This past weekend we had a Bar Mitzvah at the synagogue. This year we have four. Usually they are joyous events. For the child. For the family. And for the community. It helps our community, any community, sit back and take stock. We are proud of what the individual child has accomplished and what the community has, by teaching, by nurturing, by modeling community. We celebrate with the family. It deepens the conversations and the commitments. It builds community.

And the question is what does Bar Mitzvah mean? Do we have a Bar Mitzvah? Make a Bar Mitzvah? Become a Bar Mitzvah? And what about a Bat Mitzvah?

What are the expectations of a Bar Mitzvah? What are the expectations for a Bar Mitzvah?

Historically a Bar Mitzvah was an age. At 13 a boy became responsible for the mitzvot, the commandments. We say that a boy becomes an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community. He can count as part of the minyan. He can lead services. He can read from the Torah. But that is about it. Adult? Not so much. He can’t vote. He can’t drive. He can’t drink. He can’t serve in the army. He can’t marry. And the same is true for the girls. Essentially.

Most of our students enjoy the experience. They work on a project to improve the world that is unique to them. They get to demonstrate mastery of some of the liturgy, make a speech, have a party, some times get gifts. For some this process is intimidating. They are shy. They think they can’t sing. They don’t like to be up in front of people. For some it is close to torture. They are angry or sad or scared. They don’t think they like Judaism. They don’t think anyone likes them. They are not sure they believe in G-d. Their parents are making them or forcing them for reasons they don’t understand. 13 can be a very awkward age.

And the secret is, that you don’t need to do anything to become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. You just need to turn 13. That’s all. Having an aliyah in front of a congregation is an affirmation. It is a public recognition of something that just happens. It is a celebration of who you are becoming. It is a beginning of a journey not a graduation. So if you don’t want to have a ceremony, don’t.

Bar Mitzvah is not a statement of faith. It is a celebration marking a coming of age. That is all.

But what if your government said you can’t have a Bar Mitzvah? Or a Bat Mitzvah? And what if that government is the State of Israel, the Jewish State? That is precisely what happened almost a month ago. The Masorti Movement, the Conservative Movement in Israel, has been preparing special needs children for Bar and Bat Mitzvah for more than a decade. These children work hard. They are excited. They are prepared. They are ready to take their unique place in the Jewish community.

But this year, the mayor of Rehovot, decided the week before that these children did not deserve to have a ceremony and cancelled the event. Essentially because a Masorti (Conservative Movement) rabbi would be officiating at a Masorti Synagogue. While some said that this was not about the children being disabled, others said that not all the Orthodox would allow children like these the opportunity since it is unclear how much they understand or how much they can be responsible. Either explanation could put some of the families attending in an awkward position. Could there be an Orthodox synagogue and an Orthodox rabbi for a new venue?

Imagine being a child who has worked for a whole year to master material and being told the week of that your ceremony is not happening. Imagine being the mother of one of those children.

The parents were outraged. The community was outraged. Worldwide opinion, especially from the Conservative and Reform Movements applied pressure. After watching part of a movie, Praying with Lior, our own Torah School students recorded three songs of peace which we shared with their fellow students in Israel.

What does it mean to pray like Lior? Lior has Down Syndrome and yet he was able to lead his congregation in worship for his Bar Mitzvah. What do we learn from students like this? His father, Rabbi Modechai Liebling said, “You could see that he ignited something and by the time he was just a few years old it was very clear that he could change the energy in the room…” Isn’t that what we want from prayer? To ignite something? To change the energy in the room?

What about the Hasidic tale about the little boy who didn’t know the words who played his flute? Wasn’t the rebbe clear that his prayer was so sweet that it went straight to heaven?

If we are all created “b’tzelem elohim,” in the image of G-d, doesn’t that mean that all the Liors of the world are included? If we are not supposed to put a stumbling block before the blind or curse the deaf, doesn’t that mean we have to help them learn how to pray? Maimonides taught that “Every member of the people of Israel is obligated to study Torah, whether one is rich or poor, physically able or with physical diability. (Mishneh Torah Hilchot Talmud Torah, Chapter 10)

The week the ruling initially came out in Israel was the week of Parshat Emor. We spoke about it that week from the bimah and it created one of the most heated discussions since I have been in Elgin. One person said that he was unsure what if anything these kids understand of what they are doing. Maybe they really shouldn’t lead services. Maybe it doesn’t really mean anything. If they don’t comprehend what they are doing, maybe they cannot be a Bar Mitzvah, responsible for their actions, responsible for the mitzvot, a responsible adult.

The parsha itself seems to set some limits. It commands that offerings need to be without blemish. That the cohanim, the priests need to be whole, without broken legs for instance. These limits seem wrong in our modern age. And limits that seem wrong in our modern age. How do we reconcile our desire to be warm and welcoming with priests that need to be whole, perfect?

When we present offerings, we need to offer G-d our best. Why? The Conservative Movement Torah Commentary, Eitz Chayyim says, “It is not because G-d’s vanity demands it, but because it reflects our attitude toward G-d.” We want to bring the best we can bring to G-d. It is an expectation of excellence. We can’t settle for second best. We need to strive toward perfection—realizing that we will never get there—quite—but that is the goal.

Leading services is not a performance. It is leading the congregation in worship. It is helping the congregation to pray, to reach towards the Divine. It is the offering of our hearts. The shaliach tzibbur, the messenger of the congregation, is tasked with propelling our prayer.

That is precisely what Lior did—and these other children should be allowed to do, under the direction of the rabbi that prepared them.

Fast forward to this week. The pressure worked. Almost. This week those children will finally be marking their Bnai Mitzvah. At the President’s Residence.

But here is the catch. Without the rabbi who trained them. No less than the president of the State of Israel said that because he is a Masorti rabbi he could not officiate. There are charges and counter charges from President Rivlin’s office and from the Masorti Movement offices, both in Israel and the US. These children should not be pawns in some political battle. They should just be able to have an aliyah. To mark their Bnei Mitzvah. Period. And then to celebrate.

This weekend I am off on an adventure. I will be with Simon’s family in New York at a Modern Orthodox Bat Mitzvah. I am excited and a little nervous. But the fact remains a generation ago in this country this idea of a Bat Mitzvah with the girl reading Torah would probably be unthinkable. In some Orthodox communities today, it is pretty standard.

That’s great. Because becoming a Bar Mitzvah or a Bat Mitzvah means the world is full of possibilities.

A month later:

I started writing this one a month ago. It is a longer version of the sermon I gave just after May’s board meeting. I wanted to get the language just right (write?). Which is funny because the portion is called, Emor, about speaking/saying.

I just want to look at one verse. This congregation took a big step forward this week, with a historic vote and you should be applauded for it. Our bylaws now state that someone can be a member who is married to a Jew. It means that person can vote. It means that person can serve on the board, not as president or vice president, or on a committee who isn’t Jewish. So to our new members, “Bruchim Ha’baim, Blessings of Welcome.”

This is a big deal. It is not true in every Jewish congregation. It does put us in line with both the national Conservative Movement’s Men Club bylaws as well as the Women’s League bylaws. Some of those changes reflect the numbers that we already know but that were concretized by the Pew Study.

One of the things that was asked during the congregational meeting is what do we call ourselves if non-Jews are allowed to be members? The answer is a synagogue. Which, by the way is a Greek word, showing the assimilation of that day. Or maybe a shul, meaning school in German and Yiddish, showing again some assimilation. Maybe Beit Knesset might be the even better term, meaning House of Assembly and reflects our own congregation’s name. But that is another sermon.

But in this question I hear the hint of superiority. The “We’re better than everyone else.” And that scares me. We may be the chosen people. We are special, unique, holy. But that doesn’t mean we need to be holier than thou. So what does choseness mean? The conversation was rich and varied, as you might expect for a congregation that embraces diversity. And we are better for that range of opinion.

We are a light to the nations, an am kadosh, a holy people. A treasured people amongst all the nations on the face of the earth. (Deut 14). It is a central concept throughout the Bible, Talmud, philosophical, mystical and even contemporary literature. And sometimes it is used against us.

