Why I’m a Member
By: Jerry Egherman, John Williams, David Alpern
It constantly amazes us that when we ask people why did you join, they say it’s because they wanted to join a community, yet they rarely if ever appear at community events. It makes us think that it must be hard for them to be a community of one. Our vision for Temple Beth Shalom is to unite the factions, to achieve cohesiveness, and to continue to create and program events that unite the community and draw in our families, friends, guests, and prospective new members.
Each of us spends time to promote vibrant activities that are designed to service our TBS community, while also serving to fortify the Temple’s coffers. Let us review a few tasks that each congregant can do:
* Ask not what your Temple can do for you, but what you can do for your Temple
* When dropping off or picking up your child from Torah School, come inside. Park your car and come in and say hi to other parents
* If you hear of an event, be part of it, such as our Hot Dog BBQ sales that frequently occur as our Sunday school sessions end at noon
* Contribute content to our website, blog, social networks (on Facebook.com and EveryJew.com)
* Attend services when you can
* Pick an area of interest and become active – or start an interest group. You may not realize how many people in the TBS community share your interest(s).
And….feel free to reach out to any of us for support, direction, and ideas. One thing we’ve learned from other large religious organizations is that those that are very large and successful typically can boast that an overwhelming majority of their congregants are involved, and engaged in support and social activities.
John Williams doing Karaoke
Two Ways to Understand Our Tzuris
Two Ways to Understand Our Tzuris
Yizkor, Yom Kippur, 5770
Delivered at Temple Beth Shalom, Long Beach
Thanks to friend and colleague, Rabbi Donniel Hartman for many of the ideas in this sermon.
Yizkor is such a hard time during the service. It guides us back to our losses, and summons our tears. It is the appointment with our suffering. Yizkor is the screening of our memories of those we loved and lost. No wonder many of us stubbornly hold onto the practice, opposed by the rabbis, of sending our children untouched by loss from the sanctuary.
All religions attempt to give meaning to suffering. Yizkor is a Jewish ritual shaped to channel our pain. But it is also a ritual that conveys the message that God hears our suffering. Moreover, the prayers of Yizkor put into words our hope that God takes care of our loved ones who have passed into the next world. Yizkor proclaims that God does not abandon them and by inference, God does not abandon us. The memorial service conveys a certain cosmic stability in which God remembers as we take pains to remember. We hold onto Yizkor because of this convergence of remembering. Yizkor gives us relief and a sense of stability in the face of our loss.
We crave stability. This past year has been anything but stable. Last year, before the economic chaos hit, we thought our jobs were secure; we were confident that our retirement savings would be there for our golden years. We had worked hard to secure a college education for our children. We were confident that our children could easily launch their careers when they finished their studies. A lot of things we could assume about our lives last year are no longer true. Perhaps we should add a Yizkor for the world we knew a year ago.
In America we have been brought up on the myth of stability. Decades of prosperity combined with great abundance, and never ending innovation created an illusion of continuous progress. America had gone through its depression 80 years ago and we had developed antibodies to fend it off. We have come to expect stability. In fact, we may feel entitled to it.
In the West, especially, stability has become our God. We crave it. We work like crazy to restore it when it falls apart. Even as terrorists toppled our greatest skyscrapers, the president told us to go shopping to restore our sense of normalcy. But September 15, 2008 did more to shatter our stability than September 11, 2001. The stress and anxiety that we have experienced over the last year has been to many so difficult and unnerving. Our world has really changed.
What do we do when we experience pain, anxiety, and stress as we have this past year? What happens when our world changes, shattering the illusion of stability we held so dear?
Today, I offer two explanations from our tradition that attempt to make sense of sudden chaos and instability.
The first explanation is: Our actions are the cause of instability. We, therefore, need to make up with God to restore stability to our world.
The second explanation is: The loss of stability gives us an opportunity to change our lives.
Let me explore with you these two responses in an effort to help us face our current situation.
In last week’s portion we find a classic formulation of an explanation of chaos. The poem, Haazinu, describes God’s early relationship to the Jewish people.
“He found Israel in a desert region…. He engirded him, watched over him, guarded him as the pupil of His eye. Like an eagle that rouses his nestlings, gliding down to his young.” Deut. 32: 10-11
This great biblical poem describes God’s love for us, His saving us from destruction, and His parental protection when we could not protect ourselves.
But the poem then describes our ingratitude and rebellion.
“So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked-You grew fat and gross and coarse. He forsook the God who made him and spurned the Rock of His Support.” (Deut. 32: 15)
The Divine reaction is described in powerful terms in the Torah (Deut 32:19-20)
“The Lord saw and was vexed
And spurned His sons and His daughters. And he said,
I will hide My Face from them.
And see how they fare in the end.
אסתירה פני מהם
אראה מה אחריתם
What is the meaning of God’s hiding His face? The classic reading is that our suffering and the chaos we experience is God’s withdrawal from us, His removal of Divine protection because of our rebellion. Since you sinned, God says, ‘I won’t pay attention to you. You will be left unprotected.’
Suffering and chaos happen, according to the classic view, because we have disobeyed God. When we do wrong, God who once looked over us like a protective parent turns His back on us. This explanation of suffering sees it as a consequence of disobedience.
The origin of this view of suffering is found in the Garden of Eden story in the Book of Genesis in chapter 2 and 3. The Garden of Eden story is the template for a very old way of interpreting the times in our lives when instability overwhelms us.
In Genesis Chapter 2 God plants a garden and gives it to us to till and to tend. As long as we respect one basic commandment, we will live in happiness forever. But alas, we break that one rule to not eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. For this disobedience we are driven out of the garden, burdened with a new awareness that we will eventually die, and that our lives will be accompanied by hardship and suffering.
This view of suffering is built on the Bible’s description of a God who really cares about human beings. But with that care comes expectations. If we are loyal to God we can expect prosperity and stability. But the story of the Bible is also about a God whose expectations are constantly disappointed. God is frustrated by our disobedience, our lack of covenantal loyalty. We pay the price for our sins and our rebellions. In order to regain God’s favor and the stability that comes with it, we must restore our relationship with God.
