Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So what does Conservative Judaism stand for? We take positions on egalitarianism, on Shabbat and on Gay Marriage, and then we change our minds. The practices of one congregation do not match the practices of another. We use instruments on Shabbat and we don’t use instruments. We use electricity on Shabbat and we don’t use electricity. We publish papers that take both sides of an issue and don’t tell our members what to do! Every Rabbi has his or her own agenda and do we really ever act as a movement?
The issue to me is not whether or not we are a Movement but are we acting in a way that is consistent with being Jewish? Can we still call ourselves Jews if we are so confused about what is required of a Jew and how we relate to Jewish Law? The Jews, who call themselves Orthodox, think that we Conservatives have severed any connection to Jewish Law. The Jews, who call themselves Reform, think that we attach ourselves unnecessarily to Jewish Law. Even inside our own ranks, we argue if we have lived up to the legal standards that are the foundation of Halacha (the “LAW” or the “way”, the entire corpus of Jewish law). I think that we get confused because we forget the essence of what Judaism is all about and why the law is important.
Judaism is a legal religion. It is more like Islam than Christianity since Christianity sought to disconnect from the Law from early times. Islam has the Koran and we have Torah. There is a rich legal tradition that guides Jews in all that they do, a legal tradition that is over 3000 years old. [I should note that Judaism is different from the “religion of Ancient Israel, in that we do not have a central sanctuary, a high priest who oversees a sacrificial cult and annual pilgrimages to that shrine. Judaism began when the first Temple was destroyed and we had to learn to live without it. The second Temple was built but the changes made in the time of the destruction only grew and changed so that when the second Temple was destroyed, Israelite religion died but the Judaism, that was not dependant on the service there, continues to this very day.]
It also seems to me that the Sages in ancient times, who knew that they were breaking with ancient religious traditions, understood that a faith that cannot change, cannot survive. The Torah was not enough to tell Jews what to do and so they began to find ways to expand and enrich Judaism with larger and larger circles of law. Over the ages these circles have expanded and have shrunk to deal with the issues of their age. Those who claim an unbroken chain of Law from then to now often forget that there are links missing and that there are many strands to the chains that come down to us. Conservative Judaism is born of the Historical school in Europe that taught Jews that we can learn law from the study of how our ancestors approached some of the same problems we encounter today. If we understand what they did and why they did it, we can also learn about how we should act today. Historically, Rabbis have approached the law in many different ways in order to find the solutions to difficult and sticky problems in each day and age. The Rabbis of every country and century looked to the primary and fundamental principles of Judaism and adjusted the Law to meet the new issues without compromising the fundamentals. These fundamentals include: a stubborn insistence that there is one God; that any form of idolatry is evil; justice is an imperative; saving a life is more important than almost anything; trust God; learn proper behavior from the Torah and from how God acts in the world. These are some of the values that form the foundation of our faith. We have tried to codify these ideals in Halacha.
We get into trouble when we get so fixated on the Law and we forget what supports it. It is very important that there is a Law that speaks to people and tells them what is expected from them in terms of their attention and behavior. But it is also important that we not let that same Law use its logic to defy the values that underlie it. From time to time we need to remember that the Law must give way to the values, lest the Law itself become the god. We don’t like to make wholesale changes in the Law. It makes things difficult for those who take it seriously. But we do have to make changes from time to time, not only to make things stricter to prevent legal violations, but to make the Law a living entity that people will follow even if they don’t have to. It does not mean we can do whatever we want, but it does mean that we work to keep it true to its values.
I always look at Halacha as a square; each corner stands for an important consideration. One corner is for the tradition that we have received from our ancestors. The second corner is for the modern problems that we need to address. The third corner is for the needs of individuals, and the fourth corner is for the needs of the community. The lines that connect them are elastic. When we have a problem in any one area, it stretches the square out of shape. Rabbis must then examine the concerns of the other three corners to see how we can return the square to its proper form; what else must give way or adjust to meet the needs of the other corners. All are important and we need to find a way to get it all in balance again.
This means that while well trained modern Rabbis can and do argue the law in our Movement’s “Law and Standards Committee”, we have to understand that there are different ways of bringing everything into balance again and still be true to our values. We also understand that what may work in a general situation, may not be the best answer in various communities around the world who live with different realities. Local Rabbis also need to weigh in on what may work.
This makes our lives a bit harder. We have to learn. We have to consider the reasons why one Rabbi rules one way and why another rules differently. We have to see if we are still being true to our fundamental values. It means we can have tradition and we can have change. It is what keeps us alive as a religion and keeps our faith fresh in every generation.
Perhaps it is as our President-Elect, Barak Obama says, “It is a change we can believe in.”

