Monday, November 10, 2008

Maybe We Can

A series of vignettes
Last night, I called my parents as I watched Barak Obama elected the next President of the United States of America. I asked my Dad, what do you think of all of this? As we chatted he said to me, one thing I feel, people will no longer be able to easily say, 'I can't.' "

Later, I spoke with my friend and fellow Rabbinic student Ariana. She told me over her experiences which she wrote down and I am sharing here:
NYC Nov. 5 2am
Going home
The subway:  New Yorkers smiling at one another on the subway.  New Yorkers do not look, much less, smile, at each other on the subway.
On the subway platforms:  Cheers of "Obama" shouted from one stranger to another--up and down escalators, across platforms.  Applause.  Cheers.  Small conversations start-up between strangers.  People are discussing how gracious McCain's concession speech was--without disdain.  And then they just start smiling again.
On the walk home: People smiling at one another as they pass by.  New Yorkers do not look at each other as they are walking--particularly at 1:30am.  But the subways, stations, and streets are packed, and people are smiling at each other, knowingly. At 1:30am.

On St. Marks between Ave.A and 1st Ave.: A half-block from home, I started to cry.  The police have blocked-off the street.  I can see a mass of people.  This is the East Village--the counter-cultural mecca.  A mass of police cars is not so shocking.  But these people are not protesting.  They are dancing in the street.  Hugging.  Cheering.  And waving American flags.  I kid you not.  The police have blocked off the street and are smiling as they watch tattooed, pierced, disillusioned young people sway to music from the apartments above and wave five or six foot long American flags in the air.  With pride.  And they are playing "We are the champions" from someone's stereo. And everyone is singing along and smiling at each other.  And "old" people (ie those over 35) are standing on the periphery in disbelief. And the police have no intention of breaking this up.

And I knew I had to write it all down before I went to sleep, or I would think it was a dream.

Back to me:
I was walking down Broadway south from Union Square this morning. I saw two, middle-aged women parting ways around 9th street. One was cheering and jumping up and down as the other walked away smiling. The first called to the second, "I am so happy I ran into you this morning…YES WE CAN!" Who knows what they were speaking about, what they had decided they could do. But they were inspired and that inspiration is contagious.

There is a sense of something greater, there is something hopeful and optimistic in the world. Something is different…something…

Perhaps, just perhaps…we actually can...

Monday, October 13, 2008

Living the life of the ever-dying

Yom Kippur Morning Sermon-5769

Rabbinic Intern

Rachael Bregman


We are all going to die. Not just us, but the people we care for as well. And, not only will our deaths come, but they will come on a time table not set by us, not according to our schedule. None of us want any of this to be true, but it is. We build our lives ignoring these facts. With great arrogance and flippancy we do things like plan for the future. We make commitments we cannot necessarily keep when we say things like, see you tomorrow. We don't know. But we insist on making this contract with God or whatever power there is in the universe which determines the length of our days. We agree to the following terms: Everyone in the world-especially me and those I care for the most- will die old. We will die peacefully. We will die in our sleep outliving the people we should outlive, having accomplished all that which we wish to accomplish. This seems to us like a fair death. We sign on to this contract but this agreement is one-sided. No one, no thing is signing on the other side of the page. And when this contract is broken, we get very, very upset. When someone dies young, suddenly, or painfully, we claim "this is not fair! This is not right" But no one other than us agreed to these terms. Since there is no contract-no rules have been broken we alone feel this is “unfair”


Our Yom Kippur liturgy is designed to remind us of the end of our lives. We recite the same psalms and say the same penitential and confessional prayers today which are said at the deathbed. We do much to feel like we are approaching death. We abstain from eating and drinking. Many do not adorn themselves in any manner, do not bathe or brush their teeth. We treat our bodies as if they do not exist. By the end of the day today, we will feel a bit closer to death. Some abstain from wearing leather and choose to wear only white. The white, cotton robes that Serge, Star and I are wearing are called kittels. In addition to Yom Kippur, these are worn in traditional Judaism at one's wedding, and in one's burial. We do all of this to practice for the day when we do stand in judgment before God, for the day that will inevitably come, when we die. We are forcing ourselves to ask, how have I lived my days thus far? Have I really lived at all?


We are about to read from parashat Nitzavim found in Deuteronomy. This text occurs at the end of Moses' life. He is giving the Israelites their final charge before entering Israel to conquer it. The people are re-committing to the covenant with God, not just for those who were there but for those not there as well, meaning for us too. The portion has a simple message; you will sin, you will err, you will make mistakes (we are people, this is what we do) but we can always return to God, we can always tshuv, turn, we can always change. The portion closes with the following lines:

יט הַעִדֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם, אֶת-הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת-הָאָרֶץ--הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ, הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה; וּבָחַרְתָּ, בַּחַיִּים--לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה, אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ.

