Rabbi Elliott's Blog

Prepare me to be a Sanctuary Rosh Hashanah Day 1

Prepare Me To Be A Sanctuary

I am going to be talking today about immigration, but before I begin, I would like to do a survey.

Think for a moment about the story your family tells about coming to the US.

I realize this may be complicated.[i]

It might be many stories, each from a different branch of our family.

For many parts of this story is unknown, perhaps forgotten or even erased.

But for this survey just pick one story or the dominant story that you tell about your family’s path to America.

Raise your hand if your family came to the US before 1921?

Raise your hand if your family came to the US after 1921 but before 1965.

After 1965?

Coming to America legally through Ellis Island is the dominant narrative of Jewish immigration.

Until 1921 the US allowed relatively unrestricted immigration.

But after 1921 a system of quotas was implemented that drastically limited legal immigration.

This system was implemented to limit the entry of suspect nationalities: Italians, Poles, Slavs and Jews.

To give you an idea of the bias in those quotas – Great Britain and Ireland were allotted about 63,000 slots.

Russia was allotted only 2,000 slots.

These quotas cut immigration in half.

In 1921 120,000 Jews entered the US legally.

In 1924 after all the quotas had been instituted only 10,000 Jews entered the US legally.

This however did not stop Jews from coming illegally[ii].

“Illegals”

Bnai Keshet member, Cythnia Green recently shared with me the story her grandfather Henry who came to US in the 30s.

One of eleven children,each of the boys had a different path westward to avoid the Polish draft.

After stops in Belgium and France unable to get a visa for immigration and looking for any opportunity to enter the US, he came instead on a tourist visa.

Like many other undocumented immigrants when his tourist visa expired he stayed put, trying to live below the radar.

He fell in love. He got married. He had a son.

One night immigration agents came into his home in New York and while his two-year-old son slept, arrested him.

Having over stayed his visa, neither his marriage nor his son protected him.

Having committed no crime other than living in the US without legal documentation

Henry was eventually deported in 1938 to Poland.[iii]

There are countless stories today similar Henry’s.

Stories of immigrants who have established families in the US but are threatened with deportation.

Stories of people seeking a safer life for themselves and their family but who cannot find a legal path to immigration.

In 2017 there has been a 38% increase in immigration arrests relative to 2016.

Different from practices under both the Bush and Obama presidencies these deportations are not focused primarily on violent criminals or security risks.

In 2017 there has been 150% increase in the rate “non-criminal” immigration arrests.[iv]

It is only because Henry Greene again tried to reenter the US through the backdoor that we know his story.

In 1938 he left Poland again, travelling to the Dominican Republic and was met there by his wife. They had a second wedding ceremony.

Because Henry was no longer illegally in the US, this marriage reopened the door allowing him to return to the US.

The story of Jewish settlement in the US is not typically told as part of the narrative of illegal immigration, but for many it was.

Even for those who came to the US by way of Ellis Island, most travelled here under precarious legal circumstances.

Almost all of my ancestors had to hire smugglers, illegally cross multiple borders and pay bribes just to get on ships heading for the US.

If your family came from Eastern Europe before 1921 it is unlikely that their entire journey was legal.

If your Jewish family came here after 1921 and before a loosening of immigration quotas in 1965 it is highly likely that all or part of their immigration was illegal.

Here are a few of the stories I have heard from Bnai Keshet members:

Joan Streit’s parents came to the US in the 1930’s along with dozens of other relatives from Germany, all with forged papers.

May Benatar’s father was smuggled on a ship from Cuba to Florida in the late 20’s.

Betsy Tessler’s grandfather originally entered the US illegally by crossing the Canadian border.

Elliana Goldberg’s parents came to the US as refugees in 1951 but had to lie about their involvement with Communist politics to be allowed entry.

Immigrants

Immigration has always been a part of the Jewish story.

Ivrim is the Hebrew word for Hebrews.

It is the name given to us by the Eyptians.

It is not an accident that is sounds like the word we use in our prayers for a transgression, avera.

Both share the root ayin, vet, resh.

A common translation for our name ivrim or Hebrews – is border crossers.

Commentators have long suggested that when the Egyptians called us ivrim it was derogatory and had a connotation of transgression similar to calling someone an “illegal”.

But the name Hebrews has served us well.

Our willingness to pursue safety regardless of borders

has been a critical to Jewish survival.

For the majority of Jewish history, wherever we resided, our legal status was precarious.

Our “welcome” was often conditional, unofficial and temporary.

We were invited into a region to fill holes in the labor market.