So what does choseness mean? Chosen for what? Some see it as Israel becoming the bride, with the encounter with God as Sinai as the wedding and the mountain itself as the chuppah, and the Torah as the dowry or the ketubah. We will have the opportunity to experience this as we celebrate Shavuot in a few weeks. The rabbis of Tzefat actually wrote a ketubah which we will read.

Another midrash teaches us that G-d offered the Torah to all the other nations first. Each one objected to one commandment or another. One nation objected to not stealing. Another to not murdering. Only Israel was willing to do them. (Midrash Sifrei Deuteronomy 33:2)

Another midrash (Shabbat 88a) tells us that the Israelites took their places at the foot [or, on the underside] of the mountain (Exodus 19:17).  Rav Avdimi the son of Hama the son of Hasa said, “This teaches that the Holy One, lowered the [detached] mountain over them like a vat and said to them, ‘If you accept the Torah, fine; but if not, there will be your grave.’”

All the people answered the call to Torah together as one. Midrash teaches us that we all stood at Sinai, men, women and children, even those yet unborn, even us today. Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk explained that not all commandments can be understood until they are performed or done. By doing we come to understand and to hear.

Another midrash teaches that G-d wanted sureties that if given the Torah we would obey. At first the Israelites said that our ancestors would be our guarantors, then they tried the prophets. Finally when the Israelites said that our children would be our guarantors, G-d gave the Torah. (Midrash Rabba, Song of Songs 1:4)

Because Israel was given the Torah, it seems that God holds us to higher standard. “You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2).

I studied this very topic with our Chai School students this year. If we are the chosen people, what happens to the rest of the nations? Two thousand years ago this was also a debate. The Talmud teaches us that the “righteous of all nations will have a share in the world to come.” (Sandhedrin 8b). Is this an apparent contradiction?

What the class decided is that when it says we are to be a light to the nations what that means is that we are to be teachers. And part of what we teach is how to be mensches, how to be good people. One way of doing that is to make G-d known in the world.

So we were chosen to receive the Torah, under some duress, and we were chosen to be teachers. OK—we can live with that. No superiority there. We can be rpud of the idea that Abraham gave the world the idea of monotheism, the belief in only one God.

And that’s where the verse from Micah that we will study at Shavuot fits in. Just after the famous verse, “Everyone ‘neath their vine and fig tree shall live and peace and unafraid. And into plowshares beat their swords. Nation shall learn war no more,” we are told, “For let all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” (Micah 4:4-6). What does that we mean? Just us? Us and them? Somehow together? The Hebrew isn’t clear. For me, however, it is a clarion call for tolerance. And more than tolerance. Acceptance. Peace. Wholeness.

This sense mirrors our own vision statement that says that we embrace diversity. It is a both/and. Jews were chosen to receive the Torah. We affirm that in our most basic blessings including the blessing over the Torah, which says that God has chosen us amongst all peoples. So at CKI aliyot will be reserved for Jews alone. Non-Jewish parents of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah student will be welcome to stand behind or next to their Jewish spouse. There are other prayers that they can recite to reflect their joy of reaching that moment.

And while this is a historic moment at CKI, it is not new to Judaism. At the congregational meeting I said that all the way back when we left Egypt we were a “mixed multitude.” It seems there has always been room for these “fellow travelers.”

In this week’s Torah portion, it says “When any man of the house of Israel or of the strangers in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering…it must be acceptable.”

Non-Jews, the “strangers amongst us”, offered sacrifices at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. And it was acceptable. It was even welcomed. The ger, the word we use today to mean convert, really meant something closer to resident alien, or the stranger among us. This was the person who chose to live among the Israelites. Because Israelites were strangers in a strange land, Egypt, we understood the plight of the ger. 36 times in the Torah, as I have often said, we are to welcome the stranger amongst us. In fact, one rabbi argued with me that even calling such people strangers is not fair to them. These are the people who choose to be with us. So in that Holy Temple, there was a men’s court, a women’s court, the priest’s court and the one for the gerim.

Perhaps one of my Bar Mitzvah students is right. God chose us and we choose God. Debbie Friedman sings of this in her song “613 Commandments. “Had we not made a promise to be chosen and to choose…”

At some level in this day, we are all Jews by Choice. There is so much that competes for our time and attention it would be very easy to opt out or to actively choose another way. Yet we don’t. We are here. And we are here to stay. This vote makes it much more possible.

But what about those who choose to be among us? That actively become Jews? Rabbinic Jewish law is clear—When a proselyte comes to be converted one receives him with an open hand so as to bring him under the wings of the divine presence (Lev. Rabbah 2:9). This is the opposite from the custom of pushing someone away three times. That’s not very warm and welcoming, is it?

The ger is expected to follow the laws incumbent upon native born Israelites and there is only one standard for both ritual and ethical laws. This will be different from Christianity, in which, Paul trying to make it easier for converts, says that there is one law for the Jews and one law for the Gentiles and that those converting in do not need circumcision or kashrut.

In fact, quite the contrary is true—if a ger wanted to eat of the Passover sacrifice, he and all the males of his household must be circumcised. This requirement became the basis of centuries of Jewish halacha when circumcision is required for conversation, (BT Yev 46b)

Sometimes I think we make this all too complicated. It seems we can easily get lost in the minutia. And I am not sure that is what G-d wants. The often told story of Hillel and Shammai bears repeating here.

It happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder’s cubit which was in his hand.12  When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor.  That is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary; go and study it.’ Shabbat 31a

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t hold a grudge. Welcome the stranger, the widow, the orphan. I am proud to serve CKI as we continue to live out our vision statement and be a welcoming place for all.

Here is the tension. Some rabbis write before an event about what the holiday or the Shabbat will be like. This is a good method because it can help promote it. It can provide some spiritual nourishment or insight, intellectual or scholarly growth before hand to help people understand.

Some rabbis write after the event is over. That is usually me. Recently I haven’t had time to do either. I have been too busy leading this authentically Jewish life. So I will be going back over the last month and trying to recapture what I have learned along the way. Maybe it will help your own journey.

This past weekend was a very busy weekend in our congregation. We celebrated Shabbat, both Friday night and Saturday morning. We hosted a tikkun leil Shavuot beginning with havdalah and traditional Shavuot wedding followed by a study session. On Monday, we had a second morning Yizkor service. In each case, even though it was a holiday weekend, we had more than a minyan. And while I am happy to keep my streak alive, there is more to it than that. Much more. Each of the events were spiritually uplifting. For me. And I hope for the congregation as well.

Then my husband and I went to Starved Rock. It was designed as a congregational trip but people were nervous about the weather. It turned out lovely and we did read the 10 Commandments out loud on top of a bluff. Our own version of Sinai. And I am reminded that Moses went up the Mountain alone. At least I had Simon!

For seven weeks, we have dutifully counted the Omer. And yes, lo and behold, the winter wheat headed out just in time and we have grain. It looked so beautiful next to the white roses decorating the sanctuary for Shavuot.

While we have been counting and reading Rabbi Karen Kedar’s book specifically about counting the omer, there were two other study projects going on, to mark the days. Some of us read Pirke Avot on Saturday afternoons. We used the edition that appears in Siddur Sim Shalom. For edification, we looked at Rabbis Larry Kravitz and Kerry Olitzky’s translation, an ArtScroll one and a Christian one as well. The conversations were rich. Each and every week. This is why we study in partners, in chevruta. It deepens the connections and I know I saw things I never noticed before. I am sure that is true for everyone, whether they attended all eight sessions or they participated once. And thus, again, we built community. In the process we became friends. Verse by verse. Chapter by chapter.

I also spent time studying Rabbi Amy Eilberg’s book From Enemy to Friend about her journey as a peace builder. Each week, I studied faithfully, with my colleague from Streamwood. Rabbi Steven Peskind helped me see the levels of the text in a whole new way. He taught me that the book was relevant for the socio-political realm, the interpersonal realm, the synagogue board or work level and as individuals living out “Seek peace and pursue it,” in our homes and in another place. And while Rabbi Eilberg has interspersed her own stories within the narrative, I felt like she and I were leading parallel lives. Undoubtedly, that could be another (long) blog post.

