Archive for November, 2007
Battle over religion in the public square: Round 2?
A local pastor decided to use my letter to the Star as a springboard for his comments – Some try to limit our personal faith to a private world. My reply:
I think Pastor Barry misunderstood my point. I stated in my letter, “The issue is not about prayer in a public venue as much as it is the majority religious view – Christianity – flexing its muscle over the minority – non Christians.” I find it both arrogant and insensitive that one would publically pray in a manner knowingly offensive to others. I certainly respect everyone’s right to their religious beliefs, just don’t assume they’re mine!
I don’t know what else to say – check out the online comments. Fortunately, most are rational rebukes of Pastor Barry. Thank God!
I hate Hanukkah
Truthfully, I hate what’s been done to Hanukkah. It’s been usurped by Christmas – meaning Americanized, materialized, demoralized! Hanukkah is really a universal event – the first recorded war over religious persecution where the persecuted won. That whole 8 day thing with the oil – total mishagas. The rabbis decided (some 300 years later) that they didn’t want us celebrating a military victory and they wanted more God in the story. The real miracle was that a rag tag bunch of Jews said ‘enough’ and ‘we’re not going to assimilate.’ They used gorilla warfare (maybe the first time in history?) and won. The Temple was still destroyed, but they maintained their right to be Jews. That’s good enough for me.
Challenging Tradition, Young Jews Worship on Their Terms
Kudos to Shawn Landres and Steven Cohen!
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 — There are no pews at Tikkun Leil Shabbat, no rabbis, no one with children or gray hair.
Instead, one rainy Friday night, the young worshipers sat in concentric circles in the basement of an office building, damp stragglers four deep against the walls. In the middle, Megan Brudney and Rob Levy played guitar, drums and sang, leading about 120 people through the full Shabbat liturgy in Hebrew.
Without a building and budget, Tikkun Leil Shabbat is one of the independent prayer groups, or minyanim, that Jews in their 20s and 30s have organized in the last five years in at least 27 cities around the country. They are challenging traditional Jewish notions of prayer, community and identity.
In places like Atlanta; Brookline, Mass.; Chico, Calif.; and Manhattan the minyanim have shrugged off what many participants see as the passive, rabbi-led worship of their parents’ generation to join services led by their peers, with music sung by all, and where the full Hebrew liturgy and full inclusion of men and women, gay or straight, seem to be equal priorities.
Members of the minyanim are looking for “redemptive, transformative experiences that give rhythm to their days and weeks and give meaning to their lives,” said Joelle Novey, 28, a founder of Tikkun Leil Shabbat, whose name alludes to the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the world. It is an experience they are not finding in traditional Jewish institutions, she said.
Many synagogues feel threatened by the minyanim, and in some cases have tried to adopt their approach, but with only limited success.
“Established synagogues are worrying about how to attract and engage younger people, and younger people are looking for a sense of sacred community, and they are going elsewhere,” said J. Shawn Landres, director of research at Synagogue 3000, an institute for congregational leadership and synagogue studies. “For a lot of people, it’s like two ships passing in the night.”
Younger Jews have spearheaded changes before in American Jewish life, including forming small fellowship groups in the 1960s and 1970s called havurot. Havurot were lay-led communities like the minyanim, but they were more countercultural, said Sherry Israel, chairwoman of the board of the National Havurah Committee. The minyanim are largely urban. They range from the 200 people who show up at the 9 a.m. Saturday service at Kehilat Hadar on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to the 30 or so who attend Na’aleh’s Friday night worship in Denver. Kehilat Hadar’s e-mail list, however, has about 2,800 addresses, a sign of the transience of the young Jewish population in the city and the high level of interest.
Couples have met at the minyanim, but their leaders say the worship services are not singles’ socials. Music permeates the services, everyone is encouraged to sing and the melodies change frequently to keep things fresh.
