Defining Community, Defining Ourselves

Sermon Delivered Yom Kippur Evening 5780

October 8, 2019

           The members and board of Congregation Shomrei Shatnez were faced with a dilemma. It was a dilemma that in some ways was nice to have, but it was a dilemma nonetheless. A philanthropic fund with an interest in innovative approaches to Jewish life had approached the congregation with an unusual but very tempting offer. The fund would make a huge gift to the congregation -- something in the order of $20 million -- but the congregation had to agree to one stipulation in return. 

            Shomrei Shatnez was a smallish suburban synagogue with an annual budget of less than a million dollars, so a $20 million endowment with an average rate-of-return would provide more than enough income to cover its budget. But here was the stipulation: Shomrei Shatnez would no longer be allowed to charge dues or to raise money. Because people often make donations to their synagogue in honor or in memory of some person or event, the shul could accept donations, but they could only be used outside of the congregation, to help meet needs in the general community or support overseas Jewry. The only funds available for the congregation itself would be the proceeds of the endowment.

            So what was the dilemma that Shomrei Shatnez now faced? For the typical American synagogue, membership is defined financially. You fill out an application, you pay your dues -- or if you can’t afford full dues you make some kind of arrangement and pay a lesser amount -- and that’s pretty much it. If a congregation could no longer define membership by virtue of paying dues, what would be the criterion?

            One suggestion was simply to continue as before but without dues. If you want to join, you fill out the application and voila, you’re a member. But some of the leaders of the congregation realized that this might inadvertently lead to problems down the road. The $20 million gift was more than enough to sustain the congregation’s needs at its current level of budget and activity. But what if, discovering that there was now a congregation that didn’t charge anything to belong and didn’t even ask for donations, unaffiliated Jews and members of other congregations decided to join Shomrei Shatnez? Would the congregation need to hire additional staff, perhaps an assistant rabbi? Would the religious school grow larger than the faculty and facility could accommodate? Would they even outgrow their building? They realized that if they could no longer determine membership simply by paying dues, they would have to come up with some other way of defining it.

            What I have said so far has really just been a thought experiment. There is no congregation called “Shomrei Shatnez” and no one has set up a huge endowment conditional on a synagogue not charging dues. But if we were in a position so that we no longer needed to charge dues -- indeed, if we were actually forbidden to charge dues -- how would we define membership? And how would we define ourselves?

When people join a synagogue, what exactly are they joining? What does membership mean?

            To give you an example of entities trying to define themselves, in the 1960s in the United States, two very large companies completely controlled the market for manufacturing glass bottles which soda, milk, and other beverages came in. In 1970, the plastic soda bottle was introduced and both companies realized that they were facing a major challenge to their business. One of the companies increased its budget for R & D, hoping to make its manufacturing process cheaper and its glass bottles higher quality, because after all it was in the business of making glass bottles. It raised its advertising budget, hoping to convince consumers and beverage companies that glass bottles were superior to plastic and that they should stick with what was tried and true.

            The other company decided “we’re not in the business of making glass bottles. We’re in the business of making containers for beverages.” It transitioned its manufacturing facilities from glass to plastic. Today only one of those companies is still in business. Which one do you think it is?

So what business are we in? And by “we” I do not necessarily mean Kehilat Shalom but rather the American suburban synagogue, especially but not exclusively in its Conservative iteration.

            For several decades following the end of the Second World War, the suburban synagogue was in the Hebrew school and Bar/Bat Mitzvah business. Jews were moving  to the suburbs, which were ethnically and religiously mixed, from their urban, predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. The Jews leading this exodus were mostly American born children of immigrants. When growing up they might have spoken English with their parents but they probably spoke Yiddish or Yinglish with their grandparents. The neighborhoods where they lived were overwhelmingly Jewish. The newly-suburban Jews might not have been religiously observant but they were steeped in Jewish culture.

            Now they found themselves living in neighborhoods which might be ten or twenty percent Jewish rather than eighty or ninety. Their children were going to public schools with mostly non-Jewish classmates and very often the grandparents stayed behind in the “old neighborhood.” New synagogues were created at a dizzying pace and were sometimes unkindly labelled “Bar Mitzvah factories.” The typical membership trajectory saw a family join when their oldest child started Hebrew school and give up their membership shortly after the youngest kid’s Bar Mitzvah or maybe Confirmation in tenth grade. The fact that a significant percentage, perhaps even a majority, of families were only members for a few years didn’t threaten the stability of the model because there were always more families in the pipeline to replace them. Jewish parents would always want to make sure their kids had Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, the only way to do that was to join a shul and send your kids to Hebrew school, so people would join, pay the assigned dues, and send their kids to Hebrew school for the specified number of years.

