Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Yom Kippur

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 20:53:34 +0000

Yom Kippur

Arielle Margolis Mon, 09/25/2023 - 13:53

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Rabbi Dr Bradley Shavit Artson (www.bradartson.com) has long been a passionate advocate for social justice, human dignity, diversity and inclusion. He wrote a book on Jewish teachings on war, peace and nuclear annihilation in the late 80s, became a leading voice advocating for GLBT marriage and ordination in the 90s, and has published and spoken widely on environmental ethics, special needs inclusion, racial and economic justice, cultural and religious dialogue and cooperation, and working for a just and secure peace for Israel and the Middle East. He is particularly interested in theology, ethics, and the integration of science and religion. He supervises the Miller Introduction to Judaism Program and mentors Camp Ramah in California in Ojai and Ramah of Northern California in the Bay Area. He is also dean of the Zacharias Frankel College in Potsdam, Germany, ordaining Conservative rabbis for Europe. A frequent contributor for the Huffington Post and for the Times of Israel, and a public figure Facebook page with over 60,000 likes, he is the author of 12 books and over 250 articles, most recently Renewing the Process of Creation: A Jewish Integration of Science and Spirit. Married to Elana Artson, they are the proud parents of twins, Jacob and Shira. Learn more infomation about Rabbi Artson.

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is intensely personal, a day of introspection and repentance on an individual level too.

The key to both atonement and repentance is confession, the Torah’s simple requirement that the sinner (individual or the people) confess the sin publicly, "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins (Leviticus 16:21)," reminding us to confess for the ways we, as a people, have failed to live up to the highest standards of Torah, failed to answer God’s call to be a light to the nations, failed to become our truest selves. At the same time as the Priest confesses our collective wrongdoing, we also confess our individual shortcomings and betrayals. When a person commits any wrong toward another person, thus breaking faith with the Lord, and that person realizes their guilt, they shall confess the wrong that they have done (Names 5:5 – 7)." The communal ritual traces an inner awareness – as we contemplate the gap between our potential and our deeds, between what we could have been and how we actually acted, we muster the courage to repent.

According to Rav Saadia Gaon, great philosopher and Talmudic sage of Medieval Baghdad, “Repentance entails 1) the renunciation of sin, 2) remorse, 3) the quest of forgiveness, and 4) the assumption of the obligation not to relapse into sin.” The day stands, therefore, on the edifice of honest self-scrutiny, on the optimism that human beings can grow toward the light, that we can discipline our errant behavior to express our highest ideals. Yom Kippur is a day in which the sanctuary of our heart, as well as the institutions we have established as a people, are held to a very high standard (God’s) and judged by that standard, not for the sake of smug self-congratulations, but because the work is great, and the Master is waiting to forgive.

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Judaism and the Human Body

Arielle Margolis — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:02:41 +0000

Judaism and the Human Body

Arielle Margolis Thu, 08/24/2023 - 15:02

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Contemporary Issues

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The definition of what is “religious” shifts throughout the ages. In antiquity, being religious meant offering sacrifices (of children, women, prisoners taken in war) and making regular gifts to the gods. In biblical Israel, it meant being aware of God’s presence, by bringing animal sacrifices to the Temple in Jerusalem at the designated times.

By the Second Temple period, a new emphasis, one of ritual purity, ethical rigor, and obedience to a growing oral tradition became the defining feature of pharisaic religiosity, which the Rabbis of the extended into an emphasis on the performance of mitzvot (commandments) and study as religious acts.

In the medieval period, study and ritual purity remained important, but they were refocused through the lenses of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. Finally, in the early modern age, social justice (for some) and celebration through song and dance (for others) often competed with the earlier identifying features of religiosity.

Jews today have inherited this range of different ways of being religious — from offerings to social justice, from prayer and study to dance, from purity to the performance of mitzvot.

There are many paths of piety rooted in thousands of years of Jewish tradition. On the other hand, America today seems to offer two primary modes of religion: either literalist obedience to a sacred book or in new age exultation of feeling.

In many cases, what American spirituality avoids is the bodily reality of human existence. Too much of American spirituality assumes that “spirit,” a concept originating in Greek thought and Pauline Christianity, is the opposite of “body.” Spirit — we are told — is good, pure and eternal. Body is bad, corrupt and ephemeral.

Given that understanding of spirit, it is no wonder that the wide range of American spiritual movements tend to help free the person from the trap of their own bodies and drives. Cults from eastern religions and from the latest fad all unite in an effort to help us transcend our bodies. How surprising, then, to look back over the list of Jewish spiritual responses and see how solidly rooted in bodies they all are.

