New App Enhances Prayer During Pandemic

Prayer in Judaism is an interesting concept. While there is nothing inherently wrong with one praying by oneself, there is certainly a preference for communal prayer. Worshiping k’yachid, or individually, satisfies the Jewish obligation for daily prayer, but there are several sections of the prayer service that can only be done when a minyan (prayer quorum of ten people) is constituted.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the strong desire we have for communal worship has posed a challenge to clergy. Certainly, technology has solved many of the inherent problems that occur when it is impossible for community members to congregate in person due to health risks. We have seen how video conferencing apps like Zoom have become commonplace for group worship. But we have also seen examples of what happens when technology fails, as it did for dozens of congregations dependent on the synagogue website company Shul Cloud, whose servers failed on Yom Kippur, the most heavily trafficked day of the year for virtual synagogue prayer.

Don't Forget About the Jewish Holiday of Shavuot

Shavuot has become the Rodney Dangerfield of Jewish holidays. It gets no respect. Maybe even worse than not getting the respect this holiday deserves, it is often completely ignored by the Jewish community.

While Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals along with Passover and Sukkot, it seems to take a back seat in importance of many Jewish people's lives. While no American Jewish family would allow Memorial Day or Father's Day to go by without a proper observance, Shavuot just doesn't seem to factor in the lives of many non-Orthodox Jewish families. This year, Shavuot came late on the calendar, occurring just this past weekend after many Jewish day schools and synagogue Hebrew schools had already concluded the year. Even in leap years, such as the current Jewish calendar year, Shavuot arrives too early to get proper treatment at Jewish summer camps, which have historically taught Jewish youth to observe Tisha B'Av.

Ask most Jewish people to identify which holiday is the one with matzah and they'll all say "Passover." Ask them which is the one when we build temporary huts in the backyard to eat in for a week and they will correctly identify "Sukkot." Ask them which is the holiday when we celebrate receiving the Torah and some might respond "Simchat Torah," the second day of Shemini Atzeret when we return to the beginning of the weekly Torah readings again (in Israel, Simchat Torah is Shemini Atzeret). Even the Jewish holidays of less importance like Hanukkah and Purim receive heaps more of attention than Shavuot.

Do We Go Overboard Cleaning for Passover?

There are two funny images I like to circulate this time every year as we approach the Passover holiday. The first is a cartoon of a truck with large text on the side reading "Morty's Passover Cleaning." On the driver's side door is the word "chametz" inside a circle with line struck through it. Underneath the large "Morty's Passover Cleaning" text on the side of the truck it reads:
Orthodox $89.95, Conservative $49.95; Reform $19.95.

The second image is of a person's office cubicle and it's completely covered in aluminum foil. Even the desk chair, computer, keyboard and mouse are completely covered in aluminum foil. Most likely this photo was taken of the scene of an office prank, but I like to circulate this photo with the question, "Do we go overboard when it comes to Pesach cleaning?"

Let's look at the first photo. Is there some truth to this? I always maintain there has to be some truth to a joke for it to be funny, so let's say that on the whole, yes, Orthodox Jews would spend more money for Passover cleaning than Conservative Jews and Conservative Jews would spend more money for Passover cleaning than Reform Jews. Perhaps, this image strikes us as offensive, but we'll unpack that in a moment.

I remember as a kid before we got granite counter tops watching my mother cover all the counter tops in aluminum foil and then redoing this process each morning of the holiday because some of the aluminum foil had ripped the night before causing little sections of the white Formica counter to be revealed. This was done despite the fact that our house was completely spotless after having been thoroughly cleaned for the holiday. The thinking was that the counter is of a porous material and would have retained some of the chametz from the year which would contaminate our Passover food.

Do we go overboard cleaning for Passover?

Why I Spoke About Sukkot in My Rosh Hashanah Sermon

The beginning of my sermon on the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year had the congregants confused. I opened my sermon by wishing everyone "a very happy and healthy... Sukkot!" By the expressions on the faces of the people in the first few rows I could tell people were puzzled by my greeting. However, I didn't grab the wrong sermon by mistake. I didn't fall a few minutes earlier, hitting my head and then erroneously thought it was a different holiday.

I really did intend to wish everyone a Chag Sukkot Sameach - a happy Sukkot festival. Why did I choose to talk about Sukkot when that holiday is actually two weeks after Rosh Hashanah? I'll explain. I'm realistic about the fact that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there are the biggest crowds gathered together in the synagogue. However, when the Sukkot festival arrives a couple of weeks later there won't be nearly as many people gathered together. And that’s a shame.

So, I decided that I'd use my main speaking opportunity during the first day of Rosh Hashanah to teach about Sukkot, explaining why it's my favorite holiday and encouraging families and individuals to return to the synagogue on Sukkot to experience a fun holiday (without sounding like I was giving a guilt trip). I won't know what type of impact my words had until Sukkot, but in most synagogues it's a culture that will take several years to change. Incidentally, I'm told that while the problem of Jewish people attending synagogue services in droves on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but then not returning for Sukkot is not only a problem in the Conservative and Reform congregations. Modern Orthodox rabbis tell me that they see a drop off in numbers on Sukkot as well, albeit not nearly as drastic.

In my sermon I was careful to not sound like I was admonishing anyone for not embracing the Sukkot festival, but I also strongly encouraged everyone to try an aspect of Sukkot this year (i.e., buy a lulav and etrog set, build a sukkah, visit a neighbor's sukkah, etc.). I explained how I thought it was a shame that so many Jewish people haven’t fully experienced the joy and fun that is Sukkot. I shared that Sukkot is my favorite Jewish holiday and offered the many ways that Sukkot is similar to Thanksgiving, my favorite secular American holiday.

My sales pitch for Sukkot observance included the fact that building a sukkah is a physical task that many will embrace. Those who struggle to find the spiritual nourishment in Judaism might enjoy the act of building the sukkah -- a more hands-on, tactile endeavor. I talked about how I take great pride each year in building my family’s sukkah. I shared that it's a beautiful opportunity for a family activity as well. When my children were younger they were only able to watch me put up the sukkah walls and then I’d let them decorate it with their school projects, but as they have gotten older they have become useful building assistants. Having friends and family enjoy delicious meals in our sukkah under the stars is certainly a highlight of the holiday.

I closed my sermon with the following words that I hope others will take to heart as well:

If you haven’t fully experienced Sukkot I think you should give it a try. Do it in steps at first. Buy a lulav and etrog so you can come to shul and fulfill the mitzvah of taking the four species. Go to one of the many websites where you can buy a pre-fabricated sukkah. Or, if you’re a little more daring, go to a local Home Depot or Lowes hardware store and buy the materials to build your own sukkah. Let your kids or grandkids or the kids in the neighborhood decorate it. If you’re not quite ready to build your own sukkah, attend a meal at a friend's sukkah. I think you might find what I have found – Sukkot is a really fun holiday. Sukkot truly is the Thanksgiving of the Jewish year. It’s a time when we can find joy and comfort in our history and in our ancestors’ agricultural way of life. It’s an opportunity for us to feel grateful for what we have and to get a sense of the fragility of other people’s living situations. It’s a time for us to embrace the hospitality of Judaism and for us to seek out the spiritual.

I wish everyone a G'mar Chatimah Tovah -- may we all be signed and sealed for another year of health and contentment in the Book of Life. And may those who have never truly experienced the joy of Sukkot, begin to embrace the festival this year and find happiness in its rituals.

Gwyneth Paltrow Plans Conversion to Judaism and What That Means for Other Patrilineal Jews

News has just come out that actress Gwyneth Paltrow will be converting to Judaism. To many, this is a confusing bit of news because we have always thought of Gwyneth Paltrow as Jewish and listed her among today's most famous Jewish celebrities. However, it is her father who was Jewish and not her mother, the actress Blythe Danner. This means that Gwyneth Paltrow is what is known as a "patrilineal Jew" -- only Jewish through the lineage of her father. In Reform Judaism, she's considered a full member of the Jewish people, but this isn't the case in a more traditional Jewish interpretation of Jewish identity.