Thus deeply ingrained in us is an explanation of instability. You are suffering because you ate from the forbidden fruit. While we may reject this idea, it still resides deep within our outlook, not only in regards to our own experiences, but certainly in regards to the instability we see in other people’s lives. Did you ever notice how quick we are to come up with judgments about why someone else is going through tzuris?
The assumption of this view is that we have some control over what happens to us. Thus the response that this view suggests is to fix our relationship with God. If we succeed, like Job, our household stability will be restored. We will once again live in God’s good graces. God will no longer hide his face.
This view of suffering, however, is not the only one offered by Jewish tradition, although on so many levels it is the one that most of us learn. This view, while an authentic view in our tradition, is a source of difficulty for many modern Jews who like Job, struggle with its inadequacy of giving meaning to our suffering. Like Job, we fall silent, or we rebel, or we reject God in our lives.
But there is another view of suffering. Let’s return to the verse I cited earlier.
And He said,
I will hide My Face from them.
And see how they fare in the end.
אסתירה פני מהם
אראה מה אחריתם
The second view of suffering focuses on the second clause of the verse. “I will see how they fare in the end.” God hides His face to enable human beings to become responsible for their future. God’s hiding of His face is not a punishment of human beings, but a divine awareness that human beings need to take charge of their lives.
This is not a God who over-parents, who spoils us with gardens and then waits to see if we will behave. This is the God of Chapter 1 of Genesis, which offers an entirely different description of God. This is the God who says,”Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea; the birds of the sky, the cattle, and the whole earth…Fill the earth and master it.”
The God of Genesis Chapter 1 gives human beings responsibility. He creates the world, the laws of its nature, and then places human beings in charge of it. By entrusting his creation to human beings, God does not put Himself in the position of making us overly dependent on God. As many commentators of the Torah have noted Genesis Chapter 1 presents us with a very different picture of God. It is a God who says, I will not micromanage my creation. You will live in this world and make it the best that you can make it.
This second way of viewing God leaves us with a profound alternative to the Garden of Eden story. God did not create the world with human beings on a short leash. We live as mortals within nature and endure its limits including our finite lives. We all will suffer because suffering is built into nature. Suffering happens. The key question for this biblical view of suffering is how we handle it, how we deal with it.
So when God says “I will Hide My Face and see how they fare”, this means ‘I will not run the world in such a way that the only way to live is to come scurrying back to me when you fail, oh human being. I have not put you in a garden, rather I have put you in the world in all its complexity and you have to find a way to understand it, master it, live and thrive in it.’
The key insight of this second view is how to understand instability and the suffering that results from it. In the classic view of Genesis 2, we can only see our tzuris as a result of our sinfulness. Instability is a sign that God is mad at us. The cause of our instability is our own actions. God punishes us in order to spur us to come back to God to restore the stability we lost.
But in the alternative view, God does not expect this. The world behaves according to the way God created it. Instability is part of its protocol. Therefore, when we suffer it is not because God is punishing us. If we are appointed masters of the world by God, then our response to the instability we experience is to see it as an opportunity to change, to grow. What do we do when we encounter suffering? Does suffering spur us to grow, to change, to become better?
The problem with human beings is our craving for the status quo. The core challenge of living a moral and purposeful life is to know the distinction between is and ought. To live a moral life is to know that being satisfied with what is, is not sufficient. A morally inspired person strives for what ought to be. If God entrusts to us the world, then we must imitate God in pursuing the ought and not be satisfied by what is. The instability and the suffering we experience is a goad to change, to face the reality with the conviction that this is an opportunity not to squander.
Teshuvah- repentance- according the second view is not reconciliation with God. It is the act of awakening to our full potential as human beings which God has implanted within us. We find ourselves in chaos, in pain, in suffering. Teshuvah is the opportunity to awaken to the possibility of change, to overcome the fear of the change of the status quo, to shake off the restraint of low expectations.
It has been taught by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave Israel three precious gifts, and all of them were given only through sufferings. These are the Torah, the land of Israel, and the world to come. (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 5a)
“Shalosh Matanot Tovot natan Hakodesh Baruch Hu l’Yisrael. V’kulan lo natanan eleh al ydei yisurin. Elu hen, Torah, Eretz Yisrael, v’Ha’olam Haba.”
This Talmudic teaching embraces the second view, that suffering and instability presents us an opportunity to refocus our lives on more worthy goals, to become unstuck, to overcome the fear of change.
In this year of so much change and instability, of personal tzuris and stress, we have been given an opportunity to elevate our lives. I cannot accept the suggestion that what many of us have gone through is some form of punishment. Nor do I suggest that a return to whatever we lost is the answer. God does not want us to wallow in our suffering or to search for blame in ourselves, but rather to apply our spiritual strength to utilize the opportunity to live more purposefully, more mindfully, more lovingly, more ethically, and more humanely.
I heard a story of a college student who prepared to enter the world of finance to make bundles of money. But when the world of finance fell apart, there were no jobs to be found. This young woman decided to change direction.
She went abroad to work with a nonprofit that provides micro loans to poor women in third world countries. This young college graduate found purpose and meaning in her life through working with these poor, illiterate, but highly industrious women. She was greatly inspired by her work and changed her life to commit herself to serve this great cause discovered in the chaos of her changing life, of our changing world.
God does Hide His Face. That is the way God made the world. It is not easy to apprehend God’s Face or God’s ways. His inscrutability will not be overcome in the course of our lives except for rare glimpses and hard won wisdom of life experience.
But God wants to know how we will fare. I believe that God desires us to take the chaos and instability that collides with our effort to live orderly lives and to use them to live with greater awareness and purpose. God, I believe, has faith in us. Do we have faith in ourselves?
A Purposeful Fast: A Yom Kippur Sermon on Food
A Purposeful Fast: A Yom Kippur Sermon on Food
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Delivered on Kol Nidre, 5770/2009
Temple Beth Shalom, Long Beach
As Jews we can speak with authority about the importance of health care. We come from a tradition that has great reverence for healers and the art of healing. “Two ethicists are debating about abortion. One says a human life is viable at conception. The other says human life is viable only after birth. A Jew hearing the discussion interrupts, “When does a human life become viable according to the Jews? When your child finishes medical school.”
