3 Elul 5776

Dr. Paul Kalinithi writes in his memoir When Breath Becomes Air, that “You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.” (An asymptote, if you don’t remember from middle school Geometry, is a line that continually approaches a given curve but never meets it.)

Judaism inspires us to strive for perfection while understanding that we are inherently imperfect beings. Elul provides us a structure to look inward in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As you go through the month, try to target an asymptote toward which you strive for the coming year. Think about that asymptote during the High Holy Days and draw connections to it through our liturgy.

2 Elul 5776

2 Elul/September 5

Elul, written in Hebrew Alef, Lamed, Vav, Lamed, is often explained as an acronym for the phrase Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li - I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.

The Zohar teaches that we enter Elul achor el achor - back to back - in our relationships. But by the end of Elul we are panim el panim - face to face. During the month of Elul, it is our responsibility to turn towards our loved ones in empathy and compassion.

Soul singer Leon Bridges sings:
“What can I do? What can I do?
To get back to your heart
I'd swim the Mississippi river
If you would give me another start”

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur offer us a fresh start, as long as we are willing to put in the work during Elul. Wishing you strength, patience and empathy on your swim.

1 Elul 5776

The Hebrew month of Elul is the last month of the Jewish year. As such, it is considered a month of spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days. Special meditations are added to the daily service for some, known as S’lichot, or penitentiary prayers. (*The Saturday before Rosh Hashanah is also known as S’lichot, and it is used as a night of contemplation and study.) For several years, a group of Reform rabbis has collaborated on a series of Elul Thoughts, shared with our congregations in a daily email, and accompanied by a daily Tweet. We are happy to share them with you.

This year’s Elul Thoughts include contributions from Rabbi Brad Levenberg of Temple Sinai in Atlanta, GA; Rabbinical Student Alex Kress of HUC-JIR Los Angeles; Rabbi Eric Linder of Congregation Children of Israel in Athens, GA; Rabbi Daniel Treiser of Temple B’nai Israel in Clearwater, FL; Rabbi Alan Litwak of Temple Sinai in North Miami Beach, FL; Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, TX; and Rabbi David N. Young of Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Fountain Valley, CA. You can follow any of us on Facebook or Twitter.

If you have missed any of these daily emails or want to go back and remember something from earlier in Elul, feel free to read them all at http://tinyurl.com/elul76.

1 Elul/September 4

Today we are celebrating Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first of the month of Elul. Elul is the month that precedes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In many ways, this month is as important as our High Holidays themselves. During these 30 days, we are meant to engage in introspection and t’shuvah.

This makes me think of the Summer Olympics (happening as I write this). The athletes compete for medals and accolades, and sometimes the competition is as short as just a few seconds (I’m thinking of Usain Bolt’s 100 meter run.) But we know that the real work of the athletes did not happen in Rio. The real work took place during years of intense training and discipline.
As we move through the 30 days of Elul, I hope that each of us is able to do the personal “training” necessary to ensure that the High Holidays are a meaningful coda to the work that we’ve done.

Educating Our Current and Future Leaders

by guest blogger Sam Backer, CBT President

A significant benefit of Congregation B’nai Tzedek’s membership in the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) is that we have access to information, people and resources from the governing body of the Reform movement.  We have low and no-cost opportunities to participate in various programs that enable our professional staff, Board and other lay leaders to learn and grow as they serve the congregation.  All we have to do is ask for help.  We did that and this month the current Board as well as incoming trustees will be participating in an on-site workshop.  A URJ facilitator will travel to CBT – at no cost to us – to help the Board work to further define goals and leadership responsibilities.  It’s a win-win for the Board and the congregation.

Sometimes the request for help comes from the URJ when it reaches out to its member congregations.  It did so recently when it asked for congregations to apply to participate in an Emerging Leaders Pilot Initiative.  Of the 900 congregations in the movement, 200 applied including CBT.  We were one of 21 congregations selected to participate.  This is a great honor for us!

