I got the word sitting in a class on police chaplaincy. Somehow I could see the twinkle in his eye and his impish grin. And that made me smile. Because words fail.

My thesis advisor died today. Rabbi Dr. Bernard Zlotowitz, of blessed memory. He always thought the Rabbi title should come first because it was more important than his doctorate. He was a formal instructor having been raised by his German professors. In class we would be called on in alphabetical order, with title. Ms. Klein followed by Dr. Levinson. He was always Rabbi. If you called his house, his wife, his partner, Shirley, after inquiring how you were would say, “Hold on. I’ll get Rabbi for you.” Perhaps that is why when people call me Rabbi without the rest of my name, I am not comfortable. I am not Rabbi . Only Rabbi Zlotowitz has that name. And while he was always Rabbi, he was a down-to-earth guy.

He was much more than my thesis advisor. He was my champion. When others doubted whether I would ever be ordained, he went to bat for me. He mapped out an academic program that worked. He appointed Rabbi Peg Kershenbaum to help edit the thesis so that all the “t’s were crossed and all the footnotes consistent. When I would uncover a new insight, that grin would light up the room.

Rabbi and I argued over the role of Sharon in the 1982 incursion into Lebanon. We argued over the word rayecha in “Love your rayacha like yourself.” Does it mean neighbor, fellow, kinsman, friend? I taught that argument just this morning. We argued over the meaning of chesed, and whether grace was a Jewish concept or something only Christians discuss. I am not sure we ever finished those conversations. They will have to wait until the world-to-come. But he was a man filled with chesed, lovingkindness, of that there is no doubt. However you translate it.

I had several classes with Rabbi Z as I fondly called him. Reform Judaism. Responsa. Isaiah. Job. It was in Job’s class where we learned how to comfort a mourner. With silence. Without any words at all. Just with presence.

And Rabbi Z had a presence that filled a room. He was a consummate storyteller. Some of them we heard over and over. And that was OK—because every time we heard them they seemed new and even wiser. Many have already been written and rewritten today as the tributes have poured in. Each one makes me smile. He would tell a story about when he was in rabbinical school. His professor, recently from Germany, would say, “Boychiks, today we are going to study the basement of Judaism.” His professor had confused basement and foundation. Every time I pushed the elevator button for my basement office at SAP in Germany I would smile.

He was filled with practical advice. He was a rabbi who made house calls—but always taking his wife Shirley or his secretary with him. When he because a regional director for UAHC (now URJ), he took on New York and the Caribbean, guaranteeing a warm winter vacation if he went to Puerto Rico on business first.

He was a scholar. No question. But he was a people person first. He took real interest in his students. And their families. When my daughter was struggling the most with her chronic daily migraine, he always remembered to ask. If he saw a new treatment in the Times, he would call. When my mother was dying—they actually shared a birthday—he would check in. When my daughter graduated from Hofstra cum laude, it was hard to tell who was prouder, me and Simon or Rabbi Z, who broke out into that big grin. And he always, without fail remembered to ask on the phone as recently as two weeks ago how her acting career is doing. So did Shirley.

There were some sentences that became Zlotowitzisms. If you sneezed in class his automatic response was “You sneezed on the truth.” Now I once had a Bar Mitzvah student who started sneezing just at his aliyah blessing. I told the story, attributing my own teacher, Rabbi Zlotowitz, and everyone laughed. Now it is also true that when I am about to cry, I sneeze. It seems to be my defense mechanism, an unusual one I am told. Even as I write these words and start to tear I know I am also about to sneeze.

We learned in that Responsa class whether students should rise before a scholar or not. We learned whether they should sit ahead of their teacher or behind their teacher in the beit midrash. Ultimately it was about respect, Rabbi Z would explain. Today, we know that it is more than respect. It is love.

It is said that teacher’s students become their children. Rabbi Zlotowitz had many students. We are all his children and we have lost a great mentor and friend.

Apparently I wrote the last thesis under Rabbi Zlotowitz advisement. He was scheduled to be part of my beit din but was not well enough to attend. I journeyed out to Fair Lawn and he graciously signed the smicha document at his home.

His presence goes with me. Always. And in between my tears and my sneeze, I smile.

Today I, as Rabbi Lev B’esh said, I wish Jon Stewert were my rabbi. Because in the face of tragedy sometimes only silence works. Jokes, as Jon Stewert announced do not. I’ve got nothing,” he said. And then he stared at the camera. Rabbis all over the country threw out the sermons they were working on. We all feel the need to say something about Charleston.

