Divre Harav – Words from the Rabbi

Divre Harav – December, 2023

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We, who love Judaism, probably do so because we love the holidays, the life cycle events, maybe the structure and content of prayer. We may also love the system of ethics as it applies to personal spiritual growth or medicine or even business. And of course we love Torah and we ought to love Israel as well, the land that it clearly given to us as a place to exercise sovereignty and self-determination. And that it why so many of us have been in emotional and spiritual agony since October 7, the day on which the terrorists of Hamas butchered our young and our old and kidnapped about 240 of our brothers and sisters to use as human shields.

I’m writing this article on November 1, to be published on December 1, hoping, but not at all confident, that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza will have ended. There are some aspects of Jewish law and ethics that are unpleasant and messy and among them are the laws of war. We think of Jewish ethics as a system designed to elevate the human being to reflect the face of God and to connect people to each other in loving ways. But sometimes ethics teaches us how we might defend ourselves by shooting guns and missiles, dropping bombs, laying siege to a city, cutting off electricity, food, and water, in order to achieve an ethically defensible goal – that of preserving our lives at the expense of those who are trying to kill us and those who are supporting them.

I don’t have the military expertise to wage war. I rely on colleagues with both rabbinic ordination and military training to teach me, just like I rely on attorneys to guide me on legal issues and mechanics to fix my car and my heat and air conditioning. I try not to take strong positions on issues outside my field of expertise. And despite writing a column entitled, “Ethics and Religion Talk,” when it comes to the ethics of war, I am not an expert.

I know that some portion of the population of Gaza are people who fundamentally disagree with Hamas and are afraid to say that publicly, lest they put their lives as risk. I know that some portion of these people are children, complete innocents.  I do not know of a way to wage war without putting innocent, non-combatant, lives at risk. I am confident, however, that the Israel military goes above and beyond the letter of the Law of Armed Conflict as it warns civilian populations before bombing a target in their area, trying to minimize collateral casualties. And I will remind you, unnecessarily, I hope, that the enemy that Israel is fighting goes out of its way to maximize non-combatant casualties, and has said, repeatedly, that its fight is not over until Israel no longer exists.

So you may not love the parts of Judaism that try to offer guidance to the messy, ugly, business of waging war. But for a thousand years, Jews were sovereign in the land of Israel under King Saul, King David, and his dynasty. And they protected the land and the people with their blood. And Jews were generals and leaders under the Moslem government of early medieval Spain. Jewish communities protected themselves from Pogroms in Russia. Jews fought for this country against the scourge of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. And I wish that all people of the world would melt down their weapons and turn them into farming implements, but until that happens, I thank God and pray for the Israel Defense Forces.

Hebrew Phrase of the Month:

  • • Am Yisrael ḥai! – The nation of Israel lives!

Divre Harav – November, 2023

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Ahavas Israel has been involved in an interfaith Thanksgiving service for at least 40-50 years, originally with a group of churches in our neighborhood, and for the past 20-some years, a city-wide coalition convened by the Kaufman Interfaith Institute of GVSU. The service takes place on the Monday night before Thanksgiving. It is designed to be a glimpse through the window at an authentic expression of gratitude from a variety of traditions, including Sikh, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Native American, Catholic, several Protestant Christian denominations, Unitarian, non-theist, and Jewish. During the years that I have been involved in planning the service, I have tried to stress that we’re not creating a service which erases the differences and the unique character of each our traditions, but rather one which weaves the texture, and color of our differences together in a color rainbow tapestry. I am always moved and lifted up by the offerings of prayers, music, dance, and song.

I had a different reaction to a service which I attended earlier this year in my role with the Grand Rapids Police Department’s Clergy on Patrol, I attended a memorial service for officers with Michigan connections who have fallen in the line of duty. Each officer, the first of which was George Powers, a detective shot by a suspect in a train robbery, was represented by a current officer who presented a rose in their memory. The service itself was moving, but the hymns and music and prayers were distinctly Christian. I found myself feeling like an outsider, excluded from the service.

Recently, I went to a meeting of clergy working with the police at which the police chaplain was invited to present about his position and duties with the department. He talked about the importance of a chaplain not pushing his personal faith, but being available and accessible to all. I brought up my feelings of exclusion at the memorial service, and offered my thoughts that an organization connected to the government and laws of the State, comprised of people from a variety of faiths, has the responsibility not to promote Christianity over other faiths. To my mind, this kind of memorial service is not an experience in which people witness the faith of other traditions, but rather one in which all people attending remember and pray for the fallen officers and their families together. Therefore all prayers and hymn should stay away from language expressing a preference for a particular tradition, referring instead to a common God which might appeal to all people of faith attending. Rather than a tapestry illustrating unique differences, it is a blanket weaving universal threads of love and comfort, joining people together in prayer.