            But this model started to crumble in the 1990s or so. More families had a Jewish and a non-Jewish parent, and even families with two Jewish parents didn’t always consider Jewish education a priority or feel the need to provide their children with Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. As Harvard Professor Robert Putnam documented in his book “Bowling Alone,” the post-Boomer generations tended not to join clubs and organizations as much as their predecessors did. And if the family did decide that a Bar or Bat Mitzvah was important, there were other ways of doing it; independent Hebrew schools, tutors, free-lance clergy who operate on a fee-for-service model. The recent Washington Jewish Population survey revealed that between 2003 and 2017 the total number of synagogue members in the Greater Washington area shrank slightly even though the total Jewish population had grown by 37%;  and that 58% of Jewish children received no formal Jewish education of any sort at any point.

            On the walls of one of the dining rooms at Goucher College in Baltimore there are painted a number of different quotes about higher education. The one that has stuck with me ever since I volunteered with Goucher Hillel almost twenty years ago was this: “I cannot show you the college. It is on vacation. But I can show you the buildings.” I understand this quote to mean that the college is not the buildings but the people who study, teach, and research in those buildings.

            The Hebrew terms for a synagogue is “Bet Knesset” which means “House of Assembly.” But when we pray in Hebrew for the welfare of the congregation and its members, we do not use the term “Bet Knesset” but rather “Kehila” or “Kehila Kedosha” -- congregation or holy congregation -- the same word as in the name of our congregation. We are Kehilat Shalom; we are not Beit Knesset Shalom. Our beautiful building is the place we study, the place we pray, the place we gather with each other for friendship and fellowship. But the building is not the congregation; the people are the wonderful congregation we have today.

            Because American synagogues have generally not asked for anything from their members other than money, synagogue membership has been for many a business transaction. While it is true that we use the term “member”, so does Costco. I am a “member” of Costco which asks nothing of me other than payment of my $60 annual dues. But if Keleigh and I ever reach the point where we shop at Costco so infrequently that it no longer seems worth the $60, we will not have any moral qualms or lose any sleep over our decision not to renew our membership.

Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg of Washington State recently wrote a piece which captures the problematic nature of the commodification of Judaism: “we are a cooperative. Not a business. We are a community, not a product. We exist only to bring vibrant and meaningful Jewish life into this world, something we have been doing together for more than 2000 years. If we view the congregation as a product, as a thing, as something that either serves all our needs personally in the exact ways we need to be served—we are no longer traveling the path of sacred Jewish community. We are shopping. . . .I often hear people say that they do not want to support the community because they do not “use it.” When I hear those words I am hit in the face by how much Judaism has been turned into just another product that people either “use” or do not. Commodifying Judaism strips it of its inherent beauty and strength.”

            A few minutes ago I mentioned Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone” which documents the decline of “social capital” in the United States. Social capital means the benefits we as a society get from all kinds of voluntary involvement -- churches and synagogues, volunteer fire and ambulance squads, service clubs like Rotary or Lions, and so on. If you have been involved in any of these types of groups you know that it is harder and harder to get members and to convince members to step up and become leaders. But the decrease in joining is not limited to volunteer organizations; Putnam notes that more Americans are bowling than ever, but fewer of us belong to bowling leagues -- we are “bowling alone.”

A few years ago, a Protestant minister named Lillian Daniel wrote a “Daily Devotional” for an internet e-mail list that went viral and eventually prompted her to write a whole book based on it. I shared it then. with my previous congregation, and I share it now because I think it speaks to American Jews as well, since we are at least as American as we are Jewish and we are not exempt from general societal trends.

Here is what she wrote:

“On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo. 

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet? 

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself. 

Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community?  Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church. “

If you look at the liturgy of the High Holidays, almost all of it is written in the plural. We refer to God on the High Holidays as “Avinu Malkenu” -- our Parent, our Sovereign -- in the plural. We ask God for forgiveness “al chet shechatanu lifanecha” -- for the sin which we have sinned against You. We say “ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu”  “we have trespassed, we have dealt treacherously, we have robbed.” We, we, we; us, us, us. 

How do we understand the fact that our liturgy is in the plural? Why am I expected to confess to a whole series of sins which I have not personally committed?

As our teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us: “in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” 

This sense of mutual responsibility is expressed, I think, in the requirement of a minyan for certain prayers. There is an old Yiddish saying that nine rabbis don’t make a minyan but ten horse thieves do. It is an important lesson: in order to “count” in Judaism you do not have to be a rabbi or a saint. You just have to show up.

You have to show up because we need you and because you need us -- we need each other. We need each other because together we can do what is impossible for each of us as an individual. 

The increasingly individualistic nature of American religion and Judaism’s emphasis on community come into tension particularly around the requirement for a minyan in order to say Mourner’s Kaddish. This tension was highlighted some years ago in an episode of the TV series “Northern Exposure” where the inhabitants of Cicely, Alaska, went to great lengths but were ultimately unsuccessful in putting together a minyan of ten Jews so that the lead character, Dr. Joel Fleishman, could say Kaddish for an uncle who had died. Here in Upper Montgomery County  it is generally not difficult to arrange for a minyan when one is needed but it can take a little pre-planning and maybe a few phone calls to friends and neighbors.

