Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Since the beginning of January, I have been on a tour of North America and have seen over 400 Conservative rabbis face-to-face or conducted extensive phone interviews with them.

What am I looking for?

I have been reaching out to my colleagues with the question: “As a rabbi, what are you are trying to accomplish in your community? How does your Torah inspire your community to bring change in their lives and the world?” In the aggregate, their stories are a lens on the Conservative movement today.

We need to return the discussion of “movement” in American Jewish life to its true meaning. A “movement,” whether it be Zionism, civil rights, chasidism or Conservative Judaism, is about powerful ideas that unite and motivate people to come together with a compelling commitment to build towards a vision of the future. A movement inspires people to believe that the work of their lives can create change in the world and this conviction sustains their commitment through the ways and times that flawed human beings working and living together inevitably will disappoint one another.

Why fight for a “movement” when many claim that this concept has passed its time? Some of our most talented and creative thinkers eschew the concept of Jewish religious movements. And yet, as the menu of individual programs and initiatives being generated by small organizations multiplies, no one has adequately answered the question of how a “supermarket” of projects — minimally, if at all, connected to established communal institutions or to one another — actually creates committed Jews and enduring Jewish communities.

We in the Conservative community, and indeed, in the larger Jewish community, have been confusing the Conservative “movement,” with Conservative “institutions.” The Conservative movement is a set of values and ideals. Conservative Judaism teaches us that we are obligated to make ourselves more decent people and to make our world a more just place. Conservative rabbis teach that Judaism lives in committed, caring communities, where ritual and ethical mitzvot are both viewed as sacred. We aspire to a Jewish life, lived fully in a complex and multivalent world.

The Conservative movement opens its doors to wherever people are embarking on the path and we challenge all involved to keep growing further. Hebrew language, Torah study and commitment to Israel are challenges we lay squarely before our community. We embrace the realization that if we are “commanded” or obligated to mitzvot, that commitment applies to the ritual precepts as well as the ethical ones.

Resources are more scarce and all over North America; the synagogue, our most sacred gateway to Jewish life for centuries, is under myriad stresses. But my colleagues speak with excitement, hopefulness and gratitude that when momentous events in people’s lives lead them to explore Judaism, rabbis are blessed to be present with something significant to offer.

In a meeting this week of a small group of Conservative rabbis, they spoke of Torah study, of Hebrew fluency, of meaningful encounter with Israel and her people, of the profound and urgent need in communities to help people learn to take care of one another. Underneath each endeavor was the text, the community, and the goal of helping people internalize the actions of Jewish life.

The urgent need to distinguish between “movement” and “institution” does not belong exclusively to the Conservative community. In part, because Conservative Judaism was such a pervasive and defining framework of 20th-century North American Jewish life, it has become the midrashic vehicle through which the larger Jewish community is telling its uncertain story of transition and change. The promulgation of Conservative Judaism, a learned, committed Jewish expression that is vitally committed to the larger community and society, is one of the greatest gifts we can give to future generations.

Our national Conservative organizations and institutions are not the “movement”; they are over 100 years old and in urgent need of rethinking. The ideals of our movement, by contrast, are as relevant and inspiring as ever. If we keep talking about bricks and bylaws rather than about the vision of the “movement,” we can’t effectively build the institutions we need.

The challenges we are facing in the Conservative movement belong to all of us in the larger Jewish community. Our task is to clarify and revitalize our vision for the future while sustaining the power of the large networks of community that still hold so much potential for bringing Judaism forward into the 21st century.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld is executive director of the Rabbinical Assembly, the rabbinic arm of the Conservative movement.

This coming Shabbat is known as Shabbat Shirah.  Here at B’nai Israel Gainesville we will celebrate song with guest artist, Rabbi Noam Katz who will bring to our congregation his unique sounds of Jewish worship and teaching.  We call our weekends of musical energy, “Deep Soul Shabbat”, following a phrase that appears in the weekday tachanun prayer that implores God to endow us with a “deep spirit”.  

