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FROM ISRAEL TO THE AMERICAN SYNAGOGUE
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
2 blocks from home, a weekly demonstration to end the occupation
In transitioning back to the states, I've been thinking about ways to translate my experiences in Israel into the American milieu. As a second-year rabbinical student next year, I imagine I will teach in a family-education or Hebrew school context in addition to serving my monthly pulpit. With the task before me of bridging these two worlds- life in Israel and leadership in the institution of the American synagogue - I've been reflecting on how to infuse the synagogue with a sense of Jewish civilization as well as religion.
Last week I started a book I recommend "Re-Envisioning the Synagogue" (Ed. Zachary I. Heller, Hebrew College and STAR: 2005). In the prologue, David Gordis, Zachary Heller and David Kaufman highlight three major tensions inherent to American-Jewish life, which the synagogue (as the "central mediating institution of American-Jewish life") is mandated to address. These are the tensions of: American individualism vs. Jewish communality, Religious Judaism vs. Ethnic Jewishness, and Tradition vs. Modernity. In reading this prologue, I immediately started thinking of all the "secular" Israelis I know who strongly identify as Jewish (ethnically/culturally) and yet adamantly assert that they're "not religious." To varying degrees, this is the majority of Israelis. And yet how many Israelis do I know who, upon moving to America, join their local Reform temples? It happens a lot. There is also a large portion of American Jews who join synagogues and seek Jewish connection for themselves and their family, yet for whom prayer is inaccessible. As this book argues, and as I agree, the American synagogue must be a multi-facetted organization that can provide Jewish in-roads on many different levels.
Best friend Sheera and me on my last night in Jerusalem
Last night, I attended a "salon" in my native Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, where I'm visiting family for a weekend before heading out west on a month-long road-trip/camping trip with a good friend from Jerusalem. What the model of the "salon" offers is a forum for secular, intellectual dialoguing and community socializing around Jewish, relevant themes. For those who are interested in intellectual engagement, Jewish history, philosophy, world affairs and not necessarily Beit Midrash study and prayer (the contexts of Jewish involvement which, in addition to committee meetings, form the crux of the religious synagogue-al experience) an evening salon offers an intriguing way to engage Jewish identity and discussion on the cutting edge.
Perhaps these kinds of cultural, lively soirees can be brought into the synagogue framework eventually. To be American and to be Jewish means carving out Jewish culture and engaging Jewish civilization as a sphere within the American sphere–or more appropriately, as a lens or in-road through which to express and experience American cuslture. The Jewish experience is a necessary lens for Jews, without which being American becomes empty and meaningless. Strong Jewish culture contributes to a thriving American culture, and the more we can recognize this mutuality, the better we can feel, as Jews, about engaging with full vigor in the particular Jewish circles of our communities.
This summer I'm relocating to Los Angeles–3,000 miles away from where I grew up. In addition to enjoying the sun and outdoors-y culture of California, I look forward to supporting a Judaism which is alive and engaged with the paradoxes inherent to the American-Jewish experience. Lord knows, Israel, too, is a country of paradoxes: between secular and religious, Arab and Jewish, democracy and the Jewish character of the state, the list goes on. The constant advantage and challenge of Jewish life in the diaspora is mediating between our own culture and the larger culture in which we contribute, cross-pollinate and thrive. The synagogue is not an institution to survive for its own sake. It exists to serve the evolving, wide-ranging needs of American Jews.
Posted by Ethan at 2:26 PM
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Pesach, Papers, Prayer, and Festive Shabbatot
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Sara and Ethan on our way to Jordan
Dear Readers,
It was a busy two weeks leading up to Pesach break, and then I had two weeks without class. Unbelievably, now that we started classes again this week, there is less than a month left in the semester. Soon everyone will be packing and preparing for yet another journey-- homeward. I am not in a rush to leave Israel. Although I certainly have moments and even days when I think I've had enough and want to get on the next plane back to America, this year has gone so quickly. And there's so much yet to reap from my time here. I have a feeling that what I reap will linger longer than the physical journey within the country.
While many of my classmates were off to the FSU leading Passover Seders in progressive Jewish communities throughout the former soviet bloc countries, I stayed in Jerusalem for the holiday. I spent the first night Seder at a classmate's place with many Jewishly-educated students and young people. Each part of the haggadah was led by a different attendee. It was a long and very rich night.
