Category: Conservative Judaism

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Rahm Emanuel’s Son’s Bar Mitzvah & Religious Pluralism in Israel

As I was preparing to board a plane home at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport a few weeks ago, I followed the news reports that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s son’s bar mitzvah would be moved outside of Jerusalem for security concerns. Rahm Emanuel and his Hollywood agent brother, Ari Emanuel, brought their families to Israel on vacation and for their respective son’s Jewish rite of passage. Apparently, protesters were heckling the Emanuel family’s delegation as they toured Jerusalem’s Old City because of the Obama Administration’s purported views on Middle East affairs.

Ultimately, Zach Emanuel’s bar mitzvah went ahead as planned at Robinson’s Arch, the archaeological site along the remaining Southern Wall of the Temple at which Conservative and Reform rabbis are allowed to officiate at bar and bat mitzvahs. The two cousins had their b’nai mitzvah on a Sunday, perhaps to confuse paparazzi, and it was officiated by each family’s rabbi –Rabbi Jack Moline, of Rahm Emanuel’s synagogue (Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Virginia) and Rabbi Kenneth Chasen, of the Reform Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles where Ari Emanuel’s family belongs.

Having recently spent the early dawn hours of Shavuot at Robinson’s Arch, known as the “Masorti Kotel” since the Masorti/Conservative Jews can pray there freely, I was thrilled to read the op-ed in the Jerusalem Post by Masorti Movement CEO Yizhar Hess about the Emanuel boys’ b’nai mitzvah and the lack of religious pluralism in Israel, especially at the Western Wall (Kotel).

Hess took the opportunity of this newsworthy double bar mitzvah to focus on the Ultra-Orthodox control of the Western Wall, including the plaza. He writes:

The [Emanuel] family stood together, prayed together. There was no mehitza [separation between the sexes]. Some women donned a tallit [prayer shawl]. There was an abundance of Judaism, an abundance of Zionism and an abundance of love.

It is sad that one cannot pray in the same way at the main Western Wall Plaza. For a decade now, the Masorti Movement has been facilitating prayers at the Masorti Kotel. This is a forced arrangement. The majority of the world’s Jews pray without a mehitza, but when they come to Jerusalem, to the most symbolic site for Jewish prayer, they are forbidden from praying together. The Kotel, whose holiness has enthused Jews from all over the world, has been transformed into a haredi synagogue.

The Masorti Movement has never relinquished its right to pray at the Kotel, but has agreed, in compromise and with great pain, to hold its prayers at the [Davidson] archeological park.

With all of Israel’s international struggles right now, one would hope that it would strive to solve this matter of domestic disharmony. Here’s hoping that when Rahm Emanuel returns to Jerusalem for his daughter’s bat mitzvah, the family will be allowed to mark this rite of passage at any part of the Kotel they choose — and be free from protesters and paparazzi.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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America Community Conservative Judaism Jewish Orthodox Judaism Politics Reconstructionist Judaism Reform Judaism

What Elena Kagan Can Teach Us About Judaism

If Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court, is confirmed there will be two Jewish female justices on the highest court in the U.S. and a full third of the bench will be Jewish for the first time in history. The rest of the justices are Catholic. A Supreme Court made up of six Catholics and three Jews will certainly be interesting.

But there is also a lot that the biography of Elena Kagan can teach us about Judaism today.

In a recent article in the NY Times, we learn that Kagan had the first bat mitzvah ceremony at Lincoln Square Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But what led up to that event, and Kagan’s Jewish identity in the decades since that event, shed much light on the post-denominational Jewish world of today and perhaps give us a glimpse of what is possible in the future.

Lincoln Square Synagogue started with a few Conservative Jewish families in the Lincoln Towers apartment complex in NYC. In 1964, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was sent by Yeshiva University to lead High Holy Day services for this group (essentially a “chavurah.”) They took a liking to Rav Riskin, dropped the “Conservative” label from their name, and in 1970 formed Lincoln Square Synagogue.

The Times article goes on to explain that a women’s prayer group began at the synagogue in 1972 and when Elena Kagan was approaching her twelfth birthday, she requested to have a formal bat mitzvah. It would become the first bat mitzvah that Rabbi Riskin would officiate.

“We crafted a lovely service, but I don’t think I satisfied her completely,” said Rabbi Riskin, who left the synagogue in 1983 to move to Israel, where he is chief rabbi of Efrat, a West Bank settlement. “But she certainly raised my consciousness.”

Since then, bat mitzvahs have evolved at Lincoln Square. Today a girl can choose to lead the service and read from the Torah, as long as the ceremony is held during a women’s service in an annex of the synagogue. There cannot be more than nine men in attendance, and they must sit behind the mechitza. (“If there are 10 men” — known as a minyan — “that becomes a men’s service,” said Cantor Sherwood Goffin, who taught Ms. Kagan.)

Elena Kagan’s parents eventually left Lincoln Square Synagogue and joined West End Synagogue (now located next door to Lincoln Square), a Reconstructionist congregation. Today, Elena Kagan considers herself a Conservative Jew.

This means that the woman who is likely to soon be the newest Supreme Court justice was a member of an Orthodox synagogue that began as a Conservative “chavurah” with an Orthodox-trained rabbi who was willing to have women’s prayer groups, a glass see-through mechitzah (barrier between men and women), and organize a bat mitzvah ceremony at a time when most Conservative rabbis weren’t willing to do so. And from that synagogue, her family became Reconstructionists, and she eventually became Conservative (in her Jewish ideology, but not her political or judicial approach).

Modern American Judaism is at a cross-roads. It has become much more difficult to determine what it means to be a Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, or Orthodox Jew. On the one hand Orthodoxy has moved further away from center with increased strictures on everything from dietary laws to issues of family purity. But on the other hand, Orthodox rabbis like Riskin, Avi Weiss, Yitz Greenberg, Saul Berman, Dov Linzer, and Asher Lopatin (to name a few) are embracing an “open Orthodoxy” that sees challenging questions of Jewish law through a modern lens and allows for increased participation of women in the community.

