Guilt Free Judaism

Whatever happened to our image of tolerance?

2006-12-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

The comedian Jon Stewart quipped two weeks ago, “It seems that the ‘War on Christmas’ starts earlier every year.” The pundits and opinion makers in our culture seem attached to this notion that Christianity and the predominant Christian culture, are constantly under attack – this time from something as innocuous as people saying “Happy Holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

So let’s look at this a little, understanding that regardless of claims of Christianity’s tenuous position in our American culture, this is still a mostly Christian country, with the vast majority of people identifying themselves as Christian of some sort, and we have the largest church-going population of ANY industrialized country.

First of all, a large segment of our population seems to think that there was some great golden age of America, perhaps in the 1950’s some time, when all families were whole and healthy, and everyone gathered around Christmas trees and said Merry Christmas to one another and sang carols in their snowy suburban paradise. This image ignores the fact that at that time there was incredible racial and ethnic injustice in this country, that women’s equality had been sent back decades, and that this “Golden Age,” included very few years without war and a draft.

Second, “Happy Holidays,” did not originate as a way to include other religious and ethnic groups’ winter celebrations, but rather was short cut to combine “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” without having to spend too long greeting everyone.

So what do we do now? One of America’s greatest strengths is our diversity, and our confidence in who we are fuels that. The more we believe in ourselves, the more we can allow other people to believe in themselves, even when they may be different from us. The “attack on Christmas” is fear-mongering, period. This is the language of fear, insecurity, and intolerance.

I know that I don’t want to go back to a “Golden Age” built on the oppression of others, and if going forward means accepting each other’s differences – for example, happily accepting that some well-meaning people, even when I am wearing a yarmulke, will say “Merry Christmas” – then I think someone expecting that in return can cope with the similar sentiment of “Happy Holidays.” There are plenty of celebrations to go around – can’t we share in their joy without feeling threatened?

Happy Holidays to all of you in this season of getting together, and by holidays I mean, “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Chanukah,” “Happy Kwanza,” “Happy New Year,” and any other holiday that might pop up in this time of celebrations!

Respectful Dissent - at the heart of good humanity...

2006-04-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Argument and debate, dissent and discourse – not only are these the bedrock of our democratic system, but also the heart and soul of Judaism. It seems that something has happened to this spirit of disagreement in our culture over the last few years, and I would like to take a moment to advocate on behalf of respectful dissent.

I imagine that I might not be the only one who has noticed how difficult it has become to speak about issues of any significance in a way that allows two or more people to disagree. More and more, on hot button issues, between right and left, religious and secular, liberals and conservatives, people actually go so far as to refuse to hold discussions with those who disagree with them.

Jewish history and traditions, of course, include a most engaging understanding of the importance of healthy debate. The first attempt to create a comprehensive Jewish legal corpus, the Talmud, consists of a very involved, engaged, and quite lengthy debate over how to live and build a Jewish society. The Talmud lays out principles of argument, including a most rigorous ruling about the recording of minority opinions, so that they may be referred to at later times when the vote on them might change.

While strident traditionalism has occurred at various times in Jewish history, the bulk of our past writings and experience emphasize the importance of opening almost all topics to discussion. The rigidity of the lines between different Jewish sects emerging over the last century, especially in the areas of ultra-orthodoxy on the side of preserving traditions, and liberal Judaism on the side of adaptation and change, perhaps represents a wider gap between Jews than has existed before, and thus may help explain some of our own struggles at civil discourse between Jews as well.

All this goes to say that even though there may be some recent evidence to the contrary, the bulk of Jewish thought leads us to work on the creation of healthy environments in which disagreement and argument may be viewed as assets to relationships and communities.

Considering our current struggles then, how might we work to foster such reasonable discussions in our own lives?

As a “recovering” New Yorker, I thought I knew everything about healthy debate – also known as, I knew how to be very argumentative. One of the interesting things about reasonable argument is that good discussions are less about the arguments that we make, and more about our willingness to listen to those of others. Perhaps, our current environment of divisiveness can be summed up quite simply as a crisis in listening.