I bring to bear witness of all of you this day, the heavens and the earth. The life and the death I give before each of you, the blessing and the curse. Each of you, choose life so that you may live, each of you and your descendents.


But how can we choose life? Death is inevitable. Opting out is not an option so what on earth does this mean?


I spent this past summer working as a chaplain in training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center here in NYC working with the pain and palliative care unit. I spent a large amount of time this summer with dying people and their families. One morning, I went to work and went straight to see Andy, a twenty-seven year young man and his huge extended family. Cancer brought him from good health to his last day in three short months. By the time I arrived, he had already died. I spoke with his mother who just looked at me and said, but he was so young?!? It is so unfair.


I encountered much there that felt unfair: Vivian who had adopted her nephew into her family of two children when her sister died of the same ovarian cancer which was claiming her life. A two-year old child with intestinal cancer who only knew how to say the words "My tummy hurts,” Charlie, who just wanted to teach his grandson how to fish, and Michael, whose birthday I share, who lives in my neighborhood in Queens, who thought he had a toothache and win 3 short weeks, his face was so encased in tumors that he could no longer see, taste or smell.


During all of this, right before father's day, my Dad and were talking on the phone about his dad who passed away about two and a half years ago at the age of 85. He said he felt his father's death was sad, but fair. I wondered, what makes a death fair? His response was that death is fair if you have done all you want to do. “Death is never fair,” I replied “because there is always more we want to do-including just live another day.” My dad then revised his thought. “I think it was fair,” he explained, “because my father had said all he had needed to say.”


I think there is more fairness when that happens. The fairness is not about doing all you wanted to do because that is impossible but perhaps, death is more fair when someone dies knowing they have said all of their I’m sorries and their I love yous.


Have you said all of yours?


After that morning when Andy, the twenty-seven year old, died, one of the other chaplains, Jane, said to me, you know, the greatest lesson I take from this place is the constant reminder to live-the reminder to live my life the way I want to have lived it when I die. I thought a great deal about Jane's wise words. She was not talking about making a "Bucket List" of things to do like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. And I think she meant more than just saying the right words before leaving this world. She meant, remembering to be who we want to be.



In today’s Nitzavim text, God says, “This life and this death I give before each of you, the blessing and the curse. Each of you, choose life so that you will live, each of you and all your descendents. God is not setting before us a choice of bodily living or dying. That is not up to us. The choice is in the kind of life we will live. The text makes an analogy-life is a blessing and death is a curse. This cannot be referring to actual life and death since we know of lives that do not feel like blessings, deaths which are not curses.

But there exists this tension between life and death, blessing and curse. We cannot pretend death away. By ignoring that there is an end to our existence, we could put off until a rainy day the person we should be now. But, if all we did was constantly face the reality of the limits of life, our deaths could consume us and would rob us of the essence of living.


The choice here is in how we walk this balance. In our text, we read the words,לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה so that you will live. This could also be translated as, for the sake of being or in order that you will be. I feel the text is telling us-being is living and choosing it a blessing, living means choosing a life as the person you can be; as your best possible self.


Death means choosing anything else: complacency, laziness, and plain old stubborn refusal to change causes a kind of death and brings with it the curse of living a life unfilled seen mostly clearly in the death which feels so unfair. I never got to be the person I wanted to be, I never truly got to live.In my conversation with my father, he added the following: He still feels sad that his dad is gone, he still misses him. We all do. He told me, “There is more I would like to have done with him but that is the lesson that I have had to learn.”


Just as death can bring the reminder of this choice to the living, we the living can bring the fairness to death. When we do not let death remind us to live, to truly live, to be and become the people we know we can and want to be, then, THEN death is unfair.


Two words show up over and over in this morning’s Torah reading: Shav and hayom. Change and Today. The repetition of shav, turn, change reminds us again and again, we can always change. Just because I WAS one way yesterday does not mean that tomorrow I have to be that same way.


And hayom, today was not just said to the Israelite people then as they prepared to enter Israel, but for us as we prepare to enter the New Year. Today is the day, now is the time. Tshuv hayom, Change TODAY


At the end of the day today, we will stand before God and seek out God's forgiveness for our sins. We will pen the ark, this plain pine box reminiscent of a coffin. It causes us to remember, death is coming and e o not know when, where, how or even why. Staring into that openness, that abyss, we are reminded of the unknown of what lies beyond. That vastness asks us, When you look back on your life, how do you want to see it? Who do you want to have been? Who do you want to be that you are not yet being? Shav, shav, shav it repeats-turn turn turn-change now, right now, Today BE the person you want to be before the gates close.