A Corporeal Religion

Judaism is a corporeal religion. We know that a spirituality that doesn’t redeem the body with it is merely an escape, and one doomed to failure in the end. That emphasis on the body emerges in today’s portion in the unlikeliest place.

“If a man is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale him on a stake [after his having already been executed], you must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but you must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God; you shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.”

Why is an impaled body an offense against God? Wouldn’t the humiliated corpse serve a valuable preventative function, since all who saw it would resolve not to commit a similar offense? If so, it should be a good thing to leave the body hanging. Besides, the person isn’t the same as the body anyway! The body is relatively unimportant, like a used set of clothing that no longer fits. So who cares about how the body is treated!

Apparently, the Torah doesn’t accept that trivialization of the body. Rashi adds to the Torah that, “It is a slight to the King [God] because humanity is made in the likeness of God’s image and Israel are God’s children.” This may be likened to two twin brothers who resembled each other; one became a king while the other was seized as a criminal and hanged. Whoever saw him exclaimed, ‘The king is hanged.'” This shocking comment implies that our resemblance to God is more than just spiritual, that even our bodies reflect the Divine Image, and therefore deserve reverence and respect.

In Va-Yikra Rabbah, the great sage, Hillel, compares keeping our bodies clean to maintaining a statue of a king. He comments that, “Bathing the body is an obligation, since we are created in the image of the Ruler of the world.”

For that same reason, Jewish tradition prohibits cremation as undignified to the body of the deceased, and Talmudic tradition affirms a physical resurrection of the dead. One need not share every Talmudic belief about the afterlife to recognize great wisdom in preserving a sense of awe and gratitude for the human body.

In an age awash in self-destructive drugs, too busy to exercise or to eat carefully, respect for our bodies is dangerously low on our agenda. Teenagers and women smoke in growing numbers, and alcohol use, too, is on the rise. Biblical and Rabbinic tradition maintain that our bodies reflect God’s image and therefore command respectful maintenance. In addition, our bodies are not our property, but God’s. We use them, as the tenants and stewards of God’s possessions. But ultimately, our bodies must be returned, well-tended, to their original Owner.

Is there a connection between the trivialization of the body in American spirituality and the callous disregard for bodies in American life? Let’s get physical!

Provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which ordains Conservative rabbis at the ��ϲ��.

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Juneteenth: To Birth the Nation Anew

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 21:50:13 +0000

Juneteenth: To Birth the Nation Anew

Arielle Margolis Mon, 06/19/2023 - 14:50

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Juneteenth

There are holidays and festivals that celebrate an event or a value of timeless and objective worth, and then there are some that mark a transition away from something shameful that should never have existed in the first place. Felt by its participants as a great deliverance, the holiday nevertheless remains awkward because it shouldn’t have been necessary at all.

It should not be necessary to celebrate the end of slavery. Buying and selling human beings as though they are property is a violation so profound that it staggers the imagination to know that it was once ubiquitous. The American addition to this venal ancient practice was to add racism into the mix and to raise the level of lethal violence and systemic degradation well beyond anything practiced in antiquity. We continue to live with its legacy and our culture suffers from the afterlife of many of its basic assumptions and props.

Freedom should be the birthright of all people. It should be assumed as obvious and natural, rather than a rare emergence that becomes noteworthy and a cause for celebration. But such is human mendacity that the end of slavery draws our attention and invites us to take a breath, to pause from our toleration of human evil, and to renew our commitment to the Biblical ideal that all people are made in God’s image.

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger issued a proclamation proclaiming freedom for the slaves in Texas. This date is, in a sense, America’s second Independence Day. It invites every American to reflect on the injustice of human trafficking in general, but to focus particularly on the ways that African Americans have borne a unique and brutal brunt of racism and white supremacy. To birth the nation anew, under a charter of equal justice for all, education about the shameful events in our past (in addition to the proud ones), and a rallying around the struggle against racism and bigotry today remains a priority of the highest degree.

“One law for the resident and the stranger” and the commandment to “love your fellow as yourself” are both the Torah’s most repeated and, arguably, its most vital imperative. As Jews, we know through our own national memory the blight of slavery and a bloody trail of degradation, poverty, and exile that are the legacy of Antisemitism. Both through sacred text and ancestral memory, we know that all people share a common promise, that we are all children of the same Oneness who summons us, even know, toward greater fraternity with each other.

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Prayer on Mother's Day

Arielle Margolis — Thu, 11 May 2023 21:44:53 +0000

Prayer on Mother's Day

Arielle Margolis Thu, 05/11/2023 - 14:44

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Mother's Day

Nobody makes something from nothing,

not even God.

