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Rabbi Joyce Newmark Returns to Jeopardy to Defend her Title

Rabbi Joyce Newmark of Teaneck, NJ won $29,200 in her first appearance on the television game show “Jeopardy!” last night. She returned to defend her title tonight, but came up empty.

She was welcomed back onto the show by host Alex Trebek who mentioned that she won the night before on the twentieth anniversary of her ordination as a rabbi from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He also asked her how long there have been female rabbis and if it’s difficult to be one. Newmark answered the question very well, basically explaining to Trebek that she’s never been any other kind of rabbi other than a female one.

Here are two video clips from Rabbi Joyce Newmark’s second appearance on “Jeopardy!”.

JTA Article

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Conservative Judaism Rabbi Rabbis Television

Conservative Rabbi on Jeopardy

Jews have a reputation for answering a question with another question. Perhaps this suits Jewish contestants well on the television game show “Jeopardy!”.

Joyce Newmark, a rabbi in Teaneck, N.J., will be a contestant on tonight’s episode of “Jeopardy!”. It was recorded on February 2, but Newmark is not allowed to comment publicly on the results until after it is broadcast. However, the 63-year-old Conservative rabbi might have come out victorious if her hosting a viewing party at her Teaneck synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, is any indication.

Rabbi Joyce Newmark & Alex Trebek (Jeopardy Productions, Inc.)

Newmark graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary on May 16, 1991 (coincidentally the same date she’ll be on TV competing on “Jeopardy!”). A member of the first class of Wexner Graduate Fellows, she has served congregations in Lancaster, PA and Leonia, NJ, but currently writes and lectures. Prior to rabbinical school, Newmark spent more than fifteen years in management consulting and banking.

As is her daily custom, Newmark wore a yarmulke during the taping of the show. “The interesting thing is that nobody said a thing about the kippah,” she explained. “Since I was introduced as a rabbi, they may have just thought it was normal.” Newmark never considered removing the yarmulke for the taping since it’s been part of her normal garb since 1987. She previously auditioned for “Jeopardy!” in 2006 before her successful audition in 2010.

While her profession was not a main focus of her appearance on the game show, it didn’t go unnoticed either. “As soon as I sat down in the makeup chair (the worst part of the entire experience) the makeup lady immediately began telling me why she had decided to take her son out of Jewish day school.”

The show’s long-standing host, Alex Trebek, appeared to be very interested in Newmark’s profession. He wanted to know how long female rabbis had been around and if there were any Orthodox women rabbis. Newmark was not the first female rabbi to appear on “Jeopardy!”, as there was a young female Reform rabbi several years ago who didn’t have much luck on the show.

Newmark cannot divulge much from the taping of the show, but she will say that she didn’t get any “softball questions” that were especially applicable for a rabbi. At the audition, she was asked to fill out a form informing the producers if there were specific dates when she would not be available to tape. She simply wrote “Jewish holidays.” When Newmark received the congratulatory call, she expressed her surprise, explaining that she had never expected to be selected. She was then told, “We actually were going to call you two months ago, but it was during Hanukkah so we figured you couldn’t come.”

UPDATE: Rabbi Joyce Newmark went home a “Jeopardy!” Champion with $29,200 of winnings in her first appearance on the game show. While she didn’t ring her buzzer in time to answer which Bible character succeeded Moses in the leadership of the Israelites (Answer: “Who is Joshua”), she did answer more questions correctly than her two opponents including the Final Jeopardy question: From the Latin for “Free”, this 2-word term for a type of College refers to the old belief of what a free man should be taught (Answer: “What is Liberal Arts”). She’ll be back on the show tomorrow night.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Baseball Conservative Judaism Kosher Kosher Michigan Orthodox Judaism Politics

Twins Beat Mets in Kosher World Series

The Minnesota Twins have never played the New York Mets in a World Series, but when it comes to having Kosher food at the ballpark the Twins win.

