This is an exchange about issues in Conservative Judaism from the Shefa Network . The issues raised are important and I have added my reply to the end. I have changed the names of the writers to protect their privacy. It began with the link to the article in the Boston Globe. You can find it at this link:
 http://www.boston.com/yourtown/brookline/articles/2010/03/28/conservative_judaism_struggling_with_changing_demographics/

This is how it started:
 On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 10:47 PM, Gary G wrote:   Thank you very much for distributing this profoundly important article.
The Conservative movement needs to wake up quickly and recognize that there are some fundamental issues that are effectively shutting young singles and couples out of existing Conservative congregations.
Besides not offering spiritual and educational experiences that create a draw for this demographic, there is the problem of the economic status of many younger Jews making it difficult for them to purchase homes that are within walking distance of most Conservative synagogues, and how, in general, it is an incredibly expensive proposition to establish an actively participating Conservative Jewish household which, in the end, creates a huge and often insurmountable disincentive for young people to get involved at a point in their life when their incomes are limited in comparison to the expenses they face.
I forwarded this article to my 29-year-old daughter who is an accomplished software engineer and manager in a small high-tech firm and her main comment was the incredible frustration that she feels with the fact that in her community, in order to live within walking distance of a Conservative synagogue and own a home in that neighborhood (never mind the costs of sending children to religious school or day school), one needed to be able to afford a home in a market whose bottom end is well above what she could reasonably afford.  So she has chosen to be a home owner over being located close to the Conservative synagogue and lives in a comfortable home in a decent working-class generally non-Jewish neighborhood that is across town from where the Conservative synagogues are located.  But it means making a significant effort to travel across town to the upper class neighborhood where the synagogue is located, and knowing that it will not be possible to honor the Sabbath by not walking to shul because of the fact that she can only afford to live in a neighborhood that is several miles away from the synagogue.  And she is a Jewishly identified young woman who celebrates Shabbat and the holidays and went to a community day school through the junior grades.
And I don’t think that her circumstances are unique.
This is a problem that really needs to be addressed in a creative way by the Conservative movement.
Wishing all a Chag Sameach and hope that your Seders were enjoyable and memorable.
Kol Tuv,
Gary

Then came this response
On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Darcy F. wrote:  

My Reply:
Darcy,

You and Gary bring up some very important points about Conservative Judaism basing your remarks on the article from the Boston Globe. The issue of falling membership in our movement has a great deal to do with changes in where Jews are living. Remember, that Conservative synagogues over 50 years old, were probably founded in “inner city” settings and, as Jews moved out to affordable housing, the synagogues moved with them. Now, as cities gentrify, will we see synagogues migrate back to the city? Perhaps but I think the independent minyan movement shows us that the young Jews moving back into the renovated apartments downtown will find their own spiritual home, creating in the process their own synagogues.

It was the Conservative Movement however, that first declared (rightly or wrongly depending on who you ask) that riding to synagogue on Shabbat does not make a person a “sinner”. This “heter” may be horribly abused in the suburbs but that does not make it inoperable for those who wish to have a Shabbat in places where there is affordable housing but no synagogue. Riding to synagogue (but not other places) is only one aspect of Shabbat observance and the need to ride to synagogue and find a Shabbat Community there, does not make a Jew a “Shabbat desecrater”. We all make allowances in our Shabbat observances when there are other issues pressing on us and we work hard our whole life to increase our Shabbat observance until we are happy in balancing Shabbat and the rest of our life.

When I was in rural Connecticut, there was an old synagogue there, founded in 1909 that had only a few Jewish families left. One year, they decided to put in the local paper that they were sponsoring a “corn party” at the end of the Summer. To their surprise, over 100 local Jews showed up, Jews who had no idea that there was a synagogue nearby. I suspect that even in far flung places there are more Jews than we imagine, only waiting for someone to convene a minyan. That is how almost every synagogue has gotten its start.

It many surprise you but your parents and grandparents, when they were starting their working life, also had to make the difficult decisions between work and Shabbat/Hag. You can find a great essay on it in Hermann Wolk’s book, “This is My God” (first published in 1959) That is the lot of those of us who live in the diaspora. In Israel, Jewish holidays are national holidays. So we ask if we can have off from work/school, and we work on Sundays and late into the night to make up our lost hours. We rely on the good feelings of our supervisors and bosses to understand that if they can accommodate our religious needs, then we will be happy to help with other staffing problems, like working on Christmas or during Christian Holy Week etc.

As for the diversity issue, that is something we need to teach our congregations. Conservative synagogues have only recently decided to get into the “social action” world, and partner with other congregations and other faiths and denominations. You are correct, Darcy, we have not done very well in this area and I do believe, like  you, it is a key ingredient in attracting young members to our failing congregations. Social action, serious Jewish education (another of our failings) and, as the Boston Globe article mentions, multiple services to meet the many different kinds of Jews out there, these three will go a long way to helping you, Gary and others find their way to a meaningful, spiritual Judaism that is sponsored by the Conservative movement.

Nothing in Judaism is handed to us on a silver platter. If you really seek the kind of community you describe, then put it out there with our social network and see which friends are also looking. That is the first step to finding what you want from Judaism. You can build it  yourself, join with a group an existing congregation and work together to get it to evolve toward you needs and goals, or you can compromise your observances for a short time, sighing like Franz Rosenzweig “Not Yet!” (a quote also widely abused) If you really intend to increase your observance over your lifetime, then, like everything else in life, if you really want it, it will eventually become possible, often sooner then one might think. (“If you will it, it will not [for long] be a dream”)

Darcy, you ask all the right questions and you instinctively know the answers. But you will have to do the work needed to make your spiritual dreams come true. And that will make them all the sweeter in the end.

Randy Konigsburg,
Rabbi
Delray Beach, FL

I stayed up late the other night to watch the US House of Representatives’ historic vote to bring health care to all citizens. I kept thinking, as the votes were counted, that it is about time that the United States joined the rest of the civilized world in providing affordable health care to all. It was quite a political/historical moment. Usually I don’t like to comment on political issues. There are many people who are paid lots of money to speak intelligently on political issues. I am a pulpit Rabbi and my main concern is the well being of the members of my congregation. So my political opinions are all my own and subject to change when I have the chance to do some more research on the facts.

But Health Care is not just a political issue, it is also a moral issue. Judaism has had a long standing concern for the most vulnerable in society. The poor and oppressed have, since the time of the Torah, been singled out as needed to be defended by those in power in society. The list from the Torah is long. We are forbidden to oppress the orphan and widow. We have to let a slave go free if we injure his body. When we free a slave, we have to make sure that he has what he needs to start life over. We need to set aside the corners of our fields to be reaped by the poor. If we drop something while we are harvesting, it is left for the poor to glean. Land can’t be sold forever; it must return to its original owners at the beginning of the Jubilee year. Indentured servants are freed every seven years. There is a tithe that is set aside for the Levites and for the poor. We are commanded to lend without interest, cancel those debts in the sabbatical year and not refrain from lending when the sabbatical year is pending. This is not an exhaustive list but it is still impressive.

The Talmud even tries to legislate exactly how much we should invest in charity depending on if we want to be stingy, moderate or generous. One should not give too much or too little. It was forbidden to live in a city that did not have a community fund for the poor, a soup kitchen and a doctor among other necessities. All of this points to a social need to care for those who were at the bottom of society. To bury the indigent, to provide for poor brides, to care for the elderly, all of these were an essential part of communal responsibilities.