I am sad. I am angry. And I have wrestled with what to say to you this morning.

There is something that is broken here in America. It is about how we welcome the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the most marginalized amongst us. It is how we think of the other. And in this country, it is wrong. After almost three centuries, it is still wrong. And we, those of us of white privilege of which I am lucky to be, need to own it and need to name it.

This is not just about Treyvon Martin or Michael Brown or Eric Garner. And there are nine new names to add to this growing list.

This is not just a story about Charleston or Baltimore or New York or Ferguson. It is about right here, right now.

Yesterday I signed a petition to remove the Confederate Flag from public spaces. It seemed easy, almost too easy. Some have argued that flying a Confederate flag is a symbol of their freedom of expression, guaranteed by the US Constitution. It seems to me it is too loaded a symbol. And I use that term guardedly. It is like yelling fire in a theatre and then actually starting one.

A recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll says that 49% of Americans believe the symbol is racist and 49% believe that it is southern pride.

So I asked a question after I signed. What do we do about the Confederate flag that hangs at a private home in South Elgin? Yes, there is one. And I doubt that it means southern pride. Then I asked more questions. Why do they fly it? What does it represent to them? And why after the events in Charleston is it still up?

There have been many pundits that have jumped in to tell us how to interpret the events of this week.

The “child” was just mentally ill. My own physician said that was appalled by that. It was an affront to her. She wanted me to convey this message clearly and strongly. Most mentally ill people do not become violent. Period. And while we need better mental health care and better access to it, in this case the underlying case is racism and hatred.

This child, older than Michael Brown, was given a gun for his 21^st birthday. 21 in this country is the age of majority. This was no child. And he knew what he was doing as he sat there calmly and calculatingly at the Bible Study on Wednesday night.

Others have argued that we need gun control. I, personally, would argue for that. The statistics are overwhelming that there are more incidents of gun violence here in this country than in any other similar country. That is an argument for another time.

But underlying this most recent tragedy was hatred. And racism. And fear. And that is the boil that we in this country need to own and lance. When I spoke with Traci O’Neil Ellis, one of our school board members, she said that no individual could do this alone. It is a community wide problem. A national problem. I believe she is right.

But I can only work as an individual and locally, very, very locally.

This is not a new phenomena. It goes back hundreds of years. We can talk about how the Declaration of Independence stalled because of a debate about slaves. Did the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mean all people or just white men? And this was not just a southern issue. In Chelmsford, MA, my previous hometown, in order to vote you needed to be a white, male, Christian, landowner. So had I lived there in at the town’s founding I would not have voted.

But I don’t want to talk about Philadelphia or Plymouth or Chelmsford. I want to talk about right here. Right now. When I first came to town here. Right here at CKI, there was a family who wanted to be a member or at least check us out. The mother, a black woman, had recently died and the Jewish father wanted to provide some structure for his kids. Someone here, no longer a member, told them they couldn’t join because the kids were….dare I even say it…mulato…a dated, pejorative word I hadn’t heard since the 60s meaning multiracial. This made no sense to me at the time because we have other multi-racial families. And we are proud of our diversity and we embrace it.

And lest you think that has been the only time I have heard the word here at CKI you would be wrong. What was going on here? In this case, it was the mother who wasn’t Jewish so the person was afraid that the children weren’t Jewish or wouldn’t become Jewish. Let me underscore that, the person who made the comment—not just to me but to the family—was afraid. Afraid of the other. Guess what, we never saw that family again at the time they probably needed us most.

We’ve gotten better through the years. But we are not perfect. Not yet.

Fear does powerful things. It prevents us from being who we are meant to be. When Baltimore erupted the news media talked about the thugs who were responsible for the looting. Make no mistake. Looting and arson are wrong. However, at the same time the kids in our religious school were reading a Choose Your Own Adventure story about coming to America. They were at the point in the book where they were deciding whether to continue a strike to improve working conditions for garment workers. The organizers of the strike who were preventing crossing the picket line were called in the book thugs and I wondered about the usage there and in the current media. Could they both be thugs?

The Jewish history in this country and the African American history in this country are linked. We have both been called thugs. We have both been marginalized people. Jews were at the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement and I am delighted that we have a strong partnership in this congregation with Second Baptist and with Martin Luther King jr. Celebration. Singing We Shall Overcome at Hemnes or here at CKI gives me goose bumps.