View of the Jordan Valley from Mt. Nebo
Then my friend Sara and I took a trip to Jordan to explore in and around Amman. And I spent a week in Jerusalem, sleeping late and (feigning) research time on my three papers due by the end of the semester. We have a liturgy paper-- on any liturgical cycle or ritual in our tradition. The assignment is to research the history, content and practice of the ritual, and then to write our own version if there are elements of the traditional liturgical piece, which we think need a fresh perspective. Some classmates are writing on weddings, various weekly services, and holidays. I am writing on Pidyon Haben-- the ceremony for the Redemption of the Firstborn. Usually not a ritual we do in liberal circles because of its taboo emphases on the priestly tradition, gender, and special inheritance rights of the firstborn, I am writing an alternative, egalitarian service, focused instead on marking new parenthood and the responsibilities and value needs required of new parents. I also have a research paper for my class on the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and for the Israel Seminar, our all-class, Wednesday course for intensive study of Israeli society.
Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah, national Israeli Holocaust Memorial Day, which will soon be followed by Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Independence Day. Together, these holidays mark the "high holy days" of Israeli civil religion. I'm leading a service with two American classmates and an Israeli rabbinical student tomorrow morning, which, because of the memorial day, will focus on collective memory and collective visioning.
One Festive Shabbat in Jerusalem
One interesting discussion I had with Gabby, the Israeli co-leader, came up in writing our own, alternative Aleynu prayers for the service. While his focused more on the particular, on Jewish names, Jewish identity, and Jewish destiny, mine emphasized the connection between the particular and the universal and the role of the Jewish people in marshaling in an era where "all of humankind will be One."
We decided that to some extent we represented the differences between how Israelis and Americans view the role of Judaism and Jewishness in the world. In simple terms, I was the optimistic, all-embracing American with a focus on universalistic theology, and as an Israeli, he was much more focused on the Jewish people's past and common future as the ultimate end purpose of our religion. One line-- "and on that day we all will be One," the last of his poem, related to all Humanity, and even then the "we" was more appropriately understood as the Jewish people. In my poem, the emphasis was broader yet perhaps less personal. In the end we realized how strikingly similar our messages were, even if we veered to different sides of the road in how we chose to present them.
One more thing before I finish this entry. I want to mention a word about Shabbat in Jerusalem for the single reason that- I'm going to miss it. I have developed a Shabbat "circle" and we've been alternating homes for preparing and celebrating together every Friday night. Classmates, professors and mentors will often invite us to their homes as well. And generally, the experience of shopping in the shuk and observing Shabbat in a city that does so together week after week, is probably the single greatest blessing of Jerusalem.
Posted by Ethan at 4:57 PM
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March blog
Thursday, March 15, 2007
There's something about the desert. A place that accepts you, wrings you dry, provides solitude and majestic beauty. The desert removes you from yourself, from routine, in order that I may return to the routine in a more balanced state-- more attuned to my higher self, the still small voice of authentic personality, which has breathed and been recognized by desert time. The Eilat Mountains in the south of Israel, where borders with Egypt, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia are visible from the highest peaks, with the mountains' exposed layers of sedentary rock and formative geological history, reminded me of the shortness of our lives and the stillness of time.
As a class, many of us felt that for the first time in weeks we could truly relax among our peers, enjoy conversations with classmates we had barely exchanged meaningful words with before, and have some welcome fun and reflection at this juncture in our year. In a real way, every time we pray together, engage in ritual together, eat together, we are making time for reflection. This four-day trip afforded many of us time for all of this. When we prayed in the Bedouin tent, in which we all spent a night together, Israelis sitting in the tent with us sat and were memorized watching a group of dedicated, progressive Jews praying in full Hebrew at an educated pace to untraditional, melodic melodies in a meditative spirit. I have to say, when we are able to break out of the standard mold a bit, which is required by us in Reform Liturgy Workshop, I'm inspired by who we are as a group: committed, knowledgeable, self-reflective, and artistic in the way we pray as a class.
On the tiyul we also visited two Reform Jewish kibbutzim. One was Kibbutz Lotan, and the other Kibbutz Yahel. One was financially viable, and the other was still idealistic. Unfortunately, these two paradigms seem to have become mutually exclusive in the kibbutz movement in Israel today, as every kibbutz struggles to strike a balance between vision and reality. Rabbis Danny Freelander and Elyse Frishman led a session with us on Shabbat at Kibbutz Yahel about their own journeys as rabbis and how they have negotiated this balance in their professional and personal lives: between realities which are unavoidable and less than ideal, and how even such realities–with dedication and commitment–have become catalysts for transformation, in their congregations and careers. As I mentioned in my last blog, I can't understate the blessing it was to have experienced rabbis "from the field" spend time and stories with us, providing mentorship and demonstrating through their life choices that the future matters to them.