What we have here is Judaism trying to adjust capitalism to be fair to all those in society. It is one thing when society encourages and promotes those who work hard and earn a living. If one works hard enough and is smart, one could also become quite wealthy. Acquiring wealth is the main goal of a capitalistic economy. Judaism is not comfortable with the reality however, that while some people will rise to the top, there will also be those who sink to the bottom. Therefore, Judaism teaches that we have responsibilities to those who have not succeeded. Rambam declares that there are eight different levels of support for those who are in need. Some levels speak to the motivations of the giver. Some protect the dignity of the poor. The highest level is to help a person get back to work so that they can, eventually, support themselves and their families and no longer be in need of support.

Health Care is a part of this system. Since it is well known that health issues can bring an individual and a family to poverty, we have an interest in preventing this kind of poverty. Since the poor get sick and don’t have the means to visit a doctor, there is a potential that serious disease could be spread throughout the community. We are not permitted to do something that could endanger life, and health care is one way we prevent loss of life. Remember also, it is forbidden to live in a town that does not have a doctor. It is not a stretch to say that if the health care is not affordable, then what use is the doctor to the poor in the town?

There is a story of the “good citizens of Chelm” who had a dangerous road leading to the city and people would fall off the cliff and get hurt. After deliberations the citizens of Chelm decided to build a hospital at the base of the cliff. While building a hospital in that location could certainly save lives, how many more lives could be saved by investing in a proper “guard rail” at the edge of the road? When I heard so many representatives, opposed to health care crying out that government was interfering in people’s lives, I thought of that guard rail. It was as if they were saying: “Why should we interfere with people who are not careful on the road? What right do we have to declare that one stretch of road is dangerous and another is not?” Yet, Judaism insists that we have a moral responsibility to look out for each other, by building guardrails, promoting preventative medicine and by providing, for everyone, affordable health care. What good is Medicaid if it does not prevent families from having to lose virtually all their savings and resources before they can access health care? Real health care is care that applies to all members of society according to their ability to pay.

The free market philosophy is that, over time, the best services at the best prices will become available to everyone in society. The problem is that this philosophy can only work if all the service providers are committed to offering the best service at the best price. To prevent collusion between providers and to prevent agreements that subvert the free market to the benefit of the service providers, government needs to step in and foil those who would attempt to profit from the system in a corrupt way by creating an unfair advantage. We have seen how insurance companies all too often, move to protect their own interests rather than the health needs of the community. We hear stories of the abuses; the cancelled policies, the refused coverage, the exorbitant renewal premiums that make sure that those who are well, can get affordable coverage, but if one should have a condition that makes it impossible to get a new policy, the rates are adjusted to be so high that the policy becomes unaffordable and the sick must go without coverage. Regulation of insurance companies will guarantee that the best coverage will be offered at the best price and consumers will not be afraid to access their coverage due to fear of sudden cancellation.

I am sure that there will be many unscrupulous people who will try and defraud this new system as they have done with Medicare and Medicaid. I am sure that there will be provisions that will need to be adjusted, added or repealed. We are imperfect human beings and our ability to evade the law is great if we have the desire to do so. I have no doubt that we will be making changes in this Health Program for many years to come.

I can’t speak about if the Health Plan approved the other night will pay for itself. If it will or will not reduce the federal deficit. Whether or not it is good for the states that must provide the pooled coverage. Whether or not it will promote or kill jobs, or whether or not it will harm the economy. I will leave those questions to those who study this bill. I only know that we have a moral responsibility to see to it that every member of society has appropriate access to health care, so we all are able to live not only productive lives, but healthy lives as well.

Parshat Ki Tissa
2010

Shabbat Shalom

This Shabbat we have read about the lowest moment in the history of our people in the wilderness. The people, anxious that Moses has been on the mountaintop so long, begin to fear that he has died and there is no one to lead them to the Promised Land. They have no leader and without Moses, who will bring to them the world of God? Our people were frightened and feeling alone.

So they start to demand a God that they can see. After all, Moses was their only link to the invisible God and now Moses is gone. Every other nation had a god or multiple gods that could be seen and worshipped directly. Can we really blame them for wanting a golden calf? Some scholars claim that the calf was really not a god at all; the calf was merely the pedestal upon which God would stand. God was invisible, riding on the back of the calf but the calf gave the Israelites a place to direct their prayers.

Others blame God for the golden calf. After all, God has left Israel in Egypt for hundreds of years. All their experience with religion had been in Egypt where there was a god for everything and the gods were larger than life. Some Sages claim it is like a parent that sets his son up in the hair styling business and puts the shop in a part of town where all the vain and shallow people congregate. Then the parent is shocked that his son has become vain and shallow. “Don’t blame your son,” the friends of the father say, “after all, you set him up in a bad part of town.” So too, it is God’s fault that Israel strayed, after all, God sent them to live among the Egyptians! Do you ever notice how when children get in trouble, they always find a way to blame the parent!

The details of the story focus on the sin of the people for demanding a god they could see. I look at these passages and understand that the people have a serious concern and there are no really good answers to their problems. Moses seems to have vanished. The people are lost and afraid. A god they can see would be their “security blanket”, to help them feel the closeness of God. The golden calf was an object they could point to, admire and direct their anxiety toward. I guess there is a bit of Aaron, Moses’ brother in me. I can’t help feeling sorry for the people. After all, could we honestly say that if we were in the same circumstances, we would have done better?

It is true that we don’t fashion gods out of gold anymore. But we do put our trust in lots of things that clearly are not God. We put our trust in our possessions, that they will protect us from hard times. We trust that our investments will be there to pay for our retirement and then are horrified to find out that when the economy takes a dive, that our investments are unreliable. And apparently we could not trust those who were supposed to prevent the misuse of our retirement funds, they too were fallible and could not prevent either Bernie Madoff or the financial crisis. Do we rely on our Doctors and Lawyers and Politicians to save us from tragedy? Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. People used to rely on Insurance to protect them from tragedy, but today we know that sometimes it is very hard to get an insurance company to pay what they owe us.

We also all have our superstitions that we rely upon to protect us. The lucky charm that we take with us when we leave our homes. The mezuzah that we think will protect us at home and the Jewish jewelry that somehow brings us under God’s protecting wings. Dare we ask ourselves what we are really expecting to happen when we stand up and add our friends’ and loved ones’ names to the Mishebayrach for the sick? Is kissing the Torah s sign of respect or do we expect good luck? What about if we kiss the Rabbi? (No, that would be a bad idea. Way too many germs out there.) We may know that there is a God that we cannot see, but we rely all too often on things we can see to save us from the dark forces that surround us.

So then, what SHOULD we do to face the future with confidence and certainty? If Judaism, if God, knows that we are insecure human beings, what does our religion and our faith have to teach us about where we should look if we seek to find God?

The first place we should look if we seek the image of God is in the face of the people around us. Not just those who sit around us in synagogue, but those among whom we live, work, eat and play. Each human being is unique from each other, but all of us are created in the image of God. It is not in our differences that God can be found, rather, God is found in the core parts of each and every one of us, deep inside where we are all the same. I am not talking about raising up one person to the level of God; I am talking about finding that spark of the divine that exists in every person, old and young, male and female, religious and secular, Democrat or Republican, black, white, red or yellow, rich or poor.