Kosher Sports Inc. had been the exclusive Glatt Kosher provider at Shea Stadium, the former stadium of the NY Mets, since 2006. In 2008, the and Kosher Sports Inc. announced a multi-year agreement for the kosher concession company to continue as the exclusive Glatt Kosher concessionaire at Citi Field, which opened in 2009. However, things haven’t gone so smoothly in this agreement.

Kosher Sports Inc. says its contract with the Mets allows it to offer its kosher food at every game at Citi Field, the New York Daily News reported. The Mets’ management, however, issued a ban on sales during the Jewish Sabbath — between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday. This is likely the first case of a Major League Baseball team being more strict on kosher standards than a kosher food supplier. (There are of course those who would contend that a Jewish person attending a baseball game and purchasing food there on the Jewish Sabbath may not be that punctilious about the kosher laws.)

So, the case was all set to be heard by a federal judge who was to decide whether a vendor can sell kosher food during Mets games on the Jewish Sabbath. However, that federal judge had to recuse himself from the case because he was seen wearing a Mets baseball hat during a break in the trial and once wore a necktie with the Mets team colors during the trial.

Things seem to be going much more swimmingly in the Midwest. Kosher food will be offered at Target Field for the first time. In Target Field’s second season as the Minnesota Twins’ home field, fans will be able to purchase Hebrew National hot dogs and all the fixings from a strictly kosher card behind home plate.

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Avi Olitzky of Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park will provide the kosher certification and supervision. I was honored to provide some counsel to Rabbi Olitzky when he launched his kosher certification agency, MSP Kosher, a year ago. It’s wonderful to see other Conservative rabbis in the kosher certification arena, helping to create more options for the kosher consumer while maintaining strict standards, transparency, and sound business ethics.

The Star Tribune reports that “The cart will still be open Fridays and Saturdays but won’t be supervised.” I’m glad to see the Twins organization is not causing the same ruckus that led the Mets to a courtroom where Kosher Sports is seeking $1 million for breach of contract.

Congratulations to Rabbi Olitzky for bringing kosher hot dogs to the ballpark in Minnesota and to the Minnesota Twins for not messing up a good thing.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Conservative Judaism Judaism and Technology Rabbis

The Answer for Conservative Judaism’s Rebound

Somehow, the rabbinic associations of both the Reform and Conservative movements decided to hold their conventions this week in our nation’s two most notorious cities of sin — New Orleans and Las Vegas respectively.

I’m not attending either convention in person (does Twitter count?), but I have been following the speeches at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention (Conservative) in Vegas that have been streamed live on Ustream. All of the sessions seem to focus on the future of Conservative Judaism and what the leadership thinks is currently ailing the movement.

Watching my colleagues discuss “The Paradox of Growth in the Conservative Movement,” it occurred to me that to make Conservative Judaism vibrant again, we need to look at Ronald Reagan for guidance. That’s right, Ronald Reagan! The former president famously explained his departure from the Democratic Party to the Republican side by saying, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”

In other words, the Democratic Party changed and Reagan wasn’t willing to adapt. So he left. I’m not suggesting that Conservative rabbis leave the Conservative Movement en masse because it has changed. I am, however, suggesting that we — the professional leadership — adapt to the changing times.

The opening plenary session demonstrated this need. “The Paradox of Growth in the Conservative Movement” session began with a failed attempt at humor by Rabbi Brad Artson that underscores my point. One of the brightest rabbis today, Artson is a great speaker and well respected among his colleagues. But his joke came up empty. Riffing on the title of the session (“Paradox”), Artson referenced Allan Sherman’s pun that Casey and Kildaire are a “pair a docs.” Get it? Pair a docs… paradox. Nobody laughed. I had to look up the reference. Turns out that if you weren’t around back in the early 60’s (at least half of the room at the convention), you’re not going to remember the Ben Casey television series. You also might not be up on your Allan Sherman references if you’re under 55-years-old.

And that’s the problem with Conservative Judaism today. It’s not the 60’s or even the 70’s anymore when Conservative Judaism enjoyed its heyday. My grandfather of blessed memory, sitting in a synagogue thirty years ago, would have loved it had the rabbi quoted the Allan Sherman pun about the hospital drama from 1961. I don’t know that Artson needed to open with the “paradox/pair-a-docs” pun, but at least he could have referenced a hospital drama on TV from the past twenty years (ER, House, Scrubs). Even a St. Elsewhere reference might have included more of the rabbis in the room who came of age in the 1980s. After all, the most recent rabbinical school graduates were born in 1985.