Next time we have the opportunity to express ourselves about our deeply help opinions, maybe we can challenge ourselves to take a deep breath, and listen to someone else’s position on that topic. Instead of biding our time to give our version, let’s try to lend all of our attention to what the other person might be trying to say. After all, I strongly believe that our fellow humans around us wouldn’t feel strongly about something without a good reason – despite how differently they might think from us.

In other words, let us do our best to try to make room in our minds for the “minority opinions” that might be out there. Let us embrace our Jewish and American traditions of discourse and disagreement for the sake of expanding our understanding of the world. We humans are social beings – we solve problems better when we work together, not because we have all the answers by ourselves, but precisely because others may have insight that we don’t. May we all work a little bit more to find and share those insights with each other.

A truly welcoming Judaism means...

2005-10-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

American culture seems focused on the nature of the family, and, for the last few years one of the most important aspects of this discussion has been the struggle over how, or how not, to include same-sex couples into a notion of family. Many of the most strongly religious leaders of our nation have also identified themselves as heartily against such a broadening of the definition of family, and often their argument finds support in biblical passages, namely one in Leviticus.

Here is the passage in question, from the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 20:13, from a translation that closely expresses the intent of the original Hebrew: “A man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman – abomination have the two of them done, they are to be put-to-death, yes death, their bloodguilt is upon them!” At first glance this seems relatively definitive upon the issue of same-sex relationships between men, although not between women. However, there are at least two questions I wish to raise about this text.

First, what does the text mean by a “man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman”? Some studies of ancient culture have discovered that some peoples living around the times of the ancient Israelites may have practiced a ritual in which male priests dress up like women and perform intimate acts with male worshippers. This would definitely fall into the “abomination” category as early Israelites wrote laws to help them distinguish themselves quite clearly from their neighbors.

One can easily imagine that our modern notion, which many of us hold, and to which there is plenty of supporting evidence, that two men or women could live together and build a healthy family was unknown to our ancient ancestors, and that therefore what is being prohibited here is something else entirely.

Second, no matter how serious a religious person one is, none of us live by the letter of the biblical law. We are not offering up sacrifices, nor are we stoning rebellious children (which of us would have survived?) or those who don’t follow our rules about the Sabbath. Judaism follows an interpretive tradition, one that has always frowned upon death penalties that contradict our teachings about compassion and community-building, for example. So the question here needs to be what are our values, and how do we best teach and promote them?

I, for one, am very committed to the notion of a healthy family as the building block of society. I want to help people find life-partners, if they wish to, so that they can live the most fulfilling lives possible. If someone cannot have a fulfilling relationship with someone of the opposite sex, but can have a fulfilling relationship with someone of the same sex, then we ought to facilitate that healthy relationship, welcoming them and enabling them to commit to each other. Our traditions teach compassion and caring – let us turn that compassion and caring to all who wish to build families, and help them do it even when it may seem uncomfortable to us.

More on spirituality and Judaism

2005-08-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

The divine, spirituality, and Judaism – a second installment on this topic seems to be necessary, since I seem to have created a little stir with my last piece, and the least I can do is explain myself. Liberal Jewish communities try to devote ourselves to maintaining a sense of dialogue and discussion on all these issues. If anyone felt that I somehow meant to exclude them from this communal discussion with what I wrote in the previous post, please understand that that was in no way my intention. Some felt strongly enough about the piece to discuss it directly with me – thank you! A lively discourse on what exactly makes us who we are and why is one of my most important goals as rabbi, and a fundamental aspect of Jewish tradition. When we discuss these things, I believe that we live better, more reflected lives, which better embrace Jewish traditions about discourse. Jewish tradition strongly advocates for freedom of belief, and strongly frowns on any instruction that tells one what to think or believe.