Another experience of the last month, which took me "out of myself" in order to return to my "truer self" was Purim in Israel. On the Saturday night of Purim (thank goodness it fell on a weekend this year!) I went with some friends to Tel Aviv, and what I saw was like nothing I had seen before: 20-somethings Israelis celebrating Purim in the streets! It was beautiful. Back in Jerusalem, HUC put on a Purim spiel of its own, which was quite a megillah (ha!) and the entire class proceeded to the only decent dancing location in Jerusalem, appropriately called "Shushan."
Back on the academic side of becoming a rabbi, I have been wrestling with what it means to be an educated Jew in our communities, and what it means to become an educated rabbi. How much will I need to supplement my education at Hebrew Union College so that I feel I have the learning required of the title "rabbi"? If Talmud knowledge may matter relatively less to my future congregation, does that mean I should under-emphasize Talmud study in my own learning process? The curriculum at HUC, clearly, has chosen to give us the tools of Talmud study, but not a lot of the substance. Yet knowledge is a large part of what, traditionally; it means to be a rabbi versus any other committed Jew. Are Reform rabbis just committed Jews who have decided to spend their lives working in Jewish communities, or are they responsible to be more educated than all but the most erudite of congregants? I hope that progressive rabbis of the next generation will continue to value learning as their top-most priority. Familiarity with the nuances of our tradition is what gives rabbis a measure of authenticity outside of the organizational structure of synagogues. The line at HUC in Israel, of which the administration keeps reminding us is, "trust the process." We have five years and we will learn much in this time. I do trust. I trust my process. But learning, real learning, requires knowing oneself. And knowing oneself well enough to be able to seek out for oneself the learning of that which one doesn't yet know, one doesn't know.
Posted by Ethan at 12:18 PM
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February blog
Thursday, February 15, 2007
From the army base
Second semester is going well, perhaps better than last semester, or perhaps I'm just more used to the swing of things here and have a better understanding of how to enrich my life outside of school. I'm feeling momentous gratitude for the process that has prioritized my being in Israel for the first year of HUC. Classes are good. In addition to my new rabbinics course, in which we are studying Avot d'Rabbi Natan, and serves as an introduction to mishnaic and midrashic literature, I feel Hebrew is going better. Still, there is the problem of usage. The program tries to balance between catering to our real language skills which are relatively weak, and encouraging our learning of Hebrew, and that balance has not quite been struck. We could use more opportunities to be expected to use and master Hebrew on our tiyulim and outside of class. It's up to us, and it isn't easy given our long hours in the classroom and the frequency of contact with English speakers.
With classmate Miriam, on her birthday
Last week the class took our Wednesday seminar day to an air-force base and to a larger army "mega-base" north of Tel Aviv. At the air-force base, a pilot spoke to us about the training necessary in the career, ethical dilemmas that can present themselves in carrying out targeted attacks, and his sense of purpose and commitment to the Jewish people as exemplified in his decision to spend 12 years of his life working for the air-force. He mentioned how it's funny that while all his friends have now finished the army and are traveling in the Far East and South America, he is still in Israel, committed to 9 more years of service. He'll be done when he's 30. It was valuable to hear his process and inspiring to hear his sense of duty in ensuring the safety and autonomy of the Jewish people. I couldn't help making some parallels because I, too, will be 30 when I finish rabbinical school. So the week presented a new metaphor for understanding my commitment as a future rabbi: like flying planes. At the army base, we had a chance to talk in small groups with all the officers of a human resources unit and to ask them all those questions about the real goings on in the army that usually people stay curious about: what is it really like for gay soldiers, how integrated are the various sectors of society in their army units, what kind of psychological and ethical preparation is part of the army curriculum, etc. I left the session feeling more connected to Israel as an insider in the dilemmas and questions, which life for our people presents here every day.
With Dan Freelander, HUC professors and students after Reform Liturgy workshop
As part of our Monday "professional forums" Rabbi Elise Frishman has been joining us for a series of sessions this month. The first was on B'nei Mitzvah, last week it was on Mishkan Teflillah, the new prayer book of the Reform movement coming out this summer, and today it will be about weddings. These sessions have been inspiring and invaluable in engaging us in real questions of the Rabbinate: what are the goals of Bar and Bat Mitzvah? Who are they for? How do we create meaningful prayer opportunities in the context of B'nei Mitzvah for the community of Jews and non-Jews who gather for them?
