Rabbi's Archive

An ancient Jewish legend teaches that as the first winter approached, and the days grew shorter, Adam and Eve fell into a state of deep despair. Having never lived through a cycle of seasons, they did not know what was happening in the world around them—and thus began to fear that daylight would continue to diminish until it disappeared entirely. Terrified that the sun was going out forever, they prayed to their Creator for the renewal of light.

And then, as the winter solstice passed, their prayers were answered: slowly but surely, the days grew longer again. In gratitude, they established a solstice celebration known as Calendula, which was later marked by the Romans and many other nations and peoples.

Indeed, virtually every culture celebrates the return of the light in the season of deepest darkness. It is no accident that both Chanukah and Christmas—each a festival of lights—fall at this time of year. While the two holidays have no historical connection (unlike, for instance, Pesach and Easter), they share the same pagan origins, which pre-date both Judaism and Christianity.

For some Jews, the notion that most of our festivals have pagan roots is disturbing. And our tradition has largely emphasized the historical side of our holy days: Pesach as deliverance from Egypt, Shavuot as giving of the Torah, Purim as the story of Esther, and Sukkot as a reminder of the wandering in the wilderness. But each of these festivals also has an older, pagan foundation in the cycles of nature: Pesach celebrates the arrival of spring, Shavuot marks the onset of summer, Purim is a mid-winter bacchanalia much like Mardi Gras and Carnival, and Sukkot is a fall harvest gathering.

I find comfort and inspiration in this part of our tradition that is rooted in paganism. I believe that for far too long, we have de-emphasized the parts of our festivals that connect us with the earth. More and more Jews—especially young Jews—are renewing the ancient connections. They are turning to leaders like Rabbi Jill Hammer, and her organization, Tel Shemesh, which seeks “to celebrate and create Jewish rituals, prayers, and festival celebrations that honor the earth, the physical, and the immanence of the Divine, and to recover Jewish images, sacred texts, rituals, mystical traditions, and modern writings relating to the earth, the four elements, the cycle of life, and the masculine and feminine, as well as other creative images of the sacred within nature.”

Judaism is all about tikkun olam—about healing and repairing what is broken in our world. We take an important step in this direction when we renew and repair our own tradition’s connections with God’s creation.

So, as Chanukah draws near, let us tell the story of the Maccabees and eat latkes, but may we also revel in the returning of the light, the ancient cycles of solstices and equinoxes, in earth’s patient turning, in sun and sky. May it be a season of light and gladness for us all.

It is good to be home as we prepare to welcome a new year. I am deeply grateful to the CABI community for the extraordinary sabbatical which I enjoyed in the second half of 5769, and I hope to share some of my insights and learning throughout 5770. I felt so lucky to return to a congregation that grew stronger in my absence. It is a privilege to be the rabbi of such a vibrant and generous community, with tremendous lay leadership and creativity.

Over my course of study at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, we focused on Jewish responses to crisis. The topic was most fitting, for the past year has brought us the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, imposing severe hardship on millions of individuals and families, including many in our own congregation. Jewish communities in America, Israel, and the rest of the world have also suffered, as funding for budgets and buildings has greatly diminished.

During the forthcoming Days of Awe—and beyond—I will be drawing on some of the material I studied at Hartman—from Torah, Talmud and Kabbalah—to examine how we might use sacred stories and solutions from our people’s past to better face our own future. My Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sermons will all address different facets of responding to crisis: facing our fears, re-discovering our core values, using crisis as an opportunity to encourage systemic change, and finding support in a caring community. This theme will also be the topic of our Yom Kippur study session, an adult learning course that I will be teaching later this fall, a September 8th workshop on preparing for the High Holy Days, and our selichot study and service on the evening of September 12. More information on all of these programs follows below.

One of my favorite insights comes from our Friday night service, when we sing V’Shamru. We declare, "U-vayom ha-sh’vee’ee, shavat va-yeenafash—on the seventh day, God rested and found renewal." The key word here, which so inspires me, is the last one: va-yeenafash. It means, literally, "to be re-souled."

What a powerful lesson this verse imparts. God teaches us, by example, the power of rejuvenation. Used cars and houses are re-sold. Old shoes are re-soled. And we, like God, take a day each week to be re-souled.

Contemporary science confirms this ancient wisdom. Last week, I read the results of a study showing that people who regularly get less than seven hours of sleep per night are highly susceptible to colds and other illnesses. Healthy immune responses require sufficient rest. I’ve always believed that many of the ills that plague our world could be diminished if we could just learn to slow down, step back, and catch our collective breath. We think, pray, teach, act, and love more clearly and powerfully when we take care of our bodies and souls, when we take seriously (and playfully) the requirement of va-yeenafash, to re-soul.

I find myself contemplating this insight a great deal these days, for in a couple weeks, I will be taking leave of you and embarking on a six-month sabbatical. My intention is to rest and re-soul, so that I might return with renewed energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge to share with you next fall and beyond. I will be spending time with my family in Salt Lake City, working with the Jewish community in Fairbanks, Alaska (where I hope to view the northern lights), traveling with Rosa in Spain, trekking in Nepal, and studying with rabbinic colleagues at the Shalom Hartman institute in Jerusalem. If you’d like to follow my comings and goings, you can do so by checking out the blog, "At Home and On the Road," that I’ll be keeping at http://rabbidanfink.blogspot.com.

On Rosh Hashanah morning, I spoke about Mussar, a Jewish spiritual path that emerged out of Lithuania in the 19th century. The word "Mussar" literally means instruction; what it offers is a map of the inner life and a body of practices we can use to transform our behavior. By engaging in this work, which is known as tikkun middot ha-neshamah, repairing the traits of the soul, we move towards lives of greater integrity, decreasing the dissonance between our ideals and the ordinary, daily choices that we make. The mussar path helps us identify our own personal challenges and provides us with a battery of time-tested techniques—recitation of short phrases, meditation, visualization, daily text study, and nightly review of our actions—to break bad habits and establish healthier ones. As the movement’s founder, Rabbi Israel Salanter noted: "The Maharal of Prague created a golem, a living creature of clay, and this was a great wonder. But how much more wonderful to transform a corporeal human being into a mensch!"

The following exchange is fictional, but it nicely illustrates
an important point as we enter the Days of Awe. May 5769 be a year of learning and spiritual growth for all of us.
L’shanah tovah,

Dear Rabbi,Why does the Jewish religion seem to obsess over insignificant
details? What is kosher for Pesach, when do I bow in services, how much tzedakah should I give? It seems to me that this misses the bigger picture by focusing on minutiae. Is this nitpicking what Jews call spirituality?
(I actually already sent you this question over a week ago and didn’t receive a reply. Could it be that you have finally been asked a question that you can’t answer?!)
Rifka

Dear Rifka,
I never claimed to have all the answers. But it happens to me that I did answer your question, and you did get the answer. I sent a reply immediately. The fact that you didn’t receive it is itself the answer to your question.
You see, I sent you a reply, but I wrote your email address
leaving out the “dot” before the “com”. I figured that you should still receive the email, because after all, it is only one little dot missing. I mean come on, it’s not as if I wrote the wrong name or something drastic like that! Would anyone be so nitpicky as to differentiate
between “yahoocom” and “ yahoo.com “? Isn’t it a bit ridiculous that you didn’t get my email just because of a little dot?

No, it’s not ridiculous. Because the dot is not just a dot. It represents something. That dot has meaning far beyond the pixels on the screen that form it. To me it may seem insignificant, but that is simply due to my ignorance of the ways of the web. All I know is that with the dot, the message gets to the right destination; without it, the message is lost to oblivion.
Jewish practices have infinite depth. Each nuance and detail contains a world of symbolism. And every dot counts. When they are performed with precision, they help us to repair both ourselves and our world.
If you want to understand the symbolism of the dot, study I.T.
If you want to understand the symbolism of Judaism, study it.
All the best
Rabbi

One of the highlights of my summer, each year, is the
backpacking trip I lead with our post-B’nai Mitzvah teens
and some of their parents. It’s always a great joy to
spend time together in our beautiful Idaho wilderness.
We hike, eat, laugh, tell stories, celebrate Shabbat and
havdallah. In the presence of the Sawtooth Mountains, it
is hard not to feel close to the Creator.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav once offered a prayer
that began, “Teach me to spend time outdoors each
day… where I am one with the One who is the Source
of all life.” We are lucky to be able to live that prayer
here. I hope that many of you will join me on the
teen backpacking trip this year, July 25-27. And if
you can’t, find your own opportunity to spend time in
the natural world, contemplating the Creator and offering
our thanks for His/Her bounty.