Some of you were concerned when I went to Ferguson. Would the rabbi get arrested? Would she get hurt? Why is she supporting those hoodlums? Yes, it was that word that was used that time. Can’t she just leave it alone? I don’t think I can.

I am not sure I ever explained why I went. I went because I have always gone to things like that, when I can. Simon and I have been members of the Southern Poverty Law Center since before we were married. They released a study this week saying that the average number of hate crimes EVERY year in this country is around 260,000. The FBI on the other hand tracks only 6000 for 2013 the last year the statistics are available. Why the discrepancy? Because many hate crimes do not get reported and then do not get prosecuted.

The glaring reality of Ferguson was not in the fact that a kid, remember, younger than the perpetrator in Charleston, got shot. Police officers are under pressure every single day. As a police chaplain I know that what they most want to do after their shift is go home. Black, white, Latino, Asian, they just want to get home to their families. And none of them ever want to draw a gun. But in the instant they feel they must, mistakes can be made.

The problem of what happened in Ferguson, unfortunately wasn’t that Michael Brown got shot. The problem was he lay on the cement for 4 hours and 32 minutes and no one came to his aid. The problem was that the mayor never was out in front of the story. The problem became an over militarized police force responded to a problem that spiraled out of control.

I went to Ferguson because I was asked to go. I went to Ferguson with the Chief of Police and the mayor, knowing I was going. I went to Ferguson because I wanted to be a witness. I went to Ferguson to deliver a message that there are other ways of policing. Because here in Elgin, the clergy, the police and the Mayor were already involved in a conversation about race and the police. We still are. Because I believe here in Elgin we have already found better ways of policing with the resident officer program, with the commitment of the police to prevent such things from happening here.

But Ferguson is not an isolated incident. We have seen it over and over again this year. And Charleston is no exception. We are at a cross roads again. And while Elgin is ahead of many communities, we are not perfect and something can happen here too. We are naïve if we think that is not the case. On Thursday morning the first call I made was to Pastor Nat Edmond at Second Baptist. How was he, I asked? He replied he was sick watching CNN News. I asked him whether there was going to be an Elgin response. He told me he sent an email to his staff reviewing security procedures. We each reviewed ours on the phone. Because we both know that a similar kind of thing could happen here, at either place, even if we are prepared. I promised that the Jewish community stood in solidarity and support with him and his community.

Make no mistake. This is a Jewish issue too. Not just because we are commanded to welcome the widow, the orphan and the stranger. But because if a black pastor and eight others can be attacked in a church during Bible study, we can be attacked too. Already we know that the perpetrator was a white supremacist. I imagine it will only be a matter of time until we hear that he hated Jews too.

In the Haggadah that Simon and I use at our home there is a famous quote:

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoller

It is our job as Jews to speak up. That is what I am doing. And while sometime silence is enough or words are enough, sometimes they are not. Sometimes it requires action. And that is the point.

This weekend I was in New York. At a Bat Mitzvah. Privileged to participate in this Bat Mitzvah. And words do not quite explain it. This was a Bat Mitzvah at a Modern Orthodox synagogue. And the concept is not new there. They hosted the first Women’s Tefilah Group in the 1960s and it continues strong. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagen had her Bat Mitzvah there. The incoming president is a woman. She is terrific. They have had women clergy before but they were not called rabbis.

In other news, this weekend there were eight women ordained in the Orthodox world. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.660857 They join several others in recent years. They struggle with what to be called. Rabbah (a possible female form of rabbi)? Maharat?

It is important to remember that Orthodoxy is not a monolith. There are different customs from community to community. Here at Lincoln Square they do not open the ark for Aleinu, but everyone stands for Mourner’s Kaddish.

I was not there in an official capacity. I was there as my husband’s spouse whose first cousin’s daughter’s daughter was the Bat Mitzvah. Hey, it is mishpocha! Family!

However, I was given the privilege, the kavod, the honor, of leading the brief mincha service. I admit it. I alternated between nervous and surprisingly calm. Who am I to walk into a mid-town Manhattan synagogue and lead the davenning, the worship? Do I really know this material? Do I understand that community’s minhagim, customs? Will they find the fact that I am a rabbi offensive? And what do I wear?

