How many children should a Jewish couple have? Although that may seem like a strange question and one that impinges on the private and most intimate life of a couple, it has been addressed by Jewish law in the past and is now the subject of a new teshuva (responsum) issued recently by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the International Rabbinical Assembly of which I am pleased to be a member. Jewish law (Halacha) has dealt with this because the very first mitzva found in the Torah is: "And God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and replenish it...'" (Genesis 1:28). It should be noted that this is not phrased in the Torah as a command in a negative sense and certainly not as a punishment, but as a blessing. To understand how to fulfill this mitzva the sages discussed and debated it. Who is responsible to fulfill it? How many children and of what sex are required? Without going into details, suffice it to say that the traditional answer has been that the mitzva is fulfilled when a couple has had two children, one boy and one girl. The Talmud, however, determined that two children are the minimum, but that Jews should continue to have as many children as they can (B. Yevamot 62b), and Maimonides codified this as law.

The world's Jewish community has not recovered numerically from the devastating losses during the Nazi era. Demographic studies point to a Jewish birthrate that will not maintain the Jewish population in the United States, with serious implications for the future of the American Jewish community, the Jewish people as a whole, and Judaism itself. It is essential that we encourage fertile Jewish couples to have at least two children in compliance with the early Halacha, and one or more additional children, who are mitzva children in the additional sense that they help the Jewish people replace those lost in the Holocaust and maintain our numbers now. Adopting children, converting them to Judaism, if necessary, and raising them as Jews helps in this effort as well.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, JTS, Rabbi

The Maharil was the Posek (Halachic authority) for the largest Jewish communities of the day - Worms, Speyer, Mayence, Regensberg, etc. He was upset at the "foreign" elements intruding in the melody of tefillah, and he set out to determine which versions were the true ones (Mi-Sinai or Scarbova). He was able to do that because of the Crusades that brought Jews from all over Europe to seek safety in the Rhineland. He examined the different musical strains, and determined which were authentic. His P'sak (Halachic ruling) - that "Ein L'Shanos" - one may not change the musical Nusach of a community, is standardized as Halacha by the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 619). You can, of course, see that in the Mishneh Brura as well. He was also responsible for standardizing Nusach Ashkenaz in the form that our Siddur takes...

Jam Davening draws about double the audience of a typical learning minyan, participants say. Now the group is trying to figure out how to bring Jam Davening to a wider audience, first by inviting the broader seminary community into the minyan, then by taking the idea to individual synagogues. This comes at a time when music is rapidly being introduced into Conservative synagogues.

Musical instruments had been excluded from Conservative synagogues on Shabbat partially because of Jewish law and partially as a remembrance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago. But starting in the 1950s, the movement allowed Conservative congregations to decide for themselves whether to use instruments.

Now as the movement debates whether Jews should be praying for the rebuilding of the Temple or just Jerusalem -- and about whether or not the use of electricity on Shabbat is banned -- the use of instruments has also come under "healthy debate," according to Rabbi Moshe Edelman, the director of the Committee on Congregational Standards for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Also, members of the Law Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly are working on a paper to address the issue, according to Rabbi Joel Roth, a professor of Talmud and Jewish law and formerly the head of the committee.

Labels: Education, Jewish, JTS, Prayer, Spirituality

Until ignorance divides us

By Yair Ettinger (Haaretz.com)

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Israel, JTS, Reform Judaism

"So satisfying was the [Pardes] experience, when his year of study was up, Bernstein paid a visit to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to see if rabbinical school might be his next move.

'But the fluorescent lights ruined it for me,' he explains. 'I told the rabbis at Pardes I'm going to get my wisdom in the desert.' Their reply: 'It was good enough for the Patriarchs.' "

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Detroit, Education, JTS

The official JTS press release can be viewed here. What follows is the beginning of Chancellor Arnie Eisen's letter to the JTS Community. His very long letter also includes detailed paragraphs outlining the process, the decision, and the next steps.

To the JTS Community:

I write to announce that, effective immediately, The Jewish Theological Seminary will accept qualified gay and lesbian students to our rabbinical and cantorial schools.

This matter has aroused thoughtful introspection about the nature and future of both JTS and the Conservative Movement to a degree not seen in our community since the decision to admit women to The Rabbinical School nearly twenty-five years ago. Convictions and feelings are strong on both sides. Some will cheer this decision as justice long overdue. Others will condemn it as a departure from Jewish law and age-old Jewish custom. One thing is abundantly clear: after years of discussion and debate, heartfelt and thoughtful division on the matter is evident among JTS faculty, students, and administration. The same is true of professionals and lay leaders of the Conservative Movement. For many of us, the issue runs deep inside ourselves.

Those of us who undertook the ordination discussion at JTS acted not as poskim, or legal adjudicators — that responsibility fell to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly (CJLS) — but as educators charged with setting standards for our unique academic institution. From the outset, as we set about considering what JTS should do on this matter, three steps seemed necessary.

First, our decision would be preceded by a deliberate and careful process in which the views of all constituencies would be respectfully heard and patiently considered. The positions of both sides would be thought through and the likely consequences weighed. This process is now complete. I will review its elements below.

Second, the announcement of JTS’s decision would lay out our thinking on the matter in detail commensurate with the gravity and complexity of the decision.

Third, the announcement would conclude one process while beginning another. We resolved to take action that would help bring our movement closer together. To that end, we have launched — and in coming months will help to lead — a full-scale process of learning and discussion among all constituencies of Conservative Judaism aimed at a reclarification of our principles and a recommitment to our practices. Its specific focus will be mitzvah: our sense of being commanded and how we exercise that responsibility. The first steps taken in this new process are outlined below.

