Holy Work

Every now and then, I get asked to contribute to the URJ's "Ask Your Jewish Question" (formerly known as "Ask a Rabbi") feature. One recently came my way:

Could you do a piece about how going to work during the 6 days of the week is part of the mitzvah of fulfilling Shabbat, and how we should also find meaning in what we do during those 6 days? Sometimes it is easy to forget that going to our jobs can be meaningful...and even a mitzvah. I get easily lost in the daily grind of my own job. Thanks for all the hard work you guys do. Best—Marie (Chana)

It's not published yet, but here's my response:

During the week, are we allowed to work, or are we commanded to work? And, is any of that work holy?

“6 days you shall labor and do all your work, but the 7th day is a Sabbath to Adonai your God: you shall not do any work…” That’s what God said at Sinai, according to Exodus 20:9-10. And, in its context, the Hebrew is probably saying that we’re allowed to work during the 6 days. That’s just a preamble to the real commandment, which is Shabbat.

But, whatever the original intent was, that’s not how the rabbis of old read it. Midrash Rabbah, an ancient collection of Midrashim (Rabbinic teachings on the Torah) reads the text hyper-literally and understands both parts to be commandments—you must work during the 6 days, just like you must rest on the 7th. In fact, we are told that “Great is work, because God’s presence does not rest upon Israel until they perform work, as it says, ‘Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’ ” Holiness doesn’t come to those who sit around and wait for it; holiness comes to those who are willing to work for it! So, our tradition understands that there is, indeed, holy work to be done during the week. Anything that we do which makes it possible to experience holiness in the world is, itself, holy work. And, although not every moment of every job is easily understood as helping to bring holiness to the world, each of us can find ways to do so, at least some of the time. We can challenge ourselves by asking how our jobs, how our efforts, can not only justify our salaries, but can also make the world a bit holier.

There are, however, some rabbis who are willing to go a step further. Rabbeinu Bahai, speaking in the name of Maimonides teaches that even seemingly mundane acts can, in fact, be holy. Deeds which seem totally secular, such as commercial matters, can be done with holy intent. That’s a grounding principle of the spiritual philosophy of the Hassidic masters—the intent with which we do something has more to do with its holiness than the act itself. Anything that we do, no matter how far from holy pursuit it may seem, can be holy if we decide to make it so. By inclining our minds and our hearts towards holiness, the simplest, least obviously holy work can be filled with sanctity. After all, if there is really no place without God (and, we seem pretty sure that there isn’t!), then there is also no action where we can’t find God’s presence—God is everywhere, including in our jobs, even if it’s not always obvious how.

So, find ways to use your daily work to make our world holier, and find ways to make our daily work holy itself. Then, and only then, will we be fulfilling the full mitzvah of Shabbat!

A World In Need of Tikkun

As the week ends, it's hard for me not to notice, not to feel, how broken our world seems right now. Just days ago, innocent men were slaughtered in Israel while praying. Just yesterday, early in the morning, another person entered another school with a gun in his hand, and shot three people, one of whom remains in critical condition. Our world seems very much in need of Tikkun — of fixing.

Tikkun Olam — fixing the world. It a term which gets thrown around all the time in the Jewish world, usually as a description of Social Action. But, it's important to take a moment and remember, or to learn for the first time, what the term really means, and where it comes from. Although the term is much older than even this, it began taking on its current usage in the late 15th century when a group of mystics in northern Israel began creating what we now know as Kabbalah. Rabbi Isaac Luria, the founder of this new school of thought, developed the new image of creation.

Realizing that, if God is everywhere, if God is everything, then there would have been no place for God to create the world, Luria imagined that before creating anything, God had to perform an act of tzimtzum, or self-contraction. God had to compress God's self, just a little bit, in order to make some space around the edges for something else to be. Then, God sent out spheres of perfect, divine glass, each one filled with divine light, into the void — this was the perfect world which God intended to create.

But, like hot glass plunged into cold water, these vessels couldn't survive in the void, and so they shattered, sending out shards of glass and sparks of light into the emptiness. And this is the world we live in — a world of brokenness and dispersion. Our job, we are told, is to perform an act of Tikkun whenever possible — to repair one tiny piece of the world, and to restore it to the form it had before it broke apart.