Last month, for the first time in a decade, CABI hosted a
congregational seder. It was, by almost every measure, a
big success. Well over one hundred participants enjoyed
a spirited Pesach celebration. It was good to see friends,
and to celebrate together.

And yet. . . I am still troubled by the idea of a community
seder, and I fear that its short-term benefits are outweighed
by the long-term costs. For over 3,500 years,
Passover has been a home-based holiday. The trend towards
congregational seders marks a radical departure
from that ancient tradition. And this change does not exist
in a vacuum; it is part of a larger shift from a do-ityourself,
home-centered Judaism to a kind of vicarious
practice where everything Jewish is served up by the
synagogue.
Why is this so troublesome? To begin with, home is the
place where the most important Jewish memories are
made—and Judaism is all about creating and passing
along memories. As Rabbi Jill Jacobs notes: "Though the
importance of synagogues cannot be minimized, the
home should remain the place where people first encounter
Jewish ritual, and where much of Jewish life takes
place: Passover Seders at grandparents' houses, lighting
Chanukah candles with parents, or eating Shabbat and
holiday meals with family." I would add that for those
who are not born Jewish, it is even more important to
establish Jewish home observances that will create new
memories. If we lose the Jewish home, we lose the heart
of our tradition.
I know that not everyone is able to put together a seder.
Some don't feel sufficiently knowledgeable; others lack
the family to share with or are not well. But none of these
factors need be an obstacle. I'd like to see CABI empower
our members to do their own seders by offering "how-to"
courses and seder-to-go kits with recipes, haggadot, and
everything else one needs to host. I'd also like to ensure
that those who don't have local family or close connections,
or who cannot do a seder for whatever reason, get
invited to someone else's seder. This gives our members
the opportunity to do the essential mitzvah of hachnassat-
orchim—offering hospitality to guests. I hope that our
ritual and adult learning committees will work with me to
make this possible in future years.

The synagogue does have an important part to play in Jewish holiday observance; our challenge is to partner with our households rather than taking over their roles.

It will always be easier to attend a congregational seder
than to host your own at home. But our tradition is not
about taking the easy way. Talmud teaches: "According
to the labor, so is the reward." A strong Jewish community
is built on strong Jewish households, and strong Jewish
households are built on home-based Jewish observances
and memories. The reward is more than worth the
effort.

Experience Israel

Join Rabbi David Fine, director of the Union for Reform
Judaism-Pacific Northwest Council, and Dr. Jerome
(Jerry) Waldbaum, president of the Union for Reform Judaism-
Pacific Northwest Council for a trip to Israel. Dates
are Oct. 26-Nov. 7, 2008. Register by May 16, 2008. For
more information and registration, see the enclosed flier,
visit http://urj.org/pnwc/israeltrip/ or call (206) 374-9393.

Please join us for the annual Teen Backpacking Trip July
25-27 in the Sawtooth Mountains. We will provide adult
chaperones, food and transportation. Participants will
provide camping/backpacking supplies. Questions and
RSVP to Rabbi Dan at rabbidan@ahavathbethisrael.org.

There is even a movie called “When Do We Eat?” that
features the fictional—and very dysfunctional—family of
Ira and Peggy Stuckman. They gather to celebrate “the
world’s fastest seder,” ending with a meal that is “kosher
enough for Moses.” We get the gag because we’ve all
been there.

And yet, beneath the laughter there is a kind of profound
sadness. On a night that is defined by so many wonderful
questions, this one is a kind of travesty, even when uttered
half (or more than half) jokingly. If our ancestors
could wander for forty years in the desert before arriving
at the Promised Land, we can surely make it a few hours
before the brisket arrives. “When do we eat?” essentially
turns the extraordinary story of our people’s liberation
into an obstacle standing in the way of a nosh. So let’s be
clear: Pesach is all about telling that story. The meal is,
essentially, incidental, just one more prop in the educational
theater that is the seder.

Our sages taught: “In every generation, it is incumbent
upon us to see ourselves as if we, too, went out from
Egypt.” Pesach is not about remembering the distant
past; it is about re-experiencing that past in the present
time. It is not the story of our ancestors long ago; it is
our story. Our challenge is to consider what enslaves us—
anything and everything from money to television to old,
stale habits—and find ways to free ourselves from those
burdens. The Hebrew word for Egypt, mitzrayim, means
“a narrow place.” This spring festival of deliverance is the
time of our own liberation, an opportunity to renew ourselves.

So this year, don’t ask, “When do we eat?” Savor the
journey rather than kvetching your way to the destination.
Find creative ways to make your seder a living,
breathing experience of redemption. Raise other, better
questions: “What can I do to change the world this year?
What still enslaves me? How can I help hasten the redemption
of others still in bondage?” It’s not about the
food. It’s about the freedom. Experience it this year.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, delivered an important sermon at the 2007 U.R.J. biennial last December. He spoke with great passion about reviving and transforming Shabbat.

I strongly encourage you to read Rabbi Yoffie’s sermon in its entirety at the U.R.J. website (http://urj.org/shabbat/), which also contains a wealth of resources for Shabbat observance. That said, I’d like to use this space to share and reflect upon two of his comments.
Rabbi Yoffie began by acknowledging a growing problem in Reform congregations: poor attendance at Shabbat morning services. He noted: “In the last year, I have spoken to hundreds of rabbis and cantors who overwhelmingly express their dissatisfaction with the status of our Shabbat morning prayer. The results are tragic. We lose young families, whose children cannot stay up late on Friday. We lose seniors, who avoid nighttime driving and prefer to pray during the day.”

For all of these reasons and more, I hope we at CABI will put some thought into why our attendance at Shabbat morning services is so light. Shabbat morning is, in fact, traditionally much more important than Friday night! Shabbat morning is when we read Torah. It is a great shame that the vast majority of our membership only gets to experience the Torah reading on holidays and for bar and bat mitzvahs. I’d like to explore how we can attract more of our membership to the Shabbat morning service. Here is one suggestion: if the service is too long for you or 10:00 is too early on Saturday morning, don’t fret—come at 11:00 or so. It’s quite all right to be late on Shabbat morning. In the hour that follows, you’ll be there for the Torah reading and discussion.

Rabbi Yoffie went on to make one more very important point. He urged Reform Jews to find ways to celebrate the entirety of Shabbat, rather than just an hour or two at synagogue services. He said, “We need Shabbat. In our 24/7 culture, the boundary between work time and leisure time has been swept away and the results are devastating… Our families take the worst hit. The average parent spends twice as long dealing with e-mail as playing with his children. For our stressed-out, sleep-deprived families, the Torah’s mandate to rest is relevant and sensible. We are asked to put aside those Blackberries and stop gathering information, just as the ancient Israelites stopped gathering wood. We are asked to stop running around long enough to see what God is doing.”

This month, try to do something each Saturday to make the day different from the rest of the week, to make it Shabbat rather than another working day. You can start small. Turn off your computer for 24 hours. Let the laundry sit. Or take a walk in the foothills with family or friends.

It is said that “More than Israel has kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept Israel.” May we all find ways to bring more of the joy of Shabbat into our homes and hearts.

While January 1 is not a new year by our Jewish calendar, I often think that it is a good opportunity for us to consider how we are doing on our Rosh Hashanah resolutions. Through our fall holy days, we focus on teshuvah, the process of making amends for our misdeeds of the past year and engaging in the difficult work of changing ourselves. Now, as the rest of the world celebrates the Gregorian year by drinking and eating too much, we do well to take measure of how we are proceeding in our sacred labor of teshuvah. Are we still committed to the transformation that we undertook nearly four months ago? Do we need to adjust our course? As we linger in the darkness of winter, how can we nurture the seeds we planted in the fall so they may bear good fruit come spring?
A few months ago, the newspapers reported an extraordinary story: Dr. Elaine Solowey, an Israeli botanist, successfully germinated a 2,000-year old seed. The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, came from Masada, where it lay dormant for two millennia. Today it is a young sapling on the grounds of Kibbutz Keturah, where it has grown to nearly a foot tall and produced seven leaves. Fittingly enough, that seed came from a date palm, the tamar, thus giving new meaning to the words of Psalm 92: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.”
What a wonderful lesson for all of us in this season of the winter solstice! Hidden life lurks in so many dark places! The seeds of blessing are always there, within each of us. Sometimes they are buried deep; they can lie dormant for decades. But the possibility of renewal and the potential for teshuvah are never lost. If we apply the right nutrients, we can revive and germinate old hopes and dreams of who we aspire to be. This month, earth moves us once more towards the light. Fittingly enough, it is also the time when we celebrate Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish new year of the trees. May we find in this eternal turning a profound opportunity to nurture some of the sacred seeds we planted in the fall.
L’shalom,

December can be a difficult time to be a Jew. Despite a few lingering vestiges of anti-Semitism, we feel completely at home in American secular culture through most of the year. And then the Christmas season arrives. Suddenly, everyone is wishing us greetings for a holiday that is not ours, singing sacred music from another tradition, and asking our children what they want from Santa this year. In December, we become aware—sometimes painfully aware—of the traditional status of the Jew as an outsider.