“I felt it was hard for me to find a Jewish community that has the spiritual and communal things I was looking for,” said Vicki Kaplan, 24, who was raised in a Conservative family in Los Angeles, explaining why she does not attend a synagogue. “There were no instruments, no young people. At Tikkun Leil Shabbat, there’s a joyfulness to the singing, the community, the breaking of bread together.”
Ms. Kaplan said seeing her peers lead worship made her faith seem more accessible. “My friends who I play football with and have beers with are leading service here. I feel like if I wanted to lead a service, I could, too.”
The fact that women at the minyanim can lead prayers and read the Torah is central to their popularity, including among those raised in the Orthodox tradition, which limits women’s participation in services.
“The primary reason I am here is because of gender equality,” said Rebecca Israel, 25, who was raised in an Orthodox family. Ms. Israel attended D.C. Minyan and Tikkun Leil Shabbat, which she visited one recent Friday, until she moved a year ago to New York, where she goes to Kehilat Hadar. “If Judaism is central to my morality, then its practices needed to reflect the morality that I learned from it. In religious practices that limit women’s participation, Orthodox shuls were not living up to that equality that is important to me.”
The minyanim have attracted young people who are well schooled in Judaism. A flowering of Jewish day schools in the 1980s produced a generation with a strong Jewish education and “the cultural wherewithal to create their own institutions,” said Steven M. Cohen, a professor of sociology at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Many realized they could lead their own services after doing so through their college Hillel programs. Tikkun Leil Shabbat draws Reconstructionist Jews, Orthodox Jews and everyone in between, so it, like other minyanim, developed practices that respect people’s traditions.
For instance, its once-in-three-weeks services alternate between one with circular seating and a more traditional service, in which the chairs face east and the singing is a cappella.
The biggest challenge, minyanim leaders said, involves getting lots of people to participate, while ensuring that the liturgy is celebrated competently. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, who co-founded Kehilat Hadar when he was a layman, started an intensive eight-week course this year in New York, Mechon Hadar, to train those who want to lead or better participate in minyanim. D.C. Minyan has undertaken a campaign to equip more people to be able to read the Torah at services. Many minyanim offer tutoring to those who want to learn to lead services.
The first time she led morning prayers at D.C. Minyan, Lilah Pomerance said, she shook like a leaf.
“There was this disbelief that I was actually doing this,” Ms. Pomerance said of leading worship, “and the other piece was very spiritual, that I was leading the community in prayer and in communication with God.”
A survey that Mr. Landres has undertaken with Mr. Cohen and Rabbi Kaunfer indicates that rather than taking young Jews out of the synagogue pews, they are taking them out of their beds on Saturday mornings.
Rabbi Edward Feinstein is one leader of a traditional synagogue who applauds the development of the minyanim.
“If we were to say, ‘We are sticking to one institutional form or go away,’ then we would die as a people,” said Rabbi Feinstein, who is at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif., a Conservative synagogue. “Is it going to take young Jews that synagogues are counting on? Yes, unless you offer something better. Or better yet, invite the emergents in and make common cause.”
Some synagogues have created programs to draw young people, but they are often poorly done, underfinanced and come across as big singles’ mixers, Mr. Landres said.
The minyanim are noticing that some of their worshipers are getting older, and it is unclear how they might evolve as participants have children and move to the suburbs, said members and experts on the movement.
The answer may be found in the likes of Shabbat in the Hood, a minyan that draws 55 to 70 worshipers to peoples’ homes once a month in Leawood, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. Worshipers belong to local synagogues. This is “the soccer mom set,” with lots of children around, many of them encouraged to lead prayers, said Marla Brockman, the lay coordinator of the minyan.
“It has been a spiritual hit for our families,” Ms. Brockman said. “We were all looking to go back to Jewish summer camp — the ease of community, this feeling of ‘go ahead and try it, try a reading’ — and we found it.”
Jews Against the War
The title says it all. Go to http://jewsagainstthewar.org and sign the petition. Check to see if your rabbi has signed. If not, make ’em!
Are they kidding?!