This image contains within it a stark contrast between the world as it was meant to be, and the world as we find it now. This — this world around us — is not what God had intended. This isn't the world that God had in mind. And, this is not the only way that the world can be. For at least one precious moment, our world did exist in absolute perfection. All the pieces of that perfection are still with us; someone just has to put them back together again.

That's our job — to repair the world. To put it back together so that it once again resembles the world which God had intended, all along. But, if we're going to do that, then we have to remember that that better world, that more perfect world, really did exist. And that it really can, again. And that this really is our goal.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches that Judaism is an antidote to a progressive sense of numbness about the world. He was mostly talking about the good stuff — the human tendency to stop paying attention to something, or to at least stop paying full attention, once we've become used to it. It's the difference between the first and last bite of a delicious dessert — one is overwhelming in its wonderfulness, and its realness. One just kind of is. Through attention, through kavannah, through practice, we have to train ourselves to never let what is extraordinary become ordinary.

But, we can also apply this teaching to that which is wrong, that which is bad in our world. We have to also avoid becoming numb to that which we rightly despise.

It's so easy to get numb, to get cynical. To just write off this world as hopeless, and people as deserving what they get. To not be willing to see that, as far away as it might seem, there is a better world out there, just waiting to be re-created. Just as we have to cultivate our sense of thankfulness and wonder, we also have to cultivate our sense of outrage, and our awareness of wrongness. We have to refuse to accept that "this is just the way things are." We have to refuse to ever fall victim to "well, what can I do about it?"

We have to train ourselves to truly believe that God does not want a world in which people are slaughtered while at prayer. That God does not want a world where people are shot while studying. Or in which people go to bed hungry night after night, while so many of us never experience a belly which is anything less than full. Where children die, or anyone dies before their time. God does not want this.

And we shouldn't be willing to accept a world like that, either. It has to offend us, down to every fiber of our being, that that's the world in which we live. We have refuse to rest until the world that we see matches the world of our dreams. Until we live in the world of God's intention.

That's why Shabbat is so precious. Shabbat is not just a chance to put up our feet and avoid our work. Shabbat is a chance to see the world as it might be: an island of wholeness and perfection, even if necessarily artificially so, in a sea of brokenness. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg teaches, it's not so much that we’re not allowed to work on Shabbat, it's that we have to act as if there were no work to do, nothing to fix or repair, because everything is just as it should be.

That's why I get so frustrated when people talk shop in synagogue on Shabbat. Why I don't want people to talk about what their committees have to do, or something that isn't going as they like in our shul, or in their jobs. We're supposed to allow ourselves a day of not worrying, and of not planning, and of not fixing. We're supposed to allow ourselves that in part because we deserve that much. But, in part because we have to remember that everyone deserves that much, and more.

On Shabbat, we create a world which looks, as far as is possible, like the world of our dreams, and then we leave that dreamworld and head back out into the work-world, we’re both refreshed, but also refocused and recommitted. We have to remember that children in the Sudan deserve to run around and laugh in the back of their sanctuaries, challah crumbs and grape juice (or their equivalent) falling all over their clothes. That parents deserve to have their children — all of them — around their tables, and to never be fearful of the sound of an incoming late-night text. That Jews deserve to gather to pray without security outside their door. As do Muslims, and Christians, and Hindus, and Wiccans. That we all deserve to live a life without pain.

Let us take this Shabbat, and enjoy every precious moment of it. Let us refuse to become numb to the blessings in our lives and then, when Shabbat is over, let us refuse to become blind to the empty spaces in the world around us, so desperately in need of being filled with blessings of their own. Let us refuse to become numb to the shards of our broken world, calling out for repair.

[This is a version of the sermon given by Rabbi Rosenberg on Friday, November 21, 2014]

My Shortest Lesson Ever

The shortest lesson I've ever taught about Shabbat:

I have an idea for a post, and I was about to sit down and write it.

But, it's warm and sunny outside. So, I'm going to go for a bike ride with my son, instead.

Shabbat Shalom!

Religions have to be spiritual...duh!

Crazy observations, from David Briggs

Men would rather watch Monday Night Football than go shopping. Eating too many Hardees Monster Thickburgers is linked to obesity. Texting while driving is a bad idea.

There are times when research findings are so obvious they are almost beyond questioning. So it is puzzling that growing evidence showing the importance of congregations cultivating the spiritual lives of the faithful is so routinely ignored.