We lived with the potential of being expelled for political reasons or to fill coffers through the confiscation of our property.

Jews have survived, over and over again because of our willingness to seek safety regardless of laws or borders.

Theology of Immigration

Think for a moment about the theological significance of God’s first commandment to the first Jew, to Abraham, that he leave his land of origin, his father’s land and travel to a new land.

Why couldn’t Abraham, the Jewish story, have begun in Ur of Chaldees, his land of origin?

Or why couldn’t the story of Abraham just begin in Canaan?

Think about how Abraham’s world-view must have broadened by leaving the land of his birth.

By having to live with people who’s culture was foreign to him?

How might his journey have solidified his understanding of God as one?

How might it have exposed cultural assumptions?

Uncovered universal truths?

How might the experience of being separated from his relatives have opened him to relationship with God?

Even after he got to the Land, he eventually was uprooted again, risking even God’s promise to seek shelter in Egypt and avoid famine.

In the Torah the word for immigrant is ger or stranger.

It is used to describe the people who dwell within the Israelite borders but who are not Israelites.

Where as the Egyptians called us Hebrews.

We called ourselves ger - strangers when recalling our time in Egypt.

We are commanded once to love our neighbor.

We are commanded twice to love God.

But the commandment to love the stranger is backed up at least 36 times.

The Torah is obsessed with the wellbeing of immigrants.

There must be something essential to be learned from being an immigrant, from crossing borders.

Perhaps it is the vulnerability immigrants experience?

Perhaps it is the perspective of being an outsider?

Perhaps it is the wisdom that comes from navigating through a foreign world?

The Torah offers a unique theology of immigration.

First, Torah teaches that the experience of immigration, whether “voluntary” like Abraham or “involuntary” like the Hebrews, is an important path to knowing God.

Then it teaches that loving the stranger is not only about fairness but also about increasing our proximity to God.

Finally, when we ourselves are not immigrants Torah commands us to get closer to this spiritual access point, by being close to immigrants. Loving the stranger.

Caring for the stranger is a path to finding God.

In Deuteronomy it says:

“Cut away, therefore the thickening of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. For your God Adonai upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, providing food and clothing. You too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[v]

The spiritual path is summed up:

Simply quit being callous.

Open your hearts, let go of stubbornness and self-centered pride.

Look around you for those who are mistreated or in danger and help them.

Room for improvement

To say that American immigration policy is need of improvement is an understatement.

The last major immigration reform, which offered amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants was signed in 1986, by Ronald Reagan.

Over the past 30 years, through divided & united governments, through Democrat or Republican controlled Congresses there has been no significant immigration reform.

And the world has changed a lot since 1986.

The world is moving more and more toward free movement of capital, free markets and free trade;

Toward a world where ideas travel with increasingly little restriction across borders;

A world in which corporations are relatively free to choose the country with the lowest tax rate, or least restrictive regulations and call that place home;

It such a world, it seems to me an extreme contradiction that people are not free to follow these markets, to pursue work and ideas across borders, to choose the place they call home.

The assumption that borders are more sacred than people allows us to distance ourselves from the suffering of others.

A focus on tightening immigrations laws and securing borders allows us to imagine that the injustices and suffering in other places can be kept from impacting our lives. That they are not our responsibility.

But just like markets aren’t contained within countries, neither are conflicts.

We can’t continue to derive economic benefit from people in “far away” countries while ignoring their political upheaval, poverty and oppression. 

The refugee and immigration crises of our time expose the limits of this thinking.

Just like Jews have done historical, people who are in danger, whether political or economic, will seek safety.

They will take great risks to assure a better life for their children.

And like water, they will find the cracks in any wall.

In a world where nearly every purchase we make is international.

Where we have steady access to goods created by low cost labor in conditions that would be illegal in the US.

In a world where we benefit from a concentration of wealth within our own country’s borders, I believe there are two moral paths.

One path, would be to use our wealth to massively invest in aid to developing governments, diplomacy and global cooperation.

To assure that wherever people live they have a measure of basic economic security, human rights and access to just governmental representation.

The other path is to work increasingly to open borders allowing people to vote with their feet, which systems of government and which economies offer justice, safety and opportunity.

There is little evidence that we are moving closer to either of these paths.

For What Purpose

Many of us are living lives that are the fulfillment of our parent’s, grandparent’s or great-grandparent’s risks & sacrifices.  

Our freedom, prosperity, safety, and in many cases our existence – came about because a previous generation took the risk in a moment of uncertainty, to come here.