Check out the newest piece of schlock in the world of December marketing – MenorahMate. (OK, I admit it – I’m just jealous I didn’t think of it)
James R. McAlister z”l
James R. McAlister z”l
March 22, 1938 – November 9, 2007
Jim McAlister was my father-in-law. He never met a stranger. He never had a bad word for anyone. He was unique, something of an enigma at times, and I will miss him.
Our first meeting gives some idea of his character. I was travelling to Dallas on business during the time Jim and family were living in Fort Worth. This was in 1988, before Kelly and I were married. I made arrangements to meet with Jim, Glo and Allison (their youngest daughter). We had never met before (I know, pretty brave of me!). They actually insisted on picking me up at the airport and take me to dinner. After getting our signals crossed about where we were to meet (I should have seen this as a sign of future connections!) we finally met up. I had never met this man who was, in every manner different than me, but he walked right up and gave me a big hug. On his face he had, what I would come to know as an almost permanent, smile. The memory of Jim greeting me is indelibly etched in my memory. Truth be told, Glo was just as gracious!
I thought Jim was just being gracious to me because I was marrying his daughter. I’m sure that had something to do with my reception. However, I was to learn that Jim greeted everyone just as warmly. My cynical nature said it was an act – I was wrong. It was neither act, false sincerity, nor simple-minded naiveté – it was just the way Jim greeted others. He had sincere fondness for other people.
Jim had his own way of doing things, especially when it came to things mechanical. His forays into household repairs or ‘construction’ projects even garnered a moniker. We called them “Jim-jobs.” It’s not that he did them poorly – well, that’s not true, he did (them poorly)! Again, my cynicism wrote these off to frugality (he was cheap) or manly pride. These might have played into his reasoning but there was, I believe, something else at work in his reasoning.
A story might illustrate. Shortly after we moved to Indiana in 1996 and began regular visits to the house in Charlevoix, Jim built a tree house for my kids. When we arrived that first summer I could tell Jim was really excited and of course, so were my children. I confess, I was excited too – I never had a tree house when I was little. No sooner did we walk to the back yard were Eli and Hannah already climbing up the tree. Jim was close behind helping little Gabe (who was no more than 3 at the time) up the perch with his brother and sister. My heart stopped. This wasn’t a tree house – it was a tree shanty and a rickety one at that. I bit my tongue and waited what seemed like hours before telling the kids to come down. That evening, in private, Kelly and I told them they were forbidden to use the tree house. Of course, they didn’t understand and we weren’t about to explain (because they would have surely told grandpa). I think Jim figured out that we’d forbidden them to use it and over the years he did make improvements, none great enough to dissuade our parental ban.
So, was it cheapness or manly pride that caused Jim to build the tree house by himself? I think not. I think Jim did projects like the tree house because he wanted part of himself in them. I think he wanted to build the tree house for his grandchildren to show them that he loved them and somehow, involving others might lessen his contribution. Jim put himself into the things he did, just the way he reached out of himself to others. There were no strangers.
We didn’t agree on much. Jim was a conservative Republican, a devout Christian, an engineer, and a militarist. So we rarely talked about these things. For many years our differences bothered me. I don’t think they ever bothered Jim. He took me as is – I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t always do the same. At our first meeting he knew his daughter loved me and that was enough for him. I’d like to think he came to love me also for my character but it really doesn’t matter. His acceptance was unconditional.
Jim was, of course, far from perfect. He hated conflict and did whatever he possibly could to avoid it. This sometimes caused problems for my family and me. But, he was consistent and predictable – he avoided conflict as well at the end of his life as he did when we first met.
I will remember early morning (really early!) golf games with Jim, early enough that we sometimes saw beaver and deer on the golf course. Although a purposeful golfer – that means he walked really fast from shot to shot – he would stop and take time to enjoy the interruptions. He would also take time to offer golf advice. I beat Jim once (pretty sad considering we probably played over 200 times!). While I could tell it bothered him a bit, he was more than gracious. He made sure to tell everyone that I had won. But I never beat him again!
