Category: Rabbis

Do Politics Belong in Sermons?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 27, 2011

Like every other rabbi around the world I am currently hard at work on my sermons for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I’ve always enjoyed writing and public speaking, so this exercise is enjoyable rather than stressful for me. However, finding the right words to inspire the congregation during this time of year can be challenging. The basic themes of the holiday haven’t changed in thousands of years: forgiveness, relationships, being charitable, and trying to become better people.

To what extent should sermons draw on the issues of the day? I’ve always tried to bring references to pop culture into my sermons, but I have traditionally shied away from getting into politics. Dennis Prager, a political pundit who moonlights as a High Holiday sermonizer, recently published an Op-Ed in the Jewish Journal of LA in which he rails against rabbis who preach about politics on the High Holy Days. Prager claims that every year around this time listeners of his show write him to complain that their rabbis delivered sermons which included political messages. As a conservative pundit, Prager is certain to include that “Invariably, there are two constants: The rabbi is non-Orthodox, and the sermons are left wing.”

What Prager doesn’t like is when liberal rabbis include their opinion about social issues such as the recent health-care bill, for example, and frame it in the context of social justice and tikkun olam. It’s not that rabbis aren’t entitled to their opinions on these significant issues, but Prager takes exception when the rabbis use the pulpit to frame these political issues as Jewish imperatives. I happen to agree. Let me explain.

I believe that rabbis should use the pulpit to teach Torah. Teaching that we have an ethical responsibility to care for the health of all human beings is an important message and one that is appropriate to be included in a sermon. However, moving that conversation into the realm of politics by endorsing a bill under discussion in Congress is not appropriate.

Personally, I steer away from politics when I deliver sermons. I remember as a rabbinical student I was heading to Houston as a guest speaker at a large synagogue. The Torah portion for that Shabbat was Yitro, the narrative of Moses’ father-in-law offering good counsel to him and thereby improving his leadership. I had the idea to talk about other political consultants and “right-hand-men” who weren’t the leader, but made themselves indispensable to the leader because of their trustworthy advice. I planned to talk about the importance of the Cabinet to presidents and focus on two figures who were known for their good counsel, Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell. One of my teachers at the Seminary convinced me to not focus on these individuals because it could be too politically divisive to the congregation. The Democrats in the synagogue would focus on the Republican credentials of these two presidential advisers and not on my message, he reasoned. Reluctantly, I agreed to leave out these famous Secretaries of State lest my sermon be perceived as having a political message.

There are times when my own congregants will encourage me to speak about a political issue they endorse, but I respectfully decline. I’m not a politician and I’m not a political commentator. My role is use the words of the Torah and the Jewish Tradition to teach and to inspire. I remember a story my teacher Rabbi Burt Visotzky told my class at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The late NY Times columnist William Safire’s rabbi asked him why he didn’t come to shul anymore to which Safire explained, “I don’t need to come to shul to hear what Bill Safire wrote in the Times.” In other words, we rabbis should allow the political pundits to be pundits and we should use the High Holidays to inspire and encourage repentance.

Prager isn’t the only one publicly railing against rabbis using their High Holiday pulpits to push a political agenda. In the Wall Street Journal, Tevi Troy explained that each year leading up to Rosh Hashanah the Obama Administration feeds political talking points to rabbis through its annual conference call. I’ve participated in these conference calls in the past and it is true that their purpose it to provide the Administration’s position on various issues in case rabbis choose to address them in sermons. Troy points out that in 2009, President Obama “invited a group of 1,000 rabbis to discuss his health-care plan and then preach about it afterward.” I was a participant on that call and the President did in fact encourage us to speak about his health-care plan. I chose not to call in this year because I knew I wouldn’t be talking about President Obama’s jobs bill or the declaration of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.

Neither of those topics will inspire my congregants on Rosh Hashanah. If anyone wants my opinion, I’m happy to discuss it privately in the form of a discussion. However, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to use the holiday or my pulpit to endorse or reject the President’s jobs bill. I do think it’s important to get the unemployed back to work and to help find better jobs for the underemployed. As a rabbi I try to do both.

One of my colleagues who disagrees with both Prager and Troy is Rabbi Jill Jacobs. I have tremendous respect for Rabbi Jacobs and have learned much from her over the years. She has contributed greatly to the field of social justice in general and workers’ rights in particular. Writing in the Huffington Post, Jacobs, who is now the executive director of Rabbis For Human Rights-North America, titled her response to Troy “The Torah Is Political. Rabbis Can Be, Too.” Jacobs writes:

As one of the rabbis whom Troy criticizes (albeit anonymously), I want to respond to his charges.

Troy references a recent phone call for rabbis, organized by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and sponsored by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization of Reform Rabbis, on which he and I were two of the five speakers. The call featured three experts on the current economic situation — Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ellen Nissenbaum of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Troy himself. Rabbi David Saperstein, the Director of the RAC, offered homiletic advice for speaking about contentious issues, and I presented texts that might guide sermons and teaching sessions about the economy. (Troy and I have this in common: He was the political conservative on the call, and I was the Conservative rabbi.)

Troy writes, “When I suggested that we separate politics from spirituality, a third participant pushed back, saying ‘the Torah is a political document.’ A curious assertion in a crowd that would quickly denounce any invocation of the Bible in political discussions.”