I Fought the Law and the Law Won.

First of all, I hope you vote on Election Day. The only excuse possible is that you already voted early by absentee ballot or in early voting. It is a mitzvah to vote for the candidate of your choice.

Whenever election time comes around there is always talk of the separation of Church and State. It is one of the fundamentals of our Bill of Rights, is incorporated in the very first amendment to the Constitution and is the subject of much heat by those who are passionate about it one way or the other. Some feel that religious sensibilities would be good to inject into government and others want there to be a complete wall separating the two, a wall that can never be broken.

Those who know me understand that whenever there is a choice between one way or the other, I go for a different path. The impasse between the pro and con sides in this debate over Church and State is due to the intransience on both sides. Each only sees what they want to see and perhaps they don’t understand why the amendment is written as it was.

First of all, I believe that, the founders of this nation were religious men. They may have had issues with the denominations and the formal church as it existed in their day, but they believed in God and they prayed to that God. They had no doubt that their experiment in democracy was blessed by the Divine. They were not trying to eliminate religion from the state, only to temper the role of religion in the political system.

Rabbis are often asked to recite invocations before city council and state legislative sessions. Even Congress opens their sessions with invocations. Many of my colleagues do not like to perform these invocations citing their belief that it violates the Church/State barrier. The invocation needs to be nondenominational since the people present represent many different faiths. Some clergy get this right; others seem not to be able to pray without invoking the name of Jesus, no matter how offensive such a prayer might be to those present.

I never turn down an opportunity to offer an invocation at a government event.

While I feel that it is important that government does not pass laws establishing one religion or making life difficult for another, I also feel that religion has something to say to government. It is not about whether this or that law should be passed, but that there is a need to note that while Congress can say if an action is legal or not legal, only religion is in a place to say if an action is right or wrong. This is why I oppose religions lobbying for passage of laws that promote their world view, but insist that religions speak out about laws that go against their understanding of right and wrong.

Let me take one controversial law: Roe vs. Wade and the right for a woman to have an abortion. In this country, it is legal for a woman to have an abortion. It is her legal right. But it does not make it the right thing to do. The implications for the mother and the fetus are very disturbing. I personally don’t like abortions but Judaism understands that sometimes they are needed. What I teach, therefore, is that abortion may be legal, but is not to be considered a form of birth control. It is my duty to teach that women should not get into a situation where an abortion may be needed. It is my duty to teach men and women the responsibilities that come with sexual activities. Abortion may be legal, but it is not good. It is only a last resort solution to the most dire of circumstances.

In business, there is a similar situation. It is not possible to pass legislation to cover every possibility that a person can think up to defraud a neighbor or a client. Therefore we religious leaders have a responsibility to teach ethical behavior and insist that, while the law may allow certain types of business dealings, these still may not be the right thing to do. Keeping the law is never enough. One has to go beyond the letter of the law to do what is right. The story of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach teaches this lesson. He bought a donkey and when his students brought it home, they discovered, hidden in the bridle, an expensive pearl. They had bought the bridle and the donkey so, by law, the pearl belonged to the Rabbi, but he returned it to the seller since clearly the price of the donkey did not include the price of the pearl. He was not required to do it, but he did it anyway and received a blessing from the seller for his honesty and ethical behavior. No matter what business laws are passed, we have a religious obligation to go beyond the law.

We think of government with three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. But there is fourth “branch” of government, religion, which must speak to what the other three are doing. Our founding fathers could not imagine a world where faith and religion did not speak to issues of right and wrong. That is the holy work that religious people and clergy perform. Not making laws, but living by a standard that goes beyond what a law can do. Laws are needed to protect us from ourselves. As the Talmud, in Mishnah Avot, 3:2 noted, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without it, people would eat each other alive.” But government without religious sensibilities can never fully govern the lives of its citizens. Segregation was legal until religious leaders taught that it was not right. Quotas were legal until religious people demanded that they end. All the laws of Congress could not stop discrimination until religious leaders instilled in their congregations the idea that all of us are created in the image of God.