Artson actually has his finger on the pulse of the younger generation and keeps up with the current trends more than most rabbis of his generation. He serves as the dean of the Ziegler Rabbinical School at the American Jewish University — the West Coast’s rabbinical seminary that trains Conservative rabbis. In fact, he redeemed himself after the pun FAIL last night. He even labeled his bad joke as “the old Conservative movement” and then went on to explain that rabbis need to embrace the Digital Age and exploit social media.

Artson shared a story of a mock job interview at the American Jewish University in which a rabbinical student about to graduate told the interviewers that in order to respect their time he would put his cellphone on the table in front of him. The interviewers (all older adults) looked at this student like he was crazy. Artson had to explain that for this 20-something’s generation the cellphone has become the wristwatch. There was an obvious culture gap. I tell rabbis all the time that if they want to communicate with high school and college students, they need to text or use Facebook chat. Email is dead to that young generation and we have to keep up with the trends if we want to be relevant.

The Conservative Movement has changed because our culture has changed. Americans are being pulled to the extremes in all areas of society, especially religion. The institutions of the Conservative movement have grown stale by not keeping up with the times, but as the head of the Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, has articulated, “The paradox of growth in the Conservative movement is that we have to separate movement from institutions.” Conservative rabbis who have been out of the seminary for more than ten years haven’t changed, but they need to change because the culture has changed. Conservative Judaism has long waved the banner of “Tradition and Change.” If that is to continue to be the mantra of this centrist branch of modern Judaism, then there must be a response to the change. “Tradition” must continue to be at the fore, but the way in which it is packaged and sold has to change. It’s a different world out there.

The borders have disappeared in the 21st century Digital Age and rabbis must come up with a new vision for how to market the product that is Conservative Judaism. And to complicate matters, the transition is ongoing. Rabbis have finally embraced the fact that they have to give out their cellphone number to their congregants who also expect a response to their email within an hour. And rabbis slowly began to see the need to upload their sermons and classes onto the Web as podcasts. But now these rabbis need to Facebook chat and blog and Skype and tweet and check-in. Will it ever end? No. We must continue to adapt and make our vision and approach fresh.

The opportunity for fifty-year-old puns is clearly over. The future of Judaism is now.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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American Jews Conservative Judaism

Conservative Jewish College Students Get Short Shrift

At some point in 1996, I sat down to begin writing a draft of my application essays for rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. One of the questions asked what the focus of my future rabbinate would be and it didn’t take long to formulate an answer that included paying more attention to Jewish college students.

As an active student in the university’s Jewish community at the time, I recognized that college students don’t often get the attention they should from their synagogues or temples back home. During high school, a lot of congregational funds and professional support are directed to youth groups. Staff members forge lasting relationships with Jewish teens, scholarships are awarded for retreat and convention attendance, leadership skills are taught, Israel trips are available that last much longer than ten days.

When these teens leave home for college, however, it is largely believed that the Hillel on campus will take care of them. Aside from an annual visit from the congregational rabbi, there is often little connection from the synagogue. Hillel can be a one-size-fits-all solution for many Jewish college students and that is where the individual movement’s college outreach programs come in to play.

During my second year of college, I helped re-constitute a Koach chapter on my campus. Koach is the Conservative Movement’s college outreach program. It was an important lifeline for Jewish students (many of whom were already active with Hillel) who affiliated with the Conservative branch of Judaism. My connection with Koach continued when I was in rabbinical school, teaching at a Koach kallah (retreat) and serving as a visiting Koach Scholar on college campuses.