As I've said before, it is amazing how easily many of our synagogues (and, as always, I'm sure this includes churches, mosques and other houses of worship) forget this basic truth. We exist, more than anything else, for religious purposes. Spiritual purposes. I'm not suggesting that all we should do is sit around and explore our inner spiritual lives. Social Justice, learning, socializing and much more all have a place in the religious world, and they always will.

But, a synagogue which doesn't help people to explore their spiritual lives simply isn't doing its job.

Hey - have I self-servingly mentioned recently that, starting in November, we'll be holding a monthly session before Shabbat services, in which we'll explore personal prayer? Or, that it's called Making Prayer Real?

Come to our first session on Nov 12 at 9:00 a.m. or come to an information session on Nov 1 at 7:30 p.m.

What is religion good for?

Rabbi Larry Hoffman* is one of the leading thinkers in the synagogue-renewal world. He's probably done as much as anyone in recent history to get Jews (and members of other religions, as well) to think seriously about how their synagogues (and churches, etc.) function, and how they need to change. He recently wrote a piece on his blog which gives an excellent, brief overview of Liberal Religion, and does a wonderful job** of explaining why so many synagogues seem a bit lost, right now.

* he is probably one of the three rabbis whom I quote, and from who I unabashedly steal, most often. Take him, Rabbi Larry Kushner and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and you've got my rabbinic All-Star team!


** it's not a long piece, so if you're interested, it's definitely worth the click-through to read the whole thing. The comments on his page are pretty interesting, too!

To Hoffman, it all starts in the late 1700's with the then-revolutionary idea that Judaism is a religion. What, exactly, is a religion?

For Jews in Christian countries, religion was a system of belief that was operationalized in worship

That's actually a fantastic definition of "religion," which is one of those words that we all use, but would struggle to define. The problem is, since Judaism hadn't evolved as a “religion,” in that sense, it never really took. And so, our attempts to build synagogues which were essentially modeled on Protestant Churches were destined to fail (or, at least, not succeed fully). So, rather than close up shop (which institutions almost never do, voluntarily) we set about finding other reasons to continue to exist.

We tried relying on anti-Semitism as a reason to be. That was, ultimately, unfulfilling. We claimed to be a place which valued family like no other, which led in large part to most synagogues focusing on lifecycle events, and we expanded that idea, to say that our main purpose was “community,” which has its own failings:

The evidence, however, is against our being able to do this very well. Except for synagogue clergy, professionals, and the “regulars” (the self-selected “insiders” for whom synagogue really is community), most synagogues are not seen as communities that care, nurture, and provide whatever it is that beleaguered boomers want. At least life-cycle celebration is something we are good at. Community, apparently, is not. And the next generation, the boomers’ children may not even want it.

All in all, it's a pretty dim view of synagogues (and all the more painful because it rings so true). But, thankfully Hoffman isn't out just to depress us. Instead, he suggests there might be another purpose which synagogues can fulfill: spirituality.

You know, it's a funny thing. For a long time I've resisted the term “spiritual.” Partially, that's because it's so overused, and is often used in a very amorphous way—almost as if the point is to not talk seriously, and instead have a conversation in generalities and feel-good bromides. I've also resisted it because it came with certain connotations. A “spiritual person” was a particular type of person–ethereal, touchy-feely and so on. It might be an understatement to say that I have never been that type of person, and I've never really wanted to be (nothing wrong with those who are; it's just not me).

But, the reality is that, either through a process of aging and (God forbid) maturation, or maybe through the study I've done over the years, I've come to realize that spirituality really is one of the absolute primary components of a religious life. And (I'll fully admit—I'm proud to have had this realization before I read Rabbi Hoffman's piece) it might be exactly the one thing which synagogues can offer which few others can (notice—I didn't say no others can; I actually don't believe that this is the sole province of organized religion).

We don't need synagogues by default like we did half a century ago (we're fine if we never join or attend a synagogue). We don't need synagogues to provide our primary community, anymore (lots of places can do that, and as Hoffman suggests, studies suggest that the next generation might not care so much about “primary community” anymore). If we're going to survive (by "we" I mean synagogues, not Judaism more broadly) we have to be able to offer something vital, something powerful, and something not easily obtainable elsewhere. And that thing might be a serious, profound connection with some One greater than ourselves. Synagogues might have to start taking spirituality more seriously than we have in a long time (also worth nothing - this isn't a new insight; plenty of synagogues already are). We might have to start defining success by how many people's spiritual lives we can deepen.