I think Moses, when all was said and done, understood the fear and anxiety in the people. When he returns to the mountain, he too is unsure and insecure. Did he do the right thing in punishing the people? How could he blame them for their sin if they really did not understand the full meaning of a God that sees but cannot be seen? He needs God to forgive the people but this is the God who destroyed the world with a flood, and overthrew the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. What would prevent God from destroying the Israelites for this grave and serious breach of the new Jewish law? Moses does not know what to say to God about the people and he is unsure himself about the nature of this God, who saved Israel from Egyptian slavery, but demands complete and perfect loyalty. Moses returns to the mountain and returns to God with one request, to see the “presence of God”. What Moses actually sees is the subject of Jewish mystical literature. I am only concerned with what Moses hears.

He hears that famous passage :
וַיַּעֲבֹר ‘ה עַל-פָּנָיו וַיִּקְרָא ‘ה ‘ה אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב-חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת. נֹצֵר חֶסֶד לָאֲלָפִים נֹשֵׂא עָו‍ֹן וָפֶשַׁע וְחַטָּאָה וְנַקֵּה

“The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord! The Lord! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin:”

When Moses hears this he understands that God has forgiven the people, because the essence of God is forgiveness. If we are to understand that human beings are created in the image of God, then we must also understand that these qualities of God are the qualities that we too must cultivate if we are to discover the nature of God’s essence.

When we are gracious and full of compassion, we can see the point of view of others easily and can work to ease their discomfort and to calm their souls. When we do, we can “see” the image of God at work. When we are slow to anger and when we fill our hearts with abundant kindness, we are bringing the presence of God into the world. When kindness leads us to forgiveness of even the most dark sins, we can easily experience the divine in ourselves and in others. When we bring these qualities of God down to earth, we are creating the foundation so that together we can move forward. Life is no longer stuck in the present or in the past. When we bring God into the world, we also make possible the future.

A Hasidic Rabbi once offered this prayer to his students, “if you can treat every person next to you as if he were the messiah, waiting for just one more act of kindness so that his presence can be revealed and the world redeemed, if you can treat that person to every act of kindness, then even if that person is NOT the messiah, it will not matter.”

We bring God into the world when we reach out our hands to those who are in need, both Jews and non-Jew, no matter if they are in Delray Beach, the United States, Chile, Taiwan or Haiti. When we hear of earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis or fire and we open our hearts, our hands, our homes and our wallets to those who are alone, afraid and suffering, we are bringing God into the world, and making the presence of God into a reality. When we visit someone who is sick, comfort someone who is bereaved, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, stand up for the oppressed and clothe the naked, we have created the image in which we can focus our prayers and our eyes.

The golden calf should never be worshipped; we should instead worship the golden heart. We should not berate others for not being pious enough, rather we should aspire to live the kind of life that we would like to see in others, and then shower all those around us with the kindness and concern that will make others sure that if they too seek God’s presence, they only need to emulate your actions and open their hearts to others. We need to be less judgmental, and more forgiving. We need to be less impatient and slower to anger. We need to be less strict with the law and more merciful in our dealings with others. And above all we must be kind.

When we feel alone in the wilderness, when we feel anxious about life and insecure about what the future holds for us, when we find ourselves looking for a Moses to lead us out of the wilderness and into the promised land, we need look no further than our own hands and our own hearts to unlock the secret of God’s presence in our lives and in the world. God is not on the mountain top where we must climb to find God. And God is not across the sea that we must sail far and wide to find God. And God is not deep within the earth requiring our strength and stamina to find God. God is in every meaningful relationship. God is found whenever we open our hearts and God is close at hand whenever we turn to our neighbor in compassion and kindness.

May we all find God today and every day, in our actions and in our hearts as we say…

AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

Parshat Tetzaveh
2010

Shabbat Shalom

There is a lot happening this week with our Torah reading. This is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat we pause to remember Amalek and those, throughout history who have hated Jews for no apparent reason. It was enough that we were vulnerable and different, that made attacks on the weakest and infirm possible. On this Shabbat we remember that the only real recourse we have against those who have this causeless hatred of our people, is to be on our guard and always be prepared to do battle against them, as Joshua does in our Maftir and Saul does in the Haftara.

This is also the Shabbat before Purim. As Shabbat ends tonight, we will gather not only to read the Megillah but to also dress in costume and let ourselves engage in all manner of silliness. All too soon it will be Pesach and we will have some serious religious work to do, but for now, we can dress up and act out all in the name of good religious fun.

But, in the plain vanilla world of the Parsha, we had a Torah reading that would be greatly appreciated by those observing Fashion Week in the Garment District in New York City. Last week the top models in the country walked in shows sponsored by the greatest fashion houses in this country and around the world. Buyers from all over came to see what was in style for the coming year and begin to make the purchases that will show up in showrooms and department stores this coming fall. In the Torah, we see God as fashion designer, setting out the patterns for the clothing for the High Priest and for all the others who would officiate in the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that is being constructed.

Why all the fuss about clothing? Because clothing does make a difference. If you suddenly come across some rather large teens in a dark alley, you may feel afraid until you realize they are dressed in the uniform of Boy Scouts. If you are feeling ill, a nurse in uniform can go a long way in helping you begin to feel better. I was in the airport in Atlanta with thousands of people walking in every direction. Suddenly, a group of soldiers entered the main hall and everyone stopped what they were doing to applaud the soldiers, thanking them for putting their lives on the line and defending our country. Clothing can and does make a big difference in how we look at others and how they look at us.

And it applies right down to Temple Emeth here in Delray Beach. It applies to the way we dress for prayer in synagogue. It always fascinates me that many Jews make such a big deal over head coverings when, according to Jewish law, there is no Halacha, no law at all that commands men to have their heads covered. In fact, Jewish law only requires women who are married to have their heads covered out of modesty. Somewhere in the thirteenth century Jews started to wear special hats that eventually evolved into Kipot. We don’t know when or where the custom started. Some scholars suspect that kipot evolved out of the special “Jews Hats” that some medieval communities forced their Jews to wear. Whatever the start of kipot may have been, it has become almost a standard of Jewish practice today and no man should pray without a kipah on his head.

The only real Jewish garment for prayer is the Tallit. A Tallit is any rectangular piece of cloth with special fringes at each of the four corners. The fringes consist of 8 strings and 5 knots and are called Tzitzit. The gematria of the term “tzitzit” equals 600 and if you add the strings and knots you get 613, the number of Mitzvot. We wear the Tallit so we can look at the tzitzit and remember to do all the mitzvot. Seeing the tzitzit is so important that we do not require a Tallit at night, since we cannot see the fringes in the dark!

Some of you know that I am a big supporter of women also wearing a Tallit. There is no Jewish requirement for women to wear a Tallit. It is one of the positive mitzvot that must be done at a particular time, so women are exempt from this mitzvah; exempt, but not forbidden to wear it. The exemption stems from a time when women’s time was not their own. They had responsibilities to the home, the family and to their chores that came before other time bound mitzvot. In Jewish history, there are not many women who chose to wear a Tallit, but there were some who did so, and nobody told them they could not wear it.

