Rock, Pluralism, Blessings and Jerusalem!

There is no question that the picture painted about Israel in the press today is not pretty.  Nurses went on strike to force the government to increase what are embarrassingly low wages.  Only a last minute action by the Knesset prevented the shutting down of Channel 10, a noteworthy critic of the current Prime Minister.  The man slotted for the number two spot on the "Likud - Yisrael Beiteinu" list was indicted by the attorney general for breach of communal trust.  The neighborhood, also known as the Middle East, gets nastier and more unstable every day.  And let's not forget about the daily announcements of the Chief Rabbinate trying to impose the opinions of the very few on the entire country.  It all sounds so bleak.

Yet, this is not the full picture of today's Israel.  It leaves out important discoveries in the fields of medicine and technology.  It fails to include the rich cultural events that are woven into the daily life of jerusalem.  It neglects the wide variety of social entrepreneurial ventures popping up on a constant basis, the beautification projects making Jerusalem a more livable and lovely place and the sounds of multiple religious traditions co-existing in the most sacred of cities.  Finally, the journalistic approach of publishing only the darkest narratives neglects the incredible projects related to  התחדשות היהדות - the reinvigoration of Judaism - taking place all over Jerusalem and Israel.  Here is an example of what I am talking about.

I spent Sunday night at The Yellow Submarine, a music club in the Talpiyot Shopping District, to listen to a group of rock bands.  Surprised?  Rabbi Sykes went to a what?A rock concert? After all, rock is not my musical genre. I am not one to frequent concerts or rock clubs. I am definitely not the "clubbing" type. This, however, was not an ordinary battle of the bands.  The musicians were all teenagers and the bands were a mix of religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sefaradi, socially comfortable and socially akward teens.  They were participants in  "Meko-Rock Jerusalem" - a project of Bet Midrash Elul, the pluralistic bet midrash in Jerusalem and the founders of Merko-Rock, a project started in a place called Emek Chefer, by David Levy.

Meko-rock is a play on the Hebrew word, Mekorot or sources.  The concept is simple and beautiful.  Meko-Rock brings together teens of different backgrounds on a weekly basis, for three to four months, to study Jewish sources.  These teen musicians create study groups that become bands.  They choose sources from the Bible, Rabbinic literature and other Jewish texts which become the inspiration for writing rock music.  Just as the teens have excellent facilitators to help guide them through exploration of Jewish texts, they also work with top notch musicians who help take their source-based inspiration and create inspired rock music.  I am not talking about taking "Oseh Shalom biMromav" and writing a new tune to replace the one we know; rather, by learning about different faces of Peace, participants may look at their lives, their angst and where they lack Peace.  Their exploration becomes lyrics and music and performance techniques.

I was blown away by the music, by the depth of learning and the depth of the material created.  It was exceptional.  The bands were fun to watch, the participants were all very talented and were totally into it!  The audience, made up of parents and friends, supporters and funders, was equalling inspired.  Roni Yavin, the power house professional leader of Bet Midrash Elul, understood the potential of this program to touch the lives of all points on the religious spectrum.  For teens on the "religious" end of the spectrum, the project allows for the re-examination of familiar texts, for the extraction of different life lessons, for exposure to perspectives different than their own and for the expression of identity through music.  For the more "secular" participants, Meko-Rock creates the space to encounter a part of Jewish heritage often denied them by secular educational institution and increasingly Haredi off-putting.  Perhaps most important of all, teenagers progress through this encounter together, breaking down barriers between the different sectors of Israeli society.

Meko-Rock is but one of many similar examples of efforts to bridge the gap between "religious" and "secular" Jews of every age and stage.  The התחדשות movement is a reaction to the trend toward התחרדות or Haredization of Jerusalem and the government.  Meko-Rock, Bet Midrash Elul, The Jerusalem Movement, The Masorti Movement and other organizations - religious, pluralist, denominational and not - are working together, bridging gaps, and insuring that Jerusalem remains the creative, religious capital of the entire Jewish people.