The Emerging Leaders Initiative is a collection of stand-alone modules created by the URJ that will introduce a full range of topics and skills important to leadership and decision-making in a synagogue community.  Topics include visioning and creating a mission; general leadership skills; synagogue governance; personal leadership styles; and our own congregational community.  The specific modules we will pilot will be assigned this month by the URJ.  We seek to create a new cadre of leaders with the interest and potential to take CBT into the future.

We will meet once a month for about two hours per session beginning in June.  There will be four or five sessions.  Since we are piloting this program, the URJ has asked that every participant complete a survey about this program by November so they can make adjustments for the success of future participants.

Several congregants have been invited formally to participate in this program because they specifically have expressed interest in being part of CBT’s leadership or they have been identified as good candidates to be future leaders of our congregation.  However, the opportunity to participate is open to all members of CBT.  If you are interested in taking advantage of this program, be sure to email Rabbi Young at rabbiyoung@cbtfv.org.  Space is limited so be sure to get your name in for consideration as soon as possible.

From the Board workshop this month to the Emerging Leaders Initiative Pilot starting in June, we are fortunate to have such incredible learning opportunities offered by the URJ.  I look forward to further growth by our current leaders and to cultivating and working with those who will lead CBT into the future.

L’shalom,

Sam

Let My People Go This Passover

Tonight is Shabbat Hagadol, the Shabbat before Passover. On Passover we are reminded again and again about the slavery we suffered in Egypt. We are commended to remember it. We are commanded to feel as if we personally had been freed from Egypt. We are surrounded by symbols of bitterness, tears, and sweat so that we can remember the slavery in Egypt.

Throughout the Torah we are commanded, and slavery in Egypt is attached to the reasoning behind the command. The first of the Ten Utterances (misleadingly known as the Ten Commandments), says, “I am Adonai Your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod. 20:2). We are commanded to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread during the month of Aviv, “because in [that month] you came out of [slavery in] Egypt…” (Exod. 23:15). God regularly self-identifies as, “Adonai Your God who brought you out of Egypt.” And there are countless times we are reminded not to oppress the widow, the orphan, or the stranger, for we were strangers in the Land of Egypt.

We can read from all of these reminders of our slavery in Egypt that we should have empathy for those who are enslaved, who are strangers, who are captives. Even those who are captive because of their own mistakes—those who are imprisoned justly by the courts, who should still be treated with justice while they are serving their time. 

Some of you are aware that I met with Governor Jerry Brown this week.

On Wednesday afternoon, 25 California rabbis from across the denominations met in Hollywood with he governor, so he could explain his initiative to help reduce prison overcrowding, save money for California taxpayers, and prevent the revolving door so many prisoners are subject to. It is called The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, and I encourage you to look it up on line and get informed about it when you get home. governor Brown needs one million signatures by mid-May to get this Act on the ballot in June, and he has approached faith leaders across the state to help him with this important initiative.

What does the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act do? (Boldface lines are directly from Governor Brown's  web site or from comments he made at our meeting.)

• Authorizes parole consideration for people with non-violent convictions who complete the full sentence for their primary offense. This means that offenders are eligible for parole after one sentence is served, instead of after a string of consecutive sentences. With the parole board in place to take each person into consideration, it takes away the sweeping, long-term sentences that currently exist in our state.

• Incentivizes people in prison to complete rehabilitation and education programs. The governor reminded us that in prison there are many choices. A prisoner could join a gang, get involved with drugs, learn violent and abusive behaviors, become a victim of said behaviors, or rise above and get educated, get physically and mentally fit, go to counseling or rehab. If they choose the right path and do what Governor Brown calls “Good Time,” they might be rewarded with early parole.

