Last night, the library at the Jewish Theological Seminary, hosted a lecture by one of my teachers, Rabbi Neil Gillman on the occasion of the publication of his new book, “Doing Jewish Philosophy”. Near the end of the lecture he noted that Conservative Judaism does not have a philosophy as does the other movements at the polar ends of the Jewish spectrum. When he took questions, I asked him, “In your opinion, why doesn’t Conservative Judaism have a philosophy?” Rabbi Gillman replied that he thinks there are a number of reasons. First, we are a pluralistic movement and there are a wide number of philosophies that are included in our movement; and second, when we tried to spell out a philosophy in the now seemingly forgotten book, Emet v’Emunah, after years of discussion, it came out like a menu rather than a single philosophy.

I immediately recalled another book, by one of my other philosophy teachers, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, who wrote about Conservative Judaism and noted that there were at least four different groups within our movement with four different approaches to Jewish Philosophy. They ranged from traditional to Reconstructionist tendencies. Given these assessments, it is a wonder that our movement has not ruptured and fragmented as most movements seem to be doing these days. Young Jews can’t seem to understand what motivates their parents to join Conservative Synagogues and we see them starting their own “minyanim” that operate in a very different style. Rabbis in our movement argue all the time over the issue of whether we follow Halacha or not. Lay leadership of Conservative congregations is begging Rabbis to just tell them what they need to do to be good Jews and all they get is a menu of options. Canadian congregations and communities in Israel don’t think that Conservatives in the United States are traditional enough. Conservative Jews in the United States don’t seem to care what the Canadian or Israeli communities think of them.

So, who are we? What is it that binds us together as a movement? What do we Conservative Jews believe?

As usual, I believe we are looking for faith in all the wrong places. As Rabbi Gillman said, you can ask that question to a Reform or Orthodox Jew and get a coherent, definite answer because they are on the polar ends of the Jewish spectrum. Our movement is in a large grey area that lies between them and thus it defies the kind of definition that comes with the certainty that lies at the ends of a spectrum.

As Conservative Jews, we believe that certainty is the enemy and that questions are the lifeblood of our movement, even if they don’t always have definitive answers.

As Conservative Jews we believe that God is unknowable and beyond our understanding but we feel the divine presence in both the secular and religious aspects of our life.

As Conservative Jews we believe that God is found in the struggle between tradition as received and the world as we experience it.

As Conservative Jews we believe that a good Jew is judged first of all in the way we treat our fellow human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike.

As Conservative Jews we believe that we can grow in our observance and that until the day we die, we can still be struggling to understand the best way for us to live a spiritual life. But our uncertainty does not make us bad Jews.

As Conservative Jews we believe that science informs our understanding of scripture and ritual but the importance of both is not found in scientific accuracy, rather in the moral and ethical lessons that each have to teach us, lessons that are beyond the purview of science.

As Conservative Jews we are always learning about the philosophy, history and legal tradition of Judaism in the constant search for a better understanding of the meaning of our life and the life of all humanity

As Conservative Jews we believe that Jewish Law, Halacha, needs to be understood in a historical context and while it is primary to our faith, it is not the only consideration we have to weigh in our quest to live a faithful Jewish life.

As Conservative Jews we weigh carefully the needs of the community and our individual needs, understanding, as Hillel taught, If I am not for myself, who will be for me and if I am for myself alone, what am I, and if not now, when?

As Conservative Jews we allow that not everyone believes as we do and that does not make them bad Jews; it makes them interesting if we can learn from them something that will inform our own beliefs and practices.

As Conservative Jews we believe in the centrality of Israel in Jewish life and we are committed to improving civic and religious life there as we work to secure Israel’s future.

As Conservative Jews we don’t know what will happen after we die, but we believe that what we do here in this world will have an impact in how we will experience whatever may come next.

As Conservative Jews we understand that a Messianic Age, an age in which good will triumph over evil and life will triumph over death, will only come if we will work for it through the actions we perform every day.

Maybe everyone will not agree with me on every point above, but that is nature of our movement, to weigh, discuss (civilly) and always to grow.