Reform Judaism has moved quite far in the past half-century and many Reform Jews have found it possible to cling to traditional Judaism within a Reform setting. Conservative Judaism has shifted from a post-war period in which Jews had the Tradition but were in search of modernity and change. Today, Conservative Jews begin with secularism and are in search of Tradition (or at least their rabbis see the situation that way).

Elena Kagan’s emergence on the national scene should demonstrate the fluidity that exists in our Jewish world. We have become a community less about denominational structure and more about comfort. I write this from Israel where I spent this past Shabbat at Shira Chadasha, a congregation that calls itself Orthodox, but allows for a great deal of liturgical participation by women. At Shira Chadasha, one immediately gets the sense that many of the Jewsthere are post-denominational in the sense that they don’t worry about which camp or category they fit into. Rather, they are comfortable being a part of that community, whatever it’s called.

Thanks to the nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, our American Jewish community can learn a little more about the direction in which we’re headed.

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

Denominational Judaism is SO Last Century

I am often asked the question: “What kind of rabbi are you?” My tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I usually answer: “A good one!”

Of course, the questioner is trying to ascertain in which denomination of Judaism I affiliate and will then make a whole host of assumptions about me. Denominational labels, whether for rabbis or lay people, are thought to reveal such things as congregational affiliation, personal theology, daily practice, views on Israel, the role of women in Judaism, etc. However, we are now in a post-denominational age of modern Judaism and denominational labels have been rendered useless.

We are in a time when Jewish people identify their religion in their Facebook profile as “Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form.” No, these people aren’t confused about their Jewish identity, rather they have realized that there is “meaning” to be made from the various pathways to Torah.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, when asked about the different streams of Judaism, remarked that this is the reason that Baskin Robbins offers thirty-one flavors of ice cream. And to this I would add that it’s possible to order a mixture of flavors too. Yitz Greenberg also famously said, “I personally don’t care which denomination in Judaism you belong to as long as you’re ashamed of it.”

To those who ask what type of rabbi I am, perhaps a better response would be an invitation to sit and shmooze over coffee so that I may share my narrative. I was raised in the Conservative Movement attending Shabbat services, going to the synagogue pre-school, and studying at a Solomon Schechter Day School from kindergarten through the end of the seventh grade. In high school, I was active in the Conservative Movement’s youth group, and traveled across the country and to Israel with other Conservative Jewish teens.

When I decided to become a rabbi during my second year of college, there was never a doubt that it would be at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC, known as the flagship educational institution of the Conservative Movement. It was in rabbinical school, however, that I really came into contact with other “flavors” of Judaism.

I was chosen for an interfaith dialogue program called Seminarians Interacting. We went on a week-long retreat and stayed at a Catholic seminary outside of Baltimore. I learned a bit about other faith traditions, but it was sharing a room with a Reform rabbinical student and talking to Reconstructionist rabbinical students that was the most eye-opening experience for me. We talked about our individual calling to become a rabbi, matters of belief and practice, and the future of the Jewish community.

Not long after this experience, I returned to the Detroit area to spend a summer training as a hospital chaplain. There were Christian seminary students representing different denominations, but I spent the most time with a Reform rabbinical student who also attended that Conservative Jewish day school. We studied Torah together, prayed together, and debated Jewish law. It was wonderful. We each had our own “torah” to teach and we were both deeply engaged in learning from our rabbis, but we also gained so much from each other.

It was also in rabbinical school that I become involved with Clal, a pluralistic organization that employs teaching fellows from every Jewish stream. In the Clal offices I found Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox scholars who were so deeply engrossed in discussing the issues of the day. It didn’t matter where they prayed or how they thought the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people; all that mattered was that they could challenge each other to think outside of the box and help people make meaning out of their lives.

Rabbinical School was a time when I prayed at an Orthodox shul in which men and women sat separately. But I also led a very Reform service on Friday nights for a nice group of thirty elderly people at the local nursing home. All the while spending my days studying Torah and Talmud in a Conservative seminary with professors who had all studied under Mordechai Kaplan, the founding father of Reconstructionist Judaism.

After graduating from rabbinical school and becoming a card-carrying Conservative rabbi, I took a job at a Hillel foundation on a college campus. There, my job was to advise the leaders of the various student minyans, from Reform and Conservative to Humanistic and Traditional. I spent time in each of these different prayer groups and noticed that many students sampled the various offerings regardless of their upbringing or their family’s affiliation. During this time, I also consulted a Conservative synagogue that didn’t have a rabbi and taught adult education classes at a Reform temple.

Today, I serve as the rabbi of a non-denominational camping agency in which I help run Shabbat services at our summer camp. The services tend more toward the Reform liturgy. I also serve as the part-time rabbi of a Reconstructionist congregation, and as the director of a consolidated, weekly high school program for the Conservative synagogues. I am part of two national rabbinic fellowship programs in which I learn and dialogue with rabbis from just about every Jewish flavor imaginable. When we come together at retreats, we forget at which institution we were each made into rabbis and just allow our Torah to permeate the room so that we may learn from each other.

Whether with my colleagues at the STAR Foundation’s PEER program or at Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders, I’ve learned that if we perpetuate the arguments of whose Torah is true Judaism, we’ll only do damage to the Jewish people. When we recognize that the labels don’t help and that we’re living in a post-denominational world we will be able to bring more of our collective Jewish wisdom to the world.

I may find that my theology resonates the most with what has historically been considered a Conservative approach, but I still like to pray in an Orthodox minyan at times. The strong emphasis on social action in the Reform Movement motivates me to see the world beyond my nose and my responsibility to humanity. But the deep-rooted sense of a heimish community in the Orthodox world is something that I find gratifying and reaffirming. And the focus on egalitarianism and human dignity that has been critical to the Reconstructionist Movement since its inception is important to me.