I was this third participant. I do believe that the Torah is a political document. And I would not, as Troy assumes, “denounce any invocation of the Bible in political discussions.” In fact, I passionately invoke the Bible in political discussions.

I’m not sure I’d agree with Jacobs that the Torah is a political document per se. It has a vast amount to teach us about political issues. In fact, I can’t imagine a political issue that is not treated in the text of the Torah or Talmud. However, that doesn’t mean that rabbis should be speaking about divisive political issues in High Holiday sermons. Talking about how the economy has caused more middle-class families to struggle to make ends meet let alone pay for the Jewish day schools and Jewish summer camps is appropriate in a sermon, but dissecting the President’s jobs bill should be off limits. Encouraging congregants to travel to Israel, send their teens on Israel trips, and buy Israeli art is wonderful. However, getting into the political areas of Palestinian statehood at the U.N. and the policies of the Israeli government won’t make for inspirational sermons during the Days of Awe.

The bottom line is that we are spiritual leaders and not political pundits. I heard Dennis Prager speak on Saturday night before Selichot services. Recognizing he was there in a synagogue to address the congregation before the preliminary High Holiday prayers, he steered clear of any political messages. He is a political pundit in his day job, but he didn’t take use the pulpit to push a political agenda when it wouldn’t have been the right time.

And now it’s back to sermon writing.

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Torah From Terror

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 9, 2011

Following the Jewish High Holiday season in 2001, I decided to collect the sermons that rabbis had delivered about 9/11. I knew that on September 11 most rabbis already had drafts of their High Holiday sermons completed, but after the attacks that day these rabbis would have to rewrite those sermons. That tragic day left us speechless, but rabbis had to come up with the right words to bring comfort to those sitting in front of them on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the days following 9/11.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 cast a dark shadow on the Days of Awe 5762. Many rabbis, after discarding their already prepared sermons, found their voices and were able to construct the appropriate words to bring a sense of comfort during those uncertain days.

I was in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary at the time and I told my teacher, Rabbi Neil Gillman, about my idea for a project. Rabbi Gillman agreed to be the co-editor of the “Torah From Terror” project and we sent out requests to Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis asking them to submit a sermon from either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur that dealt with the 9/11 tragedy. Immediately, the sermons began pouring in. I organized the sermons into the Torah From Terror website.

On this, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I have decided to reformat the Torah From Terror website. The sermons are now available at http://torahfromterror.blogspot.com. Now visitors are able to leave comments on the different sermons. Also, the search capability is much improved from the original site.

I hope you will visit the Torah From Terror website, and through those words of wisdom you will find comfort and hope. May those words be a remembrance of that horrific day in our nation’s history and may we continue to find inspiration in words of Torah.

Our world has changed immensely in the past decade as a result of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, but we continue to pray the memories of the victims will be for blessings. God bless America.

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Rabbi Jack Moline on 9/11 Forgiveness

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 9, 2011

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, commemorations are taking place everywhere. People are discussing how life would be different today had 9/11 never occurred. We are all reflecting on where we were that day and how it changed us. Memorials to honor the dead will take place all over the world.

However, there is one theme that I haven’t heard discussed very much as we mark the tenth anniversary since that dreadful day. Has it been long enough to forgive the terrorists? There are differences in belief among different faith groups when it comes to forgiveness; especially after such heinous crimes. My colleague and teacher Rabbi Jack Moline published his thoughts on this topic in the Washington Jewish Week. I found his words to be fascinating and have decided to post his op-ed in its entirety below.

Rediscovering trust in a future

by Rabbi Jack Moline

On Sept. 14, 2001, I was interviewed on the PBS program Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Another panelist, Dr. Thomas Long of Emory University, suggested that the process of forgiveness needed to begin immediately for us. My reaction was visceral, and I suggested that he had illustrated the bright line between Jewish theology and Christian theology: to speak of forgiveness without contrition, I said, was obscene.

I have had 10 years to think about that exchange, as has anyone who remembers it. I still believe it to be true. What made for provocative television then ought rightly make for serious conversation today. Interfaith conversation, and not only between Jews and Christians, has never been more important in this country (and even globally) than it is today. The reason, I believe, is because of what was created, or perhaps accelerated, by the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

You might argue that Americans were naive about the world before that fateful day. What fell away was a sense of trust in our own future. The crises we had faced before were met with steely resolve and a sense of purpose. For reasons sociologists and anthropologists can debate, Americans retreated into two camps. There were those who believed we had not been effective enough in promoting the American values of tolerance and equality, and we needed to redouble our efforts. And there were those who concluded that some segment of humanity was permanently resistant to our truths and needed to be punished or isolated. The loudest voices are not always the wisest, but the extremists on both sides managed to muffle the middle.

What is true of Americans in general is true of American Jews in particular. The frantic way many Jews pursued reconciliation with Muslims in particular was virtually without discrimination. (I attended an iftar dinner at a local mosque that November where I was greeted by the imam, Anwar al-Aliki.) And the sudden rise of people obsessed with the notion that we were repeating the run-up to the Shoah, with Muslims playing the Nazis, played into anger and fear. While our community has always had its extremists, over the past 10 years those people have attempted to define the middle. And absent a coherent alternative, just like in American politics, an ideological tug-of-war has replaced insight.