The book was so powerful—and many of the texts were drawn from Pirke Avot—that I took her choice of texts and turned it into the study session for Shavuot. I divided the Jewish text readings into four groups and gave each group study questions to guide their thinking. Each group had some Bible, some rabbinic material, some medieval or kabbalistic commentary and something modern. To show again that our tradition is layered and varied. That the tradition welcomes diversity. Each group wrestled with the text and shared their own stories and questions about peace building. The process worked better than my wildest expectations. And in the process as the conversations deepened so too did the friendships. That too is probably a separate post.

The synagogue looked beautiful when people arrived. Chuppah raised. Ketubah framed. Roses and wheat spotlight. Ark open with the Torahs gleaming. Candles flickering. It seemed like the idyllic completion. Words and even the few photos don’t capture it.

Several things occurred to me while doing all this. While Passover seems like it just happened, there was also an expansiveness of time. We each made every day and every week count. That point was made clear when I was in Washington for the American Jewish World Service Policy Summit. Our days count. Our voices count. Our actions count.

So for me, this was a time of leading a uniquely, authentically Jewish life for me. The teaching of Rabbi Jonathan Slater at the Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting helped me to see that. As did Rabbi Amy Eilberg’s words. Both were quoting Talmud. Elu v’elu, these and these are both the words of the living G-d. All of these readings were connected, leading to that more varied reading. Each shed light on the others. Each created more mindfulness, more intentionality, more meaning. None of it happens in a vacuum.

But how does this work in a community that embraces diversity. How is it possible that both are right? I am reminded of Tevye who said famously, “On the one hand you are right. On the other hand you are right.” And when someone pointed out that they both can’t be right, he responded, “You are also right.”

In my little community, we have people who stand for every Kaddish, whether they are standing at that point in the service or not. We have some who will not break the flow of their davvening to stand if they are seated. For them it would break their concentration. Both responses are correct and we allow for both positions. For them, that is each their Torah.

And that is part of Judaism too. Each of us has our own unique Torah from within the Jewish tradition. Each of us writes the Torah of our lives.

I learned much in these seven weeks.

• I learned, as I watched eagles nesting on West Bartlett Road that I want to soar like an eagle. And run like a deer (or like Caleb!).
• I learned that fear prevents peace. So if we can diminish fear, we can achieve peace. Eventually. And that is too simple.
• I learned that sometimes we do a great deal of preparation for something, for maybe not a lot of people. But the preparation we do is never wasted because it is often for ourselves, for our own inner core.
• I learned about the paradox between contemplation and action. It is not an either or choice. We need both. And one or the other is not bad. And it is impossible to fit a round peg into a square hole.
• I learned that our voices and our actions count, as we numbered our days and made each day count.
• I learned that grain really does become grain by Shavuot. And that it is helpful to have a little faith.

It was a rich seven weeks, with lots of intensity and growth, just like the Omer offering.

There is a tension about writing. Writing before or writing after. Writing Torah for the community or writing my own unique Torah. There is a project that did not get done—the file didn’t even get opened during all the seven weeks of the Omer. That file is the shell of the next book that is done. That file is the Torah of my life. It is time to begin to edit that. Maybe it will be finished by Rosh Hashanah. It is a good goal.

With apologies to George Gershwin, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra:

“There’s a somebody I’m longin’ to see
I hope that he, turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me”

Tomorrow morning I won’t be at Hebrew School. There isn’t any. I won’t be at the education committee meeting either. I’ll be at First Presbyterian Church, together, I hope with our confirmation class and anyone else who might like to attend. Why? Because they want someone to chant a Psalm in Hebrew. The right way. So I will go.

And it occurs to me as I watch us parade with the Torah the ritual that many Christian congregations have of passing the peace is based on what we do. And it is related to both our the George Gershwin song, the portion we read today and why I am going to church tomorrow.

Amongst the things they want to hear is the priestly benediction, the very same text that we will chant later today from the Torah. This is a very simple text. Just three lines.

Yevarechecha v’yishmarecha, May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Ya’er Adonai panav eielcha v’chunecha: May G-d’s face “light up” and be gracious to you.

Yisa adonai paanav eilecha v’yisa lecha shalom, May G-d lift His face towards you and give you peace.

In our congregation we rarely hear it except on the High Holidays. Traditionally this was something just the priests did. In Yiddish it is called duckening. Has anyone ever seen it?

Ha! You are not supposed to! Traditionally the cohanim, those descendent from priests, would excuse themselves, go wash their hands in a ritually prescribed way, return, face the congregation, hide their heads under their tallitot, raise their arms, give the sign of the priests, that same sign that Dr. Spock made famous, avert their eyes and pronounce the tri-part blessing. The congregation would avert their eyes and receive it. One congregant even said that when he was young, people actually turned around to prevent themselves from looking. That gave it more mystery.

It was given and received blind. It seems like the rungs on Maimonidies tzadakah latdder. Given and received anonymously, in the name of G-d. There seems to be a certain power and mystery in it. You are not supposed to look on the face of the Divine. But maybe we are protecting ourselves not only from drawing too close to the Divine, but also protecting ourselves from something human, as American Jewish World Service suggested. “The tendency to turn an act of blessing into an act that invest one group with power at the expense of another.” It that possible?

Most people I know in traditional synagogues peeked. They wanted to see the “magic” delivered. The discussion in our own sanctuary was interesting. Reasons were given for why we don’t usually do it. Some said that the hierarchy just doesn’t make any sense any more. We don’t really know who are descendent from the priestly class. That is why we don’t do it. Our ritual chair, predictably, said, we don’t do it because he is impatient and it takes more time. One said that we don’t need an intercessor and anyone can give the priestly blessing.

Like the waters of the mikveh, there is no magic in the blessing.

What is the blessing?

This blessing is a wish that someone will “watch over us”, guard and keep us. Be our Protector. That Protector is G-d.

The hope that G-d’s face will illumine ours. That G-d will smile upon us. As it says in the old Union Prayer Book as part of the Friday night candle blessing, “By Your light do we see light.” It is quoting Psalms. That graciousness is that chanecha. We see it in the 13 Attribute, Chanun v’rachum where graciousness is linked with compassion. We see it in next week’s portions where the light of G-d, the Or in the Menorah, is described as Hain, Hain, Beautiful, Beautiful. Again, this is a solemn wish that we be blessed with G-d’s favor and light. They are linked.

Ultimately as the last part suggests, what we wish for, what we want to be blessed with is a sense of peace. Of wholeness.

This blessing is not just given by the priests any more. It is the same blessing we give to our children on Friday night. When the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, our homes became a mikdash me’at, a little sanctuary. We became the priests. And so we bless our children with this wish. These three blessings are what we wish for our children, all of our children—that G-d will watch over them, even when we can’t. That G-d will illumine them and smile upon on them. That G-d will give them peace.

Why is that so important? Rachel Anisfeld, PhD with a book on rabbinic Judaism, “Sustain me with raisin cakes,” explains that really this is a blessing of satisfaction. In a society that always seems to crave, “More, More” it is hard to know when we have enough. It is important to learn how to be satisfied. That is part of what is in this blessing. The midrash on this parsha tells this story. As Anisfeld tells it:

“A large family sits down to a very meager meal, some small bits of bread. Now the Torah says, “And you shall eat, and you shall be satisfied, and you shall bless [here meaning thank] the Lord your God” (Deut 8:10). This is the biblical source for benching, the saying of grace after meals. What do the members of the midrash’s family do after eating their decidedly unsatisfactory meal? They bench anyway; they thank God despite not being full. According to the midrash, it is this action, this lifting of one’s face toward God in blessing and thanksgiving (brachah) which leads God to lift His face toward us in blessing (brachah), and to bestow upon us the favors of the priestly blessing. It is like we tell our children: “If you say thank you, they’ll invite you back.” The first step in receiving the blessing involves appreciating that we already have been blessed. And thus begins the cycle; our appreciation, our brachah, leads to His further brachah which leads to our brachah of thanks and so on. (Numbers Rabbah 11:7)”

So now I ask, how do we know when we are satisfied? Last week, I kept eating, not because I was hungry. I wasn’t. It was because it seemed nothing satisfied. I was looking for something else. What does it mean to be satisfied?