Today, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism votes on its new strategic plan. I haven’t written about the state of United Synagogue in the past year, but I have been watching closely. Rather than criticize the organization, I’ve been interested to see how it redefines itself amidst a massive decline in affiliated synagogues. Like many Conservative rabbis and Conservative Jewish leaders across North America, I have long wondered how affiliated synagogues justify the hefty annual dues price tag to United Synagogue without getting much in return. The reality has long been that Conservative synagogues remain affiliated and pay dues so they will be able to participate in the placement process when they need to hire a new rabbi or cantor, and so their teens will be able to be members of United Synagogue Youth (USY), the movement’s international youth group. Without enough support or resources to justify paying dues during the recession years, a large percentage of Conservative congregations disaffiliated. If congregations needed to hire new clergy during that time, they negotiated a settlement deal to re-affiliate and then promptly stopped their dues payments once the new rabbi or cantor was in place.

Over the past few years, organized dissent has arisen from within the ranks of the Conservative Movement. One of the coalitions of critics, Hayom (rabbis and synagogue presidents), has joined forces with United Synagogue to construct a reinvention strategy through a new strategic plan. When a draft of this new strategic plan, crafted with the expert consulting of Dr. Jack Ukeles and sociologist Steven M. Cohen and under the co-chairmanship of Professor Jacob Finkelstein and Rabbi Ed Feinstein, was posted on the USCJ website the criticism began.

The most vocal complaint about United Synagogue’s new plan was its reduction in funding and attention to its college outreach program. In response, a grassroots group (Mahar Coalition) of Conservative Jewish college students and alumni of Koach was formed. United Synagogue quickly revised its strategic plan, but without any monetary figures being changed in the revision that will be voted on today.

Here’s what the original plan said (based on the draft that has since been taken off of the USCJ website):

Recommendation 4.5 “USCJ should shift its priority in connecting young Jewish adults from the college campus to the post-college generation, recognizing that the North American Jewish community has made a much more substantial investment in Jewish life on the college campus than it has in the young adult post-college generation.” 4.6 “At the same time, USCJ needs to maintain a bridge between high school graduates and post-college young adults. USCJ should make a limited, focused investment in the college-age cohort by creating leadership development opportunities for the outstanding graduates of Ramah, USY, and Nativ, many of whom are studying at List College.” 5.1 “The current campus environment is heavily serviced by Hillel and numerous other well-funded and professionally staffed efforts. The only way a relatively modest expenditure by USCJ can make a significant impact on campus is by highly focused interventions. While the USCJ cannot abandon Conservative Jewish college students, it needs a more effective vehicle than the current Koach program.”

The language above makes the jump from high school graduates to post-college young adults and seems to believe that Hillels will handle the Jewish outreach to college students. The Mahar Coalition has stated the obvious: they too want to engage in education and Torah learning through a lifeline to the Conservative Movement while on the college campus.

The edited plan was amended to read:

Recommendation 4.5 “It is recognized that a continuing presence on campus for Conservative Judaism is vital to maintain the bridge between our high school students and the young adult post-college generation. It is not clear who should fund this effort and what the effort should look like. Since USCJ has been funding and administering the effort through Koach, in the short term USCJ should continue to do so in a highly focused and cost-efficient way. Simultaneously, USCJ should engage with college student leaders, and leaders of Conservative Judaism, to determine how best to work in partnership to ensure that the USCJ presence on the college campus not only remains but grows.”

The Mahar Coalition’s response to the revision was fairly positive, but there was no decision by United Synagogue to shave less funding from Koach. Hopefully, the conversation will continue and individuals or foundations will step up to support the important outreach from United Synagogue to Conservative college students.

United Synagogue’s reputation is at stake here and there has been a tradition of having little transparency in their decision making over the decades. If the Conservative Movement is to dig out of its current predicament and truly reinvent itself, it cannot short shrift Conservative Jewish college students — a highly impressionable demographic. They will only give member congregations more reason to question if affiliation is really worth the money.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Community Conservative Judaism Jewish Jewish Future Orthodox Judaism People Philosophy

On Jewish Identity

I was one of three Jewish educators asked to respond to a statement about Jewish identity for this month’s issue of Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility. The statement was co-written by Patrick Aleph and Michael Sabani, the co-founders of Punk Torah. After I responded to their statement in writing, Patrick and Michael interviewed me via Skype. Their statement, my response and the video interview are below:

“If I try to be like him, who will be like me?” (Yiddish Proverb)

No study has ever been done to discover the root cause of why people stop identifying with Judaism. If we worry less about Judaism as a culture and more about monotheism, we might find that — suddenly — people have something more to believe in. Jewish identity is more than matzah ball soup and Young Professionals mixers.