Paltrow's high profile conversion to Judaism will raise the profile of this controversy in modern Jewish life. A 2007 JTA.org article discussed the various solutions to the problem of how to recognize patrilineal Jews in a traditional congregation. Rabbi Sharon Brous of Ikar LA (and other rabbis) have begun a custom of having all teens in the synagogue immerse in a mikvah with the appropriate blessings before the year of their bar or bat mitzvah thereby converting those Patrilineal Jewish children who were raised Jewish, but wouldn't be considered Jewish according to Halacha (Jewish law). I recently published a blog post about Gwyneth Paltrow's upcoming conversion and what it will mean for the thousands of Patrilineal Jews who might not have considered the need to formally convert.

We rabbis often lament about how many issues divide our people. We pray differently, we keep kosher differently, we talk about Israel differently, etc. The truth is that while these topics make us debate with each other and cause us to affiliate with our own congregations and communities and organizations, they don’t change the fact that we’re all part of the Jewish people. The only issue that truly does divide us in the sense that it keeps us from uniting as one people is the issue of Jewish identity — what’s commonly called “Who’s a Jew.”

Patrilineal "Dissent": Solving the Jewish Status Problem

My mother isn't/wasn't Jewish, my father is. I was raised Reform, had a Bat mitzvah, [was Jewishly educated, celebrated holidays, identify as Jewish, participated in the Jewish community, did not participate in or celebrate any other faith or religion,] etc. If I have children with a man recognized as fully Jewish, how would they be seen in the eyes of Israel and the American Jewish community (particularly the Conservative movement)? How stable are Israel's laws around this -- could they change in 10 years? What about Halachah (Jewish law)? I would really appreciate an answer, even if it's not what I want to hear. Thank you!

This is the question I was presented with from the website Jewish Values Online. Over the past few years I have answered dozens of values-based questions from this website. I haven't dodged a single question, and I've attempted to respond to each questioner in a timely fashion. Admittedly, I have procrastinated writing a response to this question for several months.

Why? Because I am a Conservative rabbi and this is perhaps the most challenging question that a Conservative rabbi can be asked in the beginning of the 21st century. My Reform and Orthodox colleagues were able to respond to this question in a much more timely fashion. The Reform rabbi is able to cite his movement's historic 1983 resolution establishing that "if the child is raised exclusively as a Jew and one parent is Jewish, then the child is recognized as a Jew in Reform communities regardless of the gender of the Jewish parent." The Orthodox rabbi frames his answer with words like "difficult" and "painful" but ultimately cites Halacha (Jewish law) as unable to recognize the children (or grandchildren) of a Jewish man and non-Jewish woman as Jews without benefit of conversion.

Obama's Bar Mitzvah Speech

President Barack Obama gave what even he described as a "Bar Mitzvah speech" at the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Biennial on Friday afternoon. Love him or hate him, the President gave an impressive speech that earned him no less than 70 rounds of applause.

In the speech, he not only defended his administration's record on Israel, but claimed that, "no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel's security than ours. None. Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact."

Telling the audience that his daughter Malia has been on the bar and bat mitzvah circuit, he took his daughter’s advice and gave a D’var Torah about this week's Torah portion. Obama's message focused on the Hebrew word "Hineini" (I Am Here) saying that like Joseph from the Torah, he is here and ready to take on challenges even if he can’t predict them all. He also dropped some other Hebrew words, but didn't pronounce all of them well. He struggled to pronounce the term "Tikkun Olam" but fared better with other words and received a rousing ovation when he wished the audience a "Shabbat Shalom."

Obama's "Shabbat Shalom" came with the acknowledgement that he knew it was still a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath. He said, "Even though it is a few hours early, I'd like to wish all of you Shabbat shalom." His former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (or any other Jewish adviser for that matter) could have informed him that we Jews start wishing each other "Shabbat Shalom" as much as 24 hours prior to the actual Shabbat. My sense is that Obama knows this and his statement was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the criticism he received for hosting the White House Hanukkah party two weeks before the actual holiday.

Who knows if "Hineini" will replace "Hope" as Obama's 2012 campaign slogan, but here are some Obama Hineini t-shirts and products just in case (available online).

Matisyahu on Contradictions in Religious Observance

As any man with a beard, goatee or mustache will tell you, it is a transformative experience to shave it all off. Something tells me that Matisyahu felt a sense of freedom after he shaved off his iconic beard the other day. There has been a lot of discussion about Matisyahu's transformation after he came clean [shaven] and claimed he has evolved from a Hasidic reggae star. The opinions have ranged from those who interpreted this as Matisyahu's having left a religious lifestyle (going "off the derech") to those who can't figure out why this story even qualifies as "news."

While I personally question if shaving off his iconic beard was a wise PR move, what I think is more interesting is how he has made his personal religious journey into a public narrative. His rise to super stardom occurred after he had already adopted a religious lifestyle and his break from Lubavitch a couple years ago wasn't very well publicized so this is really the first time his observance has been discussed on such a broad scale. And now that he's gone public with his shifts in observance, Matisyahu has (unintentionally?) brought the conversation of religious shifting and spiritual seeking into a very public sphere.

I listened to Matisyahu's first interview since his transformative shaving experience and there was an interesting exchange toward the end. Soundcheck host John Schaefer began to ask Matisyahu a question that was sent in to the program by a listener having to do with him living some sort of a contradictory life. Matisyahu quickly cut Schaefer off and said something that I think is of utmost importance in any conversation about religious observance and spiritual seeking.

I'd like to say one thing about contradictions -- I don't mean to cut you off -- but the whole thing is contradictions. And that's what I've realized, is that everything has multiple sides to it, you know? We're so quick to go, to make things black and white and to put things in their box. You know what I mean? But everything is this mixture, and that's what this world is, is this blend of different things.

Exactly! I hope Matisyahu's quote goes viral because it is so true. Religion is not black and white although some may claim that it is. I recently had a conversation with a young venture capitalist in Detroit who is a ba'al teshuva, meaning he adopted an observant Jewish lifestyle. As he hammered away at the contradictions of non-Orthodox Jewish religious practice ("they keep strict kosher at home, but eat vegetarian in non-kosher-certified restaurants," "they don't drive on Shabbat except to go to the synagogue," etc.), I tried unsuccessfully to explain to him that these contradictions exist across the board. Human beings are inconsistent and religion (including religious law) is fluid so that it breeds inconsistency (across denominations, between communities, and in individuals).

Some observant Jews may find comfort in their own reality distortion field, but I am certain that contradictions exist in their own personal religious practice. As a colleague of mine often says, "Every Jew can find another Jew who isn't as frum (religious) as he is and look down on him." There really does not exist any baseline for religious observance because religion has many sides to it and is a mixture, as Matisyahu expressed. Perhaps the end of 2011 marks Matisyahu's most meaningful religious epiphany yet. Shaving off his beard helped him open his eyes to the sea of grey that is a religiously observant life and a spiritual existence.

Beard or no beard, I'm sure that Matisyahu's music will continue to resonate with millions. I hope his insight will as well.

ESPN Joins the Who Is a Jew Debate

Since commenting here about how the assassination attempt of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has brought the "Who Is a Jew" debate back into the spotlight, I have had some really intriguing conversations with colleagues about how we define Jewish status. A number of colleagues, including Rabbi Irwin Kula, Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, Rabbi Alana Suskin, and Rabbi Sue Fendrick, posted comments and contributed to the discussion on this blog. A Reform colleague and I have had an ongoing private discussion about patrilineal descent. She told me that some Reform rabbis are questioning whether Gabby Giffords would even be considered Jewish according to the Reform movement's definition (there's been no mention of her Jewish education or upbringing which would be required by the Reform movement's policy on Patrilineal Descent).

My rabbinical school classmate, Rabbi Micah Kelber, noticed that the "Who Is a Jew" debate has even made its way into the sports world. Watching ESPN's "First Take," Kelber caught commentator Skip Bayless putting his foot in his mouth while referencing how Judaism defines Jewish status through lineage. He blogged about at Jewcy.com:

Today Skip Bayless of ESPN’s First Take made a tiny, but amusing mistake while debating whether it is appropriate to call Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers the first great white star because while his father is black, his mother is white. To support his argument, he appealed to the Jews for help in determining someone’s identity.

His slip of the tongue: “I would just like to point out that in some cultures, like in the Jewish culture, if the mom is white, you’re Jewish.”

I don't think that's what he meant or else there'd be a whole lot more Jewish people in the world. I never thought the question of Jewish status would be taken up on ESPN. Maybe it's better if it didn't. In fact, maybe it's better if we all moved on to other subjects now.