Humor aside, our greatest philosopher and authority in Jewish law was a physician. Maimonides establishes a cornerstone obligation concerning human health in his great code, the Mishneh Torah:
” When one eats and drinks, one should not be doing so just for enjoyment, because then one will eventually be eating just to sweeten one’s palate and for the joy of it; but one should eat and drink just for the sake of the health of one’s body and limbs. Therefore, one should not eat whatever he desires like a dog or a donkey; one should eat only what the body will use, whether it is bitter or sweet, and one should not eat those things which are bad for the body, even if they are sweet.”
(Torah, Hilchot Deot 3:5-8)
As we enter our 25 hour fast, what better time to reflect on food and health as we suffer from its temporary absence. Maimonides establishes a central principle of the Jewish teaching on physical health. We have a personal obligation to live in the healthiest way possible. The imperative for health starts with each of us.
Maimonides establishes here a principle about health and eating. Tonight, I want to suggest to you that kosher, which means fit or proper, should be understood to include all Jewish teachings about food, what constitutes proper food, how we prepare it, how we consume it, and how we share it with others, and the impact of our way of eating beyond ourselves. There is a way of eating that is “fit” not only in the ritual sense, but “fit” in a broader sense-food that is fit for our health, food that is fit for our bodies, food that is fit for our environment, food that is fit for our world.
Being kosher is not just about permitted and forbidden foods, it is about a whole way of eating and relating to the bounty of nature. Being kosher is taking responsibility for the way we eat and a concern for all matters relating to food and health, an activity that is integral to our daily lives.
Judaism’s profound teaching about food gives us a unique perspective on the health care debate raging around us. My beef with the great health care debate is about what is not being talked about. What is our personal responsibility in regards to the way we eat? I have a right to good medical care, but don’t I also have an obligation to not eat excessively, to avoid the consumption of unhealthy foods and substances, to maintain my body.
Tom Nantais, TBS co-president, shared with me his conviction that if more Americans committed to eating healthfully, we would go a long way toward resolving our health care morass. Tom, you are a follower of Maimonides who teaches us that the first obligation for a Jew is our responsibility to do our best to care for our health through the way we eat. We all know that illness can strike us even with a healthy lifestyle, and that we all age and ultimately die. But our tradition does emphasize that we can greatly influence the outcome of our health by our way of eating.
But a big problem in our times is that the food choices around us and pedaled to us, the crazy pace of our lives, and the lack of universal access to good and healthy food compromises our ability to live healthy lives.
The current raging debate about health care focuses on our vast, dysfunctional system of interventionist medicine. But there is an elephant in the room. No one is talking about how our government subsidizes terrible food choices. No one raises the injustice that poor Americans have little or no access to healthy food. No one challenges a system that spends billions of marketing dollars seducing us to eat food products that undermine our environment, waste huge amounts of fossil fuels and most of all jeopardize our personal health.
Michael Pollan, the leading critic of the American way of eating, writes that the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, one of the main contributing factors to that disease. Our health crisis in America is driven not only by a broken health care system, but even more so by the American way of eating and producing food. This food system compromises our health which requires massive amounts of expensive medical intervention to keep us functioning and alive.
One of the leading products of the American food industry is patients for the American health care industry. (Pollan, NY Times, 9/9/09)
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are. Our food industry produces 17000 new food products every year with a marketing industry which spends over thirty two billion dollars a year to sell us those products. The fast food industry, one large part of this industry, is the source of over 250 billion dollars a year in health care costs and billions more in environmental and energy costs.
According to Michael Pollan a global pandemic is in the making, a most unusual one because it involves no virus or bacteria, no microbe of any kind- just a way of eating. Four of the ten leading causes of death today are chronic diseases with well established links to diet: coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer. An American born in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of developing diabetes in his lifetime.
The modern American diet, built on highly processed foods and grains and on the superabundance of cheap calories of sugar and fat, dependent on a handful of staple crops and on massive amounts of chemicals and fossil fuels to raise plants and animals in huge monocultures is the most radical change to the way humans eat since the discovery of agriculture. The modern American diet has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species.
But our way of eating doesn’t only impact our health. It has massive side effects. US agriculture uses 400 gallons of fossil fuels a year to feed every American. That includes the average travel distance of 1500 miles for your food to arrive on the shelf.
Current meat packing practices maim and cripple tens of thousands of workers each year by virtue of the intense speed and volume of their output. The working conditions at these slaughterhouses are horrendous. With great embarrassment and shame to the Jewish community the top kosher meat producer, the Kosher Agriprocessers plant in Iowa, was busted by the Feds for illegal hiring and labor practices– then when bankrupt.
These sobering facts, which are only the tip of the iceberg, remind us that Judaism’s call for us to take personal responsibility for our health is made more challenging in an environment that seduces us constantly with cheap, poor quality, mass produced and marketed, wasteful, and unsustainable food products. All these factors overwhelm the wisdom of our food traditions and centuries of accumulated common sense about eating.
As Jews we have to start with personal responsibility even when the environment around us is set up to undermine good choices. Because once we take personal responsibility for our choices, we have authority to speak out for society as a whole. In that spirit, I call on my fellow Jews to a renewed and expanded understanding of what it means to be a kosher Jew.
To be kosher in the fullest sense is to eat
healthfully,
ethically,
sustainably,
intentionally,
practicing hospitality,
and in a distinctively Jewish way.
- To be kosher is to eat healthfully.
The Talmud offers an astonishing admission about Yom Kippur: Resh Lakish said: One who gorges himself with food on Yom Kippur is free from punishment. Why? Because the Torah said, “A person who does not afflict themselves throughout the day shall be cut off from his kin.” (Lev 23:29), and that excludes one who does himself harm by excessive eating.
In other words, we afflict ourselves more by unhealthy eating than by any of the sanctioned afflictions such as fasting on Yom Kippur. Unhealthy eating is its own punishment.