Prayer is an important aspect of the changing priorities of the Reform movement. Reform Judaism has been known in the past for top-down, rigid services where the congregation is not transformed spiritually, but rather recites prayers by rote or just listens to the cantor's voice. This is the dying model. The new model is prayer that is real for everyone present, creating an environment and culture of prayer that transforms the participants and strengthens them to build community and emboldens them to live consciously. Services on the HUC campus itself (we all lead one service a year during Monday Reform liturgy workshops) are too close to the dead or dying top-down approach to prayer. HUC in Israel seems slow to innovate and leave behind the classical Reform model in favor of more creative davening. Our service-leaders do wonderfully, and the cantorial students do a great job, but they are still too performative and "old-school." Perhaps the administration will begin to implement more creative, intentional prayer for students in their first year. But until then, we'll look forward to state-side for experimenting more honestly with our spiritual leadership styles. Part of the problem is that because it is our only official chance to lead services all year, when it is finally our turn, the service feels too much about the service leader and less about transforming our kehillah, our community of student clergy. I will write about my experience leading Reform Liturgy workshop after my turn comes in April.
From the army base
We leave for another tiyul this week, this time to the Negev. Fortunately, it leaves after my Tuesday night volunteering, so I won't have to skip it. The Russian teens are difficult as ever, and connecting to them remains a constant challenge. But it's good just to be there to talk with them and for them to practice English as I practice Hebrew. Indeed, this whole year is mostly just about being here: getting to know Israel and the community of future leaders in our class, learning the Jewish people's language, and confronting the joys, problems, and Jewish flavor of Israeli society.
Posted by Ethan at 4:13 PM
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Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, January 15, 2007
With friend, Josh Kram in the Jewish Museum, Istanbul
Vacations during the HUC Year-in-Israel are excellent opportunities to do some of the exploring that fosters independent learning. Traveling piques my intellectual and cultural curiosity and love of life, helping me step outside of myself and return with opened eyes.
Spending a week in Istanbul with good friends reminded me how insular my life in Israel can become, and how I love Muslim culture when it isn't over-politicized. Admittedly, Turkey is unique, and Istanbul in a class of its own. The fusion of Islam and secular European culture is disarming and refreshing. Istanbul is very Eastern in that the people are content, laid back, rarely rushing. They'll smile at strangers and talk to you easily in the tea house and public spaces.
With friends on the Asian side of Istanbul
Yet in so many ways there's everything any European city can offer as well, including western clubs, boutique shopping, sleek public transportation, breathtaking architecture, and international bookshops. It's the best of both East and West, together.
I thought of Maimonides frequently when I was in Istanbul, perhaps because of his contact with learned Muslims during the "Golden Age" of Spanish Jewry; he used to say that if one is in the market place during prayer-time and cannot find a minyan, the second best place to daven is in a mosque-- a sacred space without iconography. The mosques in Istanbul are spectacular, and the call of the mazen more beautiful than anywhere I'd been before.
We "picked up" another Josh at the hostel (far left); here with Del and Daniel
Now I'm back in Jerusalem; classes restarted Sunday. The main change in my schedule is that instead of Bible, I have Rabbinics this semester, which means early rabbinic texts from the 1st-6th Centuries CE. Studying these texts in their historical context is exciting to me, having concentrated in early Jewish and Christian scripture in my college Religion major. I am starting to drool for real academic classes, (i.e. non-language, relevant, substantive classes) so this seems like a welcome addition.
This is also a time to take stock that the year here is more than half-way through, and I still don't speak Hebrew in my every-day social life outside of stores and restaurants. And there is so much of Israel and Jerusalem that I have yet to explore. Traveling outside of Israel reminded me of the treasures to take advantage of while I'm still in Israel: museums, synagogues, libraries, shopping. Jerusalem has so much to offer. The openness and "present-ness" of the traveler is hard to maintain in everyday life- but worth striving for, perhaps.
The vast and windy Sea of Marmur, from the Asian side of Istanbul
The advantage to the structure of an academic program is that the exploring can happen not only on the streets of a foreign city, but where it's most valuable -- in the mind and imagination, with eye on paper and pen in hand.
Posted by Ethan at 2:23 PM
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Fourth Blog
Friday, December 15, 2006
With my Russian-women co-volunteers at Elem, the organization for at-risk teens in Israel. They're all Russian because I volunteer with a group of all-Russian Israeli teens, and they're all women because... Let's face it: there aren't enough men in social work. Being present for young men in need of role models and people they can count on "to be there" has proved a rewarding experience. Community service is a natural requirement as part of the Year-in-Israel.
Happy Hanukkah, tonight is the first night. I gathered at a friend's apartment for a Shabbat dinner with seven wonderful HUC students/friends. I am reminded of the story of Ruth's conversion to Judaism in which she says "your people shall become my people, and your God my God" when she follows Naomi back to Israel in the Book of Ruth. Community is the first step. Our faith and relationship to God can follow from a group of Jews committed to their community by virtue of connection with their common ancestry and tradition. Spirituality and theology will follow; we begin with community.