Gabby Giffords and Patrilineal Descent When It's Desirable

As a Conservative rabbi and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly, I cannot officially consider Jewish descent to be determined patrilineally (from the father). In fact, in its "Code of Professional Conduct," the section detailing the responsibilities for membership in the Rabbinical Assembly lists four current standards of religious practice. The first is: "Matrilineality determines Jewish status."

And yet, like many Jews who regard Jewish status to require a Jewish mother or proper conversion, I admit to feeling pride when a Jewish athlete or celebrity is successful, even if their "Jewishness" isn't technically defined by halachic standards. After all, when major league baseball player Ryan Braun won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2007, should the Jewish community have refused to claim the "Hebrew Hammer" as one of our own since only his father is a "Member of the Tribe?" Braun considers himself to be Jewish and his Israeli-born father lost most of his family in the Holocaust.

The 1983 decision by the Reform Movement to recognize Jewish status by either the mother or the father continues to raise questions for the other streams of Judaism. The debate over "Who is a Jew" is back in the headlines following the shooting in Tucson, Arizona that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. For Giffords, the daughter of a mother who is a Christian Scientist and a father who is Jewish and the grandson of a rabbi, there is no question of her Jewishness. She is a proud Jew who is an active member of her Reform congregation. She was married under a chuppah (wedding canopy) by a rabbi, albeit to a non-Jewish man.

This week, as Giffords lay in a hospital recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt by a domestic terrorist, her Hebrew name has circulated the world to be used in the traditional Mi Sheberach prayer for healing. Some rabbis have even questioned whether her non-Jewish mother's name should be part of her Hebrew nomenclature for the prayer, while others have referred to her as Jewish but added the caveat "not halachically speaking." Giffords co-chaired the Jewish Outreach Institute's 2007 conference and is active in her congregation. Yesterday, President Barack Obama called Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, Giffords' rabbi at Congregation Chaverim, to offer his prayers for a speedy recovery for the congresswoman.

Since Saturday's shooting, we've learned quite a bit about Gabrielle Giffords and her Jewish pride. Her paternal grandfather, the son of a Lithuanian rabbi, changed his name to Giff Giffords for anti-Semitic reasons. On her campaign website, Giffords wrote, "Growing up, my family’s Jewish roots and tradition played an important role in shaping my values. The women in my family served as strong role models for me as a girl. In my family, if you want to get something done, you take it to the women relatives! Like my grandmother, I am a lifetime member of Hadassah and now a member of Congregation Chaverim. When I served in the State Senate in Arizona, I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I will always be a strong supporter of Israel. As the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, Israel is a vital strategic ally of the United States. As a woman and as a Jew, I will always work to insure that the United States stands with Israel to jointly ensure our mutual safety, security, and prosperity."

The Jerusalem Post was the first publication to state emphatically that Giffords' Jewishness shouldn't be questioned. In fact, in their editorial "Learning Judaism From Giffords," they wrote, "With all our desire for a universally accepted definition of 'Who is a Jew?' that would unify the Jewish people, we cannot ignore the complicated reality that many 'non-Jews' are much more Jewish than their 'Jewish' fellows. Congresswoman Giffords is one of them."

In her "In the Mix" blog at The Jewish Week, Julie Wiener wrote of how Giffords' Jewishness is shining a spotlight on the "who is a Jew" debate. In her article, "Plight of the Patrilineals," Weiner cited blogger "Kung Fu Jew," who posted his angry rant on the JewSchool blog about how Giffords is "Jewish enough for the Jewish community to own a side-show of the media circus. Jewish enough to be our martyr, it seems, but not Jewish enough to be treated equally in life." He has a point here. I'm sure many synagogues will offer prayers of healing for Rep. Giffords this Shabbat and recognize her as a Jewish member of Congress, yet they would be violating their own religious policy if they ever called her to the Torah for an aliyah honor.

I really wish we had a consensus on what determines Jewish status through lineage, even if only in the non-Orthodox Jewish community. Certainly, we cannot continue to make an exception for athletes, celebrities, and politicians of Jewish patrilineal descent. I'm in agreement with the Jerusalem Post on this matter. If Rep. Gabrielle Giffords considers herself Jewish because her father is Jewish and she lives a Jewish life, then she's Jewish.

May Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (Gavriela bat Gloria v'Spencer) be granted a speedy and complete recovery.

Jay Michaelson On Taking the Boring Out Of Shul

I just read Jay Michaelson's spot-on article in the Forward, "Rethinking Egalitarianism:
Are We Leveling the Playing Field Too Low?". Michaelson seems to always have his pulse on the Jewish community, and his perspective is not limited to only one denomination or to what's going on in New York City.

His article tackles several problems in synagogues today and I agree with him on most counts. I disagree, however, that egalitarianism has much to do with the malaise one finds in most non-Orthodox congregations today. He begins by introducing his friends who emigrated from the famous B.J. (B'nai Jeshurun) on the Upper West Side to a mid-size Jewish community in the South. When they couldn't find a shul as invigorating and active as B.J., they settled for the Modern Orthodox congregation despite their egalitarian leanings. Not finding a shul like B.J. is a common complaint for people who leave this dynamic ruach-filled NYC congregation and go elsewhere. In fact, as a rabbi I've heard dozens of people exclaim after visiting B.J. just once, "Why can't we recreate the B.J. experience at our shul?" (Newsflash: It's more than just Argentine rabbis and musical instruments!)

More than "egal doesn't matter anymore," what I think Michaelson is arguing is that the heimishe quality found in Orthodox shuls needs to be a goal for Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative shuls. The attempts to make services more inclusive and accessible to everyone by calling page numbers, over-explaining and over-simplifying the liturgy, and presenting English readings with confusing themes that pose theological problems have caused a general malaise in these services. Not to mention, most Reform and Conservative services are taking place in buildings that are too large to create any sense of warmth or heimishe ambience.

Michaelson is correct about the roots of this culture. He writes:

The reason for this is historical: Reform and Conservative grew out of German Reform Judaism, which aped German Protestantism and tried to offer an edifying, formal service of moral instruction and beautiful music. It’s true, that this formality still does work for some people today — and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that — but has there ever been a sociological study to quantify its appeal? I’ll wager that these antique, even archaic forms work only for those who know and feel comfortable with them. But isn’t that exactly the complaint lodged against traditional Orthodoxy — that it includes some, but not others? If what we’re interested in is inclusiveness and egalitarianism, then we should try to offer a satisfying spiritual experience to as many people as possible.

Non-Orthodox shuls need to spend the next decade focusing more on the kavanah (the unbound spiritual search for devotion and intention) and less on the keva (the mindless following of the rote). The Orthodox service is less robotic, thereby allowing individuals to move at their own pace and find their own comfort zone within the service. I concur with Michaelson that synagogue leaders seeking to invigorate the service and empower the membership need search no farther than Rabbi Elie Kaunfer's book Empowered Judaism, where Kaunfer writes "What the Jewish world needs is not more dumbing-down but more empowerment of individuals to opt in if they so desire."

I also appreciated Michaelson's apt view of how children should be treated in shul. He writes, "Of course, the kids ran around themselves too, as is the de facto culture in many traditional places of worship. This, my friend observed, was far better for the children’s sanity and their parents’ prayer lives. A few decades ago, we were told that the family that prays together, stays together. But if the family stays together in synagogue, often no one prays at all."

This article should be required reading for synagogue leaders. There's a lot we can learn from the culture that permeates Orthodox synagogues on Shabbat mornings.

Labels Can Be Good and Bad

I've been thinking a lot about labels lately. I recently wrote an op-ed about denominational labels in Judaism that was published in the Detroit Jewish News and on the Huffington Post website. In it, I explained how ambivalent I am about labeling individuals because these labels don't always help us understand the individual better. Calling a Jewish person an "Orthodox Jew" doesn't tell us much about them. In fact it only leads to misperceptions (Are they Modern Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox? Are they actually unobservant, but affiliate with an Orthodox congregation?).

The analogy I've used several times in the Melton Scholars course on denominations that I've been teaching this fall has been that one could walk into ten different ice-cream parlors and find that each parlor sells an ice-cream labeled as "strawberry." Yet, despite the identical label, each strawberry ice-cream will actually taste quite different. As I wrote, the woman who labels her religious affiliation on her Facebook profile as "Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form" isn't confused, hazy or even necessarily post-denominational. Rather, she is articulating the notion that we don't have to choose just one label. There is much more cross-denominational activity today, and based on reader comments to my op-ed on Huffington Post, this is just as true in many other faiths as well.