These are two different models of interfaith prayer. There is a proper place for each one. Each one has integrity and beauty. I will be out of the country and miss the Interfaith Thanksgiving service this year, but I hope you will go and represent Ahavas Israel in my place. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Hebrew Words of the Month:

  • Hag Ha-hodaya – Thanksgiving
  • Hodu – India
  • Turkiya – Turkey (the country)
  • Turkee – Turkish
  • Tarnegol Hodu – turkey (the bird)
  • Hodu LaAdonai! – Give thanks to Adonai!
  • Toda – thank you

Divre Harav – October, 2023

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A Hasidic teaching I studied recently suggested that God is represented by words. God is found in the words of the revelation at Sinai, the words of Torah. But it also suggested that when we live our faith fully, that we not only hear God’s words, we also actually hear God’s voice, a more powerful connection.

The difference between words and a voice is this: Words might be seen as an artifact of an ancient world, the dusty remnants of a previous generation. A voice, on the other hand, is an active presence, something alive and vibrant. Faith, commitment, spiritual energy, belief, is what transforms the words on the page into a living, contemporary, compelling, tradition.

I have been on a quest to learn how to transform words into a voice and to teach others how to take the words of Psalms or words of the Siddur and derive transcendent meaning from a single sentence, verse, or phrase. It began with a four year journey reading Psalms and writing reflections which appeared in columns in the Voice and in posts on our ahavasisraelgr.org website. In the past year, I have collected those reflections and published them as “Reflections on the Psalms,” a demonstration of the process of contemplative reading in order to see what word, phrase, or sentence draws the reader’s attention, and discerning a larger message by connecting that passage with Jewish wisdom.

Our prayer books contain many words. Our services are rivers of words, in which you dip your consciousness like a fishing line to see what comes out. I like to think that the words that stick with me after a service are a message from God. God’s voice is in those words. My job is to figure out what God’s voice is trying to say to me.

I want to help you find God’s Voice in the words of our tradition, in Torah, in the Bible, in the Siddur, in Rabbinic literature. I’d like you to join me for our many Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret and Simhat Torah services, for my Zoom Torah study, or for my Sunday morning survey of Mishnah classes. 

And if you’d like to purchase the book, you can find more information and a link to Amazon here, https://embodiedtorah.com/reflections-on-the-psalms/, or search for the title on Amazon.com. Discover how the Psalms can inspire you to engage significant contemporary issues. This is not a commentary on the meaning and message of the Psalms; rather, this book considers the Psalms as a collection of phrases and images that invite us into brief meditations using Jewish wisdom for spiritual development.

Hebrew Words of the Month:

  • Tehillim – Psalms
  • Hit’bon’nut – Contemplation (from the word bina, understanding)

Divre Harav – September, 2023

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My childhood rabbi died in July. Rabbi Kassel Abelson was one of the giants of the Conservative movement. He was chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, helped found USY, was present at the creation of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin (the original Ramah), and shaped the introduction of egalitarianism and GLBTQ+inclusiveness into the movement.

The egalitarianism that he and Beth El Minneapolis instilled in me as a core value in the mid 70’s is what insulated me from swallowing the Orthodoxy that the Ba’al Teshuvah yeshivot tried to feed One Year Program students at Hebrew University. Ramah Wisconsin instilled a love of Hebrew and traditional Jewish practice. While for social reasons I was never completely comfortable in USY, I moved back and forth between the AZA and USY world, solidifying my sense that my future partner in live would have to be someone who shared my love for Judaism. So when it was time to go to the Seminary, JTS was the only option for me.

Growing up, Rabbi Abelson was mostly just the powerful Voice on the bima. He was less threatening than the other powerful Voice in the Minneapolis Conservative rabbinate who actually frightened me. He would call people out for standing up to leave the sanctuary during a sermon. Rabbi Abelson, on the other hand, radiated kindness, even though he was a distant personality. By the time I neared my teen years, Beth El had a series of assistant rabbis who took on the teen portfolio, so they were the rabbinic figures I grew close to.