First of all, just because I wrote that it was possible to be an atheist and Jewish, doesn’t mean I advocate that. In fact, as many of you may remember, I often talk about what Dr. Gerald May (may his memory be for a blessing, he recently died) has called “functional atheism” – “the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me.” When do we do this? Whenever we place our own desires and needs above those of the community and the world, we act as if we are more important than anything else, as if there is nothing greater than ourselves, as if there is no source for meaning beyond the self. Living in a world where humans are placed at the center, where our own self is of highest importance, is the ultimate form of atheism, and one that clearly I think is neither advisable nor Jewish.

When I say, “One may be Jewish and an atheist,” I am being intentionally provocative, to encourage thoughts about the nature of Jewish communal life. Additionally, I attempt to open doors for those who may find literal interpretations of the divine in the Hebrew Bible and our prayer services a barrier to their participation in Judaism. I often find that people who claim to be atheists actually react against a perceived simplicity in many more literalist interpretations of the divine. Unlike many other religious perspectives, Judaism, as a culture, a philosophical system, and a religion, embraces the complexity of the universe as a source for awe in the power behind its creation. Judaism asks us to explore the depths and intricacies of a universe that defies our limited comprehension, and a spiritual path that leads us into something far bigger than our finite selves.

Second, I truly intended my last piece to assure people that no matter what their personal spiritual path, I, as a rabbi, would not condemn their inner spiritual life. Judaism has no dogma about the inner spiritual life. Some people find their spirituality fed by a prayer service at a synagogue, some people find it fed on top of a mountain – neither of these paths, nor any other that provides one with a deeper sense of meaning in this life, falls into the realm of a synagogue or rabbi to dictate.

Perhaps, when I wrote that Judaism demands no particular belief or theological perspective, I could have clarified that Judaism demands no particular spiritual path from anyone. Judaism asks us to behave well, and work to make a better world through the building of healthy communities. Judaism refrains from dictating one’s thoughts or beliefs – there are certainly thoughts and beliefs inconsistent with healthy participation in a Jewish community, but as long as they don’t manifest in the form of actions, I will not ask anyone to change what they think.

Again, my thanks to all of you who engaged me in discussion on these topics. Few enough people consider a talk about theology and philosophy interesting, much less as a central conversation to a community’s health. As Jews, we know that a discourse like this, especially one that contains heart felt opinions and potential disagreements, reflects our health as a community. As my namesake, Rav Yonaton, in the Talmud says, “One who argues with their companion does so for the sake of heaven” – commenting on the piece in Proverbs 28:23 – “One who reproves a man will in the end find more favor than one who flatters him.”

May all of you have a beautiful and thoughtful August – filled with fruitful conversations and helpful actions!

Atheist & Jewish? Why not?

2005-06-08T22:17:00.000-07:00

Many of you may find this strange, but often people come up to me and say something like this: “Rabbi, I am Jewish, but I don’t really believe in God…”

Isn’t this great? You can be an atheist, and be Jewish! It’s true. There is nothing that says anywhere that you have to believe one thing or another to be Jewish. After all, you could, theoretically, “believe” that killing people is a good idea, and as long as you didn’t DO it, you could still be accepted as a “good Jew,” in most communities, whatever that means.

And, yes, just as an aside, I propose here that nobody really knows what it is to be a “good Jew,” and that most of us don’t think that we are “good Jews.” Jews use this term on each other and ourselves to create bad guilt about how we could be better – leave this term and the guilt behind and we will all be happier. Who is a “good Jew”? The good friend, the good family member, the good human, the good care-taker, the good giver, the good community-builder – these people are great Jews! The one who keeps strictly kosher, doesn’t drive on Shabbat, etc. – this person is a strictly observant Jew, not necessarily a better Jew than the rest of us.

Alright, tangent on what it means to be a good Jew finished, let’s return to the topic of the divine. What does Judaism tell us about how we NEED to relate to God?

Not much – there’s a lot about what God tells us to do, a little bit about how to be holy, and therefore like God, but almost nothing about how to get in touch with the divine (Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, is all about getting in touch with the divine, and it is a discipline that evolved much later than our biblical texts). Furthermore, Jewish texts tend to shy away from teaching about the nature of the divine as well, to the extent that Maimonides, that famous medieval Jewish philosopher, posited that the only thing we can even begin to know about the divine is what it is not. In other words, we can propose that the divine is not inherently destructive, even while we can debate over just how inherently creative the creative force in the universe might be.

