success in a new rabbinic position is feedback. Feedback and open lines of communication can be critical to a rabbi's path to success. Six months or so into your term, hold a discussion with the transition committee to see if there are any surprises and take note of them.

As a candidate, you received a lot of information orally, you heard stories, you received answers to many questions. Now, ask the transition committee to provide it all in writing. Review with the lay president or your supervisor the minutes of the board for the last two years. Ask the chairs of key committees to provide the minutes of their past meetings for at least two years. Ask for bulletins or newsletters for the last two years because it is an excellent way to learn about the history and records of achievement and also about the communities' hopes and intentions. Written documents will help you be sensitive to the history and culture.

Anticipate that First Change

There is always a certain pressure on the new rabbi to make changes. The competent rabbi will come with an agenda and normal institutional growth will mean changes as well. However, now is not the time to make quick changes, but to stress the continuities. The task of the rabbi is to let people know you want to learn their needs and their priorities before you introduce a change.

The first change will make a memorable impression; it will have great symbolic value. So, you and your transition committee might consider together what that first change will be, growing out of reflections of the communities' needs and priorities. What do you want your first impression to be?

The ability to transfer our rabbinate from one work setting to the next is a sign of a mature and healthy professional. How do rabbis and institutions make successful transition? With intention. With time. With patience.

By Ashira Konigsburg

“A Personal Message on an Important Theme.” These vague words written on the cover of a long forgotten pamphlet gave little hint as to the weight of the history found inside.

In 1942 as thousands of Jewish men were drafted into the military and sent overseas, the Committee on Jewish Law (now the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards) took action. In traditional Jewish law, a divorce has to be initiated by the husband. A woman whose husband will not or cannot initiate a divorce is unable to remarry. She is called an agunah, a chained woman (plural agunot). This poses problems in ordinary times (and unfortunately agunot still exist in our day), but the 1940’s were not ordinary. Rabbi Boaz Cohen, chair of the committee on Jewish Law, in an address to the Rabbinical Assembly membership in 1942 writes “In consequence of the present conflict in which we are engaged, the number of Agunot will multiply rapidly, and that some war time measure must be adopted to alleviate the condition of innocent women caught in the machinery of the law.” (Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly, 1942)

In the article below, Rabbinical Assembly member Antonio Di Gesu reflects on his experiences as a rabbi in Japan on the (then) upcoming anniversary of the tsunami (the tsunami occurred on March 11, 2011). He describes two projects that received funding from the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief (JCDR), of which the RA is a founding member:

• JEN and the Community Cafe Program
  JCDR allocated $43,102 for the pilot cafes and then an additional $130,000 to expand the program to other cities. (Total $173,102)
• Orphans of Rikuzentakata
  The JCDR just contributed $80,000 for a scholarship fund.

By Antonio Di Gesu

Originally posted on March 7, 2012 on JTA

TOKYO (JTA) -- As I sit here in Tokyo with the first anniversary of the tsunami fast approaching, I recall my surprise the first time a Japanese person thanked me, as a Jew, for Israel’s immediate response to the disaster...

(Read the whole article on JTA)

By Julie Schonfeld

Passover is widely considered to be the most celebrated Jewish holiday. By any measure of what makes Jewish rituals “work,” Passover is a study in virtuosity: we gather the community; we tell the sacred story; we are nourished by its sacred symbols, we grow spiritually and communally, and become part of the future.

For many, the seasonal change of Passover is also replete with other rites of passage. In our family, one of the annual events that coincides with this time of year is that the au pair who shares our home returns to her country and a new student comes to join our family.

The coincidence of this arrival with Passover preparations provides a rapid immersion into the rhythms of Jewish life for a person with little previous exposure to Judaism.  As our family and community undertake together a rigorous and rapid transition of our physical and spiritual lives, I lightheartedly assure our new friend that her time in our home will not be lacking in the “cultural exchange” she was promised when she signed up for the program. The experience is usually more or less the same: the rituals of the Seder are greeted with fascination, the story of the Exodus studied with appreciation, and the food ways of the Jewish people encountered with an open if puzzled mind.

When I opened the folder provided by the au pair agency, however, I was struck by the extent to which the story of Passover with its rescue from servitude is a real and lived reality. In the folder, alongside health insurance information, a CPR handbook, and sample schedules, was a brochure from the U.S. Department of Justice containing information and emergency hotline numbers for victims of human trafficking in the United States.

The young woman sitting across from me – optimistic, idealistic, and eager to begin a year she hopes to remember for the rest of her life – is joined by countless other young people moving across the globe testing their mettle and seeking their futures. Tragically, for millions of young people, especially those from developing countries, they find themselves caught inextricably in a nightmare web of deception, abuse, and enslavement. Both the United States and Israel are among the many destinations where these young people will live their nightmares.

ואלו לא הוציא הקדוש ברוך הוא את אבותינו ממצרים, הרי אנו ובנינו ובני בנינו משעבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים.

And if God had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, then we, and our children, and our children's children, would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.

- Passover Haggadah

The Haggadah teaches that the profound moral injustices of human society must be confronted in every generation. Our tradition is one that must be practiced and not merely remembered so that we can refine ourselves to the become people and societies strong enough to address them. Conservative Judaism has always held that religious practice must go hand in hand with engagement in the broader society. Matzah is not merely a symbol, the Haggadah not only a collection of stories, the Seder more than a family reunion. By observing the sacred rituals of our tradition we have an opportunity to recognize our responsibility and our agency to fulfill Judaism's mandates to seek justice and protect the vulnerable. May we all be blessed with new insights and a deeper sense of purpose this holiday.

By Jack Moline, Director of Public Policy, RA

Anyone who engages in advocacy on behalf of a religious community has to puzzle over the role of religion in the deliberations of the United States government.

I have been privy to some passionate debates over the meaning of the protections in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Some people, suspicious of the “faith agenda,” contend that the wall of separation between “church and state” is meant to be impenetrable. Others – especially those who feel faith has been marginalized by society – insist that government must protect the devout as vigorously as any minority.

Of course, there is a both-and aspect to this debate. But when we engage in public advocacy, we’d do well to remember a simple piece of wisdom into what keeps Jewish tradition vital. “Everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven” means that the person who does not respect the operating premise of a sacred system will ultimately compromise the system.

It is fair to say that the Constitution protects the integrity of religious traditions that, if authority were reversed, would not protect the integrity of the Constitution and other religious traditions. When religious partisans seek to promote their values and practices at the expense of others’ full engagement, they only reinforce that fact. It is true whether a group seeks to impose public prayer or to limit medical treatment, or whether the group seeks to redefine ritual objects as “cultural expressions” to circumvent Constitutional restrictions.

My friend Rev. Galen Guengrich once observed, “The price of America is that the Constitution trumps Scripture.” His observation should be understood broadly in our civic engagement. While we should seek the welfare of our people and the advancement of our concerns, we should recognize our responsibility to join with everyone who respects the foundational principles of US society. We should always be able to affirm that what we seek for ourselves is both right and responsible.

By Simon Greer, President and CEO, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Seven years ago, when I was beginning my first job at a Jewish organization, a prominent rabbi shared an insight that stuck with me. He said that the network of social service agencies established by the Jewish community was the gold standard in the field, but we lagged far behind others when it came to our institutional commitment to systemic social change.

The vision I have pursued since then is of a Jewish community that excels at both. Without senior centers and soup kitchens and health clinics, we would fail to meet our basic obligations to society’s most vulnerable.

Yet services alone are insufficient.

We must be engaged in pushing public and private institutions to take the steps necessary to eliminate homelessness and hunger, ensure access to quality health care and education, and protect our planet from all forms of unnecessary degradation.

The past twenty years has seen a significant shift. More and more Jewish communal institutions are providing opportunities for Jews to advocate strengthening these and other strands of our social contract. Synagogues have joined congregation-based community organizing networks and begun to act independently, helping to pass health care reform in Massachusetts and marriage equality legislation in New York. Organizations that engage Jews in social justice advocacy have proliferated and grown.

A young woman recently shared with me her own insight. She came of age experiencing a Jewish community where Jewish civic engagement is normative, from service trips with American Jewish World Service to organizing with Progressive Jewish Alliance and Jewish Funds for Justice to environmental education with Hazon.

Our communal commitment remains insufficient to address the root causes of the very problems whose symptoms we treat so successfully. But we are making progress. At a time of profound challenges facing the world, it’s worth remembering how far we have come.