I remember my first conversation with Rabbi Abelson in 1977 when I went into his office for the pre-bar mitzvah meeting. Parents of b’nai mitzvah students obvious talked, because my mother warned me that he would talk to me about going to Ramah Wisconsin and that I should tell him I was going to Camp Tikvah, not Ramah. But I did go to Ramah about two years later, in part because of the tremendous scholarship program that Rabbi Abelson had built to send kids to Ramah.

So even though my relationship with Rabbi Abelson wasn’t as deep as I wish it could have been, looking back, I clearly see how much I am a product of Rabbi Abelson. By helping to create Ramah, USY, a program of incorporating young people into learning serious synagogue skills, reading Torah and leading services, teaching the importance of inclusiveness in synagogue life, he shaped who I am today, and for that I am grateful.

In a small congregation, Rabbi and congregant have much more access to each other than in large congregations such as where I grew up. The ratio of congregants to rabbi in a small congregation allows the rabbi to get to know each member. Of course, I know those who make it a point to come to services, classes, and programs, better than those who come rarely. But I want to know each member and our business model as a congregation is based on the importance of the financial and personal contribution of each member. 

Although I grew up within a large congregational model, I do not regret devoting my career to the blessings of the small congregation.

Hebrew Words of the Month:

  • Rav – rabbi
  • Rebbe – the rabbi of a hasidic community, typically a charismatic leader.

Divre Harav – Summer, 2023

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Supporting Christian Zionists and Evangelicals for Israel

Many Jews, especially liberal Jews, have a hard time accepting the friendship of evangelical Christians. The two communities disagree on so much – abortion, public education, gender issues, appropriate books for libraries and school, the role of public prayer; and perhaps also guns. But in general, we do agree on one issue that is important to the majority of Jews, and that issue is Zionism, the importance of the existence of the State of Israel. That issue alone makes friendly relations with our neighborhood evangelical church and associated organizations worthwhile.

When asked about their support of Israel, evangelicals often quote Genesis 12:3, God’s blessing of Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you,” believing that if they support Israel, God will bless them. But there is a common belief in the Jewish community that evangelical support of Israel is really based on an idea that Jesus won’t return until Jews reestablish a State of Israel according to Biblical prophecies. Or that some evangelicals support Israel because they believe that in the end times, all of the Jews will die in the apocalypse. But many evangelicals support Israel because God’s promise to Israel is eternal and therefore Israel will be saved. And whether that future salvation means that they believe someday all Jews will become Christian or that Jews will persist as Jews is a question for some future messianic era. And the world needs Israel today. So I won’t sacrifice support for Israel today just because I disagree with a theology that I don’t believe in anyway.

In a world in which real antisemitism is increasing and anti-Zionism has a strong presence in liberal and academic circles, Israel needs supporters. Jews needs friends who do not think that we are trying to control the world through Hollywood or a shadow cabal of political domination. Christian evangelicals love the idea of Jews, and for the most part, even when real Jews fail to live up to their fantasy picture of what a Jew is, they love Jews as well.

Granted, their idea of Jews only vaguely resembles the reality of Jews. They tend to imagine Jews as a monolithic people, beloved by God, who have memorized the Bible and walk closely in the footsteps of Abraham and Moses. Their picture of a Jew is influenced by the dress of Orthodox Jews, especially women in skirts and headscarfs. I’m not sure I look entirely authentic to them, except that I do wear a black (leather) kippah.

So I’ll take evangelical support of Israel, even though Christian Zionists tend to hold hard right political positions on Israel. Some object to this, saying that such positions push our American government to be more right wing than the right wing Israelis, and ultimately that is damaging to Israel’s future survival. I reject this argument for two reasons: First, despite evangelical pressure, because of our government’s strict separation of religion from state, they have mostly resisted the pressure to become a mouthpiece for the religious right wing of the Israeli government. And second, Israel is pretty good about ignoring the United States (and anyone else) who is trying to push them into making decisions that they don’t want to make, so they aren’t going to fall in line with an evangelical political position unless a majority of the Israeli public believes in it as well.

That is why I have spoken at Cornerstone University and Seminary, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids Puritan Seminary, Western Theological Seminary, among others, and taught at Kuyper College. It is why I have participated in the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry’s Honor Israel night and Israel programming at Resurrection Life Church. We can nurture relationships and build alliances based on issues on which we agree, even when we might profoundly disagree on other issues.

Hebrew Phrase of the Month:

  • • Yeshua – salvation (not only a Christian concept!)
  • • ge’ulah – redemption