In thinking of a photo I could use to complement my op-ed, I decided that a car bumper is often used to display ones ideological, political, and religious identity and affiliation. I imagined a car bumper with bumper stickers representing all the trans-denominational activities in which I'm involved --the pluralistic Jewish camp where I work, the Conservative synagogue where I'm a member and my children go to school, the Reform temple where I teach, the Reconstructionist congregation where I serve as the part-time rabbi, the Chabad-affiliated special needs for children organization I support, the community day school my child attends, and so on.

I didn't manage to include all of those institutions, but I took a photo of the bumper on my wife's minivan with several of these magnets (magnets seem to be the new bumper stickers and it's nice that they're temporary in these more transient times). In the end, I decided not to use that photo to accompany the HuffPo posting. (The photo on HuffPo is of a liberal Jew and a traditional Jew arguing as my friend and local rabbinic colleague Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg looking on.)

I did, however, post the "bumper stickers" photo (above) on Facebook where it was viewed by my friend and colleague Rabbi Paul Yedwab of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Rabbi Yedwab opened his sermon this Shabbat by mentioning my photo:

A friend of mine, Rabbi Jason Miller, whom many of you know, recently tagged a photo on his Facebook page showing a car bumper with a Temple Israel bumper sticker magnet (available by the way, on the table just outside the door if you’d like to sport one on your vehicle.) And, in this picture, right next to the Temple Israel sticker, is a Friendship Circle bumper sticker, a Hillel Day School bumper sticker and a Tamarack Camps sticker as well. And the caption under the photo reads: “Time to get a second bumper.”

I have long been fascinated by this concept of labels. Is the owner of a car really defined by the labels on her bumper? And if she were, how many bumpers would she need to let us know that she is a proudly Jewish, caring mom, tree hugger, vegetarian, Zionist, who is politically moderate, loves animals, nature, Swirlberry frozen yogurt, crossword puzzles, Gucci, Glee and her alma mater. Forget a second bumper; she would need a tractor trailer.

In our Torah portion, God is speaking to Abraham and telling him that he is going to have to take his son up to Mt. Moriah, there to sacrifice him on the altar. But the words God uses to break the bad news are very deliberate. Take your son, God begins, bincha, and then y’echidcha, your only son, asher ahavtah, the son you love, and then and only then, God finally identifies Isaac by name.

Now classically, the Midrash tells us that God stretches out his description of Isaac in order to break the bad news to Abraham slowly…gently. But I am not satisfied with that explanation. After all Abraham was not an idiot; he knew exactly to whom God was referring from the very beginning of that dreadful conversation.

So here is another interpretation. In our tradition God is the one being in all the universe who is ineffable, which means beyond labels. God is not a male or a female, a Democrat or a Republican (although you would never know it from some of the political ads that have cropped up recently). And, according to the Torah, God does not even have a name other than Ehiyeh Asher Ehiyeh, I will be what I will be, or in other words, you can’t put a label on Me. And therefore it follows that, since we human being are made in God’s image, God understands us too as holistic, complex, multi-dimensional creatures. No single label can fully capture the essence of a person. You know, that rabbi with the gray hair at Temple Israel. No, no, not him....the other one…the short one. Oh! Rabbi Yedwab. Labels really never tell the whole story.

So God tries to supply a multi-dimensional description of Isaac, whom after all is so much more than his position in the family, or the feelings his father has for him, or even his name. You know, Abraham: Isaac, the one whose essence is way beyond what any name, label or verbal description can possibly capture, your son, Yitzchak.

Rabbi Yedwab goes on in his sermon to mention some interesting new research that has been done recently into the field of language and epistemology, and then offers some suggested rules for communicating with our "necessarily insufficient words." One of his rules is to stop communicating in Cyberspace. As a tech-embracing rabbi, I can't say I agree with that proposed rule, although I concur that we all need to be mindful of how we communicate through technology.

Overall, I agree with Rabbi Yedwab's message. Just like God, we humans are beyond labels. It is all too easy to assign labels to everyone we know and everyone we read about. The alternative is to use our God-given ability to communicate in order to learn about others. Rather than asking them what kind of Jew they are, we should ask more specific questions about their beliefs and their doubts, their affiliation, their education and their faith history. We should ask them what gets them out of bed in the morning and what do they do to recharge their spiritual batteries. And then we should listen.

Moving Beyond Denominational Differences?

I began teaching a Melton Scholars Series course this past Wednesday evening. The 10-week course, "Jewish Denominations: Addressing the Challenges of Modernity," deals with the history of the formation of the modern denominations of American Judaism. I began the first session with a quote by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg: "It doesn't matter which denomination you affiliate with, so long as you're ashamed of it." I understand his comment to mean that no interpretation of Judaism has all the answers, so don't think that your particular flavor of Judaism is the absolute "Truth."

What follows is my Op-Ed that was published in this week's Detroit Jewish News. I hope you'll leave your reaction to it in the comments section on this blog.

Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg, an Orthodox rabbi, recently wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Jewish Week entitled “Time To End The Reform-Orthodox Wars.” He was responding to Israeli chief rabbi Shlomo Amar’s attack on Reform Jews and his pressure on the Israeli government to prevent involvement of non-Orthodox movements in state and religion affairs.

I was pleased to read Rothenberg’s perspective that it is time for Orthodox Jews to “build bridges of cooperation [to Reform and Conservative Jews] for the sake of the entire people of Israel and its future” without compromising principles or “fidelity to a life of Torah and mitzvoth.”

My own sense is that despite some animosity toward other denominations of Judaism, which is often bred on ignorance, there is actually much tolerance and understanding among fellow Jews. We are moving toward a Jewish community in which the borders that separate the denominations are becoming blurred.

Rothenberg recognizes the need to bridge the vast abyss between his brand of Orthodoxy and the more progressive streams of modern Judaism, but he remains concerned that the depths of antipathy will make this too difficult. I disagree.

We live in a time when a Jewish person’s Facebook profile identifies her religion as "Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form." This combination of religious denominations does not demonstrate confusion or haziness, but rather the realization that there is "meaning" to be made from the various pathways to Torah.

I knew when I decided to become a rabbi that the Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary would be the right place for my training. I had been raised in Conservative Judaism, studying at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit and honing my leadership skills in United Synagogue Youth, the movement’s youth program. However, it was in rabbinical school that I came into contact with the other "flavors" of Judaism – praying each Shabbat at an Orthodox shul, engaging in Torah study with a Reconstructionist rabbi, and training as a hospital chaplain with a Reform rabbinical student.

My first job after graduating rabbinical school was at the University of Michigan Hillel, an institution that offers five different Shabbat service options. On any given Friday evening I could find myself in a Reform havurah, a Conservative minyan, an egalitarian gathering with separate seating, or a traditional Orthodox service. From week to week, I saw many students sampling the various options, less concerned with ideological labels than with finding a comfort level that spoke to them spiritually, intellectually, and communally. They were in search of meaning, not a denominational brand.

Last year, I traveled to New York City several times to be part of a fellowship with rabbinic colleagues spanning the denominations. We gathered every few months to study Torah together, to pray together, and to dialogue about the important issues of the day. As part of Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders program, we found a safe space to share our distinct viewpoints on a host of topics – from faith perspectives on healing to the economy’s effect on religion to the role of music in prayer. We might not have all agreed on how the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people in the desert thousands of years ago, but we each managed to share our Jewish wisdom through the medium of Torah.

Denominational labels are becoming far less important in the 21st century as the borders have blurred. While I may be a card-carrying Conservative rabbi, I work for Tamarack Camps – a Jewish camping agency that serves the entire community, from the unaffiliated to the religious. I lead a Reconstructionist synagogue, Congregation T’chiyah, in which my more traditional practices and beliefs are not compromised, but respected and admired. I teach teens on Monday nights at Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform congregations in the world. I run a kosher certification business in which I demand the highest levels of kashruth compliance to meet the requirements of our faith and the needs of our community.

Looking beyond the borders that divide our Jewish community is not always easy or comfortable. After all, there are real differences that set us apart. There are always going to be political and ideological conflicts that keep us from praying together or eating together. But we must always seek to dialogue with civility and come together over the issues on which we can agree. A Reform Passover seder may differ greatly from an Orthodox one, but the context is the same – we are all recalling the days our people spent in slavery. Neither Pharaoh nor Hitler differentiated between Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Jews.