A skirt or dress obviously. And modest clothing. But not necessarily stockings. And here, not every woman covers her hair. (I wish I had brought a hat. I felt naked without my kippah. I kept touching my head. But I felt wrong without a hat. But no one commented or asked about it.)

They made it so easy. As it turns out, there were two B’not Mitzvah that morning. Each gave a d’var Torah, a speech from the main bimah on Saturday morning. Each spoke eloquently and was poised and confident. The rabbi was gracious, effusive even, in thanking the families and he had clearly connected with each girl. In fact, each girl in her own way, helped me to write my installation speech which I gave last night.

At 6:30, my cousins joined the Women’s Tefilah group that met in the Beit Midrash (study hall). The women were on the main side and 8-9 men were on the other side of the mechitza, a dividing wall between the men and women. I passed out siddurim to the members of our family and we sat together, me next to Simon’s cousin, the grandmother of the Bat Mitzvah. Since this was a women’s service there could only be 9 men or halachically it would be a men’s service and the Bat Mitzvah could not read from the Torah. The negotiations involved in orchestrating this reminded me of the CLAL retreat where students rabbis from the Academy, HUC, JTS, RRC and Yeshiva Chovevei Torah all navigated davenning together. There too there was a mincha with a mechitza. (That could be another blog post!)

Like mincha everywhere, we started with Ashrei, in more hushed tones than I am used to. I wondered if this is because the leaders of this section, were women and there are still questions about the voice of a woman. Then the Torah service. The mother of the Bat Mitzvah had learned her aliyah well. It was the first time she had done one and she was so proud. I was too. Her daughter leined (read, chanted) three perfect aliyot. Then we put the Torah away. Carrying the Torah was a very powerful experience for me. Words fail here.

When I got to the lectern I noticed that the Torah was encased in a Torah cover that said “Women’s Service LSS”. This was their Torah. The women of the Lincoln Square Synagogue had bought it years ago specifically to use in this Women’s Tefilah Group. I thought of my friends at Women of the Wall who are still denied access to a Torah. Here was a Modern Orthodox group that from my perspective gets it right. Torah is for everyone. And I cried a tear or two. Because I was there. Because I have enough learning to do this. Because I was so proud to be honored this way. Because this is a group that understands that educating girls builds community. And I can tell you—my Hebrew—for portions I know by heart—was not perfect. I couldn’t see the words. And it was OK. As I often tell the kids, being a shliach tzibbur, the messenger of the congregation, the service leader, is not a performance. It is a conduit between the congregation and the Divine. And I felt it palpably.

We davvened the Amidah. The same words that are used in every congregation. Out loud I sang the words on the page. Inwardly, I found myself silently adding the matriarchs to the patriarchs since this group of women is an unbroken chain in the line from Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. In the Women’s Tefilah Group they don’t do Kaddish. They don’t do a full aliyah starting with Barchu….any of the prayers that require a minyan. Yet the service felt full. It was full of ruach, spirit, and it was full of community.

The party was surreal for me. Although this is not my usual community, I knew people there. My own Dean of Students and Director of Placement is a member there and we had the opportunity to speak afterwards. She was surprised I was there. My Talmud professor is connected. The parents of my daughter’s friend from her summer at Bimah at Brandeis are members there. People were amazed at how many people I knew. I think it just shows that Rabbi Larry Milder had it right. “Wherever you go there’s always someone Jewish.” The world falls away. If there are 6 degrees of separation in the world between people, there are probably only 3 in the Jewish community. So playing Jewish geography creates community too!

And wherever you go, you can pick up a prayerbook, a siddur, and just davven.

Things I will take back to my community.

• Even in Orthodoxy there is diversity.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff. Forget to put on a kippah. No big deal.
• Be warm and welcoming yet aware of your surroundings.
• Having an eruv makes Shabbat observance easier.
• Taking a real break from the work week and electronics makes Shabbat even sweeter.
• We are all just Jews.
• All of this is about serving HaShem.

Much later, when we were leaving the party, on the rooftop deck, I thanked the woman I sat with in the morning who allowed me to davven with her. She warmed my heart when she said, “No, I should thank you. I really enjoyed your davvening.” I cried again. Who would think that a daughter of a classical Reform Jew and my father, the non-practicing Orthodox atheist would ever be in the Lincoln Square Synagogue, let alone be recognized as a rabbi and a shliach tzibbur. Like my experience at the Ramhal Synagogue in Old Akko, it is an experience I will carry with me for a lifetime.

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.