And yet, on this week of Shirah, of song, we are saddened by the loss of one of the preeminent creative voices of Jewish prayer in our times.  Debbie Friedman, z”l lost her struggle in her fight for health this past weekend and her creative spirit stilled.  Yet her voice will sing on in our hearts and souls through the gifts of song that she provided us and that lives in the voices of so many prayerful souls.  

“Ki l’cha tov l’hodot u’le’shim’cha no’eh l’ho’dot l’zamir”

“For it is good to chant praise; to You it is fitting to sing”

From www.torahtopicstoday.com

BO

• Have you ever wanted to make up with a friend, sibling, or parent, only to find it very difficult to bring yourself to do so?  
• What makes people become stubborn?   
• What can help family members be less stubborn?

And he (Jacob) dreamed: Behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to the heavens, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  And behold, the Lord stood beside him….

And Jacob awoke and said “Surely, God is in this place and I did not know.” [Bereshit 28: 12, 16]

The story of Jacob’s dream is an interesting one.  And the rabbis of our tradition spend much time interpreting the meaning of the ladder and attempting to explain the strange language that describes the angels first ascending and then descending.  There are many clever explanations that both inspires and bring clarity to this enigmatic episode.

But this week I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Jacob’s actions directly following this dramatic dream.  The text tells us that first Jacob got up in the morning and took the stone that he had slept on during the night and anoints it.  Then he bestows a new name on the location: Bet El (later Bethel) which means “House of God”.  And finally, Jacob makes a conditional vow:  IF God will with him and keep him safe, giving sustenance and clothing and allowing him to return to his father’s house in peace THEN the Lord will be his God, the pillar will be God’s and Jacob will give a tenth of all he has to God.

Now it seems to me that this is outrageous behavior for our ancestor Jacob.  You may recall that he has just recently escaped the wrath of his brother for appropriating his brother’s identity in order to gain their father’s birthright blessing.  And now, he has had this vivid dream of God’s presence assuring him of his future blessings.  In return, he makes a CONDITIONAL vow?  

Despite the rabbinic interpretation to the contrary, perhaps we are learning here that Jacob still has a long road toward spiritual maturation.  Oh, he has a great deal of desire to ascend to the level of his grandfather, Abraham - his vow to dedicate one-tenth of his wealth to God mirrors the vow made earlier by Abraham (Bereshit 14:20).  In fact, the entire dream can be seen as a hint that Jacob has much room for growth.  After all, he dreams of a sulam - a ladder.  And it is precisely a ladder that will take us from the lower levels of spiritual desire to spiritual knowledge.  Perhaps his vision of the angels ascending is a message that he too can ascend if he desires.  And, after he awakes Jacob tells us that he did not know that God was present.  Jacob is AWARE that he must find his own ladder to be able to ascend toward God.  

When we hear the vow we hear this Jacob who is aware but not yet developed.  In time, Jacob will have plenty of time to spend working for Lavan and will grow tremendously as he pursues the love of his life.  It will be this more mature Jacob who will finally have his name changed to Yisrael and who will eventually earn his right to stand alongside his father and grandfather as a patriarch of our people.  

Perhaps we can discern that Jacob is taking a first step on the ladder toward God.  In the first few steps he has good intention but falls just short when he makes this conditional vow.  

In our own lives it is very easy for us to imagine that we are much farther up on the holy ladder than we actually are.  We posture around and we make promises and vows that sound magnificent and so full of good intention.  But, in fact, when we really are able to ascend to that higher level of spirituality our words and intentions will be anything but verbal.  It will be our actions that speak volumes - our actions of tzedakah, kindness and goodness; actions that are wholly without personal gain or attribution; actions that take place in the world anonymously but bring relief to pain and suffering in a broken world.

Jacob will grow.  He will become Israel.  We, too, can grow.  We, too, aspire to become Israel.