But God molds the tohu va-vohu,
the chaos swirling in the deep,
and -- miraculous to say! -- life emerges.

Life is simple at first,

then complex. Reflexive at first,

then conscious. Life becomes.

It takes all that love,

all that power,

all that guidance,

but life does emerge, waddle, and walk.

Mother, my own creator:

You've always been able to mold the deep chaos

and produce life.

Cradling the babies you produced,

powerful love that made a world for your children,

deep wisdom creating a path to walk, a portal to enter.

You gave me life.

You nurtured life.

You instructed, taught, disciplined

and loved.

Latest mask of the divine,

you taught me I could trust,

showed me I'd be lifted when I cried out,

gave me faith in faith itself.

How can I bless you when you are the very blessing of my blessing?

My default parenting is yours,

endless fountain of love.

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Plunging In Before the Sea Splits

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 23:37:09 +0000

Plunging In Before the Sea Splits

Arielle Margolis Mon, 02/27/2023 - 15:37

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

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Who we follow and what we are willing to learn from our leadership say a lot about the kind of people we envision ourselves becoming. Judaism’s leaders have always been its teachers; we see ourselves as a people always learning, ever open to new insights, new ways of thinking, deeper modes of relating to God and to each other. In focusing on leadership, we are really holding up a mirror to ourselves, to explore Jewish identity. If Jews are to be perpetual students, then our teachers are our leaders.

In what way do teachers lead?

Generally, we think of leadership as a characteristic—either you have it or you don’t. Leadership, then, must be something you possess: a personality trait, like charisma, or a skill, like public speaking, or access to a pool of knowledge or information. When a politician is said to be a natural leader, we mean that he or she is able to steer legislation through the legislature, to negotiate treaties to the nation’s advantage, to mobilize the military to assert the national interest. In politics, leadership is the possession of competence and charisma.

In science or academics, by contrast, leadership is an ability to master a large body of knowledge and to use it in creative and fruitful ways. Thus, Einstein was a leading physicist, not because he was competent and charismatic, but because he took the same data that everyone else was looking at and, filtering it through his own remarkable creativity, was able to configure it in ways that no one else had yet dreamed. In science and scholarship, leadership is the possession of information and creativity.

Makings of a Jewish Leader

Competence and charisma, information and creativity, may well be the hallmarks of leadership in other areas, but the makings of a Jewish leader are somewhat different and worth recalling. Educator, rabbi, cantor, chaplain or youth advisor, we are all teachers, leading through the example we set, by our lives as they are lived, rather than by any skill, discipline or force of personality.

To lead in the Jewish world, to bring others to a fuller participation in Judaism and to our brit with God, a Jewish teacher must offer nothing less than access to the very depths of his or her own neshama. A teacher is one who, through a willingness to share a spiritual journey, to reveal the eddies and shoals of the soul, provides a model and a guide for others to follow. Leadership, for the Jew who would teach, is primarily a gift of spirit, a gift of shleimut, of wholeness.

A Jewish teacher is a script in search of actors.

A Jewish teacher can, indeed, make good use of skills and charisma, and certainly needs knowledge and creativity. But a teacher is distinguished from other Jews not so much in these specific areas as by an orientation of personality. A teacher is willing to have an open soul, permeated by the teachings and values of our sacred traditions, and permeable to the community of Jews who would be instructed by example. A Jewish teacher is a script in search of actors.

A teacher is an open neshama, made and molded by the sacred writings and deeds of Judaism. Our legitimacy, our ability to stand before our students with integrity, requires that we travel on the road we offer to our fellow Jews. Not as accomplished examples of perfection, but as flawed seekers of improvement, we dare to instruct and act as agents of God. We are always in the process of transforming God’s Torah (Torato) into our own (Torateinu). Only because we are first and always teaching ourselves, because before we ask how we can teach something, we must inquire, “What does this teach me?” Only then can we muster the temerity to demand that our students, congregants, and community also seek to absorb and to be absorbed by the age-old flow of Jewish striving.

For too long, we followed a model of the teacher as one who led by already having mastered, a model more properly located in the world of Zen Buddhism, or perhaps in some medieval guild. Jewish teachers are not masters, nor should they be. We are not so much ba’alei teshuva, masters of repentance, as we are rodfei teshuva, seeking always old-new paths of return. In fact, one who claims to have mastered the tradition demonstrates effrontery, an unwillingness to be mastered by the tradition. One who claims to be the ideal Jew is disqualified from the start; only if you think you lack the merit to be a lamedvavnik (one of the 36 totally righteous people) might you actually be one.

How We Do It

How then does a teacher show leadership?