For all of my frequent complaints of how much time we sit in class and how all-consuming the seminary experience is, the community we form as HUC students is unique. Tonight, the seven of us were playing charades after dinner, and the quickness with which we guessed each other's books, movies and cultural references was unbelievable. "Guide to the Perplexed" was the first guess after someone motioned 13 fingers (referencing Maimonides' 13 principles) and "Pride and Prejudice" was the first guess following a single gesture of haughty confidence.
me, my friend Daniel, and his friend Joline Makhlouf, producer of the
film Encounter Point, a feature documentary about everyday people and
leaders in Israel-Palestine, struggling for peace (www.encounterpoint.com)
What I'm trying to convey is that in addition to spending the year with 55 other students who share my enthusiasm for Jewish vibrancy, the commonalities go beyond our Jewish interests. And it's a beautiful point because it's easy to under-appreciate a group of people one spends so much time with. The fact is, if I met almost anyone from our class in another American cultural context (like a college dorm or sports team) he or she would undoubtedly become a friend. My classmates are intelligent, culturally "with-it," and understand the beauty of a balance between success, learning and fun.
Did I mention we're in exams? I had my first two exams yesterday and early next week I'll take five more. I lucked out with only one 10-page research paper and a Hebrew essay on the story of the "Akeida" (binding of Isaac) as grappled-with in modern Israeli poetry, having opted for the exam in my Zionist history course. So unlike in college, stress isn't as much a part of the picture in this end-of-semester period, as is some simple, serious concentrating in a balanced way over the next ten days.
Christmas dinner with Joline and her whole family in East Jerusalem
In my reflection group last week (with five other rabbinical students and two faculty members, this "professional forum" will meet six times over the course of the year) we discussed Hanukkah in the states and the "December dilemma." I cited the Talmud text in Berichut Shabbat, the discussion between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel in which the latter suggests that we light the menorah from one candle continuing to eight candles (instead of eight to one as Shammai suggests) because in sacred matters "we elevate and do not lower," to show that as Jews, we: increase the light of the world; we work incrementally, elevating step by step; we remember the miracles of our people and we continually increase the sacredness of our lives and the sacredness of our tradition by sharing this light with the wider world. Accordingly, we are commanded to place the lit menorah in our windows or doorways. Whereas Hanukkah began in the wake of a Jewish minority defending against Greek militaristic and cultural might, today we increase the light, not through defensiveness, but through openness and courageous sharing. Our duty to shine the light of our peoples' experience and miracles in a society where we're susceptible to assimilation represents a higher step in our people's encounter with the non-Jewish world. Whereas 1800 years ago we guarded our light in defiance to invading Hellenist armies, today we increase our light in sharing the richness of our history and sacred experience with the larger society. In doing so, not only are we guarding the light of our own tradition, but we are also courageously sharing this lesson of our Jewish experience, with our non-Jewish friends who form the context of Jewish life in America: the human spirit is stronger than militaristic might. I see the joyous "holiday spirit" of the American milieu as an opportunity to strengthen our light in reflective openness to others.
Hanukkah reminds us both of our unique historical experience-- and the miracle of courageous light, which is universal to faith and faith experience among us all. We start slowly, and increase the light in every generation, one candle at a time.
Posted by Ethan at 10:51 AM
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Third Blog
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
With Hajj Ibrahim on the Mount of Olives
This month has been marked by a lot of continuous homework, my first Bible paper in Hebrew, a visit of most of the class to my friend Hajj Ibrahim on the Mount of Olives, the gay pride rally in Jerusalem last Friday, the weather turning cooler, and my gaining more and more perspective on rabbinical school and what the next five years will be
like-- for both better and for less-than-better.
Let's start from the fun stuff. Two and a half weeks ago a group of 40 of us from HUC, including some spouses, came on a trip I organized to visit my family friend, Hajj Ibrahim in his home in the East Jerusalem Arab village of Atur on the Mount of Olives. Oy, this trip was important to me because most of my classmates would not have ventured out into the east part of Jerusalem to meet real residents otherwise.
With Kim and Nicole in the shuk
Ibrahim spoke to us about his family history on the Mount of Olives for generations and welcomed us to his home with an abundance of fresh food. This man is an amazing peace-maker and leader in his village. At other times he has spoken about the terrible house demolitions that are going on in East Jerusalem for those who build without permits (impossible for Arab residents of Jerusalem to get), about his own difficulties with being granted Israeli citizenship, and the legacy of his family and their connection to the famous Jewish cemetery on the mount where Jewish sages are buried. He told us that "the only players who benefited from the war in Lebanon were the weapons manufacturers" in answer to one person's question. I was nervous to introduce so many of my classmates to Ibrahim at once. I think, in the end, though, everyone enjoyed the experience of meeting him and seeing Palestinian life through the eyes of a Palestinian. Next week a couple classmates and I will go to the occupied territories to pick olives with Arabs who would otherwise endanger themselves by harvesting in their groves because of aggression by settlers.