Considering all of this, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that we don’t need to talk about God to be Jewish. I want all of you to think about the most essential aspects of our Jewish experiences as members of Temple Bat Yam, or any other thriving Jewish community. The things that I come up with when I ponder this are not declarations of faith, but warm feelings of community and family sharing times together – celebrating together, supporting each other, having fun together, and occasionally mourning together.

Perhaps we have made a small mistake in American English by treating “religion” and “theology” as equivalent terms. I would guess, and please correct me if I am wrong here, that most Americans, regardless of their ethnic and cultural heritages, don’t go to synagogue, church, mosque, ashram, or wherever, to hear about the divine – I bet they go to find people who care about the same things in the same ways that they do – to find extended family, as one of our local congregants so clearly articulates for us here in South Lake Tahoe.

Remember that “religion” is mostly about community, and not only about God. I would guess that anyone who is trying to tell you about the definite and specific nature of the divine, is probably trying to sell you something. Religious people in 21^st century America care about the values that make a community strong, just like us. So remember that as long as your are good people, you are all “good Jews,” and that whether or not you believe in the literal truth of the “God of the Bible,” has nothing to do with it.

Happy Summer everyone!

Jews and the Holocaust - Memorials and Victims

2005-04-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

Look in any place you might find Jewish resources – library (real or virtual), Jewish Community Center, synagogue library, even in a book store – and you will find a significant section devoted to the Holocaust, or the Shoah, as it is referred to in Hebrew. Look around the United States, Europe, and Israel, and you will find a multitude of memorials to the Shoah. To say that the murder of six million Jews was anything but a catastrophe that shook the Jewish people to its foundations would be a disservice to the memories and lives of those lost.

As Yom Ha-Shoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance (the evening of May 5, through May 6, this year) approaches, I attempt to reflect and reassess how American Jews have related to this tragedy, remembered it, and taught about it over the past sixty years. With creativity and devotion we have taught ourselves that remembering is the key to avoiding the repetition of such a tragedy, and yet our methods have been one dimensional.

By the time I became Bar Mitzvah at the age of thirteen I had studied more about the Holocaust than I had learned about the older traditions of Judaism. I knew more about Nazis than I did about the rabbis who authored the Talmud. I knew more names of death camps than I did books of the Hebrew Bible.

This seems an imbalance – one that I hope I correct regularly. We cannot forget the tragedies of our past, yet we should not focus on it to the neglect of the true foundations of our identities – the living traditions that inform us as we consider the paths we choose in life.

All of us must remember that living by our values, sharing, teaching, and discussing those values – this creates the greatest response to the terrors of the last century. Memorials are only as good as the lives they inspire us to lead. In a true Jewish fashion, this year, when we remember the Holocaust, the low-point of our recent history, let us also walk boldly into a future that we help shape for the better.

[Please join Rabbi Jonathan for a discussion of this topic at 8pm, on Thursday, May 5, at Temple Bat Yam, in South Lake Tahoe – for information call 775.338-0790]

Live THIS life

2005-03-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

Often people ask me what Judaism has to say about the “after-life,” or heaven and hell. My quick response is that Jews have historically been relatively skeptical, and since we have received no verifiable reports from beyond the grave, the best thing to do is wait and see until we get there.

This may be viewed as insensitive to many of my co-religionists. Please note the key word is “verifiable.” Many will then express their beliefs, like, they believe their holy text is absolute truth and therefore there must be heaven and hell, or some form of the afterlife where their vision of the divine awaits them. Yet, one’s faith or belief, and how one pursues that belief in a spiritual way, seems like an individual issue to me. When one’s beliefs affect others by influencing one’s behavior, usually negatively, then that belief or belief system becomes a communal concern. Let me explain.