God, Israel (the people), and the Torah are essential for Jewish identity. Without God, we sit on a stool with only two legs. Theists need to summon up the courage to put God first in Jewish life in spite of the urge to keep our heads down so we don’t look crazy.

We often place a lot of importance on not standing out, especially in a “tribal” sense. It gives us a sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves. The flip side is that if we all try to be like someone else, we lose who we really are.

Judaism is a path (halakhah) that allows us to walk together, even if we walk at our own pace. When we try to be like another, we are giving up our God-given individuality.

—Patrick Aleph and Michael Sabani

My response: 
Jewish identity is a tricky subject. We have no consensus on how to define it, what it should feel like, or to what extent it should be particularistic. I find that Judaism has much wisdom to offer, both to adherents of the faith and to the rest of the world. I’m often, therefore, baffled by our numbers — that we account for such a small fraction of the population.

Should we worry more about monotheism, as Michael Sabani and Patrick Aleph suggest? Should we worry less about the cultural components of our peoplehood? These are decisions that each individual “member of the tribe” must make. Some Jews will be enthralled with bagels and lox on Sunday mornings, federation meetings, Seinfeld reruns, and B’nai Brith softball. Other Jews will recharge their spiritual batteries in traditional synagogue life. Some will look to Jewish summer camp as their source of Jewishness, and for other people it will be the connection to the State of Israel. We are a club, but we’re not sure who is included and who decides our boundaries. It is good for us to stand out as tribally different, but we should also count our blessings that we are included in the larger fabric as well.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Conservative Rabbi on The Daily Show

My colleague, Rabbi Gideon Estes of Congregation Or Ami, played the straight man last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. After Justin Bieber opened the show pretending to be Jon Stewart, Estes had a tough act to follow, but did a great job.

Daily Show correspondent John Oliver went down to Texas to file a story about the campaign of a Jewish Republican man to be re-elected speaker of the Texas State House. Estes, wearing his Jewish Theological Seminary tallit (prayer shawl), was interviewed by Oliver about the opposition to Joe Strauss being re-elected because he is Jewish and not a Christian conservative.

At the end of the segment, John Oliver celebrates his creation of a new high holiday called “Yom Chechechecheh” with the Hebrew School children at Estes’ congregation.

Check out the video below:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart RabbiJason.com
Conservative Rabbi Gideon Estes on The Daily Show
www.thedailyshow.com

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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American Jews Conservative Judaism Jewish Jewish Law Orthodox Judaism Politics Reform Judaism Terrorism

Gabby Giffords and Patrilineal Descent When It’s Desirable

As a Conservative rabbi and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly, I cannot officially consider Jewish descent to be determined patrilineally (from the father). In fact, in its “Code of Professional Conduct,” the section detailing the responsibilities for membership in the Rabbinical Assembly lists four current standards of religious practice. The first is: “Matrilineality determines Jewish status.”

And yet, like many Jews who regard Jewish status to require a Jewish mother or proper conversion, I admit to feeling pride when a Jewish athlete or celebrity is successful, even if their “Jewishness” isn’t technically defined by halachic standards. After all, when major league baseball player Ryan Braun won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2007, should the Jewish community have refused to claim the “Hebrew Hammer” as one of our own since only his father is a “Member of the Tribe?” Braun considers himself to be Jewish and his Israeli-born father lost most of his family in the Holocaust.

The 1983 decision by the Reform Movement to recognize Jewish status by either the mother or the father continues to raise questions for the other streams of Judaism. The debate over “Who is a Jew” is back in the headlines following the shooting in Tucson, Arizona that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. For Giffords, the daughter of a mother who is a Christian Scientist and a father who is Jewish and the grandson of a rabbi, there is no question of her Jewishness. She is a proud Jew who is an active member of her Reform congregation. She was married under a chuppah (wedding canopy) by a rabbi, albeit to a non-Jewish man.