Since the middle of the 19th century, when modern denominations of Judaism began, there was a strong backlash against any changes in Jewish Law. Somehow it became fixed that women should not wear a Tallit. In studying the history of this, it has always seemed to me that it was a way to keep women away from serious involvement in ritual matters. They were not allowed to wear a Tallit and without a Tallit they could not lead or participate in services. So, for over 100 years women were kept away from serious religious practice.

If you ask an orthodox Jew about this kind of segregation of the sexes, he might say (I am less sure of what orthodox women might say) that women have their own special role to play in Judaism. Women’s spirituality is based in the home and men’s spirituality is based in the synagogue. They are two equal but separate kinds of faith. I feel that in a modern world where men should be doing more to help raise a family and do the housework, then women should also be free to express their spiritual feelings in synagogue, on an equal footing with the men. And that means women should be free to wear a Tallit.

What complicates this matter is that women are exempt from the mitzvah of Tallit. It would be unfair to suddenly “require” women to wear a Tallit in shul. A requirement such as that would instantly create a whole new category of sinners in Judaism. It is not going to happen. There is no reason a woman should be required to wear a Tallit to come on the bima for an aliyah or to lead the service. If a woman should choose to wear a Tallit, then that is a decision that needs to be made with much thought and consideration.

Tallit is not a ritual that can be taken lightly. If a woman should want to wear a Tallit she should commit to it for a serious length of time. It is not something one wears for a special occasion but then opts out the following week. It takes time to get used to wearing a Tallit, and to feel the difference in prayer as one gets over the sense that “everyone is looking at me as if I am strange for doing this”. In many cases, women have chosen not to wear the same kind of a Tallit that a man would wear. To be a proper spiritual garment, it should, like a man’s Tallit, reflect our feelings of individuality in prayer. Men may personalize the kind of Tallit they wear, the color of the Tallit and the kind of Atarah, the neckband that can personalize their Tallit. Women today have their own types of Tallitot, made of more feminine material, in softer colors and reflecting better their spiritual needs. I have seen women make their own Tallitot, sewing the hems and tying their own fringes as a way of connecting with the meaning behind the ritual. I have seen grandmothers work on a Tallit with their granddaughters, incorporating the colors and style of each one into the new Tallit. I have seen women ask close friends and mentors to help tie one of the tzitzit to give that corner added significance. Under the atarah of the Tallit my sister wears, is a bowtie that our father used to wear. When she wears her Tallit, she is reminded not just of the mitzvot, but of our father, who taught all of us the meaning of the mitzvot.

If you are sitting near a woman who is wearing a Tallit today, ask her about the Tallit. There is often a story behind how it was made and why she chooses to wear it. I ask those women who are regulars here at Shabbat services to think about the spiritual influences in your life, and if there is a way to translate that learning into a Tallit that you might be proud to wear. Ask in the Sisterhood Gift Shop if they can find some examples of women’s Tallitot that you can see to get an idea about what a Tallit in your life might mean to you. What would the men in your life say if you wanted to wear a Tallit? What would your daughter say? What would your granddaughters say? Contemplate what a Tallit would mean in your life and think about what your mother might say, if you were to tell her? Many of the women in the last generation before us would have loved to contemplate what we are considering but it was just too far beyond their reach. We live in different times and I suspect they would be proud of how their daughters have chosen to express themselves Jewishly.

And as for the men, who ARE required to wear a Tallit in shul, there is no reason you have to settle for the plain small Tallitot that we keep in our lobby. Even a man’s Tallit can be an expression of his spiritual feelings and his own personal spiritual journey. Ask your children and grandchildren to think about what kind of a Tallit might reflect their appreciation for the spiritual guidance you have given them over the years.

The Tallit is a very powerful and meaningful ritual in Judaism, as much today as it was in past generations. The only difference is that we can extend it to the women who now pray and study by our side. I ask our women here today, don’t say, “Why should I wear a Tallit?” consider instead, “What could a Tallit mean to me?” Start that discussion, with your family, your friends and your Rabbi. It could be the beginning of an important spiritual journey and a closer relationship with God.

What we wear does matter. Think about it and follow your heart toward God. May our awareness of the Mitzvot lead us to God, and may we place before us a reminder of where our faith is taking us as we say…

AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

Parshat Terumah

2010

Right from the beginning of this week’s Parsha, God announces that the people should build a sanctuary to God so that God can dwell among the people. It is a very radical request from God and the theological and practical results of this request can affect almost every aspect of our lives. It seems so easy, build a temple to God. But, as my bible students will tell you, there is nothing easy or simple in the Torah. There are many different translations, commentaries and ways of understanding a text. We can easily miss something important if we read past a simple verse too quickly.

In our Parsha, the Torah goes on to list all the physical items needed to build a portable sanctuary. There are boards and screens, wall hangings and tent covers. Indoor and outdoor furniture. It would lead us to think that from the beginning, this Parsha is about building a building for God. If we look at the first verse of Parshat Terumah, however, we see that the reason for the building is not for God at all. It is so that God can be among the people. It is less about a dwelling place for God and more about a meeting place between God and human beings.

What do you think about sharing public space with God? Just how does one spend quality time with the Creator of the Universe? Ancient people thought that to be in the presence of God, one should use that time to share with God a meal. That is the reason why animals were sacrificed in ancient days, A sacrifice was just the way we could eat a nice meal together with God. But think about that image, God and human beings sharing a meal. Eating with God raises in our minds all kinds of strange questions. What does one say when one is sharing a meal with God? Does God pay attention if we use the wrong fork? Does God forgive us if we have a stray piece of spinach caught in our teeth? Should we share the usual small talk that is customary at our family table or should we think of the meal as if it was a formal state dinner? Should we only speak when our “host” speaks to us and even then, we deal only with “lofty” ideas? After dinner does one share a good cigar with God? A sniffer of brandy?

Can you see where this is going? Perhaps what we need to do is to consider that maybe the Torah is not talking about a real house at all. Maybe Torah wants us to consider what it would take to spend some quality time contemplating God. Our surroundings are not as important as what we feel and how we respond to being in the presence of God. For example, think about the furniture in the Mishkan; a box that contains the tablets of the law, and some historical artifacts from the time our people spent in the desert. There is a candelabra, a table with bread on it; an alter for sweet smelling incense. These are not things that God needs. God does not need historical reminders, oil lamps, bread and incense. We need them to give us some sensory appreciation since God is beyond all of our senses.

According to the Torah, where can we find a visual representation of God? To see the face of God we will have to look into the faces of the people around us. We are created in the image of God and if we seek to find God, we need to look to others and look deep inside ourselves. What does it mean when the Torah tells us that God wants to dwell among us? First of all, it means that the relationships we have with other people are where a true understanding of God can be found.

When we are kind to each other, when we reach out to help each other. When we take the time to think about how someone else feels before we act, we are creating a space where God would like to dwell. When we act, even against our own self interest, if we are doing it for the right reasons, then God will want to dwell among us. Think about Yom Kippur, the holiest day on our calendar. Getting God to forgive us is actually quite easy but it is easy only after we have reached out to receive forgiveness from each other. It is easy to be at peace with God, we only need to first be a peace with our neighbors.