Some will choose to say Kaddish even without a minyan and while I do not endorse such a practice I would never attempt to prevent anyone from doing so. But I think the practice of saying Kaddish with a minyan is important and is worth some inconvenience to maintain.

The requirement for a minyan serves, I think, to force the mourner out of his or her isolation. It requires the mourner to be in contact with other people and requires the community to assist the mourner as well. Relaxing the requirement for a minyan, encouraging people to simply say Kaddish at home or wherever they are, may seem compassionate, but it undermines a core pillar of Jewish life and accelerates the disintegration of our sense of community, our sense that we are responsible to one another.

I started this talk with a thought experiment about a congregation that had the ability, in fact the requirement, of decoupling membership and finances. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury. But Doug mentioned during his talk on Rosh Hashanah -- and it’s not the first time he’s said this -- that he considers everyone who participates in one of our activities as part of our congregation.

Some of you here today are former members of Kehilat Shalom; others have never been members but have given annually in order to attend High Holiday services. With respect and affection, I want to tell you that we need and want you to become members of our congregation. Your participation matters to us; you matter to us.

Synagogue membership is not a “fee for service” proposition where you are purchasing certain services from the congregation. It is a brit kodesh, a holy covenant. It is a two-way commitment and a two-way responsibility. 

The Days of Awe are all about teshuvah, which while we translate it as “repentance” is really closer to “return.” There are certain values which we know we ought to live by. We know that we need community, that we need each other. We know that our society can be better, that taking care of our neighbor is more important than saving a couple of bucks, that caring about others and being cared about are basic human needs. Yom Kippur comes to remind us, to call us back to a better way of life. May we have the courage to live our lives in community and with concern for each other. 

Jan Karski and the Inhabitants of Sodom

Sermon delivered the first morning of Rosh Hashanah 5780

September 30, 2019

The old man got on the Metrobus on a rainy afternoon. He was having difficulty putting away his umbrella while trying, in flustered English, to secure his senior citizen bus discount. The bus passengers were upset at the delay and, hearing his accent, cast their anger frontward at him: someone shouted “go back to where you came from."

But the old man couldn’t go back to where he came from and hadn’t been in his native country for over 40 years. The man was Jan Karski, a professor in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Jan Karski was the greatest man I ever knew personally. He was one of the most popular professors in the Foreign Service School and everyone in the program had to take his course in “Modern Foreign Governments”, so there were usually 200 or more people in the class. I took his class during the fall semester of 1978 and one day in September he made an announcement before he began his lecture. He said that his classes on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur would be taped and copies left in the dean’s office so that anyone who observed those holidays could get copies.

Other professors made accommodations for Jewish students who had to miss classes if they were asked, but Karski was the only professor outside of the Theology Department who proactively did so. At the time, I was a little surprised that this Polish Catholic professor with the thick accent and courtly manner did this, but I didn’t know his story then.

Jan Karski was not his real name. He was born Jan Kozielewski to an aristocratic family and served briefly in the Polish diplomatic corps before the Nazis conquered Poland. After the Nazi conquest he joined the Polish underground. In 1940, because of his knowledge of several languages, he became a courier between the underground and the Polish Government in Exile, which was in London. This is when he adopted the pseudonym Jan Karski. During one of his missions, in July 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Slovakia and severely tortured. He managed to escape.

In 1942 Karski was twice smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw Ghetto for the purpose of directly observing what was happening to Polish Jews. Also, disguised as an Estonian camp guard, he visited a sorting and transit point for the Bełżec death camp. Karski then went to London where he met with Polish politicians in exile and the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, giving a detailed statement on what he had seen in Warsaw and Bełżec. In 1943 he traveled to the United States, meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Oval Office, telling him about the situation in Poland and becoming the first eyewitness to tell him about the Jewish Holocaust. He also described what he had seen to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

In 1944, at the request of the Polish Government in Exile, Karski wrote a book about his mission which sold 400,000 copies. When Karski first came to Washington in 1943 he intended to return to Poland once the Allies defeated the Nazis. But as a devout Catholic and fervent anticommunist, he decided to remain rather than go back to the newly-Communist Poland. He got his Ph.D. at Georgetown, joined its faculty, and never spoke about his experiences again until some 40 years later. He had agreed to be profiled by the Washington Post and this lead to him being interviewed by Claude Lanzmann for his magisterial documentary “Shoah.” Karski’s story became known; he was honored by many synagogues and Jewish organizations. Yad Vashem formally named him a “Righteous Gentile” and the State of Israel gave him honorary citizenship. When Communism fell, the Polish government also honored him. He died in the year 2000 and in 2012 he was posthumously awarded the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Although he was honored throughout the world as a hero, Karski always rejected that label. Indeed, he considered himself to have been a failure. Although he understood that the likelihood of success was small, he had hoped to motivate the Allied powers to take action to save at least some of the Jews who were doomed to be murdered. He failed at this, and it haunted him to the very end. In 1965 Karski married Pola Nierenska, a Polish Jewish woman, whose entire family had been killed in the Holocaust; she died of suicide in 1992 when she jumped from their Bethesda balcony.