Each morning we thank God for making us in the Divine image. The truth is, God gives us the tools, but we are the ones who must do the sacred work, each of us with our own neshamot. We are given the clay; the machzor affirms, “Haguf shelakh, the body is yours.” But God’s image is not what we start with; it is what we seek. Asymptotically, always closer but never actually arriving, we wrap ourselves in the shawl of our tradition, making for ourselves a context in which to live, to breathe, to learn and to act. By committing ourselves to a regimen of lifelong learning, the wisdom of our Sages becomes the companion of our minds. We bind ourselves with the straps of the mitzvot, disciplining our deeds to reflect our love and awe for our God, to dance God’s will with our hands and our every move. By filling our days with the commandments, we live as though we were wise and spiritual, and in the process, we seek to make ourselves wise and spiritual. We immerse ourselves in a liturgy of good deeds, davening kindness, dignity and involvement through our care for our fellow creatures and for all of Creation.

When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched in Selma, he insisted he was “praying with his feet.” Only after we are so well launched, as we ourselves are engaged with learning, mitzvot and deeds, can we then present ourselves to our communities and claim that we have something to teach. Were we not first willing to remake ourselves in the image of the Divine, we would offer only tinsel-information to satisfy curiosity, memories to quench the pangs of nostalgia, posturing to allay the guilt of abandoning a beautiful and sacred way.

The Midrash teaches that God was unwilling to split the Red Sea for the slaves fleeing Mitzrayim until they themselves took the first step. Insistent on the passion for freedom and for godliness, our ancestors walked up to their necks in the waters, singing “Mi khamokha ba’elim A-do-nai? Who is like You among those who are worshipped, A-do-nai?” Still the waters did not part. They continued walking until the waters engulfed their nostrils, forced now to sing “Mi kamokha ne’edar bakodesh? Who is like You, in majestic holiness?” Only then, following their lead, did God split the waters, allowing them to complete their course.

Walking In Before the Waters Part

Leadership, then as now, means going first. It means walking into the waters before they have parted, making them split by our courage, our determination that they must indeed part.

For those of us who teach—rabbis, cantors, camp counselors, faculty of day and supplementary schools—we can only teach if we are willing first to lead. To begin our own journeys of Jewish faithfulness and Jewish growth, of learning and deeds, of prayer and passion, before we attempt to impose it on our students.

B ‘orkha nir’eh or, in your light, others will see light. That is leadership Jewish-style.

That is teaching.

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Our Embeddedness in the Natural World

Arielle Margolis — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 22:00:00 +0000

Our Embeddedness in the Natural World

Arielle Margolis Thu, 02/02/2023 - 14:00

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Tu B'Shvat

On a family vacation to Hawaii, I joined my twins, Shira and Jacob, snorkeling by a coral reef. Beautiful coral undulated like ocean flowers, with buzzing bees replaced by fish of astonishing colors and variety. Putting my ears under water, I could hear the clicking of the coral, a sound imperceptible if you don't actively attend for it, but once it becomes the subject of your focus, almost deafening. So much of creation only reveals as a response to the gift of intention: what Buddhists call "mindfulness" and Jews call "kavanah" in Hebrew.

Like a grand symphony, the swirl of sea and fish and coral creates a world of its own, one that we can visit for brief moments of awe and expansive joy. Floating on the periphery of such alien beauty, we are invited to transcend ourselves. to join the choir. Watching my children's delight in the water forced me to note the invisible line that exists in my consciousness but not in the sea: from my conventional perspective, we were experiencing nature. But, of course, we ourselves are part of nature. Reaching beyond our usual range, we think we are in strange territory, but we are really where we always are: at home in something larger and more encompassing than ourselves. We nestle in the cleft as the divine passes before us. No frontal view, we are able to catch only passing glimpses.

The highlight of that day's swim was unexpected, as revelation always is: in an instant, a large, green sea turtle swam from our right into our field of vision. With unperturbed grace, it swam directly past us before continuing out into the depths.

We knew ourselves to be recipients of a great gift, as some grand cosmic name had been whispered in our ears. The meeting felt magical, reminding us that we live in a world of enchantment, one so richly given that we need no imposed construct of Supernatural to marvel in a world that is — in Sallie McFague's fetching formulation — super, natural! Or, in the ancient formulation of our father Jacob, "God was in this place and I, I did not know it!"

That turtle left us in a moment, but remains with us in expanded vision, in an offer of mute belonging and open possibility. We swim on with her into the beckoning blue.