Jim’s funeral in Jonesboro included an honor guard, a group of young Air Force men from the base in Little Rock. When I first discovered their inclusion in the ceremony I was a little annoyed. My thinking was that things military have no place in church or synagogue. I was wrong. The most poignant moment of the ceremony was the playing of taps and presentation of the flag to Glo. It’s not that these have inherent, special meaning to me – they don’t. It’s that they meant so much to Jim. As I watched these young men folding the flag I thought, “Jim would be so choked up right now. He would be so honored and proud that these young men were here to honor him.” And his consideration, his memory, made it special for me.
I know Jim was proud of Kelly, my children and me. I know because he told me so. Jewish tradition does not hold much stock in other worldliness or even heaven as a destination. We do however believe in eternal life. Those who die, live on in the memory of those who loved them. My children will remember their grandfather. Of that I have no doubt. And they will pass on memories to their children. And perhaps, my grandchildren will pass along stories to their grandchildren. In this way, Jim will live forever. I know he will live on in my memory and zichronah livrachah – his memory will be a blessing.
Battle over religion in the public square: Round 1
Russ Pulliam, the associate editor of the Indianapolis Star, wrote the following:
The drive for a religion-free public square has been set back by an appeals court ruling about public prayer in the Indiana General Assembly.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which wanted to banish prayers in the name of Jesus to open legislative sessions.
But the ruling hardly settles the long-term debate over whether the public square ought to be stripped of diversity in prayer or religious references from the Bible.
The court ruled that the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing to file the suit.
For those opposed to federal court censorship of prayers in the legislative chambers, the ruling was a victory, even on a technicality.
“We’ll take the win anyway,” said House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis. “A hole-in-one is a hole-in-one no matter if it hits a tree or you hit it right in the cup.”
To extend Bosma’s golf analogy, there are still many rounds to play in this debate over the right relationship between personal faith and government in the public sphere.
On one side, the ACLU and its allies have waged a 60-year campaign to make the public square barren with respect to religious faith. Behind this campaign is an assumption that faith belongs to a bygone age of superstition and that it should be confined to the private sphere or individual expression in the marketplace.
From another side comes the argument that the Jewish and Christian faiths are the foundation of representative government, providing the basis for the best strengths of Western civilization.
In the middle of this debate is the question of who should be the referee.
Advocates of a religion-free public square look to the federal courts to manipulate the Constitution on behalf of their cleansing campaign.
The First Amendment prohibits a federal religious establishment, or a state church, such as the Church of England. But a divided Supreme Court has been tempted to swallow the notion that religious faith is a problem in American life, instead of a foundation for solutions.
Thus the justices have encouraged this campaign with a bewildering series of rulings about when prayer is acceptable or not, or when Bible verses can be cited in public and when they can’t. The court’s rulings have only invited more lawsuits instead of providing for civic harmony.
Clearly, the authors of the Constitution would not object to prayer in the name of Jesus. In starting the nation, they prayed together, cited the Scriptures for wisdom and authority, and looked to the Bible and Christian faith for the roots of a new nation.
Maybe the Founding Fathers were wrong. Maybe the Constitution is wrong. But if that is the case, opponents of public prayer need to propose a direct constitutional amendment to advance their cause instead of tying up the courts with their efforts to outlaw religious expression in public places.
In Indiana, critics of prayer in the Statehouse have an option that works much quicker than the federal courts. Members of the House of Representatives stand for re-election every two years.
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked at Mr. Pulliam’s flagrant misstatements and generalities, but I am. I see no evidence that the ACLU has ever made any attempts to “make the public square barren with respect to religious faith.” I would argue the contrary – the ACLU protects each religion’s right to express itself in its own way. The argument at hand is not prayer in the statehouse – it is sectarian prayer in public.