Conservative Jews are keeping Orthodox yeshivahs open with their generous philanthropy. Reform Jews are showing their strong support for Israel by becoming AIPAC leaders, traveling to Israel on solidarity missions, and planning community events to honor Israel — all actions to which their Reform forebears would object. Orthodox synagogues are finding innovative ways to increase the role of women in the prayer service and in the community. And independent minyanim are forming around the country with no denominational affiliation and made up of young people who were raised in different traditions.

So, the next time someone asks me what kind of rabbi I am, I think I’ll just ask them: “Well, how much time do you have?”

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Conservative Judaism Food Jewish Kosher News Orthodox Judaism

How Can Lox Not Be Kosher?

Smoked salmon, or lox, has long been known as a staple fare at Sunday brunch in Jewish homes. In fact, Jewish people who claim their Jewish identity as only secular are known as “Bagels and Lox Jews.”

Well, now an ultra-Orthodox group of rabbis, the Chevra Mehadrin of Monsey, New York, have included lox on a list of food items that should no longer be considered kosher. According to these rabbis, a tiny parasitic worm called anisakis that can be found in smoked salmon calls its kosher status in question.

NBC New York interviewed some individuals in the Kosher industry who were less than appreciative for this ruling. “From time to time there are organizations who get a little crazy with these ideas,” said Hal Simon, manager of Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen in midtown Manhattan, who sells lox daily.

When matters like this arise in the world of kosher certification, I usually consult two of my Talmud teachers from the Jewish Theological Seminary for their opinions. However, based on many prior conversations with them I can pretty much guess what their responses will be. Rabbi Joel Roth, who is the highly regarded kashrut expert for the Conservative Movement will say this is narishkeit (foolishness in Yiddish). Prof. David Kraemer, author of Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages, will no doubt have a lot of eye rolling commentary about this latest pronouncement by the ultra-Orthodox kosher police.

In his book about kashrut and Jewish eating as an identity, Prof. Kraemer devoted his entire last chapter to this particular subject. Titled “Bugs in the System,” he opens the chapter by recounting the New York Times article from June 1, 2004, which reported that New York City drinking water had ceased to be kosher because of millimeter-long zooplankton called copepods.  He writes, “How is that water that had been drunk for generations without hesitation or compunction was all of a sudden suspect, and even ‘non-kosher?’ Examined by itself, this chapter in the development of modern kashrut practices is a study in different interpretations of detailed legal sources. But studied in context, the copepod incident is the culmination of a not-so-long history of increasing alarm and accusation over kashrut in the Orthodox community and beyond.”

Indeed, Kraemer goes on to address the relatively new (mid-1980’s) preoccupation the Orthodox have with the potential for bugs rendering vegetables as un-kosher. A year ago, I was interviewed by a Detroit Jewish News reporter for an article she was writing on my kosher certification business, Kosher Michigan. Due to pressure from Detroit’s Orthodox kosher certification group (the Vaad), the article was never published. However, when I asked the reporter what the Vaad’s representative said when she interviewed him, she replied that he didn’t question my knowledge of kashrut law; but suspected that, as a Conservative rabbi and mashgiach (kosher supervisor), I wouldn’t find it necessary to check the vegetables for bugs.

I have no doubt that Kraemer would have included the recent proclamation that lox are no longer kosher in this chapter. It is further evidence of the ultra-Orthodox blurrying the kosher regulations and prioritizing the wrong message. What I find ironic about this is the ultra-Orthodox’s reliance upon new technology to apply further strictures upon the already nuanced system of kashrut. Modern scientific knowlege could be applied by them to reverse the centuries-old ban in the Ashkenazic Jewish world on kitniyot (legumes) including peanuts during Passover, which Kraemer also addresses in the same chapter (“Of course, if Rabbi Moshe Feinstein approved of the kashrut of peanut oil on Passover, there is no question that it is kosher.”). Rather than use new information and scientific innovation to make it easier for Jews to observe the kosher laws, the ultra-Orthodox have used microscopes to render tap water, Brussels sprouts, and smoked salmon unfit for consumption by the kosher observant Jew.

And therein lies the reason that the most common questions I field in the months leading up to Passover all have to do with the acceptability of food items deriving from leguminous plants that techically cannot be chametz (leavened) as they are not derived from the “five grains” (wheat, spelt, barley, oats, or rye).

So, from now on when a secular Jew cites their love of eating lox as their Jewish identity, will you have the heart to let them know that those lox aren’t even kosher anymore?

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
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Celebrities Conservative Judaism Humor Olympics Orthodox Judaism Purim Reform Judaism Sports World Events

Too Jewey – Purim 2010

For some reason, whenever the Jewish holiday of Purim rolls around, my brain uncontrollably starts coming up with parodies, satires, spoofs, and just plain silliness.  Here’s a collection of the news items circulating in my head. Happy Purim!

TOO JEWEY! 

By Rabbi Jason, the Official Rabbi of the 2010 Olympic Games
Sponsored by Toyota: “Toyota… We’re Unstoppable!”

Jewish Music at the Olympics: From Reggae to OyVey

VANCOUVER – With the decision to use Matisyahu’s song “One Day” as the official Winter Olympics theme, Jewish people around the globe undoubtedly celebrated that Jewish music was now cool. I mean, it’s the Olympics! Jews are used to “members of the tribe” creating hit music for the masses, but it usually comes in the form of Christmas music (see Irving Berlin, Mel Torme, etc.). Well, it appears there wasn’t much time for rejoicing because just as millions of people were getting Matisyahu’s upbeat song stuck in their heads, along came a brother and sister duo to set Jewish music back a couple hundred years.