If I believe that there is no heaven or hell, and I behave in a kind, giving, and law-abiding manner to those who share this world with me, then really what I believe or don’t believe should be irrelevant to everyone. After all, I am still doing my best to have a positive impact on the world around me, even if I may believe that my life force will just seep back into the general pool of energy that fuels the universe after I die.

However, if I were to believe in some form of the after-life that is more important than this life, claiming that therefore what I do in this world doesn’t matter, and thus I can be a terrible neighbor, a polluter, a thief, or even worse, then I think my community would have something to say about my conduct, and that would imply a problem with the belief system that was the source of my conduct.

So, a Jewish perspective on this teaches: believe what you like, as long as it doesn’t have a bad impact on the people around you. This is why there is no “declaration of faith,” upon becoming Jewish – it is about good behavior not beliefs.

So, how does one answer the accusation that without the threat of hell and the reward of heaven, people won’t behave well? I say, look around at our lives - most of us are pretty lucky, and work to get along with each other. We get along because we know that the main reason for being a good neighbor, friend, and family member is to make THIS world a better place. Our lives, families, homes, communities, towns, mountains, cities, and country reflect the care that we devote to them.

Living a life filled with integrity, honesty, and devotion to the people around you, as well as caring for your community is better for its own sake. As the Hebrew Bible says, “Choose life, that you may live,” (Deuteronomy 30:19) – isn’t the gift of this life enough reason to be a good person?

Next year in Jerusalem - a new approach perhaps...

2005-02-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

I just finished a wonderful, if difficult read, If a Place Can Make You Cry, by Daniel Gordis (link below). This personal account of life in Israel from 1998 through 2002 is very powerful. For those of us who love and cherish Israel, it compels us to think about how we fulfill, or don't, our obligations to Judaism and that place so central to being Jewish.

However, I have another reason for mentioning the book, and that is one of his concluding pieces, which mentions how, at the end of the Passover seder, Jews say, "Lahshanah ha-ba-ah birushalyim," "Next year in Jerusalem." For Daniel Gordis, that is an affirmation of the continued efforts of the Jews who are there to say, "We will be here next year too - there is no shaking us from our place here." I have another take on this phrase.

Early Zionists talked about returning Jews to their place in history - becoming agents in the world after millennia of being acted upon. This view, that we need to take reality by the horns and do our best to steer and not be steered is an important lesson, and not just for Israelis and Zionists.

The lesson is clear to me - we must be responsible for our short time on the earth, to shape the events around us for the better. We must take hold of our lives and not be buffeted by them, but instead embrace our lives as the gifts that they are, with the incumbent responsibility that comes with truly appreciating a gift.

Every moment offers us the possibility to improve ourselves and the world around us. Try to live with that consciousness, try to give with that consciousness, and then we will have fulfilled the idea that we will be in Jerusalem next year. How? Through the knowledge that we are constantly working to improve our realities. Jerusalem is not merely a physical place in Jewish teachings, it is the goal, the hope, that we can figure out the questions of being better people to ourselves and to each other.

May all of us continue to bring all people closer to a better tomorrow every moment of our days.

Marathon!

2005-02-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

A quick note to toot my own horn a little. On Sunday, January 30, 2005, I ran the Las Vegas Marathon with my running friend Forrest. For the first time (in 5 total tries to date), I completed the marathon in under 4 hours (3:57:31 to be exact).

Anyone looking for a religious experience in the realm of intense accomplishment and determination, not to mention severe self-abuse, should look to run a marathon. The experience also catapaults you into a new realm of insane people.

Meanwhile, here's a little photo of a happy runner:

Science and Religion Incompatible, NOT!

2005-02-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the success that conservative Christians have had influencing the American political system in the last year, questions have been raised about science and religion (i.e. teaching evolution or intelligent design theories) and their compatibility. The notion that thoughtful people, both scientifically and religiously minded, cannot integrate a world where things are found out both by scientific process, and also by internal and spiritual exploration seems simplistic to me.