Israel has become the surrogate for this culture clash among American Jews. It is safe to say that most of the combatants have no intention of making aliyah, thereby making the consequences of their certainty someone else’s problem. Instead of insisting that the Jewish national homeland is a value which we all honor, it has become an issue defining whether you are (depending on your stance) a humanitarian or a bigot, a realist or a victim-in-waiting.

In the process, we have generated a heated rhetoric about Christians, Muslims and others that rely on stereotypes, which, if applied to us, would increase the membership in every one of our defense organizations. Meanwhile, as both extremes point fingers at the other, we contribute to a divisiveness in American society in general that holds us back from addressing the very genuine challenges of our changed world.

It all sounds so political, but in fact it is the essence of spiritual concern. Any approach that dehumanizes our opponents, within or without the Jewish community, violates the intentions of our Creator. Any approach that reduces the state of Israel to a litmus test compromises its real and metaphoric roles as the destination of the in-gathering. Any silence that allows extremism an uncontested platform abandons the pursuit of justice, which is never without dissent.

The 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 occurs in the very heart of Elul, the month of introspection and outreach. The former is a profoundly personal and solitary endeavor. The latter cannot be accomplished alone. They both lead, of necessity, to a place between extremes – of collective engagement, personal honesty and acknowledgment of differences. They both lead to the bright lines between our theologies and the bright light we all yearn to shine. They both lead to a rediscovery of trust in the future and of the role each of us plays in promoting a better world that the one we know.

Rabbi Jack Moline is the spiritual leader of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria.

Do you think we are ready to forgive? Please leave your opinion in the comments section below.

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Social Media and Religion

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 6, 2011

I read yesterday’s article in the NY Times about how people are interacting with religion through social networking sites like Facebook and was amazed at the success of the Jesus Daily Facebook page. It is one of the most popular Facebook pages with over 8.5 million fans. I figured there should be a similar Facebook page that offers users a daily dose of Torah wisdom so I created the Torah Daily Facebook page this morning. The page quickly amassed 100 followers and will continue to grow. The Torah Daily Facebook page will offer daily inspiration from Jewish texts provided by anyone with some wisdom to share.

Here is the blog post I published on The NY Jewish Week’s Jewish Techs blog after reading yesterday’s NY Times article on social media and religion:

With about a billion users between Facebook and Twitter alone, more topics than just Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are being discussed on social media networks today. Religion is certainly one of them.

An article by Jennifer Preston in yesterday’s NY Times (“Jesus Daily on Facebook Nurtures Highly Active Fans”) reports that “while it’s too early to say that social media have transformed the way people practice religion, the number of people discussing faith on Facebook has significantly increased in the last year, according to company officials. Over all, 31 percent of Facebook users in the United States list a religion in their profile, and 24 percent of users outside the United States do, Facebook says. More than 43 million people on Facebook are fans of at least one page categorized as religious.”

The article was prompted by the wild success of the Jesus Daily Facebook page, which was launched by a diet doctor from North Carolina who posts a few motivational quotes from Jesus each day. The Facebook page, created by Dr. Aaron Tabor, has close to 8.5 million fans and, according to AllFacebook.com, in the past three months has had more daily interaction (likes and comments) than the official Justin Bieber page with 3.4 million interactions last week alone.

There are now over 750 million people on Facebook so it shouldn’t be surprising that users are interacting with pages to find an online spiritual community. If you’re already navigating around the Facebook site on a computer, tablet or mobile phone it’s much easier to read a spiritual teaching in your news feed than to actually attend a synagogue or church service.

Rabbi Laura Baum, a social media maven who is part of OurJewishCommunity.org was quoted in the article explaining how social media has changed our lives. She said, “There are those people who prefer to check out our tweets on their phone or listen to our podcast. I don’t think the use of technology needs to be for everybody. But we have found a community online. Many of them have never felt a connection to Judaism before.”

An increasing number of synagogues have found that it is much easier to connect to the membership through a Facebook page than through a traditional website. Like a website, the Facebook page is an efficient way of disseminating information for a congregation, but it adds the social interaction features that promote community and have made Facebook the killer app of social media. Linda Jacobson, the president of start-up congregation B’nai Israel Synagogue in Michigan has used Facebook to connect with members and reach potential members. “Our website is great for publicizing calendar events, displaying photos and telling visitors about our congregation. But Facebook goes well beyond that,” Jacobson explained. “It allows our followers to interact with that information and with each other. There’s an entire ‘backchannel’ that brings people together virtually to share photos from our congregational programming, comment on lifecycle events, create sub-communities based on interest categories and coordinate meals when there’s a death in the congregation.”

Jacobson seems to have put social media to good use because she’s seen her congregation’s membership rolls steadily increase over the past year. Rev. Kenneth Lillard, author of “Social Media and Ministry: Sharing the Gospel in the Digital Age,” was also quoted in the NY Times article and he concurs that social media tools like YouTube, Twitter and Google Plus in addition to Facebook represent “the best chance for religious leaders to expand their congregations since the printing press helped Martin Luther usher in the Protestant Reformation.”

Beyond official synagogue Facebook pages, there are many ways in which users are looking to Facebook for spiritual insight and education. Some popular Facebook pages have been created by rabbis in an effort to share motivational teachings from the Torah. Rabbi David Wolpe, the popular author and spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, has a Facebook page that boasts over 19,000 fans. Wolpe utilizes Facebook to offer short sound bites that both motivate and challenge his readers. He makes a point of trying to respond to all questions on the page as well, which is not an easy task for a busy pulpit rabbi and a highly sought-after speaker like Wolpe. One follower asked if the rabbi had any marriage advice to which Wolpe responded simply “Shared values; forgiveness; deep attraction; resilience; luck; faith.”

One thing that social networking sites like Facebook have demonstrated is that one need not be an official religious leader, like a priest or rabbi, to dispense wisdom to help guide people in their daily lives. Many individuals and businesses offer a daily prayer or spiritual teaching to inspire their followers on their Facebook pages. Some Facebook users may post an inspirational teaching as a status update. There are businesses that post weekly motivational quotes on their Facebook page as a way to engage their following.

As social media increasingly become part of our daily lives, people will find new ways to interact with religion and spirituality. For some, it may be interacting with like-minded people on a synagogue Facebook page. For others it may be learning a different Talmud text each day through a Twitter feed. In the Digital Age, a minority of virtual religionists will emerge. These will be individuals who do not affiliate with a bricks and mortar religious institution like a synagogue, but are nevertheless engaged in many aspects of a faith community through social networking. Increasingly, people will say they are religious or spiritual or inspired by religious texts, but only because they have chosen to plug in and engage with social media.

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Al Sharpton’s Apology As a Lesson in Repentance for the Jewish High Holidays

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date August 26, 2011

Last week about 20 rabbis from the Los Angeles area participated in a High Holiday sermon writing workshop called “Punching Up Your Holiday Sermons.” These pre-Rosh Hashanah sermon workshops for rabbis are nothing new, but this workshop had a twist. It paired the rabbis with Hollywood screenwriters who helped them come up with more engaging sermons.

It’s possible, however, that Rev. Al Sharpton has been more helpful to rabbis writing their High Holiday sermons this year than these talented screenwriters. His recent mea culpa may be the subject of many sermons heard in synagogues this High Holiday season.

Rev. Al has been in the news a lot lately. Just the other day it was announced that he will be hosting his own show on MSNBC to be called “PoliticsNation,” which will debut on August 29. Sharpton will become the network’s only African-American host.

This is good news for Sharpton, who made headlines recently when he wrote an apologetic Op-Ed piece in the NY Daily News in which he admitted to making mistakes during the racially fueled Crown Heights riots 20 years ago. Sharpton has long been blamed for inflaming tensions between Blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1991. It all began when a car in the late Lubavitcher Rebbe’s motorcade struck and killed an African American boy. Many argue that Sharpton incited the angry crowd leading to the fatal stabbing during the riots of Jewish student Yankel Rosenbaum.

In his apology Sharpton wrote, “Twenty years after the Crown Heights riots, the city has grown, and I believe I have grown. I’d like to share a few of my reflections about the choices I made, including the mistakes, with an eye toward advancing racial understanding and harmony.”

Sharpton concluded his Op-Ed with a reflection from an experience he had at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He wrote:

I would have shared a story about what happened when, as a young man, I was brought to the Jewish Theological Seminary by one of the civil rights leaders who had been an aide to Dr. King.

That day, I was introduced to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Rabbi Heschel had marched with Dr. King in Selma in support of the Voting Rights Act. For doing so, Heschel was attacked by some in his community who were very conservative and thought a theologian should stay in his proper place. He gave me a book and autographed it and, as we talked, I asked him about Dr. King — the man and the hero.

That’s when Dr. Heschel said to me: “Young man, only big men can achieve big things. Small men cannot fulfill big missions. Dr. King was a big man.”

Crown Heights showed how some of us, in our smallness, can divide. We must seek to be big. Next weekend, we will unveil the monument to Martin Luther King in Washington. I will speak at the ceremony along with members of the King family and the President of the United States.

I will continue to think about the value of the lives of Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum as I look up at the big statue of Dr. King. I will look towards the heavens and I will wink at Rabbi Heschel.

Not everyone seems to be ready to move on even if it has been twenty years since the Crown Heights riots. Last week, Sharpton was forced to back out from a scheduled panel discussion on the riots at the Hampton Synagogue after the synagogue’s rabbi, Marc Schneier, came under fire for the event by Yankel Rosenbaum’s family among others.

I think we should take Sharpton at his word. A cynic might say that he believed he needed to apologize for his role in the riots in order to get his show on MSNBC. However, after reading his apology I feel it is sincere. Many apologies by celebrities these days take place before the guilty individual has really had an opportunity to think about their mistakes, not to mention most of those apologies have been written by publicists. Sharpton had twenty long years to consider what he did and appeared contrite in his published apology.

What Sharpton did is what we call “teshuvah” (repentance) in Judaism and it is precisely what is called for before and during the High Holidays. Sharpton’s apology will be a fitting example for rabbis to share with their congregations on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Rev. Al Sharpton restated what he did in the situation and then explained why it was misguided and why he won’t do it again. I’m sure twenty years ago Sharpton never thought he’d ever be able to apologize for his actions during the Crown Heights riots, but he just might become an example to the Jewish community for doing teshuvah. The two unnecessary deaths in 1991 must be remembered and mourned, but the time has come for the Black and Jewish communities to move on from the Crown Heights riots.

Black-Jewish relations have certainly improved in the two decades since Crown Heights. A recent video on the Funny or Die website demonstrates just how much commonality exists between Blacks and Jews. In fact, two of the artists mentioned in the song (the Jewish performer Drake and the Jewish biracial artist Lenny Kravitz) have collaborated on a new track called “Sunflower” for Kravitz’s upcoming album “Black and White in America.” Maybe Sharpton will have Drake and Lenny Kravitz perform on his new MSNBC show.

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Rabbi As Pitchman?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date August 1, 2011

Advertising is all around us. It’s become impossible to find an event or location that doesn’t have corporate sponsorship attached to it. Product placement has become the norm in movies and TV shows. And it seems like everyone has an endorsement deal these days.

On Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert begged Apple for an iPad 2 and then become a shill for the company. He also branded his presidential run “Hail to the Cheese: Stephen Colbert Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage.” After winning a Peabody Award, he thanked Doritos for its support.

NASCAR drivers (and their cars) and pro golfers look like walking billboards. Celebs are seen carrying their Starbucks cup with the label facing the eager paparazzi for free publicity. What’s next, tattoo advertising for NBA basketball players? Yes, in fact a candy company once approached the agent for the Portland Trailblazer’s Rasheed Wallace to inquire about buying space on his flesh. Apparently there was still some open real estate for a billboard on his already heavily tattooed body.

Earlier this year, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock lampooned the burgeoning business of product placement. Spurlock even sold the naming rights to his movie: “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Everything is for sale. You can go to a sporting event in an arena named for a corporation, receive a giveaway sponsored by another corporation and then watch the halftime show generously underwritten by yet another corporation.

It seems like everyone’s a pitchman today. Anyone can hawk a product or drop the name of a corporation for financial gain. But what about clergy? Can religious leaders sell out too? Er, I mean can rabbis and priests get in on this deal? For instance, can rabbis mention a few products in a sermon and get paid for it? Can I insist that the wine used at the wedding ceremony be a specific brand and then make certain the photographer catches me pouring from that bottle? What if rabbis started wearing Nike lapel pins on suits? Or if rabbis let the congregation know that the flowers decorating the pulpit are from 1-800-FLOWERS and were delivered by Fed/Ex. Perhaps before services begin, the rabbi could remind the congregation to please silence their Apple iPhones on the Verizon network. Perhaps a rabbi could even sell space on his blog to a mortgage company?

What got me thinking about these endorsement deals for religious leaders was when I viewed the viral video of Pastor Joe Nelms of Family Baptist Church delivering the invocation at a NASCAR race last week in Tennessee. The pastor wanted to give a prayer that would be remembered so he borrowed from Will Ferrell’s memorable grace before the meal in the movie “Talladega Nights.” In the movie, Will Ferrell gave thanks to the various fast food companies that had provided food for his family’s dinner and then, according to his endorsement deal, he mentioned Powerade.

What people will remember most about Pastor Joe’s prayer are the humorous lines in which he thanked the Almighty for his “smokin’ hot wife and two kids” and then borrowed NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip’s trademark phrase in the closing of his benediction: “In Jesus’ name. Boogity, boogity, boogity. Amen.” However, the Baptist pastor also managed to mention several sponsors of the NASCAR race that night including Dodge, Toyota, and Ford, as well as Sunoco Racing Fuel and Goodyear tires. Pastor Nelms claims he wasn’t compensated for mentioning those companies, but it does raise the question of whether religious leaders are missing a lucrative opportunity.

I’m not the first to think of clergy as pitchmen either. After the death of famous pitchman Billy Mays, there were rumors that Orange Glo International, makers of OxiClean, was interested in hiring Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church as the new commercial pitchman for their well-known laundry stain remover.

Maybe these clergy endorsement deals are already taking place. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, writing in the Huffington Post today about his eldest daughter’s upcoming wedding, managed to drop the name of both the caterer and country club where his daughter’s wedding will take place. Was there a behind-the-scenes deal in which promises of a mention on HuffPo would translate into discounted fees for the wedding reception hall and catering? Who knows. He just might be on to something.

Maybe, next time at the end of services when a rabbi announces where the next congregational book club meeting will take place, he’ll consider appending his announcement like this:

“Please join us on Sunday afternoon for our monthly book club discussion. We will discuss a new book published by HarperCollins, which is available for purchase on Amazon.com. We’ll enjoy Snyders of Hanover pretzels and drink icy cold soft drinks from the Coca Cola Company. The book club will take place at the Feldmans’ new home, which they recently purchased with a shockingly low rate mortgage from Quicken Loans.”

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Motherhood and the Rabbinate: A Male Rabbi Responds

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date July 15, 2011

When we hear the words of the Torah being read this Shabbat morning, we’ll learn about a group of women who had a mutual goal and succeeded.

A man named Tzelafchad died without having any sons and the laws of inheritance in the Torah only recognized male heirs, making no provision for a deceased father’s land to be claimed by his female descendants. However, Tzelafchad’s daughters, Machlah, Noah, Chaglah, Milkah and Tirtzah, refused to reconcile themselves to this fact and petitioned Moses to grant them their father’s estate. Moses brought their claim to God, who responded: “The daughters of Tzelafchad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.”

These five women didn’t let the fact that they were women get in the way of changing history. And neither did the women who broke the gender barrier in the rabbinate. Prior to June 3, 1972, no woman had ever been ordained as a rabbi in the United States. On that date, Sally Priesand became the first woman rabbi in North America. The first Conservative rabbi wouldn’t be ordained for another eleven years when Rabbi Amy Eilberg graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

It is appropriate that we learn about the courageous daughters of Tzelafchad this week following an op-ed in the Forward written by a female rabbinical student from the Jewish Theological Seminary who argues that motherhood and the rabbinate don’t mix well. Chasya-Uriel Steinbauer, the mother of an infant daughter, is on leave from the Seminary while she stays at home to care for her daughter. Somehow she found the time (probably while her baby was napping) to post on the Forward’s Sisterhood blog that mothers who are practicing rabbis are just another example of the “Super Mom-syndrome now cloaked as the Super Ima-Rabbi syndrome.”

Well, I couldn’t disagree more. Maybe Chasya-Uriel Steinbauer is not able to balance motherhood with the life of a rabbinical student, but I have certainly witnessed many women who were able to strike this balance — and impressively so.

I remember my first day of rabbinical school orientation like it was yesterday. We sat around a conference room table introducing ourselves. Many of us were right out of college. Some were single, while others were either engaged or newly married. But there were also several older students in my rabbinical school class. I remember Paula Mack Drill introducing herself in her warm way by telling us that first and foremost she is the mother of four children ages nine to two-years-old. And she wasn’t the only woman in our class who would spend the next six years raising a family and fulfilling the necessary credits to graduate and become a rabbi. During rabbinical school, many of my female classmates became mothers for the first time (or for the second or third time). And many of the men (myself included) became fathers for the first time.

Was it challenging to be both a mommy (or daddy) and still manage to attend classes, study in the beit midrash, take exams and manage a part-time job? Of course it was. Just like it is a challenge to balance motherhood with medical school or law school or any other graduate school. But it can be done and it can be done without forsaking the children.

The experience of coupling motherhood with a career is something women fought for in the last century. The opening of the doors to women in the rabbinate was very much a result of the Women’s Liberation Movement. And Judaism is the better for it. This past Mother’s Day I wrote an article for JTA in praise of women rabbis. I wrote this because my rabbinate and my Jewish experience have only been enhanced by the presence of women rabbis.

From among my rabbinical school class alone, I’ve seen one of my female classmates go on to become an entrepreneur, founding a new congregation and being recognized as one of Newsweek Magazine’s top congregational rabbis. I saw another female classmate go on to become one of the highest ranking chaplains in the Navy. I saw other female classmates build small synagogues into larger, thriving communities. And these are only the women with whom I was ordained. Look around the Jewish world and you’ll see hundreds of women successfully raising their children while also educating, counseling, writing, leading organizations and preaching.

Chasya-Uriel Steinbauer urges, “I want us to question why we allow our lives to be set up in such ways where we feel that they have no choice but to work or attend school and thus leave our babies in the care of others.” You definitely have a choice. But many women in the 21st century are choosing to do the motherhood thing along with being an executive or a graduate student or a rabbi. It can be done and it can be done gracefully without any risk to the children.

I’m actually glad that Steinbauer wrote this because it gives us a chance to praise the women who balance motherhood with their careers. No one says these women have to do it alone. Help comes from devoted spouses, caring parents serving as loving grandparents, and talented nannies. Back in rabbinical school, there were many days when a baby would join us in class. Sometimes it was a mommy who brought the baby and sometimes it was a daddy. Not only did we not mind having a baby or two in class, we actually liked it. It was a testament that we didn’t have to check our parenthood responsibilities at the door of the Seminary. It is really no different than a rabbi who sits on the bimah (pulpit) with her baby. It is a scene that might have been odd a few decades ago, but today it is commonplace.

One rabbi who prides herself on also being a mother is Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, who blogs at Ima On (and Off) the Bima. I thought her response to Chasya-Uriel Steinbauer was perfect. Reminding everyone that she is an ima (mother) both on and off the bimah, she wrote:

I am both a mother and a rabbi. Some days I’m more ima. Some days I’m more bima. (See blog title.) Some days, I’m trying to make it all work. But I don’t think I’m doing it wrong. I just know that I’m doing it. I’ve created four wonderful little people and my husband and I delight in their growth of body and spirit. We definitely juggle, we definitely argue over who goes where and when.

I hope Chasya-Uriel Steinbauer returns to rabbinical school soon. I’m sure she’ll become a talented rabbi while being a nurturing and devoted mother too. These are not mutually exclusive roles in life. It might just take her a few years to figure that out.

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Facebook Group or Private Social Network for Synagogues?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date July 7, 2011

In my last year of rabbinical school, I had an interesting conversation with a rabbi of a large congregation. He told me that he had put his foot down and refused to let his congregation create a synagogue-wide email LISTSERV. His rationale? This forum would be used by the membership to complain about the synagogue… and the rabbi.

I gently suggested to my future colleague that if his members were going to use an email discussion group to complain about the congregation, they were likely already doing this in real-time at kiddush (the reception following services). He laughed and acknowledged I was correct. I’m sure that in the ensuing years he acquiesed and allowed for an email LISTSERV.

Developed in 1986 by Eric Thomas, LISTSERV was the first email list software application. The simple LISTSERV, an automated mailing list manager, allowed for likeminded individuals in a group to disseminate email messages to one another. The features of such a platform were minimal. The threads were difficult to follow. In digest format, there were several discussions arriving in the inbox all at once with no logical grouping order. Today, the email LISTSERV has long since run its course. Even the next generation of these discussion groups (Yahoo! Groups, Deja News which became Google Groups, the London-based GroupSpaces, etc.) are limited in features.

Today, Facebook has made these discussion groups unecessary. The Facebook Group application allows for the dissemination of rich content in a secure, private network. I have helped many synagogues transition from the old LISTSERV and email-based group platforms to the Facebook Groups application. As I tell rabbis and synagogue executives all the time: There are over 750 million Facebook users worldwide so there’s a good chance that your congregants are already signed on.

Facebook Groups allow for smaller cohorts within a congregation to have a forum to share ideas, documents, links to articles, photos, videos, and promote events. It is private and secure with at least one administrator monitoring the group.

Recently, when encouraging synagogues to start using the Facebook Groups application, I’ve been met with some resistence. Facebook isn’t secure, they argue. They’ve heard that there is really no privacy with Facebook. They argue that a Private Social Network must be the way to go. I disagree and here’s why.

Private Social Networks are certainly great apps and they have features galore. At first glance, applications like SocialGO and Yammer seem like the perfect solution for a company or organization that wants to have a social network that is open to only their employees or members. For many companies, these private social networks might make the most sense because once the employees are logged into Facebook, there will likely be many hours of unproductivity.

Synagogues and temples are different however. In that respect, I say use the network where the members are already participating. And that is obviously Facebook.

The Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly recently announced a deal through a partnership with SocialGo that allows member rabbis to contract with the private social network company to create a web-based social network for their congregation. These private social networks have all the features and functionality as Facebook Groups, but cost a discounted $500 and then $25 per month. Facebook is free and everyone already has an account (or knows how to get one simply enough). Having people log in to another platform is tedious when they are already using Facebook on a daily basis and can simply use the Groups application to interface with the congregation’s forums.

In terms of privacy, these Facebook Groups are just as private as LISTSERV groups were and continue to be. One must request to be a member of the group or be invited to participate in the discussions and view the content. Breaches of privacy can happen the same way there can be a breach of privacy from a face-to-face conversation. A group is only as private as its members allow it to be. The bottom line is that congregations shouldn’t complicate matters by creating their own private social network. It’s unnecessary. Save your money because Facebook Groups will work just fine.

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs Blog at The NY Jewish Week

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Can You Twitter Judaism?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date June 27, 2011

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog at The New York Jewish Week

Is Twitter a good medium for Judaism? Two articles were recently posted on the Web that took opposing viewpoints on this question.

Donniel Hartman, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute and the director of the Engaging Israel Project, penned a critique titled “Judaism is not a Twitter-able Religion” in which he explained that the ideas of Judaism cannot be tweeted using the social networking site Twitter. Hartman argues that “in the past, we could always count on a regular stream of anti-Semitic events to maintain Jewish affiliation and identity. Today, ‘they’ aren’t hating us enough, or at least consistently enough, to generate on their own a Jewish identity and sense of belonging.”

Today, he writes, we are looking for the “something” and “anything” to put out there as the message of Judaism. This method has the potential to create entry and access points, which will eventually lead to the beginning of new Jewish journeys, but this is not enough. While Hartman explains that he applauds these efforts, they are also of a great concern to him.
Hartman goes on to state his case:

The Jewish people have, since our inception, been the carriers of ideas. We changed history, not as a result of our economic or military power, nor by the enormity of our numbers. It was by the depth and significance of what we stood for – a way of life permeated by important ideas and values held together and conveyed through powerful and meaningful experiences – which placed Jews and Judaism as a transformational force in human culture.

This content is not Twitter-able. The journey of a meaningful Jewish life needs a wide bandwidth. It requires knowledge, time, and commitment. If we want Judaism to have a great future, and not merely a great past, we need to set our sights higher and deeper.

How do we solve the Jewish Catch-22? Part of it is not solvable, and we have to recognize that Jewish life was not in the past, and will not be in the future only a numbers game. However, there need not be a zero-sum game between short-term programs aimed at teaching “something,” and those that give content and meaning to a more extensive Jewish journey. The problem we face is conceptual. Too many of us, in particular those in leadership positions, have stopped thinking about the requirements of a deep and meaningful journey, relegating it to the domain of a luxury item to be nurtured when the crisis of Jewish continuity is resolved. While catering to the unaffiliated and communicating a message which they are capable of hearing, we need also to work to increase their capability. We need to continuously increase our demands, so that Jews will increase their demands from themselves and what they demand from their tradition. We need to ensure that there is no corner of Jewish life in which an individual, regardless of their denomination, is not able to engage a Judaism of depth and experience its vitality. In short, if we want Jews to embark on a meaningful Jewish journey, we need to ensure that such a journey is possible.[…]

We yearned for an era in which Jews would be accepted as equals; we now need to learn not to fear it. We can compete in an open marketplace of ideas. We can survive in an era of choice and develop and provide a tradition which can inspire that choice. It is dependent now on the choices we make as a community and the level of aspirations to which we strive.

An opposing viewpoint was blogged by Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder in a post for Hebrew Union College’s Tze U’lemad blog for continuing alumni education. She writes that “18 months ago, I did not see any of these wonderful ways to use Twitter to innovate spiritual connection, meaning making and engagement. Given the vast network that is Twitter, I have no doubt missed many other great innovations. And given that Twitter is still in its infancy, I feel certain much more will unfold.” She begins her revelation about Twitter’s benefits to Judaism:

At first glance it can easy to dismiss Twitter. Small bites of conversations not necessarily joined in linear progression have the potential to be devoid of meaning. But playing with the medium, it is clear, that the format also lends itself to innovation. Last week I described how Twitter is enhancing the traditional work of Jewish professionals, but Twitter is more than just a way to do the expected in a different format, it is an opportunity to do the unexpected.

Abusch-Magder cites several examples of how Twitter has been successfully used in various Jewish educational initiatives. Among others, Abusch-Magder mentions Tweeting during high holiday services, retelling the exodus narrative on Twitter, and the publicizing the Jewish Women’s Archive through Twitter. She also refers the reader to the highly popular Unitarian-Universalist minister on Twitter Rev. Naomi King who uses Twitter for what she’s termed “Digital Faith Formation” using the application TweetChat. TweetChat helps put your blinders on to the Twitter-sphere while you monitor and chat about one topic.

Both Rabbis Hartman and Abusch-Magder make valid points regarding Judaism in the 21st century. Hartman is correct that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to water down Judaism into soundbites (or tweets). Our millenia-old Tradition should not be squeezed into 140-character messages. However, there are important opportunities to utilize Twitter (and other social networking sites) for the promotion of Judaism in positive ways. This medium shouldn’t be quickly rejected as useless when it comes to bolstering Judaism and having our religion compete in an open marketplace of ideas.

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Dr. Jack Kevorkian from a Jewish Perspective

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date June 10, 2011

It’s been a week since “Dr. Death,” Jack Kevorkian, died of natural causes. A local celebrity in Michigan, Kevorkian became synonymous with physician-assisted suicide in the 1990s. He also made his long-time attorney, Geoffrey Feiger, into a local celebrity. Growing up in Metro Detroit with Kevorkian’s antics on the television news each day meant that “euthanasia” was a well-known term to my peers and me.

Kevorkian’s death has once again revived the ethical conversation surrounding physician-assisted suicide. My friend and classmate, Rabbi Leonard Sharzer, MD, was recently interviewed by The Jewish Week about the Jewish perspective of Physician-Assisted Suicide. The interview was published just days before Kevorkian’s death.

Rabbi Sharzer, a retired plastic surgeon in New York, was interviewed because a new documentary is airing on HBO. “How to Die in Oregon” takes a powerful look at Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, a 1994 measure allowing physician-assisted suicide and the first law of its kind, by telling the stories of several people who died under the act. Rabbi Sharzer writes and lectures on bio-medical ethics at the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies. The following are questions he answered on the subject of physician assisted suicide:

Q: What, if anything, do Jewish texts and modern-day responsa say about physician-assisted suicide?

A: Normative Judaism, as a general matter, is opposed to suicide, although there have been exceptions, as in the case of matrydom. Jewish legal writing about physician-assisted suicide is quite new, as discussion of the phenomenon itself is recent. The predominant opinion is negative. There’s the notion that human life is a gift from God, and it’s up to God to decide when it ends, not human beings. … Judaism sees no intrinsic value to suffering at the end of life and encourages physicians to use all means at their disposal to relieve suffering — but not to actually end a life.

Do the Torah and other Jewish texts include examples of people choosing to end their lives rather experiencing an agonizing or painful death?

The classic example in the Bible is the case of King Saul, who found himself wounded in battle and surrounded by the enemy. Fearing torture and degradation, he took his own life. The rabbis go to some length to justify Saul’s action while saying it’s an exception that shouldn’t be considered the rule.

Did seeing the documentary influence your own views on the subject?

I’d say that seeing the movie gave me a much better understanding of the human condition in which this develops. It gives a human face to the issue. It’s not my position to be judgmental of anyone who makes that decision, even if I wouldn’t make that decision for myself and wouldn’t counsel it.

What’s the role of spiritual leaders, such as rabbis, in such decisions? Is it the cleric’s place to veto a decision like this and, if so, under what circumstances?

Spiritual leaders, clergy and pastoral caregivers have in role in help both patients and their families deal with these very difficult questions. I don’t think it’s about a veto. Rather, it’s about helping people who are seeking guidance from within a religious tradition. … It’s clearly a feature of our times that people want to control all aspects of their life and health. The spiritual position is that sometimes you can’t. The contribution of spiritual and religious leaders is to help them deal with areas over which they aren’t able to exert control.

In a statement released by the filmmaker, he says that, surprisingly, the lessons he learned from making the documentary have more to do with living than with dying. What does an issue like this — and, more generally, the idea of death — teach us about life?

One of the lessons is that we don’t live this life as isolated individuals. We live this life as part of a family, as part of a community. We want to live out a sense of values not only for ourselves, but for our families and communities, and impart [our values] to the ones who come after us.