This week, as Giffords lay in a hospital recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt by a domestic terrorist, her Hebrew name has circulated the world to be used in the traditional Mi Sheberach prayer for healing. Some rabbis have even questioned whether her non-Jewish mother’s name should be part of her Hebrew nomenclature for the prayer, while others have referred to her as Jewish but added the caveat “not halachically speaking.” Giffords co-chaired the Jewish Outreach Institute’s 2007 conference and is active in her congregation. Yesterday, President Barack Obama called Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, Giffords’ rabbi at Congregation Chaverim, to offer his prayers for a speedy recovery for the congresswoman.

Since Saturday’s shooting, we’ve learned quite a bit about Gabrielle Giffords and her Jewish pride. Her paternal grandfather, the son of a Lithuanian rabbi, changed his name to Giff Giffords for anti-Semitic reasons. On her campaign website, Giffords wrote, “Growing up, my family’s Jewish roots and tradition played an important role in shaping my values. The women in my family served as strong role models for me as a girl. In my family, if you want to get something done, you take it to the women relatives! Like my grandmother, I am a lifetime member of Hadassah and now a member of Congregation Chaverim. When I served in the State Senate in Arizona, I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I will always be a strong supporter of Israel. As the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, Israel is a vital strategic ally of the United States. As a woman and as a Jew, I will always work to insure that the United States stands with Israel to jointly ensure our mutual safety, security, and prosperity.”

The Jerusalem Post was the first publication to state emphatically that Giffords’ Jewishness shouldn’t be questioned. In fact, in their editorial “Learning Judaism From Giffords,” they wrote, “With all our desire for a universally accepted definition of ‘Who is a Jew?’ that would unify the Jewish people, we cannot ignore the complicated reality that many ‘non-Jews’ are much more Jewish than their ‘Jewish’ fellows. Congresswoman Giffords is one of them.”

In her “In the Mix” blog at The Jewish Week, Julie Wiener wrote of how Giffords’ Jewishness is shining a spotlight on the “who is a Jew” debate. In her article, “Plight of the Patrilineals,” Weiner cited blogger “Kung Fu Jew,” who posted his angry rant on the JewSchool blog about how Giffords is “Jewish enough for the Jewish community to own a side-show of the media circus. Jewish enough to be our martyr, it seems, but not Jewish enough to be treated equally in life.” He has a point here. I’m sure many synagogues will offer prayers of healing for Rep. Giffords this Shabbat and recognize her as a Jewish member of Congress, yet they would be violating their own religious policy if they ever called her to the Torah for an aliyah honor.

I really wish we had a consensus on what determines Jewish status through lineage, even if only in the non-Orthodox Jewish community. Certainly, we cannot continue to make an exception for athletes, celebrities, and politicians of Jewish patrilineal descent. I’m in agreement with the Jerusalem Post on this matter. If Rep. Gabrielle Giffords considers herself Jewish because her father is Jewish and she lives a Jewish life, then she’s Jewish.

May Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (Gavriela bat Gloria v’Spencer) be granted a speedy and complete recovery.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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American Jews Conservative Judaism Orthodox Judaism Rabbi Reconstructionist Judaism Reform Judaism Synagogues

Jay Michaelson On Taking the Boring Out Of Shul

I just read Jay Michaelson’s spot-on article in the Forward, “Rethinking Egalitarianism:
Are We Leveling the Playing Field Too Low?”. Michaelson seems to always have his pulse on the Jewish community, and his perspective is not limited to only one denomination or to what’s going on in New York City.

His article tackles several problems in synagogues today and I agree with him on most counts. I disagree, however, that egalitarianism has much to do with the malaise one finds in most non-Orthodox congregations today. He begins by introducing his friends who emigrated from the famous B.J. (B’nai Jeshurun) on the Upper West Side to a mid-size Jewish community in the South. When they couldn’t find a shul as invigorating and active as B.J., they settled for the Modern Orthodox congregation despite their egalitarian leanings. Not finding a shul like B.J. is a common complaint for people who leave this dynamic ruach-filled NYC congregation and go elsewhere. In fact, as a rabbi I’ve heard dozens of people exclaim after visiting B.J. just once, “Why can’t we recreate the B.J. experience at our shul?” (Newsflash: It’s more than just Argentine rabbis and musical instruments!)