As soon as they learned they had to prepare a folk music tribute to their native Israel, the Zaretsky figure skating team of Sasha and Roman apparently ran to Wikipedia and searched for “Stereotypical Jewish Music.”  Their “Hava Nagila” rendition was apparently the Zaretsky’s best guess at what the shtetl of Eastern Europe would have looked like at weddings if only they had ice rinks. And as if their first attempt at skating to “The Music of the Yid” wasn’t schmaltzy enough, they came back the next night and gave a performance that only Mel Brooks could love. While the Israeli skaters’ tribute to the Holocaust was rather quite moving, I can’t imagine that Steven Spielberg watched it thinking, “Gosh, I can’t believe I didn’t go with the ice dancing motif for Schindler’s List.”

For those Jewish people who didn’t feel like the ice dancing competition at this year’s Winter Olympics touched on enough Jewish stereotypes, get excited for the next Olympic games when all Jewish figure skaters will be required to have their mother on the ice during performances yelling at them to put on a jacket or they’ll freeze!

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Rabbi Avi Weiss Chains Himself to Female Rabbi

The Orthodox Rabbi best known for chaining himself to buildings in protest and leading rallies for Jewish causes is now in big trouble.  Riverdale NY-based Rabbi Avi Weiss ordained a female rabbi over a year ago. However, instead of calling her anything close to “Rabbi,” he sneakily chose to give her an acronym as a title: “AWSHIT,” which apparently stands for Avi Weiss Says He Is Tenacious. No doubt, the name was Weiss’s way to let the Ultra Orthodox know how he felt. But they didn’t seem to really mind the title he granted to Sara Horwitz, until he updated it to “Rabba.”


Now, the Orthodox are calling for Avi Weiss to be excommunicated and banished to Siberia. The irony, of course, is that this is a man who fought so hard to get Jews out of Siberia in the first place. In protest, Rabbi Avi Weiss has chained himself to Rabba Sara Horwitz in an act of solidarity. The Ultra-Orthodox have claimed that this is fine with them, so long as Avi Weiss doesn’t dance with the woman.  In other news, the Conservative Movement now claims that Rabba Sara Horwitz is an aguna (a “Chained Woman”) and has granted her an immediate get (bill of divorce) from Rabbi Weiss.

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HamanTosh.0 – New Comedy Central Series

Currently, Comedy Central has a weekly series (“Tosh.0”) that shows all those funny videos from the Web that have gone viral. Well now, Comedy Central is proud to introduce a new series that replays all the videos from the Web that are virulent.  Any video starring an Iranian in a “Members Only” jacket will be shown on “HamanTosh.0,” beginning on February 31.  Check local listings for airtimes.

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Conservative Movement Goes for Trifecta

With its numbers in sharp decline, the Conservative Movement of Judaism is deeply invested in change. In an effort to grab media attention, the centrist movement of modern Judaism is now looking to go for the Trifecta. In a press release prepared by TMZ.com, Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Arnie Eisen explained, “First we shocked the world by allowing gays and lesbians into our esteemed institution to become rabbis.  Next week, we will quickly make the move to grant admission to intermarried men and women.  And, I’m pleased to announce that beginning on April 1st, we will unveil a new program designed to ordain disgraced celebrities as rabbis and cantors at JTS. 

We have already invited some big-name, dishonored celebrities to apply to our program. Rabbi Danny Nevins, Dean of the Rabbinical School, said, “Don’t be surprised to see Rabbi Tiger Woods by the end of the year.”  Also expected to be studying at the Conservative Movement’s flagship institution will be Mark McGwire, who also plans to pursue a master’s degree in pharmacology at JTS, and the gun-toting NBA star Gilbert Arenas. Classes in “Anger Management” and “Press Conference Contrition” will be added to the curriculum.

In what is perhaps the most shocking news to come from the Conservative Movement is that the new United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism CEO Rabbi Steven Wernick has been replaced by former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, who took the job with the stipulation that a day care center be opened at the USCJ headquarters.

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First Ever NASCAR Bris

Following the news that a Bar Mitzvah will take place this June at Yankee Stadium before a championship boxing match, NASCAR has announced that it will hold a Bris (ritual circumcision ceremony) at its next championship race at Talladega SuperSpeedway.  The Bris will be sponsored by Fast Eddie’s Chop Shop (“You Steal ‘Em, We Deal ‘Em”). Due to the fact that 100,000 fans will be waiting for the Formula One race to begin, there will only be 2 minutes allotted to the ritual Jewish ceremony, but that’s no problem as NYC circumcisor Phil “Sling Blade” Sherman (emohel.com) has promised to race his way through the procedure in chop-chop fashion. However, if the race is about to begin, Sherman said he’ll just have to cut it short.

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Rabbi Condemns Bud Selig Statue

Bud Selig, the Jewish Commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB), is being honored with a statue outside of Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers (which Selig owns – Yes, a Jewish owner of a sports franchise… shocking, I know!). Unfortunately, the statue may never be erected because Selig’s own rabbi is standing in the way. Rabbi Ann Heiser-Busch of Congregation Beth Ale in Milwaukee (on the Miller Brewing Company Campus) explained that most people think that she is against the erection of the statue honoring her famous congregant on the grounds that the Torah clearly prohibits the creation of a graven image of a human being because it is idol worship. However, Rabbi Heiser-Busch cited as her objection the fact that the construction workers would have to inject themselves with steroids to build up the necessary strength in order to lift the Bud Selig statue. When asked to comment, Commissioner Selig asked, “What are steroids?”