Last night when we got to the prayer Modim Anachnu Lach, I was reminded that I tell the kids when they get to this prayer not to necessarily look for a 100 blessings as the rabbis tell us. No just look for one and concentrate on that. Last night it was clear. We were experiencing a true Oneg Shabbat, a moment of Shabbat delight, Shabbat joy. Not just the food, which was good, but the community. The community that came out and led services so beautifully. The community that came out to honor our outgoing Sisterhood president. The community that came, merely for a chance to daven, to express their satisfaction and their gratitude to G-d.

Being satisfied, that sense of fullness, in a culture of more, more, more, is one of the beginnings of religious experience. It is what opens us up to the experience of the holy, of the Divine. As Ainsfeld says, “Opening the heart to seeing, really seeing God’s gifts and blessings in all their tiny minutiae – the single moment of a child’s laughter (even amidst a day full of tears), the moment when a group’s voices merge in Shabbat song, or the sweet taste of one small piece of juicy melon. The goal is to look at these small things and to feel full, to be able to say: If that is all the good that comes of today, that is enough.”

That sense of satisfaction, that sense of fullness, is what Sefat HaEmet says is what the peace means of the priestly benediction. May we be blessed to have Someone watch over us. To smile upon us and give us light. To grant us peace. Now and always.

This week I did something that unfortunately very few Americans get the opportunity to do. I traveled to Washington DC to speak truth to power. I went to the American Jewish World Service Policy Summit on Reducing Violence against Women, Girls and the LGBT community worldwide.

When we arrived in Washington, we counted the omer and were reminded that like the wheat our actions count. Congressman Engel told us “Don’t ever think you can’t ever make a difference. Your voice counts.”

Think globally. Act locally. I had a chance to do both. Act locally and globally.

I am a Global Justice Fellow for American Jewish World Service. It is part of my rabbinic professional development. It helps me learn a global context that I can then apply locally to my congregation and my town. It allows me to meet other rabbis and lay leaders who are committed to Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, which is one of our highest Jewish values.

I have long supported American Jewish World Service. Since my friend and colleague Rabbi Katy Allen traveled with them to El Salvador as a rabbinical student I have been aware of the fine work that AJWS does on the ground. Currently in 19 countries. They were instrumental in Haiti because they were already there. They are working diligently in Nepal, because they are already there.

Their method is to vet local partners to deliver the services necessary to reduce poverty. What they discovered is that in order to deliver services, it is critical to reduce violence first, especially against women and girls and the LGBT community.

When I applied for the fellowship, I didn’t fully understand what their current focus was. I thought I would go on the international travel portion of the fellowship and build a wall or dig a well. It would be like my version of the Peace Corps. But they have discovered that middle-aged rabbis are not so good at wall building and well digging. We are good at listening, storytelling and spreading the world. We build bridges that way.

The topic of the reduction of violence against women and girls in particular is one that I have worked on for a long time, locally. I wrote part of my rabbinic thesis on it. I have staffed a rape and domestic violence hotline. I worked as a mikveh guide and educator at Mayyim Hayyim. I produced a film about Mayyim Hayyim. I served on the Jewish Domestic Violence Taskforce and currently am the chairperson of the 16^th and 23^rd Circuit Court Faith Committee on Domestic Violence.

One in three women will be abused sometime in their lifetime. It is a staggering figure. I know that in every congregation I have served there are people that have wrestled with this issue. They come to me and they tell me their stories. They are the victims. The survivors. I do this work for them.

So yet again I got trained.

We heard people speak passionately about why this matters.

We heard the painful stories, like the one from Haiti. After the earthquake, girls in the refugee camps had to walk quite some distance to go to the latrines at night. Frequently they were attacked and raped on their way. They started wearing three pairs of jeans because they figured that if they were attacked, and they screamed, someone would come to their help before all the layers could be removed. AJWS heard their plight and began providing lights for the camps. The girls then began to organize patrols and the violence was reduced.

We learned how to write an op-ed and a letter to the editor. About the lede (or lead), the nut graph, the kicker, the devils advocate. I hope that coaching will help also with sermon writing and my blog.

We met with our lobby captain for Illinois and I helped plan our strategy for speaking to members of Congress. Not all our meetings would be easy, but we would have the opportunity to thank Senator Kirk for being a co-sponsor of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA). My congregation had already made valentines back in February to thank him. Maybe we could even convince Congressman Roskam’s office to take another look at the bill and become a co-signer, like Kirk and Gibson. Gibson, as a Republican spoke to us powerfully about his experiences in Iraq. He explained we need this bill for all our mothers, daughters and wives. For him it is a national security issue.

On Wednesday morning, we left our hotel and walked to Capitol Hill. It is always thrilling to speak truth to power. I have been to Washington for this reason before. On behalf of Soviet Jews. To save Darfur (which started as an AJWS and US Holocaust Museum project). For Israel. As a Girl Scout.

Seven Congressmen joined us for breakfast on the Hill. I was in the second row. We were told by Representative Deutch, D. FL that “The work that you will do today is as important as any you will do in your life. Rep Deutch. Check. Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds. Welcome the widow, the orphan the stranger. Check. This is important work.

Judaism places a high value on saving lives. If you save one life it is as though you have saved the world. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz was late for our breakfast meeting because as she explained, she was at a hearing to put local laws in place for swimming pools in DC that will save young lives. And she joked about speaking to a room full of curly haired women! Jan Schakowsky dazzled us with her commitment and her passion. A freshman congressman from New York explained that his rabbi told him he had to go to the meeting.

This trip was different. As I walked across the street to get my Starbucks, I could see the Capitol dome. I was going to Congress to speak on my issue. In that instant, I had an epiphany. I figured out the language I could use to make my voice count. To give this issue the necessary gravitas.

Not everyone gets to go to Washington and speak to members of the Congress and the Senate. Not everyone gets a chance to speak out on the issues that matter most. Not everyone gets to make a difference locally and globally.

It was simple.

I am passionate about the Congress passing the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) because I am one of those one in three.

And in that instant I realized how far I have come in my own personal journey and my own healing. And I cried. My voice counts.

Thank you AJWS for your passion and compassion and commitment to Tikkun Olam. Thank you for giving me the courage to find me voice (again). And thank you to Congregation Kneseth Israel for understanding how this professional development benefits CKI, Elgin and the world.

May 4, 2015: Building Community With a Funeral

The phone call came late Friday afternoon. The funeral home needed a burial plot number. There were no children, no relatives, no service. After all no body knew him. Just a quick burial. No need for me the rabbi to show up.

I explained to the surprised funeral home director, not Jewish, that I would be there. Just a couple of quick words, no big deal but the person, who I had never met deserved at least that much. I got off the phone. Called the chair of our cemetery committee. He said, “Rabbi, I’ll be there.” I got off the phone and resumed my weekly meeting with the president of our board. “Well, of course you’ll be there. It is only right. That’s what Jews do.”

And I stopped to think about it. He’s right. That’s what Jews do. So I sent an email to my professional organization, the Association of Rabbis and Cantors, ARC. How do you do a funeral for someone you didn’t know, with no one present. Every single answer was “Of course.” And in the process you build community.

After Shabbat I sent out an email to our community. I explained that I was doing a funeral for someone who died who left no one and that not many if any knew the person. I asked for people to show up. To be counted. To perform that last act of compassion with no hope for “pay back.” To make a minyan. And they did. We had 18 people present. Including his next door neighbors, his legal guardians.

Our person had been a member for years. He was a bachelor. Never married. Never had children. Born in England. He and his parents bought the house in 1947, right after the war. He loved Snookers. His mother had been a member. Played cards and canasta with some of our older members who still remember her—and her son. He had worked at the post office. He celebrated holidays with his neighbors. Loved television and video games. Played with the neighbors kids. Occasionally he went to Men’s Clubs meetings.