This can be especially difficult for those of us who are parents. More than anything else, children want to be accepted by others, to fit in with the crowd. Walk through the halls of any school, and you will see how hard it is for kids to be different. And that is exactly the message our children receive in December: you are different. This is terribly discomforting; it explains why our kids will often respond by asking us why we can’t have a Christmas tree or a visit with Santa.

How should we respond to this dilemma? One can, of course, give in to the pressure, visit Santa’s workshop, and put up a tree. By doing so, we may provide the children—and ourselves—with a kind of temporary relief. We might reason to ourselves: “What harm is done, anyway?”

But what message does this really send? Do we truly wish to tell our children, essentially, that we should be ashamed of our differences and accommodate to the majority culture every time it conflicts with our own? I believe that doing so is a disservice to both our children and ourselves. The most repeated mitzvah in the Torah demands better. Thirty six times, God commands us: “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” In other words, our awareness of being different—the discomfort of the outsider—is, ultimately, a blessing rather than a burden. Our experience of uniqueness should lead us to appreciate the value of diversity and strive for the inclusion of others as well as ourselves. As America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, this lesson is an invaluable gift to our children. By encouraging them to live with and celebrate our distinctiveness—even, or especially, in December—we teach them to work for justice and inclusion for other distinctive groups and individuals. In other words, it is precisely by practicing our own faith and respecting its integrity, that we teach tolerance of others. When we accommodate ourselves to the majority, we send the message that it is acceptable for the majority to subsume others as well. When we stand up for ourselves as Jews, we stand up for every other minority group at the same time.

Imagine my surprise when, a few weeks ago, I poured myself a cup of tea, opened my morning newspaper, and read, “Yom Kippur begins tonight.” Since we had observed Yom Kippur just six days earlier, I was a bit taken aback. When I called the editor of the Idaho Statesman, she apologized for the error. I accepted her apology and noted that one very long day of chanting and preaching and teaching on no food or water was more than enough.
Thankfully, Yom Kippur comes just once a year. But, in a symbolic manner, we American Jews get to celebrate Sukkot twice each fall. The reason for this is that Thanksgiving is essentially an American version of our Jewish harvest festival. When the Puritans proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth colony, they modeled their celebration on what they called the Feast of Tabernacles—i.e., Sukkot.
Consider some of the parallels between these two festivals. On Sukkot, we gather with family and guests to eat beneath the sukkah. On Thanksgiving, too, we join with those we love to share a festive meal. Both holidays are expressions of gratitude; both celebrate the bounty of the harvest and God’s gift of abundance. And both Thanksgiving and Sukkot recognize the imminent approach of winter, emphasizing our vulnerability and obligation to shelter one another.
In fact, the connection between the two holidays is perhaps best captured in the fact that the Hebrew word for Jews, Yehudim, comes from the verb l’hodot, meaning “to give thanks.” In other words, as Rabbi Gershon Winkler notes, to be a Jew is to be, first and foremost, a “thanks-giver.”
So enjoy your turkey (or, for those of us who prefer to give thanks in a vegetarian manner, your Tofurkey), join us for our annual congregational football game in Ann Morrison Park and, above all, cultivate the attitude of gratitude that defines both the day itself and the calling of the Jewish people.
In that spirit, I’ll end with a Jewish Thanksgiving prayer/poem by Debbie Pearlman, designed for use at the Thanksgiving table. May we all find ample opportunity to offer the thanks of our own hearts.

Thanksgiving Day

How easy to praise You, Beloved One,
For abundance, for cups brim filled;
How can we not delight in Your majesty,
Your endless blessings to us.

How simple our thanks, Beloved One,
For laden tables, for gathered families,
Shoulders touching in the intimacy of the meal
You have spread before us.

Teach us to thank and bless Your name,
When cups are empty and thirst is great;
Put our hands together to replenish,
Finding blessing in tiny sips.

Beloved One, to thank and bless You,
We find hope in uncertainty
And triumph in shaky steps.
We recreate abundance for Your sake.

For the past two years, Interfaith Sanctuary has responded to the crisis of the homeless in our city by providing winter shelter in various temporary locations. Thanks to hundreds of volunteers—including an outstanding effort from our synagogue community—we have sheltered over 400 people each year.
This winter we can begin to do even more, for Sanctuary has purchased a 10,200 square foot building at 1620 River Street that will serve as a permanent home to three separate shelters, serving single men, single women, and families. Working in partnership with social service providers such as Catholic Charities and Terry Reilly Health Center, we also plan to offer job training, adult literacy, mental health counseling, and drug/alcohol counseling. All of these services will offer the homeless skills that will help them find pathways out of homelessness. And working together to do this sacred work will also build bridges between our faith communities.
Our work with Sanctuary gives the membership of Ahavath Beth Israel an opportunity to live the words that we have just read and prayed over the recent Days of Awe. In the haftarah for Yom Kippur morning, Isaiah declares:
This is the kind of fast that I desire—

Unlock the shackles put on by wicked power!
Untie the ropes of the yoke!
Let the oppressed go free,
And break off every yoke!

Share your bread with the hungry.
Bring the poor, the outcasts, to your house.
When you see them naked, clothe them. . .

Then, when you cry out, the Eternal One will answer;
Then, when you call, God will say: "Here I am!"
I hope and pray that we will continue to generously support the holy labor of this place, through generous giving to Sanctuary’s capital campaign and volunteering our precious time to work in the shelter, side by side with our brothers and sisters of all faiths. Let us seize this opportunity so that when we call out to God, the Eternal One will look down upon our efforts and say, “Here I am!”

Many of you know that one of my favorite contemporary Jewish sages—albeit a decidedly unorthodox one—is Bob Dylan. During this month of preparation for the coming Days of Awe, I frequently find myself thinking of a line from his song, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” In it, he captures the essence of this season, the urgency of teshuvah. He reminds us that there is nothing more important than the call to renewal.
He writes (and sings): “He not busy being born is busy dying.”
This is the simple truth. We are always tempted to resist change. We embed ourselves in tradition and cling to the status quo. Yet, in the end, we know that to close ourselves off to new possibilities is to choose a kind of spiritual death. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur remind us that we reach our full humanity only when we move out of our comfort zones and dare to grow.
This is just as true for institutions as it is for individuals. This summer, I have been reflecting a great deal on the way we celebrate the High Holy Days. I believe we have settled into a bit of a rut. For too long now, we have done everything the same way, year after year. Our services are too passive, too long, too stiff and stale. People come nonetheless but more out of guilt and obligation than the belief that they will experience genuine spiritual renewal. And guilt only goes so far; over the past few years, I’ve noticed a decline in attendance even on these most sacred days.
I take full responsibility for this failure. I’ve been complicit in following the same ritual routine out of habit. I’ve failed to apply the essential lesson of the season—change your life!—to our communal worship. I’ve led services in much the same manner as my father and my grandfather before me, failing to apply the recognition that today’s Jews—all of you—want and deserve a more interactive, engaging, and creative spiritual experience.
Of course, I know too much change at once is not a good thing. I am not planning a radical revision of the liturgy or music for the High Holy Days this year. But I will be making some changes that will challenge all of us—the congregation and community—to engage in the service more actively, as participants rather than spectators. There will be more sharing, more meditation, more space for personal expression and reflection, even as we follow the time-tested traditional rubrics and prayers. Think of it as the beginning of a transformation process rather than an end. And please give me your feedback, good and bad, so that I can continue to learn with you as we move forward together in renewal and prayer.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook—the first chief rabbi of Palestine and a much more Orthodox teacher than Bob Dylan—expressed the same goal with great eloquence. He said, “The old must be made new, and the new must be made holy.” This is our challenge as we approach the New Year, 5768. In our individual lives and as a community, let us renew old traditions with a revived sense of spirit, and may we create and introduce new practices with the commitment and knowledge that will make them sacred.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend services at a Conservative synagogue in my home town of Alexandria, Virginia. As it happened, the congregation’s rabbi, Jack Moline, had just finished a six-month sabbatical and the topic of his d’var Torah was what he had learned during his time away.

It was a moving talk. Rabbi Moline spoke of how he had considered going to Jerusalem to study but instead decided to spend his sabbatical at home. He wanted to catch up on life as a father, to attend all of his children’s recitals and plays and athletic events that he usually missed in his busy life as a large congregational rabbi. He told us how much satisfaction that brought. He also described how much he savored the ability to read for pleasure, to catch up on his sleep, to enjoy a weekly date with his wife.