The pluralist, open approach to Judaism being taken by the above mentioned groups is the embodiment of the blessings given in VaYechi, the final portion of the book of Genesis.  The children of Jacob are not given just one collective blessing; rather, they are given an individual blessing.  They are a family and are blessed and they are recognized as individual components of the family and blessed.  The התחדשות or reinvigoration approach to Jewish Jerusalem acknowledges that Jerusalem is both collectively and individually ours. That is something to celebrate!

Thank you to Roni Yavin for introducing me to Bet Midrash Elul and to Meck-Rock and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the Jewish People.  Your work is definitely avodat kodesh - sacred work - and it brings to life the sentence we will all shout at the end of the Torah reading this week:

חזק חזק ונתחזק!

Be Strong! Be Strong! And together, we will be strengthened!

Shabbat Shalom!

Bruce Springsteen and Rosh HaShanah

Last week, I attended a religious experience:   I went to my first rock concert.  Not just any rock and roll concert, mind you, but THE rock concert: I saw Bruce Springsteen play Wrigley Field.  It was like going to selichot with 60,000 people at The Temple of Baseball.  The Boss and the E Street Band played 38 songs in about three-and-a-half hours with no break and, watching from the first base line, a few things were apparent to me.  The obvious first, Bruce Springsteen is an exceptional musician.  He is charismatic and magnetic.  He is also a preacher, focusing on the American and human condition.

I was amazed by how many people knew the words to every song. They sang along, danced themselves into trances, and, when Bruce held out the microphone to the crowd, 55,000 people all shouted in unison.  And then it occurred to me: I wasn't just watching a concert; rather, I was witnessing a religious moment for passionate believers in the performer and in the meaning of the lyrics.  Their dancing and singing took on an intentional, religious fervor.  They knew the words, they knew the drum beats so well they were jamming their hands in concert with the drummer, crashing imaginary cymbals on cue.  I, on the other hand, was a mere spectator.  Never a big rock and roll fan, I never paid much attention to Bruce.  I didn't know the words to every song.  I don't have ten of his albums on iTunes.  In fact, I was probably the only person at the concert who could only name two songs by Springsteen.

Please understand:  I enjoyed the experience.  After all, who doesn't like to see a winner at Wrigley Field?  For me, however, this was not a personal awakening of the soul; rather, it was more like an anthropology field trip observing Springsteen fans in their natural environment, noticing their rituals and fervor.  I knew enough of the "language" to clap my hands to the beat every once in a while but I was not going to be deeply moved or changed or transformed.  For that to happen, I needed to  study up on The Boss, to listen to his music for a few weeks, to study the lyrics.  To be deeply moved, I needed to be prepared, to open my soul, to commit to transforming myself into a real Springsteen fan and that was not going to happen.  So, I went, I enjoyed and I left.

Walking home in the rain with Becca, I realized that my Springsteen concert experience shared many similarities with those people who only attend synagogue on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.  People come for connection, are in shul for hours, listening to prayers in a language they don't know or understand, listen to a preacher and then leave.  We hope that the soulful significance of High Holiday services and a Bruce Springsteen Concert would be profoundly different.  Sadly, however, I see just how similar they are.  As I wrote above, having a powerful spiritual experience requires preparation: reading, thinking, reflecting, absorbing and emulating.  To truly experience a transformation, you have to open your soul and be fully present.  You need to know the words, to be able to sing along, to participate in the choreography.  Otherwise, you are left as a spectator.  How different would my Springsteen concert experience have been had I invested the preparation time?

I wish I knew how to get more people to invest in the preparation required to make High Holiday services a more meaningful, more transformational experience.  Imagine what it would be like if more people would invest the same kind of time in learning the "lyrics" or piyyut of the Yamim Noraim and the tunes to those lyrics as they do memorizing the lyrics to Glory Days?  What does it take to get people to want to invest that kind of time?  To value their soul and their heritage enough to be fully equipped to participate?  Like I said, I wish I had the answers but I don't.

There is a hint to an answer in the opening words of this week's parashah:

אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם, לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

You, all of you, are standing this day before The Lord Your God...