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New Personal Mechitzas Not Good Enough

What’s a Haredi Jew to do when he travels on a plane? It seems like the whole aviation industry is against him. First, the kosher meals are served cold and soggy. Then, there’s not enough space in the overhead compartment for his hat box. And the latest attack is that the flight attendants are convinced he’s strapping bombs to his head and arm in the form of tefillin.  The worst part about air travel for the Ultra Orthodox is that a member of the opposite sex (e.g., a woman) might occupy the next seat.  However, a new product on the market solves that problem.  The Personal Mechitza is just what the Rebbe ordered.  This barrier not only separates the sexes and keeps the immodest neighbors on the plane from view, but it also guards against the scandalous in-flight movies.

However, now rabbis are complaining that these personal mechitzas aren’t good enough. Rabbi Haskel Lookoutstein, an advisor to the FAA, explains that it’s possible a Reform Jew worked in the factory where the Personal Mechitza was made and came in contact with the apparatus. Or, he went on, what if one is using a Personal Mechitza and the person in the seat next to you sneezes and some of the treif they’re eating flies over the top of your Personal Mechitza and gets on your Extra-Glatt Kosher meal? That is why Rabbi Lookoutstein recommends putting up an extra mechitza around the Personal Mechitza.  In fact, he says that the most pious will simply purchase every seat in the row and put up the new Glatt Mechitzah L’Mehadrin.

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

In Memory of Rabbi Moshe Tutnauer

It’s only February and already two of the influential teachers in my life have passed away. In January, my childhood rabbi (Rabbi Efry Spectre) passed away, and yesterday I learned that Rabbi Moshe Tutnauer died.

I first met “King Tut,” as he was known, in 1996 when I was working at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan. Rabbi Tutnauer was serving as the interim rabbi. It was a role he filled often in many synagogues around the country. When a synagogue needed a rabbi for a year or two while they readied themselves to conduct a search for a permanent rabbi, he would “hold down the fort.” It might not have been a requirement for an interim post, but no matter where his travels took him, he always seemed to create lifelong friendships and have meaningful impacts on so many.

He told me that he and his wife Marjorie live in the Jerusalem neighborhood of French Hill, which is where my mother’s close friend lives. It so happened that my mom’s friend was in town visiting and so I asked her if she knew a rabbi from her neighborhood by the name of “Tutnauer.” She replied that of course she knew him and that her son (who’s my age) played basketball with Rabbi Tutnauer whenever he was home from the Navy on the weekends (he served on a submarine). Her son was a 6-foot 4-inches, 20-year-old who played for his high school basketball team. I told her that it couldn’t be the same rabbi who plays basketball because this rabbi is in his late 60’s and I couldn’t imagine him playing basketball with a bunch of young, tough Israeli soldiers. Boy, was I wrong!

It wasn’t long after King Tut arrived in Detroit that he asked me to “shoot hoop” with him.  He arranged for the synagogue’s maintenance workers to erect a basketball hoop behind the synagogue. Every day, he’d go out back and shoot baskets with the maintenance guys.  We played games of “HORSE” and 2-on-2, and sometimes we just shot baskets and talked.  He was a great player (and not just for someone his age). He was also a huge fan of professional basketball. To this day, I’m convinced he took the interim job here in Detroit because the owner of the Detroit Pistons was a member of the synagogue and King Tut knew he could get tickets to any game he wanted — and he did.

What amazed me about Rabbi Tutnauer was how many lessons he had prepared on various subjects. He created these 4-page source sheets, placed each one in a plastic folder, and had each folder attached to his office wall with Velcro. His temporary office was decorated with his files. He taught from these source sheets in each synagogue he served in as an interim rabbi. To this day, I still use his 4-page handout on the intricacies of the Jewish calendar.

I spent a lot of time learning from Rabbi Tutnauer when he was in Detroit.  A few years before his stint as Interim Rabbi at Shaarey Zedek, he had been a scholar-in-residence for the Detroit area’s Conservative Jewish community. I didn’t meet him during that month, but I do recall my late grandfather mentioning how much he enjoyed studying with him. One fond memory I have of him is the weekend he spent in East Lansing as a scholar-in-residence at the Michigan State University Hillel center, where I was active.  I took every opportunity I could during that weekend to talk with him and learn from him. During his stay in Detroit, he prepared me for my rabbinical school interview and was extremely helpful in providing assistance with my admissions essays.

There’s a policy that interim rabbis are not allowed to be offered full-time positions at synagogues. I wouldn’t be surprised if this rule was established because of Moshe Tutnauer, not that he would ever leave his beloved Jerusalem.  Of course, each synagogue that he served convinced him to stay for a second year as interim rabbi.

For many years after his time in Detroit, I stayed in contact with the Tutnauers via email. Moshe would send out various updates on his growing family (In addition to his biological children, he and Marjorie adopted several Ethiopian children over the years).  The last time I saw him was in December 2002 at the Conservative synagogue in his French Hill neighborhood in Jerusalem.  When he spotted me in the synagogue, he motioned for me to meet him outside. He greeted me with a bear hug and inquired about dozens of Detroit families (he stayed in touch with everyone). I mentioned that I had just read the book “The New Rabbi,” about the search for a new senior rabbi at Har Zion Temple in Philly, in which an entire chapter of the book is dedicated to “King Tut,” who had served as the interim rabbi there following Rabbi Gerald Wolpe’s retirement. He gave me the inside scoop on the latest shenanigans at Har Zion and told me some of his experiences that didn’t make it into the book.

At the time, I was in rabbinical school and serving an internship at a large synagogue in New Jersey. I was in Israel on vacation with my wife and had planned to take the time on this Sabbath morning to actually sit in synagogue and pray (something I didn’t have the chance to do on an average Saturday morning, as I was normally teaching or giving sermons). But I didn’t mind that I spent the bulk of that morning standing outside in beautiful Jerusalem shmoozing and learning from one of the greatest rabbis of our time. I am such a better person, and certainly a better rabbi, for having known him.