I have thought often about the risks my grandfather Eddie & great aunt Sophie took to leave Ukraine at 13 & 15. About the courage and fear that their parents must have felt sending them the money to make this risky journey by themselves.

Think for a moment about the risks and the sacrifices that were made by your ancestors so that you might sit here right now.

For what purpose did they take this risk?

What risks and sacrifices might be required of us in this moment of relative security?

This is one way of understanding the core question of Rosh Hashanah.

Have we lived up to all the risks, sacrifices and courageous life that preceded us and allowed us to reach this moment?

What more should we be doing in our short lives to live up to all that came before us?

It is not only that the Torah commands us repeatedly to protect the stranger, but also that our own ears are especially attuned to hear this commandment.

As Jews living in America today our history and our relative security make us uniquely positioned to respond to the experiences of refugees and immigrants.

The stories of undocumented immigrants in the United States today are remarkably similar to our own.

Like Jews, they have fled violent circumstances, fled unstable and sometimes corrupt governments.

Like our ancestors their poverty has required them to be resourceful.

The undocumented immigrants living in the US, have like us, been willing to take great risks to protect the future of their families.

Like Jews before them, when official doors were closed they looked for alternative paths to find security.

It has been widely reported that the current administration will announce a cap of 50,000 refugees to be admitted to the US in 2018.

This would be the lowest number ever set since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980. This in the face of the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

But our work should not just be limited to expanding the number of refugees allowed entry into the US.

We need to be advocating on behalf of immigrants already here in the US who are being threatened with deportation.

It is tempting but false to imagine that there is some meaningful line that can be drawn between clearly oppressed refugees and less deserving immigrants.

We need to work to help realize a rational system of immigration that strives for maximal opportunity for all people.

This is the work we need to do, but after so many decades of failed attempts, after a year of demonizing immigrants whether from the Middle East or from Central America, I am not hopeful that this is the moment we will succeed in realizing an expansive vision.

Sanctuary Movement

But, we can succeed at buying time, at slowing down the process of arrests and deportations of immigrants.

There are a growing number of churches, synagogues and other houses of worship that are offering sanctuary to individuals fearing deportation.

Offering sanctuary is not a special legal status nor does it require breaking the law.

There is no legal loophole that allows congregations to offer special protections to undocumented immigrants.

Rather there is a long-standing policy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, to avoid arrests on congregational property.

In some cases sanctuary buys time for the individual to seek a deferment or another resolution that will allow them to maintain their residency.

Sometimes the public attention itself seems to open up new possibilities.

When Is A Law Unjust

I want to take a moment to address the question of law.

I trust there are some lawyers among us.

Jews despite our history as border crossers tend to support the rule of law.

There is a rabbinic teaching dina demalchuta dina, a halachic principle that guides us to follow the laws of country we resided in, sometimes over Jewish law.

It has been argued by some that undocumented immigrants, just by being here, have broken the law and that this alone should be reason enough for their deportation.

The question has also been raised, how do we decide which laws we support and which laws we resist or perhaps even break.

I will offer the following as a starting point for this conversation.

Laws that discriminate, laws that put human life in danger and laws that degrade our humanity are worthy of our scrutiny, and quite likely should be resisted.

The current system of deporting undocumented immigrants is carried out in a discriminatory way that often targets people of color.

It deports people facing meaningful danger in their country of origin.

It erodes human dignity by incarcerating individuals for years before deportation and by tearing apart families.

The sanctuary movement is one of those rare opportunities, when one action to defend individual dignity can have profound public impact.

Like Rosa Parks refusing to participate in segregated bussing.

Or like students in Mississippi trying to register black voters.

But unlike those actions, carried out by individuals and groups, becoming a sanctuary is something we can only do as a synagogue.

We Are A Sanctuary

I am proud that the Board of Bnai Keshet voted unanimously last week to declare Bnai Keshet a sanctuary congregation.  

It should be noted that while there was considerable unanimity that this declaration is line with our community values, there was also strong concern that we take action in a way that preserves and protects our commitment to all the core values of this community.  

And I am proud to say we aren’t the only synagogue in America who has made this choice nor the only congregation in NJ.

I am happy that the Board could take this step knowing that many congregations in the area have pledged their support.

As more and more congregations offer sanctuary this act of welcome has the power to change the framework within which immigration is discussed

From danger to welcome

From risk to opportunity

From compliance to obligation

From scarcity to gratitude.

We are a synagogue community that is good at acting with compassion.

The Sanctuary Movement is an opportunity for us to amplify that compassion publicly.

The power of the Sanctuary Movement is driven by the moral authority that comes from acting compassionately.