Religion needs government to equally represent the needs of the people. Government needs religion to teach what the law can’t teach: that we all must live to a higher standard.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

I will not vote in November.

I have already voted. I sent in my absentee ballot a couple of weeks ago. In my mind, voting is one of the most important things a person can do. I don’t care how long I have to stand in line or how many pieces of identification are required; I have voted in almost every election since I have been old enough to vote. I would like to say I have never missed one but there have been special elections that somehow escaped my notice. I research the candidates and try to make the best decision possible.

This presidential election has had some interesting twists to it. The dive in the economy helped change the tone from that of just one negative ad after another to some real talking about priorities and issues. We finally got an issue that got us beyond the name calling and got us voters to take a look and ask ourselves if we trust this candidate or that candidate to get us out of this mess we are in.

In the Jewish community, it should come as no surprise that there are Jews who back the Democratic candidate Barak Obama and those who back the Republican candidate, John McCain. Each side is as passionate as the other about who would make the best President of the United States. The days in which Jews all voted in a block are long gone. It is a wonder that we can even talk about the “Jewish vote” any more as something different than any other group. We have soccer moms, hockey moms, NASCAR dads, seniors, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, Communists, Socialist, East Coast Liberals and Midwestern Conservatives. We have our own religious right and our secular left. The only things I can say about the Jewish vote is that we vote.

People talk about Israel as a concern for the Jewish vote. But again, we are all over the map when it comes to Israel. I don’t think that there are too many Jews who are looking to dissolve the Jewish state, but we certainly don’t agree on how Israel should conduct her domestic or foreign policies and how the United States should or should not deal with Israel as a matter of our own foreign policy. Should Israel negotiate with the PLO? With Hamas? With Hezbollah? Should we divide Jerusalem, give back the West Bank, exchange prisoners to get back Israeli kidnapped soldiers? Who should be negotiating with the Palestinians? What should or should not be on the table? Israelis themselves are split on these issues and the Jewish community in the United States is also split.

There are many who say that Jews should vote for their interests in the United States, and not look at foreign policy to Israel as a lone issue. There are many issues in this country that we have strong opinions about. We discuss in our communities issues like health care, the war in Iraq, taxes and governmental regulations. We are worried about sending our kids to college and if we can afford to keep our homes and if we will be laid off in the months ahead.

If Judaism has any issue with the current campaigns, it is in the area of personal attacks. That people disagree on issues is to be expected, but Judaism insists that we treat each other with respect at all times, even at the end of a very long and difficult election season. A campaign that criticizes the plans of an opponent should not be criticized because that is what this season is all about, what plan do we think is best for this country in the years ahead. If a criticism is followed by a different idea, then we should listen and be aware of the differences. It is another matter when there are personal attacks about things that happened long ago as if they have any bearing on where we are today. Everyone grows and changes and not one of us lives our life without some regrets about our past. Destroying the character of someone else is a serious sin. The politicians tell me that this kind of negative campaigning is what moves people to vote. If this is so, then we need to give the entire country lessons in civic and civil responsibility. If our government is locked up most of the time, it is because everyone is so angry with the way we talk to and about each other and have forgotten that compromise and negotiation are how things are supposed to get done. Forget about whether or not we should be sitting down and talking to our enemies, we need to remember that we need to sit down and negotiate with lawmakers from the other party. This is hard to do in our culture of screaming at each other the most hurtful names we can find.

I have seen people I respect repeat the most derogatory slanders that they have seen but not substantiated over the internet. I have seen good people worry about nonsense that is being passed around as true. The media regularly scolds the candidates and their parties for telling lies and stretching the truth in campaign materials. There is no reason to be passing on such dirt. Even if we get it from a reliable source we should not be repeating it to others. This is very wrong. If we want to convince a friend, a family member or a neighbor to vote for our candidate, then we should speak of policies and platforms. We are guilty of Lashon HaRa, evil speech, if we pass on to others the personal attacks even if we get them from a reliable source. It applies not only to the campaign, but in every aspect of our lives. Sending out slanderous emails to defame someone else is a sin. There is no other word for it. A popular actress in S. Korea committed suicide because of the hateful false things that were being said about her on the internet. That they are written is bad; if we pass it on, we are guilty.