Yes, Orthodox Judaism Changes Too

With all the talk of the changing narrative in the intermarriage conversation, the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians in synagogues, and the virtually across-the-board practice of egalitarian prayer in Conservative and Reform congregations, many Orthodox Jews claim that they are the only ones practicing "Torah true" Judaism and refusing to change course on any of these social issues. Of course, even saying Orthodox Judaism is misleading because it encompasses so many different practices and beliefs -- from modern, liberal Orthodoxy to the Haredi (ultra-religious sect).

Judaism, like most religions is fluid. It evolves throughout time; the question is how quickly the changes materialize and when. In response to changes in society, the most progressive denominations evolve the quickest because, well, they are the most progressive. Take the issue of women rabbis for instance. The Reform Movement, Judaism's most liberal branch, minted the first female rabbi in 1972 with the Reconstructionist movement following suit in 1974. The more traditional Conservative movement spent many years debating the change before finally ruling to allow women rabbis in the mid-1980s with my colleague Rabbi Amy Eilberg becoming the first Conservative rabbi to be ordained in 1985.

A quarter century after the Conservatives opened its seminary to women, the more progressive Orthodox Jews in Centrist Orthodoxy are now debating the leadership roles of women in the synagogue. It was only a matter of time.

A few Orthodox women have already been ordained in some seminaries with the most well-known case being Rabba Sara Hurwitz, ordained by Rabbi Avi Weiss (pictured) of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (New York). While her title was debated, there's no question that she functions like a rabbi in Weiss's congregation. And I have no doubt that Weiss will ordain more women in the future.

And Orthodoxy has begun to evolve on the case of gay and lesbian acceptance. Again, the Reform and Reconstructionist movements acted quickly with the Conservative movement taking years to study and debate the issue before opening its seminaries and allowing the movement's rabbis to officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies in December 2006.

Recently, 150 Orthodox rabbis issued a statement calling for the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the Orthodox community. The statement said in part that "Embarrassing, harassing or demeaning someone with a homosexual orientation or same-sex attraction is a violation of Torah prohibitions that embody the deepest values of Judaism... Jews with homosexual orientations or same sex-attractions should be welcomed as full members of the synagogue and school community." At the Orthodox movement's Yeshiva University in New York, there have been several conferences on GLBT issues. Rabbi Steve Greenberg, an out-of-the-closet gay Orthodox rabbi has helped move Orthodoxy to a place of increased acceptance for gays and lesbians following the success of 2001's film "Trembling Before G-d," which explored the struggle of Orthodox Jewish homosexuals.

Many Orthodox Jews will say that the one place there cannot be any leeway is when it comes to davening (prayer). The dignity of the service is compromised when a woman leads, they'll say. And yet, this seems to be the next big change in Orthodoxy -- women prayer leaders. Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem and Darchei Noam prayer group in New York have allowed women to lead certain parts of the service and be called to the Torah for an aliyah honor for years now, but the major news was last Friday evening. Rabbi Avi Weiss allowed a woman at his Orthodox shul in Riverdale to lead the congregation in the Kabbalat Shabbat service. The New York Jewish week reported, "In Rabbi Weiss’ latest effort to push the boundaries of women’s roles in an Orthodox shul, he had a woman, Lamelle Ryman, lead a Friday-night service with both men and women in the pews. Rabba Hurwitz, who heads a seminary for Orthodox women created by Rabbi Weiss, made a few brief remarks, not even touching on the fact that no other Orthodox synagogue in the U.S. had apparently ever before had a woman lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service. But it was Ryman’s show, and according to those in attendance, the davening was beautiful."

Some in the Orthodox movement are in favor of Weiss pushing the envelope and moving Orthodoxy into the future. Others feel that he's making changes without any process or input from others. It's possible that a censure from the Rabbinical Council of America is forthcoming, but Weiss is doing precisely what rabbis have done for generations -- moving Judaism forward.

The Judaism of 2010, in any of the denominations, looks different than the Judaism of past centuries. That's because the times change and the Jewish religion changes too, whether people like it or not.

Orthodox Judaism does not have a monopoly on "Torah true Judaism." If Judaism is truly going to be true to the Torah, then we must all embrace the Torah's dictum that says the Torah does not reside in the heavens. It belongs to humanity and it is up to us to see that it remains vibrant and evolves.

Woman Arrested for Illegal Use of Torah

I work as the rabbi at a Jewish summer camp. We have eighty campers from Israel join us each summer. Many of these young campers, like most Israelis, are not familiar with liberal, alternative forms of religious expression in Judaism. In Israel, Judaism is black and white. You either do it or you don't - secular or religious. Even the Israeli youth at camp who have heard of the Conservative and Reform movements still don't really understand what it means to be a Conservative or Reform Jew.

This morning, a 12-year-old Israeli boy approached me and asked, "You're not an Orthodox rabbi, right?" No, I responded wearing my cargo shorts, t-shirt, and shortly cropped hair with a knitted kippah. I told him that I'm a Conservative rabbi. He said that's what he figured but he wasn't sure. He then said something that caught me off guard. In Hebrew he asked, "That sefer Torah (Torah scroll) that you read from on Shabbat morning at services here at camp isn't kosher, is it?"

I explained that the Torah is most certainly kosher, but I understood immediately where his doubt came from. I told him that our camp actually owns two kosher Torah scrolls and that this particular one we've been using this summer was on loan from a local synagogue. Based on the Judaism that he sees in his native Israel, he found it difficult to believe that a non-Orthodox rabbi could possess a valid Torah scroll.

In Israel today, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) establishment is calling the shots when it comes to religious law. Israelis like to boast that their country is the only true democracy in the Middle East, but when it comes to matters of religion, Israel is beginning to look more like one of those backward, primitive religious states in the Islamic world at which we roll our eyes.

Each month, on Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of the Jewish month), the Women of the Wall gather in Jerusalem for a women-only prayer service. These prayer meetings have been turned into a media circus ever since Nofrat Frankel was arrested for wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) a few months ago. Yesterday, Women of the Wall leader Rabbi Anat Hoffman was arrested for carrying a Torah scroll from the Western Wall women's section to the Southern Wall area where the Chief Rabbinate and the police both agreed that women could read from the Torah.

My colleague, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, was part of this group and witnessed Anat's arrest. She detailed the incident in a jewschool post. She writes:

We finished Hallel and began to proceed, according to the terms of the Israeli High Court (Bag”tz) decision, to Robinson’s Arch to read Torah, with the intent to preserve the continuity of the service by escorting the Torah in song. Now, it should be noted here that WoW has had a hard time lately getting the Sefer Torah into the Kotel area, even though Bag”tz permitted it in its ruling. I won’t reveal how they got it in this time around, but it took some maneuvering.

It is perfectly kosher, according to the Bag”tz ruling, to take the Sefer Torah out of its bag, as Anat did this morning, by the Kotel, to carry it to Robinson’s Arch. It is not permitted to read from the Torah in the women’s section, and we did not. We were singing and escorting the Torah, and things got more and more tense, with police trying to physically push Anat out of the women’s section and she (and those of us holding on to her) was trying to walk out, but at a more dignified pace. Eventually there was a skirmish involving the police trying to physically take the Torah out of her hands (we were now out of the women’s section and on our way over to Robinson’s Arch) and somewhere in all of that, they arrested her, and she was taken into custody (as was the Torah).

Many Conservative and Reform rabbis have written articles recently expressing the notion that the real enemy in Israel is us. Often the greatest threat is from within.

Just today, a law called the Rotem Bill is moving closer to final passage in the Knesset (Israel's parliament). This law began as a proposal by the Yisrael Beitenu party to streamline conversion for Russian immigrants, but it has been twisted into an attack on non-Orthodox Jews. This bill will vest all authority for conversion in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate and guarantee that only a particular Orthodox approach to defining Judaism will become the guideline for determining who is recognized as a convert to Judaism. The Rotem Bill would overturn earlier protections for non-Orthodox converts and threaten the legitimacy of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and other converts to Judaism who wish to become citizens or be otherwise recognized by the state as Jewish.

I'm proud of my Jewish heritage and I feel blessed to be a rabbi. However, the notion that a woman can be arrested in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish homeland, for holding a Torah scroll is infuriating. I believe that it is healthy to have differing viewpoints and expressions of Judaism, but the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on religion in Israel must cease. The video footage (below) showing the police brutality toward the Women of the Wall is disgusting.