We also had a religious Zionist settler come to speak in the context of our Wednesday Israel seminars a couple weeks ago. She told her life story (again, it's impossible to argue with someone's life story, even when his/her choices are drastically at odds with the choices one would hope to make oneself). Sheffa the settler was among the founding members of a West Bank settlement shortly after the 1967 war. While it was important to be exposed to the perspectives of a settler, I held my tongue during the question period for fear of offending our guest.
A classmate afterwards told me, this is the beauty of Reform Judaism. Even when we utterly disagree with a person's ideology, we're interested in hearing it from the horse's mouth and thanking her for sharing afterwards. I agreed, and, on the other side, I added, sometimes we don't challenge our opposition quite enough.
Hezekiah's Tunnel
At the gay pride rally, however, I witnessed how strongly the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (the branch of Reform Judaism in Israel) is challenging the Israeli government on a host of issues relating to matters of private (and often religious) life in Israel. Not just on gay issues, but on marriage in general, for example, as it is still illegal for non-Orthodox clergy to perform state-sanctioned weddings. After all the hype of moving the rally from the center of Jerusalem to the Knesset and Israel Museum area just outside, to the Hebrew University outdoor stadium, I was glad to be out of the way of Ultra-Orthodox protestors, and to enjoy the beautiful day, music, speeches, and community feel of the gay pride rally where it was held.
Reflections on HUC
Now that we are just about over the hump of mid-terms and the half-way point between Sukkot and Hannukah, I'll share some relevant thoughts on the HUC Year in Israel Program. We were told at the beginning of the semester that rabbinical school is "a process," that we have to trust our own process, and that the strongest thing we can do for ourselves now that we're here is to get as clear as possible with ourselves about why, exactly, we are here. This is all true.
The iRAC banner says "yes to tolerance, no to violence."
Not everything about rabbinical school is inspiring and fun. Some days can feel tedious as our days are long. We spend approximately five hours a day in class, not including breaks between classes. There are many different kinds of learning that we do, and as a group, we spend much of our time together when we're on campus (and also off). Above all, I would say that this program is an awesome test of character.
In some ways, I feel I'm being prepared for juggling days as a rabbi when my sheer presence is required for more hours than I have spent on a schedule through most of my life so far. I don't want to make the program sound too hard or all-consuming. It's wonderful. We are immersed in Jewish life, and OY, I can't stress how supportive prayer and meditative self-centering at the beginning and end of my days here has become. It is possible, after studying and sitting in class for many hours during the week, to get out of Jerusalem on weekends, to celebrate Shabbat more fully and Jewishly than I was used to in the states, and to take advantage of the cultural opportunities abounding in Jerusalem. And at the end of the day, even though I am working as hard (and playing as hard) as many of my friends in law school or corporate city jobs back home, the content of what I'm learning is infinitely more interesting to me than anything my friends are learning about law or business. This is a great future profession, and yet I feel I am already getting a small pre-taste of its challenges in regard to fully-scheduled days.
The drag queen picture banner says "To no borders."
A little about my background and Jewish orientation: I graduated college in 2003, so I had 3 years between college and starting HUC (I highly recommend taking some time between!). I majored in religion, Jewish Studies, and German at Oberlin College. I grew up in Boston and in boarding school. After college, I spent a Fulbright year in Berlin, studying German-Jewish history and teaching Turkish high school-ers English. In New York, where I lived for the last two years, I worked as a bilingual legal assistant and in an advertising company, and then exclusively in synagogues and Jewish organizations in the last year before HUC. I am becoming a rabbi because I care about touching peoples' lives through teaching and about connecting American Jews with their timeless connection to Jewish tradition, wisdom, and covenant.
After today's Israel seminar on secular Jewishness in Israel, I can say with all sincerity that our people needs intelligent, Jewishly passionate leaders. The Reform movement, as it now embraces such a wide spectrum of Jewish observance and expression, maintains an emphasis on individual relationship to God and covenant, which is wholly unique to the Israeli paradigm. The beauty is to see that so many of us are engaged in halakhic questions and in questions of our ideal settings for own prayer, which not so long ago would have pushed the limits of "Reform" beyond its comfort point. I think it is possible now to be a Reform Jew with Reform, liberal values, and at the same time to be respected in a Reform community for approaching the mitzvot and tradition in a more Ortho-praxis way. The changing definitions and boundaries between the movements are indeed changing, and I think in positive, and increasingly pluralistic directions. OK, this was a lot this time round, I'll stop here.