I sang psalms from the hearse to the grave. I did a couple of more Psalms. The funeral director’s father had worked with him at the post office. Someone remembered picking him up for Men’s Club. The legal guardians had a couple of stories. I recited El Maleh Rachamim. We lowered the casket. We said Kaddish. We gently filled in the earth, backwards shovelful by backwards shovelful. We didn’t want to break the cover on the cloth casket.

It occurred to me, the old midrash that Abraham died alone and it was only after he died that Isaac and Ishmael came back together. This man died alone. But he was not buried alone. We say that it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes it takes a village to bury the dead. That village becomes community.

18 of us stood there. 13 of us, roughly, were Jews. No matter. 18 means life. 13 reminded me of the 13 Attributes of the Divine, which include compassion, grace, full of lovingkindness and truth. We are told we need to be like G-d. Like G-d clothed Adam and Eve we should clothe the naked. Like G-d visited Abraham when he was sick, we should visit the sick. Like G-d buried Moses, we should bury the dead.

The 13 Attributes reminds me of the book, The Thirteen Petaled Rose. I hadn’t read it in years. For me, as a college student it was an obscure work of Kabbalah. It was not accessible to me. Now gathered at a cemetery with 18 people, 13 Jews I realized just how relevant it was—especially since we were burying a man named Rose! Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a pre-eminent Talmud scholar, teaches us about the four worlds, action, formation, creation and emanation and the angels that travel between the worlds. Then he explains how when we do mitzvot, we create new angels to raise up the universe’s energy.

We are taught that angels are messengers. 18 angels showed up yesterday so that this man could be buried with dignity. With honor. With kavod. In the process of completing that mitzvah, we created new angels. In the process, we created community. Kol hakavod. And thank you.

A Postscript. We had a professor, Rabbi Regina Sandler Phillips, at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She was our professor for death and dying. She taught a class in forgiveness. She offered an “intensive” in funeral practices. She currently teaches other congregations how to form “chevre kadisha,” a holy society, a burial society. Her favorite Talmudic quote is “In cities of diversity…we organize ourselves and our money…to sustain the poor…and visit the sick…and bury the dead…and comfort the bereaved…for these are ways of peace.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Gittin)Every class she began by talking about her love of cream soda. When we went to the Blue Box Café afterwards, there it was: cream soda. I don‘t think I have seen it anywhere else in Elgin. It seemed beshert, destined. And part of this wider community, this wider village, reaching back to AJR. Obviously, that’s what I had to drink. And as Regina said, “Sweet.”

I was asked to give the prayer at an Earth Day event for a new friend. She is a charismatic, Baptist minister, a chaplain at a local hospital, and the sister of a congregant. My response? Who me? Surely with all of her friends there might be someone else better suited, better equipped to pray. But she is a new friend and it is at Morton Arboretum. I love the Morton Arboretum. And I don’t like to disappoint.

What could I say that would be meaningful? She described the group as a fourth Jewish, a fourth Christian and a fourth heathen. How could I bridge all those gaps?

My father loved places like this. He was a scientist. He was a biologist, a botanist, a geneticist. We spent more Yom Kippurs in the woods reveling in nature than in synagogue. He worked for Barry Commoner, who coined the term ecology, so my father was one of the first ecologists and together we celebrated the first Earth Day in Evanston in 1970. But he was not someone who prayed. So again, what could I say as the daughter of a Jewish atheist on this beautiful Earth Day.

And then the prayer fell into my lap.

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar wrote a called Counting Omer. In the back of the book there are prayers for special days. Here is the one for Earth Day:

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said:
Three thins are of equal importance—
Earth, humans and rain.
Rabbi Levi ben Chiyata said:
To teach that without earth, there is no rain
And without rain, the earth cannot endure.
And without either
Humans cannot exist. (B’reisht Rabah 13:3)

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakki…used to say:
If you have a sapling in your hand
And someone should say to you that
The Messiah has come,
Stay and complete the planting and then go
To great the Messiah (Avot D’Rabbi Natan 31b)

When you reap the harvest of your land,
You shall not reap all the way
To the edges of your field or gather
But you shall leave them
For the poor and the stranger
I the Eternal am your God (Leviticus 19:9-10)

But ask the beasts and they will teach you
The birds of the sky and they will tell you
Or speak to the earth and t will teach you
The fish of the sea, they will inform you.
Who among all these does not know
That the hand of the Eternal has done this? (Job 12:7-9)

Compiled by Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar

Look around you. Earlier this week looking at what I now believe is an ornamental pear tree in full blossom etched against a bright blue sky, I was reminded of the Louis Armstrong song:

I see trees of green, red roses, too,
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

Look around you. What a wonderful world.

Appreciating nature is the first step. Being inspired by it. Awed by it. Wowed by is the second step. The third step, as we are doing today, is to fulfill the sacred obligation to take care of it.

We have an obligation to take care of this wonderful world and to take care of the people who take care of us. That is why we are here today. To raise money for a scholarship in the name of a teacher, Jerry Hart, a teacher of science, who brought many to this deep appreciation of nature.

So I added to Karen Kedar’s prayer. I used the words of an old Girl Scout grace.

“Back of the bread is the flour and back of the flour is the mill and back of the mill is the wind and the rain and the Father’s will.”

And the one line blessing from the Talmud: Brich rachamana, malka d’alma, marei d’hei pita. You are the source of life for all that lives and Your blessing flows through me.

Thank you for this amazing day. For the food we are about to eat. For Olive who called us all together. For the connections between all of these people. For friends and family. For the people who serve the food. For the people who prepare it. For the truckers who brought it. For the farmers who planted and sowed and watered and hoped and prayed and for the G-d who brings forth bread from the earth for all.

And it was a glorious day. But there is more. A woman came up to me afterwards and thanked me for speaking. Not at the Arboretum, but at an event back in February. Because I spoke at the Long Red Line Billion Women Rising event at the Gail Borden Library, she got the courage to go get the help she needed. Not me alone but also Mary who spoke powerfully about trauma and how to overcome it. Not me alone but together with the Community Crisis Center and others like Vicky and Denise, who helped organize that event. The midrash and the Koran both teach if you have saved one life it is as though you have saved the world. On Earth Day, we received the gift of knowing. Because of this I have the strength (and the courage) to complete the next book on Hope and Healing.

On the way to the Arboretum, I heard a radio program I love, On Being with Krista Tippett. http://onbeing.org It, too, seemed focused on Earth Day. And I confess, I didn’t hear the whole program with Margaret Wertheim. A physicist, she is making crocheted coral reefs http://crochetcoralreef.org/about/index.php to so that we have a model of the coral reef it were to die out. This week there was an announcement from NOAA scientists that the coral reef might die out if we don’t stop releasing so much C02 in the air. The very thing that my father had worried about when we were celebrating the first Earth Day.

All that by itself was intriguing. It is a constructive response to a desvesting problem. She says that people are totally freaked out by climate change. But what captured my imagination the most was what she said about community. When billion of corral polyps coming together they can build the Great Barrier Reef. The crocheted corral project is a human analog of that. Look what we can do together. Individually we are insignificant and powerless but together, look what we can do. She said that alone we would be overwhelmed by climate change and alone we can do little if anything about it. The power and greatness of the coral project. Insignificant alone but look what we can do together. But together as community we can.

We have a sacred obligation to repair the world. We call that tikkun olam. It comes right at the beginning of Genesis. We have a sacred obligation to be caretakers of the earth. To be partners with G-d. Again right from Genesis. To not destroy, bal taschit.  But no one can do this alone. “Ours is not to finish the task, neither are we free to ignore it.” It takes the power of community.

I have been writing a lot about community lately. On Earth Day, we learn (or more accurately relearn) the power of community. Coming together as community saves lives. Coming together as community saves the planet.

And that is one of the beauties of Congregation Kneseth Israel. We build community by planting winter wheat and counting the omer. We build community when we volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. We build community when we volunteer for PADs and the Crisis Center. We build community when we collect non-perishable food for the Kol Nidre food drive and for the Martin Luther King food drive. We build community when we plant our community garden and feed the hungry, playing out the words from this coming week’s Torah portion. We don’t glean to the edges of our field. We provide for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and in that process we build our own community.