May the memory of Rabbi Moshe Tutnauer, a scholar, Zionist, mensch, and basketball star, endure for blessings.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Jewish Prayer World Events

Minyans That Don’t Meet & Toyotas That Don’t Stop

Rabbi Gerry Skolnik taught my senior seminar in rabbinical school and I’ve continued to learn from him since graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) through his weekly column for The New York Jewish Week and now his blog called “A Rabbi’s World.”.

After hearing that an 86-year-old man crashed his Toyota into the front steps of Rabbi Skolnik’s synagogue, the Forest Hills Jewish Center, last week after the car’s accelerator stuck, I went to his blog hoping to get the rabbi’s first-hand account of how the Toyota gas pedal recall was affecting his synagogue in a very real way. But, instead of blogging about how this elderly man mistook the Queens synagogue for a drive-thru, Rabbi Skolnik wrote about another interesting topic: What happens to the daily minyan when there’s a blizzard? (He would have generated more traffic to his blog had he written about the Toyota recall instead of the minyan. I’m just saying.)

In his post titled Balancing Obligation and Common Sense, Rabbi Skolnik discusses the dilemma he faced after last week’s East Coast Blizzard (termed “Snowmageddon” by President Obama) when the treacherous driving conditions made it dangerous to hold the morning minyan (prayer services) at his Forest Hills congregation. He had to balance the obligation of saying the Mourner’s Kaddish (his mother passed away recently) and the obligation to not put one’s life (or his congregants’ lives) in unnecessary danger.

He writes, “Actually, there are discussions in the Talmud around the idea of ‘mitigating circumstances’ as they relate to prayer, but I don’t know of any that relate to blizzards.”

The need for a quorum of ten Jewish individuals (only Jewish men in Orthodox synagogues) in order for mourners to recite the Kaddish prayer is taken very seriously, and so the decision to cancel the minyan is a difficult one. Rabbi Skolnik explained his decision in his blog:

I decided that the obligation to safeguard one’s health under any and all circumstances can, in a situation like a blizzard, mean that one might not only be allowed to, but actually be required to stay inside, and not walk or ride to a synagogue during potentially dangerous weather – even if saying kaddish for a parent.  There are other ways to honor the soul of the departed, most significantly, to study Torah.  Kaddish is universally recognized as “what one does,” but there are other gestures of respect that elevate the soul of the departed closer to God.

While the snowfall in Michigan last week couldn’t rival the East Coast’s blizzard, the morning driving conditions were treacherous here too. But when I received an early morning text message from Rabbi Aaron Bergman of Adat Shalom Synagogue letting me know that I would be the tenth at the morning minyan, I jumped in the car and headed over. There’s something exhilarating about being #10 in a minyan and knowing that the mourners wouldn’t be able to fulfill their obligation without you. Driving down the snowy streets, I felt I was on an important mission (a police escort would have been helpful).

Traditionally, the daily minyan has been a very important part of Jewish life.  But I also think my teacher, Rabbi Skolnik, made the right decision. While it is commendable that he wanted to honor his late mother with the words of the Kaddish prayer, I’m sure that she wouldn’t have wanted him to risk driving in those conditions. And so, by calling off the minyan he honored his beloved mother too.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Detroit Israel Michigan Obituary Rabbi

Rabbi Efry Spectre

Even as a child I felt very comfortable in my family’s synagogue. I went to nursery school in the lower level of Adat Shalom Synagogue and would attend Shabbat services with my grandfather each Saturday morning. I looked up to the rabbi and the cantor of the synagogue, and considered them to be my mentors over the past three decades. After all, they knew me as a four-year-old tot and they knew me as a rabbi. They just always seemed to be a part of my life.

And then Cantor Larry Vieder passed away in October 2008 succumbing to Pancreatic Cancer. A part of the congregation seemed to die with him. Even in his retirement, he was a staple of Adat Shalom attending the weekday and Sabbath prayer services as often as he could. The other day, his long-time partner on the pulpit, Rabbi Efry Spectre, died in his Manhattan apartment where he had retired after leading Adat Shalom for 22 years.

I developed a nice relationship with Rabbi Spectre, as can be expected since I spent a lot of time around the synagogue — Saturday mornings with my grandfather, Hebrew High School classes, youth group activities, and working in the mail room for several years. He was my teacher in the classroom, and outside of the synagogue too. In college, he encouraged me to work as a counselor at Camp Ramah before applying to rabbinical school. (He even called the camp director and told him to hire me.) He stood next to me at my bar mitzvah and officiated at my wedding a decade later. In between he spoke eloquently at my beloved grandfather’s funeral, choosing just the right words to bring comfort to my grandmother and our family.

But I got to know Rabbi Spectre after he left Adat Shalom. A couple of months after my wedding, he moved to NYC as part of a sabbatical that would lead directly into his retirement. He began teaching a course in homiletics (sermon delivery) at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I was studying to become a rabbi. We enjoyed many lunches together in the cafeteria (with Cantor Vieder too when he came to town for meetings), and on several occasions, he took my wife and me to dinner at different Kosher restaurants in Manhattan.

I recall one Saturday afternoon when he joined us for lunch at our small Upper West Side apartment. After lunch and nice conversation, I remembered that someone taught me how Maimonides always escorted his distinguished Sabbath guests home. I felt I should walk my rabbi back to his apartment. So, we spent the next hour walking through Riverside Park on a beautiful afternoon. I probably learned more from my teacher during that walk than I did as a 10th grade teenager in his classroom.

Little did I know that the following summer, in 2001, we’d have a lot more time together for me to learn from him. Rabbi Spectre would often ask me to come to his apartment and fix his computer (or set up his VCR, Fax machine, answering machine, etc.). He was one of the most brilliant rabbis of his generation, but when it came to electronics and computers he was a technophobe. One morning before heading to the gym, I came to his apartment to install some new software on his computer. I left my gym bag on the floor by his dining room table. While I was working on his computer, he went to get something from the other room tripping over the shoulder strap of the gym bag. He went flying to the ground and broke both shoulders. I called 9-1-1, rode with him to the hospital in the ambulance, and spent the next month at his bedside. A single man with no children, he depended on me and I felt honored to help. The experience had its “Tuesdays with Morrie” moments, but I also felt guilty that it was my gym bag that put him in the hospital (and later a rehab center). Thankfully, he recovered from the injury and didn’t seem to hold it against me.