• Requires the Secretary of Corrections to certify that the regulations implementing these policies protect and enhance public safety. This means correctional officers would get extra training to know how to handle those making good choices but making mistakes, and helping them learn to positively reinforce good behaviors, and use the carrot more than the stick. We were told the story of a prisoner who was working hard to get his GED. He struggled with behavioral problems and slipped up from time to time, and a prison guard was punishing him by taking his books away. Guards would be trained to recognize that punishments like this end up punishing everyone, not just the prisoner. Helping the staff make better choices is just as important as encouraging good time for the inmates.

• Requires judges rather than prosecutors to decide whether a youth as young as 14-years-old should be tried as an adult. This would take a large population of very vulnerable prisoners out of prison and put them in juvenile detention centers. It also mandates a judge carefully review all of the circumstances of a youth's crime and life before making a decision on whether that young person should be charged as an adult.

• Saves taxpayer dollars by reducing wasteful spending within our correctional system. Lowering the prison population lowers the cost of taking care of its inmates. In 2012, the US Supreme Court mandated that California reduce its prison population to 137% of capacity, which at the time was 200%. In the last three years, Governor Brown’s policies have help reduce prison spending by just over $1 billion, but there is still a long way to go.

• Keeps the most dangerous offenders locked up. Those who do not make good choices, including violent offenders, will stay in prison. This is important to note, because the bill does not suggest any sort of blanket treatment of prisoners, but to treat each person individually, as the person they are.

On Passover this year we will begin our “Let My People Go Initiative.” Starting next Friday, there will be petitions available for us to sign to get the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act on the ballot this June. There will be petitions available at CBT’s Second Seder next Saturday evening, and they will be here in the office throughout the week of Passover. Our goal is to get 100 signatures from CBT by May 20, and if we run out of petitions, we will order another 100. 

May we work toward making positive change in our prison system in California, because we were prisoners in the land of Egypt.

A Mechitza at CBT

This past Friday night (2/5/16) was an extraordinary evening for me. In case you missed it, last Friday was our monthly Family Shabbat, where we have a religious school class lead services, teens playing guitar, a slide show of our prayers, and I usually tell a story instead of delivering a sermon. Last week, I had an idea. 

I decided to build a temporary mechitza in our sanctuary. A mechitza is a divider of some kind that separates men from women in the synagogue. In the Talmud it suggests that women should be separated from men as modeled by the Temple Courtyard (B. Sukkah 51b-52a), which had a women’s section called ezrat nashim, the same name given to women’s sections in Orthodox synagogues today. These dividers can take several forms, including but not limited to: a separate space, such as a balcony or different room; a raised wall, permanent or moveable, that divides the room in parts; a partition of any size that divides the room.

I constructed a mechitza in one of our two aisles, with men on the left and women on the right. The men’s section was also twice the size of the women’s. Before the service began, there were grumblings. Some people joked with me about it, some complained behind my back. It was uncomfortable, foreign, and against what we stand for as a Reform, egalitarian congregation. I learned later that one couple didn’t even want to enter the sanctuary. A relatively new congregant said to me after the service, “I thought we were going to have to go shul shopping again!” It was exactly the reaction for which I had hoped.

My intent was to talk about the new egalitarian space at the Kotel, and ask the service participants how it feels to be separated from those they would normally sit with in a worship service. What luck that our incredibly intelligent, vocal, and inquisitive 4th/5th grade class was leading the service with me. They asked incredible questions and made it so I barely had to ask anything.

Before Barechu, I began my teaching. I put up a slide of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and asked if they knew what it was. (They did. CBT kids are awesome!) I showed pictures of famous people leaning against or touching the wall—Bibi Netanyahu, Morgan Freeman, President Obama, etc. I asked what they all had in common, and they identified very quickly that they are all male. I then showed them pictures of famous women at the Kotel, and they were all in the plaza—none were touching the wall. 

I then showed a picture of the Kotel Plaza with its male and female sections, and asked what they thought about how it was separated compared to how we are separated. One 5th grader raised her hand and said, “Isn’t tonight supposed to be a Family Service? Shouldn’t we be able to sit with our FAMILY?!?” 