As a rational human being, the observations that I make about reality are rather helpful in understanding and appreciating the world. Science, and the theories (which are the best explanations we have come up with up until this point), that science uses to explain things are rather helpful. Take the theory of gravity, for instance, try living without the wisdom that we have learned from that one! The more I know about the world through science the more in awe of the immensity and complexity of the universe I become. As we discover more and more about the vastness of space, the intricacies of quantum physics, I find myself even more impressed with the infinite, because our consciousness of the infinite continues to show us how small and ignorant we are in comparison.

These observations seem to me a source of "faith." Of course, as a rabbi and a Jew I am less interested in belief, and more interested in how what we think influences how we behave. With the entirety of creation being so miraculous, the first conclusion I come to is that we have a responsibility to participate in the preservation and completion of that miracle. That is to say, we have been handed a great gift, and we had best not squander it - otherwise we wouldn't be acting in the spirit of the source of this gift, that is, the spirit of whatever or whomever is behind the miracle of our existence.

Where then, do the stories of the Bible, the sources of Jewish holiness, fit in? That's easy (and yes, of course a rabbi will say that). These holy books form the accumulated wisdom of our people about how to work at being better people in a better society. Do we have the believe in them literally to be "good Jews," or good people, much less good Americans? Of course not! Judaism teaches us to question and argue and discuss these stories to find what is true about them, not to live as if they are a one dimensional version of the truth.

One can be Jewish, American, a scientist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, a believer in whatever, and still not turn off any avenues of inquiry. If someone is telling you that you have to stop thinking about something then they are probably trying to sell you something!

Tackling the New Year Jewish Style

2005-01-05T17:04:00.000-08:00

Broken any resolutions yet?

The New Year in our American calendar seems to be dominated by a forward-looking culture that gets expressed through resolutions. Resolutions feed our desires for self-improvement with a minimum of difficult self-reflection. After all, most of us more often make resolutions with regard to diet and exercise, and seldom with regard to personal behavior.

Jewish teachings ask us to approach the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which usually occurs in September, in a different fashion, turning towards the past as something that must be smoothed before we can make any progress into the future. This practice is called, in Hebrew, teshuvah, or “returning,” or “repentance.” The wisdom in this appears in the habit of returning to everyone in one’s life and cleaning the slate, apologizing for wrongdoings – both those one remembers and those forgotten – so that one can enter the New Year without any baggage from the previous year. This literal “return” to past actions with a new understanding about them, allows us to shed them as problems in our lives.

I have often found the practice of resolving to make some drastic change in my life through the New Year more of a burden than an asset. And yet, while the Jewish New Year requires a good deal of personal effort to reconcile issues of the past, it often sends us into the next year with fewer burdens. In fact, one of the central teachings of the Jewish New Year offers us the opportunity to relieve ourselves of the promises that we have imposed on ourselves in the past year which have gone unfulfilled.

This consists of a full reversal of the practice of resolutions, instead of loading down our coming year with new obligations, on top of those yet unfulfilled, we rid ourselves of those that have gone unfulfilled from the past. This focus asks us to think of our own behavior and how to improve it in ways that go beyond losing a few pounds, exercising more, and stopping smoking. While all of these would be laudable, they pale when compared to the effects on our lives when we resolve problems between ourselves and those around us.

Happy Secular New Year!

From Shelter to Celebration of Renewal

2004-10-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

We go straight from the Sukkah at this time of year to the celebration of the cycle of our reading of the Torah. This Shabbat we will read again from Genesis (Bereisheet in Hebrew), completing our cycle of the year, and starting anew.

There are plenty of cycles that begin again at this time of year, not the least of which is the election cycle. I won't comment on that here - my sense is that as you get to know me my values will become clear, and if you like them you may use them to make your own decisions. I shouldn't be telling anyone how to vote, and that act in itself is my commentary on our colleagues in other religious institutions that have decided to campaign for one candidate or another.

Back to Simchat Torah, and the celebration of this turning of the cycle of our Torah readings. What wisdom might we take from this for our lives, aside from joining a big party at a synagogue somewhere?