- To be kosher is to eat ethically:
To be a kosher is to be an ethical eater. This requires mindfulness about the way our consumption of food impacts others. If we know a food was produced by slave labor, should we eat it? If we know the kosher meat we are eating was made by producers who treat their laborers unfairly, should we eat it?
In the wake of the Agriprocessors raid, the Conservative Movement established a new kosher certification process called Magen Tzedek. Kosher meat and poultry producers will only get a Magen Tzedek Heksher if they are able to demonstrate their upholding of fair and ethical labor practices.
Hear the story of what is in my mind a kosher hero. Will Allen, son of a black share cropper won a $500,000 McArthur Genius Grant for his efforts to bring healthier options to the urban poor of Milwaukee. Allen was moved to action as he witnessed the horrible health conditions of America’s urban poor who suffer from sky high rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and the devastating health impact of the limited food choices in the urban ghettos. He applied farming skills learned in childhood to establish 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side.
Allen’s Growing Power Farm produces a quarter of a million dollars worth of food in his crammed urban space using microbe and nutrient-rich worm castings. (poop, that is). Using these natural nutrients Allen grows produce and fish to provide healthful food to 10,000 urbanites. Being kosher to me means supporting heroic efforts like Will Allen’s.
- To be kosher is to eat sustainably
One day Choni Hamaagal, the rainmaker, a famous figure of Jewish folklore, was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked him, “How long does it take for this tree to bear fruit?” He replied. “70 years.” He then asked him: “Are you certain that you will live another seventy years?” He replied: “I found grown carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted these for me so I too plant these for my children.”
Does the way we eat and the food we consume enhance the prospects for a sustainable diet for future generations? The answer is to seek out ways to eat sustainably. Patronize farmer’s markets, buy foods that are grown locally, eat a wide variety of foods to avoid an over dependence on corn products and over processed foods.
- 4. To be kosher is to eat intentionally
Being mindful when we eat is a critical element to the Jewish way of eating. ”Rabbi Ba the son of Rav Hiyya bar Abba teaches: If he ate while walking, he must stand and bless. If he ate standing he must sit and bless. If he ate sitting, he must recline and bless. If he ate reclining, he must enwrap himself and bless.”
By distinguishing the act of blessing from the act of eating, the Rabbis teach us to strive toward awareness when we eat. Humans should not eat like dogs or donkeys. Judaism teaches that we should become conscious eaters.
Instead of “You are what you eat,” Hale Sofia Schatz writes that people eat what they are. “If you are stressed out all the time chances are you’re feeding yourself stressed out quick grab foods with little vital nourishment. When we shift our way of thinking from ‘you are what you eat’ to ‘you eat what you are’ we see that the latter involves awareness. It makes us stop and question who we are.
If we believe that we are spiritual beings, then we are more likely to seek out the nourishing foods that feed the shining life force that already exists within us.” By adding blessings to our eating, by practicing the Jewish way of mindfulness, we will be more inclined to eat food that blesses our bodies.
- 5. To be kosher is to practice hospitality.
“Greater is the welcoming of guests than receiving the countenance of the Shekhinah,” states the Talmud.
Jews don’t talk about food like Puritans. We emphasize responsibility, but we teach there should be joy in responsibility. This is the key to understanding the Mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim-hospitality. Sharing meals is joyful. It is also healthy.
As our meals have become more rushed, they have also grown more isolated. We rush through our meals in the car or eat mindlessly and excessively in front of the TV. As one critic has observed, “The sheer abundance of food in America has bred a vague indifference to food, manifested in a tendency to eat and run rather than to dine and savor.” (Pollan, Eater’s Manifesto, p.54)
Sharing our meals enables us to dine and savor. When we share, we eat more slowly; when we share, we are more inclined to serve healthier food to guests and friends. We rediscover what our Sisterhood already knows, that cooking for others is great gift. You will also rediscover the joy and art of conversation and interaction with others. And you will be doing a mitzvah, especially when you share your meals on Shabbat and Festivals.
- 6. To be kosher is to eat in a distinctively Jewish way.
This aspect of koshrut is most familiar to us. Following the ritual laws of koshrut, eating meat only from permitted and properly slaughtered animals, separating of milk and meat, buying products that are free from foods forbidden to us by the Torah is a significant way we express our uniqueness.
It is also the part of being kosher about which many of you are ambivalent. Why go to the trouble of eating the unique diet called upon by the Torah? What has this to do with all that I have described up to this point?
It is hard to be kosher today, just like it is hard to eat healthy today, because of the enormity of the bad choices all around us. Being kosher is the Torah’s way of teaching us to be strong, to be not afraid in being distinct, and to learn self-discipline. Every generation of Jews who remained loyal to koshrut had to make mindful and distinctive decisions about the way they ate. This included healthy practices that distinguished the Jews from their neighbors in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages.
Eating is a holy act that encompasses so many dimensions of what it means to be a purposeful human being. It is time to reclaim the excellence and wisdom of the Jewish way of food and eating. We have every reason to be proud of what our tradition teaches us and to commit to living it in our lives.
Let us come back to the theme of personal responsibility in leading healthy lives. Our choices do not only have impact on ourselves, but those around us. And when more of us work hard to live responsible, healthy lives, we find the courage to face the obstacles and traps made by our troubled food system.
The current health care debate is important because it will hopefully lead to addressing the heartbreaking unfairness, the terrible inequities and inexcusable inefficiencies of our byzantine health care system. But we should not ignore the troubling linkage between a health care system and our food system. For reforms in our food system will have a huge impact on our health care system and an even larger impact on our lives and the lives of those who come after us.
By living kosher in the fullest sense we walk the walk toward a healthier, sustainable, and Jewish way of living. In renewing our commitment to living kosher in the fullest sense we stand on firm ground to advocate for a just and sustainable national health care system built on a reformed food system which offers us accessible, affordable, and abundant healthy choices for our way of eating.
Here are four concrete ways our Temple community can act to collectively offer a healthier and kosher way of living for every member of our community.
First, Beginning Thursday morning, October 8th, Thursdays will be a Health Walk with Rabbi Dov . Every Thursday morning at 6am before the minyan I welcome congregants to join me for a vigorous 45 minute walk around Hilltop Park on Signal Hill.