That question was exactly the point. Separating those who would wish to worship together taints the beautiful feeling of Shabbat at CBT. She led us into a discussion of Rabbi Anat Hoffman and the fantastic progress they made last week at the wall, getting government approval for an egalitarian section at the Western Wall. We discussed how important it is for us to be able to worship next to whomever we choose, and how it is unfair for me to force them to sit away from their loved ones, when part of the purpose of Shabbat is to be with family.

The 4th and 5th graders were vocal and questioned a lot, and we agreed that we should “tear down the wall.” It is also important that we support Women of the Wall, and visit the egalitarian section when we go to Israel, both with CBT and on our own. 

I am so blessed and proud to be a part of a community that takes egalitarianism so seriously. As a Reform Jew it gives me a great deal of comfort to know that whoever comes into our synagogue to worship with us will be welcomed with acceptance and peace, no matter where they choose to sit.

Biennial Sermon Nov 13, 2015

Last week I attended the URJ’s 73rd Biennial Convention in Orlando. It was a gathering of 5000 Reform Jews from among the 900 URJ Congregations in North America. It was my fourth Biennial, and probably the best one I have ever been to. This year they did things a little differently for Biennial by dividing the sessions into four tracks of learning: Tikkun Olam, for those focused on social action; Audacious Hospitality, for those focused on how congregations are emulating the catch phrase embraced by the union two years ago in San Diego; Strengthening Congregations, for those trying to invigorate their membership and entice new families; and Transforming Texts for people like me who love to learn with the union’s top Torah teachers.

There were also some fantastic plenary sessions with amazing presenters. There was a panel on Israel with author Ari Shavit, Israel’s youngest Member of Knesset Stav Shaffir, and Past President of the URJ Rabbi Eric Yoffie. There was a moving tribute to Rabbi David Saperstein, currently serving as the United States’ Ambassador for Religious Freedom, and a speech by Vice President Joe Biden that felt like he was chatting with us in his living room.

The goal of this trip was to give us some ideas and inspiration for our own congregation, and in this regard it was successful. I want to point out three things I learned from Biennial this year that I hope to set into motion here at CBT.

I want to start at the end of Biennial and work my way backwards. After four intense days of biennial, most people do not go to the Sunday morning sessions. Usually we fly out on Sunday and cannot attend, but this year there was a study session with Rabbi Lauren Berkun from the Hartman Center Institute. My guess is that very few people in this room are familiar with either Rabbi Berkun or the Hartman Center, so suffice it to say that both of these names elicit ooh’s and aah’s from my circle of friends, and she absolutely deserves great kudos for the lesson she prepared for us. Her session was called, “Who is a Jewish Leader?” and it looked at Abraham, Hannah, and Rabbi A.J. Heschel as exemplary Jewish leaders. She gave us a midrash from Genesis Rabbah about Abraham from Genesis 12:

Adonai said to Abram, “Go forth from your land…” R. Isaac said: This may be compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace (birah) all in flames. He wondered, “Is it possible that this palace has no manhig (no one who looks after it)?” The owner of the palace looked out and said, “I am the owner (ba’al) of the palace.” Similarly, because Abraham our ancestor wondered, “Is it possible that this world is without a manhig (manager)? The Holy One of Blessing looked out at him and said, “I am the owner (ba’al) of the world.”

A birah, that is translated here as “palace,” was actually more like a tenement house. It was an apartment complex that was susceptible to catching fire. So a birah doleket, a tenement house all in flames, would actually be a relatively common thing. If there was a fire, the manager of the building, the manhig, would run around and wake up the residents. Abraham asking, “Where is the manager?” is logical. What is interesting is that God answers, “I am the owner,” not the manager. So Abraham in this Midrash, sees the world on fire and asks where the manager is. God comes down and claims ownership, which implies that there is no manager. So when God calls to Abraham, it is not a call out, it is a call for help. Abraham sees the world on fire and complains aloud that there is no leader, and God says, “Yes. You need to be the manager. You need to be the leader.”

God is calling for us all the time. The world is on fire, and it is up to us to step up, rouse the residents of the world, work to put out the blaze, and encourage others to act alongside us. That is the leadership we learn from Abraham, and because I know how important learning is to our community, I look forward to sharing more of what I learned from this three-hour text study with you.

The next thing I want to point out is my Saturday lunch session with Allison Klein, that I attended with our president, Sam Backer. Ms. Klein wrote a book that I cited during my report to the congregation last month called “Matterness,” and a lot of what she wrote helped inspire a part of our current visioning with the board of trustees. One of the first things she did during her presentation was to open up the floor to anyone who wanted to share a story about when they feel they didn’t matter, and then she asked people to share a story about when they mattered. After 20 minutes of taking other people’s stories, she pointed out the commonality. Every time people felt like they did not matter, they were not listened to, and every time they felt like the mattered, they were. Most of these stories are about one touch--one moment when the person’s whole experience with the organization was affected.

Instead of sharing one of these stories, I want to share a story I heard from here at CBT. Since I do not have permission to share names, suffice it to say that a person came in to the synagogue with their child years ago, and they were hanging out near the back because they were wearing jeans. They were greeted by a not-to-be-named Director of Education, who told them that we don’t care what people are wearing here, just as long as they are here. Now I know that there are differing opinions about dress code and bimah etiquette, but for a person who is coming to CBT for the first time to be welcomed with open arms no matter what they were wearing, that one moment made that family a faithful CBT family, and I am so thankful that we have people here who get it. We are a community who understands matterness at our core, and if I were not a Jewish professional I know that I would want my family to make CBT our Jewish home, because you make us feel like we matter.

Finally, on the first day of the convention I went to a session called, “Words Shape Worlds,” which was about listening to individual stories and using them to engage our community to move them to action. Take the story I just told about being welcomed in jeans. It would be easy for me to say, “We welcome all people, and we have no dress code.” That would be factual and effective, but it only speaks to our head. Hearing the story of someone who felt intimidated by their own outfit choice, and derived comfort from a caring member of CBT speaks to our heart. Everyone has a story, and everyone’s story can be used as a spark to ignite change in our community.

Case and point: for the past few months I have been hearing from people about what they are lacking from CBT. This is great, but I have been making a mistake when I hear their complaints. I have been defensive and explained that we already do these things. This is wrong, and I am going to try to change the message from “we already do this,” to “tell me what you are looking for.”

But I cannot do this alone.

The board doesn’t know this, but I am about to ask them to invite you all to their homes so that we can listen to you. I am going to challenge them on Sunday at our next board meeting, but I am telling you all now so that together we can hold them accountable. Each board member will be asked to invite 10 people to their home to listen to their stories, and bring them back to the board as a whole so that we can try to make improvements that will provide what they are seeking whenever possible. My hope is to teach them some of what I learned to the board, so that they can lead sessions for you.

We all have stories to share, and we all have needs that can be filled. The solutions to the needs of some occasionally do not serve the needs of others, but in the words of Allison Klein, “Somebody might get left out does not means we should just leave everybody out instead.” We acknowledge that our different stories provide different opportunities, and that is exactly what makes a thriving community. An open tent, so to speak, with multiple opportunities for entry, many ways to be heard, and many chances to connect with like-minded Reform Jews who are passionate about Jewish learning, Tikkun Olam, and Matterness.

I would be remiss if I did not mention what a valuable experience biennial is. The next URJ Biennial will be December 6-10, 2017, in Boston, MA. In addition to the sessions I described tonight, there are opportunities to pray together, hear incredible new Jewish music (Cantor Natalie Young performed on the Jewish Rock Radio Stage, for example), and even do some pretty cool shopping. Of course, there is a lot of schmoozing, and one of my favorite things to do at a biennial is to take my own congregation out for an incredible dinner.

I hope you will join me in Boston in 2017, and I know you will be a part of making what we learned in Orlando come to fruition here in Fountain Valley.