Then I walked back up the hill with my new friend Olive and we reveled in our commonality and the beauty of the bright yellow daffodils and the bright green new growth. It seemed the world was bright, covered with new leaves just coming out, looking like lace against the bright blue sky. Louis Armstrong was right—what a wonderful world. Our job is to protect it, to guard it, to guide it—in community. I am filled with hope.

Today’s Torah portion is long and it is a double portion. Don’t worry. It won’t be a double sermon.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem to have much to teach us. But that’s when you need to go deeper. Who has driven by the spray painted sign on Irving Park Road that simply says, “You are beautiful.” Go do it. Or who has heard the expression “Beauty is only skin deep.” Or maybe you have seen the commercials or the specials for Dove. Choose Beautiful. Which would you choose? To go through a door marked average or one marked beautiful. http://www.dove.us/Our-Mission/Real-Beauty/default.aspx

Most women choose the average door. And when they stop to think about it and go through the beautiful door, even the woman in the wheelchair, they are empowered. Their self-esteem improves.

So let’s start with some basics. My father, who was balding, used to say that bald was a four letter word. The correct term would be sparse. How many of you have been uncomfortable because you might be balding? How many of you see yourselves as beautiful?

The Torah this morning teaches that someone who is bald is tahor. Now tahor is a difficult word to translate. Sometimes it gets translated as pure or clean. Mayyim Hayyim, the mikveh, the ritual bath in Boston translates it as ritually ready. But whether you think being bald is beautiful or not, no one in this room would see it as a reason that you cannot be part of the community.

Then the parsha goes further and explains all the rules and regulations for curing leprosy. Or some other skin disease because it is not clear that the scaly, white flakes are really leprosy although that is how we usually translate it. Maybe it is eczema, or psoriasis or dandruff, or fungus. Maybe what it actually was doesn’t matter. If there were a Bar Mitzvah this week, the student’s first response to this parsha would be revulsion. That’s gross. We don’t usually talk about skin diseases. And while it was the priest’s job to cure it, it is not the rabbi’s job. I will refer you to a dermatologist.

But remember, whatever this disease is, it is only skin deep. Everyone is created in the image of G-d. Everyone. Even the one with the skin disease. And so after a period of being ritually unprepared, and staying outside the camp, the person is brought back in, welcomed back in and made tahor again, ritually ready.

There is a ritual to help them, and the community prepare. And part of it involves mayyim hayyim, living waters. The washing in living waters helps marks that transition between being tamei, ritually unready and tahor, ritually ready.

This parsha has a lot to teach us about how we welcome people back.

Are there modern day lepers today? People that make us so uncomfortable, or who are so uncomfortable themselves that they are “outside the camp” for a period of time?

We brainstormed a list. People who have removed themselves from the community but want to rejoin. People who have served their time in jail and are trying to re-integrate into society. People who have had some kind of illness. Big ones like AIDS or Ebola that get shunned in the paper. Cancer. Illnesses that are not explainable or curable.

But wait, someone said, Jews don’t put people outside the camp. It is not like we excommunicate. Or do we. We talked about Spinoza. We talked about the chief rabbi in Israel who excommunicated another chief rabbi. We talked about Rabbi Everett Gendler and the other rabbis who were excommunicated after signing a letter in the New York Times.

We added to the list. In some parts of the world, women and girls who have their periods. People in the LGBT community. People who are developmentally delayed. People who have a mental illness. People who are financially challenged. People who lost a job. Or a divorcee. A single mother. An unwed mother. Someone who chose to marry someone not Jewish. Someone who doesn’t believe in G-d.

Each of these feel that somehow they are outside the camp. Maybe they themselves think they are not worthy to be inside the synagogue. I would tell them unequivocally, “No. You do belong. There is space for you inside this tent. Inside this house of meeting. Right here at Congregation Kneseth Israel.”

How do we welcome them back in?

First let’s be careful with our language. It is not an us and them. Maybe all of us spend sometime during our lives outside the camp—for a variety of reasons. Maybe it is more like the wicked son at Passover who separates himself from the community. Part of the message of the wicked son, the wicked child, is that we should not separate ourselves from the community. And yet, we are also told that each of us is each of the children. Sometimes wise, sometimes wicked, sometimes simple and sometimes too young to ask the questions.

Second, let’s be careful to meet someone where they are. Someone coming back from an illness maybe happy to be back. Maybe grateful to have survived. Maybe glad to see friends again. Maybe relieved to return to a certain normalcy. Or maybe afraid. Could this happen again? What if the community has forgotten about me? What if everything has changed? Or maybe angry. Why did this happen to me? Why did I suffer and my friends did not? Where were my friends when I needed them most? Where was G-d?

Thirdly, we could find ways to publicly acknowledge someone’s return. Our tradition has ways of welcoming someone back. Birkat Hagomel, the blessing of thanksgiving for deliverance is one such way. Typically recited after surviving a danger: a flight over an ocean, a journey through the desert, major illness, release from prison, childbirth. And I learned in preparing this that a woman is obligated to recite it! When I first learned Birkat hagomel I was uncomfortable with it. At the insistence of our rabbi, Simon recited it after he fell off the loading dock at UPS. I did after a serious car accident. Both incidents required hospitalizations. But in my case, I wasn’t sure that G-d had dealt kindly with me. And while I was grateful to survive, I was conscious of all those who do not survive tragedies. Why did I survive when so many perished in the Holocaust, in the Twin Towers, in war? Until this year, surviving a trans-Atlantic flight seemed like no big deal. But maybe it is and it should be acknowledged. And so despite my own reservations, I frequently have people up to the bimah who are returning to the community in order to publicly acknowledge them.

People who recite Birkat HaGomel are encouraged to do two other things. Give tzedakah and sponsor a celebratory meal. Here at CKI we could host an oneg Shabbat or Kiddush in gratitude or in someone else’s honor. Giving to CKI is always appropriate. As are other charitable organizations—American Cancer Society, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, various hospices. One vision I have is CKI sponsoring a road race where half the proceeds go to CKI and half to some other organization.

Mayyim Hayyim’s commitment to using mikveh at times of transitions is another way. Starting chemotherapy, ending chemotherapy, before surgery, after surgery, after shiva or shloshim, or a year of mourning, after losing a job or finding one or retiring, after ending an abusive relationship. And while mikveh itself is a very private moment, it can be marked alone or with friends. It is a way to acknowledge coming back. And if you are that person sitting there, that feels “outside the camp”, Mayyim Hayyim’s book, Blessings for the Journey, may help. While the subtitle is a Jewish Healing Guide for Women with Cancer, I find it to be one of the best treatments for acknowledging anger. It comes with practical suggestions for the individual wanting to get back in. Journaling, meditation, yoga, and yes, mikveh. That same Mayyim Hayyim our portion will discuss, updated and modern.

Sometimes welcoming someone back in doesn’t work well. I am reminded of the book Ladies Auxiliary, where an unconventional Orthodox widow from New York arrives in Memphis with her 5 year old daughter. She becomes the scapegoat for all that is bad in the community. She is a convert. She likes to sing loudly at shul. She wears flowing clothes which show off her figure. She even goes to the mikveh even though she no longer has a husband. She is talked about behind her back. She is gossiped about. She is blamed for the community unravelling.

This is when we have to go even deeper with this text this morning. Because what the rabbis say is that this text is not about skin disease at all. It is powerfully about community. This text is about another scourge. It suggests that our very words are the source of the contagion. It begs us to ask as the book Text Messages suggests, what if our words become contagious. What if this text is really about gossip?

Hard to see the connection? You have to learn to pun in Hebrew. Metzora comes from two words. Motzei, who brings forth, like the blessing for bread, and ra, bad. Who brings forth bad. That bad is gossip. The rabbis teach a lot about lashon hara, evil speech, or gossip. I am not going to sit here and read you this whole book, Guard Your Tongue, but preventing gossip is exactly what the Chofetz Chayyim was attempting to do. In fact, there are more references to sins in the AL Cheyt that have to do with speech than with any other category of sin. Most of us don’t commit murder. But it is easy, too easy to commit slander, or shade the truth, or gossip. Today it is even easier to allow that gossip to slip into bullying and cyberbullying. And once it is out in cyberspace, on our walls and Facebook pages it is almost impossible to get it back. And it spreads like a virus and just as quickly. No Purel or Dove soap will prevent its malicious spread.