Before focusing on the words of the High Holiday services, learning them, absorbing the tunes and the choreography, maybe everyone just needs to start with standing, being fully present.  Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur give us, at minimum, the opportunity to stand and reflect, to think about ourselves,  to decide how we want to be better, what we want to accomplish, and how we want to change ourselves and the world.  The gift of time is precious and the opportunity to stand before God is timeless.

On the precipice of the start of the New Year, I will be standing, reflecting and thinking forward.  The words of the High Holiday liturgy are familiar to me as are the tunes and they will enhance my experience.  They will provide a framework for thinking about the exciting year about to begin, a year of new work, of new family stages, and, in August, of a new home in The State of Israel.  What will this new year bring for you?  What will you stand and think about?  How will you be present?

Becca, Elan, Mira, Amalya and I join in wishing you all a Shanah Tova U'Metukah.  May this be a year of blessing and joy, happiness, success and growth.  And, if by some chance he decides to play a concert at The Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem after August but before next Rosh HaShanah, we hope you will come and join us for my second Bruce Springsteen Concert of the year!

Shabbat Shalom.

Listen and Look!

The third word of this week’s parashah, parashat Ekev, is תשמעון, listen.  Next week’s parashah begins with the command, ראה!, Look! or See!  These two verbs are the perfect bookends for what needs to happen after camp ends: Listen and Look.  After catching up on sleep, after the laundry is done, after the sand is swept out of the house and the facebook accounts checked, campers often have lots to say, stories to tell and lessons to be shared.  At the same time, some campers will hold their memories inside, letting their thoughts ruminate until they draw their own lessons, until they are ready to share.  Regardless of an individual child’s style, our job as parents is to be ready to listen at a moment’s notice so that we can catch tidbits of our camper’s experiences.  Even as I serve as the camp director, I am also a camper parent.  As a result, I know that I often want to hear much more from my children about their summers than they are ready to share when they first arrive home.  But when they are ready, our children share and share and we get to hear about the things they loved this summer, the challenges they faced, the way they grew as Jews and as people. This is the big payoff for us parents!

Similarly, this is the time to look, to see how are children have grown this summer.  This is our chance to see the work they did in amanut (arts and crafts), to see how they developed interests in new musical instruments and to observe new athletic and theater skills our children acquired.  In addition, it is also our chance to see how they grew in their Jewish commitments, in their ability to learn and think critically as Jews and to help them invest that energy and knowledge in their communities and synagogues.  Conservative synagogues provide significant scholarship funds for our children.  Scholarships are investments in the Jewish future and in the strengthening of the Conservative Jewish community and we encourage our campers to provide an outstanding return on that investment by getting involved during the year.  You will be amazed by what you see in terms of growth in skills, social development and Jewish involvement!

Finally, this coming Monday, we will have a very special opportunity to listen and look.  Thanks to the work of a group of Bogrim campers and staff members, in partnership with the fantastic artists and faculty of G-DCast.com, Monday will be the world premier of The Mystery of the Forbidden Fruit, the first ever partnership between G-DCast.com and a Jewish summer camp as well as the first stop-action film by G-DCast.  Part of the pilot summer of Shavua Sababa, specialty week, for Bogrim, this film represents a major accomplishment on the part of our campers.  This five-minute film demonstrates how Ramah emphasizes and teaches both Jewish content AND specialty skills, as well as how we are able to combine fun and friendship together with meaningful Jewish learning and experiences.  The background and energy required to prepare for this kind of effort takes time, as does learning the skill of filmmaking.  This is but one of many meaningful Jewish experiences and opportunities that Ramah Wisconsin campers have during the eight-week session.  

I hope you enjoy the debut of the Ramah Wisconsin-G-DCast collaboration on Monday; that you listen and hear the many stories that your campers will share over the weeks to come and that you enjoy seeing all of the growth your children experienced this summer.  

Shabbat Shalom.

