For many of us the word “sin” carries with it negative associations of a God whom we were taught to fear as children and whom we have spent our adulthoods struggling to redefine. “Sin” may conjure up images of the punishing old man in the sky who sees and judges our every move. Or perhaps it feels foreign, a word associated with religions not our own.

In spite of—or perhaps because of—the aversions or the dissonances this word brings up, it is upon us, today, to redefine what sin is and, therefore, determine how we wish to deal with it, both communally and individually. As Robert Frost wrote, in his A Servant to Servants, “The best way out is always through.” We must reckon with the sin until it is transformed. But when, and how, are we to do this? By examining a ritual from our past we can find direction for the future.

During the time when the Temple stood, on Yom Kippur the High priest used to perform a ceremony on behalf of the community to rid the people of their sin. In Leviticus (16:8-10, 21-22) we read that Aaron, the High Priest, would take two goats: one to be marked for a sin offering, the other, called the “goat for Azazel” designated for the “taking away for sin, that it would be sent away into the desert" (Lev 16:8-10). We read that Aaron would lay both of his hands on the goat and make a public declaration that all of the sins of Israel were placed on the goat’s head. It was thought that the goat then lifted up these sins of Israel and carried them off into the desert.

During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we cast our sins into the desert, freeing ourselves from their oppressive burden, unshackling our hearts and minds so that we can begin the year anew. Six months later another new year arrives (Exodus 12:12). After a period of enslavement we find ourselves once again loosening our chains and opening our souls. As we move on the path of freedom—beginning with Pesach and culminating with Shavuot— we can still hear the waves crash behind us as we begin to tentatively make our way through the midbar (desert).

That same desert landscape that we once relegated our sins to is now the backdrop of our journey. The desert preserves, it desiccates and hones through its dry winds and parched air. The sins we left behind have been reduced to their essence by being in the desert, and we see them in clear relief, like bones of bodies left out in the sun. They have waited for us, here, to be reckoned with in a more elemental form. These months later we can see with more objective eyes and a more receptive heart. Sifting through our sins laid bare in front of us, our usual mechanisms of avoidance or denial fall flat. We feel the sorrow, sit with the pain, understand these months later the consequences our actions wrought, and, from there begin to rest into a place of compassion that allows the soul to breath and the heart to shift.

We look back on that which we released during the High Holy Days as we pick through the remnants of what we cast away. Now with some distance we can see more clearly, and can begin asking the difficult questions: Why? Why did we do what we did? What in our nature compels us year after year to commit the same sins in new forms? What psychological barriers exist that keep us locked in this seemingly inescapable cycle? How do we shift the most stubborn aspects of our consciousness such that we are freed? What support do we need? What definitions of self are no longer serving us and what support do we need in developing new ways of being in the world?

We cry and complain: we do not want to do this work. Why couldn’t we have stayed oblivious, shallow and unredeemed? It is through these seven contemplative weeks, counting the days of the Omer as we move through the desert, that we begin to heal our past. Encountering all of our own accumulated misdeeds allows us to become truly free, truly prepared to hear the message of Sinai on Shavuot. And what is this message of revelation? It is the wisdom that comes from the hard, trying work of facing the wrongs we have committed head on, and working with them until they—and we—are transformed.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

The belief that the human being is created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God, and therefore has inherent worth and value is foundational to Judaism (Genesis 1:27). Not only does the human being reflect the likeness of the Divine, but Judaism teaches that every person is descended from the same Adam ha Rishon, the first human. As we read in the Mishnah, one person [Adam] was created as the common ancestor of all people (Sanhedrin 4:5). Each and every person is a reflection of both the Divine and of one another. In this way all people are intertwined, interrelated and interdependent.

These attributes of equality and interconnection can easily get lost as we create and participate in the systems that govern our society. If every human being is valuable, then every person should have a voice in the political process. However, in a society where one’s value or influence is often determined by the amount of money one gives, voices get lost. Systems are needed to level out the playing field to ensure that all are represented.

In Judaism we see this principle demonstrated in the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), the primary center of life and community of the biblical Israelites. Every person was required to give a half-shekel to provide for the maintenance of the Mishkan, “the rich could not give more and the poor could not give less” (Exodus 30:15). The half-shekel ensured that everyone in the community participated, and that no one person could claim ownership more than any other.