We have to go back a little bit. Miriam, for whom I was named and so I always identify with her, didn’t like the woman Moses married. The Cushite woman, the black Ethiopian, the other. She speaks out about it. Rails against her and is struck with leprosy, those white scales. Oh the irony. Doesn’t like the black woman, speaks out, her skin becomes even whiter. Not a pretty scene! So she is put outside the camp. But our tradition gives us another explanation. Miriam and Aaron did speak out—not against Moses marrying Zipporah but against him not returning to her after receiving the law at Sinai. Miriam was worried that Moses was not performing his marital duties. So you see how easy it is to spread gossip. By telling these two stories about Moses, you could argue we just did it here.

Moses’ response to Miriam’s illness is quick and certain. In very simple language, he prays for her recovery. El na refana La. G-d, Please. Heal her.

So that is my prayer. El na refana lehem. G-d Please. Heal us. Please heal us from this scourge of leprosy, of gossip. Of hitting the send button on an email too quickly. Of reposting something on Facebook that doesn’t belong there. Of spreading rumors without checking facts. Of talking behind someone’s back. Grant us the ability to think before we speak. Or not speaking at all. Of walking away when gossiping starts. Or, as the rabbis suggested, turning our earlobes up as earplugs when gossip begins. And once the gossip happens, because it always does, I pray that like G-d, we learn to forgive, ourselves and others, and welcome the gossiper back in.

Then, when we welcome people back into our community, we will be able to build the community. And the beauty will be more than skin deep.

Yesterday at WeighWatchers I learned something interesting. Polar bear is a power food. So is squirrel. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to eat them or that they are kosher. They are not. Although you can find kosher gummy polar bears. But the leader went on to talk about clean eating. All the rage these days. Eating things from the outside edges of the grocery store. Fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, fish, chicken, beef, lean dairy, whole grain bakery. Foods that are not processed. Some extend that to organic, or non-GMO. Some say that paleo or gluten free or dairy free are better forms of clean eating.

Maybe. We talked about how keeping the synagogue kitchen kosher means keeping the community alive, unique, set apart, holy. We talked about other traditions that make Judaism unique and yes sometime isolated. Mezuzah on the door, kippah on your head, observance of Shabbat, circumcision. These keep the community set apart and it is harder to assimilate. That can be either good or bad.

When Sarah was little, there was another rabbi who she said put people in little boxes. Either you were Jewish or not. Or you kept kosher or not. And if you kept kosher, how kosher were you. He used kashrut to divide people. Here at CKI kashrut has also been used to divide. Is the warmer kosher? What about asparagus? What about bourbon with honey? What about Coke? Lamb for Passover? The general state of our kitchen? My job as the mara d’atra requires me to spend a lot of time thinking about kashrut and ensuring the kashrut of our kitchen. I view it as a sacred obligation.

And a way to unite people? To build community.

So what does kashrut mean? What does it mean to you? Why bother?

It is more than not eating pork or shellfish. And what is that animal we will read about later today that crawls on the bottom. Is it really a lobster—not kosher but no one really knows. Or not mixing meat and milk. Or having separate dishes.

It means fit or proper.

Some translate it as clean. It is the Weight Watchers power foods. When I was a 7^th grader my Hebrew School class was no picnic. We were children of board members, the synagogue president, vice-president, rabbi, synagogue administrator. We thought we owned the building and we did. The parents stepped in and took over the teaching in mini-courses all the rage back in the day. My mother, the classical Reform Jew, taught the section on kashrut which consisted mostly of a trip to the kosher deli, long gone. We learned from the rabbi that kashrut was an outmoded form of Judaism and about blue and red soap. That deli is long gone but the rabbi keeps kosher now. It wasn’t until I went to college that I learned that some people really do do this. I bought dishes for my room, yellow ones and white ones and marked the backs with nail polish for meat and dairy. I wanted anyone that visited my dorm room to be comfortable eating there. It is about I’ve been keeping kosher ever since. At some level or other.

But why? Why does any of this matter today? Do we care about polar bears or squirrels? Pork, camels, horses, dogs? Grasshoppers and locusts? Keeping meat and milk separate?

What modern questions might we ask about the food we eat? USY asked these questions:

• Is it organic? Is it local?
• Is it healthy?
• How were the animals treated in the production of this food?
• What impact does this meal have on the environment?
• How were the farmers, factory workers, and grocery store employees treated during the production line?
• Is this a Fair Trade product?

These questions are not a lot different than what we found in the Talmud.  USY used this text to propel our questions and our understanding: Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish both explain: At the time when the Temple stood, the altar used to make atonement for a person; now a person’s table makes atonement for him.” – Talmud Bavli, Masekhet Chagigah 27a.

It is an important text because from it we learn that our houses are little mishkans, little sanctuaries. And how we eat can make us whole, can make us holy. It is like the old question do we eat to live or live to eat?

Some answers that can be drawn out the text include eating the proper foods, and that those food choices are in line with other Jewish values like not wasting, bal taschit, not destroying and protecting the environment, inviting guests like Abraham and Sarah did, so that no one is alone and we have community, and studying words of Torah. Pirke Avot, the very Pirke Avot chapter that we will study later today says that if three people have eaten at one table and spoken words of Torah, then it is as if they had eaten from the table of G-d, from the altar of the Divine. It’s like that line in Les Mis. To love another person is to see the Face of G-d. Maybe it is to eat with another person is to see the face of G-d.

But kosher is more than food. We talk about kosher Torah scrolls. Ones that are fit to read from. We talk about kosher soap, ones not made with lye. We can even talk about kosher sex. But that is next week. So what are the modern questions about Kashrut?

Rabbi Arthur Waskow asks four questions:

1. Are tomatoes grown by drenching the earth in pesticides “kosher” to eat, at home or at the synagogue’s next wedding reception?

I would add are they kosher is they tomato field owners refuse to pay a penny more a pound and thus exploit the tomato workers?

2. Is newsprint made by chopping down an ancient and irreplaceable forest “kosher” to use for a Jewish newspaper?

I would add is it kosher to eat beef that requires 14 pound of grain for every pound of beef?

3. Are windows and doors so carelessly built that the warm air flows out through them and the furnace keeps burning all night — are such doors and windows “kosher” for a home or for a Jewish Community Center building?

I would add is it Kosher to use Styrofoam for synagogue functions, even though the “kashrut” is more reliable than washing dishes that may be confused with milk and meat?

4. Is a bank that invests the depositors’ money in an oil company that befouls the ocean a “kosher” place for me or for a UJA to deposit money?

I would add is it kosher to use kosher meat when the animals are not treated ethically even if they are slaughtered according to Jewish law? What if the workers are not treated ethically? Or as is debated in our house frequently, is veal ever kosher?

This group of questions sets up a new kind of kashrut. Eco-kashrut. Kashrut that includes the traditional laws that we will read this morning. But beyond that. Ways of living fit and proper. Clean eating. Local sourcing. Organic and non-GMO foods. Fair trade. Responsible eating. Responsible use of power and water. The word eco-kashrut was coined in the late 1970’s by Rabbi Zalma Schachter-Shalomi, of blessed memory, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. He saw the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book, like a cookbook. A guide to eating but not the food itself. A siddur is a guide to praying but not the prayer itself. So as Waskow teaches, Schacter-Shalomi saw the code of kosher food in much the same way. He asked is electric power generated by a nuclear plant, “eco-kosher?” And so these are really important questions, particularly as we approach earth day. As an aside, my father worked for Barry Comoner at Washington University in Saint Louis. Barry is the one who coined the term ecology, so I grew up with all this language—if not the kashrut part!