In 1981 Karski gave one of his first public speeches, to a gathering of American liberators of concentration camps. Reminding them that he had failed in his mission, he said; “And thus I myself became a Jew. And just as my wife’s entire family was wiped out in the ghettos of Poland, in its concentration camps and crematoria – so have all the Jews who were slaughtered become my family. But I am a Christian Jew… I am a practicing Catholic… My faith tells me the second original sin has been committed by humanity. This sin will haunt humanity until the end of time. And I want it to be so.”

Although Jan Karski eventually married a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, this was more than twenty years after he repeatedly risked his life to make sure the world knew what was happening. Why did he do it?

There are some people for whom Karski’s actions would not make sense if their thinking was followed to its logical conclusion. The first time that I ever received hate mail (back when it took some effort to send hate mail because it involved paper and a pen and an envelope and a postage stamp) was in January 1993 when I was the Hillel Director at American University. I had just returned from visiting Haiti with nine other rabbis and there was a story about my trip on the front page of the Washington Jewish Week. I received a couple of angry and obscene letters from people who felt that unless a problem was specifically affecting Jews, we should not get involved.

This attitude persists today. On September 13 this year the Jewish Community Relations Council cosponsored a rally in downtown Rockville in support of immigrants’ rights. JCRC Facebook posts often garner lots of comments and discussions but most JCRC posts deal with support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism and garner negative comments from antisemites, racists, and haters of Israel. But the JCRC posts about the immigrant rights rally received lots of negative comments from people who appear to be Jewish, saying the JCRC should stick to defending Jews and Israel and not worry about other people.

In Pirkei Avot Chapter 5 Mishna 10, we come across a somewhat curious teaching: There are four types of people: One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is an ignoramus. One who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" -- this is an intermediate characteristic; others say that this is the character of Sodom. One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chassid [pious person]. And one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked.

Most of this Mishna makes intuitive sense. If what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine, we have disorder and confusion. If I say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, I’m a sociopath. If I was the kind of person who said mi casa es su casa and really meant it, I’d be some kind of saint. But “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” seems to be quite reasonable; while it’s true that the Mishnah says that this is characteristic of an average person, it goes on that “some say” that this is the characteristic of the people of Sodom -- who, you will remember, were destroyed by God for their sins.

Because we live in a society that is predominantly Christian, many American Jews know only the Christian teaching that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. But that isn’t the way the Jewish tradition reads it. The Prophet Ezekiel said : “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” And the Midrash Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer states: “It was declared in Sodom: ‘Whoever shares his bread with the stranger, orphan, and the poor shall be burned at the stake.’”

Orthodox rabbi Benjamin Hecht of Toronto explains the rabbinic understanding of the social order in Sodom. “The Sodomite would not steal from another but, on principle, he/she also would not extend a helping hand. ... The fact is that in Sodom, it was considered wrong for someone to receive something for nothing or to give something to another for nothing. To them, this was an important societal ‘value’, necessary for the proper functioning of a community. From a Jewish perspective, the adherence to such a negative moral viewpoint, though, was deemed to be the key nature of the evil within the population of Sodom. The driving force of the Sodomites in the story was their opinion that a wrong was committed, that it was ‘immoral’ [to give something for nothing] no matter what the circumstances. This drove the Sodomites to act. They had a ‘principle’ that what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours and nothing should be given for nothing.” “From a Jewish perspective, the story of Sodom is . . .one of ‘committed’ citizens motivated by an evil principle, which they believed to be correct, that was being violated.”

Jan Karski was the polar opposite of the citizens of Sodom. He was tortured and risked his life in an effort to convince the Western powers to save Jews. He did this even though he was not Jewish. He failed in his mission because the Western powers could not be convinced that saving Jewish lives was worth the investment in munitions and manpower to do so.

The Jan Karski Educational Foundation was established not only to honor his memory but to urge humanity to follow in his footsteps. The Foundation created the “Spirit of Jan Karski Award” to recognize “individuals who through their actions have demonstrated the values represented by Jan Karski and have distinguished themselves by defending human rights, speaking out against aggression and on behalf of the integrity of ethnic and religious groups and sovereign nations.” Award recipients include NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for calling public attention to humanitarian crises throughout the world; Ambassador Samantha Power, for advancing the cause of genocide prevention; and the late Senator John McCain, “ for his courageous leadership and willingness to speak truth to power about international acts of aggression.”

