Rabbi's Blog

Leni and I spent part of our vacation on the outer banks of North Carolina. In the local newspaper of Ocracoke Island, there were announcements for church services on Sunday. There was no such announcement for a Shabbat service. In fact, we saw little evidence of Jewish presence at all.

Services or not, we observe Shabbat when we’re on vacation. That means we have Shabbat dinner with Kiddush and Motzi and we spend no money throughout the day.

So on Friday afternoon we went grocery shopping, getting food to last us for the day. Our first problem was that there was no kosher wine to be found over which to say Kiddush. Fortunately, I remembered a text I studied in rabbinical school about how to do Kiddush without wine. One washes one’s hands before Kiddush, says the entire Kiddush but ends it with the blessing over bread instead of the blessing over wine. (This law was surely written either for Jews who were travelling or those too poor to afford the luxury of wine.) Leni and I got a package of small rolls over which to do our combined Kiddush and Motzi.

Being that it was vacation and we were in a small rented apartment, we had neither the tools nor the inclination to do a lot of cooking. We had found a take-out Thai restaurant with a lot of vegetarian options. So before Shabbat, we called in an order and I picked it up. Our dinner began with Shalom Aleikhem, moved to Kiddush and Motzi, and then to three dishes of veggie Thai food, which was pretty good. And it was Shabbat on Ocracoke Island, NC!

I think we Jews invented the idea that religion was portable. God, Torah and the mitzvoth are with us wherever we go. It would have been nice to be with other Jews for a Shabbat service. But we did not need that in order to be Jewish. We don’t subscribe to the maxim, “When in Rome, do as the Romans.” For us it’s just the opposite – and maybe this is a source of anti-Semitism – “When in Rome, be Jewish, even if there are no other Jews around.” We take our religion with us and we insist on practicing it even if no one else is.

On another point, I don’t think we slighted Shabbat in any way by having take-out food for dinner. I’ve suggested from the pulpit that some of our busy families do the same. Better take-out food eaten at home with the whole family than going to a restaurant where the sense of family-togetherness is harder to achieve. Home-cooked is great, but what’s really important is the family being together celebrating Shabbat.

Leni and I spent part of Shabbat on the beach reading and then we walked through town later in the day. When Shabbat was over, we went out to dinner.

Wherever we go, we look for signs of a Jewish presence. We’ve been to some very interesting Shabbat services. But even when we find none, Shabbat go with us. They always remind us who we are and what we believe in.

The DC Minyan is what might be called “Conservadox” in style. Men and women sit separately, where seating is divided equally down the middle of the room, but there is no physical mechitzah. The pulpit stands in the middle of the room between the men’s and women’s sections. The davening and Torah reading are full – nothing is skipped – and it’s all in Hebrew. They are done equally and skillfully by the men and women of the congregation. While there were several rabbis in the room, the services were led entirely by the members. The average age in the room, even including the dozen or so over-50s like me, was 30. There were two baby namings the Shabbat morning I attended.

IKAR is a minyan in LA that is Conservative in style. While DC Minyan used both Orthodox and Conservative siddurim, IKAR used only our Sim Shalom. Seating was mixed and a few parts of the service were abbreviated, similar to services at Rodeph Sholom. IKAR was more “rabbi-led” than DC Minyan. IKAR was founded by Rabbi Sharon Brous who is in her mid-30s. Rabbi Brous was not present the morning I attended, but the service was led by rabbinical students from the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism). Like the DC Minyan, the room was full of 30-somethings and young children.

A year ago, I read a study on what are called “emergent minyanim,” groups of committed Jews who are not joining conventional congregations but are forming their own minyanim instead. The members of these minyanim are predominantly young and Jewishly very well educated. Many went to day school, Jewish summer camp and have spent six months or more in Israel.

The study highlighted a few salient characteristics of the minyanim:  they do not own buildings; they avoid movement labels – they’re not affiliated with any of the major American Jewish religious denominations; and they put a strong emphasis on social action and community involvement. At IKAR, the main announcement was a protest rally about Darfur that the minyan was supporting.

What the study implied but did not say explicitly was that the majority of the members of these minyanim are products of the Conservative Movement. They are, in fact, the “best and brightest” of our movement. They are the most committed and educated young Conservative Jews; and the study showed that, when asked, they still identified themselves as “Conservative” – but they are not comfortable with the culture of our congregations.

With what are they uncomfortable? This is the hardest question to answer but here are some suggestions:

• This may sound silly, but at the DC Minyan and IKAR, you could count on one hand the number of men wearing ties. At DC Minyan, most of the women wore skirts or dresses; very few did so at IKAR.


• At IKAR there were about 125 people at the service; at DC Minyan, 200. At both minyanim, the people sat on the same level with the lectern which was either in the middle or close to the middle of the room. There is an informal and intimate feel to the minyanim. They are not in large rooms with permanent seating and raised pulpits.


• Both minyanim had very high degrees of member participation. The members organized the davening and put out the food for the Kiddush after the service.


• Both minyanim were involved in social action projects of the greater community, whether marching for Darfur or working on a Habitat for Humanity project, the members felt an obligation to do good beyond the Jewish community.