I don’t advise any of the campaigns but let me leave with this one piece of advice. We may not be responsible for all the hate that is out there. But we know, first hand, the dangers of hate speech and ugly rumors. I hope that we will have the sense and the wisdom to know what to do when they arrive in our inbox – we should just press “delete”.

And we will be making the world a better place, one conversation at a time.

Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?

My friend and colleague Rabbi Irwin Kula, the director of CLAL recently shared with me some of his feelings about Politics, Jews and Israel. He noted that Democrats seem to favor diplomacy in dealing with the Israel/Palestinian issues, and Republicans are more inclined to support Israel no matter what the situation may be. So it is no surprise that Jewish Democrats and Jewish Republicans both see themselves as the true defenders of Israel when all they are really doing is finding in the words of the candidates a justification for their own pre-existing notions of what support for Israel must imply. It has very little to do at all with what the State of Israel might really need at this juncture in history. Rabbi Kula notes that it is almost as if Israel is not a real state anymore, but some kind of a “test” American Jews use to explain perhaps our own inner spiritual life, rather than the political reality of the modern state. We tend to pick and choose the data that fits our needs and that best helps us confirm our positions.
All of this, he implies, leads to the kind of political pandering we see from the candidates for national office today, each one trying to say the right combination of “code” words that will gather the most people to vote for the candidate. Rabbi Kula expresses concern that someday our non-Jewish fellow citizens will begin to ask exactly what this “support” for Israel is all about and the answers may mark the end of, or the erosion of, American support for the State of Israel.
Rabbi Kula is right. In this day and age, it is very hard to speak of Israel as “my home land, right or wrong”. To be sure there are plenty of Jews and Jewish communal leaders who will not tolerate any negative speech about Israel. They feel as if there are too many enemies of the State and of Judaism to give them more words with which they can attack us. Such people think that if we only speak good of Israel, that others will not speak bad of her. This has led us to ignore all the problems that Israel is facing and to put our heads in the sand about how we can find solutions.
I agree with Rabbi Kula but would paint this picture a bit differently. I do not feel that the issue is one of American politics but of Israeli politics. My daughter came back from her Rabbinical School year in Israel very unhappy with Israel. She was appalled by the way they treated gays in Jerusalem and with the corruption in government and the social problems she encountered. Frankly I am unhappy with all of that and more. I don't like the way Masorti/Conservative Jews are treated by Israeli politicians or by the government. I don't always like the foreign policy decisions of the State and I don't like the way the Israeli political parties pay for votes by giving money to people who promise to vote for them while infrastructure crumbles.
My time in Minnesota, where the 35W bridge collapsed last year, only points to the fact that we should be profoundly unhappy with things is this country too. Perhaps the coming elections here and in Israel will change things, but maybe they won’t. The point is that there is much here in the USA that needs improvement, but we don't go around saying this country is not worth the time or trouble.
For both the USA and Israel, there are good and bad. The fact that college students are still filling Birthright programs and returning energized is a good thing. That Americans still go to Israel to live is another good thing. I agree that nothing can be changed as long as American Jewish leadership does not address the flaws in Israel and in the USA. When we talk only good about Israel we will not help them change what needs changing. Years ago, when they told us American Rabbis did not count, we protested, withheld support and showed them that we do count and the situation in Israel changed.
What we need today, at the leadership level, is a conversation with Israeli leadership about the serious issues that will affect how much money is raised at UJA and through Israel Bonds. We are seeing a new generation of Jews in the United States, who did not grow up without a Jewish State and who don’t understand why it is a State where we can’t talk about her flaws. If they are to support Israel, they will want to know about civil rights for homosexual citizens, of Arab citizens, for Masorti Jews and for all other minorities who don’t seem to be able to get a fair shake in the Jewish State. When National leaders start asking the hard questions to politicians in Israel, they will listen, like it or not, because Israel still depends on our financial and political support. Military support is one thing, we do need to make sure that the Palestinian issues are not perceived out of the context of a 60 year long war, but we also need to ask the hard questions about fiscal responsibility, corruption and basic civil rights.
We need to stand up for these qualities in this country as well. No matter if the conversation is about Israel or America it is not "My Country - Right or Wrong" but, as stated by Senator Carl Schurz back in 1872, "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Our obligation as Jewish leaders could not be summed up better.