For me personally, these questions about core principles and practices are at the heart of the discussion in which we have been engaged this past year. The immediate issue was the ordination of gay and lesbian students as rabbis and cantors for the Conservative Movement. But the larger issue has been how we can remain true to our tradition in general and to halakhah in particular while staying fully responsive to and immersed in our society and culture. How shall we learn Torah, live Torah, teach Torah in this time and place? Without these imperatives, the decision before us would have been far easier for many of those involved. That is certainly true for me.

The decision, then, has for many of us been far from plain or simple. I say this despite my strong conviction that the decision I am announcing here is the right one. Let me now explain why I believe it to be so.

Labels: JTS, Keshet, Rabbi

Before she could pursue music, however, she had to convince her parents it was the right thing to do. That turned out to be surprisingly easy. Rick and Mary Berlin attended the group's second show -- at the Graffiti Rock Challenge in 1991 -- and realized Rusted Root was not a whim or indulgence.

"It was the first time we heard the band, and they'd only been together a week or so," Mary Berlin says. "Sometimes you know something is special. I knew Rusted Root was going to make it. I just knew it. I had that intuition."

"She was absolutely right in dropping out," Rick Berlin says.

So inspired was Berlin by his daughter's success -- he calls Liz "my hero" -- that he decided to change his career.

"It was because of her willingness to take a chance that I decided to take my risk in 1996," says Rick Berlin, who shut down a business to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to become an ordained cantor. "There were risks, and it wasn't easy, but her success was one of the things that made me take that chance."

Labels: Conservative Judaism, JTS

Labels: Conservative Judaism, JTS, Keshet

Labels: JTS, Rabbi

Labels: Conservative Judaism, JTS, Michigan, Rabbi

Labels: JTS, Rabbi

A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton got started on a new "listening tour." Her first one, during the 2000 Senate campaign, was aimed at soliciting the ideas of New York voters on what legislative issues were important to them. This one is aimed at hearing the thoughts of Democratic strategists on the subject of her presidential run. But the idea behind the tours remained the same: Find out what the people want--and, if possible, give it to them.

In politics, such an approach has an irrefutable democratic logic. But is it well suited to religion? Arnold Eisen (left), the chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary, has spent the past few months on a "listening tour" of his own, holding town-hall meetings around the country to figure out how to reinvigorate Conservative Judaism. Mr. Eisen is looking to find out what Jews want--and, if possible, give it to them.

But the most recent response to this crisis has been less than inspiring. The Jewish Week recently published "17 Seriously Cool Ideas to Remake New York's Jewish Community." These included creating a Jewish culinary institute, building a kibbutz in the Big Apple, providing high-quality Jewish toddler care, hosting a hipper Israeli Independence Day parade, and baking better kosher pizza.

Perhaps these ideas were meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek, but other ideas are not--and probably should be. Take a new project called Synaplex. Sponsored by the Star Foundation, Synaplex is, according to its Web site, "designed to provide people with new reasons to make the synagogue the place to be on Shabbat." About 125 synagogues are already "enabling people to celebrate Shabbat the way they want to."

What does that mean? Instead of attending a traditional service, Rabbi Hayim Herring, Star's executive director, tells me, some people would do "Medi-Torah" or "Torah and Yoga." Others might attend a lecture or go to a musical service followed by a "latte cart." And still others might prefer to attend a Friday night wine-and-cheese reception.

Rabbi Herring says that some of the participating synagogues double or triple their attendance on the day of a "Synaplex" Shabbat, but it's not clear whether such one-day surges result in long-term membership gains. Religious groups that have grown the fastest in recent years (including Orthodox Judaism) are the ones that demand the most of their adherents, not the ones that offer religion (and refreshments) cafeteria-style.

Rabbi Herring acknowledges this trend when I mention it to him. But he is not sure that it applies to the people he is trying to serve. He believes that "one failure of some of the Jewish movements is bludgeoning people with the notion of mitzvah [commandments], as opposed to taking people where they are and being patient enough to not impose their own vision of spirituality."

As it happens, the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, whose mission is "to inspire a renaissance of Jewish life," gives money to the Synaplex project. Adam Bronfman, the foundation's managing director, tells me that "each individual accesses meaning differently." He himself was "born a Jew and decided to live a Jewish life," he says, and he wants "others to access that if that's what they choose."

After extensive surveys, Hillel has concluded that many unaffiliated Jews, in Mr. Firestone's words, "don't feel welcome" by the Jewish offerings on campus. I was surprised by this claim, having always thought that college was probably the easiest place to practice Judaism. At big universities particularly, services of all types are easily accessible. Kosher food is not hard to come by. Religious celebrations abound.

But if the surveys are correct, some Jewish students are still feeling left out. The problem, according to Mr. Bronfman (whose foundation also gives to Hillel), can be thought of in terms of ice cream: "Some people want rocky road and some people want vanilla and some want strawberry. But Hillel was only able to provide one aspect, one flavor."

So Hillel is expanding, hoping to double the number of students involved in campus Jewish life. It is offering community-service trips with Torah studies; hosting its activities in non-Hillel buildings; even reaching out to American Jews studying abroad.

There is nothing wrong with these ideas or anything else in Hillel's "five-year strategic plan," and they may result in greater numbers of students taking Jewish ideas and culture seriously. Indeed, the other outreach efforts, however tacky or trivial, may also strengthen Jewish life in America. Still, there is something strange about all this consultant-speak. Listening tours, marketing gambits and strategic plans may be an inescapable part of modern life, even in the realm of religion. But in the end, for a particular faith to thrive, God can't just be for dessert.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Hillel, Jewish, JTS, Synaplex

Labels: Humor, JTS

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, JTS, Keshet, Rabbi