The life and the death I give before each of you, the blessing and the curse. Each of you, choose life so that you may live, each of you and your descendents.

Friday, October 10, 2008

In Awe in the days of Awe

I guess they work, those high holy days. I am in Awe of the last 10 days of my life. This high holy day season has affected me deeply. Rosh Hashanah was lovely and I really enjoyed celebrating a new year with my new congregation. Yom Kippur, however, was something else all together different. The holiday moved me, changed me, shaped me.

First of all, there was writing the sermon. I wrote about death. If you would like to read it, it is posted here. The process of writing the sermon was frightening. Exploring the topic was challenging, and cathartic since I had spent much of the summer thinking about it. I was pushed to streamline my thoughts and to distill, distill, distill. I think I left out more than I put in!! Material for sermons for future years...

Delivering it was also terrifying. Knowing I would be bringing people to a place of discomfort was...well, uncomfortable to consider. Would I be strong enough to hold the discomfort in the room and then bring people back from that edge to a place of hope? Would I be able to do that??

The last incredible thing that occurred was my parents and grandmother (father's mom)made plans to come to my shul for Yom Kippur.

The whole thing...the way these pieces came together...it was just beyond words. My family was called to open the ark for one round of the confessional prayers. I stood before an open ark, wearing a kittel, my grandmother to my right, my father to my left, my mother standing beside my grandmother, declaring the sins of the congregation in a loud, booming voice, everyone wearing white, my grandmother wracked with sobs...

How do I express in words...I did it-I gave the sermon and it went well. I felt good about it and the feedback was profound...that sermon spoke to the congregation, touched people. I was riding on that train but I do not feel I was driving it. There was something powerful created in that church amongst the congregants and the clergy. We grew this gorgeous feeling together. It was not what I did or what they did, but what we all did. They brought their kavanah and their willingness to be open, vulnerable and brave before us. They trusted us. And we trusted them, brought our vulnerability and openness before them. Together we took a great risk and it was worth it-worth the discomfort and the fear to come out the other side somehow closer, stronger, braver, smarter, richer. The good stuff is never easy but boy, is it worth it.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Being on top of being on the pulpit

Another note on preparing for the High Holy Days…
This year, I am on the weekend prior to a Monday evening Rosh Hashanah. Man, that is tough stuff to do while still in school.

I look forward to the day I can dedicate my focus to either school or work. Doing both at the same time presents and exciting and exhilarating, but sort of crazy-making, set of challenges.

I taught Christianity 101 to the tenth grade, delivered a sermon on Friday and lead services with Starr Trompeter, the Cantorial intern, then Saturday I lead a ninety minute Torah study with services on Saturday morning. Serge was away installing the newly ordained Tom Gardner into his new synagogue in Louisiana. And you know what, now that it is Sunday and I am on this side of Shabbas, that was awesome!!! I had so much fun! But I was a little nervous and a bit overwhelmed by the experience because I still had class and stuff during the week. Prepping for and being present with both school and the pulpit was a lot! This is the first year I have had both a full course load AND a full pulpit position (15 hours a week that is) I have a new appreciation for my classmates who have been doing this for the last two years. I understand much more about them and their experiences to date.

I am working hard this year on honing my sermon skills so here it blog readers…
Please, tell me what you think…

Shabbat Shalom. This is the last Shabbat of 5768. Next Shabbas will be 5769 and we will be in the modle of the 10 days of repentance between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It would be nice if all the work of repentance could fit in to just 10 days. However, our Rabbis knew it takes more than a week and a half to do a complete cheshbon nefesh, accounting of the soul, for one entire year. We also have the month of Elul, the month which precedes Rosh Hashana on the Jewish calendar, to prepare. Remarkably, because Torah and Judaism seems to be continually brilliant in this way, during these weeks of Elul our Torah portions are all focused on blessings and curse, sins and good deeds. These weeks and weeks of graphic descriptions of all we have done wrong and all the ways we can do right remind us that our modern Brooklyn Heights community is just like this ancient Israelite one. The power to do right and the live the lives we should is within our hands.

Each week, however, we learn a little bit more about the subtleties of repentance and what our responsibilities are. In this week's portion, Nitzavim, which means to take one's stand, we learn a powerful lesson about our role with one another. The portions begins with the people standing before God and resigning on to the covenant with God even after they have heard all the bad things that will happen if they break faith and all the good they will incur if they follow God's ways. Then they are reminded of these blessings and curses but they are then encouraged that succeeding in this task and living this way of life is not beyond our reach. The people are then charged with the ultimate choice: Choose life that you may live. It's great Torah and I recommend that you read the whole thing, it is really quite profound.