More than “egal doesn’t matter anymore,” what I think Michaelson is arguing is that the heimishe quality found in Orthodox shuls needs to be a goal for Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative shuls. The attempts to make services more inclusive and accessible to everyone by calling page numbers, over-explaining and over-simplifying the liturgy, and presenting English readings with confusing themes that pose theological problems have caused a general malaise in these services. Not to mention, most Reform and Conservative services are taking place in buildings that are too large to create any sense of warmth or heimishe ambience.

Michaelson is correct about the roots of this culture. He writes:

The reason for this is historical: Reform and Conservative grew out of German Reform Judaism, which aped German Protestantism and tried to offer an edifying, formal service of moral instruction and beautiful music. It’s true, that this formality still does work for some people today — and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that — but has there ever been a sociological study to quantify its appeal? I’ll wager that these antique, even archaic forms work only for those who know and feel comfortable with them. But isn’t that exactly the complaint lodged against traditional Orthodoxy — that it includes some, but not others? If what we’re interested in is inclusiveness and egalitarianism, then we should try to offer a satisfying spiritual experience to as many people as possible.

Non-Orthodox shuls need to spend the next decade focusing more on the kavanah (the unbound spiritual search for devotion and intention) and less on the keva (the mindless following of the rote). The Orthodox service is less robotic, thereby allowing individuals to move at their own pace and find their own comfort zone within the service. I concur with Michaelson that synagogue leaders seeking to invigorate the service and empower the membership need search no farther than Rabbi Elie Kaunfer’s book Empowered Judaism, where Kaunfer writes “What the Jewish world needs is not more dumbing-down but more empowerment of individuals to opt in if they so desire.”

I also appreciated Michaelson’s apt view of how children should be treated in shul. He writes, “Of course, the kids ran around themselves too, as is the de facto culture in many traditional places of worship. This, my friend observed, was far better for the children’s sanity and their parents’ prayer lives. A few decades ago, we were told that the family that prays together, stays together. But if the family stays together in synagogue, often no one prays at all.”

This article should be required reading for synagogue leaders. There’s a lot we can learn from the culture that permeates Orthodox synagogues on Shabbat mornings.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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American Jews Conservative Judaism Detroit Orthodox Judaism Rabbi Rabbi Jason Miller Reconstructionist Judaism Reform Judaism

Labels Can Be Good and Bad

I’ve been thinking a lot about labels lately. I recently wrote an op-ed about denominational labels in Judaism that was published in the Detroit Jewish News and on the Huffington Post website. In it, I explained how ambivalent I am about labeling individuals because these labels don’t always help us understand the individual better. Calling a Jewish person an “Orthodox Jew” doesn’t tell us much about them. In fact it only leads to misperceptions (Are they Modern Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox? Are they actually unobservant, but affiliate with an Orthodox congregation?).

The analogy I’ve used several times in the Melton Scholars course on denominations that I’ve been teaching this fall has been that one could walk into ten different ice-cream parlors and find that each parlor sells an ice-cream labeled as “strawberry.” Yet, despite the identical label, each strawberry ice-cream will actually taste quite different. As I wrote, the woman who labels her religious affiliation on her Facebook profile as “Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form” isn’t confused, hazy or even necessarily post-denominational. Rather, she is articulating the notion that we don’t have to choose just one label. There is much more cross-denominational activity today, and based on reader comments to my op-ed on Huffington Post, this is just as true in many other faiths as well.

In thinking of a photo I could use to complement my op-ed, I decided that a car bumper is often used to display ones ideological, political, and religious identity and affiliation. I imagined a car bumper with bumper stickers representing all the trans-denominational activities in which I’m involved –the pluralistic Jewish camp where I work, the Conservative synagogue where I’m a member and my children go to school, the Reform temple where I teach, the Reconstructionist congregation where I serve as the part-time rabbi, the Chabad-affiliated special needs for children organization I support, the community day school my child attends, and so on.