What applies to the Temple of Jerusalem can also apply here in our synagogue. We know what we need to do to be in God’s presence right here in Delray Beach. Our surroundings are beautiful. This synagogue has created a quiet space that helps us promotes our contemplation of God. But the surroundings of Temple Emeth are not for God. The comfortable chairs, the artwork, the siddurim and humashim, these are all here for us to use. They do not represent or call down God to our community. It is our actions, the Mitzvot that we perform, the acts of kindness we show each other that make this a place where God would love to join us.

I often look at this saying in front of the ark. Da Lifney mi atah omed. “Know before whom you stand.” It is a rather profound statement, deeply spiritual if we take the time to consider it. “Know before whom you stand.” Think about what it is asking us to do. What does it mean to know? Can we know anything about God. What does it mean “Before?” Is God in front of us, behind us, beside us or all around us? “Whom.” Just what kind of a “who” is God anyway? Clearly God has no body, but is God just a conscious idea? Is God consciousness itself? Can we locate ourselves before God if we are not sure even who or what God is? I am standing, but who am I in relationship to God? God is eternal and I am finite. God is everywhere and I am here. God is good and I struggle to do good. Who am I and why do I deserve to stand before God? What if it doesn’t really mean that I have to stand but it means I should consider that God dwells with me all the time and I have to live my life contemplating just that thought. This saying over the ark seems to be telling us that we should treat every minute as if we are being watched and judged by God.

That idea is a very frightening thought. Could we even exist if we were being judged by God all the time? How could we ever live up to the standards that God has for us? We know in our hearts that sometimes we do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we don’t do what is right because we are tired, frustrated or angry. If we were always in God’s presence and if God were always judging us we would soon become paranoid or depressed. We could never live up to that standard, no matter how hard we may try. This is why it is so important never to forget that God loves us. We are standing in the presence of a loving God. A God who cares about what we do, about what we think and a God who wants us to live better lives.

God is our Creator, so God must be more like a parent than a judge. God knows our frailties and our faults, and God loves us anyway. Sometimes we do things in life because we know that our mother or father would have wanted us to act that way. It is the example of the loving relationship with our parents, a relationship that never dies, that can describe what our relationship with God must be like. God helps us live better lives and God loves us when we fall short, so we will have the strength and courage to try again.

I will get political here for just a minute, what do you think would be different if our political leadership contemplated their relationship with God in their deliberations and choose not to contemplate what the next election might bring? Such a political life would be filled with a representative trying to do what is the right thing for the people he or she represents and should that effort meet with failure, then our leaders would have to get back up and keep trying. Politicians who contemplate their relationship with God would be planning for the future and not deferring to the future what may not be politically expedient today.

When we build better relationships with our spouse, our children, our grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors; when we extend our hands and our hearts to others; When we feel the pain of those around us and let that pain move us to ease their pain; in all of this we are building a Mishkan, a sanctuary to God. A place where it is possible for God to dwell among us. When we are angry with each other, careless and inconsiderate, we do not create that holy space, and God is far away. With just a change in attitude, however, we can span the chasm and find ourselves once again in God’s presence.

It is fine to build beautiful buildings. It is better to build bautiful relationships. It is important to do the right thing. It is even better to have the right attitude. It is wonderful to be at peace with the world, it is even better to know that when we are at peace, we are in the presence of the Divine.

The Temple of Jerusalem is gone. We no longer have any of the furniture, wall hangings or sacred instruments. But we still know that God dwells among us. God is right here when we love our neighbor as our self. That is the sanctuary, that is the holy space, where God delights to dwell.

May we find our way to kindness and compassion and may they always lead us into the presence of God as we say…

AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

Parshat Mishpatim – Torah Study

Text:
א וְאֵלֶּה הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים אֲשֶׁר תָּשִׂים לִפְנֵיהֶם.
And these are the rules you shall set before them.

Commentary:
A. Knowledge of the law is to be the privilege and the obligation of the entire people, not the prerogative of specialists or of an elite class. [Etz Hayyim Torah commentary, p. 456 on our verse]

B. Rabbi taught: Be as attentive to a minor mitzvah as to a major one, for you do not know the reward for each of the mitzvot. [Talmud, Mishna Avot 2:1]

C. Our tradition has always understood that “mitzvah” embraces a range of meanings broader than “commandment” alone. This is certainly true of popular Jewish usage of the word mitzvah. In common usage the word is generally understood as “good deed.” JTS renders our key term as “instructions” that were “enjoined upon” the Israelites and not only as “commandments” that they were “commanded.” The range of meanings demanded by our tradition’s use of the word over the centuries and to the present day is broader still. Those meanings include, but are not limited to, actions that we feel obligated to perform, that engage us, that we are responsible for, that we undertake out of love.
We must know what we as Jews are committed to do and why we do it before we tackle the more complex and difficult issues of halakhah. Conservative Jews have long debated, and still do, in what sense we are a “halakhic movement.” Heschel—who liked to speak about the “polarity of halakhah and aggadah”—taught fifty years ago that we cannot begin to think about the matter of halakhah unless we have first gotten clear on mitzvah. Our intention is that this discussion of mitzvah will lead naturally to that one. [JTS Mitzvah Initiative, from the JTSA.edu website]
D. A loving parent does not show genuine love by telling a child, “Do whatever you want.” That would not indicate love, but lack of concern and responsibility. The truly loving parent says, “I care very much about you and although I cannot live your life for you, I want you to have the benefit of my experience.”Judaism is a religion of love because it does not leave people to find the way unaided. [Harold Kushner in “Likrat Shabbat”siddur by Sydney Greenberg]
Questions:
1. What does the word “Mitzvah” mean to you? Is it a command that you “must” do? If not, how do you approach the mitzvot in the Torah? Are they “good deeds”? “laws”? “suggestions”? Are mitzvot the most important part of Judaism? What might be more important?

2. If someone on the street told you that your shirt was ugly would you pay attention to him/her? If your spouse told you it was ugly, what would your reaction be? If a stranger told you not to steal, would you pay attention? If he assured you of a severe punishment would you then pay attention? If your parent told you not to steal would you pay attention? If God tells you not to steal would you pay attention? What role does the punishment play in observing mitzvot?

3. Why do we think that there are some mitzvot more important than others? How do we relate to the mitzvah of honoring parents that is different from shatnez (prohibited clothing made of mixtures of wool and flax)? Honoring parents comes with a reward (long life); does that make a difference? Why or why not?

I recently came across an essay by Rabbi David Hartman, from a few years ago, from a speech he gave in Los Angeles, CA. In speaking about the covenant that God made with the People of Israel, Rabbi Hartman gave three examples of how God views the covenant as one of love and not of authoritarianism. The first example he gave is from the dialogue between God and Abraham just before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is a telling moment that begins with God asking the question (to whom?) if God should share the divine plan for the cities with his servant Abraham. The fact that God even bothers to share the information with a “servant” is telling, but the story goes on. Abraham insists that God not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Abraham is not quoting a Biblical verse, or a halacha from some other source. There is this innate understanding in Abraham, it is his own “moral intuition” that brings him to question God’s actions. Then the bargaining begins. Why doesn’t God tell Abraham to stop his prayers since there are not even ten righteous people in the city? God must love the confrontation with his “partner” who feels morally strong enough to critique God.

