Reform Responsa

Last week, we started a four-week course on Reform Responsa. If you don't know, Responsa are answers which rabbis give to questions they are asked.  Often, these might be very specific, technical questions: am I allowed to eat this?  What is the proper blessing for this?  That kind of thing.

The Reform Movement has a long history of doing Responsa, although they differ in several ways from more traditional Responsa.  Coming from the Reform world, they are more willing to change previous law, and they focus more on education, and less on dictating the single, proper answer.  Because of all of that, they provide a unique way to learn about Reform Jewish decision-making.  Essentially, they try to give us the tools which we need to make our own decisions, as Reform Jews.

I'm still sorting through the various Responsa which we might look at for tomorrow’s class.  But, here are two early frontrunners:

• should a synagogue superintendent, who lives on the synagogue premises, be allowed to keep a gun in his apartment?
• Should a synagogue board member, who has been accused of cheating a fellow member in a non synagogue related activity (e.g.  a business matter) be allowed to remain on the board? What if the facts of the case have been established beyond dispute?

If you feel like getting the conversation rolling now, feel free to chime in with comments. But, don’t go for a simple yes/no – what are your reasons? What are the factors – the categories of reasons – which go into your answer? For example, the attitude of Judaism, in general, about guns will come into play for the first question. The second question deals with, among other things, the role of a Board Member, as well as the issue of gossip/accusations.

And, of course, if you find this interesting, come join us tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:30!

Correcting God

I'm currently working on a blog post, and I'm using speech recognition software, because my wrist strain is acting up again.  It's pretty neat (and it's built into Windows Vista, so you can use it for free if you have Vista or Windows7) – you just speak, and it transcribes your words.  If it misunderstands something, you just say “correct XXX”, and it lets you fix the error. 

That means that, if, say, you're a rabbi writing blog posts, you might find yourself saying, “Correct God” quite often.

I got to admit -- that doesn’t exactly feel right…

Asking and Telling

On Friday, I blogged about a group of 1000 Rabbis who railed against the potential end of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the admission of openly homosexual (and bi-sexual) men and women into the military. It was the end of a long week, so my post was relatively short, and perhaps a bit snarkier than I would normally allow myself to be (though, you should have seen the first version).

If you're interested in the topic, Frank Rich has an Op-Ed in today's New York Times which does a much more thorough job of destroying the "letting them in will wreck the military" argument.

the most common last-ditch argument for preserving “don’t ask” heard last week, largely from Southern senators, is to protect “troop morale and cohesion.” Every known study says this argument is a canard, as do the real-life examples of the many armies with openly gay troops, including those of Canada, Britain and Israel. But the argument does carry a telling historical pedigree. When Harry Truman ordered the racial integration of the American military in 1948, Congressional opponents (then mainly Southern Democrats) embraced an antediluvian Army prediction from 1940 stating that such a change would threaten national defense by producing “situations destructive to morale.” History will sweep this bogus argument away now as it did then.

And, as for the Rabbis who oppose inclusion on religious and moral grounds? Well, a true refutation of that view would take more time than I have at the moment (because, it's really an ongoing argument against Fundamentalism of any kind), but, for now, a bit of snark will have to do.

1000 Rabbis CAN be wrong

OK, I'll freely admit that this one is some self-righteous, self-affirming, fish-in-a-barrel type stuff, but when 1000 Rabbis decide to speak for the rest of us, and predict divine retribution for daring to allow gays to openly serve in the military, then it seems incumbent on the rest of us in the Rabbinic world to say something:

When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it’s shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition.

That's me. Extreme, selfish and kooky. And proud.

We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.

You know, just like we predicted would happen with blacks. And women. Also, it's impossible to think that the military would benefit from having a larger pool from which to recruit at the exact same time that it's having trouble finding people willing to serve, right?

Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

So, all of those other disasters were caused because the people in those places were too tolerant of gays, and therefore brought down God's wrath on themselves? I'm not even going to bother refuting the basic idea here, because if you do believe such things, then I don't think you're really open to rational arguments.

Let me take a deep breath, and pray that everyone remembers that you don't need to be a bigoted, backwards-thinking nincompoop to be a Rabbi. Even if 1000 Rabbis disagree with me on that one.

1,000,000 Thanks

In the wake of the recent earthquake in Haiti, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) quickly created a relief fund, and urged all congregations to pass on the news to their congregants (they also promised that 100% of all funds would go directly to aid; none will be used for overhead). The outpouring of support from our movement has been extraordinary, and this morning we received an e-mail announcing that the donations to the fund have passed $1,000,000!

I am proud to let you know that today we surpassed $1,000,000 in contributions to the Union for Reform Judaism’s Haiti Relief Fund! Kudos to all the clergy and congregations that have helped spread the word and made this relief effort a priority. Special praise is due our colleague Marla Feldman for her herculean efforts to coordinate the effort and assure that every dollar is well spent to help those most in need.

A few highlights:

• Nearly 9000 individual donors have contributed thus far; -60% of the total raised to date came from on-line gifts;
• To date, $140,000 has been allocated and another $350,000 worth of proposals is ‘in the pipeline’. (All allocations information is and will be available at www.urj.org/haiti.)
• We have received numerous gifts from religious school students, congregations and NFTY youth - including those who raised funds from fellow passengers on their flight to a conclave!

It is at times like this that our Reform Movement lives the values we teach and preach. Thanks to all of you who helped make this wonderful effort possible.

L'Shalom,
Elliott
Rabbi Elliott A. Kleinman
Chief Program Officer
Union for Reform Judaism
633 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
212-650-4220
Fax 212-650-4229

The need in Haiti has not subsided - so neither has the need for donations. Please, whether you've already made a donation, make a donation today.

Rabbinic Humor

A conversation was recently held, on one of my Rabbinic e-mail lists, about deleting God's name from a computer. For those who don't know, Judaism forbids the destruction of God's name. Once God's name is written down*, that piece of paper is sacred, and can't be thrown in the garbage, or burned, etc.

* that applies to God's formal name - spelled yud-heh-vav-heh in Hebrew - not various other nicknames, such as "God" or "Eternal One")

So, that led someone to ask their Rabbi about computers. What, this congregant wanted to know, does it mean if you store God's name on your computer? Is your Hard Drive now sacred? Can you never delete the file? Sources were checked, and everyone agreed that there was no need to worry - God's name wasn't really on the harddrive. All that was there was a series of one's and zero's.

Which led one colleague of mine to reply, "Not true. There are no zero's. God is only One."

Rabbinic Humor. Never a good idea.

By the way, if this topic interests you, then the more difficult question is what do we do if God's name appears on our computer screen? If we scroll down, and thus "erase" God's name from the screen, does that count as an illegal destruction of God's name? If you want to know the answer, check out this Responsum (Rabbinic legal opinion). And, if you find that interesting, then think about joining us on Thursday evenings (starting at 7:30) in February for our class on Reform Responsa!

Swords and Plowshares

Just came across an old favorite, from Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. Thought it's worth sharing:

Don't stop after beating the swords into plowshares, don't stop! Go on beating and make musical instruments out of them.

Whoever wants to make war again will have to turn them into plowshares first.