So what does Conservative Judaism stand for? We take positions on egalitarianism, on Shabbat and on Gay Marriage, and then we change our minds. The practices of one congregation do not match the practices of another. We use instruments on Shabbat and we don’t use instruments. We use electricity on Shabbat and we don’t use electricity. We publish papers that take both sides of an issue and don’t tell our members what to do! Every Rabbi has his or her own agenda and do we really ever act as a movement?
The issue to me is not whether or not we are a Movement but are we acting in a way that is consistent with being Jewish? Can we still call ourselves Jews if we are so confused about what is required of a Jew and how we relate to Jewish Law? The Jews, who call themselves Orthodox, think that we Conservatives have severed any connection to Jewish Law. The Jews, who call themselves Reform, think that we attach ourselves unnecessarily to Jewish Law. Even inside our own ranks, we argue if we have lived up to the legal standards that are the foundation of Halacha (the “LAW” or the “way”, the entire corpus of Jewish law). I think that we get confused because we forget the essence of what Judaism is all about and why the law is important.
Judaism is a legal religion. It is more like Islam than Christianity since Christianity sought to disconnect from the Law from early times. Islam has the Koran and we have Torah. There is a rich legal tradition that guides Jews in all that they do, a legal tradition that is over 3000 years old. [I should note that Judaism is different from the “religion of Ancient Israel, in that we do not have a central sanctuary, a high priest who oversees a sacrificial cult and annual pilgrimages to that shrine. Judaism began when the first Temple was destroyed and we had to learn to live without it. The second Temple was built but the changes made in the time of the destruction only grew and changed so that when the second Temple was destroyed, Israelite religion died but the Judaism, that was not dependant on the service there, continues to this very day.]
It also seems to me that the Sages in ancient times, who knew that they were breaking with ancient religious traditions, understood that a faith that cannot change, cannot survive. The Torah was not enough to tell Jews what to do and so they began to find ways to expand and enrich Judaism with larger and larger circles of law. Over the ages these circles have expanded and have shrunk to deal with the issues of their age. Those who claim an unbroken chain of Law from then to now often forget that there are links missing and that there are many strands to the chains that come down to us. Conservative Judaism is born of the Historical school in Europe that taught Jews that we can learn law from the study of how our ancestors approached some of the same problems we encounter today. If we understand what they did and why they did it, we can also learn about how we should act today. Historically, Rabbis have approached the law in many different ways in order to find the solutions to difficult and sticky problems in each day and age. The Rabbis of every country and century looked to the primary and fundamental principles of Judaism and adjusted the Law to meet the new issues without compromising the fundamentals. These fundamentals include: a stubborn insistence that there is one God; that any form of idolatry is evil; justice is an imperative; saving a life is more important than almost anything; trust God; learn proper behavior from the Torah and from how God acts in the world. These are some of the values that form the foundation of our faith. We have tried to codify these ideals in Halacha.
We get into trouble when we get so fixated on the Law and we forget what supports it. It is very important that there is a Law that speaks to people and tells them what is expected from them in terms of their attention and behavior. But it is also important that we not let that same Law use its logic to defy the values that underlie it. From time to time we need to remember that the Law must give way to the values, lest the Law itself become the god. We don’t like to make wholesale changes in the Law. It makes things difficult for those who take it seriously. But we do have to make changes from time to time, not only to make things stricter to prevent legal violations, but to make the Law a living entity that people will follow even if they don’t have to. It does not mean we can do whatever we want, but it does mean that we work to keep it true to its values.
I always look at Halacha as a square; each corner stands for an important consideration. One corner is for the tradition that we have received from our ancestors. The second corner is for the modern problems that we need to address. The third corner is for the needs of individuals, and the fourth corner is for the needs of the community. The lines that connect them are elastic. When we have a problem in any one area, it stretches the square out of shape. Rabbis must then examine the concerns of the other three corners to see how we can return the square to its proper form; what else must give way or adjust to meet the needs of the other corners. All are important and we need to find a way to get it all in balance again.
This means that while well trained modern Rabbis can and do argue the law in our Movement’s “Law and Standards Committee”, we have to understand that there are different ways of bringing everything into balance again and still be true to our values. We also understand that what may work in a general situation, may not be the best answer in various communities around the world who live with different realities. Local Rabbis also need to weigh in on what may work.
This makes our lives a bit harder. We have to learn. We have to consider the reasons why one Rabbi rules one way and why another rules differently. We have to see if we are still being true to our fundamental values. It means we can have tradition and we can have change. It is what keeps us alive as a religion and keeps our faith fresh in every generation.
Perhaps it is as our President-Elect, Barak Obama says, “It is a change we can believe in.”

First of all, I hope you vote on Election Day. The only excuse possible is that you already voted early by absentee ballot or in early voting. It is a mitzvah to vote for the candidate of your choice.

Whenever election time comes around there is always talk of the separation of Church and State. It is one of the fundamentals of our Bill of Rights, is incorporated in the very first amendment to the Constitution and is the subject of much heat by those who are passionate about it one way or the other. Some feel that religious sensibilities would be good to inject into government and others want there to be a complete wall separating the two, a wall that can never be broken.

Those who know me understand that whenever there is a choice between one way or the other, I go for a different path. The impasse between the pro and con sides in this debate over Church and State is due to the intransience on both sides. Each only sees what they want to see and perhaps they don’t understand why the amendment is written as it was.

First of all, I believe that, the founders of this nation were religious men. They may have had issues with the denominations and the formal church as it existed in their day, but they believed in God and they prayed to that God. They had no doubt that their experiment in democracy was blessed by the Divine. They were not trying to eliminate religion from the state, only to temper the role of religion in the political system.

Rabbis are often asked to recite invocations before city council and state legislative sessions. Even Congress opens their sessions with invocations. Many of my colleagues do not like to perform these invocations citing their belief that it violates the Church/State barrier. The invocation needs to be nondenominational since the people present represent many different faiths. Some clergy get this right; others seem not to be able to pray without invoking the name of Jesus, no matter how offensive such a prayer might be to those present.

I never turn down an opportunity to offer an invocation at a government event.

While I feel that it is important that government does not pass laws establishing one religion or making life difficult for another, I also feel that religion has something to say to government. It is not about whether this or that law should be passed, but that there is a need to note that while Congress can say if an action is legal or not legal, only religion is in a place to say if an action is right or wrong. This is why I oppose religions lobbying for passage of laws that promote their world view, but insist that religions speak out about laws that go against their understanding of right and wrong.

Let me take one controversial law: Roe vs. Wade and the right for a woman to have an abortion. In this country, it is legal for a woman to have an abortion. It is her legal right. But it does not make it the right thing to do. The implications for the mother and the fetus are very disturbing. I personally don’t like abortions but Judaism understands that sometimes they are needed. What I teach, therefore, is that abortion may be legal, but is not to be considered a form of birth control. It is my duty to teach that women should not get into a situation where an abortion may be needed. It is my duty to teach men and women the responsibilities that come with sexual activities. Abortion may be legal, but it is not good. It is only a last resort solution to the most dire of circumstances.