PS:

Special thanks to:
Sarah Lefton, Lom Friedman and Jeanne Stern of G-DCast.com;
To the iCenter for their generous funding of the G-DCast/Ramah Wisconsin collaboration;
To Tali Ribnik, Rosh Adat HaBogrim, for her efforts in ensuring the success of this project; and
To the campers and staff of the G-DCast Shavua Sababa program, whose names are listed in film’s credits.

To Give and To Take

אדם צריך שתיהי לו מילה

קצת מקום בעולם

אהבה לא נשכחת

וקול אמיתי לתפילה

ורגע מושלם

כדי לתת ולקחת

...ולא

לפחד מהפחד.

A person needs to have a word,
A little place in the world,
Unforgettable Love,
A real voice for prayer
And a moment of completeness
In order to give and to take,
And to not be afraid of fear.

Shlomo Artzi, To Give and To Take

Sitting at a picnic table in front of my house, under the bright blue sky, the bald eagle soars overhead as I listened to music with three roshei aidah.  We hear the words of Shlomo Artzi’s song לתת ולקחת, To Give and To Take.  The refrain lists five things a person needs - a word or voice, a place, unforgettable love, a real, prayerful voice, and a sense of completeness or integrity - in order to truly give and receive and to face fear without being afraid.  We listened a second time to the refrain and then entered into a conversation about tefilah, prayer.  Among the questions raised were:

• How do we balance individual needs in prayer with communal needs?
• Can every text be viewed as a prayer or is there something about liturgical poetry that puts some things within the realm of prayer and some things outside that realm?
• What is the meaning of a real or truthful voice for prayer?
• What does it mean that a person needs a word or a voice in the context of prayer?  Is that a reference to fixed liturgy or to the need for personal prayer?

As the conversation proceeded, as we went deeper trying to answer one question, we arrived at more questions than answers.

Daniel Olson, rosh aidah for our Atzmayim program, pointed out that the five precursors for successful giving, receiving, and confronting fear are, in many ways, the same things we needed to have successful, powerful tefillot in camp and in life:

אדם צריך שתיהי לו מילה
A person needs a word...

The traditional language of the siddur provides us with words, with a language for conversation with God and with ourselves.  They give us poetry and imagery that link us to our history and to the worldwide Jewish community.  At the same time, each one of us needs our own words to convey wants and desires, hopes and aspirations, thoughts and feelings.  As educators, we constantly struggle with the balance between the creative and the traditional, the communal and the individual, as we think about tefillah in camp and for ourselves.  What words do we need? Halakhically? Personally?

קצת מקום בעולם
A little place in the world
 
What is the setting for prayer, individual and communal?  How do we make our prayerful places, our מקדשי מעט , appropriate settings for tefillah. In camp, most davvening places are multipurpose spaces transitioning quickly from tefillot into stages for theater, into studios for dance, into practice rooms for music, etc.  The atmosphere of the place can help put us in the right mood for intimate conversation with God and with self or it can convey a sense of “get this over with quickly” because someone needs the room for another activity.  Our job is to insure that where we pray is conducive to prayer, that it is warm, that it inspires us to take our time in self-reflection and connection with The Divine.  And then, as we learn from the beginning of this week’s parasha, Naso,  just as was the case with moving the portable Tabernacle, the Mishkan, we need to break the room down in a respectful and careful way, treating all of the ritual objects with kavod, with respect.

אהבה לא נשכחת
Unforgettable Love

I asked the shlichim to translate this phrase for me and they said that the best translation was “unforgettable love.”  In the context of tefillah, I think Shlomo Artzi is talking about unconditional love or אהבה שלא תלויה בדבר, love that is not dependent on anything.  In tefillah, no matter what we say in our hearts, we need to remember that we are loved, somewhere, somehow, unconditionally, be that God’s love, parental love, etc.  Camp is a place where everyone needs to know that they are valued and respected.  Tefillah, with its language of thanks, provides us with the opportunity to be reminded of the sources of love and hope and blessing in our lives.