Second, lets join TBS Member, Martha DeYoung, with her idea to start a small organic vegetable garden in our courtyard which would be tended by our children. Help Martha to realize her initiative so we can teach our children the value of growing good and healthy food and enjoying its bounty at our communal meals.
Third, let’s establish a congregational CSA: a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program. A CSA supports local, sustainable agriculture by working with a local farm to bring local, organic produce to our members at competitive prices. The CSA helps a farmer to do sustainable organic farming and preserve farmlands near urban areas. A CSA enables participating members to pick up delicious, fresh produce once a week from the synagogue for the entire growing season. I have a CSA food box from Tanaka farms for you to see what could come to your home if you participate.
Lastly, join me at the Hazon Food Conference in Monterey, California at the end of December where the emerging Jewish Food Movement is bringing about a renewal of our understanding of koshrut along the lines I have spoken about here. I would love to share this wonderful and exciting Jewish experience with TBS congregants. Go to www.hazon.org to learn about this award winning organization transforming the Jewish scene.
The Torah is the way of sacred attunement-of holy mindfulness about our most common and basic acts of daily life. Judaism teaches that our daily acts do ripple out to affect the wider world. We consume what we are. The way we eat impacts our own bodies and carries repercussions for our fellows.
“We do not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children.”
Reflect on this truth as we deprive ourselves of food and drink over this great Day of Atonement. Let us rise from our fast tomorrow to work together as a community to restore common sense and holiness to the way we eat.
Live Kosher. Help Save the World.
A Judaism We Can Believe In
A Judaism We Can Believe In
A Sermon Given on First Day, Rosh Hashannah, 5770/2009
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg, Temple Beth Shalom of Long Beach, CA
I share with you two anecdotes about the conflicted identity of our congregation. I was having a conversation with a board member about how to market our congregation to the community. This board member felt strongly that we should not use the word Conservative in our literature, because ‘Conservative Judaism is a turn off to younger Jews.”
The second anecdote I share with you was reported to me about a meeting that took place where some members complained with great dismay that that our congregation was no longer Conservative.
These two examples illuminate for us that there are very different attitudes about what it means to be a Conservative congregation and what it means to be a Conservative Jew. They highlight the confusion about Conservative Judaism among our members. This confusion is not limited to our congregation, but is common to Conservative congregations across the country.
The Conservative movement faces an identity crisis. The recent decision to permit Conservative Rabbis to sanctify homosexual relationships and to ordain gay and lesbian rabbis was strongly opposed by a minority of Conservative Jews around the country. Some Conservative Jews have trouble making sense of their movement with this decision. When we had an aufruf for a gay couple this summer, a few of our members were not aware that this was now sanctioned by our movement. They could not believe that the Conservative movement was this lenient on this issue. One Shabbat morning regular even stopped coming in silent protest.
Another manifestation of the identity crisis is the fact that sprouting up all over the country are new congregations that call themselves post denominational. These congregations are led by Conservative Rabbis and are filled with members who grew up at Conservative congregations. These communities like Ikar in West LA, are very skittish about using Conservative to describe themselves, just like the board member I mentioned.
Our movement is battered by conflicting visions and expectations of what a Conservative congregation should be and what it means to be a Conservative Jew. Who are we? What do we stand for? What are we striving for? What makes us unique relative to other ways of being Jewish?
I am a proud Conservative Jew. I was a seeker in my youth, considering atheism, secular humanism, Buddhism, Orthodoxy, and Chabad Judaism. Each outlook was an important stop on my journey. I chose Conservative Jewish observance in my 20s, leaving behind the Reform Judaism of my childhood. In all this seeking I found Conservative Judaism and my Conservative Jewish teachers the most supportive of my experimentation and integration of the insights I gained along the way.
But to many of us, Conservative Judaism is an amorphous and uninspiring term. As our movement struggles institutionally and the number of Conservative Jews and synagogues declines, a great debate about the relevance and meaning of Conservative Judaism has erupted. My colleague, Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, argued that the Conservative movement needed to rebrand itself to better express the central convictions of our movement. His ideas is to replace the term Conservative Judaism with ‘Covenantal’ Judaism. He expressed it this way:
“I am a Covenantal Jew.
Covenantal Judaism is the Judaism of relationship.
Three covenants guide our way:
- 1. The covenant at Sinai brings us to our relationship with God.
- 2. The covenant with Abraham frames our relationship with other Jews.
- 3. The covenant with Noah embeds us in a relationship with all humanity.”
As a student of comparative religions, I would describe Judaism’s uniqueness as a religion that is built on relationships made special by covenants. The most important one is the covenant at Sinai that brings us to our relationship with God. The Jewish relationship to God may be seen as a friendship, a partnership, though of obviously unequal partners. All true friendships have a history, a narrative; they generate memories and stories.
This is what I witnessed at the Bobrow’s 50th wedding anniversary party as long time TBS Havurah members recounted the early years of their coming together. The memories of early friendship were beautiful, but we all know that any friendship cannot live if it dwells solely in the past. Vital friendships like the ones I witnessed with the Bobrows are always creating new memories, entering new phases and enriching what has gone before.
Using the metaphor of friendship, we can distinguish Covenantal Jews from Orthodoxy and Reform. Orthodox Jews believe that everything important in the friendship between God and Israel has already happened. Everything of value and significance in the friendship has taken place in the past.
On the other hand, Reform Jews view the past friendship with God as weightless, because times have so radically changed. Thus the friendship must be redefined constantly, dictated by the demands of the moment.
Secular Jews ground their Jewish commitment in the story of the Jewish people. But they cut out a key ingredient: the ongoing relationship between God and the Jewish people.
In contrast a Covenantal Jew believes in the continuous and vital partnership between God and Israel. Much of Jewish life is an expression of behaviors that Jews have done for God’s sake for generations. When we light Shabbat candles or build a sukkah or give tzeddakah, God “knows” what we mean — we have been doing it for thousands of years. Our past is the platform from which we ascend.