In business, there is a similar situation. It is not possible to pass legislation to cover every possibility that a person can think up to defraud a neighbor or a client. Therefore we religious leaders have a responsibility to teach ethical behavior and insist that, while the law may allow certain types of business dealings, these still may not be the right thing to do. Keeping the law is never enough. One has to go beyond the letter of the law to do what is right. The story of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach teaches this lesson. He bought a donkey and when his students brought it home, they discovered, hidden in the bridle, an expensive pearl. They had bought the bridle and the donkey so, by law, the pearl belonged to the Rabbi, but he returned it to the seller since clearly the price of the donkey did not include the price of the pearl. He was not required to do it, but he did it anyway and received a blessing from the seller for his honesty and ethical behavior. No matter what business laws are passed, we have a religious obligation to go beyond the law.

We think of government with three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. But there is fourth “branch” of government, religion, which must speak to what the other three are doing. Our founding fathers could not imagine a world where faith and religion did not speak to issues of right and wrong. That is the holy work that religious people and clergy perform. Not making laws, but living by a standard that goes beyond what a law can do. Laws are needed to protect us from ourselves. As the Talmud, in Mishnah Avot, 3:2 noted, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without it, people would eat each other alive.” But government without religious sensibilities can never fully govern the lives of its citizens. Segregation was legal until religious leaders taught that it was not right. Quotas were legal until religious people demanded that they end. All the laws of Congress could not stop discrimination until religious leaders instilled in their congregations the idea that all of us are created in the image of God.

Religion needs government to equally represent the needs of the people. Government needs religion to teach what the law can’t teach: that we all must live to a higher standard.

I will not vote in November.

I have already voted. I sent in my absentee ballot a couple of weeks ago. In my mind, voting is one of the most important things a person can do. I don’t care how long I have to stand in line or how many pieces of identification are required; I have voted in almost every election since I have been old enough to vote. I would like to say I have never missed one but there have been special elections that somehow escaped my notice. I research the candidates and try to make the best decision possible.

This presidential election has had some interesting twists to it. The dive in the economy helped change the tone from that of just one negative ad after another to some real talking about priorities and issues. We finally got an issue that got us beyond the name calling and got us voters to take a look and ask ourselves if we trust this candidate or that candidate to get us out of this mess we are in.

In the Jewish community, it should come as no surprise that there are Jews who back the Democratic candidate Barak Obama and those who back the Republican candidate, John McCain. Each side is as passionate as the other about who would make the best President of the United States. The days in which Jews all voted in a block are long gone. It is a wonder that we can even talk about the “Jewish vote” any more as something different than any other group. We have soccer moms, hockey moms, NASCAR dads, seniors, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, Communists, Socialist, East Coast Liberals and Midwestern Conservatives. We have our own religious right and our secular left. The only things I can say about the Jewish vote is that we vote.

People talk about Israel as a concern for the Jewish vote. But again, we are all over the map when it comes to Israel. I don’t think that there are too many Jews who are looking to dissolve the Jewish state, but we certainly don’t agree on how Israel should conduct her domestic or foreign policies and how the United States should or should not deal with Israel as a matter of our own foreign policy. Should Israel negotiate with the PLO? With Hamas? With Hezbollah? Should we divide Jerusalem, give back the West Bank, exchange prisoners to get back Israeli kidnapped soldiers? Who should be negotiating with the Palestinians? What should or should not be on the table? Israelis themselves are split on these issues and the Jewish community in the United States is also split.

There are many who say that Jews should vote for their interests in the United States, and not look at foreign policy to Israel as a lone issue. There are many issues in this country that we have strong opinions about. We discuss in our communities issues like health care, the war in Iraq, taxes and governmental regulations. We are worried about sending our kids to college and if we can afford to keep our homes and if we will be laid off in the months ahead.

If Judaism has any issue with the current campaigns, it is in the area of personal attacks. That people disagree on issues is to be expected, but Judaism insists that we treat each other with respect at all times, even at the end of a very long and difficult election season. A campaign that criticizes the plans of an opponent should not be criticized because that is what this season is all about, what plan do we think is best for this country in the years ahead. If a criticism is followed by a different idea, then we should listen and be aware of the differences. It is another matter when there are personal attacks about things that happened long ago as if they have any bearing on where we are today. Everyone grows and changes and not one of us lives our life without some regrets about our past. Destroying the character of someone else is a serious sin. The politicians tell me that this kind of negative campaigning is what moves people to vote. If this is so, then we need to give the entire country lessons in civic and civil responsibility. If our government is locked up most of the time, it is because everyone is so angry with the way we talk to and about each other and have forgotten that compromise and negotiation are how things are supposed to get done. Forget about whether or not we should be sitting down and talking to our enemies, we need to remember that we need to sit down and negotiate with lawmakers from the other party. This is hard to do in our culture of screaming at each other the most hurtful names we can find.

I have seen people I respect repeat the most derogatory slanders that they have seen but not substantiated over the internet. I have seen good people worry about nonsense that is being passed around as true. The media regularly scolds the candidates and their parties for telling lies and stretching the truth in campaign materials. There is no reason to be passing on such dirt. Even if we get it from a reliable source we should not be repeating it to others. This is very wrong. If we want to convince a friend, a family member or a neighbor to vote for our candidate, then we should speak of policies and platforms. We are guilty of Lashon HaRa, evil speech, if we pass on to others the personal attacks even if we get them from a reliable source. It applies not only to the campaign, but in every aspect of our lives. Sending out slanderous emails to defame someone else is a sin. There is no other word for it. A popular actress in S. Korea committed suicide because of the hateful false things that were being said about her on the internet. That they are written is bad; if we pass it on, we are guilty.