And then he offered an observation he had made about his own synagogue. He noted that each Shabbat morning, he had attended services—as a congregant rather than the rabbi. He found that the view from the pew was rather different from that from the bimah. He concluded with a confession: “For many years, people have complained to me that the Shabbat morning service is too long. I have always responded that this is not the case, that once you understand the service in all of its details and appreciate the poetry of the liturgy, the subtle and deliberate pace is properly prayerful. But now that I’ve attended for six months sitting in the congregation, let me tell you all: the service is too long.”

I admired Rabbi Moline’s honesty that morning and found a great deal of power in his observation that a lot depends on one’s perspective. That is why I value the summer season. Every rabbi should get to experience the service as a congregant. I get to do just that every July, here in Boise and in out-of-town congregations that I have the occasion to visit. I’ll come back with new music, new creative paths to prayer, a new point of view. And maybe even a sense that we could cut a thing or two.

Upon reaching early summer, we arrive at the Jewish month of Tammuz. This is a significant moment in our calendar. Tammuz marks one of the four solstices, known in Hebrew as tekufot. It is the beginning of our hottest and driest season. This year, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz will fall on June 17.

Tammuz is known in Jewish history as a difficult time. The scorching heat outside is manifest in our people’s history as a series of conflagrations and catastrophes. The Rabbis tell us that this was the month when our ancestors asked Aaron to forge a golden calf for them to worship at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Many centuries later, it was during Tammuz that the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually reducing the sacred city to burning rubble.

It is, therefore, easy to despair during this season. In our own day, we see the flames of war burning all around us. Death and destruction engulf our world. Global warming threatens massive environmental degradation. As we reap the bitter fruits of greed and violence, we wonder if it is really possible to create relief, to help spread God’s shelter of peace over our own embattled planet.

Yet to be a Jew is to refuse to give in to despair. Out of the flames of Tammuz, hope is re-born. After the calf was melted down, Moses climbed back up the mountain and returned with a second set of tablets. After Jerusalem was destroyed, our people made their way across the globe and eventually—miraculously—returned. Our tradition teaches us that it is never too late to move towards teshuvah—renewal and healing.

I recently came across a wonderful book called The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. As we move towards Tammuz, I’d like to end with a quote from one of the book’s gems, a short essay by the playwright Tony Kushner. It expresses what is, I believe, a Jewish credo:

“I do not believe the wicked always win. I believe our despair is a lie we are telling ourselves. In many other periods of history, people, ordinary citizens, routinely set aside hours, days, time in their lives for doing the work of politics, some of which is glam and revolutionary and some of which is dull and electoral and tedious and not especially pure—and the world changed because of the work they did. Not any single one of us has to or possibly can save the world, but together in some sort of concert, in even not-especially-coordinated concert, with all of us working together where we see work to be done, the world will change. Being politically active is for the citizens of a democracy maybe the best way of speaking to God and hearing Her answer: You exist. If we are active, if we are activists, She replies to us: You specifically exist. Mazel tov. Now get busy, she replies. Maintain the world by changing the world.”

The poet Robert Frost famously wrote, “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” This is precisely why Israel is so important to Jews all over the world. For centuries, our people suffered persecution and martyrdom in a world where we had no home. We lived at the whims of others. In our darkest hour, as the storm clouds of genocide gathered over Europe, all of the nations—including our own United States—barred the doors. We died because we were, essentially, a homeless people.

Since 1948, that has miraculously ceased to be the case. We Jews now have a home, a place that will take us in under any circumstances. And Israel has done just that for Jewish refugees from all four corners of the globe: Yemen, Russia, Ethiopia and so many more distant lands.

Like all homes and families, the Jewish state has its flaws. Like any other nation, it has its share of corruption, vice, inequity. Unlike any other nation, it has had to live with war throughout its entire existence.

But Israel is a marvelous place. It is the only democracy in a terribly difficult region. It has a vibrant economy and an engaged citizenry. It is the center for Jewish life in the world. It is, in short, our home—the place we long for every year as we end our seder with the memorable words, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

We will celebrate Israel here in Idaho with a communal Israel Fair on Lag Ba’omer, Sunday, May 6. We’ll have art and games and food and music and dance, as well as two films. The evening will end with the traditional Lag Ba’Omer bonfire.

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a great deal about the concept of obligation. Traditionally, of course, this is a notion at the very center of Jewish life. The Torah presents the Jewish people as a community in a covenant with God. We receive certain rewards—land, rain, spiritual blessing—and in return, we owe God our allegiance. We hold up our end of the deal by following the mitzvot, ritual and ethical commandments that become our binding obligations.

But in the liberal Jewish world, that sense is greatly diminished. During my grandfather’s rabbinate fifty years ago, at a large Reform temple in Buffalo, New York, his congregants operated out of a strong network of communal obligations (albeit a different set from those that guided their Orthodox neighbors). Today, however, those ties that once bound us have frayed a great deal.

In his book Bobos in Paradise, New York Times columnist David Brooks makes some very important observations about contemporary American life. His writing is not particularly addressed to Jews, but he raises the same questions that we in the progressive Jewish community should be asking ourselves:

members of the educated class show little evidence of renouncing freedom and personal choice… they are going to try to find new reconciliations. The challenges they [we!] face are these: Can you still worship God even if you take it upon yourself to decide that many of the Bible’s teachings are wrong? Can you still feel at home in your community even if you know that you’ll probably move if a better opportunity comes along? Can you establish ritual and order in your life if you are driven by an inner imperative to experiment constantly with new things? We are trying to build a house of obligation on a foundation of choice.

That final question—can we build a house of obligation on a foundation of choice—remains very much open-ended. Some Jews today will return to the past and embrace a kind of Orthodoxy that proclaims, “Tradition!” at the expense of creative autonomy. Many more will reject obligation entirely. Our challenge as a progressive Jewish institution is to help our members create a caring community with very real obligations to one another and to God—and to do so as a matter of personal choice. I plan to spend much time this year listening and learning and formulating some new visions for how we might work together towards this end and thereby strengthen both our community and ourselves.

The last time the Reform movement published a new siddur (prayerbook) was just after my bar mitzvah. I remember the discussion in my home congregation that inevitably follows such an innovation: It’s so heavy. . . The translations are different. . . So much Hebrew. . . So little Hebrew. . . Do we have to change?

Of course, in the intervening decades, what was once radical has now become the status quo. Since 1974, the Jewish world, like the wider world, has undergone continued transformations. We have opened our doors to women rabbis, who have enriched our community beyond measure. We have proudly embraced gay and lesbian clergy and congregants. We have been on the cutting edge of creative outreach to intermarried families. We have welcomed countless Jews-by-choice into our midst. We have recognized patrilineal, as well as matrilineal, Jews. We have changed our God-language to reflect our more informal and egalitarian community. We have moved back toward tradition in many ways and toward inspired innovation in others.

And so we once again need a new siddur to reflect the nature of who we are as liberal Jews. That book—Mishkan Tefillah—will be arriving in Reform congregations this month. No doubt it will be greeted by many of the same comments as its predecessor. But as we grow with it, I believe that we will very quickly learn to love it. It is a beautiful text, which will make our liturgy more accessible to more of our people. And it speaks with a kind of poetry that will inspire as much as it educates and edifies.

In the end, though, any siddur is just a book. What makes a service come alive is neither the liturgy nor the rabbi nor cantor nor layperson that leads from it; the life comes from the congregation. I hope we will bring our community’s unique Jewish joy and energy to this new book and thus find insight and beauty within its pages. May they guide us closer to the God of Israel, the Creator of the World. As the poet Adrienne Rich concludes in a passage that is cited at the beginning of each morning service in Mishkan Tefillah:
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
**********
This month we will launch our new study topic for Shabbat mornings. Beginning October 28, we will gather at the synagogue at 9:00 a.m. for an hour of learning before the Shabbat morning service.
Our topic will be “Entering the Tent of Prayer: A Look at the New Reform Prayerbook Mishkan T’filah and the Shabbat Liturgy.” I encourage everyone to join us as we delve into the siddur that will serve our community and Reform congregations across North America for many years to come.

From the north shall disaster break loose upon all the inhabitants of the land!”—Jeremiah 1:14

“Comfort, oh comfort My people.”—Isaiah 40:1

The Jewish months of Tammuz and Av, which fall in the middle of the summer, are the low point of our calendar cycle. During this season, we recall a series of tragedies that befell the Jewish people through many ages of our history: the destruction of the first and second temples, the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion, and other instances of exile and death. Throughout this time, we read harsh words from the haftarah, the teachings of the prophets, including the first quotation above.