My son and I took advantage of a beautiful afternoon to go on a whale watching expedition in Maalea Bay. For Jacob and for me, being on the water is a place of wonder and a joy that transcends words. We were joyous from the start. ��ϲ�� a half hour into our voyage, we encountered a group of three humpback whales: a mother, her new calf, and an escort. The calf must have been the size of a school bus. Giddy with delight at being here, that little whale threw itself entirely out of the water, landing with an enormous splash on its patient mother's back. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly, our little brother/sister kept breaching the water with all its might, a giddy celebration of being alive that enlisted every fiber of its being. It simply had to soar. And the joy was infectious. We all laughed as the whale leaped.

My first thought while reflecting that I was witnessing a spectacle few human eyes get to see, was that I was standing on the shore of an alien world. But I realized that my son Jacob also dances his excitement, his autistic surges of energy won't let him sedate his delight into a civil smile, he leaps and squeals his happiness, and he too is part of that same creation, as are we all. You don't have to be autistic to dance and cavort. This was not an encounter between the civilized and the natural (as I am trained by western culture to think), this meeting was that of one aspect of creation dancing the presence of another, of nature's joyous excess inviting us to the dance. We all shared that whale's delight that afternoon. We all swayed acceptance of the whale's invitation.

Why does it feel like revelation when creation graces us with a glimpse, a moment of connection, a glance? When the partitions of convention, of routine, of predictability part, we are gifted a deeper belonging, a beckoning fraternity, a reminder that we are not alone. You are here. You are us. Let's dance.

I believe that the divine is not separate from creation, looking down on us from the outside, immutable and incomparable. Rather, I see divinity wherever I look. The Hebrew prophets speak of mountains that leap like lambs, of trees clapping in exultation, of moon and stars glad to do the bidding of their maker. Like those Biblical visions, I too see creation everywhere and ongoing, permeated with the creator whose engagement is continuous, everywhere, and wondrous. We - like the rest of creation - are marinating in the divine, and we - like our brother and sister creatures - are momentary expressions of a creativity that links us in relationship without end: each to each, each to all, each and all to the One.

Little brother turtle flaps its peace. Little sister whale leaps its joy. And I? I feel blessed to receive the gift of their revelations: a little more peace, a lot more joy. When nature gestures, respond. When creation beckons, join in.

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Adventurer’s Prayer

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:29:49 +0000

Adventurer’s Prayer

Arielle Margolis Mon, 12/12/2022 - 09:29

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

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Holy Bountiful One,

You give us life as a gift, to safeguard and to relish.

If we only guard, we will never truly taste.

If we rashly live, we will create injury and chaos in our wake,
harming ourselves and those we love.

Gift us with the wisdom, as we sail life’s seas,
to tack between these two touchpoints,
as the only way to advance:

To cherish and guard life, but not too much.
To live with passion, but not recklessly.

As we catch the wind and ride the waves,
help us hold just enough passion, just enough foresight
to live long
and to live well.

AMEN.

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Ziegler Q&A October 2022

Arielle Margolis — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 17:03:07 +0000

Ziegler Q&A October 2022

Arielle Margolis Thu, 10/13/2022 - 10:03

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Podcast

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Summary

Ziegler Q&A hosted by Ziegler Dean Rabbi Artson. Topics included: guests and hospitality; homelessness in America today; length of services and how to attract the new generation; antisemitic rhetoric, assaults, and how to respond; corruption, racism, and antisemitism on the LA City Council.

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Tisha B’Av: Our Sufferings and Our Hope

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 17:02:37 +0000

Tisha B’Av: Our Sufferings and Our Hope

Arielle Margolis Mon, 08/01/2022 - 10:02

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Holidays and Festivals

Summary

Tisha B’Av, by forcing us to recognize a trail of tragedy and a psychology of division, is the crucial first step toward transformation and transcendence.

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If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning; let my tongue stick to my palette if cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour.—Psalm 137

Whoever mourns for Zion will be privileged to behold her joy.—Talmud, Sotah

To believe is to remember. The substance of our very being is memory, our way of living is retaining the reminders, articulating memory. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the city did not simply become a vague memory of the distant past; it continued to live as an inspiration in the hearts and minds. of the people. Jerusalem became a central hope, symbol of our hopes.—Abraham Joshua Heschel

I remember a family trip several years ago to Jerusalem for my brother-in-law’s wedding. Late in the summer, Israel’s heat extends into its nights, thick and heavy. The week prior to Danny’s wedding, my wife and I were in Jerusalem, walking the city’s streets — now alive again with activity, development and people, savoring our chance to absorb its smells, sounds and character. With the coincidence of Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av) and Danny’s wedding at the same time, Elana and I had a chance to mark the fast in one of Jerusalem’s many synagogues.