I don’t advise any of the campaigns but let me leave with this one piece of advice. We may not be responsible for all the hate that is out there. But we know, first hand, the dangers of hate speech and ugly rumors. I hope that we will have the sense and the wisdom to know what to do when they arrive in our inbox – we should just press “delete”.

And we will be making the world a better place, one conversation at a time.

My friend and colleague Rabbi Irwin Kula, the director of CLAL recently shared with me some of his feelings about Politics, Jews and Israel. He noted that Democrats seem to favor diplomacy in dealing with the Israel/Palestinian issues, and Republicans are more inclined to support Israel no matter what the situation may be. So it is no surprise that Jewish Democrats and Jewish Republicans both see themselves as the true defenders of Israel when all they are really doing is finding in the words of the candidates a justification for their own pre-existing notions of what support for Israel must imply. It has very little to do at all with what the State of Israel might really need at this juncture in history. Rabbi Kula notes that it is almost as if Israel is not a real state anymore, but some kind of a “test” American Jews use to explain perhaps our own inner spiritual life, rather than the political reality of the modern state. We tend to pick and choose the data that fits our needs and that best helps us confirm our positions.
All of this, he implies, leads to the kind of political pandering we see from the candidates for national office today, each one trying to say the right combination of “code” words that will gather the most people to vote for the candidate. Rabbi Kula expresses concern that someday our non-Jewish fellow citizens will begin to ask exactly what this “support” for Israel is all about and the answers may mark the end of, or the erosion of, American support for the State of Israel.
Rabbi Kula is right. In this day and age, it is very hard to speak of Israel as “my home land, right or wrong”. To be sure there are plenty of Jews and Jewish communal leaders who will not tolerate any negative speech about Israel. They feel as if there are too many enemies of the State and of Judaism to give them more words with which they can attack us. Such people think that if we only speak good of Israel, that others will not speak bad of her. This has led us to ignore all the problems that Israel is facing and to put our heads in the sand about how we can find solutions.
I agree with Rabbi Kula but would paint this picture a bit differently. I do not feel that the issue is one of American politics but of Israeli politics. My daughter came back from her Rabbinical School year in Israel very unhappy with Israel. She was appalled by the way they treated gays in Jerusalem and with the corruption in government and the social problems she encountered. Frankly I am unhappy with all of that and more. I don’t like the way Masorti/Conservative Jews are treated by Israeli politicians or by the government. I don’t always like the foreign policy decisions of the State and I don’t like the way the Israeli political parties pay for votes by giving money to people who promise to vote for them while infrastructure crumbles.
My time in Minnesota, where the 35W bridge collapsed last year, only points to the fact that we should be profoundly unhappy with things is this country too. Perhaps the coming elections here and in Israel will change things, but maybe they won’t. The point is that there is much here in the USA that needs improvement, but we don’t go around saying this country is not worth the time or trouble.
For both the USA and Israel, there are good and bad. The fact that college students are still filling Birthright programs and returning energized is a good thing. That Americans still go to Israel to live is another good thing. I agree that nothing can be changed as long as American Jewish leadership does not address the flaws in Israel and in the USA. When we talk only good about Israel we will not help them change what needs changing. Years ago, when they told us American Rabbis did not count, we protested, withheld support and showed them that we do count and the situation in Israel changed.
What we need today, at the leadership level, is a conversation with Israeli leadership about the serious issues that will affect how much money is raised at UJA and through Israel Bonds. We are seeing a new generation of Jews in the United States, who did not grow up without a Jewish State and who don’t understand why it is a State where we can’t talk about her flaws. If they are to support Israel, they will want to know about civil rights for homosexual citizens, of Arab citizens, for Masorti Jews and for all other minorities who don’t seem to be able to get a fair shake in the Jewish State. When National leaders start asking the hard questions to politicians in Israel, they will listen, like it or not, because Israel still depends on our financial and political support. Military support is one thing, we do need to make sure that the Palestinian issues are not perceived out of the context of a 60 year long war, but we also need to ask the hard questions about fiscal responsibility, corruption and basic civil rights.
We need to stand up for these qualities in this country as well. No matter if the conversation is about Israel or America it is not “My Country – Right or Wrong” but, as stated by Senator Carl Schurz back in 1872, “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Our obligation as Jewish leaders could not be summed up better.

I was reading this past Shabbat, the first book in a series on “Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices” by two friends, Rabbi Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman. The topic of this first book was Jewish attitudes about the body. The middle section of the book had a series of essays by different people about their Judaism and how it colors their decisions about their bodies. I wanted to have a quote from the book to show you here but I packed it up and put it away already so I will have to go with my memory (which I admit is not always so good since I forgot I wanted to quote a section before I packed up the book).

In the section on tattoos, there were a couple of essays about why Jews would decide to display their Judaism through body art. All were all quick to point out, correctly, that a Jew with a tattoo is still permitted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. What intrigued me, however, was the fact that each one noted that the Bible is clear and explicit that marking or cutting the body is forbidden (Lev. 18:28). One went so far as to note that this had been interpreted to mean that one had to do both, cut the body and leave a permanent mark in order for it to be a sin. (There is also one authority that insists that the only prohibition is not to tattoo on the body, the name of God. Everything else would be okay). In every case in the book, however, this biblical passage was not to be a deterrent to the author for getting a tattoo. Their love of the art, their love of their bodies and their love of the freedom to do what they wish, was too great to let this biblical passage deter them from decorating their bodies with Jewish and other symbols.