A story that is told over and over can be really powerful. On Rosh Hashanah every year we read about the binding of Isaac, and it doesn't lose its power in the retelling, because we refresh our own approach to it every year. Our own lives go through cycles of telling as well - after all, many of our roles in life are often about doing the same thing over and over again. When we celebrate the return to the beginning of a cycle, we remind ourselves that it is an opportunity to find a new approach to the cycle of the year. A retelling isn't superfluous if it is told with new wisdom, with an acknowledgement that we have learned something since the last telling.

No matter what we do in the coming week, may we make sure that we put our full selves into it, be present in the action, even in a regular thing, and it will be renewed, and perhaps we and those around us may be as well. That's a new-old way to celebrate Simchat Torah, the re-cycling of our story for a new year.

Building shelter

2004-09-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year, and hoping you have all found something worthwhile in whatever practice you pursued on Yom Kippur. We are quickly moving on to the next Jewish holiday, Sukkot.

Sukkot (literally "huts") seems to be a holiday that most American Jews let slide (in my limited anecdotal experience) due to the holiday following fast on the heels of our biggest and best attended holy days. So, how should we use Sukkot, an ancient harvest holiday adapted to a Temple observance that we no longer do (it was a big party where everyone brought their sacrifices to the Temple and lived in huts outside Jerusalem), for ourselves - people without a Temple, and already a little "Jew"ed out by the holidays?

Let's look at an idea explored by a teacher of mine - Rabbi Mitchell Chefitz (currently rabbi of Temple Israel of Greater Miami), in one of his novels, The Seventh Telling, well worth the read - the idea is that of spiritual exposure. There is no day of the year on which we attempt to open ourselves up like on Yom Kippur - it is the day of maximum risk for our souls as we try to set ourselves on the best course possible for the coming year.

Sukkot, in turn, asks us to build a shelter, not a permanent one, but one that will add a little protection after such a time of exposure. Just as we confess and explore in the company of our community on Yom Kippur, our confessions must be aloud in order to be valid (according to Maimonides), the Sukkah is supported by the community that comes together and shares meals and time within it. Our friends and family help us through the difficult explorations, and being together with them helps start our coming year off on the right foot as well.

So, regardless of what you did on Yom Kippur, maybe now would be a time to get your family and friends together for a nice meal, or whatever it is that you like to do together. If we leave those gatherings to major secular holidays, they may only happen a few times a year. Considering the deep exposure to all sorts of damage we go through daily, not to mention the possible strain on ourselves after a holiday season like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, shouldn't we work on maximizing the number of times we bring our support networks together?

May you all find the shelter you need on Sukkot - and realize that the greatest shelter lies in the loved ones around us - family, extended family, and community.

Find the book mentioned in this post at:

A practice of atonement

2004-09-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

What are we supposed to do on Yom Kippur anyway?

Historically, this day had other connotations besides dressing up and spending the entire day in synagogue watching the clock and getting hungrier and hungrier. There was almost a Valentine's Day atmosphere at one point, with young Jewish men and women, hungry and delirious, dressing up in their white clothes and scoping each other out. But that was then...

Now, I offer, in addition to the practices mentioned earlier regarding making amends with those you have wronged - that is usually talked about as a pre-Yom Kippur practice - another personal approach to this holy day. How bad would it be to take one day a year to re-focus your efforts for the coming year? That's right, take the day off - it is a religious holiday after all, you have an excuse - but instead of going to synagogue (unless of course you really love what happens in your synagogue) give yourself a personal retreat of some sort.

What would this look like? A day of meditation, or whatever suffices for such for you - go and do something that will allow yourself to face the next year better than you would without that day. As long as you focus on the contemplative aspect of the day, and avoid pampering activities, you should be able to fulfill the same spirit of a day of atonement as other Jews might be in synagogue. Give it some thought.

L'shanah tovah - a good year to everyone, and may we all find a way to make the coming year better for everyone.

The New Year - an alternative to synagogue

2004-09-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is right, this is a rabbi offering you an alternative to going to Rosh Hashanah services.

How would you celebrate a day that your ancestors call the birth of the universe?