I would also take issue with Pulliam’s statement that “Clearly, the authors of the Constitution would not object to prayer in the name of Jesus.” While most were Christian and this would have been their method of prayer, America was founded on religious tolerance, not Christian doctrine. A few Google searches will net numerous quotes from the Founding Fathers about upholding religious neutrality and tolerance. George Washington even thanked the Jewish community for reminding him that plurality was more important than unanimity.
The Constitution is not wrong. It upholds the rights of everyone, especially those in the minority. We don’t need an amendment to outlaw public prayer. What we need is a good old fashioned dose of common sense, decency, and respect for others.
Sometimes I’m embarrassed to live in such a backward state!
Added 11/15/07:
Check out the online conversation – unbelievable!?
Jeffrey Harrison z”l
“I feel fantastic. I’m ready for whatever happens.” This was in Jeff’s last Caring Bridge post just a few weeks ago. Then in the next paragraph he goes on to extol the virtues of the political left and why doing what is right is the better way to live. This is an apt illustration of Jeff Harrison. He was complex, compassionate, and shared himself generously.Having a conversation with Jeff was mental exercise. He loved discourse and I must say, I often enjoyed watching him converse with others more than trying to keep up with him (especially if the topic was movies!). I frequently checked his Facebook page to see what issues I should be mad about!
I’m glad to say that I was able to teach Jeff something about Judaism. But as is often the case, this teacher learned more than the student. Jeff reminded me in a very tangible way that Jews are unique. While I often pay lip service to this unique attribute of Judaism, Jeff lived it.
While he politely tolerated it, I know Jeff hated our style of Shabbat worship at Butler Hillel. I really think he indulged me because of Carah. But for Jeff, Judaism wasn’t about worship, holidays or even Shabbat. Jeff’s Jewish soul manifested in intellectual discourse, in pointing out injustice in the world, and in living life a gifted day at a time. And in the time I got to spend with him, Jeff discovered these attributes reconcile nicely with Judaism.
Jeff was among a group of three Butler students I met at my very first meeting with Butler Hillel in the spring of 2002. I have to admit, I was intimidated by Jeff. Besides the fact that he was a good foot taller than I, he seemed to have an air about him that said, “You’ve got to prove to me that I should like you.” Truth be told, it was likely my nervousness at being thrust on the students as a condition of a Federation grant that caused my intimidation. But I learned that what was really in Jeff’s thoughts was concern that I wasn’t coming in to fashion Hillel into something I wanted it to be. He was protective of the students’ vision of Hillel; and rightfully so, for it was his vision too. It was openness seeking openness – Jeff was testing to be sure I was his partner in this venture. I guess my signals were acceptable because we quickly became friends and I’m pleased to say, colleagues.
Hillel at Butler University owes a debt to Jeff Harrison. For while he was not interested much in matters of faith he was committed to Butler having a viable, dynamic Jewish presence. I hope we will live up to his expectations.
Jeff was not merely tolerant of those who were different; he embraced diversity and had a genuine curiosity for “the other.” This is evident at Butler for no sooner did we post the news of Jeff’s passing than I started receiving emails with comments like “he was a remarkable person,” “I am glad to have known him,” “he was wonderful,” “I will miss him more than I can articulate.” And the senders of these sentiments include professors, priests, rabbis, administrators, and fellow students.
I will always remember Jeff’s infectious smile. It matched his infectious spirit. Rabbi Alvin Fine writes, “birth is a beginning and death a destination.” Judaism is clear about one thing regarding death – we have no idea what happens after we die. We do though believe in everlasting life for when we speak of one who has died we say “zichronah livrachah – may his memory be a blessing.” We believe that as long as we remember someone he lives. I can’t speak for others, but Jeff’s memory is a blessing for me and I will truly miss him.
On behalf of the entire Butler University community, I want to extend my heartfelt condolences to the Harrison family and to Carah Gilbert. There are many current and future Butler University students who will never know Jeff Harrison – and even for them, his memory is a blessing.
Ma Hamatzav? (Was' Up?) 