In between the people signing this contract and the encouragement that they can succeed at this lofty endeavor, there is this strange verse. "Concealed acts concern the Lord our God; but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching."

What on earth is that doing here? This verse surprised me so I did some research and found our Rabbis of old felt, basically, that this verse teaches us that God punishes for the sins we commit that no one sees such as the bad stuff we let ourselves think about or the mean things we might do and get away with, but the community is responsible to hold the individual accountable for the overt acts of wrong which we each commit.

In the broader context the message is when a Jew does not do all the things laid out here in this section the broader community is responsible for enacting the consequences as laid out in the Torah. In effect what this means is if we, as a whole Jewish community are cursed by God, it is not because an individual sinned, but because the community allowed that individual to sin and allowed that person to get away with it. I love this idea because it makes all of us responsible for one another and accountable to one another. If you sin, it is not just on you. You are not left alone looking bad, we all stand together looking bad. And at the same time, if you succeed it is not just on you, we all stand together looking good. Your sin BECOMES our sin, your success becomes our success. As we say, it takes a village to raise a child, but this comes to teach us that through a child we may raise a village.

On Wednesday evening I stopped in at a cramped Manhattan bodega for a quick errand. While in the tiny shop, three middle-school aged boys making a lot of noise and a bit of trouble entered. The store clerks were on edge and the tension in this very small space was mounting when suddenly, this woman in the store spoke up. "Your mother does not want you talking that way and you know it. If you came in here to buy something, buy something and if not, then just go home." And then, they did, they left.

It was a stunning moment. She was living this Torah. She saw herself as responsible for these young boys. If they had done wrong, she would have been an accomplice through her silence, we all were. If the boys had stolen candy or if the store clerks had escalated the exchange in to an argument, then the punishment would have been not just on the boys but upon all of us who were present, all of us who saw an opportunity to make a wrong right and did nothing. She also merited ownership over their success in getting out of the store without getting in to trouble as well.

There are a few days of preparation left before the high holy days. Being accountable for our sins is not just the job of each individual, but of our community as a whole. We are here not to berate one another, but to raise one another up. If one person repents and is a better person this year than last, we all reap the benefits. Here are some talking points for the Kiddush after services. How is your High Holy Day preparation coming? Here is what I have been doing…This is what I am thinking about taking on…I will begin with myself. This year, my prep is coming along retty well, but it is hard to make the time to reflect and giving a critical self-look is challenging. This year, I resolved to be more involved in politics and being active in shaping the world around me. To that end, I registered to vote and have re-upped my commitment to recycling. I think these things are important to do and easy to overlook. Can you help me with this? Can you take a stand with me and make sure you vote? Make sure you use paper instead of styrofoam and hang on to your plastic bottles until you can throw them in the recycling bin?

At this High Holy Day season we are reminded, we are responsible for one another. It is our task this day to nitzavim, to take a stand, to actively work together to bring ourselves and each other closer to the people and the community we all aspire to be.

Shabbat Shalom

The Rosh Hashanah Sermon

I have finally finished my high holy day sermon…well, the one for Rosh Hashanah. The task of writing the high holy day (HHD or Hi Ho, if you will) sermon is daunting at best. Now, I love writing and delivering sermons. It is one of my favorite parts of the job. But there is a lot of pressure on the Hi Hos to deliver a home run.

This year I feel especially challenged for a few reasons. First of all, I am new here at Brooklyn Heights. I do not know this community very well yet. Therefore, I am not sure what they need to hear. Are they into this whole repentance thing? Do they believe in this or do they show up at the church (the off site facility we use for HHD which can hold the high volume of people who show up…about 700) because it is somehow obligatory to do so? What are they coming here for? Are they motivated? Complacent? Conflicted? I have been asking around trying to understand where they are at but have been met with lovely but not so helpful responses of, whatever you say will be fine.

Sigh.

I am also a bit of an overachiever so "fine" does not quite sit right with me…

Secondly, I only have twelve minutes. I have a lot to say and twelve minutes feels painfully short. I think I give good sermon so over twelve minutes does not feel long for those listening (so I have heard) and for me, the challenge is condensing the phenomenal cosmic power of the Hi Ho message into an itty bitty living space.

And lastly, this is my first pulpit that has both an extant community and a senior rabbi with experience setting the bar of Rabbinic Expectations. In my past HHD experiences I have been the solo show and have felt that REALLY whatever I do is fine because if I were not there, no one would be. (Last year I was in Japan which you can read about at www.inaweinjapan.blogspot.com and for the 2 years prior to that, I was at MIT Hillel) Here, they have heard real sermons from Serge (to this comment I imagine he might reply something humble about how good his sermons are. I have heard his sermons, they are very good!). Here, they know what a practiced Rabbi does and DOES NOT look like. If I goof, not only will I know, but they will too.