There has never been a case of the US justice department bringing charges against a congregation for offering to house an undocumented immigrant.

The longstanding policy of ICE to not arrest immigrants on the property of churches, synagogues or mosques is a clue that these arrests might not only look unjust – but might indeed be unjust.

Amanda Morales Guerra fled Guatemala in 2004.

She was fleeing violent threats including the threat of kidnapping from a military faction that had wanted to recruit one of her brothers.

She is 33 and the mother of 3 children all US citizens.

For many years she has been checking in regularly with ICE.

But last month she was told that when she next showed up she should come with a one way ticket back to Guatemala.

Still fearing a return to the instability of Guatemala she chose instead to accept the offer of sanctuary extended to her and her children by Holyrood Episcopal Church in New York.[vi] 

Abraham was not only the first immigrant in the Torah but also the first host.

It should be noted that immediately following Abraham’s choice to welcome strangers into his tent he receives blessing and the promise that Sarah will give birth to Isaac.   

The strangers he welcomes into his tent are transformed into messengers, into angels.

Embodied practice

When we take action that brings us into new neighborhoods, actions that change our environment, that invite relationships with strangers, people we might not have otherwise met we are transformed in ways that could not happen, no matter how well-intentioned we may be, from an intellectual distance.

A few years ago I visited Ghana.

Before I ever met children who had been enslaved, I knew I opposed slavery.

But travelling to Ghana and meeting those children transformed this knowledge into heartfelt commitment to fight human trafficking and the poverty that invites it.

AJWS invited me to Ghana not because it was an efficient way to build a school for children freed from slavery, but rather as an efficient way to transform my heart.

They understood that sending me physically to Africa would change my public engagement in America.

This also happened when we observed Tisha B’av at the Elizabeth Detention Center.

Praying outside its doors, expanded our understanding of what it means to be detained for months or years of one’s life awaiting deportation.

It revived our memory of what it has meant in previous generations to not have legal status, to be vulnerable.

This transformation happens when we invite the homeless into our building with IHN, when we feed the hungry with MESH, when we help build homes in Paterson.

If we host an individual seeking sanctuary, it will transform our understanding of the issues related to immigration.

It will concretize the challenges faced by the undocumented.

It will help to reset our thinking about what a good immigration policy would look like in ways that we cannot predict.

We can’t know whether opening the doors of our congregation as a sanctuary to an individual or family, facing deportation will transform immigration policy.

But we can trust that becoming a sanctuary congregation will transform us.

I look forward to seeing this transformational journey unfolds with you.

Dear Bnai Keshet,

This morning we woke up with a real sense of fear and heartbreak. Having heard from many of you we know this apprehension was not because a Republican won and Democrat lost. Rather, there is a genuine sense of anxiety that the rhetoric of this election has attacked core American and Jewish values, and specifically the values of our community at Bnai Keshet.

While it is easy to get caught up in our own worries, we should acknowledge that some of us, some of our neighbors, some of our relatives, may have more reason than we do to feel afraid. Immigrants, people of color, Muslims have all been especially singled out during this campaign. There have been promises to roll back LGBT rights and reproductive rights. All of this has happened in an environment that included a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism and misogyny. Now is a time for us to reach out with love to each other and to those who have reason to feel especially anxious.

Now we have a responsibility to come together. We have an obligation to stand with those who may feel attacked. We have an opportunity to replace the fear of fear with love and support born from our faith that every human being is a reflection of the divine.  

Tonight we invite you to join us in reflection and prayer.

7:00 PM Bnai Keshet

8:00 PM First Congregational Church

We will be gathering first at Bnai Keshet to share and pray as a synagogue and then walking down the street to First Congregational Church for an interfaith prayer service with several other local congregations.

We will both strive to make ourselves available throughout the rest of this week if you need to call and speak with a rabbi. 

With Love,

Rabbi Elliott & Rabbi Ariann

Friends!

It is wonderful to be back at Bnai Keshet and to be welcomed with the warm embrace of our community! I feel such good fortune to be a part of this community and to serve as your rabbi. I want to begin by offering my deep gratitude to everyone who stepped up while I was on sabbatical and, in particular, Rabbi Ariann. I know that my sabbath from normal responsibilities meant more service for many. It is a testament to the strength of our community, volunteer leadership, and staff, that I can dedicate myself for several months to study outside the synagogue and that life within our synagogue can continue to thrive.

Many have asked what my sabbatical was like. The answer is: productive and meaningful. Sabbatical allows for time to do the important, sustaining work we all long for, but rarely carve out space for, both professionally and personally. My primary areas of focus were liturgy, music and, of course, my family. With these and other endeavors during this time, I tried to work on things that would continue to sustain and transform my service as your rabbi well after the sabbatical.