There are a number of points of discussion here. First, how is this different from the prohibitions of homosexuality that are just as explicit in Leviticus and which we feel can no longer apply because of the great hurt and discrimination they bring to the homosexual community? Is body art today fundamentally different than the reasons for tattoos in ancient times? What happens to Torah when we just ignore passages because they just don’t speak to us? Where does this leave us in relationship to adultery and illicit sexual relations? Is this a fine example of a “slippery slope”?

I find myself recalling a story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichiv, an early Hasidic master. On the eve of Pesach, he sent his Hasidim to bring him all the Turkish tobacco, all the Austrian silk handkerchiefs and all the hametz in Berdichiv. The Hasidim were puzzled. The first two items were often smuggled across the nearby border to avoid custom duties. The hametz, was forbidden to be in any Jewish home on the eve of Pesach. The Hasidim made their rounds and the Jews, unhappy with the Rabbi’s call, still parted with the contraband. Soon there were two tables filled with tobacco and handkerchiefs, but the hametz table was empty. “God in Heaven”, prayed Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, “the Austrian king passes many laws, and hires soldiers and custom agents to collect his taxes and you see how little the people fear his laws, but you, God, you have no soldiers and no custom agents only your law in the Torah, “You shall have no hametz in your homes, and see … see how the whole community keeps your laws! Why God have you not redeemed us?”

Why do we keep the laws of the Torah and the Rabbinic Laws as well? Is it because we fear the wrath of God? Certainly there are those who see the good that comes from our commitment to the values of Judaism and our commitment to Mitzvot. But why are we so quick to just ignore the laws that we are unhappy with? What is it that inspires us to follow God’s command even though we no longer fear divine punishment?

I would like to think the answer is love. If we love God, we follow what God requires. Much the same way we do all kinds of things for the ones we love; we listen to God because we love God and God loves us. I do lots of things for my wife, not because I find them fulfilling (like taking out the trash) but because I know it is a way I can show her that I love her. My children call home not because I require them to call, but because they love their parents and go out of their way to show their love. I found myself wondering if these proponents of tattoo art would continue to add tattoos if their beloved asked them to stop? It made me wonder how much their love of God limits the way they live their lives. I don’t want to declare all tattooed Jews as sinners; I want them to show their love of God by living their lives answering the call of God in the Bible.

Unlike homosexuality, this tattooing prohibition in Leviticus is not asking anyone to give up something that is part of the very essence of who they are as a human being. Domestic violence begins when a person makes unreasonable demands on their partner that escalates into a controlling nightmare. But here, with body art, it is not an issue of the essence of what it means to be human, it is a matter of art, style and taste. God asks us not to cut and mark our bodies. Do we love God enough to pay attention? God asks us also to live a moral and ethical life, something much harder than forgoing a tattoo. God asks us to limit the things we are permitted to eat and to refrain from working one day out of seven. These are serious matters that cut to the very essence of what it means to be a Jew. These are areas where we Jews show a deep and abiding love of God.

Tattooing is nowhere near this crucial in Jewish Life. Is the art so important that we ignore the call of a loving God? God will not deny us divine love if we mark our bodies, but should we not show our love for our bodies and for God by leaving the “canvas” blank? Rather than decorate my body, I decorate my life with acts of kindness and with acts of love to my fellow human beings and to God.

Today is a day for crying.
Today is the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, Tisha b’Av, the day when many tragedies befell our people. Today we commemorate so much death and destruction in Jewish History. Even if historically, not every tragedy fell on the ninth day of Av, we set this day aside, to cry, to fast and to remember that every day is not a day of celebration.

I know that sometimes is seems that every day is a day of tragedy in Jewish History. Isn’t that the joke on the Internet: “They attacked. We won. Let’s eat!” That is the essence of Hanukah, Purim, Yom HaShoa, Yom HaAtzmaut, Yom Yerushalayim and clearly, Tisha b’Av. Maybe Passover fits this model too. But all those other days are not fast days. Why is this day, the ninth of Av, called the “black fast” (in contrast to Yom Kippur, the “white fast”)?

At the study session I was at last night the Rabbi asked what I thought was a pretty interesting question. Today is the day that we commemorate the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem. The Sages ask the question, “Why was the Temple destroyed?” Rabbi Ettedgui of Minneapolis last night asked us, “Why do we ask about the Temple? Why not ask why Jerusalem was destroyed or why was Israel destroyed or why were our people sent into exile? The easy answer is that the Temple was the heart and soul of the Jewish people at that time. Its destruction implies all the other tragedies of the day.

But if Tisha b’Av is all about the Temple alone, it would not have survived all the centuries as the darkest day on the Jewish calendar. We have moved on without the Temple. Service of the Heart (prayer) has replaced the sacrificial service of the Temple. It is very rare today to find Jews of any denomination really advocating the rebuilding of the Temple. Orthodox Jews are content to wait for God or the Messiah to rebuild it. For most of the other denominations, it is just a vestige in our prayers. We remember what our ancestors USED to do in the Temple, but we are not interested in doing it ourselves. For most Jews, Tisha b’Av is about the destruction of Jerusalem. It is about the end of Jewish independence for over 2000 years. It is about the hope that sustained our people that someday we would once again, be free in our own land.

Today we are free in that land. Today, there is a living state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. The Midrash says that as the Temple burned, the ancient priests threw the keys to the city up in the air where a Divine hand grabbed them and took them up to heaven. In 1948, the British gave the keys to Zion gate into the hands of the Rabbis of the Old City, in the days before it fell to the Jordanians. Today, the entire city of Jerusalem is under control of the State of Israel. So what meaning should Tisha b’Av have for modern Jews?