As long as there is a Jewish community we will argue with each other about how much time, energy, and money we should devote to specifically Jewish interests and how much to the general welfare. If we do not take care of our own needs, we will not exist. But if we only take care of our own needs we have no reason to exist; nor would we have a right to complain when others don’t help us when we are in need. Or as Hillel put it over 2000 years ago: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

When we reach out to serve others -- a Christmas brunch at the Men’s Emergency Shelter, collecting school supplies for children in need, sending clothing and toys and hygiene supplies to asylum seekers in Nogales, Mexico -- we do not do it because the people we are helping are Jewish. We do it because we are Jewish. When Israeli search-and-rescue and rebuilding teams go to the Bahamas, when Israeli doctors help refugees in Syria -- they do not do it because those being helped are Jewish. They do it because they are Jewish and understand that we are called to be a light unto the nations.

At the end of this day, the world will either be a more or less kind, compassionate, and loving place because of your presence. As we ask God to inscribe us for blessing in the book of life, it is these qualities which will define us.

Disloyal Jews

          The great Israeli novelist Amos Oz, who died this past December, was born and grew up in Jerusalem but his parents had fled from Germany to what was then Palestine. As Oz showed in his memoir “A Tale of Love and Darkness” (made into a Hebrew-language movie by Natalie Portman), his parents never really adjusted to life in Palestine and continued to feel nostalgic for the life they left behind in Germany.

            Recalling what his father had told him about life in Germany before the Shoah, Oz wrote: “Out there, in the world, all the walls were covered with graffiti: 'Yids, go back to Palestine,' so we came back to Palestine, and now the world at large shouts at us: 'Yids, get out of Palestine.’”

            I had actually heard Oz tell this story in speeches even before he published his memoir, but this week it resonated with me more deeply than ever before. In pre-war Europe, Jews were condemned for not living in “Palestine” and today we are condemned for doing so. Here in the United States, we have a Member of Congress, Ilhan Omar, who said in a speech in March: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country [Israel].”  And then of course earlier this week the President said that Jews who vote for Democrats are either “disloyal” or “ignorant”.

            This type of language, whether from a first-term Representative or from the President, needs to concern us. The point is not whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, whether you generally support the President or oppose him. Everyone in the United States has a right to support the party and candidate of their choice without being called "disloyal" or conversely being accused of dual loyalty. This kind of statement is antithetical to American values.

            In the wake of these comments, as well as last week’s controversy where the President successfully pressured Israel to deny entry to Representative Omar and Representative Rashida Tlaib, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin phoned Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After their conversation he tweeted: "I spoke today with@SpeakerPelosi about the importance of strong US-Israel relations and I thanked her for her commitment," Rivlin tweeted Wednesday. "The link between us is between peoples, based on historical ties, deep, strong friendships and shared values, not dependent on the links with either party."

            President Rivlin is absolutely correct. A number of years ago in a previous congregation I served, I organized a discussion between two congregants who explained why they were members of the particular political party they supported. The Republican presenter, one of my closest friends in the congregation, said that one of the reasons he was a Republican is that he recognized that the majority of Jews were Democrats and that it was important that there be Jews in both parties. If not, this would be detrimental to Jewish interests because Republicans could ignore Jewish concerns on the theory that Jews won’t vote for them anyway, whereas Democrats could ignore Jewish concerns on the theory that Jews will vote for them anyway. With Jews in both parties, neither party could ignore our concerns or take our vote for granted. I found, and still find, his point to be very convincing.

            Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or an independent, if you consider yourself pro-Israel you should not want Israel to be just another partisan issue. The political pendulum in the United States swings back and forth, and at some point there will once again be a Democratic President guiding foreign policy and a Democratic Congress determining the amount of military assistance Israel receives from the United States. Support of Israel is widespread today among both parties, even if there may be disagreements with specific policies of the Israeli government. Last week 41 Democratic representatives and 31 Republican representatives traveled to Israel with AIPAC. It is not in Israel’s best interests to become too closely identified with one side of the American political divide.

            The injection of the “loyalty” of American Jews into public discussion is simply toxic and should be out of bounds, whether it comes from the left side of the spectrum or the right. Many Americans have roots in other countries, celebrate those roots, and support policies favorable to their ancestral homes, and American Jews are no different in this regard. We love and support Israel but our loyalty, which is a legal and political concept, is to the United States.

            By all means advocate for the policies you consider to be in the best interests of the United States and in the best interests of Israel. But let’s do so with love and respect and a recognition that despite whatever differences we have, we are one community and one nation.

A Couple of Current TV Shows Worth Watching

           Every now and then I recommend television which I think is worth watching, and I’m going to do so again today.