Yet there is so much more to say. Our friendship grows through new ways of showing our covenantal loyalty-enabling Jewish women to play a fully equal role in Jewish religious life, or recognizing that gay and lesbians can no longer be marginalized from the living as Covenantal Jews. In other words-the covenant between God and the Jewish people lives-like any relationship- it has a vital, commanding past, and a living and vital present.
Second, the covenant with Abraham frames our relationship with other Jews. Therefore as covenantal Jews we are deeply connected — not only to those Jews whom we agree with, but all Jews. Jews have always fought within our own community, and undoubtedly, we always will. Still, a Covenantal Jew respects and seeks active dialogue with Orthodox, Reform and Reconstructionist, as well as secular Jews. Covenantal Jews celebrate the distinctiveness of Jewish communities around the world and hold the love of the Jewish people in Israel to be a critical element of what it means to be a Jew today. This openness and acknowledgment of other expressions of Judaism distinguishes a Covenantal Jew from other Jewish expressions.
The great Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, taught that every Jew should aspire to say this about themselves: “Nothing Jewish is alien to me.” Judaism is so rich, so diverse, so adaptable that it has spawned many ways of responding to the world. The mark of a Covenantal Jew is curiosity and respect for different forms of Jewish expression. This does not mean that we don’t have firm convictions and or commitment to Jewish practice. But we practice tolerance and champion pluralism as we live our distinct Jewish way.
Third, the covenant with Noah embeds us in a relationship with all humanity.
The covenant with Noah is the first covenant in the Torah. God sent a rainbow in the time of Noah as a sign to the world, to all of humanity. We have a responsibility toward others of whatever faith; we share a covenantal relationship with the non-Jewish world.
We can understand the covenant with Noah from Cain’s response to God in Genesis 4: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” If you answer that question affirmatively, you cannot ignore the fate of your fellows regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or race. Do you care for those who are in need, those who are anguished and alone?
The great Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, who we claim as the greatest teacher of our movement, marched with Martin Luther King in Selma. He anchored his commitment to fighting for the freedom of others in Jewish covenantal language:
”For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”
These and countless similar causes and efforts are not strategic or to reflect credit on ourselves. They are sacred Jewish obligations. Jews who care for the Jewish community alone are neglecting the first, most comprehensive covenant. Jews who say that anti-Semitism in the world requires a circling of the wagons and going it alone condemn the Jews to a harmful isolation and a compromise of our covenantal values. This isolationism and insularity is the moral issue we have with much of Orthodox Judaism which often suffers from a lack of concern for the non-Jewish world around them.
Part II: The Implications of Covenantal Judaism
Why adopt the name Covenantal Judaism? By calling ourselves Covenantal Jews, we say something about our continuing dynamic participation in a relationship. All the current names for the movements describe their stance vis a vis tradition. The name, Orthodoxy tells us that this Jewish group adheres to the tradition strictly. The name Reform tells us that their adherents are committed to reforming the tradition. Reconstructionists want to reconstruct it, whatever that means. Conservatives want to conserve tradition. The flaw with all these names is they relate to tradition as a thing-a fixed object.
This is why the other move to describe ourselves as non-denominational or post denominational is also not satisfactory. By saying you are just Jewish, you say nothing. How we name ourselves must say something about what we believe and how we might act in the world.
Tradition is not fixed and rigid. It evolves. That evolving tradition is an expression of a relationship between the Jewish people and God. Like all real relationships it changes and grows and undergoes crises. But the relationship continues. To be covenantal then is to say to the world that we are committed to the relationship stated by the covenants laid out in the Torah, living in covenantal relationship with God, fellow Jews, and fellow human beings.
To be covenantal is to be authentic. Authentic Judaism is built around the experience and idea of Brit-Covenant. Our movement is the true Bnai Brit-the children of the covenant-with all due respect to the great Jewish organization by that name. The challenge of the Covenantal Jew is to live purposely within the covenants of Sinai, Abraham, and Noah. That is the authentic grounding for the movement we can support and spread to other Jews.
What would it mean for us to choose to be called Covenantal Jews.
Heschel said, “To be is to stand for.”. To be a Covenantal Jew is to stand for the covenant. Covenantal Jews strive for a covenantal consciousness-a distinctly Jewish spiritual awareness. This awareness is multifaceted, but for the sake of brevity I will cover a few key elements.
The first central dimension of covenantal consciousness is the faith that the Covenant we have inherited is good and true. It is faith of a Jew who reads and reflects on the stories of covenant in Genesis and Exodus and affirms them for herself. It is a person who can say that the mitzvoth that I do in my life are so important that I cannot take them lightly. It is a faith that understands that acts of kindness are not random, but intentional and based on an inexhaustible devotion to a life of goodness as called for by our covenant. .
The Torah tells us that God has given us good laws. The drama of being Jewish today is to sort out all the trivialization and marginal information about Judaism we have absorbed throughout our lives. As covenantal Jews we need to be focused on the essential message: to live with the awareness of the preciousness and goodness of the covenant between God and Noah, God and Abraham, and God and the Jewish people.
The second dimension of a Covenantal consciousness is our concrete loyalty to that covenant-Brit ; we take it seriously; it makes a claim on our lives. We will live for this covenant, and God forbid if we are confronted, we will die for this covenant. The words of Daniel Pearl reverberate here. That is why calling ourselves Covenantal Jews embeds us in the purposefulness of living and being Jewish.
Neemanut-loyalty is one of Judaism’s most distinctive and revered qualities. In Yiddish to be called an Ehlicher Jew is a very high distinction.
We are all deeply pained when Jews drift away or reject covenantal awareness. That is a choice in our open society. And a certain percentage of Jews will make that choice. However our task is to say loud and clear that we remain loyal and engaged with the covenant. Our steadfastness is a beacon to others and an opening for those who have drifted away.
That steadfastness does not mean closing ourselves to others. The Covenantal Jew also lives within the covenant of Noah-which embeds her in the broader human drama as well.