וקול אמיתי לתפילה
A real voice of prayer

For many people, camp is the place where they first discover their own prayerful voice.  Encountering the siddur, struggling with the literal and personal meaning of the prayers, helps us find our voice for talking with God and with our souls.  From the moments when we pray with our internal voice to the times we sing out with our peers, camp can be the place where people first enter conversation with God or the place where they start to discover who they are.  How do we create the atmosphere, the trust, required for campers and staff members to feel safe exploring these aspects of self?  What is a real voice of prayer?  Is there a difference between communal singing and prayer?  If so, how do we know when we are doing one and not the other?

ורגע מושלם
A moment of completeness

A personal sense of integrity, a sense of wholeness, of authenticity helps bring people to deeply prayerful moments.  Recognizing who we truly are, what we truly believe, helps motivate us to act, to give genuinely and to receive genuinely.  Walking around camp with other people, you often get gifts that open up parts of your soul, that lead to deeper understanding and that lead you to be able to face challenges and moments without fear, without worry of the “if only I...”  I often hear people say that camp is the only place where they can truly be themselves.  Tefillah can be a time for feeling this sense of completeness, of integrity, of perfection which prepares you to give and to receive.

As the staff builds over the course of the week to come, we will continue the conversation about tefillah in camp.  We will seek to build an inspiring community that is steeped in our traditional siddur.  We will work to maintain the proper balance between the voice of the community and the voice of the individual in the conversations that take place at camp between us and God.  At moments, our prayers and our souls will soar without fear, like the eagle, to the Heavens.  At others, they will be the still small voice in our souls reminding us that we are loved.  They will remind us that to give and to receive, we must be authentic in our voices, in our words, in our actions.  Finally, we will be blessed to achieve all of this in our מקום בעולם, on the shores of Lake Buckatabon at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.

Shabbat Shalom.

כל דבר מזכיר לי - “Every Thing Reminds Me...” Thoughts on Parashat Tetzaveh - Shabbat Zachor

Annually, one of my last  stops in Israel is at the duty-free music store in Ben Gurion Airport.  I like to pick up a new recording of Israeli or Jewish music or at least listen to the new options they are playing for other shoppers.  This time, my mission was to buy the first season of “S’rugim” which translates as “Crocheted” and is a reference to young religious Israelis and their daily life experiences.  The salesman helped me find what I was looking for and started suggesting additional options. He clearly had me sized up and pegged to my age cohort and brought me new and classic recordings of Shlomo Artzi, Shalom Chanoch, Sarit Haddad and Arik Einstein.  He paused, looked at me again and said, “I bet you would love this new recording from Yehuda Poliker.”  How did this guy know?  Was it the bit of gray showing up in my hair?  

The fact is, I love the music of Yehuda Poliker.  I first heard it in 1990-1991 when I studied in Israel during my rabbinical school year.  Poliker’s music was a soothing balm during the stresses of the first Gulf War.  They served as  the uplifting tones that energized me while working with recently arrived members of the second aliyah from Ethiopia.  The only rock concert I ever attended in my life was Yehuda Poliker live at the Roman Amphitheater on Mt. Scopus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Poliker’s music is haunting, inspiring, energizing.  Drawing on his family roots from Saloniki, Greece, Poliker weaves together rhythms and tones, as well as lyrics, from Greece, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.  His music touches my soul in a very deep way.

The salesman brought over the new recording.  Titled כל דבר מזכיר לי, “Every Thing Reminds Me...” the CD is a combination of love songs and life songs.  On almost all of Poliker’s recordings, at least one title is sung in Greek.  This new CD begins with the title song in Greek and ends with the same song translated into Hebrew.  כל דבר מזכיר לי is a powerful, sad song of longing.  In everything - every moment, every image, every place -  the singer sees and feels and longs for a lover who is no longer.  It is not clear if the lover is dead or just gone but she is definitely no longer there.  The power of זכרון, of memory, is so intense you can feel and hear it in the singer’s voice.  What is not clear is whether or not the strength of memory is holding the singer back from moving forward with his life or if there is just an intense sadness as he navigates the tasks of daily living.  When is memory a blessing and when is it a curse?