            The first program is the movie “Red Sea Diving Resort” on Netflix. It tells the true story of how a small group of Israeli undercover agents worked to bring approximately 8000 Ethiopian Jews through Sudan to Israel. Recall that Sudan is an Arab country, but it borders Ethiopia and is on the Red Sea and thus accessible to the Israeli port of Eilat via ship. In order to cloak their efforts, the Israelis actually rented an unused dive resort from the Sudanese government and used it to stage their efforts and house the refugees who had walked hundreds of miles from Ethiopia to Sudan. When the effort was threatened with discovery, the United States stepped in and President Reagan authorized several military airlifts to get the remaining refugees from Sudan to Israel.

            The movie has received some criticism for focusing on the Israeli rescuers and not the Ethiopian Jews themselves, but for whatever reason this is the story the filmmakers (led by Israeli director Gideon Raff, creator of Homeland), chose to tell. But the film reminds us why Israel exists and how American administrations of both parties have worked closely with Israel to ensure its security and its status as a haven for those who need it.

            The second is a much less happy story and that is the ten part series “Our Boys” on HBO. First of all, in watching this I was reminded how accustomed I have become to watching streaming on-demand television and being able to binge watch all or most of a series. But “Our Boys” is being shown by HBO one episode at a time, with a new episode each week, and so I have only been able to see the first two episodes.

            “Our Boys” is based on the events of the summer of 2014 in and around Jerusalem. As you recall, three Israeli teenagers, Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Frankel, were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas. Shortly after their bodies were discovered, some extremist Israeli settlers kidnapped a Palestinian teen, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and killed him by setting him on fire while he was still alive.

            The first two episodes focused mostly on the family of the Palestinian teen, their anguish while he was missing, and the Israeli Security Services’ attempt to find him. At the point where the second episode stops, the body of Mohammed Abu Khdeir has been found but his parents have not been notified. The police say that it’s unthinkable to them that any Jew would have done such a thing, but the Shin Bet officer assigned to the case knows differently (as, of course, do we).

            Some of this is painful to watch. The treatment of the Abu Khdeir family by the police was not always courteous or respectful. The series shows documentary footage of angry Israeli mobs rampaging through Jerusalem shouting “Death To Arabs.” I was not in Israel when these particular events happened. (I did go, as you may remember, a few weeks later when the war to which the events of earlier that summer led broke out.) But I was in Israel after a major terror attack in 1994 and witnessed at that time the same type of mobs and the same chants.

            But we also know that Israel did find, prosecute, and convict the three men who murdered Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Beyond that, as I was watching the show, which was written and produced by both Jewish and Arab Israelis and is in Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles, I was reminded of the fact that for all its flaws, Israel is a democracy with freedom of expression and a thriving creative community which by and large leans to the left politically.

            It’s hard for me to imagine that any Arab country would have permitted the creation of a television series that humanizes Israeli Jews the way that “Our Boys” humanizes Palestinian Arabs. Israeli movies and television are great in part because they tend to show the full truth of Israel, warts and all; the good parts and the not-so-good parts, the parts which fill us with pride (a la “Red Sea Diving Resort”) and the parts which are troubling. A true democracy has nothing to hide.

Judaism and the Abortion Debate

            

          With so many states having recently passed or considering legislation which purports to eliminate or severely restrict abortion, I want to take a look at what Judaism says about this issue.

            Before I do that, I want to talk about “framing”, in other words, how an issue is presented and perceived in the public square. To a large extent, the debate over abortion is framed as religious people who are “pro-life” vs. secular people who are “pro-choice.” In point of fact, as a Conservative rabbi I am pro-choice precisely because of our religious teachings, and this is why the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism issued this statement this week after the Alabama legislature passed a law which, if allowed to go into effect, would ban virtually all abortions.

            The most recent spate of legislation is rooted in the Catholic and Evangelical Christian belief that we become full human beings with full human rights at the moment of conception. Catholics and Evangelicals have every right to believe this but it is a belief, it is not a scientifically provable fact. The normative Jewish teaching codified in the Talmud and Codes is that a fetus becomes a full human being at the moment of birth -- when its head or in the case of a breach birth the majority of its body has emerged from the womb.

            The halachic position that a fetus is not a full human being is rooted in Exodus 21:22-23. These verses describe a situation where two men are fighting with each other and as a result of their fight, a pregnant woman is injured. If the woman herself dies as a result, the death penalty is incurred. If the fetus dies but not the mother, the perpetrator is fined. The inescapable conclusion from these verses is that a fetus is not a full human being and causing its death is not murder, because in the Pentateuch there is no such thing as a fine for murder. There is only the death penalty.

            The fact that we do not consider a fetus a full human being does not mean that a fetus has no value. The Talmud says in a number of places that “a fetus is a limb of its mother” rather than an independent being itself, but just as we would need a compelling reason to amputate a limb, we need a compelling reason to “amputate,” so to speak, a fetus. But regardless of whether the halacha would or wouldn’t countenance any particular abortion, the assertion that abortion is “murder” is contrary to Jewish teachings, full stop.