The second example is from the Talmud. Rabbi Hartman notes that when God tries to intervene in the deliberations over the oven of Akhnai, Rabbi Joshua rebukes God saying, “Lo bashamayim hi!” “It is not in Heaven”. Halacha is a human invention based on what we know of what God has given us. God decided what would be in the Torah, now we get to decide what will be Halacha. In the Academy we get to tell God to be quiet and not interrupt our deliberations. Outside the Academy, what right do we have to criticize how God runs the world? We silence God in the house of study, God silences us when we confront the incomprehensible in our world.

Rabbi Hartman’s third example is the crossing of the Red Sea. This miracle is the paradigm of all miracles of God acting in history. Since the destruction of the Second Temple, we have been waiting for the next miracle, the arrival of the Messiah. That is why there were so many who opposed Zionism for trying to force God to redeem our exile and bring us back to our land. They thought that Zionism was a rejection of tradition. Instead, Zionism was an act of covenantal empowerment. We chose to learn agriculture, banking, and self defense and bring about our own redemption. We take responsibility for our own history. It was our own initiative that ended Jewish homelessness.

According to Rabbi Hartman, we should not be asking God to solve our problems, we should seek instead that God should be with us. He writes, “Therefore, for me, the spiritual moment in contemporary Jewish history is a covenant of love. Here, reward and punishment cannot work anymore in the modern world, because we have other forms of gratification and other ways of creating obedience to the law. God is now sought not because of a function but because God is God.”

In the struggle to understand what a “Conservative Jew” really is, much of our movement has gone off in a wrong direction. We have struggled with the concept of Halacha and observance, when to me; the real issue is if we have something to offer modern Jews. I can worry about those who are tied to the law and will not vary an inch, and those who are so unattached to Judaism that they don’t care anymore what God or humans have to say. This is what I worry about because I am a pulpit Rabbi and these two poles describe many in my congregation. But when I think about who I am, and what I am looking for in the world, Conservative Judaism teaches that in this covenant of love between God and humanity, we have to be responsible for this world and for what goes on here. God wants and expects us to struggle, argue, and ponder all the messiness of life and then do what we can do with what God has given us, to make this world better: To continue the process of Creation by striving to bring order out of chaos.

The God that many people seek is the God who tells Adam and Eve how to live their life and then punishes them with exile when they disobey. It is the God who destroys the world with a flood, saving Noah, so that humans will be better to each other. It is the God who confounds the languages of the people of Babel, when they decide to build a tower to heaven so they can wage war with God. I think they are looking for the wrong God. The Torah itself seems to teach us that God understands that this kind of a power arrangement does not work. Punishment does not make people obey. Destruction does not induce humanity to be kind to each other. (How else can you interpret Gen. 8:21?) God can confound the languages of the earth but people still seek to “wage war” against God.

So God chooses a different path. Out of the blue, God picks Abraham to begin a covenant that will guide just one nation (There are seventy nations in the Torah, Abraham is promised to be nation seventy-one). A covenant based not on punishment or anger, but on love. God gives us the tools we need and then nudges us from time to time with big ideas that help us move our society along. God does not want us to be perfect. God only wants us to keep trying to make ourselves and our world better. From time to time we silence God for interfering with our struggle (“Mother please, I’d rather do it myself!”) and sometimes God tells us to be silent if we complain that God is not helping us enough. (“You made your bed, now go lie in it.”) We wait for God’s miraculous redemption at our own peril. WE are the redemptive force in the world and through our actions we will tame the chaos and bring order to our messy world. Sometimes the Halacha will not fit into the system we created as well as we would like. But if our innate sense of Justice is anything like our ancestor Abraham’s, Halacha or not, we will keep trying to do the right thing. Maybe we will discover that in spite of our best hopes, things are not as good as we think they should be but we will learn from our mistakes and pick ourselves up and get back to work.

And God will love us anyway,

Forever.

Sermon Parshat Beshallach

2010–01–26

Shabbat Shalom

The story in this week’s parsha is not only about the epic battle between Pharaoh and Moses, but it is also about Moses leading the people of Israel. Ancient Israelites are not all that different from Jewish communities today. New things made them uncomfortable and they keep looking back, with nostalgia, about how good life was in Egypt.

But let us take a closer look at the story of the crossing of the sea . We all know the script: Pharaoh regrets letting the slaves go. He sends out the Egyptian army in pursuit. The army catches up with Israel and we find them trapped between the approaching army and the sea. The People of Israel are terrified. There is danger in every direction. Moses, Aaron and leadership of the tribes are not sure what they are supposed to do. One brave man, Nachshon ben Aminadav, leader of the tribe of Judah, and the brother in law of Aaron, moves forward and he enters the sea. The people then behold the greatest miracle of them all; the sea parts offering an escape for the Israelites.

But the people are still scared. Do you remember the movie, “The Ten Commandments?” As the waters part in the movie the people are filled with awe, but their faces also show they are very sacred. They start across hesitantly, looking over their shoulders at the advancing Egyptian army. With fear and trembling, they leave Egypt for the other side of the sea. But when they emerge on the other side, there is great relief; there is joy; music, singing and dancing. For that day, there was happiness in being saved and seeing the dreaded army of Egypt suddenly destroyed.

That is not only a story from our past; it is a paradigm for the future. The way into the future often starts with terror about unknowns, with danger in every direction. We are very happy to keep the things in our life the same and we only get up and go when there is no other choice. We get comfortable until we become too scared to stay in one place any longer.

This is true of ancient Israel, it is true right here in the United States of America in this age of Change, and it is true of Temple Emeth. There are challenges facing our congregation, issues that threaten not only our financial health, but the very existence of our community. It has been reported in our local newspapers, not just our congregation, but all senior congregations are in serious trouble. Membership is falling, synagogue membership is aging and younger members live elsewhere and, if they attend synagogue at all, they attend elsewhere. The research today shows that Jews want to live in communities with a mix of young and older families and they want their synagogues to have that same mix of members.

We are comfortable where we are, but we easily see that Egypt is attacking. We cannot survive as a community, as a congregation if we stand still. Look at some of the sister congregations around us. Deerfield Beach has merged with Habad to save itself. Coconut Creek and Margate are shrinking very quickly. There are no new or younger leaders willing to take on the issues. The established leadership has no one to whom to pass the leadership mantle.

We could just give up; we could just let it all fade away as the population of King’s Point slowly becomes less and less Jewish. Our membership continues to slowly decline, and the economy is not helping us either. More and more Jews are asking themselves if membership in a synagogue is worth the expense. Should we just close our doors? Just what do we have to offer new members that they can not get elsewhere, in their community clubhouse, in the local strip malls or on the street?

I was not brought to Delray Beach to oversee the end of Temple Emeth. We have some unique strengths that can help us not only weather this crisis but emerge, in just a few years, stronger and better. We don’t need to change what we are doing, we only need to expand the opportunities in our congregation to welcome those who still long for a Jewish spiritual experience.

Conservative Jews in Delray will need to work together to create a strong community. I am sure you have heard many rumors about merger talks between our congregation and Anshei Shalom. There are plenty of differences between our congregations, big differences, but the reality is that we need each other. Talks between our congregations may be long and difficult at times, but I am hopeful that we can find a way to work together to create a stronger community.