By contrast, such regulations are not in place in our political system. While the development of the Internet has spawned efforts to provide fundraising opportunities to small donors, so far at least, these attempts raise a small portion of what is needed to gain elected office. Consequently we suffer from a competitive process wherein vast sums of money are exchanged for voice and influence. As Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote for a recent federal court case dealing with campaign contribution limits:  “The constitutional line between political speech and political contributions grows increasingly difficult to discern.” Brown raises the question: Is money speech, and, if so, what happens to the voice of those without money?

Money has become an increasingly influential factor in American politics. For many politicians, fundraising can take anywhere from twenty-five to fifty percent of their day, leaving little time or energy for the work of listening to constituents and creating policy. Because so much time is spent raising money, in order to maximize their effort, politicians focus on higher-level donors who can give more to their campaigns. While all of us may have free speech, only some of us are being heard.

The relationship between politician and constituent relies on the communication of issues to the politician who then acts on behalf of the constituent. When money becomes the language of communication, it amplifies the concerns of those giving the money over the voices of those without money to give. Given this system, the politician responds to the megaphone of money.

Within the struggle to establish stricter campaign finance reform is the question of when donations to a campaign become a bribe. In 1991 the Supreme Court ruled that a bribe is when a contribution is, “made in return for an explicit promise or undertaking by the official to perform or not perform an official act.”

Whether or not the large sums of money donated by wealthy individuals or corporations are technically in the category of bribery, they certainly hold sway over those in or aspiring to office. In one way or another politicians must bend to the will of these large donors in order to secure their support. This creates a system whereby politicians become beholden to the will of the few and the voice of the many is seldom heard.

While the sums are larger and the stakes are higher in recent times, the fear that money corrupts those in power is an age-old issue. As far back as the Hebrew Bible those concerned with justice warned against the powerful and dangerous effects of money in politics. In Isaiah we read, “Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear-sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right (Isaiah 33:15).” According to Isaiah, money blunts the capacity to navigate the complexity of a given issue, and instead turns the ear towards the well-articulated pleas of the well financed without regard for other voices in the community and their just concerns.

Isaiah’s command is immediately followed by an explanation, the content of which has become a central tenet of Judaism, “you shall not oppress a stranger for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (ibid). The injunction to remember that we were once strangers is one of the most frequently recurring tropes in the Torah. Not only are we to recognize the stranger in our midst, but we are to remember that we too were once strangers ourselves.

Because prodigious energy is required to cultivate constituent relationships, the average person becomes a stranger to those within the halls of power. In our own day we see how easy it is for a politician to become estranged from those without large sums to give.

Eschewing bribes and remembering our experience as strangers in Egypt are two facets of the central Jewish teaching: “Justice justice shall you pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). Judaism not only focuses on lofty principles but also their enactment in daily life. So we must ask, how, exactly, does one pursue justice?

In his explanation of this biblical verse, the famous medieval commentator Rashi references a discussion in the Talmud in which the rabbis themselves offer multiple interpretations. Commenting on the double use of the word “justice,” the rabbis contend that the first mention of justice refers to a decision based on law, the second to a need for compromise (Sanhederin 32b). In order to create a just society, they believe, we not only have to follow the letter of law, but also must embody the more flexible spirit of the law in our interactions as well.

The story the rabbis give to illustrate the spirit of the law is one of two camels that meet on their ascent up the mountain. If they try to ascend at the same time, both will fall. Instead, the rabbis say, they should ascend one after the other. If one is laden and the other unladen, the latter should make way for the former.

The fact that this story is given as an illustration of “Justice, justice shall you pursue” makes clear that foundational to creating a just society is the institutionalization of measures that attempt to even out inequality. Implicit in this passage is the belief that justice requires both camels making it up the hill.

In our political system today money serves to exacerbate inequality, giving the unburdened camel the ability to hire a first class ride to the top while the other camel struggles in the dust below. Money can blind those in power to the fact that every individual is of inherent worth and is therefore deserving of equal representation in the political processes that govern society. Looking to our sacred texts can refresh our ethical vision and help us to hold our leaders—and ourselves—accountable.

At first glance it seems clear that women are treated as objects that men are able to own. The ensuing Talmudic discussion in the first chapter of Kiddushin explores this idea and attempts to tease apart exactly how much agency a woman has or is entitled to in the process of betrothal. The fact that a woman can be acquired by money at all might lead us to think that she is within the designation of chattel. Indeed, land, goods and animals can also be acquired by purchase. It seems from this first phrase that women have no say in the matter and are therefore objects to be acted upon, rather than actors in their own right.