The pressure is on.

The process was pretty funny. I wrote about 5 sermons. I am not one of those rabbis who suffers from writer's block. I hate TOO much to say and have trouble distill distill distilling it into something deliverable and manageable.

I found that as I wrote, I was pouring out the essence of my ethic of t'shuva. And I want to share the whole view with people. All of it in all its nuanced glory. I think a lot about this stuff and I want to share what I am thinking, see what other people are thinking, shape their views, have them shape mine…

And then I realized, it does not work that way. I may only have one shot to share this ethic of care with the BHS community. I may not be their intern next year. Who knows. And if that is the case, then they get one year's worth of the ethic and I get one year of response.

Suddenly, I see the beauty of being a part of congregation for many many years. You learn, gorw and develop together.

And I am struck with a profound desire to have that….to grow up and grow old with a synagogue community somewhere in this world….

Who knows what this year and the years ahead will bring. May you who read this (as well as those who do not read this ) be blessed, truly blessed this year in ways great and small and with the greatest gift ever to see the blessings you have, to love them, to cherish them, to be fed and nourished by them and step into the great abyss of 'the future."

Thursday, September 25, 2008

A synagogue's shoulds...

Synagogue of Symbolic Exemplar
In Rabbinical school, I read this book, Rabbi as Symbolic Exemplar which talks about how as Rabbis, we are symbols of people's Judaism, of all the hopes and dreams they have, all the SHOULDS of being Jews that they maybe cannot fulfill or want to fulfill…well, we embody all of that for people just because we are called "rabbi." It is a daunting responsibility and I have rejected it for a while until this week at the synagogue when I started seeing IT as a symbolic exemplar. I began asking the question-how SHOULD a synagogue function? What role should it play? How should it look?

I think the synagogue, the house of worship and house of prayer and house of study SHOULD be a place where we (clergy and staff and faculty and congregants) all together model the ideal. I want a green space with energy saver bulbs, no Styrofoam plates and energy efficient machinery. Motion sensor lights which are only on when you need them, left over food given to a food pantry or to other people in need, recycling (definitely recycling), minimal mailings and avid use of internet and other modes of communication like the phone and all the rest of the beautiful values Judaism teaches that we can embody. What if we insisted on saying in the synagogue "hey, sending a flier kills trees, let's have a phone tree to call one another to advertise the programs." What if insisted on saying in a synagogue that people are hungry and we have all this extra food, let's give it to them (They are hanging out down the street). What if insisted on saying in the synagogue people have nowhere to sleep, let's make a shelter.

Imagine what would happen if we made caring for the earth and one another a habit, what would happen in the lives of the congregants? It might be habit for them at home too. We could model that setting these things in place, yes it takes time and energy but saves time, energy and money in the end (particularly important today). We might be more conscious in our comings and goings of the widow, the orphan and the slave. We might just raise enough consciousness in the lives of the people who enter the house of God to make the broader community a home for God as well. If I were God, I would only live in a house that was truly a home in this way. Maybe by raising our awareness and insisting on it we could raise their awareness too and make a place where God felt truly welcome and we could live up to the name of the place in which we dwell….

Shoot, I have to go home and change my light bulbs. If I want this to happen, I better start with me.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Bat Mitzvah Invitation

This week I received an invitation to a bat Mitzvah addressed to Rabbi Rachel Bregman and Guest.

RABBI:
People have been referring to me as Rabbi for a while and so I thought I was over the sticker shock. I thought I had passed that moment when I thought "Oh right, they mean ME" and all the feelings that go with that about becoming a Rabbi-look who am I that I get to be THAT for someone else. I am me and this is what I feel called to do. But this week, I found, to my pleasant and slightly uncomfortable surprise that I am not there yet. Pleasant because it is lovely to forever remember that this is a privilege to have the title Rabbi which I have not completely, or rather, officially earned yet. Also uncomfortable because I felt so young and immature in my giddiness. As I have seen my classmates have this moment I have, embarassingly now looking back on it, turned my nose up to them in this moment thinking-how cute is that they still don't own it when I already do. How condescending of me! Well, the truth is, I too am in the boat of, oh my goodness, they mean ME! And what a fun place to be.

Rachel Bregman:
I am Rachael with an "A." rachAel. The family fiction is my mom's mom liked vowels and so named her Adeane (although I suspect my maternal grandmother somehow knew the Hebrew word, Adin, meaning dear, precious or beloved and named her for that) and thus made up a name that was cjhock full of them. I like to joke that a love for vowels is hereditary and thus-Rachael with more a's than Hallmark store name key chains and pencils could accommodate. People spell my first name wrong all the time and it always irks me. At first it is a minor nuisance but when it is repeated, it bugs me. It is my name! Names are so important. We identify through titles. Rachael is a title just like Rabbi. It is a statement-this is who I am. I would be someone else if I were a Melinda or a Sally or a Chen (with a chet meaning grace in Hebrew not with a hard ch sound like in child) so my elation around being called Rabbi was slightly deflated by seeing my first name misspelled.

(As an aside, I read this piece today by Buber about names: Moses page 61. "The 'true'name of a person is the essence of the person, distilled from his real being, so that he is present in it once again. What is more, he is present in it in such form that anybody who knows the true name and knows how to pronounce it in the correct way can gain control of him. The person himself is unapproachable, he offers resistance; but through the name he becomes approachable, the speaker has power over him" I love this idea of someway being able to say your name just right-communicating that they really know you, really see you. This reminds me of the scene in Indiana Jones when Jones finds the grail and his father says, "Junior, let it go" Or when the angel calls to Abraham from the heavens saying, "Abraham, Abraham." In those moments, it was saying the name just right that made the person go form being closed to open.)

And Guest:
What on earth will I do with this one? And Guest will be two words which haunt me for a long time, I imagine. I do not have an established partner in this life. The words and guest, meant as an expression of inclusion, raise issues of my connections to other people and how I bring those people to my professional life-a professional life that is so interwoven into my personal one. If I have an and guest, when do I bring them along? What does it mean for the Rabbi's significant other to show up at a bat mitzvah with her? Can I bring a friend who is just a friend (of course I cannot but it is sad that this is the case). And if I bring an and guest once and then not again, to what questions and critiques and judgments does this open me? And how much do I invest in that and how much SHOULD I invest in that…

Questions questions questions….

I love to ask them and I am not sure where to go with them. Maybe us young Rabbis need a support group :)

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof

Forgive the spelling errors etc-this are the notes I use to delivery a sermon. Mostly, it is an outline...