With Rosh Hashanah 5777 on the horizon, I am eager to continue our work together strengthening our community and doing our part to strengthen Judaism. I am so glad that as a rabbi I get to do the work of building our Jewish community and our Jewish future together with you.

I can’t wait to catch up with all of you personally.

With love and gratitude,

Rabbi Elliott

Rosh Hashanah 2010

Hello. Shannah Tovah! I missed you.

As most of you know I was away last year on sabbatical. My sabbatical was in many ways a life changing experience. My gratitude for this opportunity is enormous.

The fact that this time away coincided with our nation’s recession; a time when many in America, and some of you, were out of work or experiencing financial challenges changed the experience of my sabbatical. It heightened my awareness of my very privileged position. My awareness of privilege was further sharpened by the knowledge of poverty in the world which makes life so precarious for many that even taking a day off, never mind months, might mean considerable hardship.  I tried to be constantly mindful of this privilege, working hard to take full advantage of this sabbatical opportunity to develop myself as a rabbi and as a person.

I am also aware, that I could not have this experience alone. My wife Sarah offered support and flexibility as we planned this time. I was offered mentoring and guidance from many teachers. I am thankful to Rabbi Darby for the grace and dedication with which he acted as the sole rabbi for Bnai Keshet during my absence. But most importantly I could not have done this without you.

This congregation had to commit significant resources to make my sabbatical possible and be willing to have a different kind of year while I was away. I know that many positive things emerged in my absence, and I am also aware that in certain ways this was a difficult year for the community. I also know this was an absolutely necessary experience for me. My gratitude to this community for making it possible is enormous.

Thank You!

And for any way in which my absence caused pain or harm to anyone here, I sincerely ask forgiveness.[1]

When I shared insights about sabbatical with a small group of you this July and with others of you individually, I have reflected on the relationship of sabbatical to other examples of interruptions in people’s lives. Some of these like my own are welcome: a year in a new town, going off to college, starting a new career, having a baby. Others are unwelcome and painful interruptions: a year of divorce or repairing a broken relationship, a period of unemployment, time spent battling or recovering from illness. These periods of interruption can be profound when they lead us to re-evaluate who we are and how we exist in the world. They force us to examine what we care about most.  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are also meant to interrupt our lives in just this way.

With the hopes of sharing a little about my sabbatical with you framed by these Days of Awe, which are a kind of annual micro-sabbatical, I want to offer this list of 7 things I learned about teshuva – or personal change, while on sabbatical:

1. Don’t get let the trip you planned get in the way of the trip you are on.

We went to Israel for a lot of reasons but a major one was to strengthen our children’s sense of themselves as Jews and their connection with Israel. I worked hard to introduce my kids to the Jerusalem I love, the Old City, the shuk at Mahane Yehuda, the Western Wall on a Friday night.

But if you asked my kids what they loved about Jerusalem they would tell you first, the swimming pool on Emek Rafaim St., second, the abundance of ice cream and third the day we spent trying to escape the heat in Zedekiah’s tunnels where they pretended for hours to be archeologists.

            We stayed in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City at a Bed & Breakfast. Every morning we were served breakfast on their roof which had a magnificent view of the Dome of the Rock. From the beginning the kids were attracted to the shiny golden dome that dominates the skyline of Jerusalem. Early in the morning, on our last day, I was finally went with my son Akiva to look at this holy Muslim site atop the Temple Mount.

It was remarkably quiet. Tourists are not allowed during Muslim prayer time, so there only a few Muslims present, and hardly any tourists. As we approached to within about 20 yards of the Dome of the Rock, Akiva said, “It is so beautiful, I could drop to my knees.” And then he did it, he dropped to his knees. My son was finally having a spiritual moment in Jerusalem it just happened to be at a holy Muslim site rather than a holy Jewish site.

            And the truth is, it was a beautiful and holy moment. The contrast between this quiet serenity and the noisy, frenetic, crowded experiences we had at the Wall couldn’t have been greater. I came to this moment with my own history, with all the baggage you could imagine about Jerusalem, the Western Wall, The Temple Mount, and with my own hopes and expectations. All of this could have gotten in the way of me noticing or accepting this holy moment that was right in front of me.

It is so easy to get caught up in judging our experiences in relationship to old expectations, rather than simply being with what is. Often the experience or insight we are looking for is right in front of us but we have to be willing to be present with the moment as it is rather than as we had hoped it might be.