This is all just a little bit of musing, to show you where my mind has been, of late. But it's also a bit of a preview of a new program we'll be starting after the High Holy Days. For those who are members of Congregation Beth Am, or just those who are in the Tampa Bay area, keep your eye out for a monthly Shabbat morning program called “Making Prayer Real,” based around the book by the same name. In brief, it's going to be an attempt to seriously examine our own prayer lives, and our own spiritual selves, in the hopes of making our prayers (both personal and communal) more intense, more powerful and more meaningful. It will be before services on the 2nd Saturday of each month, starting in the fall.

I doubt that we'll be seeing our current synagogue structures replaced by the Jewish equivalent to ashrams, anytime soon. At least, not in large numbers. But, I'm excited, as well as being a bit nervous, I'll admit, about seeing where this goes. And seeing what happens to us, and to me, if we really start putting our spirits at the center of our lives.

Good Enough

In an essay entitled Thinking Shabbat, Rabbi Larry Kushner makes an interesting observation. Shabbat is created when God rests on the 7th day - that rest is like the sense of relief that we all get when we complete a big project. We let out a sigh, collapse on our couch and feel good about what we accomplished, right?

But, what was the last stage of creation, the last thing that God did before resting? It was the creation of human beings. That makes sense, right? I mean, we are the pinnacle of creation. Not so fast, says Kushner:

[People] are not perfect. We are the unstable element, the restless ones. Too hungry for our own good, covetous, oversexed, neurotic, and conflicted. But we are part of creation, so therefore, on account of us, creation is incomplete, unstable, and imperfect.

In theory, God should be anything but relaxed. After all, God just created the very thing guaranteed to muck up this wonderful world that was just created, right? God should be frantically planning the next step - how to fix what was just broken. But, no. God, instead, rests. Because, creation may not be perfect. But, creation is done.

So, relax - go easy on yourself. The week you just finished wasn't perfect? You didn't accomplish everything you wanted to? Something you did wasn't quite up to snuff? Take a hint from God. Look at what you did, declare it to be "very good," and have a rest. Enjoy Shabbat. You've earned it.

Just like God did.

Shabbat Shalom

Shabbat and God

An ancient Midrash (Mechilta, Yitro, Ba-hodesh, 8) teaches that a person who violates Shabbat is a person who denies God's existence. That made good sense in the ancient world, and even now, for those with an Orthodox worldview: God made the world and commanded us to observe Shabbat. Not observing Shabbat, then, is a slap in the face to God. Imagine that I built you a house, and said that I'd let you live in it for free, so long as you kept one bedroom set aside for me to use when I come to visit. Then, when I visit, I see that you've converted it into a home office - how incredibly rude! The only reason that we would every treat God this way, the thinking goes, is if we don't believe that God really created the world. It's denying God's dominion over, and ownership of, the world. That's why Shabbat violation is such a major transgression in traditional Judaism.

Of course, as liberal Jews, our understanding of God and the world is very different. Most of us don't believe that God literally created the world, as it says in the Torah. And so, it doesn't necessarily follow, with the same directness, that violating Shabbat is denying God.

So, given that, the question arises: what does it mean, as a modern, Reform Jew, to say that "violating Shabbat is denying God's existance"? What does it mean to violate (or observe) Shabbat and, more importantly, how does that tie in so directly with God's reality? I don't know that the question has an answer, but I suspect that trying to answer it will tell us a lot about what it means to be a Reform believer, and a Reform Shabbat observer.

Synaplex

STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal) is an organization dedicated to working with synagogues to find new ways to fulfill our visions as congregations. One of their (most successful) initiatives is called Synaplex - the name is cross between "Synagogue" and "Multiplex."

The idea is simple - on Shabbat, offer a wide range of activities. Prayer is certainly part the day, but, alternative activities can be, too. Everything from the expected (Torah study) to the experimental (Jewish meditation) to some radically "out of the box" idea is possible. Some synagogues do this weekly, some dedicate an occasional (often monthly) Shabbat to be their "Synaplex Shabbat." The thinking goes that one-size doesn't fit all, especially in religion. By offering a wide range of activities, it allows a community to come together on Shabbat, but still gives room for people to observe Shabbat in a way which best suits them.

Some synagogues have a fully communal component (e.g. everyone prays - perhaps in a shortened service) before other activities begin. Some allow for multiple activities to be going on throughout the day. But, all of the Synaplex congregations are dedicated to finding new expressions for Shabbat, and new ways to draw members in the synagogue.