A third dimension of Covenantal consciousness is a commitment to study and learn the contents of the Covenant. Our Rabbis saw this as a peerless commandment-the one that drives the rest of Jewish living. Our covenant does not demand blind faith, unquestioning allegiance, or surrender of the mind. Covenantal consciousness guides a Jew to reflection about how the Torah is applied to our time and our place. When we study Torah we learn about how Jews in other lands and other times grappled with how to live out the covenant. We are no different. So we must grapple with new insights from our times about the role of women, the standing of homosexuals, of living Shabbat in a 24/7 wired world, or eating responsibly in a world of pollution and climate change. This is authentic covenantal consciousness.
Covenantal Jews are not necessarily learned Jews, but they are learning Jews. For learning informs us of the reasons for our purposefulness. Jewish learning waters the roots of loyalty, and grounds them in terra firma.
To study Torah is equal to attending a worship service in the view of our Rabbis. How can you observe a mitzvah if you have not studied the instruction manual? Therefore Covenantal Jews are deeply committed to Torah study and Jewish education. A covenantal synagogue places Jewish education, at the forefront of everything it does.
There are other dimensions of Covenantal consciousness: the awareness of mitzvah, the connection to the land of Yisrael, a love of the Jewish people and its long unfolding story. Covenantal Judaism celebrates the diverse ways Jews honor and live out their covenantal commitments.
I conclude on one very important dimension of Covenantal consciousness: Our relationship to Covenant giver-the God of Israel.
To affirm that we are covenantal Jews we must take God seriously in our lives and in synagogue life. The synagogue is a place to explore our relationship with God, to question, to argue, to affirm, and to hunger. This is the authentic Jewish way to express our covenantal relationship with the God of Sinai. We must find ways in our school, at our services, and in adult learning gatherings to enable people to give expression to their feelings about God-positive or negative. We ignore this at our peril, because the most damning criticism of a synagogue is the claim that God is absent from the House of God. Or worse, that God is taken for granted.
Our teacher, A.J. Heschel reminds us how not to take God for granted.
“A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”
This is a wonderful description of Covenantal consciousness. Covenantal Judaism makes Jewish life a profound challenge and demanding journey yet a privilege to share with our families, friends and synagogue members. A synagogue that offers this sense of purpose is exciting and compelling. Let us consider this for ourselves and reflect on how we can renew our Jewish lives.
Just One Person Erev Rosh Hashannah Sermon by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Just One Person Sermon on Erev Rosh Hashannah, 5770/2009 Rabbi Dov Gartenberg Given at Temple Beth Shalom, Long Beach One thing you can get every scholar, thinker, and dreamer of Judaism to admit is that our religion puts great value on relationships. Our God, as imagined by the Jewish people, is not a loner. Our God craves relationships. “Shall I hide what I am about to do from Avraham?”, (Gen 18) God says to himself before revealing his plans about the fate of Sodom and Gemorrah to Avraham in the Book of Genesis. This is a God who cares about His relationships with human beings, something no other religion of the biblical age could imagine 3000 years ago. The 3000 year unfolding of Judaism only reinforces this emphasis on relationships. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” “Honor your father and your mother.” So much of Jewish life is focused on maintaining good and ethical relationships with others.
This is perhaps one of the reasons that Judaism has no monastic movement. We did not send our children to remote places to live in solitude; instead we send them to summer camps. Life is with People is not only a title of a popular study of Jewish neighborhoods in the Lower East Side. It describes the Jewish way of life. Nothing is more relation centered in Judaism than the Jewish teaching on repentance-Teshuvah. Unlike the secular new year in which we make resolutions of self improvement-going on a diet, stopping smoking, joining a gym, the Days of Awe are a time for changing and repairing relationships . Our tradition is very clear that the period we are now entering should be centered on the repair of our relationships with those in our family, our circle of friends and acquaintances, and our community. The next 10 days, which we call, Aseret Ymai Teshuvah-the Ten days of Teshuvah- are focused on making repentance with the people in our lives. Maimonides states clearly that Yom Kippur, a day focused on our relationship with God, is only efficacious to the extent we have fulfilled the prerequisite of repairing our human relationships.
Yet my sense is that most of us give lip service to this demand of Jewish tradition. We believe that our most difficult relationships are unfixable. Or we are too lazy move to repair a relationship stuck for years. Or we ask everyone forgiveness without really exploring deeply what we are asking forgiveness for. Or we somehow have fallen into the habit of thought that sitting in shul for so many hours at this time of year fulfills our obligation so that we are cleansed of sin. But it is clear from the sources that the most important and consequential act of the High Holidays is making Teshuvah with people in our lives. So I have a suggestion, dear congregant. Focus on one relationship you want to change for the better. Go through the process of making Teshuvah with that person. Make your Teshuvah with that person in the most thorough going way possible. This person could be a spouse, a child, a coworker, a relative, a former friend, even your rabbi.
In considering a person you want to approach, it makes sense to weigh how this person may respond to your approach. There are three things to consider.
1. Is this person also aware that this is the season for Teshuvah? A person who is culturally conditioned to the practice of Teshuvah during the season of the Days of Awe is more likely to welcome and respond constructively to your approach than a person who is not.
2. Approach a person you know that you have wronged, even if you are very much aware of a wrong they have done to you. Making Teshuvah is not keeping a scorecard. Teshuvah is taking responsibility for your own actions, regardless of the behavior of the other.
3. It is difficult to make teshuvah with a person who is begrudging, unforgiving, or vindictive, since it is likely that a sincere attempt at Teshuvah with this person will be rejected out of hand. Rambam taught that after three sincere attempts of reconciliation, a person making teshuvah with a begrudging person no longer bears the sin he originally committed. The cold hearted response of the begrudging person has made him or her the sinner. This is because bearing a grudge is a transgression (a negative Mitzvah)of the Torah. (Lev 19). Forgiveness cannot be withheld forever.
Once we have identified a relationship we seek to repair, what are the steps to follow? I follow the recommendations of Maimonides in his Laws of Teshuvah in his great code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah.
1. First, reflect deeply about how you wronged the person so that you can be clear with him or her about what you did that was wrong. Your reflections may be accompanied by guilt and remorse. These feelings are essential for real Teshuvah to take place.