I believe that there are two meanings to this day. First, it remains important to mark the many misfortunes that befell the Jewish People on this day. The Talmud indicates that this was the day the spies gave their evil report of the land and the people cried that they would not enter. For this lack of trust in God, the Holy One decreed that since they cried that night without reason, God would give them a reason to cry. That was the night they were all doomed to die in the desert and only their children would inherit the land. This was also the date of the destruction of the first and second Temples, and the day that Betar, the last stronghold of the Bar Kochba rebellion, was captured. It was also the day the Romans ploughed up the city of Jerusalem so that it would never be rebuilt. Later history includes many disasters on the ninth of Av. Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492 and from Vienna in 1670. Three thousand Jews died in the Chmielnikcki massacres on this day. Even World War I began on Tisha b’Av, a war that made refugees of thousands of Jews. In 1942 the Nazis ordered the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest ghetto under Nazi control.

But second, we need to acknowledge the different status of Jerusalem and the Jewish People in our modern time. We are now a free people living in our own land. In spite of all the problems, it remains not only a homeland for our dispersed people, but Israel is also the defender of Jews all over the world. From Iraq to Entebbe to Argentina, Israel has been there to see to it that Jews are not persecuted anymore in any corner of the globe. From the time that Israel came into existence, we were no longer a wandering, homeless people. Like it or not, as Rabbi Daniel Gordis writes, we Jews have our own platform on the world stage, a platform that we have missed for the 2000 years of our exile.

I believe therefore that the “black fast” of Tisha b’Av needs to be shortened. We should read Aicha (Lamentations) and Kinot (elegies) and the mandated readings from the Torah for this day. But when we are finished, after Mincha, after about 2 pm in most places, it is time to break our fast in recognition of how far we have come since those days of insecurity and upheaval. We acknowledge our past with our fast, and take note of our present by breaking our fast early. We have tradition and, in the face of our new situation we effect an appropriate change. We fast to commemorate the darkness, and break the fast so that we can dwell in the light.

There comes a time when our crying must end. There is still much to cry about on Tisha b’Av, but there is also a modern Israel in which we should find joy. Tisha b’Av should be about both.

Let me put my bias out front. I love daily minyan. It is one of the must unappreciated parts of Jewish life. The sense of community and belonging that come from daily prayer and the sense of peace it brings to the whole day, are feelings that I can not get if I pray alone and they make getting up early worth the effort.

I began my davening life just before my 13th birthday. My father bought me my first pair of tephillin and showed me how to put them on. Then he gave me a small siddur. Inside the cover was a list of about ten page numbers. He told me to learn those ten prayers first and when I got good at those ten, to add another new one. We did not have a daily minyan at our synagogue at that time (although there is a morning minyan now). My father and I sat together in the living room of our home, and prayed together every day until I went off to college. I continued to pray by myself until I discovered daily minyan when I started Rabbinical School in Los Angeles. In the minyan at Adat Ari El in Los Angeles, I became part of a group of old men (woman were not part of the minyan until a couple of years later), most of whom were well over 70. I learned to laugh and joke with them and shared their good and bad days. For the hour or so we were together in the morning and then again in the afternoon, we became close friends and looked out for each other. Eventually I learned to be Shaliach Tzibor, the one who leads the davening, I started reading Torah there and in my final year at the University of Judaism, I was the Ritual Director of the minyan at Adat Ari El.

I have gone to minyan every time I could, at synagogues all over the world. I have come to believe, as one of my minyan friends, Morrie would say, “It is the heart and soul of our synagogue.”