While it might have been more cathartic for me to write than informative for all of you, I thank you for checking in and reading!
Posted by Ethan at 12:56 PM
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Second Blog
Sunday, October 15, 2006
With Nicole, a classmate, NY-bound rabbinic student,
and her new fiancée, Joe (they were engaged over the weekend).
Wow, a lot has happened in the last month. We had the chagim, that block of festivals - the High Holy Days, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah- that stop the country, cause spontaneous celebration, and by which Israelis mark the broad strokes of their calendars ("I'll do it after the chagim, or already before").
To experience Yom Kippur-- not only in the synagogues but also in the streets-- reminds one of why Israel is so unique: the traffic lights turn off, it is forbidden to drive, and the streets become a place for public congregation and play for children. Where else in the world can secular norms reflect, so holistically, the Jewish calendar?
On October 15th, the first day after Simchat Torah, right after we added the prayer for rain to our daily liturgy, it rained in Jerusalem for the first time. The rain was so loud that our Hebrew teacher (we have five 70-minute periods of Modern Hebrew per week) got distracted briefly and we all took a moment to thank.
During Sukkot break last week, I took myself to Tel Aviv to explore that other of Israel's two international centers. If Jerusalem is the spiritual heart of the Jewish people, Tel Aviv is the cultural epicenter of secular Israel. After shopping on Shenkin St., I found my way to the Rubin Museum of Art, a three-story museum devoted to the work of one very important Israeli artist. His work shows the pioneering spirit of the early Zionists, the fertility of the budding land, the encounter between East and West as it occurred in the Jewish encounter with Arabs and Bedouins as natives already integrated into the landscape. In one painting, he depicts Hasidim like angels embracing a Torah as on Simchat Torah, as a group of their wives, in white, hold a baby: the fusion of Jewish fertility and Jewish tradition renewed in the landscape of Eretz Yisrael. In his Self-Portrait with a Flower, Rubin first depicts himself as part of the surrounding landscape, working through his art, to contribute to the cultivation of the land.
Self Portrait with a Flower
I gave my first D'var Torah (sermon) two weeks ago, on parshat Haazinu, and specifically on faith and how it is construed vis-à-vis Moses' God-encounters and the thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Art Green on faith-- both national and personal- in its relationship to time. The sermon went well; what I learned was that in a formal setting, delivery is everything. I practiced it several times beforehand, yet still I ended up reading off the page. All in all, less than ideal, but a start. As I take on a role as will-be rabbi, which is not a critical, academic role only, but also that of a role-model, teacher, leader for inspiration and positive insight, I realize that the the historiographical-critical approach to all things thought-oriented no longer suffices. My role is not that of critic, but rather of constructive leader. It may seem like an obvious point, yet the realization goes deeper: it is more liberating to study towards a constructive end than only for the sake of intellectual debate, as characterized much of my undergraduate education.
It is inspiring to see how all of my classmates are finding different ways to integrate their rabbinic-student selves with who they are as private people in the totality of their lives. One of my friends in the program, Nicole, was just proposed to last week by her boyfriend, Joe-- not at all an uncommon experience among my classmates this year it seems...
As for me, I am discovering Israel. I walk onto a bus in Jerusalem and encounter a full rainbow of Jews of diverse skin tones, backgrounds, countries of origin, and divergent outward signs of religious observance. My two wonderful Israeli roommates and I form our own small-scale international house: Natasha moved to Israel at ten years old from Moscow with her mother, a doctor and her father, a painter. Tali, a native Israeli, grew up in Bonn and Berlin as her father was an Israeli diplomat to Germany. In thinking about Jewish diversity in Israel as it differs from what we call diversity in the United States, and how we as American Jews, can contribute to American diversity, groundedness in one's Jewish identity and connection to Israel gives each of us that much more to give. The theme of the particular as necessary for a thriving, pluralistic universalism, and the broad perspectives of enlightened, universally-oriented thinking to enrich the values of the particular-- returns to me again and again.
As I looked out on Yom Kippur over the Old City, and we called to God to "patach lanu sha'ar," open the gates for us, I was reminded of the communal striving which is so much a part of our tradition. What does a thriving Jewish communal consciousness look like for progressive Jews in the states? How will each of us heed the call of leadership? How can we, as progressive Jews, retain our treasured individuality while incorporating the community-strengthening spirit of halakhah, the norms that bind us as a people striving together?
Posted by Ethan at 10:46 AM
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First Blog
Friday, September 15, 2006
A shiur with Rabbi David Wilfond (Gingy).