2. Second, arrange to meet the person privately before Yom Kippur . Explain to that person why you want to meet with him or her.
3. Third, the first thing you must do at the meeting is make a vidui-confession or acknowledgement of the sin or wrong you committed against the person.
4. Fourth, after the confession make a sincere expression of remorse for your action. This is called Mehilah.
5. In some cases restitution may be necessary such as a case of stealing or not returning a borrowed object.
6. Fifth, apologize for the act. Our tradition encourages the person making Teshuvah to ask for forgiveness-Selichah from the person we offended or hurt or wronged. The next step is up to the recipient of your apology.
Ideally the process you set in motion concludes with the other party granting forgiveness. It is often the case that the other party will be moved to confess a wrong or acknowledge his role in the difficulties of the relationship. Hopefully your initiative introduces a new dynamic to the relationship. The other party may be moved by your effort. The other party may reveal feelings that you were unaware of. Your initiative may cause mutuality and trust to be restored to the relationship. Can the relationship regain its former mutuality? This is not always achieved. The ultimate test is time. Rambam teaches that if you find yourself in the same circumstance later on, similar to the original moment of transgression, and you do not repeat that wrong, then the process of Teshuvah is complete.
This is the main mitzvah for this season, my friends. It is the aim of blowing the shofar to spur us to change human relationships for the better. That is why I am urging you to make a Teshuvah effort with just one person this season. If we can make real Teshuvah with even one person we have improved the world. The daily prayer book states that God wants Teshuvah. Any effort you make to repair relationships makes Yom Kippur a day of affirmation and hope, for our tradition imagines a God who derives joy in reconciliation and the restoration of relationships. And if we succeed with people, then on Yom Kippur we can succeed in making Teshuvah with God. He who saves a life is as if he saved the entire world. This beautiful expression from our Rabbis refers to the act of Teshuvah. Which life is saved and which world is sustained? You be the judge. It could be not only the person you reach out to. It could be yourself. Shannah Tovah v’tikateivu.
Anti-Israel Acts in France
Notice needs to be noted about increasing anti-Israel acts in France. See vigilante behavior in Carrefour recklessly destroying Israeli products – http://bit.ly/JN8GW
Bravo Trader Joe’s
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- Trader Joe’s
An awful group has been in the news recently targeting (and slandering) stores for carrying Israeli products. A difficult challenge has emerged since the end of the recent Gaza War in January of how to counter the numerous boycotts launched against suppliers, vendors, and retailers throughout Europe who distribute or sell Israeli products. A major contributing factor to the difficulty in combating these boycotts was and remains the relatively small Jewish population throughout Europe, as compared to the much larger and growing Muslim population.Very sadly, the tactic employed against Israeli products in Europe has now made its way to the United States, with an eye toward a grocery retailer that many of us patronize, Trader Joe’s. In the United States there is a significantly larger Jewish population then there is in Europe and we now find ourselves in a position to actually be able to make an immediate and POSITIVE impact on Israel’s behalf.
Trader Joe’s has been targeted by anti-Israel groups for boycotts (and picketing) early this summer because of their refusal to bow to pressure by anti-Israel groups who have sought to have the store’s management remove Israeli products from their shelves. The group spearheading this effort nationwide is the BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT CAMPAIGN, a coalition of anti-Israel groups that is based in Pittsburgh, PA. They are working in concert with the Northern-California-based South Bay Mobilization Group.
Together with other groups comprising this sinister coalition that aims to cast Israel as an Apartheid State in the vein of South Africa – a baseless charge that reflects ignorance and, most often, anti-Semitic sentiments, those targeting Trader Joe’s seek to bring harm to Israel’s economy and to tarnish its standing in American public opinion by mobilizing intimidating boycotts in a most offensive manner.
June 20 was their initial nationwide World Refugee Day where their website stated that “We invite you to organize in your community and deshelve, sticker, boycott, and protest the presence of Israeli products!” Fortunately, this first effort did not bare much fruit – The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles covered this story – http://tinyurl.com/ma3hcy
Here’s what we can do:
* Learn more about this by reading the report issued on StandWithUs.com, an Israel-advocacy organization
* Shop at Trader Joe’s – and introduce yourselves to store-managers and to let them know that one of the reasons that you are patronizing their store is precisely because of their principled and courageous determination to continue selling Israeli products. Let them know that you know of many others who feel this way, who might not choose to introduce themselves personally, but who have determined to support Trader Joe’s all the more so because of its decision.
* Wherever you may shop – consider going out of your way to purchase Israeli products and thanking store-managers or proprietors for carrying Israeli products.
* Forward this post to help show how Jews in the USA, unlike in Europe can make a huge difference together on Israel’s behalf. This will strengthen the Jewish community and uphold principles of freedom and decency that strengthen the United States on the whole as well.
Some of this material was derived from StandWithUs, NerTamid, Jewish Journal, Snopes
Return to TBS Blogging
Dear TBS members,
Due to summer traveling I have not been posting on the TBSLB Online Journal. I will now resume making posts.
Here is some recent news about members: We extend a Mazal Tov to the Rudman’s on the birth of their baby daughter, Sarah Elaine on August 6th.
We extend a Mazal Tov to David Gould and Deborah Chankin on the aufruf of their son, D’ror and his partner, David Berger on Shabbat morning services, Aug. 8th.
We extend our condolences to Dana Hughes on the death of her mother, Francine Fox, on August 5th.
Shalom, Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Sad News
We are sad to announce the passing of TBS member, Toby Lee, on Monday, June 22, 2009. Our condolences to her family and friends.
Rabbi G’s Movie Recommendations: Food Inc.
I saw the movie, Food Inc., on Sunday night and hope every TBS member will see this very important documentary. As many of you know I am very active in the Jewish Food Movement and Hazon.org. This movie shows why this movement has burgeoned in recent years. There is something deeply wrong with the American food system. The rise of obesity, the dramatic increase of type 2 diabetes, the homogenization of food products despite the seeming diversity are all features of the food crisis that is growing day by day. This movie powerfully give visual testimony to the devastation of the mass food industry and is a wake up call to all of us. Please see it and post your comments to this posting.
Rabbi G