            Halacha going back as far as the Mishnah (codified in 200 CE) actually requires abortion if carrying the pregnancy to term endangers the life of the mother. This is based on the law of the rodef, the “pursuer.” In a case where the fetus endangers its mother’s life, it is considered a “pursuer” and we are obligated to put the welfare of the mother first -- up until the point where the head or the majority of the body has emerged, at which point we don’t kill one human being to protect another.

            The point of this admittedly cursory survey of halacha regarding abortion is simply to help you understand what Jewish religious teaching on the subject is and why Jews do not share the belief of many Catholics and Evangelicals that abortion is murder and that all abortions should be banned. While in point of fact Judaism might disapprove of some of the reasons some women choose to have abortions, Judaism disapproves of lots of things which people do which nevertheless are and should remain perfectly legal. I’m not aware, for example, of any move anywhere in the United States to ban the sale of pork or of clothing made from a mixture of linen and wool (Lev. 19:19, Deut. 22:11).

            Having counseled women who were unsure about having an abortion, and even having accompanied women to the abortion clinic, I know that this is a serious decision that is not made lightly. I deeply respect those who have a religious-based opposition to abortion but there is no reason for any state or the Federal government to decide that the Catholic/Evangelical belief is correct and the Jewish and liberal Protestant belief is wrong. I hope and pray that these clearly unconstitutional laws will not survive the judicial scrutiny they will surely receive.

Kosher for Passover Made Intelligible -- 5779/2019

“Kosher for Passover” Made Intelligible

The following is intended as general guidance for observing Passover according to normative Conservative guidelines. Different families have different traditions and if you have a family tradition that may be more stringent on a particular question, it is always permissible to be strict. It is not a violation of Jewish law to avoid taking leniencies even if they are legally permitted.

--CLA

Observing the dietary restrictions of Passover is not always easy, but it is made even more complicated by misunderstandings and misinformation, both of which are rampant. To help you in your observance, I have prepared this Pesach Guide, trying to be as straightforward as possible. In doing so, I have consulted the Rabbinical Assembly Pesach Guide, but I alone am responsible for the rulings and conclusions contained herein. This guide was revised in the spring of 2016 to reflect the recent decision of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Conservative Movement to permit the consumption of kitniyot. It was further revised for clarity and style in 2018 and again in 2019

 The full CJLS Passover Guide can ge found online at www.rabbinicalassembly.org/pesah-guide.

I. What is Chametz?

Chametz (“leaven”) is the product of five specific grains: wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye. Once these grains come into contact with water for eighteen minutes they are considered chametz. These are the same five grains which can be made either into bread which requires the hamotzi blessing or into matzah. We are forbidden not only to consume these products during Pesach, but even to own them or derive benefit from them in any way. Obvious examples of chametz include bread, cakes, cereals, pasta, and most alcoholic beverages other than wine. Only products made from these five grains can become actual chametz. However, once these grains have been made into matzah they are no longer subject to becoming chametz, and thus we can use matzah meal or crumbled matzah for all kinds of different Pesach products.

Note that the issue of chametz, despite popular misconceptions, has nothing to do with the presence or absence of yeast. Crackers, pasta, pita, and flour tortillas contain no yeast, yet they are still chametz and forbidden for Passover use.

II. What are Kitniyot? 

Another category of products which Ashkenazi Jews historically did not use for Pesach is kitniyot (“legumes.”) This category in essence consists of things which can be ground into flour. The most common forms of kitniyot are corn, rice, and beans. Ashkenazi authorities, fearing that people might accidentally use wheat flour while thinking it was corn or rice flour, banned the use of these products on Pesach as well. Sephardic communities never accepted this prohibition and thus Sephardic Jews have always been free to eat these products on Pesach to their heart’s content.

In December 2015 the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Conservative movement passed two responsa permitting the consumption of kitniyot by all Jews. Of course, just because consumption of kitniyot is permissible does not mean it is obligatory and if changing your family custom makes you uncomfortable you are free to continue to observe it.

A couple of things are worth noting here:

a.) There was never a prohibition for Ashkenazi Jews of owning kitniyot on Pesach or having them in your home. While actual chametz needs to be disposed of or sold through the agency of the rabbi and locked away, this is not necessary with kitniyot for those who continue to refrain from them during Pesach.

b.) Different communities in Europe followed different practices with regard to what was or was not considered kitniyot. Some products which have different status in different communities are garlic, mustard, and string beans. If you maintain the practice of avoiding kitniyot during Pesach, you should follow your family’s tradition as to whether or not a particular food is to be avoided.

III. What Products Require Kosher for Passover Certification?

Another area of confusion is what products require certification, and why some products may be purchased without certification before but not during Pesach.

During the year, an accidental admixture of forbidden foods which is less than 1/60th of the total is considered nullified. This would also apply to any accidental addition of chametz in an otherwise Kosher-for-Passover product. That is the reason why we formally nullify any overlooked chametz both the evening and the morning before Pesach. But during Pesach, even the tiniest amount of chametz cannot be nullified.