By Elliot Salo Schoenberg, International Director of Placement, RA

How does a rabbi establish rabbinic authority? Two synagogue lay leaders (Robert Jossen, past president of Temple Israel Center, White Plains and Chistine Levin, President, Germantown Jewish Center, Philadelphia) recently shared their thoughts with members of the RA. These thoughtful, sensitive and wise lay leaders made the following suggestions:

1. Be yourself. Authenticity matters. 
2. Be confident. Presentation matters. 
3. Rabbinic authority is earned. The rabbi needs to work to gain the trust of the congregation by being a competent rabbi. Ordination by itself does not confer rabbinic authority in the eyes of lay people.
4. Rabbinic authority is a relationship. The lay leaders frequently used the word “partnership” in describing rabbinic authority. Even when the rabbis are clearly in the defined area of their authority like a halakhic practice, the lay leaders suggested it is always good practice to check in with the lay people. 
5. There is a gray area – there are areas of religious practice and synagogue management which are jointly owned by the clergy and the lay leadership. Rabbis need to understand there are times when they will be called to take the leadership role and times when it is appropriate to take a step back.
6. Do not be apologetic. Exercise your authority with respect, but don’t apologize for it.

Other ideas? What examples of success can you share for your successful rabbinic authority, what works? What does not work? How do gender or other factors play a role?

By Julie Schonfeld

Note: Julie originally gave the remarks below on February 6 at the Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign signing.

The Torah describes a quieter world, a world quiet enough to hear God’s holy intentions for us. The stories we read take place amidst the struggles for survival of an agrarian community, a basic subsistence society. The principles of our Torah, the striving after justice and kindness that we understand to be the foundations of our Tradition emerge from a world in which people’s interdependence was present and immediate. In Parshat Mishpatim we will read:

ושש שנים תזרע את ארצך ואספת את תבואתה: והשביעת תשמטנה ונטשתה ואכלו אביני עמך ויתרם תאכל חית השדה כן תעשה לכרמך לזיתך:

“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave, let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves.” (Exodus 23:10-11)

The notion that all people and things would require a Sabbath was not a theoretical construct, but a reality born of experience. Decent and just treatment of workers, kindness towards animals, and stewardship of the land were necessary disciplines to survival. If we did not treat laborers with care, they would cease to work productively and to be in a positive relationship to the community, if we failed to treat animals with kindness, they would suffer and fail physically, if we neglected our stewardship of the land, it wouldcease to give forth sustenance. The Torah’s sacred precepts were not a quid pro quo, they were the building blocks of a sustainable community.

Today, in our global society, the wisdom of Torah and the necessity of maintaining these sacred practices are only more urgent. It is harder to comprehend effects of unsound agricultural practices when our food, grown and cultivated by people we never see, is flown in from thousands of miles away. The collective carbon footprint of these transactions creates energy insecurity for developed nations that makes all of us, and especially Israel, more vulnerable.

The COEJL energy covenant campaign calls upon all of us within the Jewish community to act responsibly and to remember that we remain one world community, with one sacred agenda for a peaceful and sustainable world. What was true thousands of years ago in the quiet world of the Torah is more true than ever before.

By Jennifer Gorman, Executive Director, Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism

Note: Rabbi Gorman led the first Masorti minyan at the Knesset on Tuesday, January 24. It was covered by Ynet (English, Hebrew), JPost, and JTA, among others. Photos of the minyan are available here.

I am not usually tongue-tied, a fact to which my family and friends can attest. But, my last two days on the Masorti Mission have been so filled with emotion, I can barely articulate it. On Tuesday I led Mincha in an egalitarian minyan at the Knesset. It happened quietly, no fanfare at the time, but the joy and pride in the room was palpable.

I’ve been jotting down notes since, trying to get the experience on paper, but, while I have pages of notes for every other day, my notes on this experience seem to consist of fragments and single words. The emotion is like a balloon inside me that seems to keep inflating. I left the Knesset shaking, tears in my eyes, my cheeks hurting from smiling, but even so, it wasn’t until the following day morning, seeing it in the news, that the significance really hit me. It’s like waking over and over on my birthday to the greatest present ever. With all my oral skills, the word that keeps repeating is, “wow.” Even today, two days later, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion at Shacharit, my heart full, tears spilling from my eyes at unexpected moments- Ivdu et Hashem b’simcha. Ozi v’zimrat Yah vaiy’hi lishuah. I have been struck with the intense feeling that this is what it means to love God b’chol levavcha, b’chol nafshecha, u’v’chol m’odecha. With one small act, as natural to us as breathing, our mission made a change in the world.