Memory is at the heart of this Shabbat, the Shabbat before Purim.  On Shabbat Zakhor, the Shabbat of Remembrance, the maftir aliyah is read from a second Torah scroll and is taken from Deuteronomy 25:17-19:

זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָיִם.  אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל-הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיך -וְאַתָּה, עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ וְלֹא יָרֵא, אֱלֹקים. וְהָיָה בְּהָנִיחַ היְ אֱלֹקֶיךָ לְךָ מִכָּל-אֹיְבֶיךָ מִסָּבִיב בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר הי-אֱלֹקֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם לֹא, תִּשְׁכָּח

Remember What Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt.  How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.  Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven.  Do not forget!

As we prepare to remember and blot out Haman and Zeresh, and to remember joyously our ancestors Esther and Mordechai, the special reading for Shabbat Zachor with its admonition to blot out the memory of our historical enemy, Amalek, serves as the context-setter for Haman as Amalek’s midrashic descendant.  I find the language of this reading confusing.  After all, the Torah commands us to “Remember” what Amalek did to our ancestors while simultaneously commanding us to erase or “blot out” the memory of Amalek from under Heaven.  Is it possible to remember and blot out at the same time?  If so, how? Finally, what role does the phrase ”...when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you...” play in explaining the apparent contradiction between commanding memory and commanding the blotting out of memory?

One possible explanation is that until such time as the Jewish People lives in complete safety from all enemies in all places, when ultimate Peace is granted from the Heavens, that we are obligated to remember that there are ongoing threats to our existence.  Perhaps by being cognizant of these threats, we will work harder to create conditions favorable to achieving the Messianic Era and the World Peace that comes with it.  At that time, we will blot out the memory of hatred for it will be irrelevant for all eternity.  According to this explanation, memory serves as a motivator not to achieve the negative of slaughter but to bring about the positive condition of Peace in the world.  The retaining of the memory of a national homeland in The Promised Land ultimately led to the positive outcome of the establishment of the modern State of Israel.  Remembering Gilad Shalit while in captivity provided the energy and motivation to achieve his release even at the highest of prices.  Memory of this sort can link people together across cities and countries and ideologies in order to reach achievements that might have seemed impossible otherwise.

If the above explanation provides me with an understanding of the positive power of memory, however, I am still left with the question of its negative consequences.  Memory preserving hatred leads to ethnic cleansing, to vengeance on the individual and national level.  Memory in the form of longing for that which is lost and never to return, be it love or a loved one, can paralyze a person, preventing them from moving forward into a new and more positive phase of life, to finding love anew, to find new motivation for purpose in life.  Finally, the power of Memory can prevent innovation and change.  “We have always done it this way”, if more than just a sweet recalling of prior experience, serves to block change when it is demanded because the world changes or required because certain conditions change.  When memory serves to stagnate and stifle, it leads to whithering and extinction.

Salo Baron z”l, the dean of modern Jewish historians, argued against what he referred to as the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” a scholarly viewpoint that he believed was mistaken as it looked only at the various periods of persecution of the Jewish people while ignoring any and all positive periods or events in Jewish life, thought and culture.  For Baron and his disciples, remembrance of Jewish history must be far more than the book “Every Day Remembrance Day,” a work that lists all of the tragedies that befell Jews on each and every day of the year.  Jewish memory has to include positive achievements in economics, in theology, in art, in science, etc throughout history.  On this Shabbat, as we remember what Amalek did to us, as we keep fresh in our mind what the modern descendants of Amalek, in all of their forms, attempt to do to the Jewish People and to the world, I also encourage each of us to remember and be motivated by our positive history and memories, by positive achievements and accomplishments, and that these memories help us to discover new inner strengths to change the world and ourselves in positive ways.

As I prepare for Shabbat, the music of Yehuda Poliker plays from my iPhone and yes,        כל דבר מזכיר לד “Everything reminds me.”  The sounds and the smells, the tastes and the tasks of getting ready for Shabbat remind me of what I love about Shabbat.  They remind me of sweet Shabbatot in the past.  And they stir thoughts about the sweet Shabbatot to come - those in Chicago, those on Lake Buckatabon, and those in our Jewish national homeland, Israel.

Shabbat Shalom.