            Rabbi Richard Hirsch told me– “You think you are taking a sabbatical, but in fact the sabbatical takes you.”  Be open mindful on these days of awe, the experience you came to looking for may not be the experience you get. The experience you have may be the one you need.

1. Be wary of casting blame

We all have a lot of excuses for not working on our personal issues, but one of the most common and most accepted in our society is that we are busy. “Oh, I’d love to – FILL IN THE BLANK – but I am just so busy these days. Swamped at work! The kids are all over the place! I am so over-committed!” And of course it is true – which is what makes it such a dangerous excuse.

As I prepared for my sabbatical I had a lot of personal goals – things that I wanted to do in my life, that I felt I never had enough time for because I was so busy. Things like exercise more, deepen my spiritual practice, and work to make our house feel like more of a home. And though I wouldn’t quite have admitted it, I often excused my failure to do these things by blaming work.

Sometime around the end of October, I remember realizing – alright, I have more time, I have more spaciousness, I am not going to meetings several nights a week but yet I still haven’t improved these habits of self-care. I had to face the facts that however busy my normal life might feel, it was not solely to blame. With my normal excuse unavailable, it became clear that the responsibility for making these changes was my own. It was at this moment that I really got started.

            On the Yamim Noraim our liturgy doesn’t leave a lot of room for blame. It doesn’t say, we have sinned before you by closing our heart or by deceit, but it wasn’t our fault. It simply says we have done wrong and we should change. Yes we should look carefully at what seems to get in the way of us making change, but in my own experience, it can be far too easy to stop once we have found this impediment rather than starting to figure out how to work around it. It is far too easy to say: “I have let myself down but – aha! I have an excuse! My work, my family, my personality is to blame!” When what we really need to say is, “Good! I think I figured out what is getting in the way of change, so now what do I do?”  The problem, the challenge, the character trait – might or might not be to blame. What is important is our desire to change and renewing our effort to make that change.

1. Fake it till you make it,

One of the things I did last year was work part-time doing community organizing with Paterson congregations in the coalition New Jersey Together of which Bnai Keshet is a member. The need to take action in Paterson is as profound as the group is diverse. One of the biggest issues there is a feeling of insecurity and fear in the face of crime. I remember at one of our first community meetings a young teen stood up as said, she was angry that her parents wouldn’t let her go out at night because it was unsafe, but more angry that her parents were right.

In response we developed a Safe Streets Campaign. When Deputy Police Chief William Fraher came to our assembly to respond to our demands that officers be deployed to walk the beat in the 10 block corridor between and around our member churches of St. Paul’s Episcopal and First AME Zion, we could tell that we were not the type of community group he was used to dealing with. Unlike the perfunctory community police forums, with either narrowly defined interest groups or disconnected individuals, we had a room filled to capacity with over 150 Protestants, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, African Americans, Hispanics, Whites, and Arab-Americans, clergy and congregants across a diverse economic spectrum. And we ran the show. We set the agenda. After telling our story, we asked, Deputy Chief Fraher if he would commit to our Safe Streets plan with a simple, Yes or No.

You should know, in our preparatory meetings with Officer Fraher he had consistently represented himself as anti-community policing. Officer Fraher is a big, tall man, with a shaved head. He has a tough, no-nonsense way of communicating. To him community policing sounded too touchy-feely, like asking officers to join in basketball games and offer counseling to kids in need.  But something in our action, perhaps our assertive but respectful dialogue or the stories of fear and crime that were shared, perhaps a projection of power; led him when we asked, “Will you commit foot patrol officer to be part of this partnership?” to say, “YES”. Our community policing plan has now been expanded throughout the city even in areas where we have no member congregations.

I’ll tell you a secret. We didn’t have a lot of power and we didn’t think he’d say, “Yes,” but we asked anyway. We did our research, we stated our demands, and we held the police and each other accountable to these demands.

When it comes to teshuva you don’t have to wait until you’re sure of your success to try. If you are unsure you can make the change in your life that you need, try any way. Fake it. Act as if you can. Take action and this will inevitably create a reaction. And in this action you may find your way to holding yourself accountable.

1. Sometimes the hardest thing to do, is nothing

I spent a lot of time last year meditating. In addition to my daily practice I went to two different weeklong silence retreats for rabbis. Yes you heard right – Rabbis – Silent – One Week!