I came to terms many years ago that I would never be able to “sleep in” in the morning anymore. I came to realize that there would always be a minyan that I would need to attend before I would go about my work. Minyan frames my day. The morning (Shacharit) service helps me put my day into perspective. Saying the liturgy that I have come to know so well, gives me sacred space to put the activities of the day into proper perspective. “I had so much to accomplish,” says a poem I once found, “That I had to take time and pray” (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/4-7-2005-68242.asp ). It now is rare that I lose patience and get angry at anyone during the day. My siddur has at the beginning of the service, “I hereby accept the obligation of fulfilling my Creator’s mitzvah in the Torah: Love your neighbor as yourself” as a reminder that we all have to get along. The early morning blessings for our body and soul and for keeping close to Torah and away from sin remind me of what I need to concentrate on when I am going through my day. The frustrations are just inconvenient; I try to keep my focus on what is important.
Ashrei gives me a chance to symbolically recite the entire book of Psalms three times daily. Shema gives me the chance to publicly affirm each morning and evening the theology that is at the core of my life. Three times a day I say the Amidah, adding my personal prayers for the health of family and friends, for justice and peace and often add a prayer for what is happening in my life as well. Others at Minyan can take off their Tephillin before Aleynu and rush on to work, I only remove my Tephillin after the last Kaddish and then I sit for a few moments more reading a book with a thought for my day.
In the afternoon, I set an alarm so I don’t forget to get to minyan at the end of the day. It helps me make the transition between work and home, so that when I get home for dinner and my evening responsibilities, the pressures and worries of my office are all put away until tomorrow.
There are barriers to joining a minyan. When we are beginners we need to learn the special melodies that go with daily prayer that are different from the nusach for Shabbat and Holidays. Since there are some who only come for Kaddish, it may take a couple of days until the “regulars” come and say hello. It is hard to always be welcoming to those who use the minyan and then forget about it for the rest of the year. Yes they daven fast, but they know the secret to daily prayer. We don’t have to all be on the same page all the time. When we find a prayer that speaks to us that day, we pause and spend some time there, and then catch up when that prayer has said all it will say that day.
I teach that anyone who wants to see a daily miracle should attend a daily minyan, either morning or evening. Every day we need to find ten all over again. What happened yesterday does not count. There can only be a minyan when ten adult Jews walk in that door. Some days I think we will never make it and suddenly it swells to twenty Jews. Other days I think will be easy and we struggle to get the tenth in the door.
We have been a lifeline to some who were living alone. We have strengthened those who have lost parents, spouses and yes, even children. All of us at minyan are wounded in some way and we support each other. The old guys often celebrate with good scotch, but I could never imaging drinking scotch before breakfast. In my minyan community, I can share what concerns me, and my senior friends speak with experience to let me know that my concerns are either well placed or not. They have been there before and I have learned much from speaking and listening to them. We are all graduates of the school of hard knocks and we have much to share with each other. Minyan gives us all a reason to get up each morning, so that we can be there for each other.
What is the value of saying the same prayers over and over again each day? Well, first of all the prayers are the same, but each day I find that I am different and a different prayer speaks to me. Second, peace comes into my life as I welcome familiar prayers back again each day. Third, over the course of the year, there are subtle differences in the liturgy that help me be sensitive to the passage of time and sensitive to subtle nuances in my life as well. Finally, as taught by Rabbi Max Kiddushin, there is a kind of “normal mysticism” that comes when we say the same prayers every day. There is something more that comes from praying familiar prayers over and over again that is not found in the translations on the opposite page. Prayer by prayer, each word, each song, each thought helps me discover a new way to find God in my life. If I am unsure, suddenly words pop off the pages that make me feel better. When I am sad, a familiar passage suddenly lights up with new meaning that brings hope and joy back into my life. When I am too full of myself, I find that the siddur helps me make room for God.
There is not a minyan in the world that does not miss a day from time to time. No matter how traditional the community, no matter what time the minyan meets, no matter how many members the congregation has. There is that special feeling that everyone gets when the tenth person comes in that door because that is the moment that binds the group together in prayer. If you ever feel alone and unappreciated, come to minyan early, and they will be overjoyed to see you and count you in their group. They do it not out of a sense of duty, but out of the joy that comes when we bind ourselves together as a community of ten.
Join a daily minyan. It will seem strange at first but the people there will welcome you to join them in prayer. Keep coming and see how quickly they warm up to you. How they get you involved in their lives and how they intertwine so beautifully in your life. It is almost never intrusive or rude, only a group who care for each other as they thank God for daily renewing their lives.
At minyan, I have learned never to take tomorrow for granted, and to thank God for the gift of today.

The eternal question: “What time will services be over?”

I suppose this question would not be so bothersome if the reason it was asked related to some important duty that needed to be performed after the service. At the end of Yom Kippur, when everyone is hungry, I can understand why people want to get out as soon as possible. These are the rare cases. The real question behind the question “What time will services be over?” is “How fast can I get out of here?” Non fundamentalist Jews seem to want to be anywhere but in a synagogue praying. If they have to be at the service, they will often come late to minimize the time they have to spend in prayer.

Ritual Committees and Boards of Directors have issued ultimatums to their clergy staff to have services end “on time”. Letters get written and apologies made when services run “late”. It is not just a Jewish problem either. One Christian minister, I am told, tells his congregation that the service will be over “When they have nothing more to talk to God about.”

I agree with Educator Joel Grishaver, that the real issue that underlies our question is never about time, it is about engagement. Grishaver talks about the other big issue in Judaism, the amount of time we require our children to be in “Hebrew” School. There is a common thread in both issues. As long as people don’t see religious education and prayer as important, they will find all kinds of ways to spend less and less time in both.

This puts the issue squarely in the hands of Rabbis and Cantors. I have way too many colleagues who complain that their own services are deadly boring. My good friend, Rabbi Jack Moline has chided them that if the services are boring then they have no one to blame but themselves. They set the tone of the service and it rests, almost exclusively in the hands of the Rabbis who put the service together.

But before you go out with this message to your own Rabbi and Cantor, remember that they almost always try to give a congregation what they want. Most of the Jews in the pews tell their clergy that they want the service to change as long as the change does not affect their own “favorite” part. Rabbis and Cantors regularly receive advice on how to change the service for the better that is contradictory and often at odds with what a Jewish prayer service is all about. Every generation tries to craft a service that they like, with words and melodies that call up warm memories and then fight tooth and nail to keep it that way forever, to the chagrin of those who came before and have different melodies and to those who will follow them who want to change these melodies.

That being said, there still is much that can be done to improve how we pray in synagogue.

First of all, we need to be true to the meaning of prayer. We neglect teaching about God and the meaning of prayer at our own peril. Many of our members have no idea who they are praying to and are not challenged to think their theology through. Our members are not “greenhorns” anymore. They are college educated and have the resources of the internet and more at their disposal. We should not be afraid to challenge them to spell out what they mean when they say words like “God”, “Prayer”, “Revelation”, “Redemption”, “Repentance” and “Torah”. Dr. Arnold Eisen, the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America would also have us add “Mitzvah” and “obligation”. Rabbi Sharon Brous, on the website of her congregation, has every board member’s name listed with some of the reasons they are active in the congregation. When our members have an understanding about why faith, God and Torah are important, they will have a better understanding of why they are in synagogue in the first place.