I am extremely grateful for the experience I have had on this mission, an experience that will never leave me. I look forward to bringing my children, especially my daughter to that beit knesset to say this is where I made a difference.

The next Masorti mission is December 2-7, 2012. Together we really do make a difference.

An aside: On Tuesday there was another incident of a woman being attacked in Beit Shemesh. While we were making positive history at the Knesset, others were driving wedges deeper into our community, and it truly pains me to think of these two together.

By Ben Goldberg

Imagine that you’re a freshman in college and it’s your first Shabbat on campus. You decide to check out the Jewish community in hope of continuing the vibrant Jewish life you came to love in your Conservative synagogue, youth group and summer camp.

With some new friends from your dorm, you check out the campus Hillel. But the Judaism offered there seems superficial and geared towards people with very little previous experience with Jewish life. You next check out the Chabad House, but with its strict gender roles and abundant alcohol, it seems more like a fraternity than a Jewish organization.

I exaggerate, but students like me who come from strong Conservative backgrounds often experience difficulty finding a Jewish home on campus. Hillel nationally has made great strides in engaging “uninvolved” Jews through innovative, network-based initiatives, but this has often come at the expense of traditional programming for the kind of student who does not need to be convinced to participate in Jewish life. Likewise, recent years have witnessed a proliferation of ultra-Orthodox kiruv organizations on campuses that offer more traditional Jewish experiences, but deny equality to women and shun critical inquiry into Judaism.

KOACH exists to fill this small but crucial void on the college campus. Through its grants, internship program, and especially its upcoming national Kallah, KOACH empowers students to create Conservative Jewish life on their campuses. It offers substantive learning, meaningful prayer and engaging activities that allow students who were raised in the Conservative movement to grow in their Judaism. In particular, the Kallah allows us to meet students from other schools, experience a powerful Shabbat weekend together, and learn from each other about how to improve our communities. In these ways, KOACH has been instrumental in my college experience and is indispensible to the future of Conservative Judaism.

Ben Goldberg, a senior studying History and Jewish Studies, is the president of Northwestern Hillel and a member of the KOACH Student Steering Committee.  

By Jan Caryl Kaufman, Director of Special Projects, RA

I will never forget where I was on December 23, 1972 when I learned of the passing of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. I was a junior in college and had gone to my evening classes at the Baltimore Hebrew College. I was looking at a bulletin board a few minutes before class and our philosophy professor told us that Rabbi Heschel had passed away.

The previous year, my class had studied Jewish philosophy from a B’nai B’rith reader with selections from dozens of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Jewish thinkers. Years before I decided that I wanted to be a Conservative rabbi and paid close attention to the two Conservative rabbis in the book who were alive at the time – Rabbis Heschel and Mordecai Kaplan. I had come to think of myself as a neo-Kaplanian with a little Heschel mixed in. So, what did I mean by that? For me it meant that the Jewish people were at the core of my Jewish identity, but I believed in a supernatural God who created the world. It meant that the lessons of our prophets to do justly and walk in God’s ways were just as crucial to my Jewish observance as were my allegiance to kashrut, Shabbat, daily davening and other ritual mitzvot.

The inspiration from reading Heschel from that B’nai B’rith series led me to read more Heschel. When I graduated from college one of my teachers, Rabbi George Berlin and his wife, Dr. Adele Berlin gave me a copy of A Passion for Truth, about the Kotzker rebbe and Kierkegaard. I received the book on the day of my graduation which was Erev Shavuot. That yontiff I was transported into another world reading this Heschel book. I better understood Rabbi Heschel’s message of religious imperative played out in the modern world against a backdrop of intellectual acuity.

Over the years I had the privilege of meeting Rabbi Heschel’s widow, Sylvia and becoming a friend of his daughter, Prof. Susannah Heschel. I treasure my relationship with Susie and as her father’s yahrzeit approaches, I am indebted to his legacy.

Note: This article was corrected on Jan. 5 2012 to reflect A. J. Heschel's correct year of death. Heschel's 40th yarzheit will be in 5773.