So this is where our Bible text that we will read today becomes meaningful in a modern world. This week we will hear lots about climate change and global warming. We will hear much about Earth Day. About protecting water resources. And cleaning up the land. We talked about sh’mita last week. About letting the land rest.

It seems to me kashrut comes to set personal boundaries and community boundaries. We know enough about what we should eat. We agree that clean eating and power foods are the way to go. We know that there is enough food in the world to allow everyone to eat if we could only distribute it equitably. Yet we still have hungry people.

So why do I care if we at CKI have a Kosher Kitchen? Is it to make it more complicated for people out here who can’t get into Skokie or Buffalo Grove? No, for me it is more fundamental than that.

It is about living consciously. Thoreau said that he went to the woods to learn to live deliberately. Kashrut is a way that I live deliberately, mindfully, with purpose.

But Thoreau lived in a cabin that just had room for three people. I choose, deliberately, to live in a community that is bigger than that. Keeping kosher and having these very debates helps me to do that. It keeps the Jewish community alive.

You all know that I am a meat and potatoes girl. And while I think that ethically vegetarians have a lot of important points, even from a kashrut standpoint, I am probably not going to give up my steak. It is even a Weight Watcher power food! And yet, I like a new designation, Magan Tzedek, for meat that is being raised ethically. I like some colleagues who have gone to using locally raised, grassfed beef as being more kosher than the large meat packing plants in Iowa that got caught up in a sting a couple of years ago.

I thrill when I can answer questions like where to find Kosher cheese—and find local sources: Meijers, Jewel, Trader Joe’s, Costco, all have some. Trader Joe’s has Israeli Kosher Feta. It is a like a treasure hunt and I love it! It doesn’t have to be difficult. I can buy fair trade, organic kosher coffee for my Keruig and use recyclable K-Cups. Messy but then I can use the grinds in the compost bin. I can buy my kosher coffee at Starbucks—or even at McDonalds. And I can choose to use my own cup which is better for the environment, making my double latte doubly kosher. I can choose to buy my kosher wine at Binny’s or from my favorite Jewishly owned vineyard in northern Michigan. I can go to the Elgin Harvest Market and buy the most perfect summer tomato or peach, locally grown and supporting local farmers. And that reminds me.

Ultimately, keeping kosher—Biblical Kosher, Rabbinic Kosher, eco-Kosher, is a way is a way to connect with the Divine. To remember at every meal to be grateful. To be thankful for what we have.

I am glad that we are CKI have a kosher kitchen. Quite simply, it helps builds the community.

April 14, 2015

On Shabbat, the last day of Passover, we read the rules of Sh’mita. The reading began with the idea that we should give 10% of our assets to support the community.

“Set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.” Deuteronomy 14:22.

This is radical stuff. Then it becomes even more radical as it tells us that every seven years we need a rest. We need release. This is definitely tied in the land and into Passover with its theme of Passover.

And it is relevant today. It felt like a bookend. Just before Passover began, a small group of us gathered to study, and I had chosen the rules of Sh’mita since this is a Sh’mita year in Israel. We carefully looked at all the Biblical references, about 15 of them. Ultimately Sh’mita is about how to organize a society after the “high” of walking through the Sea of Reeds and experiencing the miracle of freedom. How to organize a society after the “high” of receiving the 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai. And how quickly do those Israelites slip! They need these other laws. They need these practical how-tos. Not about how to approach the Divine. Not about how to see wonder but how to live together.

Because the Israelites, they kvetch. They complain. Almost from moment one. I told the story on Saturday from Rabbi Larry Kushner about Reuven and Shimon. No not my husband Simon. Reuven and Shimon are the Talmudic names attached to the ordinary guys. These two regular guys are walking through the Sea of Reeds. And they complain. They don’t see the miracle. All they see is the mud on their feet.

Then the Israelites complain that they are thirsty. That they want to go back to Egypt to eat onions and leeks. Really? Onions and leeks. I love them. But exchange freedom for slavery with onions and leeks? Not so fast.

So we studied the sh’mita laws, using a guide book, a source book that Hazon put together specifically for this year. http://hazon.org/shmita-project/educational-resources/shmita-sourcebook/

The first text is from Exodus and tells us that part of sh’mita is not gossiping. It is about protecting the needy. It is about a Shabbat for the land. Simply, as the people gathered told us, it tells us “Be a mensch” After the high of Sinai it teaches us how to live in community, the practicality of how to set up society. Not gossiping is a critically important rule for building a community. And it happens all too often. Even in communities that think they are warm and welcoming.

The next set of texts is from Leviticus 25. These are the core of the sh’mita rules. What we noticed is that what it teaches is the need to trust G-d. Trust G-d and you will be rewarded, even when the land lies fallow. G-d will provide. Like the manna. It is a gift. A continuing gift. You can eat the gift. You can and should share the gift. With the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger precisely (again) because we were strangers in Egypt. But you cannot store the gift.

This means we cannot worry about whether there is going to be enough. There is enough. Period. And since we are good Jews we come up with good questions. The land rests. The people rests. This frees us. It frees us up. The question becomes what do we do with that extra time. There is a responsibility that comes with freedom.

We learned that it is not a loss. It has something to do with security. Preparing a long time in advance. And again, it is not us doing it, it is G-d doing it.

So if we are called to trust and it is G-d that is providing, not necessarily we alone, how does that effect us today? How do we trust that people will really give gifts of their hearts? Freewill offerings?

We talked about our role in terms of nuclear disarmament and climate change. We need to take the long view. What does 25 years from now look like? What about 50?

What about our own congregation? What does 25 years from now look like? What about 50?

Let’s go back to that first text. What if we do give 10% or even just 2.5% to sustain the community? What if it is not called dues? What does it mean to be a member? These are the questions that Rabbi Kerry Olitzky and his son Rabbi Avi Olitzky wrestles with in their new book. Like the laws of sh’mita, this book has radical implications for setting up community in a synagogue.

One of the initial they use is a sh’mita text: “You should not appear before God empty-handed. Every person should give in accordance with how he [or she] has been blessed by God.” (Deuteronomy 16: 16b– 17) Gifts to the mishkan were gifts of the heart. But everybody gave. Something. At least a half-shekel. Nonetheless, Olitzky said, “We also want to change the way synagogue leaders and members think about dues, to drop the image of dues as a form of taxation— which few people actually enjoy paying— and to promote the notion that dues are an expression of philanthropy, giving from the heart, which has the potential to elevate the soul.”

Elevate the soul. That’s what we want. A way to connect with each other and with G-d. We don’t want to pay to pray, although we need someone, anyone to pay for the infrastructure so that we can pray.

We then had a discussion about why people come to synagogue. Some come because they need others—at least 10 in a minyan—to be fully religious. They agreed that group is getting smaller and smaller. Our own focus group study conducted before I came concluded that only 17% come for religious services. Some come because they want community. For them it is a chance to catch up and see friends. To share the news of the week. To rejoice and be comforted. Synagogue is a touchstone. A place that is warm and welcoming. A place that you can refocus. A place that provides moral guidance. A place you can learn.

Those ideals, that vision is not much different from Olitzky quoting Wolfson. He asks “Does my synagogue:

1. Change my life?
2. Strengthen my family?
3. Give me a community of friends to celebrate the ups and downs of my life?
4. Teach me how to use Jewish study and practice to enhance my life?
5. Connect me to both a sacred and a civic Jewish community in a significant way?
6. Give me a sense of belonging to the Jewish people?
7. Deepen my relationship with the State of Israel?
8. Lead me to do the work of repairing the world?
9. Help me to build a relationship with God, however I define God?”

Quite simply synagogues exist “to meet three basic human needs: the need to belong, the need to believe, and the need to become.”

At CKI we have figured that out. It matches our vision statement of lifelong learning, meaningful observance, embracing diversity and building community. Based on our conversation at services it still serves us well.

The trick is figuring out how to pay for that in equitable ways. This new book is a must read for every rabbi, every Jewish communal leader and every synagogue board member. I am ordering multiple copies.

Taking our vision and making it a reality, is the hard part. By studying the Biblical laws of Sh’mita and Olitzky’s book, I believe we can get there.