If sitting in a synagogue, dressed up, and listening to someone like me speak in a language that very few people really understand, and then give you a sermon, all the while listening to hopefully beautiful singing with which you also are somewhat unfamiliar doesn't sound good to you, then let's see if there might be something better.

The birthday of the world can be celebrated IN THE WORLD - take the day off and go out and enjoy nature. Be amongst the change in the season wherever you may be, and give thanks for existence. This teaching is in Judaism, it just seldom comes out as a teaching from a rabbi who would prefer your shining face in their congregation. I would prefer you to have a day of meaning and reflection and celebration - something that sends you off into the new year feeling refreshed and rejeuvenated.

Good luck! Find a good year for yourself! L'shanah tovah u'metukah! A good and sweet year to us all.

Healthy debate - it's Jewish!

2004-09-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

I believe that Jews have NOT contributed enough to our political process. What we really need is a couple of Talmudically influenced rabbis running the upcoming debates between the candidates.

Why?

Simple - in the Talmud, the text by which all Judaism since has truly been shaped - the method of argument is absolutely thorough, as well as direct and simple. Question? Options for answers, explanations for why some answers work and others don't, discussion of the best of the answers, conclusion - leaving open the possibility that some of the discarded answers may be useful in the future.

Our culture's completion of the move towards sound-bites and simple answers to complex problems has left us with no political party or candidate offering a comprehensive vision for the purpose of government itself. Until we make some real attempts at answering that question we will me stuck in the current quagmire of the American political system.

How does Judaism answer this question? Quite simply - Jews have always been concerned with first and foremost taking care of necessities. So, Jewish governance has been about taking care of national and civic defense, and then taking care of those who can least take care of themselves. Throw in a little emphasis on recognizing that the earth is not ours and that we are responsible for being good stewards and you have what I would consider a Jewishly informed public policy.

If we could accomplish these three things with any degree of reliability, our government might be headed in a direction that would do some good, as well as be informed by pretty sound Jewish values. On top of which, most of us, conservative or liberal, could actually agree that these are worthwhile values to pursue.

Reflection and reconciliation

2004-09-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

I spoke to a church group on Sunday - yes pastors leave town for the holiday weekend and get the rabbi to guest speak.

They wanted to know about the High Holy Days. What is amazing about many people hearing about Judaism for the first time is that they often are stunned by how much sense it makes. I am always stunned at how difficult it is for Jews to see the intrinsic value in our own heritage. I guess we suffer from a version of the grass is always greener, and any number of other things.

So, as we prepare for a new year, 5765, and try to clean up any messes from the past year, I propose a process for us all. Think about something Jewish, and try to look at it for the first time as something that might be useful, as opposed to something that might be a burden.

For example, is it such a bad idea to go around to people in your life before the new year and apologize for things that you might have done to them and don't know about? Seems like a great way to start the year.

Taking time off...

2004-09-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

The Sabbath - Shabbat - what an innovation! Take a day and devote it to R&R - only instead of it being rest & relaxation make it reflection & recuperation.

Instead of seeing Shabbat as a burden - some things we're allowed to do, some things we're not, I ought to be going to synagogue - all guilt laden things, take a moment or two to figure out how to make this day work. If you were to truly gain something from a real day off, what would you want it to be?

So my thoughts for Shabbat start with what was good about the past week, and how can I take those better qualities and make my one day off make my life better. It doesn't have to be anything more than that. Figuring out how to put regular recuperation into one's life makes sense - life seems to work better when we create rhythm to it, no?

Shabbat Shalom!

Welcome to Guilt Free Judaism...

2004-09-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

For too long too many people, Jewish and otherwise, have felt that Judaism is a burden to Jews, and to the world. For those who feel the latter, there is little that we can do.

However, for those for whom Judaism is too big a burden for Jews, we need to work on a new understanding of Judaism - Judaism as an asset, a useful, fun, and interesting way to spend our spare time.

If you are interested in such a project, watch this space, and contribute - I am looking for a few good Jews - let's work together to make the world a better place, and have fun in the process.

Am Yisraeli Chai! The People of Israel - LIVE!