We tend to think that when we are talking, we are really doing something. Many of us have jobs where all we do is talk. Many of us feel like we have to talk to understand ourselves. “Let me just talk this through with you.” Or “I’m just thinking out loud.” But I have noticed that very little of the noise in our lives, even the talking, is very real communication. For me at least, alI the talking, music, news programs, television, even silent voice in my mind, when I read newspapers and books can actually be an escape from being present with myself, my fears, my emotions. Talking can be used fill to up the moment, leaving no room for the fears that emerge when we remember just how narrow this bridge of our life really is.

At the conclusion of each of these week long retreats we had a ritual of re-entering into speech, in which each participant got to speak to group. In each case, I couldn’t speak without weeping. After seven days, I am finally asked to say a few words and all I could do was weep. I think for me, the experience of truly being with myself, of coming to peace with my own mind was so delightful and in its own way so heartbreaking, that tears were perhaps the only honest thing that I could have offered in the moment.

Being quiet is a great way to become reacquainted with ourselves and it is a good way to start noticing how our minds work. In silence we can notice message tapes that are constantly being generated by our minds. With a quite we can to consider if these messages are productive; if they are messages we want to react to. If you want to make change, being quietly mindful of your thoughts and internalized messages is a great place to start.

1. Sometimes the hardest thing to do, is nothing Part 2

So the truth is meditation is really not the same as doing nothing, meditation, at least at my level, is still a lot like doing something. But trying to stop being a congregational rabbi for a year, that was a whole other kind of learning to do nothing.

One of the deepest teachings for me of the last year is about what happens when I stop doing all the things that I usually do to affirm my purpose in life. A great majority of these can be summed up in the title Rabbi. Last year I stopped giving sermons, leading services, tutoring bnai mitzvah, performing weddings, counseling the bereaved, going to meetings at the synagogue, answering emails that begin “Dear Rabbi,” writing newsletters… You get the idea.

I’ll be honest, I often let my self-worth and self esteem rise and fall in relationship to my sense that I am impacting people, my community, the world. When things I am a part of go well, I feel energized, powerful and contented and when they go badly I blame myself. Regardless of the fact that my presence, my involvement may have been only one small factor in its success or failure. I am humbled by the obvious truth that the synagogue survived without me. Many of us work hard to assure ourselves that our lives have meaning and that our existence matters. Some of us work because we are afraid to stop, afraid of what might arise if given space.

We should work hard. And we should strive to have an impact, but we should do so with the humble understanding that we are but one, the world is large, and our successes or failures are not completely under our control. They are impacted by many other people and conditions. None of us are so critical or so important that we can’t stop, that we can’t cease from our constant labors.  

If President Obama can find time in his day for basketball, time in his week for a date, and time his calendar for a vacation, so can we. If as it says in our tradition God worked for 6 days to create the world, but on the 7^th day shavat vayinafash, God rested and was re-ensouled,  shouldn’t we also find time to do nothing, to rest and find our souls?

Sometimes the change we need is just a break. Sometimes our rejuvenation will only emerge from rest.

1. The Text is For You.

As a rabbi I get to spend a fair amount of time studying Jewish texts, but very little of this is really for its own sake. When I sit down, to study the weekly Torah portion, I know I better find something to say pretty quick or I won’t have a devar Torah on Shabbat.

Last year I spent a lot of time studying Hasidic masters and in particular Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. I was moved by what it felt like to read this text only for myself. To read commentaries on the weekly parsha and have the most important question be, how does this resonate with the life I am living?

   Jewish prayer and Jewish ritual is filled with text. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are experiences overflowing with texts. These texts, these prayers have power. They have thousands of years and millions of Jewish lives behind them. But this real power is dependent on how we treat them. Can we read and listen to these texts with the belief that our lives really do hang in the balance? Can we read them with the assumption that we are doing something profound and meaningful, rather than perfunctory or hollow?

Most of the prayers we do on Yom Kippur we repeat 5 times over 24 hrs. The assumption is that we might find truth in one of these prayers or for that matter in all these prayers, each time we read them.

When you are working to create change the texts of our tradition, the Torah, the prayers are your friends. When you are suffering, when you are faced with a challenging question, when you are in doubt, when you are looking for resolve, try sitting with a text – the liturgy or weekly parsha is a good place to start but really it could be any text. Sit with this text and look for connections to your life at this moment. You are bound to find it.

Our tradition instructs us regarding Torah, “Turn it and turn it for everything is in it.”[2] The Jews have always used the Torah to speak to their lives and to express their values, and guess what?-- We are the Jews!

Number 7: What’s the Real Point Anyway?

More than two years ago, when Sarah I were hatching a plan for my sabbatical, we were taken off guard by how stressful it was. Here was this tremendous opportunity and yet judging by the tone of our conversations, you might have guessed it was an immense burden. What we discovered was that the many options opened up by this interruption brought to the surface all the aspirations and all the rough spots in our lives.