We chose Congregation Emet Ve-Emunah (Truth and Faith), where my father-in-law had become a bar mitzvah many decades prior. The congregation still met in the same basement, at the bottom of an old apartment building on one of the city’s winding side streets.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the synagogue, which was itself little more than a basement with benches, a podium and a ponderous wooden closet containing a few Torah scrolls, the attendants passed out candles to everyone present. To my surprise, they then turned out all the lights, punctuating the dark with a scattering of candles, one per worshiper. At the front of the sanctuary, his back facing us so he would pour out his song toward the Ark, to God, the Hazzan chanted the mournful words of Eikhah, the Book of Lamentations, describing the Babylonian assault on Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. and the suffering of its inhabitants.

The present dissolved. Huddled on low benches while mourning the Hurban (the destruction) of Solomon’s Temple, and of the Second Temple some two thousand years ago, I felt that Tisha B’Av seemed more compelling, a more potent symbol of the human predicament than anything in contemporary life. In the basement of a rebuilt apartment complex in Jerusalem, we fasted and cried over the ruins of ancient Jerusalem and the disappointments of the human condition.

Each year at the same time, the residents of Jerusalem enact a poignant paradox. Despite the fact that the city has been reunited, that Israel’s capital is now the home of a great university, impressive museums and concert centers, bustling commerce, vibrant new and old neighborhoods, once a year the people of Jerusalem, as do Jews everywhere, pause to mourn the destruction of their ancient city — our city — thousands of years ago.

To observe Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem is to allow the past to engulf the present, to induce a willful amnesia in the conviction that the resultant memory will be more true, more incisive and more real. To mourn the destruction of ancient Jerusalem is to deny the present its despotic hold on our attention, to affirm that there is much to learn from the past—about human living, about coping with despair and suffering, about redeeming the human heart.

Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning that originated in the year 586 B.C.E., when the First Temple—the one built by King Solomon some 400 years earlier—was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Jews of Israel were forcibly deported east. At the same season, in the year 70 C.E., the Roman troops under their general Titus destroyed the Second Temple, ending an era in Jewish worship. Throughout the years, this day has remained a magnet attracting Jewish suffering: The Edict of the Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 and the expulsion from Spain in 1492 were both signed at the time of Tisha B’Av. The tragedy of World War I was initiated on Tisha B’Av, in many ways setting the stage for World War II and the murder of six million Jews in the Shoah.

For the past two thousand years, Jews have used this day as a sponge, absorbing millennia of suffering and abuse at the hands of pagan, Christian and Moslem persecutors, and more recently, Nazi, Communist, terrorist and White Supremacist assaults. Years of forced conversions, rape, degradation, pogroms, lynchings and murders contribute to a renewed memory and determination on Tisha B’Av.

Suffering alone cannot provide purpose to Jewish identity, but one cannot come to terms with what that identity has meant without grappling with the ancient and resurgent presence of antisemitism.

Suffering alone cannot provide purpose to Jewish identity, but one cannot come to terms with what that identity has meant without grappling with the ancient and resurgent presence of antisemitism. On Tisha B’Av, we mourn that so many people have hated so much. We cry over the consequent suffering of innocents beyond counting.

But this fast is not simply to record the endlessness of Jew hatred and Jew beatings. This day also marks the end of Jewish sovereignty, of the kind of security and self-confidence that can only emerge when a people controls its own destiny, lives on its own land, determines its future for itself.

Some two thousand years ago, on Tisha B’Av, Jews lost the power to cultivate our own character according to our own standards. Stripped of control, of the authority of our own leaders and laws, Jews became the subject of other peoples’ legal systems, other peoples’ cultural priorities and prejudices, other peoples’ armies and police. For two thousand years, we have developed a variety of Jewish identities and cultures, always judged by external standards, living as a persecuted minority, in countries we were told were not ours, we learned to keep a wary eye on how others would perceive our values, our symbols and our achievements.

On Tisha B’Av, then, we mourn our lost independence and our weakened self-confidence. We mourn our dependence on the whims and kindnesses of strangers.

Finally, on Tisha B’Av, we attend not only to history — the loss of a building and of national standing — we mourn a psychological and spiritual reality as well.

For our ancestors the Temple was not merely a place of worship and pomp; it was a symbol of wholeness. There it was possible to fulfill the desire of our Creator completely, to become one with God. Religion — tangible in form and simple in concept — provided a concrete way to expiate guilt, express gratitude, and share in success. By its very structure the Temple stood beyond time, offering the iron-clad assurances that God dwelt there, that all was well.