Over the past years, we have fallen behind other Conservative congregations. Everyone who visits us from the north is surprised to find we are using old siddurim and old humashim. These are books that other congregations replaced 30 years ago. The prayers in our siddurim have not changed all that much but the world around us has changed a lot. Since the siddur we used was published, there have been new prayers written about the Holocaust, Israel, and the reunification of Jerusalem. There are even prayers for the secular holidays that we celebrate in this country. Contemporary siddurim include women and those who convert to Judaism in our prayers. Prayers are translated using the same English that we use. Thanks to Shirley and Vernon Leopold, we will be dedicating new siddurim just before Pesach.

The Jewish community is very large and includes all kinds of Jews. That is why we need to make our community and our synagogue a very big tent. We may need to have alternative minyanim meeting here on Shabbat. Some Jews want a smaller egalitarian minyan run entirely by lay leaders. There are others in our community who will want a non-egalitarian minyan because they are not comfortable with full participation by women. Perhaps we need a learners’ minyan where people can go to learn to pray. Our tent has to be big enough to include all who need to express their thanks to God. One size no longer fits all daveners. We need to let people know that all are welcome here. One congregation that embraces all.

Our parties for holidays, our Shabbat dinners and our entertaining shows attract an audience of members and non-members that are very important to what Temple Emeth is all about. These must continue. But we also need new programming that will reach out to those who do not need a congregation for their social life. What do they need? They need programs of social action. The Jews we seek to join us are busy all day long, but not with anything of any substance. Their lives are a mile wide but only an inch deep. I spoke about this on Rosh Hashana and some came up to me and said, “I am too old to do social action anymore, leave that to the younger people.” And that is exactly right. We need to attract younger people by offering them ways to find meaning in their lives through rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. We are organizing two new social action groups now, and with God’s help, we will have more as the year goes by.

It is well documented that over the last ten years, Jews join synagogues for three reasons: to pray, to do meaningful acts of hesed and to learn about their heritage. I happen to love our Adult Education program. It is varied and unique in the community. I would not change any class that we offer. We just need to offer more. Young retirees and empty nesters are looking to find a personal place in Jewish Learning. The local office of the Seminary now offers adult classes in people’s homes. These are serious text classes. Habad also offers them in the conference rooms of downtown law and real estate firms. They can’t open these classes fast enough. We also too need to take our text classes, in Bible, Talmud and Ethics into the homes, offices and conference rooms where Jews are hungry for learning. Just as my daughter Ashira last week taught Torah to this congregation, we need to bring that teaching into the communities that surround us with home study groups and maybe even some business study groups. If we invite our neighbors to join us in the serious study of Jewish texts, it is only a matter of time before they will join us in prayer and social action as well.

The Talmud teaches that the world stands on three things, Torah, Avoda and gemilut hasadim. All the surveys that have studied why some congregations grow and why some die seem to hinge on these three things. The Teaching of Torah, meaningful services and acts of kindness to others. Adult Education, a prayer environment that offers choices to all who search for God and social action projects are what we need to add to our congregational menu to bring in the very people we need so much to move our community forward. It is not about “changing everything we have always done” because what we need is not to “reform” the congregation, nor to “reconstruct” the congregation. What we need is to expand what we are doing to make Jews who are lost and searching, welcome in our community.

We are in a unique position to make all of this a success. We have a community that is more than just condominiums. We have many mixed neighborhoods filled with many Jews who are seeking a spiritual home. When this economy recovers, we will be in a city where there will be plenty of building, both to our west and to our east; west of the turnpike and east into the neighborhoods of downtown and east Delary. From Yamato Road to Woolbright, from the ocean to 441, Temple Emeth can emerge stronger and better over the next five to ten years. Yes there will be some changes, but there will also be much that is the same.

The people of Israel were the same people on the Sinai side of the Red sea as they were on the Egyptian side. The difference was, now they were free from all their fears. The future may always be uncertain, but at that moment, as yesterday’s problems drowned in the sea, they joyfully danced and sang. So too we must leave our fears of the past behind and face what the future holds. There will be plenty of difficult decisions to make and yes, we will probably pine for the “good old days” when we had thousands of members. But our future calls for a community of young and old alike, working to make Judaism and the world a better place.

And that is something to sing and dance about.

Shabbat Shalom

Parshat Shemot
2010
Delivered as a dialogue between Rabbi Konigsburg and Hillel Konigsburg (who participated in creating the dialogue.)

Rabbi: In this week’s parsha, we find Moses standing in front of the burning bush. It is a pivotal moment in Moses’ life and in the history of the Jewish People. For the first time, God speaks directly to a human being in order to create history and it marks the beginning of a relationship that echoes to this very day. It all begins simply enough, with a bush that burns but is not consumed. It is a simple miracle that catches the eye of Moses and brings him into the presence of the divine. The sages ask the question, why a burning bush? Why not in thunder and lightning? But the Rabbis see in this miracle a test. Moses will have to watch the bush burn for some time in order to realize that it is not being consumed. That is the way it often is with miracles, they happen all the time, all around us, but we have to take the time to see them, to realize that we are in the presence of a miracle, that we are in the presence of God. Let me give you a few examples… First of all…

Hillel: Now just wait a moment! So you are suggesting that the burning bush represents the many miracles that surround us every day. What miracles? What are you talking about?!

Rabbi: Hillel, is this so hard to imagine? The whole world is filled with miracles; the grass that grows, the sunset, the impact of a beautiful song in our soul. The idea that helps humanity, the cure for a dread disease, the hero that saves the innocent, all of these are the miracles that we experience almost every day.

Hillel: Wait, wait, wait. These aren’t miracles! Ever hear of these things called Biology, Physics, Harmonics, Psychology? The ability for plants to convert sunlight into nutrients through the Kreb’s Cycle is not a miracle. The reflection of light waves at the corner of our atmosphere is not a miracle. The subjective interpretation of vibrations through air is hardly a miracle. They are part of the scientific reality that shapes us.
– Now, the burning bush on the other hand, that was a miracle! Fire that doesn’t consume a bush?! Now that is a miracle that no physics book can explain.

Rabbi: Do you honestly believe that any good special effects creator couldn’t make a bush burn and not be consumed? The issue is not the science behind it, the issue is really the impact of what we see on what we believe. A falling apple did not cause Sir Isaac Newton to discover gravity, but that apple, at that moment, created in the mind of that man an idea that reverberates through time. He paid attention and the world changed.Reply

Hillel: Now you really don’t make sense. First of all, there is a difference between reality and fiction. A special effects artist can create seeming physical impossibilities, but only a fool would think that such a creation is actual. On the other hand, the real world as we experience through our senses – such is a world that represents truth. When Newton had a run in with that notorious apple, it completed the series of events, thoughts, memories, and experiences that allowed Newton to piece together a larger picture. In a manner of speaking, he was at the right place at the right time – continually throughout his life up to that point.

Rabbi: I am not sure what you are getting at. You could make the same claim concerning Moses. He also was the right man in the right spot. The only Jew who knew what freedom was. The only man who had the experience to lead the Jews to freedom. He just needed to be pushed by God to remember that he was a Jew. That the people enslaved were HIS people. All Moses had to do was take all his experiences up to that point and focus them on freedom for the People of Israel

Hillel: Exactly! Where is the miracle in that? That is just a complex web of experiences.
– The miracle in the burning bush was that the bush burned and was not consumed.