Next we will have to remember that prayer is a very personal and individual process. That is why it is becoming less likely that any one service can fill all the needs of every one of our members. The days of “one service fits all” is coming to a rapid close. We need to fall back to an earlier format where different groups of people had their own service that they did in their own way, at their own time and with their own melodies. We need to get away from the big box service and open instead small, intimate prayer groups that perhaps only come together as a community for a communal meal or collation after all services are finished.

I like to listen to a good singer as much as anyone else and I know many Cantors who are beautiful singers and accomplished musicians. But there are too many concerts on television, on cable, on line and in the concert halls for people who want to pray to sit through another. Many congregations are opting to go without a Cantor so that the congregation will have to pick up the slack and lead the service. I would hope that a modern Cantor would understand that the real job today is to teach congregants the melodies and nusach of our liturgy and enable them to lead and participate in the service. We need Cantors who can write the music that will change the way our congregations will experience prayer using all the tools that this kind of composing can bring to bear. We need relevant prayers, to be sure, but we also need relevant music. I have already written that there are composers who are not Cantors who have changed the way our congregations sing. If Cantors want to make a difference, they need to use the skills they have to go beyond these non-cantorial composers and create a new golden age of liturgical music for our congregations.

Many have written about how we need to get away from our services as a “show” with a Rabbi and Cantor in the front and everyone seated theater style in the room. We need to have more movable chairs so that our members can see each other when they pray and sing and the Rabbi and Cantor must move among them, not stand in the front. At least they should face the same way as the members to be a part of the congregation not separate from them. High bimahs that have clergy “standing over” the congregation must be torn down and the wall between the bimah and the seats must be removed.

There has been a lot of ink spilled over using musical instruments at Shabbat Services (There is no reason not to use them at daily minyan but I don’t see people demanding that change.) For the most part this is a false issue. Musical instruments in a place that has not had them will be, at best, a curiosity for a while and then things will return to what they were before. It is not the instruments that make the difference, it is the music itself. The right music, with or without instruments, will draw people in. There are just as many exciting congregations who only clap their hands on Shabbat as there are those with guitar, drums and keyboard.

Cutting and changing the liturgy is also a critical issue. The first part of this issue is the language problem of Hebrew text. When someone says they don’t understand the words they are praying, they don’t mean that they can’t translate the Hebrew, because that translation is often right on the opposite page! What is not understood is the reason that this prayer belongs in this place. We all sing songs when we don’t really know the words, because the music inspires us (Kol Nidre, for example is all about music, for the words are about as unspiritual as you can get.) Jews will sing in Hebrew if they have an understanding about the importance of this one prayer. We have a hard time trying to teach why we need a long string of psalms at the beginning of the service, why we repeat so many prayers so many times and how to use the liturgy as a springboard to touch the pain and gratitude that is in our hearts. Most of the time, all we teach our congregation is that everyone needs to be on the same page at the same time. We need to teach that it is OK to spend some time on a page that speaks to us, and let the rest of the congregation move ahead and we can catch up later.

We should challenge ourselves and our members to write personal prayers and share them with the congregation. We need to make a place for this in the service. I was in a congregation where the Bar/Bat Mitzvah stood before the ark as the Torah was put away and offered a personal prayer. Every week a Jewish adult should be asked to do this for the congregation. It is an exercise that will change the life of the one offering the prayer and change the lives of all those who listen to it. We live in a technological age where we should be able to add new words and translations to our prayer books regularly, and not feel tied by the bound texts we currently use. We print up announcements for the congregation, why not print up special prayers to be inserted in the service each week or a selection for the month.

Rabbi Brous has taught that our services should reflect the lives of our congregation. The Shabbat service before a natural disaster should not be the same as the one that comes after it. She is correct. We need to find ways to tailor the service to the mood of the congregation and the mood of the country. Our members do come to synagogue when they are celebrating and when they are sad. They come when they are happy and when they are insecure with themselves and with the world. They come to pray for loved ones who are sick and to find meaning in the face of death. There should be something in our service to speak to these needs.

I recently attended a theater production on a Showboat on the Mississippi River. The actors came out at the beginning of the performance and insisted that the audience participate in the show. We were to boo the villains, cheer the heroes and express our happiness or dismay with what the characters were saying. I have been to Baptist churches where this is so common that when I spoke, they verbally encouraged me on and were right in there with me as I shared my message. Rabbi Eugene and Annette Labowitz say that we should swap our sermons for a story that has a message for the congregation. Others go out into the congregation and engage them in learning, to struggle together with a difficult text. Storahtelling, the group in NY that makes the Torah Service come alive believes that a good song in the right place can help bring the message home. We need to do more to put the focus on the lesson and not on the Rabbi.

Dr.Ron Wolfson, has written a book on how to make our synagogues more welcoming. (This is a topic all of its own!) His method is to visit any religious institution that gets a huge crowd at services and then he ask them how they do it. There are many models out there of successful liturgy and engaging services. We would do well to visit them, understand them and then adapt their ideas into our own communities. Let me also add here that there are other, non liturgical issues with our service. We functionally exclude from the congregation young families if we don’t offer babysitting. We exclude the elderly if we don’t have large print books and hearing assistance. We exclude the disabled when our buildings and our bimah are not accessible. We exclude the intermarried when we don’t address their needs in the service. We exclude Jews with little Jewish education when we don’t have pamphlets with transliterations and explanations of what the service is all about.

The movie trilogy, “Lord of the Rings” consisted of three very long movies. I never heard a complaint that any of the movies were too long. Time problems are problems of engagement in the service. If we make the service come alive, they will come and they will stay. Let us encourage our Rabbis and Cantors to use all of their creative talents and we will soon reap the blessings of a fully engaged community.