An example of this type of product is orange juice. Orange juice is a product which in the normal course of things is chametz-free. But suppose it is produced in a factory which also produces chametz-containing products. There is a remote possibility that some small amount of chametz might accidentally wind up in our orange juice, but if we bought the juice before Pesach, this would be nullified. If we buy it during Pesach, the miniscule amount of chametz is not nullified, and thus juice bought during Pesach needs certification.

The following foods do not require Kosher for Passover certification if purchased before or during Pesach, i.e. they are always acceptable without special Passover certification:

Fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, fresh kosher meat, fish.

The following foods do not require Kosher for Passover certification if bought before Pesach but require certification if bought during Pesach:

Unflavored caffeinated coffee (flavored, instant and decaffeinated coffees require certification), sugar, pure tea (not herbal or decaf), salt, pepper, natural spices, pure fruit juices, frozen uncooked vegetables, milk, Grade A butter, hard cheeses, frozen uncooked fruit (with fruit as the only ingredient), and baking soda.

The following foods  require Kosher for Passover certification whether purchased before or during Pesach:

All baked products (matzah, matzah meal, cakes, cookies, etc.), processed foods, wine, vinegar, liquor, oils, dried fruits, candy, flavored milk, ice cream, yogurt, soda, decaffeinated coffee or tea, herbal or flavored tea, and canned tuna fish.

Kitniyot:

Rice and dried beans should either have Passover certification “for those who eat kitniyot” or else they must be sifted through before Pesach to find and dispose of any possible grains of chametz which might have become mixed in. Processed kitniyot (such as canned beans) require Passover certification as does any other processed food because of the complexity of the manufacturing process. It is never a good idea to simply rely on the ingredients listing to determine if a product is kosher for Pesach.

IV. Pets and Pesach:

The problem with pets and Pesach is not a question of animals eating chametz or non-Kosher food. Animals are not subject to the mitzvot and there is no problem with them eating anything. The issue is that Jews are forbidden to own or benefit from chametz during Pesach.

The problem can be dealt with in one of three ways:

1. Feed your pets Kosher for Passover table scraps during Pesach if that is possible.

2. Scrutinize pet food labels to make sure they contain no chametz (kitniyot and non-kosher meats such as pork or shrimp are not a problem).

3. Include your pet and its food in the sale of chametz authorization.

V. Conservative Jews and Kitniyot

The 2015 decision of the Conservative Movement’s CJLS to permit the consumption of kitniyot by all Jews during Passover has had a mixed reception. Some follow it, some reject it, and some follow a middle ground approach.

Because we want everyone to be comfortable eating at our synagogue at all times, I have decided not to permit consumption of kitniyot or kitniyot-containing products at Kehilat Shalom during Passover.

For those of you who may wonder about my personal practice: as noted above, rice and beans to be consumed during Pesach need to be sifted through before Pesach to make sure that no grains of actual chametz have become mixed in (unless the rice or beans have reliable Kosher for Passover certification). Because I view it as unlikely that people will really do this, I do not recommend consumption of actual beans or rice during Pesach and I do not consume them myself.

However, on occasion one finds products with reliable certifications “for those who eat kitniyot” coming from Israel, France, Mexico, or other countries. I recommend these products if you are comfortable eating kitniyot, but I reiterate that you are perfectly free to continue avoiding kitniyot if that is what makes sense to you.

VI. Kosher for Passover Certification:

When looking for products which require Kosher for Passover certification, it is important to make sure that the certification is actually printed on the label or bottle cap and not just a sticker which is handled at the retail level. There is no guarantee that the sticker was applied to the proper product.

Similarly, do not assume that just because a store stocks something in the Passover section that it is actually kosher for Passover. Neither the supermarket clerks nor their managers are experts in Jewish religious practices, and it is not uncommon for “Jewish” foods which are not kosher-for-Passover to be placed in or near the Passover section. It is your responsibility to check for appropriate Passover certification. Earlier this week in the Goshen Plaza Giant, I found Kosher-for-Passover chicken stock right next to chicken stock which is kosher but not for Passover, and both were stocked in the store’s Passover section along with hamantashen left over from Purim. I am sure that the stores are acting in good faith but you must exercise reasonable vigilance.

It is not uncommon to find matzah which is not Kosher for Passover -- it will state “Not For Passover Use” on the label but you must look for it. Some people eat matzah year-round and these products are not produced using the special Passover stringencies.

VII. Some Final Thoughts:

We are fortunate to live in an age when many kosher products, both for Pesach and year-round, are available even to Jews who live in areas with relatively small Jewish communities. Gone are the days when kosher-observant Jews subsisted on matzah, potatoes, cheese and eggs during Pesach. I hope that this guide makes your Passover observance more meaningful and less stressful. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.