Rabbi: The miracle is in the moment of realization. The moment when rational mind meets the big idea, and suddenly, what is impossible becomes possible; that the world, with all its flaws, suddenly can be repaired. It is in the call that the miracle is found. Even if the bush was consumed, the fire started to burn in the heart of Moses and that lead to the greatest story of redemption in the history of Western Civilization. That is why there is no thunder, lightning or extravagant special effects. It is the connection made between what was seen and what was learned which is where the miracle can be found.

Hillel: So why the burning bush? Why contradict the laws of nature? After all, Newton found enlightenment from the banal experience of gravity.

Rabbi: First of all, I don’t agree that gravity is a banal experience. Just because it has a name does not mean that we understand it. We really don’t know why things fall to the ground. Newton only gave us the formula to describe how things fall, but we really don’t know why they fall. No one has ever seen a “gravity”
– In a similar way, Moses was living a fine life as a shepherd and would have never remembered his life in Egypt unless there was a catalyst, a burning bush, to get him to pause and contemplate what he was seeing and to realize what it would mean in his life. Remember, it not only burned, it also talked!

Hillel: But why a burning and speaking bush?

Rabbi: Because at that moment, it was the right event to catch the eye of Moses and bring him out of his dream into the realization that his life could be more than just another shepherd. How many shepherds passed that bush and didn’t see what Moses saw? It was the contradiction of the bush not being consumed that helped Moses see the contradictions in his own life. He was no shepherd. He was the leader who could do what no one else could do, lead Israel from Slavery to Freedom.

Hillel: So, a miracle then is the moment of realization, not the actual event that served as a catalyst for that moment.
– Then carry out your argument to the extreme. If moments of realization are the miracles, then there are infinite miracles every day. The mere fact that I can remember where I placed my shoes and car keys would be a miracle, along with the fact that I choose to eat eggs instead of cereal and the realization that my kippah is on inside out.

Rabbi: Exactly. All of life is a miracle. It is a miracle that we are alive, that we breathe, that our bodies work; that we see beauty all around us. That we pick the harmony out of the static that surrounds us. The things we call miracles, are the moments and the stimuli that trigger the “divine call” that changes an everyday moment into a moment of clarity and awareness. Reply

Hillel: But then what is the difference between a miracle and simply being?

Rabbi: We go through life as if it were a dream. We don’t pay attention to life as it unfolds. We are distracted by blinking lights, screaming advertisements and a myriad of distractions that keep us from understanding that every moment is a gift from God and all of our actions have the ability to bring us closer to the divine.

Hillel: So then, our disagreement lies in syntax. If one were to argue that miracles are extraordinary events that contradict the natural fabrics of the world, then miracles would be rare occurrences.
– However, if one was to define miracles as you have, then the numerous moments of realization that each of us experience would be classified as miracles and would be quite a common occurrence.

– But why then do all the miracles of the Torah revolve around physical anomalies? The parting of the sea – The 10 plagues – Miriam’s well – Water from the rock

Rabbi: These famous miracles do for us what they did for our ancestors, they get us to stop and contemplate what Moses, Miriam, Aaron and the People of Israel considered. Even if we could explain them scientifically, that it was a low tide, a savvy desert expert who knows where to find water, or red silt in the water that killed the fish, it would not make a difference. I may not know exactly what happened but I do know that what happened changed someone’s thinking and the world has never been the same since.

Hillel: Ok, good point. So if we are to conclude that miracles are not the events themselves, but the reaction to the events, then miracles do indeed happen all the time.

Rabbi: And all we need to do is to wake up to God’s call, a call that goes out every day to anyone who will listen, and then let that call change our lives. All we need to do is to stop and listen, and we will hear God telling us to remove our shoes, because the ground on which we stand is holy.
– May all of us stop to see the wonders of the world around us and may that sense of wonder and amazement, lead us to find God in the world and in our heart. May God bless us with open eyes and open minds as we say Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

I sent this out to the Shefa list and, with a few modifications, I share it with all my readers today.

Let me start by saying that I am a “company man”. I believe in the institutions of Conservative Judaism and while the structure may need some improvement, I don’t mind working with what we have.I am also a realist. I don’t have any nostalgic preferences for what we have done in the past. I only know that it is important to teach the ethics and the rituals of Judaism to Jews where ever they may be. And that I am committed to teaching a Judaism that is pluralistic, egalitarian, and equally open to all Jews who share the Positive Historical approach to Jewish History and Halacha.

With both of these ideas in mind, I believe that the reason our institutions are dying and our denomination is shrinking is because we have never really been good at the things we need to do now. We have hung on to our past for so long that we no longer reflect the needs of those who should be finding a home here, and this includes all those who think like us but who don’t affiliate with our movement. Each of these areas below needs an entire essay to explain but I will keep this short. These are my opinions on what we can do now to re-energize our movement;

1. We have, in the past, built our synagogues around our schools. Jews today marry later and have children much later. By the time they need us, they have already lived over 10 years as an adult without us. Our synagogues must be something more than a school for children of members.

2. Our Cantors have been dedicated to preserving music from the golden age of Cantorial music at the beginning of the twentieth century. Jews today are creating new music for liturgy and there may even be a new golden age going on but our congregations and many Cantors have decided to stick with the past. The issue is not musical Instruments on Shabbat vs. no musical instruments, the real issue is what kind of music will be use for prayer. There are many Cantors out there who really “get” this, but I find that other Cantors margialize the new contributions of their mostly younger colleagues

3. Synagogues see themselves as social centers for Jews. Today, Jews of all ages, and particularly young, single, professional Jews, do not not need a synagogue for social or professional reasons. There are way too many other, more interesting ways to spend their free time. We need to program what is missing from the lives of Jews today. For example…

4. Our synagogues have never been committed to ongoing, get your hands dirty, social action/political action. Jews of all ages today are hungry for meaning in their life and we give them very little to do that will help them feel they are making a difference in changing the world. They can’t get this from the internet or from cable television in High Definition. We need, as never before, a strong social action/political action agenda for Conservative Jews. We have some, but we can do better.

5. Our synagogues give only poor lip service to serious Jewish studies. All Jews today are interested in a serious examination of texts and spirituality that is less about indoctrination and more about how to live a better life. You can tell how much we value Adult Learning by how little our congregations spend on it. We need to make Adult learning a major budget item and a key part of synagogue life.

6. We offer one main service in a world where one size no longer fits all. Here I could blame Rabbis who are either afraid to let their members daven in a different room or who would rather daven in the other room but are “stuck” in the main service. We need services that we are proud of going on all over our buildings.

7. I believe nobody will care how long services will take if they are engaged in meaningful prayer and thought provoking study. They don’t need another 3 hour show that is the same thing every week. If the service we will conduct before Universal Health Care is passed ( or rejected) is the same as the service we will conduct after it is passed (or rejected) then what we do is meaningless to the people who we want to reach. We need to engage our congregations in prayer and study if we want them to attend Shabbat tephillot (prayer)

OK so all of you who have said, “the time for meetings is past, it is time for action” here is your action plan. Start with any of these seven issues and see how quickly your congregation will become vitalized. Ignore them at your own peril. BJ, Ikar, Hadar, and, Anshei Chesed in NY are living proof that this works. Ron Wolfson and Synagogue 3000 have been collecting data to prove the point. We know what we need to do, so lets roll up our sleeves and get to work!