· Shabbat Shalom. Well here I am, delivering my very first dvar Torah to my new community for the year. So here I go, making my first impression as your new Rabbinic Intern.
· I wanted to relate something in the Torah portion to my joining your community and to use the text as a spring board to introduce myself to you-you know, to say something nice, expected and unchallenging.
· So, here is a summary of what happens in this week is Shoftim (summary)
o Appoint judges
o 3 witnesses
o Cities of refuge
o Do not worship idols
o Do not cut down trees when warring
· As I read the text, I came across one of my favorites in all of Torah.
o The portion opens with a discussion of the qualities of a judge and what makes for a good court.
o Then it says in Deut 16:20, tzedek, tzedek tirdof…justice justice you will pursue.
· Torah is a concisely written document.
o Nothing is superfluous or extra.
o Every word (etc) has a meaning. So what does it mean that the word justice, tzedek, is repeated twice?
· The 11th century French commentator and father of biblical exegesis, Rashi, tells us that this line means you should seek out a good court.
o The duplication is calling your attention to obligation of not only the judges to judge wisely,
o but of the people to seek out good judges and to make sure that the court system is a good one.
· How could I just pass on talking about this line?
o How could I give up talking about tzedek tzedek tirdof in order to use the text as a foil to talk about ME?
o What kind of Rabbinic presence would I be for you if I did this? What first impression would I really be making if I looked away from an opportunity to say something important to you?
o I am noting if not passionate about Torah study and about social justice. What disservice would I be doing not only to you, but to myself if I passed on the opportunity to do exactly what I believe this line of Torah is commanding me to do?
· This is a frightening moment, to stand before you for the first time and to say some things which may be a little bit provocative. But what kind of Rabbi would I be if I were unwilling to even take the risk?
· So here we go. What does tzedek tzedek tirdof mean? I think Rashi has a point that it is not just upon the judges to judge well, it is up to each one of us, each one of you to hold our judges, hold our community representatives, including your rabbis, cantors and educators, and to hold our elected officials responsible for the pursuit of Justice
· But this is not entirely satisfying. Rashi does not fully explain why the word tzedek-justice-is repeated twice.
o Clearly the Torah is trying to tell us something particularly important, otherwise there would be no repetition. But what is it? What is the message we are to take away from these three words of text?
o Perahaps the repetition is simply refer to the partnership between the people and the professionals-both must be committed, in their own way, to pursue justice.
o As a person in a leadership position for this community, I ask you, I expect you to hold me responsible for pursuing justice just as I hold you accountable for doing the same.
· Maybe that is not it at all. If tzedek tzedek is about partnership, what does this mean for those who are without partners? So this must mean something else.
· I grew up with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner at Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley in the suburbs of Massachusetts.
o Rabbi Kushner is a man committed to many things including bringing justice to this world.
o He would say it is our job as Jews to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted.
o One tzedek is what we bring to those who are hurting and one tzedek is how we motivate those who are complacent.
o (And pause for a moment to consider which one are you)
· But this understanding is too dichotomous. We are not either one or the other. Sometimes we give and sometimes we take. The Torah is more nuanced and subtle than this.
· Tzedakah is the word we use in our modern, liberal Jewish language to describe “charity.”
o It shares the same root, tzade, daledl kuf which means justice or righteousness, with the word tzedek from this week’s portion.
o Torah commands us to do many acts of tzedakah. These laws together create an incredibly caring and cared for community which binds the lives of the privileged with those less so.
o I was sitting in a class on Jewish politics, my teacher and former editor of the Jewish Forward, JJ Goldberg pointed out that only in America does tzedakah move from being
§ a requirement of Judaism and an act which unites a community
§ to being an optional act of self-expression.
o Perhaps these repeated words are like a mirror image showing us the jarring picture of who we are compared to who we know we can, should and must be.
· But wait, what exactly is this thing called justice? I am holding all of our feet to the fire here to do this justice thing. But what is it?
o For the past two years I have been serving as the coordinator of the soup kitchen of Hebrew Union College where we serve dinner to 90-120 people every Monday night.
o I have seen incredible acts of courage and kindness amongst our guests who are the homeless, hungry and working poor of the Washington Square Park community.
o Weekly, when students from local religious and secular schools volunteer to help serve the meal, I talk with them about justice and what it is.
§ It has something to do with making things equal-or to play with the language of the root which means righteous-to set things RIGHT or balanced
§ The students all understand that they have something to give to the guests and they think it is food.
§ What they do not understand is that they have more to give than that
§ AND that they have something to receive.
§ Beyond food, they can give chesed-or kindness. That even when their pockets are empty, they always have the ability to acknowledge the presence and the suffering of another human being.
§ It is such a simple thing to give and they…we all…have an endless capacity to do so.
· But my students are stumped when they consider what they have to receive from the guests.
o The guests have an astounding ability to respond to the suffering they see in each other.
o Whenever one guest expresses a need or a lack of some kind, quickly another guests sees the need, responds to it and meets it.
o I am forever moved by the ability of those with so little to give so much.
o From them I have learned what justice is.
o Justice is seeing a need and responding to it.
o Injustice is seeing a need and looking away.
· Torah teaches us in last week's Torah portion, Reah, that we will always have people who are hungry. We will always have people who are in need.
o It is so easy to look away from all there is to be done, all the pain and suffering in this world, all the unmet needs of people who know and love and of people have a world away.
· But we cannot turn away for that would be the greatest injustice we could perpetuate.
o If we who have could take a lesson from the have nots and refuse to turn away; to actively pursue justice…well, we would likely have fewer have nots and more haves.
· Tzedek is not an option. I hold you accountable. You hold each other accountable to seek justice and to pursue it. Even when we are tired, even when we are overwhelmed, each and everyone of us always has something to give to the pursuit of justice. It may be a meal, it may be a donation, it may be supporting another person in their efforts to fix some small piece of our broken world. It may be voting, or protesting or sometimes, even, just smiling in to the face of the stranger on the street who the world has forgotten and saying, I see you and I refuse to let you be invisible.
· We do not know exactly why the word tzedek is repeated twice in the Torah text.
· What is clear is that the repetition catches our attention and calls to us, screams to us, justice, justice you must pursue.

And then, suddenly, I was a Rabbi...

Justice Justice-What I learned this week about becoming a Rabbi
Many people who know me seem to think I would be happy, even good at, being a pulpit Rabbi. Until this weekend, though, I did not think the traditional pulpit was a direction in which I would likely be heading. I am not entirely sure what the switch was, and if there was a switch, it was the dimmer/sliding kind of switch not the flick switch. With time, I have gotten more and more comfortable with the basic doing of rabbiing (the tachlis, details of DOING the rabbi's work) to the point that I now feel I have the energy and attention to turn to the BEING of a Rabbi-you know, the stuff that makes me more than a glorified page announcer/service emcee.