In a week on the ninth of Av, Jewish people around the world will fast for a full day in commemoration of the destruction of the temples that once stood in Jerusalem. Tradition teaches that the Temple fell in the year 70 CE on account of sinat chinam, the baseless hatred among Jews. The complete arrogance and disrespect shown by some Jewish people toward others in Israel demonstrates that 2,000 years later the lesson has yet to be learned.

Why Chelsea Clinton's Wedding Matters & the Celebrity Double-Standard

I'm hesitant to write about Chelsea Clinton's upcoming wedding to Marc Mezvinsky, who was raised in Conservative Judaism, because I want to respect the private lives of the bride and groom. However, when the bride is the daughter of the 40th President of the United States, I suppose she is classified as a celebrity and her wedding is fair game as a topic for discussion.

This marriage will spark conversation in the Jewish world about two main issues: How intermarriage affects the Jewish community; and, whether there is a double-standard in the Jewish community when it comes to the intermarrying ways of celebrities.

David Gibson, in his article in Politics Daily, brings to light the key points surrounding this wedding. The question of whether Chelsea Clinton will convert to Judaism is something that Jews wonder (from Jews who are vehemently against intermarriage and those who are accepting of it). This high-profile wedding will bring many of the implications of intermarriage to a more public forum, forcing the conversation about, among other things:

1. whether a rabbi should officiate at an interfaith wedding;
2. whether intermarriage really erodes Jewish continuity;
3. whether a non-Jewish mother can raise Jewish children;
4. whether conversion for the sake of marriage is genuine enough to count; and,
5. whether there's a double-standard in the Jewish community when a high profile person marries outside of the faith.

Gibson quotes my colleague, Conservative Rabbi David Wolpe, who claims it's his dream that Chelsea Clinton will convert to Judaism. Gibson also read the ongoing conversation at the InterfaithFamily.com website about Chelsea's upcoming wedding.

In a lively discussion at the InterfaithFamily.com website, one commenter said that even if Chelsea does not convert, a rabbi should take part in the wedding "if the couple agrees to raise the children Jewish." Another, however, cautioned that "this cannot be a Jewish wedding -- a Jewish wedding is one where both people are Jewish, either by birth or by choice." And yet another commenter gave what is perhaps a more characteristic answer: "I believe that Chelsea and her fiancé should do whatever will make them happiest."

In real life, of course, questions about the role of religion often animate wedding planning, given that so many young people feel freed from old prohibitions against marrying outside the faith, if indeed they adhere to the religion of their parents or any religion at all.

Last month I was quoted in a Detroit Free Press article about interfaith marriage ("Do Interfaith Marriages Threaten Jewish Identity?") and then took part as a panelist in a Free Press online chat on the subject.

After taking part in the online chat with Edmund Case, the CEO of InterfaithFamily.com, and an intermarried couple, I can only conclude that this is a very challenging issue because people's lives, and children, and feelings of love and affection are in conflict with thousands of years of tribal law. It's really about clubs and who can join and who can't and who decides the rules.

Regarding the Gibson article in Politics Daily, my teacher Rabbi Irwin Kula comments, "This is great article for studying just about every pathology in American Jewish life... an entire article on intermarriage and Jewish weddings all about its threat and not one sentence on the possible meaning of the ritual that might actually create meaning and value. It’s chuppah/Jewish wedding as tribal marker and intermarriage as either threat to the tribe or grudging opportunity to increase numbers. Why should Chelsea convert? To make sure we don’t lose her kids to our tribe so worried about our size!"

Some interesting questions surrounding the Chelsea Clinton wedding should make this even more interesting:

• The wedding will take place on Shabbat (July 31, 2010), so how will this affect whether observant Jewish (shomer Shabbat) guests will attend. Even if they stay within walking distance of the Astor mansion, according to Jewish law weddings are not to take place on the Jewish Sabbath.
  
• If Chelsea does convert before the wedding, will her conversion be disputed publicly by the Orthodox who will claim that a Conservative (or Reform) conversion isn't "kosher." And, many will question her commitment to Judaism -- didn't she do this only for the sake of marriage and how much preparation and deliberation did she put into this?
  
• If Chelsea doesn't convert, how many of the Bill and Hillary's Orthodox friends will attend the wedding anyway? Will their attendance at an interfaith wedding (and on Shabbat to boot) signify an endorsement? And what about Conservative rabbis who are technically not supposed to attend interfaith weddings? Will some make an exception for such notable nuptials?
  
• Finally, might this high-profile interfaith wedding turn the tides and lead to greater acceptance and sensitivity toward interfaith marriage? After all, as Gibson writes, "The main body of Conservative Judaism [CJLS] voted to allow interfaith families to be buried in Jewish cemeteries, and in March, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America hosted a two-day workshop "sensitizing" students to "issues of intermarriage and changing demographics." There is even talk of allowing Conservative rabbis to attend the interfaith weddings of friends -- and this just four years after the movement adopted an official policy emphasizing the importance of converting a non-Jewish spouse.

Chelsea Clinton's wedding is sure to grab headlines because of the main actors and the supporting cast, but in the Jewish world this wedding might just be an interfaith "game changer" in the hearts and minds of the Jewish people.

Rahm Emanuel's Son's Bar Mitzvah & Religious Pluralism in Israel

As I was preparing to board a plane home at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport a few weeks ago, I followed the news reports that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's son's bar mitzvah would be moved outside of Jerusalem for security concerns. Rahm Emanuel and his Hollywood agent brother, Ari Emanuel, brought their families to Israel on vacation and for their respective son's Jewish rite of passage. Apparently, protesters were heckling the Emanuel family's delegation as they toured Jerusalem's Old City because of the Obama Administration's purported views on Middle East affairs.

Ultimately, Zach Emanuel's bar mitzvah went ahead as planned at Robinson's Arch, the archaeological site along the remaining Southern Wall of the Temple at which Conservative and Reform rabbis are allowed to officiate at bar and bat mitzvahs. The two cousins had their b'nai mitzvah on a Sunday, perhaps to confuse paparazzi, and it was officiated by each family's rabbi --Rabbi Jack Moline, of Rahm Emanuel's synagogue (Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Virginia) and Rabbi Kenneth Chasen, of the Reform Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles where Ari Emanuel's family belongs.

Having recently spent the early dawn hours of Shavuot at Robinson's Arch, known as the "Masorti Kotel" since the Masorti/Conservative Jews can pray there freely, I was thrilled to read the op-ed in the Jerusalem Post by Masorti Movement CEO Yizhar Hess about the Emanuel boys' b'nai mitzvah and the lack of religious pluralism in Israel, especially at the Western Wall (Kotel).

Hess took the opportunity of this newsworthy double bar mitzvah to focus on the Ultra-Orthodox control of the Western Wall, including the plaza. He writes:

The [Emanuel] family stood together, prayed together. There was no mehitza [separation between the sexes]. Some women donned a tallit [prayer shawl]. There was an abundance of Judaism, an abundance of Zionism and an abundance of love.

It is sad that one cannot pray in the same way at the main Western Wall Plaza. For a decade now, the Masorti Movement has been facilitating prayers at the Masorti Kotel. This is a forced arrangement. The majority of the world’s Jews pray without a mehitza, but when they come to Jerusalem, to the most symbolic site for Jewish prayer, they are forbidden from praying together. The Kotel, whose holiness has enthused Jews from all over the world, has been transformed into a haredi synagogue.

The Masorti Movement has never relinquished its right to pray at the Kotel, but has agreed, in compromise and with great pain, to hold its prayers at the [Davidson] archeological park.

With all of Israel's international struggles right now, one would hope that it would strive to solve this matter of domestic disharmony. Here's hoping that when Rahm Emanuel returns to Jerusalem for his daughter's bat mitzvah, the family will be allowed to mark this rite of passage at any part of the Kotel they choose -- and be free from protesters and paparazzi.

What Elena Kagan Can Teach Us About Judaism

If Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama's choice to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court, is confirmed there will be two Jewish female justices on the highest court in the U.S. and a full third of the bench will be Jewish for the first time in history. The rest of the justices are Catholic. A Supreme Court made up of six Catholics and three Jews will certainly be interesting.

But there is also a lot that the biography of Elena Kagan can teach us about Judaism today.