Throughout the remaining years of rabbinical school and into my career, I continued to call upon Rabbi Spectre for his insight. He was a wonderful source of knowledge and advice on a vast array of subjects. He navigated the pulpit rabbinate better than most rabbis, always seeming to be there for his congregants and still finding time to visit Israel over fifty times.

I was honored to write his obituary for the Detroit Jewish News this week. I quoted his colleagues, past congregational presidents, and his friends. They all emphasized the same qualities about Rabbi Spectre: He was an unwavering Zionist, a champion for the cause of freedom for Soviet Jewry, rigid in his observance of Jewish law, and highly regarded among other rabbis throughout the world. Many spoke of his artistic talents as a renown playwright and singer. He loved going to the theater, whether he was in New York, London, or Israel. He skillfully translated musicals into Hebrew to be performed at Camp Ramah.

Locally in Detroit, he was a trusted spokesman for Jewish concerns and an ardent supporter of the Jewish day school. Rabbi Daniel Nevins worked alongside Rabbi Spectre as his assistant rabbi. He told me, “He came to Adat Shalom at a time of deep crisis and, together with a group of lay leaders and gifted professionals, he helped the synagogue become a vibrant Jewish center. He was extremely perceptive, and few rabbis could match his passion and eloquence, whether at a funeral or in a sermon. He encouraged me to be independent on the pulpit and in the classroom, and he supported my rabbinic development.”

As I wrote in his obituary, I will always remember my teacher as someone fond of telling witty jokes, making puns, and dancing on Simchat Torah with a broad smile on his face. I will also remember him playing a pivotal role in my formation, from a nursery school child to a rabbi in the community. He gave so much of himself to the congregation. His commitment to his people and the State of Israel was felt throughout the world.

I am proud to call myself one of Rabbi Efry Spectre’s many children. May the memories I have of my departed teacher endure for blessings.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Diaspora Israel Jewish Orthodox Judaism Politics Reform Judaism

Israel, Diaspora Jews, Women, and a Wall

I’ve been following with much interest the incident at the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem in which a Conservative Jewish woman was arrested for wearing a tallit (prayer shawl). Nofrat Frenkel (pictured) was led away by Jerusalem police in November for the “crime” of praying with a tallit at the Western Wall. She is a member of Women of the Wall.

This story only highlighted what many have known about Israel for a long time. It is not a democracy when it comes to the religious practices of its citizens. Much has been written about this travesty since Frenkel’s arrest and the incident has only caused the Women of the Wall to be more active in their pursuit of religious equality.

The most recent development in the story is the police interrogation of Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center and leader of Women of the Wall yesterday. Hoffman was told that she is a suspect in a felony for not obeying a legal order and disrupting the peace. She denied the accusation, stating “the people who disturbed the peace at the wall were the men who protested out loud against the women of the wall and not the over 100 women who prayed together and celebrated the new month.”

I haven’t written about this on my blog since there’s just not much more to say. I wish the Israeli government would get its act together and allow for various interpretations of religion in the country. How many different ways can that be stated?

The reason I mention this now, however, is because of the way in which this ongoing conflict has been used by Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf (pictured) to describe what he calls Jewish Americans’ case of split personality disorder when it comes to Israel.

When I first stumbled on Sheizaf’s article (through a Google Alert) it was on a Pro-Palestinian website so I was skeptical about his perspective. However, the article originated on Sheizaf’s “Promised Land” website and is an intelligent essay about why most Jewish Americans are so hesitant to criticize Israel publicly.

The Maariv newspaper editor writes, “My friend noted that if some of the articles on the Israeli media – and not even the most radical ones – were to be printed in the US and signed by non-Jews, they would be considered by most Jewish readers like an example of dangerous Israel-bashing, sometimes even anti-Semitism.”

Sheizaf articulates very well the seemingly ironic position that so many liberal American Jews find themselves in concerning their views on Israel. Admittedly, I am in this category. I never criticize Israel or its government’s policies publicly, because, well, it’s Israel — my Israel, my homeland. The Jewish state has enough critics, I reason; it could use more people playing defense for the team. But when it comes to religious pluralism, I have no problem expressing my frustration for the control that the ultra-Orthodox wields in Israel. A monopoly by one denomination of a religion for all official religious acts is not democratic.

Sheizaf uses the recent incidents at the Kotel with the Women of the Wall to underscore his point:

Here is an example: as we all know, the Orthodox Jewish establishment has an official statues in Israel (unlike most Western countries, state and religion are not separated here, and the chief Orthodox Rabbi has a position similar to this of a supreme court justice). The same Orthodox establishment is very hostile to none-Orthodox Jews, which happen to make most of the American Jewish community. A few weeks ago, Fifth-year medical student Nofrat Frenkel was arrested for wearing a talit at the Kotel. I expected all hell to break in the States. After all, this concerns Jews’ right to practice their faith in the most holy place in the world. I wouldn’t say the event went unnoticed – I saw some blog posts and articles referring to the incident, and Forward published Frenkel’s account of the day – but it certainly wasn’t enough for people in Israel to notice. If American Jews spoke on this matter, it was with a voice that nobody heard.

Now imagine the public outrage if Frenkel was arrested anywhere else in the world for wearing a talit. For some reason, many Jews accept the fact that only in Israel – the same country which asks for their political and financial support – they are seen almost as Goyim. Very few of these Jews will admit that Israel is simply not a very tolerant place, to say the least.