Living in Jerusalem is a blessing. Meditating in the garden of the Hebrew Union College campus, overlooking the Old City, rose garden, and trees of palm and cedar, I am reminded every day of my gratitude. I see it as my duty to cultivate my own inner peace–both because of where I am in terms of being part of this psychically-split city, and because of who I will be for people as a rabbi: a counselor, a spiritual mentor, a teacher.
I began my stay in Jerusalem two weeks before our summer ulpan, at the end of June. A family-friend hosted me on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem for the first six weeks. Hajj Ibrahim gave me a small room in his international guest house and often cooked me meals when I returned from long days in Jewish Jerusalem. We spent many hours talking together, discussing the political situation here, and his life-story as "grandfather of the village" -- and of twenty-four grandchildren.
What I witnessed from the start of this experience is the total dichotomy that exists between the world-view of Jews and Arabs here, and the lack of real dialogue to mediate between them. I woke up every morning in my private room on the Mount of Olives to the sound of roosters crowing incessantly and the Muslim call to worship, and I prayed on Ibrahim's rooftop, with a view of the Arab villages of East Jerusalem, the security wall, and the washed-out Jordanian mountains in the distance. Every day I walked down the Mount of Olives, passing the Jewish graveyard where the tzaddikim of ages past are buried, and stopped near the Damascus Gate of the Old City to sit and eat fresh hummus and pita before continuing to the college. On my way home through the streets of East Jerusalem, several men would stop me, ask where I am from, and say, "you are welcome." Happy for my business, and aware that a Jewish guest lived with the village patriarch, the villagers smiled at every turn.
After beginning classes two weeks ago, this week the whole class of future rabbis, cantors and educators went on a trip to the Golan and Galilee to witness the historical and contemporary beauty of this region, to meet with a psychologist and a mayor in the wake of the recent war, to strengthen our social connections as a class, and to support the local economy. Two highlights for me were meeting with kibbutznikim of the "old school," visionary guard, to hear their life-stories, and praying yesterday on the shores of the Kinneret.
As we davened mincha, the afternoon service, at the grave-site of famous Israeli visionaries like Rachel, Naomi Shemer, and early heroes of the kibbutzim, we looked out onto the single fresh-water lake in Israel. Tears came to eyes as I realized the magnitude of what these idealistic Jews had given the Jewish people, and as I pondered our professor's question to us: "how to create meaningful Jewish entry-points and connections that support us as modern Jews?"
The HUC Jerusalem campus.
Rabbi David Wilfond's message to us had continued, "I am not firstly interested in Jewish continuity; I am interested in Jewish revolution. These people whose graves we look upon inspired a generation." What will be our generation's way of balancing modernity and Jewishness? How does Zionism serve as a support for Jews in the diaspora, and to what extent does Zionism differ from our visions for thriving Jewish communities in the States? Living in Jerusalem is confusing: one is witness to the adverse effects that Israel's militarism has had on the society. At the same time, one is witness also to the beauty and success of the Jewish state, pulsing with advanced infrastructure, planted forests, a thriving economy. Being here makes me optimistic for the future and promise of our people. Yet as a disapora Jew, I feel both liberated to be among Jews and Hebrew-speakers all the time, and sometimes also overwhelmed by my criticisms of Israeli social norms. It is a very assertive culture, and underneath the puffed-up confidence, people are afraid and insecure. Being Jewish here (unless one is Orthodox) has little to do with religion. It is a solution to Jewish identity that would not work outside of the Hebrew-speaking country, where the official calendar follows the cycles and holidays of the Jewish year, and where Shabbat includes a central family meal even for "secular" Israelis. On a whole, spirituality is desperately lacking in Israel, though fundamentally-religious people abound. Reform Judaism as a movement has a role to play here because now that the Zionist state has been founded, secular immigrants and long-time Israelis seek also a spiritual relationship to their religion and not only a politico-cultural identity.
With rabbinical school my base and reason to be here, studying among a group of classmates who are truly some of the kindest, sincerest people I have ever known, I have also been meeting many interesting people outside of the HUC community. I have non-Jewish European friends, Israeli friends, Arab acquaintances from East Jerusalem, and other American Jewish friends outside the program. Living with two Israeli roommates my age has proved a useful context for meeting Israelis. But this Shabbat I will spend with classmates as all the men in the class convene tonight for "Man's Shabbat." As a feminist, I am also an advocate of men creating space and time to be together and to share openly on an emotional level that is not possible in mixed settings. I wish you a meaningful season of reflection and repentance as we start to be honest with ourselves about what to change in our behavior and life-styles, and to ask forgiveness from ourselves and others with the intention to create space in our lives for new beginnings. Shana Tova.
Posted by Ethan at 3:09 PM
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