In her article Chattel or Person, Judith Romney Wegner pushes against the idea that women are always treated as chattel in rabbinic literature and instead argues that there are times, though limited, in which women are treated as people, with rights and agency. By exploring rabbinic texts through the lens of jurisprudence, she creates a more nuanced picture of women’s status in society; illustrating the shifting nature of women’s rights contingent on their legal status. Women are somewhere in between object and actor, depending on whether or not her agency threatens the power and authority of the men around her.

Supporting evidence for the idea that women were seen as non-actors in the rabbinic world is the lack of women’s voices in these texts. We learn from this Mishnah that women are acquired by men in three ways, but are told nothing of how she feels or thinks about this system. Charlotte Fonrobert provides an interesting framework for understanding this dynamic. In her chapter The Hermeneutics of Colors and Stains Fonrobert demonstrates how the Mishnaic authors take the biblical understanding of menstrual impurity in temporal terms (days of impurity from time of bleeding) and transform it into an impurity that is based on appearance (color of the blood). By changing the system in this way, Fonrobert, reading the text with a hermeneutics of suspicion, argues that the rabbis created a menstrual taxonomy over which they could be the authorities.

Viewing the mishnah through Fonrobert’s lens, it becomes glaringly apparent that an actual woman’s voice is not present in this text. Instead, we have male voices discussing the affect of male actions on women. Because a woman’s voice is not included, we are left to imagine her thoughts and actions. Just as in the case of menstrual impurity “women…are staged as the objects of interpretation,” so too in women’s actions regarding betrothal the lack of the woman’s voice allows the rabbis, and therefore us as the interpreters, to imagine her thoughts and reactions.

Examining this mishnah through the framework provided by Miriam Peskowitz in her article Spinning Tales: On Reading Gender and Otherness in Tannaitic Text, gives us yet another way to understand this text. According to Peskowitz, there is not a one-to-one match between rabbinic texts and history. Rather, these texts both construct and reflect the rabbinic perspective on gender. While Romney Wegner may makes assertions based on the legal code of this historical period, Peskowitz sees our Mishnah as one piece in the rabbinic project of shaping and perpetuating a certain gender mythology. Like Fonrobert, Peskowitz argues that, “Others are constructed by someone/some group with the power to effect cultural processes and with the power to declare others as Other."

Peskowitz argues that these statements about gender put forth in the text serve not only as a window into the imagination of the text’s authors, but also as building blocks in the reification of particular notions of gender. As she writes, “If…the reification of roles and activities is one mechanism of domination, then we need to ascertain how certain notions about the roles, activities, and characters of men and women became reified at various historical moments.” Certainly the notion that women are simply agents to be acted upon is still alive in our culture today. By employing Peskowitz’s framework we can see this mishnah as an example of the way these notions about women and gender are created and reinforced by those in power.

In one particular section of the Talmudic discussion on this Mishnah, the rabbis try to tease out exactly how much money is needed to betroth a woman. One school of thought says that the amount is a dinar and the other says a prutah. In trying to figure out the reason for the discrepancy between these two answers, Rav Yosef reasons that dinar was related to the biblical monetary system—as the medieval commentator Rashi tells us, a dinar equals 1/8^th of a biblical coin—while a prutah was a rabbinic form of money. Because the Mishnaic concept of acquiring a wife through purchase derives from the bible, Rav Yosef reasons that it was necessary to have a monetary amount that corresponded to the biblical system.

The fact that direct parallels can’t be made from the biblical to the rabbinic world in terms of money opens up the possibility that there may be other problems with trying to base our system of marriage—or of life in general, for that matter—strictly on these ancient texts.

When looked at in this way, Rav Yosef’s statement seems quite profound. There are things—be they something as simple as a prutah or as significant as gay marriage—that change from one generation, culture, or intellectual milieu to the next. Our world is constantly shifting and we are continually evolving as human beings. Reading Rashi poetically, just as the rabbinic monetary system is one-eight the biblical system, the present is one-eighth of the past. We carry with us a portion of the past but we are also created anew in each generation and so should strive to allow fresh ideas to come forth.

My hope for us all is that we may learn and give honor to these texts we are studying, carrying forward parts of the rabbinic system of betrothal and, at the same time, make space for and honor the ways in which we and our society have changed. In acknowledging this, may we create space for new notions of gender, sexuality, and marriage to come into being.

Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Patel address the students and faculty of Hebrew College and of Andover Newton Theological Seminary. Though he spoke with all the charisma, poise, and eloquence that he always brings to his public appearances, this talk was starkly different from that which he gave to our community four years ago.