There's a lot more details at their website, and I encourage you to check it out. But, based on what you read there, or what I've already told you, I'd love to hear your thoughts: do you like this idea? Do you think it could work here at CBA? Do you have any reservations about it?

Shopping on Shabbat

On one of my Rabbinic e-lists, I recently read a post from a colleague with an interesting problem. His Social Committee wants to have a New York City Shopping Day (bus trip into the city, followed by a day primarily focused on shopping), and because of logistics, they insist that it be on Shabbat.

The Rabbi was writing to ask us how we would respond to that. I wrote a response, but I'm interested to hear what all of you think, too. I'll post my response here in a little bit, but I wanted to wait to give others a chance, first.

So - comment away. If you were that Rabbi, what would you do?

And the Task Force is off...

I really need to get in the swing of things with blogging - I keep waiting to have enough time to write a good entry, but I never seem to have the time I need! I think that the trick is to just do it - no more excuses!

Anyway, our Task Force had our first Shabbat together last week, and it was (to me, and to others I heard from) a great start. Services were lovely, and the learning/discussion afterwards was top-notch.

As a Rabbi, I've studied Shabbat more than a little, and I'm pretty familiar with the "core" texts about Shabbat, especially the ones which come from the Torah. But, this time, we tried to look at those texts in-and-of-themselves - without seeing them through the lens of 2000 years of Rabbinic interpretation. It was a mini-revelation, to be honest.

The Shabbat that our ancestors lived was very different from ours - the Torah focusses almost exclusively on the "thou shall nots" of Shabbat, and talks very little, if at all, about what to do. Nothing about prayer, nothing about spirituality, nothing about reflection, or time for ourselves. Just restrictions on our actions.

I wonder what it was like in practice. Did our ancestors see Shabbat as a restrictive, even unpleasant day? One which they had to observe, but didn't like to? Or, was it more peaceful and pastoral? Did they like the chance to sit in or near their homes, doing nothing of substance, or did they find it boring?

Maybe more importantly, how would we feel about that? Would we like an occasional day (as often as once a week?) when we are to do nothing but just be? Hang out, relax, chat, eat a bit. No TV, no phones, no work, no travel. I have to admit - with two young kids, that kind of day sounds like heaven to me. Although, I'm not 100% sure I could handle it weekly, just like that. How does it sound to you?

Success without Numbers

We often equate the "success" of an event with the number of people who show up - I'm certainly guilty of this myself. But, a few recent Shabbat experiences have reminded me that, even without a large turnout, Shabbat services (as well as plenty of other events) can be a wonderful, successful experience. Let me tell you about one of them.

Recently, we had a 9:00 Torah Study Shabbat. At the study, we only had 4 people show up, which was clearly fewer than I'd want! But, we had a good laugh about the ratio of food to people, loaded our plates up with bagels and lox, chatted warmly for a bit, and then got down to studying that week's portion.

And, I have to tell you, the study was lovely - reading about Moses' last days, we had a wide-ranging discussion about leadership, old-age, passing the torch and so much more. It was intellectually stimulating, as well as emotionally touching (I'm speaking for myself, but I think that others there would agree). I remember thinking "this is what Torah study should be - making the text come alive as something relevant and moving for us."

We had a few more people show up for the service at 10:30, and the weather was so nice that we grabbed some folding chairs and headed over to the lawn for services. We made a circle under the shade of the big tree by the Hillel library, and just prayed - no formality, very little "choreography." Just a group of people working their way through the siddur with sincerity, a vague ability to stay in tune and a great deal of happiness.

Don't get me wrong - I love big crowds, and when I think we're going to get one, I care very much about making sure that the arrangements are all right, and everything goes smoothly. But, there is something to be said for a group of people, coming together on a Saturday morning, to do their best to create a sense of kedusha (holiness) among them. I'm still a little sad that more people weren't there to share the experience, but I know that there will be many such Shabbatot in our future. In the mean time, I'm thankful for the one we had.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie on Shabbat

In December, at the URJ Biennial, Rabbi Eric Yoffie spoke passionately about Shabbat, and about the need to reinvigorate Shabbat services in our Reform congregations. Here is what he said. It's a bit long, but well worth reading.

I'd love to hear any comments anyone may have about what Rabbi Yoffie says.

Rabbi Rosenberg