The Hurban destroyed that sense of well-being. Instead of providing a place where Jews knew exactly how to make good with God, the ruins now became a potent symbol that we all live in a world of inevitable pain and ultimate abandonment. Love affairs, so full of promise at the start, often slide into mediocrity or erupt into hostility. Careers fail to provide a sense of excitement or purpose — jobs are frequently lost or denied. Children and parents rarely fulfill each other’s dreams and expectations. Those we love move to distant places. Illness erupts into the best of lives; people die. Each of us, no matter how content we may be, live under the shadow of aging and our own mortality.

The Hurban symbolizes all that. There is no perfect place. The Temple, a projection of the harmony and unity that we perceived as children, has fallen before the onslaught of maturity, sexuality and death. On Tisha B’Av, we mourn the loss of that innocence. And of wholeness.

At the very beginning of the evening service for Tisha B’Av, the Hazzan rises to announce that “This year is the __th year since the destruction of the Holy Temple. Each generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt should regard itself as responsible for its destruction.”

There is no Temple. The world is still saturated with disappointment, disease and despair. Our task, simple to articulate and impossible to complete, is to begin the work of rebuilding the Temple — by restoring a wholeness to our shattered planet, renewing a bond of trust between humanity and its members, repeating the commitment made by our ancestors to nurture our covenant with God, to be a holy people.

Tisha B’Av, by forcing us to recognize a trail of tragedy and a psychology of division, is the crucial first step toward transformation and transcendence. In the words of the Talmud, “You are not required to complete the task, yet neither are you free to desist from it.”

Tisha B’Av signifies a willingness to begin the task, even though its conclusion eludes our view.

It is up to us to begin.

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On Prayer

Arielle Margolis — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 17:46:23 +0000

On Prayer

Arielle Margolis Mon, 07/25/2022 - 10:46

by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Vice President, ��ϲ��

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies

Leading Jewish Prayer

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When I was a child, and throughout my high school years, I was a fervent atheist. I knew that the universe was a coincidence, and that the emergence of human life was fortuitous. The evidence for my conviction was not hard to find: the extraordinary amount of suffering that all human beings endure, the tragic deaths of countless children to cancer or leukemia or sudden infant death syndrome, the disappointments of aging and of losing those we love, and the randomness of the way good people suffer and bad people prosper. All these factors confirmed for me that life did not have any purpose; it simply happened.

As it was the belief of much of my family, I was quite comfortable with my atheism. I grew up assuming that “religious” was a synonym for “dumb,” and that religious people were simply cowards unwilling to face the universe and its indifferent reality. My mother’s friends ignored religion except as a cultural artifact. Most of my playmates were also atheists — not out of conscious rebellion against some unreasonable standard, but simply following in the footsteps of our families. Our freethinking was a matter of habit.

While I (and my Jewish buddies) participated in becoming a Bar Mitzvah, it was only because of my father’s adamant insistence. l remember his explanation that he had become a Bar Mitzvah, and so had his father and all our male forebears since the beginning of the rite. From my perspective, the fact that half of my ancestors had participated in what seemed to me to be a stifling and irrelevant performance was not a sufficient reason for me to waste my time. Besides, I hated services — from my 12-year-old point of view, they were boring, hypocritical and cold. I became a Bar Mitzvah because my father wanted it.

In hindsight, all of this seems noteworthy only from the perspective of a rabbi. From birth until college, however, I was a self-assured atheist.

Breakthrough Moment

Except for one brief interlude: When I was 12, I began to suffer from a painful and embarrassing illness that produced oozing sores on the surface of my skin. This disease struck me in the midst of puberty and in the most private of places. Í was so ashamed that I did not tell anyone for two years. I bled, suffered, and even cried in silence. Surrounded by loving people, I was still alone. Finally, in my first year of high school, when the pain was more than I could bear, I revealed my secret to my stepfather.

The next day, I was in the proctologist’s office. He put me on an examination chair, face down, with my feet strapped into stirrups so he could explore without interruption. In my memory, the exam took hours. It was the most painful experience I can remember.

Two days later, he gave my mother the pathologist’s report: I had a terminal, inoperable cancer. The medical treatments for that illness (a diagnosis which turned out to be erroneous in both its fatality and its inoperability) continued for more than 10 years.

In that examination room, strapped to a chair, humiliated and in great pain, I had an overwhelming experience of God. Devout atheist that I was (and would remain for several more years), one image kept flashing in my mind. All I could think of was Moses crossing the Red Sea — his courage in confronting Pharaoh, and his joy of liberation. I kept asking God to be with me and felt a strange comfort in the request, which I repeated over and over. God was with me in that room, in my pain.