Here’s what I learn from my experiences at these minyanim:

1. In order to attract more committed younger families, our congregations must adjust their style so that we feel less formal. (This is why we’ve brought the lectern down to the floor in our sanctuary.)  While I believe in dressing respectfully for services, my guess is that it won’t be long before we adopt a “business casual” style for synagogue.


2. There’s a strong interest among young Jews to be involved in the greater community. We can see this as another sign of our success:  our children have learned from all those “mitzvah projects” done for their b’nei mitzvah that they have an obligation to participate in tiqun olam.


3. Those people who are writing obituaries for the Conservative Movement are wrong. Our middle-of-the-road, traditional and egalitarian, style is very much alive and well. We are succeeding in inculcating our children with our values and commitment. In many ways, what they are uncomfortable with in our congregations is a matter of style.

I read two weeks ago, at CNN’s online page, that Gilad Shalit, the Israeli corporal held by Hamas, would be released in a matter of days in a prisoner exchange. I was excited for two reasons. I was encouraged that there were back-channel negotiations going on with the Palestinians about Shalit and other difficult issues. I saw this as a small breakthrough.

More importantly, I hoped that Shalit, would finally come home. Pidyon Shivuyim, “redemption of captives,” is an important Jewish value. Pidyon Shivuyim grew out of the ancient – and not so ancient – practice of taking captives and selling them as slaves during times of war. We Jews have never abandoned our brethren in need and we’ve paid large sums to bribe officials in order to rescue fellow Jews. This value has been the basis for the lopsided exchanges that have taken place in the past between Israel and her enemies.

Unfortunately, those “days” came and went, and I read nothing more about Gilad Shalit. When I asked my “source” in the Israeli government, he said that one should ignore these reports; they pop up all the time. He had heard nothing about any prisoner exchange.

We don’t give up on fellow Jews who are held captive. Gilad Shalit will come home, hopefully alive. Until then, we must hope that some back-channel discussions are taking place and, when his release finally happens, it will be the first step on the road to a greater peace.

The prayers of the evening and morning services are a movement through a range of ways to feel God’s presence in our lives.  The liturgy begins praising God for His acts of creation, specifically the sun, moon and stars.  The change from light to darkness and darkness to light are the most immediate manifestations of God’s daily work of creation.  (This prayer is called “Orot,” meaning “lights” or “luminaries.”)  Then the service moves to praise God for giving us Torah and mitzvoth, which are understood as expressions of God’s love for the Jewish people:  as a parent gives moral instruction to a child, so too God shows His love for us by giving us moral instruction.  (This prayer is called “Ahavah,” meaning “love,” though it’s often referred to as “revelation,” God’s teaching His will to the Jewish people.)  Next comes the Sh’ma.

After Sh’ma is “G’ulah,” meaning “redemption” – a prayer that uses the liberation from Egypt as the paradigm of God’s acts of real, political redemption.  God defeats the forces of tyranny to bring freedom to His people.  This is traditional Jewish theology:  However long He may tarry, God is active in history, bringing destruction to the arrogant and liberation to the oppressed.

Here is the movement of our worship.  We see God’s presence in three broad areas of life:  the natural order; the moral order; and the political order.

Whenever I teach about the service, when I come to the “G’ulah” prayer, I use the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, and peace in Northern Ireland as contemporary examples of God’s redemptive role in history.  I mention my hope for peace between Israel and her neighbors as an experience of redemption that would be little short of the messianic coming.

For the last week and a half, I was very hopeful that we might be witnessing another moment of God’s redemptive power in history.  I prayed that the regime of the mullahs might actually fall in Iran; that the people had finally had enough of their oppressive and destructive rule and might overwhelm the Revolutionary Guard with their spirit of hope.  We have seen these moments before in recent history – in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.  We had high hopes for China twenty years ago during the Tiananmen Square movement.

But today, while some protesters continue to march quietly in the streets of Tehran, their numbers are very diminished, and I fear this mass crying-out for free and open elections and for change will be squelched by an overpowering military.  God’s redemptive power has not yet reached the people of Iran.  They, and all their neighbors, Israel included, are still very much in harm’s way as the government will surely try to deflect attention away from its own oppressive policies and search for a scapegoat.

I don’t know if a government led by Mir Hosein Mousavi would have been any less threatening to Israel than one led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  But, ironically and tragically, I believe that the current situation in Iran is good for Israel.  The whole world can see the current regime in Iran for what it really is – a bunch of tyrannical thugs who will oppress their own people just as quickly as they will threaten to annihilate others.  Only the blind can now say, “We don’t have to take seriously the belligerence of Iran.”

What the U.S. or Israel should do now?  About that I make no policy prescriptions.  Though a rabbi once said that one of the Jewish lessons from the Holocaust is that when someone says they’re going to destroy you, you must take them seriously.  What “taking them seriously” specifically means in this case, I cannot say.

As with many pundits, I remain hopeful though not optimistic that God’s powers of redemption will yet be seen in Iran, bimheirah b’yameinu, speedily and in our time.  Until that happens, Iran’s government has shown itself as dedicated to its own power and willing to use any means to keep it.  No one can say to Israel that this threat is not real.