In a recent article in the NY Times, we learn that Kagan had the first bat mitzvah ceremony at Lincoln Square Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation on Manhattan's Upper West Side. But what led up to that event, and Kagan's Jewish identity in the decades since that event, shed much light on the post-denominational Jewish world of today and perhaps give us a glimpse of what is possible in the future.

Lincoln Square Synagogue started with a few Conservative Jewish families in the Lincoln Towers apartment complex in NYC. In 1964, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was sent by Yeshiva University to lead High Holy Day services for this group (essentially a "chavurah.") They took a liking to Rav Riskin, dropped the "Conservative" label from their name, and in 1970 formed Lincoln Square Synagogue.

The Times article goes on to explain that a women's prayer group began at the synagogue in 1972 and when Elena Kagan was approaching her twelfth birthday, she requested to have a formal bat mitzvah. It would become the first bat mitzvah that Rabbi Riskin would officiate.

“We crafted a lovely service, but I don’t think I satisfied her completely,” said Rabbi Riskin, who left the synagogue in 1983 to move to Israel, where he is chief rabbi of Efrat, a West Bank settlement. “But she certainly raised my consciousness.”

Since then, bat mitzvahs have evolved at Lincoln Square. Today a girl can choose to lead the service and read from the Torah, as long as the ceremony is held during a women’s service in an annex of the synagogue. There cannot be more than nine men in attendance, and they must sit behind the mechitza. (“If there are 10 men” — known as a minyan — “that becomes a men’s service,” said Cantor Sherwood Goffin, who taught Ms. Kagan.)

Elena Kagan's parents eventually left Lincoln Square Synagogue and joined West End Synagogue (now located next door to Lincoln Square), a Reconstructionist congregation. Today, Elena Kagan considers herself a Conservative Jew.

This means that the woman who is likely to soon be the newest Supreme Court justice was a member of an Orthodox synagogue that began as a Conservative "chavurah" with an Orthodox-trained rabbi who was willing to have women's prayer groups, a glass see-through mechitzah (barrier between men and women), and organize a bat mitzvah ceremony at a time when most Conservative rabbis weren't willing to do so. And from that synagogue, her family became Reconstructionists, and she eventually became Conservative (in her Jewish ideology, but not her political or judicial approach).

Modern American Judaism is at a cross-roads. It has become much more difficult to determine what it means to be a Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, or Orthodox Jew. On the one hand Orthodoxy has moved further away from center with increased strictures on everything from dietary laws to issues of family purity. But on the other hand, Orthodox rabbis like Riskin, Avi Weiss, Yitz Greenberg, Saul Berman, Dov Linzer, and Asher Lopatin (to name a few) are embracing an "open Orthodoxy" that sees challenging questions of Jewish law through a modern lens and allows for increased participation of women in the community.

Reform Judaism has moved quite far in the past half-century and many Reform Jews have found it possible to cling to traditional Judaism within a Reform setting. Conservative Judaism has shifted from a post-war period in which Jews had the Tradition but were in search of modernity and change. Today, Conservative Jews begin with secularism and are in search of Tradition (or at least their rabbis see the situation that way).

Elena Kagan's emergence on the national scene should demonstrate the fluidity that exists in our Jewish world. We have become a community less about denominational structure and more about comfort. I write this from Israel where I spent this past Shabbat at Shira Chadasha, a congregation that calls itself Orthodox, but allows for a great deal of liturgical participation by women. At Shira Chadasha, one immediately gets the sense that many of the Jewsthere are post-denominational in the sense that they don't worry about which camp or category they fit into. Rather, they are comfortable being a part of that community, whatever it's called.

Thanks to the nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, our American Jewish community can learn a little more about the direction in which we're headed.

Denominational Judaism is SO Last Century

I am often asked the question: "What kind of rabbi are you?" My tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I usually answer: "A good one!"

Of course, the questioner is trying to ascertain in which denomination of Judaism I affiliate and will then make a whole host of assumptions about me. Denominational labels, whether for rabbis or lay people, are thought to reveal such things as congregational affiliation, personal theology, daily practice, views on Israel, the role of women in Judaism, etc. However, we are now in a post-denominational age of modern Judaism and denominational labels have been rendered useless.

We are in a time when Jewish people identify their religion in their Facebook profile as "Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form." No, these people aren't confused about their Jewish identity, rather they have realized that there is "meaning" to be made from the various pathways to Torah.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, when asked about the different streams of Judaism, remarked that this is the reason that Baskin Robbins offers thirty-one flavors of ice cream. And to this I would add that it's possible to order a mixture of flavors too. Yitz Greenberg also famously said, "I personally don't care which denomination in Judaism you belong to as long as you're ashamed of it."

To those who ask what type of rabbi I am, perhaps a better response would be an invitation to sit and shmooze over coffee so that I may share my narrative. I was raised in the Conservative Movement attending Shabbat services, going to the synagogue pre-school, and studying at a Solomon Schechter Day School from kindergarten through the end of the seventh grade. In high school, I was active in the Conservative Movement's youth group, and traveled across the country and to Israel with other Conservative Jewish teens.

When I decided to become a rabbi during my second year of college, there was never a doubt that it would be at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC, known as the flagship educational institution of the Conservative Movement. It was in rabbinical school, however, that I really came into contact with other "flavors" of Judaism.

I was chosen for an interfaith dialogue program called Seminarians Interacting. We went on a week-long retreat and stayed at a Catholic seminary outside of Baltimore. I learned a bit about other faith traditions, but it was sharing a room with a Reform rabbinical student and talking to Reconstructionist rabbinical students that was the most eye-opening experience for me. We talked about our individual calling to become a rabbi, matters of belief and practice, and the future of the Jewish community.

Not long after this experience, I returned to the Detroit area to spend a summer training as a hospital chaplain. There were Christian seminary students representing different denominations, but I spent the most time with a Reform rabbinical student who also attended that Conservative Jewish day school. We studied Torah together, prayed together, and debated Jewish law. It was wonderful. We each had our own "torah" to teach and we were both deeply engaged in learning from our rabbis, but we also gained so much from each other.

It was also in rabbinical school that I become involved with Clal, a pluralistic organization that employs teaching fellows from every Jewish stream. In the Clal offices I found Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox scholars who were so deeply engrossed in discussing the issues of the day. It didn't matter where they prayed or how they thought the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people; all that mattered was that they could challenge each other to think outside of the box and help people make meaning out of their lives.

Rabbinical School was a time when I prayed at an Orthodox shul in which men and women sat separately. But I also led a very Reform service on Friday nights for a nice group of thirty elderly people at the local nursing home. All the while spending my days studying Torah and Talmud in a Conservative seminary with professors who had all studied under Mordechai Kaplan, the founding father of Reconstructionist Judaism.

After graduating from rabbinical school and becoming a card-carrying Conservative rabbi, I took a job at a Hillel foundation on a college campus. There, my job was to advise the leaders of the various student minyans, from Reform and Conservative to Humanistic and Traditional. I spent time in each of these different prayer groups and noticed that many students sampled the various offerings regardless of their upbringing or their family's affiliation. During this time, I also consulted a Conservative synagogue that didn't have a rabbi and taught adult education classes at a Reform temple.

Today, I serve as the rabbi of a non-denominational camping agency in which I help run Shabbat services at our summer camp. The services tend more toward the Reform liturgy. I also serve as the part-time rabbi of a Reconstructionist congregation, and as the director of a consolidated, weekly high school program for the Conservative synagogues. I am part of two national rabbinic fellowship programs in which I learn and dialogue with rabbis from just about every Jewish flavor imaginable. When we come together at retreats, we forget at which institution we were each made into rabbis and just allow our Torah to permeate the room so that we may learn from each other.

Whether with my colleagues at the STAR Foundation's PEER program or at Clal's Rabbis Without Borders, I've learned that if we perpetuate the arguments of whose Torah is true Judaism, we'll only do damage to the Jewish people. When we recognize that the labels don't help and that we're living in a post-denominational world we will be able to bring more of our collective Jewish wisdom to the world.

I may find that my theology resonates the most with what has historically been considered a Conservative approach, but I still like to pray in an Orthodox minyan at times. The strong emphasis on social action in the Reform Movement motivates me to see the world beyond my nose and my responsibility to humanity. But the deep-rooted sense of a heimish community in the Orthodox world is something that I find gratifying and reaffirming. And the focus on egalitarianism and human dignity that has been critical to the Reconstructionist Movement since its inception is important to me.