Last night, I was officially welcomed to the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue as their Rabbinic Intern for the year 2008-2009/5769. I delivered a sermon on this week's portion- Shoftim (Deut 16:17-21:9). The process itself of writing the drash was wonderful. I began being very isogetical and wanting to write myself into the text. I wanted to use the text to talk about joining the BHS community. But then, as I said in the sermon which I am pasting into this blog, what a waste that would be when there is tzedek tzedek tirdof (Justice, justice thou shalt pursue-to use my best King James-esque rendering of this Hebrew phrase) to discuss!

So I scrapped the sermon I had all but completed, shifted gears and began again. The next blog entry contains the sermon notes I wrote up (with some changes which I penciled in on my paper-copy of the drash).

Here is what I learned from the writing:
Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that I am, in some part, responsible to help shape, create and further the spiritual, religious and Jewish development of the congregants I serve. I am there as more than just a resource, but also as a catalyst for growth. Sometimes, that is a healing growth like a band-aid, slave or balm. And sometimes it is an irritating growth like sand in an oyster's mouth becoming a pearl. Regardless, my task is larger than just talking about me, but is about fostering the congregants to talk about, explore, reveal and strengthen themselves. This, to me, means perpetually taking a risk in the things that I say and do and being challenging without being pushy or offensive. It mean asking the questions no one else wants to or dares to ask. It means being a little brazen and brave but not for the sake of being rude or mean, but to help people grow. It means being honest to build trust and it means knowing and speaking my mind in ways that are direct yet kind.

I guess I may be slow that it has taken me three plus years of Rabbinical school to come to understand this, but I feel blessed that I am beginning to see and unravel this task now.

What I learned about the rabbinate from delivering my sermon:
It was not so much the during as the AFTER the sermon which mattered. In the past, as people approached me after a sermon to tell me what they thought about the sermon, I never realized that they were not complimenting or critiquing me (although that is what their words may have said) but rather, they were sharing a piece of themselves with me, their potential rabbi. One person told me they liked that I had laid out the task of pursuing justice in small, manageable steps. So I then asked, what steps are you taking next? And when I heard the next step to be taken, I said great, tell me how it goes, I am curious to know how that experience feels for you.

In that moment and others like it, I felt like the rabbi version of my self, not just Rachael, but Rabbi Bregman and I loved it. I felt like delivering the sermon gave me an entry place into the lives of these people and I felt honored, privileged and humbled to step in to that role-as if this is what I have been working and building towards for a long, long time and finally all my skills and experiences are coalescing in this place, allowing me to slide with ease into this next part of my development as a person and as a member of the Jewish clergy.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Why I Want to be a Rabbi

Everyone loves to ask this question and I struggle to answer it. The reasons change moment to moment, semester to semester, as I learn and grow in to this role of "Rabbi." When I started, my stock response was, "I want to shape and nurture Jewish Souls." This was the statement I created with Rabbi David Thomas I was working for at Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley. I was strongly motivated by ego reasons at that point in time for starting in the rabbinate. I liked the authority. I liked having a place. I liked being successful and being known as "RachaelBregmanShe'sGreat" as if it were all one word. But somewhere along the way, my ego needed less stroking and I needed a greater sense of purpose for the work I was doing. It was actually February 21, 2008 when it happened, when I found my new calling to the rabbinate.

See, I spent a large part of my first two years at the NYC campus of Hebrew Union College working for the Soup Kitchen in many capacities including being the coordinator. In my years of services I learned many important lessons, two in particular.

1) The hungry and homeless community of New York City is an exemplar of caring and commitment. I have never seen people with less find the ability to give more. No one there ever seems to say no to a request for help. When there are not enough bananas to go around and one soup kitchen guest asks for one, another guest will give theirs away to meet that need. When there is information on the street, the grapevine word of mouth spreads that information like wildfire. No one hoards what they know to get ahead of someone else. No one keeps what they have at the expense of someone else. If those of us who have functioned more like those who have-not, there would be more of "us" and fewer of "them."

2) Suffering is awful and I wish it on no one. The gift that it brings to the world is one person's ability to offer care in its wake. Without suffering, could we have the depth and richness of care that is offered? I am driven to the rabbinate to respond to suffering. When I see suffering, I am stopped dead in my tracks and have to react.

So now, I want to be a rabbi because I am driven to respond to suffering and being a rabbi gives me an opportunity to do just that. Being the "Rabbi" often generates an invitation to share other people's burdens. I feel this is my calling, this is a part of my purpose in the world.

And when asked, "what kind of rabbi do you want to be when you are ordained?" I usually answer "employed." Truly, I do not know. I am lit up by teaching, by social justice, by the study and transmission of Torah, and by being with people in their most liminal and heightened moments (both joyous and painful).

Who knows where this journey will lead me, but I revel in the walking of this path and seeking out my own way through the world of ever becoming a Rabbi.