Once the examination ended, I forgot about God and about Moses. Until years later, I never thought about it again. But I recognize it now as the beginning of the path that led me back to Judaism and, ultimately, to Jewish observance and celebration. In retrospect, that moment was the first time God broke through my barriers, no longer able to stand aside and wait. My pain was too much; God simply acted.

With further thought, I realize that God was there not only in my awareness of God, but also in everything that was going on.

With further thought, I realize that God was there not only in my awareness of God, but also in everything that was going on. God was in the hands of the doctor who was causing me so much pain in the process of trying to help, in the nurses standing by his side offering comfort and care, and, most of all, in my brave, wonderful mother who waited nervously nearby. (Is there a better model of divine persistence and love than that of a parent who stays with her child through his pain?) In fact, there was nowhere that God was not present. And there never is.

Naming the Presence; Calling the Presence

But we do not know how to identify our encounters with God; we do not call them by their proper name. So pervasive is God’s love and support, that we do not notice it anymore. The permanence and accessibility of miracles is the undoing of true religion: until we know our experiences for what they really are, until we can see God in the face of a child or the marvel of a new morning, we will always be indifferent to prayer.

Our problem with prayer is not a technical problem. It is not simply a question of learning Hebrew, or the right melody, or the proper posture.

The issue of prayer is the issue of God: Do we let God into our lives? Are we comfortable being uncomfortable in the presence of the Creator of the Universe? Do we dare pour out our hearts before God?

Learning to pray, then, requires first understanding that we have already experienced God; we just need to learn to label those experiences correctly. Each of us could easily list moments in which we encountered an inexplicable sense of wonder, awe or marvel. Everyone has felt himself in the presence of something encompassing and assuring. But we have forgotten its name, and we do not remember where to go to look it up. We do not even have the sense to seek out other people who are looking to name the same experiences we share. And we certainly would not discuss it in sophisticated company!

Why Pray?

The answer to the question “Why pray?” is not found inside synagogues or prayerbooks. It is not found in meditation or in the right techniques. The answer to the question “Why pray?” begins with life as it is lived: in the home, the office, the park, and the school. Why pray? Because that is what we do with our encounters with God.

When I was applying for my first position of rabbi of a congregation, a few other candidates and I each spent a Shabbat there, leading services, teaching some classes and meeting the community. During one of my classes someone asked me to summarize Judaism, which I did by quoting from Psalm 16, “I will set the Lord before me always.”

Every deed can be a sacred deed, every moment an encounter with God and a reaffirmation of meaning. Nothing is so trivial or irrelevant that it cannot be worked into a tool for strengthening our humanity, community and holiness. In our hands is the power to harness random acts and instinctual drives into a network of moral rigor and emotional depth, forging those mute facts into values which simultaneously affirm and restore our own humanity.

In transforming our routine, we renew ourselves. We begin to encounter God in occurrences that used to seem mundane. Prayer is the key to that transformation, adding a layer of depth and resonance to otherwise random moments and habitual patterns of behavior. By allowing us to focus attention on the daily miracles of life — a new day, an old love, life itself — prayer can intensify and restore our commitment to repair the world under the sovereignty of God. And is not that potential, the inner power of prayer, a miracle worthy of gratitude?

Prayer is what we do when we stand in the presence of what is beyond words.

Prayer is what we do when we stand in the presence of what is beyond words. It is our response to an awareness that God is with us and will not abandon us. In the smallness of our efforts, in the enormity of our need, prayer is a bridge, linking our outstretched hands to God, exposing God’s love for us.

Not How, But Who?

The first step in learning to pray is to learn to label experiences of the divine for what they are. The next step is to develop those experiences and the gratitude they inspire into words, community and deeds.

Prayer provides words for our wonder and solace for our sorrows. It lends us the script while we play at being righteous, pious and good. And in the process of the drama of prayer, we become the part that we perform. We are both actor and spectator, and the story emerges in the unfolding of our lives. Under God’s direction, our souls, hearts, and minds provide the stage for transformation and renewal.

A good play benefits from props, appropriate costumes, stage directions and effective lighting. The right backdrop and a little music at the proper moment all contribute to the process of allowing actor and audience to live the life of the play. So it is with worship. The prayerbook, the pageantry and the ritual objects are tools to allow a more complete identification between actor and part, a more complete adherence to the will of the Director.

To withdraw from prayer keeps God’s presence sporadic, private, and uncertain. Humans are built to remember only what we can share, only what we can express. What we cannot articulate, we do not remember. And what we do not remember cannot strengthen conviction, instill courage, and contribute to our fuller humanity.

Prayer lets God into the world; prayer lets humans into God’s presence. Prayer allows us to become truly human.

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