Rather than an enthusiastic celebration of the work of the interfaith movement, Patel spoke of the insularity and overall ineffectiveness of interfaith programs that only reach those with shared views and values. Patel critiqued his own and others’ work that often serves to bring together left-leaning liberals of different faiths who already feel that they have more in common with one another than with less liberal members of their own faith. This, he says, is not interfaith work.

If we want to transform prejudice into pluralism in America, he argues, we must move beyond these affinity groups to work with those with whom we fundamentally differ. The work of the interfaith leader, as Patel described it, is to find the points of connection across these deep differences. To do so, he says, we must build on what we have in common with one another rather than what divides. This means putting forward those parts of our traditions, our values, and ourselves that resonate with those of other religions.

While I believe that this approach is hugely important and necessary, I don’t believe it is the only one that is needed at this time. We need to be working on many levels at once. Finding the commonalities between our religions is crucial, but without also probing what divides us I fear that the cooperation and friendship we build is without honesty. To create a genuinely strong foundation requires surfacing the recalcitrant, often unconscious prejudices and generational harm that each of us harbors. These parts of our faith legacy will continue to echo until they are brought to light.

To illustrate this point, in our discussion with Patel, Rabbi Or Rose of Hebrew College brought the example of an interfaith organizing initiative in Boston. The group, as he described it, was extremely effective in organizing around health care but when gay rights came on the ballot, the lead organizers founds themselves protesting on opposite sides of the issue. Coming face to face with these fundamental differences caused a crisis of faith within the organization.

The approach we use must depend upon the goal we are working towards. One goal, as in Patel’s work, is to bring folks of different religions with starkly different views together to begin to build a relationship. Towards this goal we certainly must start by finding points of commonality and putting forth the best of our traditions. However, I believe interfaith work must be happening on other levels as well.

For those of us who do know people of other faith traditions with whom we already share commonalities in our political leanings there is still much work to be done in order to make sure the interfaith movement is built on something real and lasting. Rather than continuing to run programs where we bask in the glow of our traditions' shared commitment to justice, love, and peace, we must probe deeper.

At this stage of relationship I believe we must learn to share with one another the parts of our religious traditions that we find disturbing, to together sit with those aspects of ritual and scripture that we struggle with and the legacy of history that has left deep marks on our souls. A strong relationship cannot begin by each of us bringing the spiritual baggage of our tradition to the table, but neither can a real relationship be sustained if we are not honestly examining and in some way transforming those parts of our religion that cause us to feel distrust, disgust, or even hatred of the other.

All religious traditions have within them beautiful teachings and practices for how to lead a meaningful life. At the same time, these traditions have been created and shaped by human begins over time and are therefore an amalgamation of the best and worst of who we, as a species, are.

By witnessing and transforming the most troubling parts of our religions we will transform ourselves and, in doing so, our relationship to those of other faiths. This work must begin with each of us allowing ourselves to be aware of what troubles us about our faith, but this work cannot be fully done alone, or even just with those within our own community. Each of us uniquely mirrors aspects of Gd and those of us from different faith traditions have different lenses through which Gd is experienced. If a goal is for more of Gd to show up within these conversations, then we need one another.

A few weeks ago I shared a powerful experience with a group of students from Andover Newton Theological Seminary and Hebrew College rabbinical school as part of our CIRCLE group “Art as Inquiry into Interfaith Leadership.” Each meeting one person shares with the group a text or ritual from her religious tradition that she struggles with. We then use the Creative Process—engaging with art materials and then reflective writing in response to the text or ritual. The art is used as a way to tap into the unconscious elements of our experience and to process our thoughts and reactions. The goal is for each of us to delve deeper into the texts and theologies of one another’s traditions as well as to explore our relationships to each other as leaders of different faiths. The thinking behind our process is that by surfacing, sharing, and engaging the challenging parts of our traditions we come to understand our religion and ourselves differently.

By engaging with the Creative Process we move beyond a solely intellectual way of relating in which we are prone to debate an issue or judge one another. Using the art and writing allows us to work within the realm of the unconscious and to remain open to receiving whatever information or emotions come through us. It also holds the complexity and paradoxes of both the dark and the light of our religion and our reactions to others’ religious beliefs and practices without forcing a resolution or consensus reality.

In our session this past week Christian students in our group performed the ritual of communion and we, the Jewish students, witnessed. Rather than hear about communion or analyze its components, we simply watched and felt. It was powerful for the Christian students to have Jewish students in the room while enacting this ritual, and for the Jewish students to see and have a chance to reflect upon the experience of being observers. The Christian students shared their connections to and struggles with Communion. We then each picked a question about this ritual that felt alive for us and created art in response. At the end we shared our art and reflective writing with one another.

Through this process we were each able to work through our own emotions and reactions, share honestly with one another, witness one another’s struggles, and allow our relationship with communion to shift through the experience.

Though Hebrew College and Andover Newton are both progressive, liberal seminaries, and though we share much in common, in the past I have struggled to feel a sense of connection to ANTS students. In my experience, our interfaith events often emphasize our similarities, thereby covering over our differences. This makes me feel like our relationship is built on a false foundation. I can’t help but ask: what are we working so hard to cover up? I feel a much more real and deeper connection when share our struggles. When together we witness the challenging parts of our rituals, the scary parts of our scripture, and aspects of faith that divide us, I feel like an honest and real relationship has begun.

 My image via WikimediaCommons

Whether we are working in the summer or on a break from school or a job, these months of May-August seem so spacious. Time feels like it expands with the long days yawning out in front of us. So much seems possible when evenings are accented by freesia and fireflies; days are punctuated by blooming buds and bird song.

Yet, our holiest days don’t fall during these months of expansiveness. It seems that just as the month of Elul sets in, the calendar begins to fill and Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish New Year) is upon us before we even notice. For many of us, this is the busiest time of year. Grants are due, new hires come into the office, moves to new apartments are made, school starts up again. It seems that, no matter what, fall is a time of increased responsibility, obligations and activities.

The weeks surrounding the Yamim Noraim require an incredible output of energy, even as our tradition asks us to go inward. It is at precisely this time of year when anxieties are being aroused and when our values and limits are being tested that we are meant to engage in the hard work of rectifying relationships, asking and accepting forgiveness, emptying ourselves out and emerging renewed.

Ours is not a tradition that let’s us remove ourselves from the world so that we may engage in self-reflection. Rather, we are meant to both fully inhabit our lives and step back for reflection at the same time. In a paradox such as this, as Parker Palmer writes, “opposites do not negate each other – they cohere in mysterious unity at the heart of reality. They need each other for health.”

It is only when we are actively living this outward journey of life that we come face to face with our fears and failings and can see with honesty where our inward journey needs to go.

Just as much as this journey is about rebirth, new life, and a fresh start, it is also about loss, confusion, and letting go. It may be that if we were still surrounded by the abundance, light, and warmth of summer, we would avoid the darker tasks involved in this holy work. As Palmer writes, “When we so fear the dark that we demand light around the clock, there can be only one result: artificial light that is glaring and graceless and, beyond its borders, a darkness that grows ever more terrifying as we try to hold it off.”

So, then, the time of year becomes even more integral to the task at hand. It is precisely at this time of year, when summer’s bounty ends and the plants begin to brown, that we are called upon to reflect the natural world around us and acknowledge our own period of decay. It is a time, in Palmer’s words, when the “days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays towards winter’s death.”

Rosh Hashannah marks the beginning of our process of letting the surety of who we know ourselves to be die away so that we can become who we truly are.

ForestWanderer's image via WikimediaCommons

Anyone who has had the privilege to tend a garden through all the seasons knows the magic that can be found in this enterprise. Being connected to a piece of land over a period of time gives us constant opportunities for noticing, not just the big, beautiful changes like bursts of colors when the perennials pop up for the first time, but the subtle day to day or even hour to hour changes of seedlings growing, working their way up through the soil, unfurling tender green leaves and pulsing down grounding white roots. Tending a garden can helps us to learn the value of patience, of waiting and watching and letting things happen in their own natural time.

Over the cycle of the year the garden teaches us to understand that change and growth are constantly happening. Even in the bitter cold of winter, under mounds of ice and snow, garlic that is planted in the fall takes root and flourishes under ground, hidden from our watching eyes. In the spring, we see the bright stalks of green shooting out from the soil, but the seeds were alive and growing before any of that came to the surface. Tending a garden gives us the opportunity to be in contact with the inspiring strength and humbling fragility of life, and can help us to understand our place in the nature.

In reading this phrase “to serve it and to guard it,” we can ask what, exactly, are human beings meant to be serving and guarding? While the obvious answer, of course, is the garden, I think that there is another possibility. Through the physical act of gardening, we are not only tending the land, but we are tending ourselves. There is an intrinsic relationship between cultivating the soil and cultivating the self. As we work on transforming the earth on behalf of plants, we are, ourselves transformed. Perhaps what we are meant to be serving and guarding is not only the garden, but also the nefesh, the soul.

This High Holy Day season may we have the courage and strength to till and to tend our own souls. May we clear away the weeds that no longer serve us, may we have patience as the seeds within us germinate, and may this work cause the garden within us to flourish.

My image, via Wikimedia Commons.

For Jews, this taste of paradise is Shabbat. Each week we set aside 25 hours in which we see the world—and ourselves—as perfect. There is nothing to be fixed or altered. We are completely whole and satisfied with life. We eat good food, connect with friends and family, spend time in nature, and rest from our workday lives. It is said, in our rabbinic texts, that Gd promised us olam haba (lit. the world to come) if we observe all of the commandments. When the people asked Gd what this olam haba was, Gd replied, “This is Shabbat.” Shabbat is both our fleeting taste of the world perfected, and our practice for making this paradise a lasting reality.

This practice is not only the way we as Jews sustain ourselves, it is how anyone dissatisfied with the world as it is visions and creates the world as they imagine it should be. In the fallout from the tragic Sikh Temple shooting, our attention has been drawn to the culture and practices of the neo-Nazi skinhead groups that the shooter belonged to.

Recently, the New York Times published an article about the white power music scene of which the shooter was a part. Through concerts and festivals, neo-Nazi groups are about to reinvigorate their base and cultivate new members by giving members a taste of the world as they imagine it. The article reads, “Organizing the events as ‘white-only, members-only’ spaces is a calculated effort to create collective experiences where, at least momentarily, adherents can experience the world they idealize: where enemies of whites are vanquished and Aryans rule.”

Greenberg writes that the goal of Shabbat is to create “a reality so complete and absorbing” that we are reconnected to our faith and recommitted to working, during the rest of the week, to bringing about the world we imagine. So too, the goal of festivals like Summer of Hate is to provide people with an experience of immersing themselves in the paradise they seek in order to energize them to continue working to bring this world into reality.

The future these hate groups are striving toward is not only antithetical to my vision of a redeemed world, but is also one that seeks to eliminate me from existence. And yet, I find a strand of our shared humanity in the fact that we both feel a lack in the present and a yearning towards the future, however opposite those futures may be.

I may not be able to change the orientation of these hate groups or affect their vision of paradise. But I can use their vision and mission as a means to examine my own idea of olam haba. Though I am not filled with hate or vengeance as many in these groups are purported to be, if I am really honest with myself there is also a part of me that imagines the world to come as filled with people like me.

If what “paradise” means is a place where there is no fighting, challenge, disappointment, or struggle, then it seems to follow that we would all have to be of the same mind, share the same beliefs, morals, and priorities. And there is a part of my Shabbat practice that is about being among people who share and reflect back to me those values. Shedding light on this thread of belief that rests somewhere in my consciousness has allowed me to reevaluate the Eden I seek and the Shabbat practices that prepare me for this future.

The idea of living as though an ideal reality were true is very powerful. Each week as we welcome Shabbat we sing from our liturgy, “sof ma’asei b’machshevah techilah.” Of this line the Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Brestlov explains that this verse teaches us that contained within any final action is the original thought. In order to move an idea from a state of potentiality to a state of actualization we must see the end result in our mind and continually work to bring these images to life.

The image that I seek to bring to life is not one of a stagnant world in which we are all alike. Rather it is a world of healthy struggle and beautiful differences that ebbs and flows between moments of perfection and periods of change. And the truth is that no matter what group of people we surround ourselves with, be they seemingly similar to ourselves or not, the fact that we are each unique individuals means that differences will always arise. Shabbat, then, is not about shutting off from those ideas, beliefs, or people that challenge us, but is rather about tapping into a sense of gratitude for the dynamism of life that comes from these differences.

As the novelist Arundhati Roy said, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” May this world be one in which we celebrate differences and seek out our shared humanity such that violence becomes a distant memory and hate an emotion of the past.

Image from NASA/JPL via Wikimedia Commons

In fact, I believe that it is this lack of engagement with the unknowable aspects of existence which causes so many of us to turn away from the religion we were given as children. We understand, as every human being does, that there is a mystery that permeates life, but we often weren’t given an opportunity within a religious framework to explore, marvel at, be confused by, struggle with, or wonder about its nature. In addition, we likely weren’t shown models of adults within our communities doing this either. For many, the synagogue is a place for gathering together, the religious service a space to assert what we know to be true. Rather than an opportunity to convene as fellow travelers helping one another navigate the exciting, sometimes scary, channels of the unknown, the prayer service can easily become a time to build up walls, insulating ourselves with words we know, tunes we were brought up with, and messages that are easy and familiar.

This month I am working as an Education Fellow at the Brandeis Collegiate Institute (BCI) in Southern California. It is a program that brings Jews in their early twenties from all over the world together to explore in a safe, supportive, open, and diverse environment questions of community, identity, and God. In our beit midrash study sessions Jews from China learn with those from Uganda, and Orthodox participants study alongside humanists.

Last week in beit midrash we led a session entitled "God! God? God." In this session we encouraged the participants to express the ways in which they relate to each of these stances towards God. Many expressed a deep yearning for connection to God, a yearning that they have been feeling for many years but have not known quite how to pursue. Others vented resistance and anger towards a God they did not believe in as the start of a process of opening to an idea of God they might connect to.

In his book Radical Judaism, Rabbi Art Green writes, “If you believe as I do that the presence of God is everywhere, our chief task is that of becoming aware. But that job is not only an intellectual one; it involves heart as well as mind. God is everywhere, but we build walls around ourselves, emotional walls, barricades of defensiveness, because we are too threatened by the oneness of Being to let ourselves be open to it.”

I hope that these beit midrash sessions were productive steps in helping to dismantle the walls we build around ourselves, to help students open to that which feels true and real. In whatever ways can make space for these questions and can show one another that none of us is alone on this path of exploration, we will be strengthening our religion, our community, and ourselves. It is by asking the unanswerable questions and articulating that which we don’t know that we can move beyond the pediatric version of religion that no longer fits us and come to inhabit a less clear, perhaps scarier, but ultimately more true and fulfilling sense of religion as adults.

This photo by Jiggafly is depicted here in accordance with its Creative Commons License.

I am excited to have this opportunity to talk to you about conversion. Conversion is an important act, both for the convert and for the Jewish people. Engaging with the historical understanding, processes, and rituals of conversion raises many questions about what it means to be a Jew. Who are we, as a people, and who do you, as a convert, become when you join this community that spans time and space?

As a child of a convert, these are questions that I have often asked myself and my fellow Jews. I am aware that there is a strand of Jewish thought, dating back to biblical times, that understands Judaism as an ethnicity. This view excludes people from joining in and emphasizes the genetic connection between members. Were this to be the only way to view Judaism, I would never be able to be a full member of this community. Through my studies this year in hilkhot giyur, the development of Jewish law about conversion, I was pleased to learn that there is another, just as ancient position. This view sees Judaism as a community of practice. Jews are people who share a set of beliefs and practices, and Judaism is a religion that is open to all those who wish to embrace these beliefs and practices.

In addition to these two primary strands of belief, there are countless other views of what it means to be Jewish. Judaism can be seen as a group of people connected to a certain portion of land (Ruth, Devarim, Bikkurim Tosefta, Bikkurim Mishnah 1:1, 1:2 and 1:5), as a spiritual lineage (Midrash Tanaim, Beresheit 17:5, Yerushalmi, Ruth), a people who share a mythology or history (Devarim 23:5, Tosafot Baba Batra 81a), a people linked by fear, insularity and self protection, a people formed through shared suffering (Yevamot 24), and a people either born into the religion or “reborn” into the religion through a set ritual. This is a long and varied list of frameworks to consider and I look forward to discussing these paradigms with you further as we embark together on this process.

Most importantly, from looking at these diverse and often juxtaposed viewpoints, I can say that Judaism is a tradition which encourages us to explore all possibilities—both those we readily embrace and those that are challenging to us—and to find our own articulation via this exploration. Speaking for myself, I can say that my understanding of Jewish identity has changed over time, and has included ideas that touch on many of the views articulated in our texts: Jews are people who go to synagogue, Jews care about social justice, Jews are the kids of Jewish parents, Jews speak Hebrew, Jews have a special connection to the land of Israel, Jews believe in Gd, Jews believe in the Torah, Jews are ethical and caring people, Jews love studying texts, Jews are committed to community. Of course, there is no one description that can capture what it means to be Jewish. For every definition one can think of, there are Jews who believe or behave oppositely.

From this we can learn that Judaism is not a religion that takes one hard line on any issue, but rather holds many competing perspectives in tension with one another. While we may likely find one or two of the framework listed above to be useful for our exploration of conversion, I believe our understanding of Jewish identity will be deeper and richer for having considered them all.

Starting the process of conversion means entering into a period of exploration and self-discovery. Most important to me is that you engage honestly, and whole-heartedly in this process, that you open your mind to seeing the world and yourself in a new way, yet to maintain your powers of discernment. In the Talmud the rabbis detail the process one should engage a potential convert in. It starts with a question: why? And ends with a ritual moment of transition: mikvah (immersion). The Rambam adds to this list by including the element of Judaism most essential to him: philosophical understanding and acceptance of Gd. If I may be so bold, I will follow the Rambam’s example by adding a few elements of my own that get at the heart of what I believe it is to be Jewish: to think critically, to sit with contradictions, and to open your heart wide to all that you can see and understand and to all that you will never comprehend yet deeply know to be true.

Image: Stadtarchiv Friedberg via Wikimedia Commons

Able to see and understand what others couldn’t or wouldn’t, the prophet functioned as a moral compass, speaking up for the vulnerable masses, railing against the powerful few, and reminding all who would listen that ultimately what Gd desires from us is the creation of a just and equitable world.

While the words of the prophets continue to weave their way through our lives, the system of prophecy has long since ended. We quote Amos, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” yet if an Amos arose today, claiming direct communication from Gd and prophesizing our imminent destruction, we would likely think him crazy, dangerous, or both.

While the messages of the prophets are still desperately in need today, we no longer accept the prophetic system as legitimate. The call for justice is essential, yet the reality of one or two people claiming direct communication with Gd is threatening. Society as we know it could not function if, at a moment’s notice, a prophet might assert himself with a message from Gd.

Why did we move away from a system of prophecy? What has come to take its place? And who is upholding the call for justice, today?

Many changes caused this shift away from prophecy. Belief in prophecy rested on the understanding of the Temple as the nexus point between Gd and human beings. Without the Temple, the prophet’s connection to Gd became dubious.[1] Further, canonization of the Bible made Gd’s word accessible to all without an intermediary to relay Gd’s message.[2] No longer was the prophet needed to tell people Gd’s desires. Additionally, prior to exile the prophet’s main audience was the king. Post-exile the Jews lost their place of political power and there was therefore no longer an audience for the prophet’s message.[3]

With the destruction of the Temple, the canonization of the Torah, and the beginning of exile, there was no longer a clear place for prophecy. In its stead arose the system of rabbinic authority, claiming the power and legitimacy that prophecy had once enjoyed. As it says in the Mishnah, “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly.” This famous line that begins the book of Pirkei Avot marks the transition from the authority of the prophets to the authority of the rabbis.

On one hand, this rabbinic claim to legitimacy can be seen as a power-grab aimed to give weight to its own authority. However, as Frederick E. Greenspahn claims in his article “Why Prophecy Ceased,”

These figures’ eschatological mission posed a severe threat to the existing social order. To the extent that rabbinic authority was dependent on Roman support, the rabbis were unlikely to grant legitimation to so destabilizing an influence…By rejecting the Holy Spirit’s presence, the rabbis, whose own legitimacy rested on the interpretation of previous revelation, protected themselves from those claiming a more direct link to the divine while undermining the theological basis for such figures’ anti-establishment activities.

The need for social order and stabilization, as Greenspahn describes, in addition to the rabbinic quest for legitimacy, caused the shift from prophecy to tradition. In place of one person acting as a messenger from Gd, we got the rabbinic system—specifically halakhah (Jewish law)—through which scholars strive to interpret Gd’s voice from scripture to direct us in how to live today.

In looking at the historical context, I can understand why it was necessary for prophecy to end. Different eras call for different modes of leadership and new mechanisms for discerning Gd’s voice. On one hand I believe in social order and in a more democratic process like halakhah, which, in its ideal form, would bring us all into the process of attempting to understand Gd’s will. On the other hand, without the prophetic voice we have lost the clear moral compass that holds justice as the highest virtue.

Today, without a prophet to sound the call of justice, each of us must strengthen our internal moral compass. The prophets made it clear that to do Gd’s will is to create a just society where the most vulnerable are protected, where wealth and power are shared by many and not consolidated in the hands of a few, and where religious practice and pursuit of justice are intimately linked. In a post-prophetic age it is incumbent upon each of us to continue to knit together religion and justice and to work towards a time when we truly act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Image Benjamin West via Wikimedia Commons

[2] J. Wellhausen Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels

[3] Sommer