Conservative Jews are keeping Orthodox yeshivahs open with their generous philanthropy. Reform Jews are showing their strong support for Israel by becoming AIPAC leaders, traveling to Israel on solidarity missions, and planning community events to honor Israel -- all actions to which their Reform forebears would object. Orthodox synagogues are finding innovative ways to increase the role of women in the prayer service and in the community. And independent minyanim are forming around the country with no denominational affiliation and made up of young people who were raised in different traditions.

So, the next time someone asks me what kind of rabbi I am, I think I'll just ask them: "Well, how much time do you have?"

Too Jewey - Purim 2010

For some reason, whenever the Jewish holiday of Purim rolls around, my brain uncontrollably starts coming up with parodies, satires, spoofs, and just plain silliness.  Here's a collection of the news items circulating in my head. Happy Purim!

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TOO JEWEY! 

By Rabbi Jason, the Official Rabbi of the 2010 Olympic Games
Sponsored by Toyota: "Toyota... We're Unstoppable!"

Jewish Music at the Olympics: From Reggae to OyVey

VANCOUVER - With the decision to use Matisyahu's song "One Day" as the official Winter Olympics theme, Jewish people around the globe undoubtedly celebrated that Jewish music was now cool. I mean, it's the Olympics! Jews are used to "members of the tribe" creating hit music for the masses, but it usually comes in the form of Christmas music (see Irving Berlin, Mel Torme, etc.). Well, it appears there wasn't much time for rejoicing because just as millions of people were getting Matisyahu's upbeat song stuck in their heads, along came a brother and sister duo to set Jewish music back a couple hundred years.

As soon as they learned they had to prepare a folk music tribute to their native Israel, the Zaretsky figure skating team of Sasha and Roman apparently ran to Wikipedia and searched for "Stereotypical Jewish Music."  Their "Hava Nagila" rendition was apparently the Zaretsky's best guess at what the shtetl of Eastern Europe would have looked like at weddings if only they had ice rinks. And as if their first attempt at skating to "The Music of the Yid" wasn't schmaltzy enough, they came back the next night and gave a performance that only Mel Brooks could love. While the Israeli skaters' tribute to the Holocaust was rather quite moving, I can't imagine that Steven Spielberg watched it thinking, "Gosh, I can't believe I didn't go with the ice dancing motif for Schindler's List."

For those Jewish people who didn't feel like the ice dancing competition at this year's Winter Olympics touched on enough Jewish stereotypes, get excited for the next Olympic games when all Jewish figure skaters will be required to have their mother on the ice during performances yelling at them to put on a jacket or they'll freeze!

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Rabbi Avi Weiss Chains Himself to Female Rabbi

The Orthodox Rabbi best known for chaining himself to buildings in protest and leading rallies for Jewish causes is now in big trouble.  Riverdale NY-based Rabbi Avi Weiss ordained a female rabbi over a year ago. However, instead of calling her anything close to "Rabbi," he sneakily chose to give her an acronym as a title: "AWSHIT," which apparently stands for Avi Weiss Says He Is Tenacious. No doubt, the name was Weiss's way to let the Ultra Orthodox know how he felt. But they didn't seem to really mind the title he granted to Sara Horwitz, until he updated it to "Rabba."


Now, the Orthodox are calling for Avi Weiss to be excommunicated and banished to Siberia. The irony, of course, is that this is a man who fought so hard to get Jews out of Siberia in the first place. In protest, Rabbi Avi Weiss has chained himself to Rabba Sara Horwitz in an act of solidarity. The Ultra-Orthodox have claimed that this is fine with them, so long as Avi Weiss doesn't dance with the woman.  In other news, the Conservative Movement now claims that Rabba Sara Horwitz is an aguna (a "Chained Woman") and has granted her an immediate get (bill of divorce) from Rabbi Weiss.

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HamanTosh.0 - New Comedy Central Series

Currently, Comedy Central has a weekly series ("Tosh.0") that shows all those funny videos from the Web that have gone viral. Well now, Comedy Central is proud to introduce a new series that replays all the videos from the Web that are virulent.  Any video starring an Iranian in a "Members Only" jacket will be shown on "HamanTosh.0," beginning on February 31.  Check local listings for airtimes.

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Conservative Movement Goes for Trifecta

With its numbers in sharp decline, the Conservative Movement of Judaism is deeply invested in change. In an effort to grab media attention, the centrist movement of modern Judaism is now looking to go for the Trifecta. In a press release prepared by TMZ.com, Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnie Eisen explained, "First we shocked the world by allowing gays and lesbians into our esteemed institution to become rabbis.  Next week, we will quickly make the move to grant admission to intermarried men and women.  And, I'm pleased to announce that beginning on April 1st, we will unveil a new program designed to ordain disgraced celebrities as rabbis and cantors at JTS. 

We have already invited some big-name, dishonored celebrities to apply to our program. Rabbi Danny Nevins, Dean of the Rabbinical School, said, "Don't be surprised to see Rabbi Tiger Woods by the end of the year."  Also expected to be studying at the Conservative Movement's flagship institution will be Mark McGwire, who also plans to pursue a master's degree in pharmacology at JTS, and the gun-toting NBA star Gilbert Arenas. Classes in "Anger Management" and "Press Conference Contrition" will be added to the curriculum.

In what is perhaps the most shocking news to come from the Conservative Movement is that the new United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism CEO Rabbi Steven Wernick has been replaced by former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, who took the job with the stipulation that a day care center be opened at the USCJ headquarters.

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First Ever NASCAR Bris

Following the news that a Bar Mitzvah will take place this June at Yankee Stadium before a championship boxing match, NASCAR has announced that it will hold a Bris (ritual circumcision ceremony) at its next championship race at Talladega SuperSpeedway.  The Bris will be sponsored by Fast Eddie's Chop Shop ("You Steal 'Em, We Deal 'Em"). Due to the fact that 100,000 fans will be waiting for the Formula One race to begin, there will only be 2 minutes allotted to the ritual Jewish ceremony, but that's no problem as NYC circumcisor Phil "Sling Blade" Sherman (emohel.com) has promised to race his way through the procedure in chop-chop fashion. However, if the race is about to begin, Sherman said he'll just have to cut it short.

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Rabbi Condemns Bud Selig Statue

Bud Selig, the Jewish Commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB), is being honored with a statue outside of Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers (which Selig owns - Yes, a Jewish owner of a sports franchise... shocking, I know!). Unfortunately, the statue may never be erected because Selig's own rabbi is standing in the way. Rabbi Ann Heiser-Busch of Congregation Beth Ale in Milwaukee (on the Miller Brewing Company Campus) explained that most people think that she is against the erection of the statue honoring her famous congregant on the grounds that the Torah clearly prohibits the creation of a graven image of a human being because it is idol worship. However, Rabbi Heiser-Busch cited as her objection the fact that the construction workers would have to inject themselves with steroids to build up the necessary strength in order to lift the Bud Selig statue. When asked to comment, Commissioner Selig asked, "What are steroids?"

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New Personal Mechitzas Not Good Enough

What's a Haredi Jew to do when he travels on a plane? It seems like the whole aviation industry is against him. First, the kosher meals are served cold and soggy. Then, there's not enough space in the overhead compartment for his hat box. And the latest attack is that the flight attendants are convinced he's strapping bombs to his head and arm in the form of tefillin.  The worst part about air travel for the Ultra Orthodox is that a member of the opposite sex (e.g., a woman) might occupy the next seat.  However, a new product on the market solves that problem.  The Personal Mechitza is just what the Rebbe ordered.  This barrier not only separates the sexes and keeps the immodest neighbors on the plane from view, but it also guards against the scandalous in-flight movies.

However, now rabbis are complaining that these personal mechitzas aren't good enough. Rabbi Haskel Lookoutstein, an advisor to the FAA, explains that it's possible a Reform Jew worked in the factory where the Personal Mechitza was made and came in contact with the apparatus. Or, he went on, what if one is using a Personal Mechitza and the person in the seat next to you sneezes and some of the treif they're eating flies over the top of your Personal Mechitza and gets on your Extra-Glatt Kosher meal? That is why Rabbi Lookoutstein recommends putting up an extra mechitza around the Personal Mechitza.  In fact, he says that the most pious will simply purchase every seat in the row and put up the new Glatt Mechitzah L'Mehadrin.