I didn’t manage to include all of those institutions, but I took a photo of the bumper on my wife’s minivan with several of these magnets (magnets seem to be the new bumper stickers and it’s nice that they’re temporary in these more transient times). In the end, I decided not to use that photo to accompany the HuffPo posting. (The photo on HuffPo is of a liberal Jew and a traditional Jew arguing as my friend and local rabbinic colleague Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg looking on.)

I did, however, post the “bumper stickers” photo (above) on Facebook where it was viewed by my friend and colleague Rabbi Paul Yedwab of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Rabbi Yedwab opened his sermon this Shabbat by mentioning my photo:

A friend of mine, Rabbi Jason Miller, whom many of you know, recently tagged a photo on his Facebook page showing a car bumper with a Temple Israel bumper sticker magnet (available by the way, on the table just outside the door if you’d like to sport one on your vehicle.) And, in this picture, right next to the Temple Israel sticker, is a Friendship Circle bumper sticker, a Hillel Day School bumper sticker and a Tamarack Camps sticker as well. And the caption under the photo reads: “Time to get a second bumper.”

I have long been fascinated by this concept of labels. Is the owner of a car really defined by the labels on her bumper? And if she were, how many bumpers would she need to let us know that she is a proudly Jewish, caring mom, tree hugger, vegetarian, Zionist, who is politically moderate, loves animals, nature, Swirlberry frozen yogurt, crossword puzzles, Gucci, Glee and her alma mater. Forget a second bumper; she would need a tractor trailer.

In our Torah portion, God is speaking to Abraham and telling him that he is going to have to take his son up to Mt. Moriah, there to sacrifice him on the altar. But the words God uses to break the bad news are very deliberate. Take your son, God begins, bincha, and then y’echidcha, your only son, asher ahavtah, the son you love, and then and only then, God finally identifies Isaac by name.

Now classically, the Midrash tells us that God stretches out his description of Isaac in order to break the bad news to Abraham slowly…gently. But I am not satisfied with that explanation. After all Abraham was not an idiot; he knew exactly to whom God was referring from the very beginning of that dreadful conversation.

So here is another interpretation. In our tradition God is the one being in all the universe who is ineffable, which means beyond labels. God is not a male or a female, a Democrat or a Republican (although you would never know it from some of the political ads that have cropped up recently). And, according to the Torah, God does not even have a name other than Ehiyeh Asher Ehiyeh, I will be what I will be, or in other words, you can’t put a label on Me. And therefore it follows that, since we human being are made in God’s image, God understands us too as holistic, complex, multi-dimensional creatures. No single label can fully capture the essence of a person. You know, that rabbi with the gray hair at Temple Israel. No, no, not him….the other one…the short one. Oh! Rabbi Yedwab. Labels really never tell the whole story.

So God tries to supply a multi-dimensional description of Isaac, whom after all is so much more than his position in the family, or the feelings his father has for him, or even his name. You know, Abraham: Isaac, the one whose essence is way beyond what any name, label or verbal description can possibly capture, your son, Yitzchak.

Rabbi Yedwab goes on in his sermon to mention some interesting new research that has been done recently into the field of language and epistemology, and then offers some suggested rules for communicating with our “necessarily insufficient words.” One of his rules is to stop communicating in Cyberspace. As a tech-embracing rabbi, I can’t say I agree with that proposed rule, although I concur that we all need to be mindful of how we communicate through technology.

Overall, I agree with Rabbi Yedwab’s message. Just like God, we humans are beyond labels. It is all too easy to assign labels to everyone we know and everyone we read about. The alternative is to use our God-given ability to communicate in order to learn about others. Rather than asking them what kind of Jew they are, we should ask more specific questions about their beliefs and their doubts, their affiliation, their education and their faith history. We should ask them what gets them out of bed in the morning and what do they do to recharge their spiritual batteries. And then we should listen.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller