Author: Rabbi David Krishef

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – September, 2012

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Many Jewish homes have a copy of Isaac Klein’s “A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice” on their bookshelves.  My own copy was given to me by the synagogue in which I grew up. As the bookplate indicates, it was presented to Marisa and me in honor of our marriage on the occasion of our aufruf. Published in 1979, it is a detailed and comprehensive guide to Jewish practice at home and in the synagogue.

Although Klein’s Guide is still very much relevant and useful, The Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement has just published a book which is destined to be the next general’s version of the Guide. The book, entitled “The Observant Life:  The Wisdom of Conservative Judaism for Contemporary Jews,” edited by Martin S. Cohen, weighs in at 900+ pages, 50% larger than Isaac Klein’s Guide! Within the first 13 pages, the need for an updated guide for a Jewish life is apparent.  There is a discussion of inserting the names of matriarchs into our prayers, something which was barely a blip on the radar screen in the 60’s and 70’s when Isaac Klein was writing his guide. There is also a discussion of joining a minyan via internet, something which was science fiction technology Isaac Klein’s world (see the Dear Rebbe column for an answer to this question).

At a recent board meeting, the president, Bill Lewis, posed an intriguing question: What is the role of a religious institution in a secular world? Those of you reading this column who have chosen to be a part of Congregation Ahavas Israel (or another synagogue community) presumably have some sort of answer, at least for yourself. “The Observant Life” suggests that the synagogue is an extension of the religious life of the individual Jew – a place of prayer, learning, and spiritual assembly. I suggest that the synagogue exists to support you in your quest to be an educated, observant, caring Jew, seeking to connect yourself with a like-minded community and/or with God.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, my family and I wish you a sweet new year, one in which the synagogue will play a role in your social, emotional, spiritual, religious, educational and/or cultural life.

Why My Blind Son is Coming Home on Sunday, part 2

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Just a little more than 48 hours ago, I was told that my blind son Solomon needed to come home on Sunday. It was a decision made by the director of Camp Ramah in Canada in consultation with a number of staff members.
A few minutes ago, Solomon told us that he is coming home on Sunday. This time, it is his decision. In the past 48 hours, a number of remarkable things happened.
First of all, I’d like to reiterate the fact that for the past five seasons, Solomon has been under the care of some remarkable counselors, teachers, waterfront staff, and other professionals at Camp Ramah in Canada. He has been supported, taught, and guided with care and love.
Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances and extremely poor communication, the tremendously painful events described in part one of this post occurred earlier this week. The response to my article was for the most part supportive and helpful. I am grateful for all who commented on the blog, reposted on facebook and/or commented there, and otherwise spread the word. At the same time, my 12 year old daughter Sarah started a petition drive at Ramah to support Solomon, collecting 240 signatures. Other staff members approached the director offering to take a larger role in helping out Sol. The result was that the director experienced a complete change of heart regarding how he handled the matter. He called and expressed a sincere apology, to Solomon, to me, and to my wife. He took a second look at how staff could be assigned for the second month. He assigned one more person to be Sol’s advocate, and at my request, assigned a new parent liaison, Hillel Kurlandsky, to be Sol’s Yoetz, advisor/social worker.
Marisa and I were satisfied that the director sincerely realized that he had made a serious mistake, and took all of the necessary steps to correct it. At this point, the final decision of whether to stay for the rest of the summer was Solomon’s. Given all of the emotional upheaval that had occurred, we were not 100% sure that Solomon would still want to stay at camp. Sol and Hillel had two lengthy conversations, each more than an hour in length. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. Hillel reported that Sol was remarkably mature and clear in his analysis of why he should stay — primarily, because so many people had worked so hard to reverse the decision of the camp — and why he should not stay. Of course, I wish Sol would have chosen to stay, but given what he’s been through, I understand why he has made the decision to come home.
I don’t know if he still wants to go back to camp next year. I don’t know if we can or should try to convince the camp to make allowances in a program designed to train counselors and other support staff, to accommodate a camper who currently does not have the ability to function as a counselor in training or a helper in most areas of camp. I’m sure that if the camp was willing and if Solomon was committed to it, we could find an area in which he could contribute meaningfully. I think we need to take a step away from questions about camp right now, and come back to it in a couple of months after the strong emotions have faded somewhat.
In the end, I want you to know that I still believe in the Camp Ramah experience, and I think I can rebuild my love for Camp Ramah in Canada. This unfortunate episode appears to be the result of a chaotic transition to new leadership; a new director, Ron Polster, who blundered quite badly. Ron, I want to thank you for acknowledging your mistakes. We are all entitled to make mistakes, as long as we learn from them and make appropriate apologies to those we harm along the way.
To those dedicated Ramah staff who I have hurt in the past 48 hours, I apologize. I am sorry for the damage I have done to the reputation of Camp Ramah in Canada by bringing this event into the light of public scrutiny. I did so only because I thought it was the only way that I could effect change.

Why My Blind Son is Returning from Camp Ramah in Canada a Month Early

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For the rest of the story, see part two of this post here.

My almost-16 year old blind son, Solomon, was supposed to spend 8 weeks in the second-oldest Aidah (age group) at Camp Ramah in Canada, a Jewish camping program affiliated with the Conservative movement. My wife and I went to visit him and our 12 year old daughter this week. While there, the camp director told us that he was sending Solomon home four weeks early at the session break because “the camp is not able to accommodate Solomon’s needs for the full 8 week session.”

This is Solomon’s fifth year at camp. Sol went for one session each summer for the previous four years, but this year, called the “Magshimim” year, required campers to enroll for the full summer. Solomon was thrilled to go for both sessions. He loves camp, and for the first four summers, it appeared that Ramah loved Solomon and was completely willing to assign extra staff and arrange for some Braille materials so Sol could participate fully in the camp program. There were some rough spots. Camp staff did not always do everything they could have to ensure that Sol had the proper materials and was fully included in every activity, but we were confident that the director was committed to full inclusion, and neither we nor Solomon let the small things bother us very much.

This summer, a new director took the helm just a month before camp started. He didn’t know Solomon and we didn’t know him. Nevertheless, we assumed that the camp’s prior commitment to accessibility and inclusion would be maintained. We were wrong. Part of the Magshimim summer is a five day overnight camping trip. Although the overnight has three tracks for kids of varying levels of fitness and ability, the counselors, Rosh Aidah (unit head), Yoetzet (advisor/parent liaison), and camp director met and decided, without consulting with Solomon or with us, that they didn’t have the staff to accommodate Sol on the camping trip. Further, they also decided that they couldn’t continue to accommodate Sol for the second four weeks of camp. Ultimately, the final decision to remove Solomon from camp rested squarely on the shoulders of the new director, who decided that the camp was not willing to either hire an additional staff member or redirect a small amount of current staff time to helping with Solomon’s special needs.

Among the reason he gave for sending Solomon home early was that Sol takes too long eating his meals and showering, and requires help moving from activity to activity, which he also does very slowly. He also suggested that the Magshimim program requires moving around camp and engaging in camp activities independently, something which is nearly impossible for a blind camper with no vision to do. Note that at no time did the Yoetzet (advisor/parent liaison) bother to contact us regarding these issues. Had she asked, we could have given her some simple solutions for speeding up Sol. Also note that while it is standard procedure to include 15 year old students with special needs in discussions of their public school Individualized Educational Program, the camp held all of these discussions about Solomon without including or consulting with Solomon.

The first thing that Solomon told us when we saw him on the first day of our visit was that he wanted to return to camp next year, and that he would do anything and give up anything, including a possible trip to Israel tailored to blind students, for the opportunity to return to camp for his final summer. Our conversations with the director took place at the end of the second day of our visit, while Solomon was on a one night overnight with 8 other campers, who also had not gone on the 5 day overnight. We told the director that he had to tell Solomon why he was being sent home from camp early and why he would not be given the opportunity to return to camp at all the following year.

On the final morning of our visit, we sat in the director’s office as Solomon heard the news from the director. Solomon was brilliant. After saying that he was heartbroken at hearing such totally unexpected news, he saw through the holes in the director’s flimsy explanation of why he needed to go home and asked the same question that Marisa and I had asked the night before: “The camping trip is over – what is happening in the second four weeks that would be difficult for me to participate in?” There was no real answer to that question. The director’s explanation boiled down to a statement that the camp is not willing to devote the resources to continuing to include Solomon fully in the program. During our conversation the previous evening, I had challenged the director’s lack of commitment to inclusion – he kept using the language of “not able to fully accommodate Solomon’s needs,” and I got him to admit that the honest answer was that the camp is no longer willing to fully accommodate Solomon’s needs. Solomon knew immediately that it was a case of “not willing to,” rather than a case of “not able to.”

I should note at this point that the Camp Ramah system, consisting of nine camps, has a special needs program called “Tikvah.” Each camp specializes in a subset of special needs, such as ADHD, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, learning, emotional, and developmental disabilities, neurological impairments, and physical challenges. Solomon, while blind, does not fit into any of these categories. He attends a public college preparatory high school and with minor modifications, completes the regular curriculum.

The major part of my Jewish identity was formed at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. I loved Camp Ramah, and because of that my children went to Ramah. This director has betrayed the values of the Jewish camp that I love. The Conservative movement is on record supporting accessibility and inclusion in our institutions. Camp Ramah in Canada is now on record stating that if you have a physical disability and need greater support than the “typical” camper, they will not devote the resources to fully include you in their camp program. You might say that this is not true – they devoted the resources to giving Sol a terrific half summer, it’s just that asking them to accommodate him for the full summer is expecting too much. To this, I say ask Solomon if being the only camper asked to leave camp early, not being able to participate in the full overnight or in the second half of the program, not being able to celebrate the final banquet with his friends, is enough. You can guess what the answer is – being half way included is not enough.

After that painful meeting, sitting in the dining hall with Solomon eating breakfast, I watched the campers sing and dance to a contemporary version of a teaching of Rabbi Akiva:

“Love your neighbor as yourself – This is the fundamental principal of Torah.”

If I didn’t laugh, I would have started crying again. The camp can sing and dance all they want about loving one’s neighbor, but until and unless they back up the words with action, Camp Ramah in Canada will be a place that Rabbi Akiva would be ashamed to be associated with.

For the rest of the story, see part two of this post here.

 

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – Summer, 2012

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The Fast Days of Summer

Fasts of mourning are not the most popular of fasts, especially in the middle of the summer. The sun is warm and bright, and the last thing that we want to do is mourn the loss of an ancient Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the subsequent exile.  There is a reason, however, why Judaism has such elaborate rituals for death and morning … funeral customs, shiva, and Yahrtzeit.  Judaism believes that we are not disconnected beings creating and living our lives on our own.  Rather, we are intimately connected with and dependent on those who preceded us.  We inherited a world and a religious tradition from the hundreds and thousands of generations of humanity that came before us.  After our brief time on earth, it is our responsibility to pass along that heritage to those who will follow.  The rituals of death and mourning create the memory link between us and our past, and give us a framework in which to transmit the stories of our past to the next generation.

Tisha B’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, is the anniversary of the day upon which both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, and Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492.  It is one of two major fast days on the Jewish calendar (the other being Yom Kippur).  Aside from fasting  and refraining from wearing leather and from engaging in intimate relations, it is observed by reading the book of Aicha, Lamentations, traditionally ascribed to the Prophet Jeremiah, who lived through the Babylonian exile after the first Temple was destroyed.

Three weeks prior to Tisha b’Av, on the 17th of Tammuz, Shiva Asar b’Tammuz, the walls of Jerusalem were breached. Shiva Asar bTammuz is observed as a minor fast day (sunrise to sundown) on Sunday, July 8.  These three weeks are observed as days of semi-mourning, in which weddings and other joyous celebrations should not take place.  During the first nine days of Av, one should not eat meat or drink wine (except on Shabbat), or cut one’s hair.  Three special Haftarot are chanted, known as the Haftarot of destruction.  The Haftarah the week prior to Tisha b’Av is chanted using the trope of Aicha (Lamentations). The three weeks lead us into the emotional low of the consideration of exile and the destructive nature of anti-semitism, prejudice, racism, and all forms of hatred.  Following Tisha b’Av, a series of 7 Haftarot known as the Haftarot of consolation take us back up to the emotional high of Rosh Hashanah, 7 weeks later.

Tisha B’Av will be observed on Saturday night, July 28, and Sunday, July 29.  Services will be held at the synagogue beginning at 10:00 p.m. on July 28 and 9:30 a.m. July 29.

Divre Harav/Words from the Rabbi – May, 2012

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On Shavuot, we celebrate revelation of Torah by reading the Aseret Ha-d’varim, the initial decalogue with which the formal communication of civil, criminal, ritual, and ethical law was given to Moses.  Torah reading forms the core of any Shabbat service. A typical service contains both prayer – a time for us to speak to God; and Torah reading, which we might imagine is a time when God is speaking to us. The Religious life committee has been discussing two issues within the Torah service related to the way we distribute the honor of being called to the Torah for an aliyah to recite the blessings before and after the reading.

The first change that the Religious Life committee has made is to the way we manage aliyot during a family simha such as a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or an Aufruf.  Our custom at Ahavas Israel has been that when a family is celebrating a significant event, the family is given the privilege of distributing all of the Torah honors.  This occasionally creates situations in which other congregation members are unable to get an aliyah.

We need to keep in mind that Torah reading is a congregational obligation (in the sense that we read torah publicly only in the presence of a minyan), and as such its function is to bring us together as a congregation. When distributing aliyot, halakha has a hierarchy of entitlements to aliyot, known as hiyyuvim, such as a child celebrating a Bar Mitzvah, a bride and groom on the Shabbat before his wedding, parents on the shabbat following the birth of a child, a person who as experienced a life threatening illness or surgery or a potentially dangerous journey, or a person with a yahrtzeit in the coming week. The aliyot give the community a chance to recognize life passages.

Therefore, the Religious Life committee has decided that families celebrating a simha who wish to distribute aliyot themselves will permitted to take six of the seven aliyot (as well as maftir) to give to whomever they wish.  In addition, they will be given the option of distributing all of the Ark openings and closings, selected English and Hebrew readings, and all of the Torah readings.

The Religious Life committee will keep one aliyah for congregational use, to be offered to a person who has a halakhic privilege to take an aliyah, such as someone observing a Yahrtzeit or who has recovered from an illness.  If no one from the congregation requires an aliyot, the ushers will do their best to give the aliyah to someone connected with the family celebrating the simha. For a fuller explanation of the policy, see AhavasIsraelGR.org under “Religious Life.”

The second Religious Life committee change has to do with the first two aliyot, the Kohen and Levi aliyot. When the Kohenim and Levi’im lost the privileges due to them by virtue of their Temple service, the Rabbis compensated them by given them the first two aliyot whenever the Torah was read.  This was a rabbinic enactment, not a Torah privilege, given to them out of a sense of darchei shalom, “the paths of peace,” in order to preserve their honor in the community. Many congregations have moved away from this custom. Since darchei shalom is a sociological norm (in other words, it only applies when the kohanim would feel insulted by not being recognized), it changes with time and circumstances.  In certain congregations and situations the limitations and restrictions created by maintaining the kohen, levi, yisrael procedure, rather than maintaining darchei shalom, tend to interfere with them.  Where a Rabbi feels that a congregation or service would better be served by calling people up to the Torah as rishon, sheni, shlishi, it is entirely permissible to do so. Our religious life committee made a decision a number of years ago that giving the first two aliyot to Kohen and Levi was entirely optional. They have now reconsidered. The new policy returns us to a more traditional practice of reserving the first aliyah for a Kohen and the second aliyah for a Levi.  If a Kohen or Levi are not present, that aliyah may be given to anyone.  Additionally, if a family is distributing aliyot themselves for a family simha and they do not have a Kohen/Levi that they had planned to honor with an aliyah, they may give the first two aliyot to anyone they choose, regardless of Kohen/Levi status.

Both of these new policies will begin July 1 at the beginning of the new Ahavas Israel programming and fiscal year.