What followed the incident in the Kotel was even more interesting: speaking at a convention of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren said that Frenkel was not arrested but just “led away” by police from the area after offending some people’s feelings there. This was simply not true – she did get arrested – and two weeks later Oren admitted to this fact and claimed he was given “incomplete information” from Jerusalem (even though the fact of Frenkel’s arrest was widely known and never disputed, both in Israel and in the US). Yet even then the ambassador didn’t provide any explanation for the arrest itself, and nobody seemed to demand it from him anymore. More importantly, if there was some discomfort felt in the Jewish community regarding the way ambassador Oren handled the whole affair, it failed again to reach the Israeli media or the Israeli public.

It is interesting that there hasn’t been more of a public outrage among Jews in the Diaspora about the way in which women are treated at Judaism’s holiest site in its holiest city. The fight waged by Reform and Conservative Jews in the Diaspora on the Haredi monopoly in Israel has continued over the past two decades in a passive way. From the comfort of our Diaspora pulpits, we Conservative rabbis express our disdain that our conversions aren’t recognized in Israel and that we can’t hold a mixed male/female minyan at the Western Wall, but when we get to Jerusalem, we walk our group to the Southern promenade (the back of the bus) with our tail between our legs.

I believe that what Sheizaf is saying is that if American Jews would only “grow up” and formulate a more mature (and realistic) perspective on Israel qua nation-state, then there would be more advances in the realm of religious pluralism. I confess that I love to remind critics of Israel that the Jewish state is the only real democracy in that region. However, religious freedom must be a prerequisite for true democracy.

Sheizaf concludes with a recollection from when he staffed a 5-week American teen tour of Israel. He notes that “as far as politics and history goes, it was elementary school level, with the whole program avoiding any issue that might seem too complex or controversial… Sometimes I feel that with regards to Israel, the entire Jewish community never got off the Taglit bus. Jews are almost desperate to hold on to some sort of a naïve image of this country, its people and its institutions. This is most evident with the way they see the IDF. It’s not just that they don’t believe what the Palestinians are saying – they can’t even imagine the Israeli army doing bad things. The US army – yes; the IDF – never. More than ever, I wonder what role this naïve image of Israel – almost an abstract Israel, which has nothing to do with the actual Middle Eastern country – plays in the way Jews see themselves, and how are they going to look back on it ten or twenty years from now.

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

The Demise of the Conservative Movement

As a Conservative rabbi, a Jewish person raised in the Conservative Movement of Judaism, and one whose theology is well grounded in Conservative Judaism, I had absolutely no interest in the Conservative Movement’s Biennial Convention that took place earlier this month in Philadelphia. What’s more is that I didn’t even hear many people (rabbis included) talking about this convention. At least not locally in Metro Detroit; a city which once boasted some of the largest and most thriving Conservative synagogues in the country. The lack of interest was… well, actually interesting. I couldn’t even tell you one person from Detroit’s Jewish community who flew to Philadelphia for this convention.

Yes, I read a few articles from the national Jewish publications and websites about “The Biennial,” but there wasn’t much coverage of the convention on Twitter compared with the Reform Movement’s convention a couple week’s earlier, which had several times the participants and dozens of tweets each hour.

I don’t believe Conservative Judaism is dead. I just believe it’s stuck. I don’t blame Conservative Judaism as an ideology for this. Rather, I blame the movement. That is, I blame the institution. It has yet to prove that Conservative Judaism is meaningful in the 21st century to a new generation of Jews.

And now, as if anything could be less interesting than the Conservative Movement’s Biennial Convention, a two-day scholarly conference is taking place in Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute entitled “Conservative Judaism: Halacha, Culture and Sociology.” This academic conference plans to discuss the burning issues threatening to split the Conservative Movement, such as the ordination of homosexual and lesbian rabbis, the sharp drop in the number of young members and the challenge of intermarriage. Sounds like fun!

Perhaps, one person who gets it is my colleague Noah Zvi Farkas (right). In a Jewish Week op-ed, Rabbi Farkas lays out his own understanding of what ails the Conservative Movement. Titled “The Re-founding of Conservative Judaism,” he writes:

As a young rabbi who believes in the idea of religious movements, I note that Conservative Judaism is a grass-roots coalition that has lost two of its primary organizing principles: one was that Conservative Judaism and Conservative synagogues serve the need for Eastern European Jewish immigrants to become Americanized while holding on to their religious roots.

The other is the recognition that the scholastic trend to study ancient and medieval Jewish texts scientifically, known as Wissenschaft des Judentums, has not yielded a sufficiently sacred orientation for Jewish life.

Jews in my generation, that is, Jews whose great-grandparents or grandparents came to this country looking for the promise of the American dream and needed a connection to what was familiar, are no longer motivated by the same sorts of organizing principles that our ancestors were. For generations Conservative synagogues thrived on the complicity that Jews will, more or less, seek out a synagogue when they move to a town, and that they will join that synagogue and continue to give to that synagogue because that is what Jews simply do.

Exactly! Times have changed. The Jewish community has changed. Conservative leaders have spent decades deciding whether it’s kosher to ride to shul, whether a penis is a requirement for the rabbinate, and whether two men can commit to each other lovingly with the use of two glasses of wine, two gold rings, and an ancient Aramaic document transposed into a modern piece of artwork. While all this was being debated, the centrist Orthodox shuls grabbed the best and brightest in the Conservative Movement who didn’t become rabbis while the Reform outreached to those the Conservatives refused to inreach.

I think Rabbi Farkas hits the mark when he suggests a community organizing approach to re-found Conservative Judaism as a meaningful denomination for the 21st century. It needs a re-branding and an institutional overhaul. But it also needs to cease doing what hasn’t been working. And that includes these conventions and conferences that only prove that there is a growing majority out there who don’t care about these conventions and conferences. Plus, they’ll save a lot of money.

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