This year, those words of despair resonate with a tragic prescience. This has been an extraordinarily difficult summer for the Jewish people. We are besieged again by brutal enemies from the north. The violence there has spilled over to our own region, with the shooting at the Jewish federation in Seattle. And the world has, as usual, decided to largely blame Israel and the Jews for the violence that we did not choose. Hezbollah—the disaster from the north, with its Iranian sponsorship—ruthlessly uses civilians as shields for its terrible deeds.

Yet Tisha B’Av, the saddest commemoration of our year, traditionally ushers in a new season of hope. Indeed, our Sages taught that the Messiah will be born on this day, like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Redemption emerges out of the darkness of despair. And the following Shabbat, we read Isaiah’s promising words: “Comfort, oh comfort My people.” Then we begin Elul, the month that prepares us for the New Year and the Days of Awe.
As dark as the world now appears, it is our calling to turn in this time towards hope and renewal. We pray for wholeness, for redemption and peace. May 5767 bring these blessings to us, to our community, to the land of Israel and to all the world.

Our Rabbis taught: when Torah was given on Mt. Sinai, not a bird chirped, not an insect buzzed, not a single sound was heard. The moment when God’s voice went forth was preceded by something unique in the world: complete and utter silence.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner notes that this teaching answers two questions: “What was unique about Sinai?” and “Why don’t we hear God’s voice very often in our own time?” By this understanding, God speaks to us at every moment of every day. What made Sinai extraordinary was the stillness. At that instant, everyone heard God because all of the interfering “background noise” was turned off.

As we approach the festival of Shavuot, the season of the giving of the Torah, we do well to consider this midrash carefully. Now, more than ever, our world is full of distractions. With all of our cell phones, iPods, Blackberries, and the like, silence is the rarest of commodities. But Shavuot reminds us that God is not in the noise. The Divine Presence speaks in what Hebrew Scriptures call “the still, small voice.” In this holiday season, may we take the time to dwell in stillness and listen to that voice, which still speaks to us, if we only offer our full attention.

Last month, in my newsletter article on faith and politics, I ended with two questions: When do we, as a congregation, decide to actively advocate on an issue of public policy? And how do we decide which position to take? This month I’d like to offer some guidelines on these matters.

In good Jewish tradition, I’ll start to answer these questions with more questions. There are a number of things we must wrestle with in determining when and how to take a stand. Here are a few, offered by the Union for Reform Judaism:

· Do we Jews have something unique to add, as Jews, to the public debate on this matter?

· Is this an issue that resonates for the strong majority of Ahavath Beth Israel?

· Will taking a position on this issue enhance an existing project of our congregation?

Once we have established that there is a clear ethical imperative to speak out of our tradition on an issue, we can then turn to a profoundly important resource: the Religious Action Center (RAC) of Reform Judaism. The RAC is charged with implementing the policies adopted by the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism. These policies reflect the views of the leadership of our movement. Thus we have at our disposal the official Reform views on a vast array of issues, ranging from civil liberties to the environment to war and peace. I encourage anyone interested in these matters to go to the RAC’s website at www.rac.org.

Even with all of these resources, it is still difficult to make the decisions on how and when to enter the public policy realm. We weigh these matters carefully as a board and as a community. But we must not let caution lead us to inaction. On the pressing issues of our age—from same-sex marriage to immigration rights to genocide to global warming—it would be immoral for us, as a Reform Jewish community, to stay out of the arena. As our history teaches, neutrality is complicity. May we deliberate and act with wisdom.

Faith and politics frequently make for heated conversation. More than any other topics, these arouse passionate discussion and even division in families and communities. Some, craving tranquility above all else, choose to avoid these matters entirely. I, however, have always believed that a healthy debate is better than evasion of controversy for the sake of an illusory peace. Therefore, I plan to use my Chai Lights column this month and next to address the confluence of faith and politics as it plays out within Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel and the Jewish community at large.

I begin by noting that there is no political litmus test for being a good Jew. Our tradition embraces Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Greens and virtually everyone else. The fundamental principles of Judaism do not follow any party platform. To be Jewish is, by necessity, to live in close community with people with whom we profoundly disagree. And both American law and Jewish ethics prevent congregations and other Jewish institutions from endorsing politicians in electoral campaigns. Rabbis and other Jewish leaders can, as private citizens, support the parties and candidates of their liking but must refrain from any official statements from the pulpit. When synagogues hold candidate forums—as we have in the past here at CABI—we are legally and morally bound to offer equal time to all serious contenders.

Faith communities are, by contrast, allowed to take definitive stands on ethical issues—and make no mistake, most of the pressing political questions of our day have important ethical components. How our government spends our tax dollars, for example, is very much a matter of values, of deep concern to religious people and institutions. I believe that this sort of civic engagement is not only our right but also our responsibility. As part of our Yom Kippur liturgy, we make confession: “For the sin of silence. For the sin of indifference. For the secret complicity of the neutral.” Sometimes it would be easier to avoid controversy by maintaining neutrality. But as Jews, our history has taught us the unforgivable cost of neutrality when it comes to matters of justice. Too often, neutrality is complicity with evil. We must not stand idle while our neighbors bleed.

So when do we intervene and actively take a stand on issues of public policy? And how do we decide which position to take? I will explore these questions in more detail next month. For now, let me note that in a world full of shades of gray, this is a serious challenge. Ethical clarity is rare. But the difficulty inherent in wrestling with these questions should not lead us to abdicate our moral responsibility, as individuals or as a congregation.

As many of you know, there is a difference of opinion within our community over the proper recitation of the second line of the Shema. Some of us follow the traditional custom of praying this line silently, since it is an insertion that breaks the flow of an otherwise seamless biblical text. Others among us maintain the classical Reform practice of singing “Baruch shem k’vod…” as a loud and proud proclamation of God’s sovereignty. Advocates of both views cite varying rationales for their position.

But neither side of the great debate has referenced the most important Jewish textual source for this question, which is the minor Talmudic tractate Baba G’noush. This work, also known in its English translation as “The Gate of Mind-Numbing Minutiae,” contains countless anecdotes of our sages discussing the choreography of Jewish worship. In order to facilitate a more informed congregational forum on this critical matter, I would like to offer a few excerpts from Baba G’noush below:

Baba G’noush 43b
Rav Bontsha was renowned for his devout silence during the second line of Shema. Soon, word spread of his extraordinary piety. Disciples from all four corners of the Jewish world descended upon his little shul in outer Bialystock. Invariably, they marveled at his profound stillness. Students throughout the Pale of Settlement began to emulate this Master, launching an entire movement amongst certain formerly loquacious Hasidim. After years of observing their teacher, they realized that his silence extended far beyond the second line of the Shema. This practice, too, began to flourish, bringing in its wake the silent Psalms, silent Aleynu, and eventually even the beloved silent sermon. It was not until six months after Rav Bontsha’s death that his disciples discovered that their teacher had, in fact, been entirely mute

We must study this tale together with a ma’aseh of the life of Rav Shmelke the Shrill. Rav Shmelke was a direct descendent of Boruch the Boisterous, first of the great mitnagdim who opposed the disciples of R. Bontsha. Like his fathers before him, Rav Shmelke draped himself in a bright plaid polyester prayer shawl. Eventually, Shemlke left the rabbinate, moved to the New World, and traded in his famously obnoxious “Baruch Shem K’vod” for a much more lucrative nationwide rant on a Fox News-sponsored AM radio morning drive-time show.

R. Judah dwelt in the uttermost West, but his heart—and more importantly, his stomach—longed for the East. He taught: “Once I was young, now I am old, but never have I made it to shul on time to say any part of the Sh’ma, silently or out loud, on account of services starting at the same time as the all-you-can-eat Kung Pao special at the Golden Dragon.

Rabbi John Paul George Ringo declared: “On such matters, one must resolve the controversy by asking “WWJD—What Would Joe (Berenter) Do?”

The story is told that the great sage Rabbi Akiba frequently attended the bathhouse, cleansing and caring for his body. When his students asked why he emulated this Roman custom, he noted that the Romans devoted themselves to cleaning and polishing their idols. Akiba then added: “If they spend so much time on these stone representations of their false gods, how much more should we, created in the image of God, care for our bodies.”

Our tradition has, therefore, recognized that we cannot properly care for our souls and minds without also caring for the body that houses them. We seek an integral kind of wholeness, a fitness that embraces the entire self, both flesh and spirit.

In keeping with this legacy, I want to invite you all to join me for a new program that I’ll be starting this month. I’m calling it “Walking the Torah” (with due credit to both Bruce Feiler and my colleague Lucy Dinner, from whom I got the idea).

Beginning February 3, I’ll be in Kathryn Albertson Park every Friday at 11:00 a.m. I’m planning to walk about 45 minutes each time, with whoever shows up. We’ll make a few circuits of this beautiful park—and as we do, we’ll share some insights from the week’s Torah portion. It’s a great way to exercise both body and mind. Please join me, rain or shine, for these mornings of Torah, togetherness, learning, and relaxing exercise.

Heather recently stepped down after 5+ years of dedicated service as our education director. She devoted countless hours to our young people and did a great deal to build our synagogue school into the bustling and exciting place it is today. She has been a terrific colleague and friend. I hope all will join me in wishing her much success in all of her future endeavors. We are grateful to continue to have Heather and her family as a part of our community, and blessed by the work she has done.

Sandy made our recent Feast of Torah a stunningly successful reality. She was, of course, assisted by so many of you who helped to organize, teach, clean up, and create. But Sandy single-handedly translated a vague idea I concocted into an amazing event. It was an extraordinary day of learning together.

I have never liked the name that many Christian traditions have given to our biblical text: Old Testament. I much prefer our own term, Tanakh, or in English, Hebrew Scriptures. The reason for this is simple: for the Jewish people, Torah is anything but old. Our entire faith is built around the notion that every generation reinterprets the tradition for its own age. The book is never closed. Our task, as Jews, is to continuously renew our understandings of what God asks of us in Torah. Or, as the Talmudic sage Rabbi Ben Bag Bag noted: “Turn it [Torah] and turn it, for everything is in it.”

This month, we will be doing just that at our Feast of Torah on January 7. Sandy Berenter has done an extraordinary job organizing this event, with tremendous support from a host of talented and dedicated volunteers. This will be an opportunity to spend an entire day finding new insights in Torah—through study, music, art, and, of course, food.

This past Rosh Hashanah morning, I spoke about the importance of Jewish learning. I am proud that so many have worked so hard to launch this day. Back then, I concluded: “In Jewish learning, Jewish life.” Torah is what binds us all—young and old, male and female, pious and iconoclastic. I hope that you will join us for this event, adding your heart and soul and mind to the eternal conversation between the Holy One and the Jewish people, a dialogue that is both ancient and ever-new.

The United States is, by far, the most religious nation in the West. In Europe, faith has atrophied to the point of irrelevance. The grand gothic cathedrals are now empty relics of the medieval past, mere tourist attractions. Throughout the developed world, religion plays virtually no role in public life.

We Americans are, by contrast, a strongly pious people. Statistics reveal that even those who do not regularly frequent a house of worship overwhelmingly believe in God. Here in the New World, religion still flourishes, in all of its glorious variety.

This is no accident. Unlike the European nation-states, our country was founded upon the principle of separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” essentially protects religious diversity from the corrupting effects of government—and government from the intrusion of a single and all-powerful religion. Both government and religion have clearly benefited handsomely from this division.

Unfortunately, Jefferson’s wall is now under siege from religious fundamentalists. On a whole host of issues—creation vs. evolution, vouchers for private schools, displays of religious symbols on state property—our current government has consistently sought to breach the wall. The attack is led by faith-based reactionaries who fail to see that religious communities are the greatest beneficiaries of church-state separation. Sadly, even the Jewish community is not exempt from this trend. While American Jews remain overwhelmingly supportive of strict separation, our own far-right practitioners have short-sightedly aided and abetted those who scorn the laws that made America a place of unprecedented liberty and opportunity for our ancestors.

This month we celebrate Chanukah. Our Festival of Lights was, in fact, the very first commemoration of religious freedom. The Maccabees overcame overwhelming odds to defeat those who would impose their faith upon us. As we kindle our menorahs, testifying to that miracle, let us recall the significance of their victory and rededicate ourselves to maintaining the separation of religion and government that has allowed us—and so many other American faith communities—to thrive, lest we follow in the footsteps of our European counterparts.

This is a time of weeping. Over the past month, Americans have wept at the scenes of devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi. We mourn for those who have suffered and died, for victims of flood and famine and war all around our wounded world. And we struggle with our own personal losses. As we enter into this solemn holiday season, our hearts bear a burden of grief. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many of us look back upon a year that brought too many tears. We shall cry, and we shall use our hands to do the holy work of reaching out to those in need and repairing that which is broken.

But our tradition reminds us that there are also abundant times for dancing. The month ends with Simchat Torah, when we celebrate by waltzing around the synagogue with the Torah scrolls. We close the book with the death of Moses—and immediately pick up again with the story of creation, with birth and life renewed.

So be sure to stick around to the end of the cycle, for the entire month of holy days. Mourn at Yizkor on Yom Kippur, but rejoice on Sukkot and Simchat Torah as well. Jewish life is both somber and celebratory, the weeping and the dance. And it is the promise of the dance that brings hope in the times of tears.

September means back to school. Students and teachers alike return from summer break refreshed and ready to learn together. And parents breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Here at Ahavath Beth Israel, we should be especially excited about the start of this new school year, whether we have children or not. This season marks a momentous occasion in the life of our community: the opening of our early childhood education center. For the first time in Boise, our children will have the opportunity to get a full-time Jewish education. We are beginning with pre-school students. We have superb teachers, a beautiful new classroom, and a terrific curriculum that presents our young people with a liberal, open, and egalitarian approach to Jewish tradition. Best of all, we have an eager class of Jewish learners and their families. Together, we will be sharing Shabbat and Jewish holy days, learning progressive Jewish values, commencing the sacred and life-long task of repairing our broken world.

I hope that each and every member of our community will take the time to stop by and visit our new Jewish school. We’ll be up and running daily: singing, dancing, cooking, sharing stories, and celebrating Jewish life. What a mitzvah it will be for all of us—young and old, parents, grandparents, and those with no children of their own—to participate in this unfolding of our Jewish future. Come in. Meet the kids. Shmooze with the teachers. Share your dreams and stories, and listen to theirs. As they come back to school, you can, too.

I look forward to seeing you there. The future of the Jewish people here in Boise depends on it.

In this spring season, we move towards the festival of Shavuot. Our Rabbis called this holiday z’man matan torataynu—the time of the giving of our Torah. On Shavuot, we recall the day our ancestors heard the call of the Holy One as they stood at the base of Mount Sinai. In that sense, the gift of Torah was offered at a unique time and place.

Yet the Rabbis also tell us this: the Divine Voice goes forth constantly, at every moment, to all the world. The challenge is for us to listen properly, so that we may receive its message. Torah is, in a sense, like radio waves in the atmosphere: always there, but of no import unless you have a radio tuned to the right station.

By this analogy, a Jewish community serves as the radio. Our synagogue is charged with the sacred task of translating the Divine Voice into opportunities that its people can “hear” and experience as Torah. The building and budget and programs are all just vessels for the holiness that is done both inside and beyond its walls. Those who work for the congregation—both paid staff and volunteers—are, in the end, servants to the mission of both CABI and the Jewish people as a whole: lifelong learning, spiritual service, and acts of loving kindness.

I want to thank all those who have served this congregation and that mission over the past year. Special thanks go to our outgoing board members: John Barnet, Marty Geffon, Fran Dudley, Lorraine Gross, Elon Whitlock, Deanah Messenger, and Dan Ronfeld. All offered extraordinary time and talents to Jewish life here in Boise.

I look forward to working with new board members Alan Dornfest, Lorian Gans, Ross Cohen, Murray Feldman, Sharon Abramsohn, Brad Wolf, Shira Kronenberg, Trudy Littman and Stephen Goldstein as they take up the challenge. They join our dedicated returning board members Craig Groves, Betsy Russell and Abby McLean. And of course, I am very eager to move forward in partnership with our new president, Sharon Katz. She brings enormous dedication and skill to our community as she begins her term as our new president.

Last but decidedly not least, I want to thank three magnificent colleagues: Kat Dellamater, Heather Goldstein, and outgoing president Steve Berenter. Over the last two years, in a sea of change here at CABI, they each, in their own special way, kept us focused on our calling to be a vessel for Torah. They never forgot—even as we built with bricks and mortar—that human relationships are what most endure. They have been my teachers, and I will always be grateful for their kindness and their wisdom.

My favorite song from this Passover season is Dayyenu. There are several reasons why this classic always tops my Pesach hit parade. First, like most successful pop tunes, it is both extraordinarily simple and infectiously catchy. Once you know the one-word chorus, you can’t help but join the fun. Second, at my seder, we always follow an old Afghani-Jewish custom that involves all participants whipping one another with scallions as we sing it. Symbolically, this recalls the lashes our ancestors received from their Egyptian taskmasters; still, it is also great fun. For once, we are given license to play with our food. Who could resist the opportunity to whack one’s neighbor with a root vegetable?

But beneath the famously singable tune and seriously silly customs, Dayyenu conveys a most important and timely message. It means: “It would have been enough for us.” We go through a litany of miracles that God performed on our behalf—freeing us from Egypt, parting the Red Sea, giving us the Torah, blessing us with Shabbat, and many more—and after each one, we declare, “This alone would have been enough.” Dayyenu is, then, the ultimate expression of gratitude, a recognition that just to live is a profound blessing.

This is a radical, counter-cultural message. For our society tells us that there is no such thing as “enough.” Advertisers are always urging us to want more, playing on our inclination toward covetous greed. Even billionaires run the rat race, striving to pass their competitors on the Fortune 500 ladder. We are driven to seek bigger homes, larger salaries, fancier clothes and cars. There is no satiating such desire. The more we get, the more we want—unless we learn to declare, “Dayyenu. Enough.”

In Talmud, Ben Zoma asks, “Who is rich?” Against the grain, he answers, “Those who rejoice in what they have.” As we sit down at our seders this month, may we, too, find the ability to take gratitude in our portion, to sing with our family and/or friends, “Dayyenu, this is enough for us.”

(Note for visitors: In the spirit of Purim the Rabbi's column this month is traditionally a satire. Enjoy -- and enjoy Purim!

Your board of directors and administrative staff here at Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel have been working very hard to meet the pressing financial needs of our burgeoning Jewish community. Following the successful model of Deli Days, we added a Latke Party fundraiser this past December, which generated even more revenue than we had anticipated. We approached that event with a bit of trepidation, fearing that the public market for fatty food festivals was pretty well “saturated”—or at least partially hydrogenated. But Boiseans attended en masse and ate with shameless gluttony, proving once again the wisdom of the renowned Chasidic teacher, Rebbe Elimelech of Kreplach, who repeatedly told his followers: “Di Goyim vellen esen velche es iz fette un nisht gezunte essen di Yidden derlangen—No matter how much cholesterol-filled junk you serve the Gentiles, they will always come back for more*.”

We are taking the Rebbe’s words to heart, quite literally. We are now enlisting volunteers for a third major CABI fundraiser to be held annually beginning next year, on the third Tuesday of February (the 16th in 2006). This Gala of Grease will be known as “Schmaltz Tuesday,” and will be chaired by our recent Fryers’ Hall of Fame inductee, Joe Berenter. We will serve an eclectic array of traditional Ashkenazic delicacies, beginning with chopped liver and moving on to the always-healthful gribbenes (chicken skin deep-fried in chicken fat). Krispee Kreme has generously agreed to donate the desserts.

Best of all, we have received an amazing corporate sponsorship for this event. Each Schmaltz Tuesday, we will be partnering with St. Luke’s Coronary Care Unit. And they’ve offered us quite the sweetheart deal. For every man or woman who goes straight from our festival to their angioplasty room, St. Luke’s CCU will donate back 25% of the cost of that exorbitant medical procedure. If the cardiologist puts in a stent, we will get an additional 15%. While no one can be sure just how many arteries we can clog and harden in twenty-four hours, even a very conservative estimate would yield around $250,000 in revenue for CABI from Schmaltz Tuesday 2006. In future years, we anticipate doing even better, as we add exotic Eastern European favorites such as calves’ brain pancakes. We hope to burn—or maybe sauté—the mortgage by 2009.

One of the most common questions a rabbi hears is “Why are the holidays so late (or early) this year?” As we move towards our spring festivals, I’m expecting to get this a lot, since our celebrations really are about as late as they ever get—even for me, a person who runs perpetually behind.

Of course, by the Jewish calendar the holidays are always on the same date, right on time. But our calendar is primarily lunar-based. A new month—Rosh Chodesh—begins with each new moon. Twelve new moons constitute a typical Jewish year.

That’s where the problem lies—for twelve lunar months only add up to 354 days. Thus, by a strictly lunar calendar, our holidays would come eleven days earlier each year. This is exactly how the Islamic calendar works. But Torah tells us that we must observe Pesach in the spring. Therefore, the calendar is adjusted by adding an extra month approximately every third year. How lucky we are: in a secular leap year, we get an extra day, but in a Jewish leap year, we get a whole extra month!

And this year is just such a leap year, with the added month coming in this season. Usually the Hebrew month of Adar is followed by the month of Nisan. But this year we add a second Adar (OK, so the Rabbis didn’t come up with a clever name for the leap month). The great thing is that Talmud commands us to set the entire month of Adar as a time of special joy. So this year, we have two months where we’re commanded to be happy.

And interestingly enough, this year’s Rosh Chodesh Adar I falls on February 9th—which is also the Chinese New Year! So get used to things being late, prepare for an extra month of happiness, and celebrate with a traditional Jewish custom—eating Chinese food!

We American Jews have an obsolete understanding of who we are. In our Hebrew school textbooks, our creative fiction, and the art that adorns the walls of our homes and synagogues, we are almost always depicted in nuclear families with a mother and father of Eastern European descent and kids at home. We have embraced this portrayal and even imagined it to be our reality.

But this representation is an illusion. Definitive demographic data shows that only a very small minority of American Jews live in such “traditional” households, with married Ashkenazic parents and school-age children. Unfortunately, this widespread misconception is not just anachronistic (if it was ever really accurate to begin with). This fantasy is, in fact, harmful to the American Jewish community, for it sends an erroneous and corrosive message to the vast majority of our people, telling them that they are somehow aberrant and out of the mainstream. But the truth is: we are the mainstream.

So who are American Jews? Population studies show that we are an incredibly eclectic bunch. We are never-married, married, divorced, domestic partners, widows and widowers. We are gay and straight, young and old. Close to 20% of us live near or below the poverty line. We are traditional couples and single parents—sometimes by circumstances, other times by choice. We are childless, and we are grandparents raising children. We are empty nesters and young professionals, graduate students and blue collar workers. We are Jews by birth and Jews by choice. And our community also encompasses large numbers of our non-Jewish partners who cast their lot with us, who often go above and beyond in the own commitment to raising Jewish families. We are Conservative, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, Humanistic, Reform and unaffiliated. We are black and brown and white, Asian and Hispanic—and complicated mixes of all of the above.

The time has come to recognize this reality and take it to heart. We should let go of our romanticized fantasy of the Jewish family and take pride in who we really are. Let us rebuild our communal institutions and rewrite our educational materials so that they meet the needs of flesh and blood Jews in America—and Boise—in 5765/2005. Imagine what we could do if we turned our resources and our full creative powers to the task of teaching and supporting our households in all of their wonderful variety.

This month our nation celebrates diversity with the annual Martin Luther King Day holiday. Our Jewish community should follow that example. We, too, should rejoice in our own multiculturalism. We are evolving and growing. Our religious school will recognize this with a workshop addressing the changing face of American Jewry on January 9. As for me, I thank God for our congregation’s extraordinary diversity with words from a traditional blessing: Baruch atah Adonai. . . m’shaneh ha-briot—We praise You, Eternal One, who makes each of Your Creations unique, and in Your image.”

An old legend teaches that when Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, he made two gates: sha’ar simcha (the gate of happiness) and sha’ar ha-eyvel (the mourners’ gate). All who came to celebrate something joyous that had happened in their live entered one way, and those who arrived in sorrow entered the other way. When the High Priest turned up each morning, he would look to see which line was longer, and then he would recite two prayers, one on behalf of the people in each group.

This story illustrates the essence of a synagogue. Our challenge is to be the place where our people go in time of sorrow and in time of simcha. Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel should be where we learn to live with suffering and not be crushed by it. And it should also be where we learn to share our successes with our family, friends, and neighbors. This is why we are here: to help the Jews of Boise survive their tsurres and celebrate their joys. May we do this well throughout this new year 5765.

This month we will launch our new schedule and study topic for Shabbat mornings. Beginning on October 9, our service will start at 9:00 am. We will then break at 10 for an hour of study and food. The Torah service will begin at 11:00 am.
Our topic will be “Swimming in the Stream of Torah: Ancient Wellsprings, Contemporary Currents.” We will be reading the weekly portion through the lens of Rashi, the classic 11th century commentator, and Ellen Frankel’s Five Books of Miriam. Please join us this fall for study and prayer.

L’shalom,
Rabbi Dan Fink

Last month, I had the opportunity to spend three days backpacking in the Sawtooth Mountains with ten of our synagogue teens (and three chaperones). This turned out to be a very special privilege, indeed. The weather was lovely, the vegetarian food delicious, and the wilderness scenery absolutely spectacular. But what impressed me most, by far, was the sense of community and camaraderie that our congregation’s young men and women—and future leaders—shared with one another, and with me.

The hike was no stroll in the park. We climbed nearly 3000 feet over rugged, rocky terrain, carrying heavy packs. Some of the kids developed blisters, others strained various muscles, and all were sore and/or tired by the end of each day. Yet they rarely complained. Instead, our congregation’s teens supported one another, took turns carrying the heaviest loads, laughed together, and demonstrated extraordinary hesed—divinely-inspired loving kindness.

As I prepare for the coming fall Days of Awe, I am praying for the strength and the insight to follow their example. All too often, we criticize when we should reach out, and spread malicious gossip rather than words of nurture and praise. I hope that in the New Year, 5765, I can do as well as our students—your children and mine—in modeling the kind of behavior that helps make Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel the rare and marvelous caring community that we are at our best.

Special thanks to our Education Director, Heather Goldstein. While many of us were spending the recent dog days relaxing, she worked twice as hard as usual. She organized this teen backpacking trip—and two other week-long camps for our youth. Judaism was alive and well in Boise this summer, thanks in large part to her dedication and talent.

May the coming new year, 5765, bring renewal, healing, and peace to us all.

As I write this piece, our nation has just concluded a week of mourning for Ronald Reagan. 1980 was the first time I had the opportunity to vote in a presidential election, and I will admit that I was deeply disappointed to be on the losing side in the campaign. I did not vote for President Reagan in 1984 either; while I admired his skills in communicating his political message, I found the message itself at odds with my more liberal approach to public policy. Therefore, I was not entirely moved by the wave of nostalgia that followed Reagan’s death. I still recall the Reagan years as a time of corporate greed run amuck, environmental degradation, imperialistic foreign policy in Central America, and inexcusable apathy amidst the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.

Yet even I was moved by both Ron and Nancy Reagan’s dignity as they struggled with Alzheimer’s over the last decade of his life. In this, the Reagans really did offer a non-partisan lesson to the innumerable families who grapple with this awful disease. And I admire Nancy Reagan’s strong call for removing the restraints on stem-cell research. In this, she follows strongly our Jewish tradition.

Judaism believes that the saving of life trumps every other mitzvah except the ban on idolatry, adultery, and murder. Even if one believes that abortion is immoral—and I emphatically do not—it is pure callousness to uphold the “rights” of a thirty-two cell blastocyte over the lives of suffering human beings. This is not just liberal politics. The Orthodox Union of Rabbis has taken this position. So has Senator Orrin Hatch. And now, Nancy Reagan. Conservatives have spoken out on this matter because they, too, believe that saving life is the faithful, godly thing to do.

I hope and pray that President Reagan’s death will remind our entire nation of this perspective and move us to do what we can to choose life for ourselves, our families, and our friends by letting our scientists do their work.

One of the glories of our Jewish tradition is that it blurs the distinction between study and prayer. In many other faiths, learning takes a back seat to piety; by contrast, serious Jewish life demands Torah study. If we are to be God’s partners in the task of healing our world, we need to stay in dialogue with Him/Her. Prayer and learning are both essential parts of that ongoing conversation. When we pray, we talk to God. When we study, God talks to us. And, as in any good Jewish conversation, sometimes both sides talk at the same time. Thus our communal prayers often include bits of Torah study, while our shiurim (Torah lessons) are frequently framed by prayer.

Our restored synagogue is a wonderful, concrete symbol of Judaism’s synthesis of study and prayer. The once-gloomy basement is now a state of the art library, full of Jewish books. The refurbished sanctuary is a glorious place to pray. We are now, almost literally, founded upon our sacred texts, and ascend to the sanctuary for worship together.

I hope that we will follow in the tradition of blurring these boundaries between study and prayer. Please use the library as a place to sit quietly, to meditate, to pray. And if—for some, when—you find that services start to drag, go downstairs, get a Jewish book, and take it into the sanctuary with you. Read it while those around you davven. You will be conversing with the Eternal One no less than they, and still helping to make the minyan.

May your summer bring many opportunities for study and prayer and, God willing, some rest as well.

A year ago, we broke ground on our new building. We celebrated this occasion on Lag Ba’Omer, a relatively minor Jewish holiday rarely observed outside the Orthodox world. Lag Ba’Omer is the 33^rd day in the counting that takes place between Pesach and Shavuot. Unlike the other days in this seven week period, it is a time of celebration. In traditionally observant families, boys receive their first haircut on this holiday, after their third birthday. Hasidim and kabbalists flock to the tomb of Shimon Bar Yochai, the supposed author of the Zohar, for a mystical celebration of Lag Ba’Omer. It is also a popular day for weddings, picnics, and, above all, bonfires.

By choosing this day to begin work on our Latah site, we added a local dimension to this holiday, making it a significant occasion for our progressive Jewish congregation. Few of us may remember what happened on the original Lag Ba’Omer (the end of an ancient plague or siege against our people), but it will always be, for us, a time to rejoice. Thus we follow the words of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, one of our great sages of the last century, who taught us to reinvigorate ancient traditions and sanctify new ones.

It is fitting, then, that we will dedicate our new facility this month, exactly one year later by the Jewish calendar, on Lag Ba’Omer, which falls on the evening of May 8. We will celebrate with prayer, thanksgiving, food, music, and yes, a traditional Lag Ba’Omer bonfire. We have had an amazing year. We have much to celebrate.

But the work—and the rejoicing—will not end here. In the fall, we will have a public open house and celebration of our new facility. Meanwhile, we begin the challenging task of defining what the beautiful vessel that we built will contain. Who are we? Where are we headed? What role does our synagogue play in the Boise community? In the wider Jewish community? All of these questions and more will be on the agenda for us as we settle into the new site.

We will grapple with these sacred questions, these definitions, for it is our nature as Jews to wrestle with God, the heritage of our father Jacob and the meaning of our name, Israel. We will not always agree. But as we begin this process, let us always remember the blessings we share, the history that binds us, and the future that beckons to us. This is our common task: to make the old new, to make the new holy.

When the Jewish people left Egyptian bondage, they never figured that it would take forty years to reach the Promised Land. Yet this is the way our life journeys often take us: down long and winding roads full of unexpected adventure rather than straight and efficient but ultimately dull highways. This month we will count the days between Pesach and Shavuot, the path from liberation to the new freedom we embraced at Sinai. Even that quest is a lengthy one. If our history teaches us anything, then, it is patience. We Jews have outgrown the need for immediate gratification; we learned that the best things in this world are achieved slowly, with much time and effort.

Last month, we began moving into our new building. But like all our Jewish journeys, this is not an overnight event. We will mark several milestones of this move over the coming weeks. This month, we will celebrate with our new neighboring congregations on the Bench at an April 22 Earth Day service and reception, which we will host. Next month, we will mark our official dedication. And there will be other landmark occasions along the way as we settle into the Latah site.

Thanks to the labors of too many superb volunteers to name, I am very confident this process will go smoothly. But we should all recognize that there will be growing pains as we adjust to our wonderful new home. We will all be learning, together, what opportunities this facility will make possible for us. Sometimes this will be a matter of trial and error, especially when it comes to scheduling and utilizing our space. This is the Jewish way. We have many blessings, for which we are very thankful. Let us be patient with one another as we begin to live and learn in this miraculous facility that we, with God, have created together.

Life-long learning is the heart and soul of Judaism. We are a tradition that holds the word to be holy and makes no distinction between study and prayer as pathways to the sacred. I am, therefore, very excited about two extraordinary new opportunities for Jewish learning here in Boise.

Next fall, Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel will open our own weekday preschool. Our early learning program will be a wonderful way to use our expanded facility on Latah Street. Imagine what a joy it will be to hear our halls echoing with the sounds of young children singing Jewish songs, playing together, preparing for Shabbat on Friday mornings. We will run by the Jewish calendar (imagine—no “December Dilemma” at school with visits from Santa) and focus on Jewish values. For many years we have envisioned the creation of a day-school that would multiply Jewish learning opportunities exponentially; this is a monumental first step in that direction. We are currently busy interviewing teachers, raising funds and making other preparations for this exciting new start. More information will be available in the coming months; meanwhile, if you have questions, call our education director, Heather Goldstein, at 343-6601.

But even with the best educational programs for our children, we cannot expect them to become Jewish learners if we don’t model this behavior ourselves. The Reform movement is now introducing a novel and wonderful way to take on this mitzvah, called “Ten Minutes of Torah.” During the recent biennial, Rabbi Eric Yoffie asked: “Who among us is so busy that s/he cannot spend ten minutes a day in the study of a Jewish text? If we make time to answer our cell phones a dozen times a day and to check our e-mail five times an hour, surely we can find ten minutes to contemplate sacred works that nourish the soul.” On the basis of these words, the Union has made it easier than ever to study Torah. All you have to do is sign up at www.uahc.org/torah/ten and you will receive a one page e-mail each morning on a topic of Jewish interest. Study at your own convenience and start on your own path of lifelong Jewish learning.