Should we go away for the year, or be home so that Sarah could develop her career? If we go to Israel or somewhere else will our children thrive or suffer? If I follow one passion, one area of study, what others will remain neglected?

At some point I realized that whatever the program, where ever we lived, whatever I studied, it would be secondary to the never ending work of learning how to be human. The things I wanted to work on most: whether study, meditation & organizing, or spending time with my family, exercising and eating right, were all important before the sabbatical and will remain important my entire life.

The word teshuva, means turning but it specifically has a connotation of returning. The assumption of Judaism is that we are all perfect the way we are, we were created in the image of God and that we all have our own unique mitzvah to perform in the world. But somehow we get diverted from our path, we get distracted chasing after pleasant things or running away from hardships.

Teshuva is at its core our effort to be fully alive. Of course we need a way to make a living, and we need to do things that are fulfilling, and of course we have obligations to fulfill, but none of that is really why we are here. We push ourselves to achieve, to accomplish, to accumulate but these things fade, as we also will fade. We are alive for such a short time and our lives will never be replicated. We are here to become fully human, fully ourselves, each in our own holy way.

The work of teshuva was important last year, and will be necessary next year, but we can only do it now. Teshuva is not about trying to be something we are not, but rather about being exactly who we are. It is not about getting somewhere else, it is about being here completely, right now.

Teshuva means coming back to this.

One of the most inspiring things about this trip has been to see the flourishing of creative Jewish life. We  had the opportunity to learn with the recently elected Knesset member Ruth Calderon, inside the Kneset as part of her weekly Bet Midrash. It is, in no small number of ways remarkable to have a non-Orthodox woman teaching Talmud in the halls of the Knesset.

At the end of our trip we got to sit in on a daily Talmud study lead by Kobi Oz, lead singer of a very popular band Teapacks. Though not quite as popular, imagine sitting in on daily Talmud class with Bob Dylan. Kobi Oz, a Tunisian Jew who grew up in Sderot and is at home in contemporary hipster Tel Aviv sat with a minyan of secular Jews studying Talmud for its own sake. This is an open group at Alma (also founded by Ruth Calderon) that we were able to join.

We also heard from Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist leaders here in Israel about how the question was no longer one of only fighting to be acknowledged as a legitimate form of Jewish practice. This they said was a battle that was being won, with increasing, though still small numbers of rabbis even being paid by the Israeli government. The World Union of Progressive Jews, an international organization to which but the Reconstructionist and Reform movement in North America are members, has doubled in size Israel.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the leader of the Israeli Movement of Progressive Judaism said that our work has moved beyond just being accepted and that we have to play a serious and strategic role in protecting not only pluralism but democracy. That too often Judaism is used as justification for an anti-democratic discourse in Israel. He said that we are the ones that can rewrite that discourse so that Judaism is understood as supporting democratic values and human rights. In other words he said our battle has moved from one of about our status to one about our values.

He was explicit in saying we need to do this not only for Jews but for the 1.5 million non-Jewish residents of Israel. He was also the first person I heard who spoke instead of speaking of the tragic death of three Israeli teens and one Palestinian, said simply, "We must mourn the four Israeli boys who died."

I have more that I might mention - the wonderful and moving "secular" davening of Bet Tefillah Israeli, or Nava Tehillah founded by former Bnai Keshet Rabbinic Intern Ezra Weinberg. More about the kindergartens at Mevakshei Derech, a Reconstructionist congregation that is helping to bring the synagogue into relationship with Israelis who might never have entered in such a synagogue in the past. But the big story is that progressive Judaism is flourishing and taking up space here in ways that would have been unimaginable a decade ago and suggest great possibilities for the next decade.

The Greenhouse was started by Avital Geva.  His story is shared in Dreamers written by Yossi Klein Halevi (Avital shared with us that he had not in fact yet read this chapter). "At this ecological greenhouse we are working to improve the environment, create energy, educate and do a little tikkun olam." "We have more than 400 Arab and Jewish Israeli kids coming here from the area each week. Much of this education is side by side rather than integrated. But some motivated by parents is integrated. He holds a corn sprout in his hand. He says that with its seed, sprout and root it contains the entire Torah. "We try to teach teamwork rather than money or ego without saying it explicitly."

The sign in Hebrew is a play on words based on an Arik Einstein song. It says, "algae and I will change the world". 

The Greenhouse will be exhibiting at the NY JCC this autumn.