A Prayer for continued service (on my semi-retirement)

Eternal God, 

Who has been my companion, along with family and friends

Throughout my 38 1/2 years as a rabbi, 

Be with me 

As I begin a time of semi-retirement 

While still serving my congregation as rabbi over the next six months. 

Help me use my time wisely, 

To turn voluminous collections of resources 

Into their essence, 

A manageable amount of materials 

That will accompany me in the coming years. 

Enable me to look back with gratitude, 

Not only for my time as a rabbi, 

But for the opportunity to participate 

as a dedicated Jewish community member 

As a choir member, 

A leader, 

A teacher, 

A student, 

A colleague 

A partner in sustaining Jewish life

And a friend 

Before and after my ordination. 

Help me to continue to be that person 

As I learned from my parents, my family

And my best teachers along the way. 

May I see this new chapter

As a fresh opportunity 

To define myself 

By the values that I have been taught

And tried emulate and practice 

For all these years:

Humility, respect, decency, justice, commitment, 

Love and peace. 

God of my days and years, 

Guide me along this uncharted path

So that I may continue to serve and give 

To the human family

And to this world

That needs us all to step forward

To shape a hopeful, bright and secure future.  

Leadership - Our Humble Responsibility - Facebook Post on December 28, 2019

I have never seen an earthly leader 

As God-sent. 

As a Messiah. 

As a chosen one. 

Everyone one of US chooses

To do right. 

To do good. 

To stand up. 

To join together. 

To show respect.

To be honest and truthful.

To be humble by the tasks of ending conflict and making peace. 

Why should we not expect the same of our leaders? 

So many times, people have tried to cast questionable statements and actions of 

Leaders they see as “chosen ones” 

In a light that excuses them their foibles

Because they want to see them as

Upright, good, honest, and respectful even of those who disagree with them. 

 Seven nights we have been lighting the Chanukah menorah/Chanukiah

Watching its increasing light 

And gazing as its multicolored candles burn down 

Leaving us to consider what it means to us to remember 

An ancient fight for freedom 

Not just for our ancestors

But also for us. 

For me, it means

Acceptance and equality 

Not ridicule

Not narrowness

Not an insistence that there is only one way to believe or to think

Whether that relates to a faith

Or to an approach to one particular person. 

God is God

We are reflections of God

When we let the holiness, goodness and light of God in. 

We will know where God is

When we see that light 

In each other’s eyes.

Jewish Diversity, Jewish Responsibility - Facebook Post, December 29, 2019 - after Monsey Chanukah attack

Jews in the United States attend a wide range of congregations from different movements, and some Jews are not affiliated with a particular branch of Judaism.   I am sure that many American Jews have at least some relatives who are members of Orthodox communities like the ones that have experienced attacks in recent weeks, including last night in Rockland County, the area where one of my first cousins raised her family in the Ultra-Orthodox community (in Spring Valley).  Some may think these violent attacks only touch one part of the Jewish community when they happen.  They don’t.  Jews are like an extended family. These attacks are hateful and anti-Semitic, and well beyond just being based on fear of difference.   I haven’t said anything about this yet, but after last night’s attack, it’s time.  THIS HAS TO STOP!

Rituals and Memory - Column for Las Cruces Bulletin on January 3, 2020

        I have recently been thinking a lot about rituals and memory. 

    It might be due to the fact that my wife Rhonda and I just lit candles for the second night of Chanukah and exchanged gifts with each other.   On the first night of Chanukah, a FaceTime call with our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren extended our reach beyond the confines of southern New Mexico to bring our family together. 

    I might be thinking about rituals because I recently attended the biennial convention of the Union for Reform Judaism for the 17th time.   At this conference, held in Chicago, I connected with people from all parts of my life, sang songs that I have known for many years, attended sessions that deepened my wisdom to enhance my service as a rabbi, and engaged in worship with 5000 people on the Friday evening during the convention.   Those are the main reasons I attend.  

    On the first morning of the convention, we were given choices for special visits to sites in Chicago.  As a dedicated baseball fan (the Kansas City Royals are my team), I chose the tour of Wrigley Field.  While not religious in nature, there are rituals associated with sports fans who closely follow their favorite teams.   One of those rituals is remembering landmark games and amazing accomplishments from the past.  After our tour, I told our guide about the only time I was at this storied stadium. It was a game in 1976, when I witnessed the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt homer in the top of the 10th inning (his fourth homer of the game) to break at 15-15 tie on a very windy day. The Phillies beat the Cubs 18-16.   The guide asked me, “ I have heard about that game! Was it the most historic game you ever attended?”  I had to say that it was.  

     All types of rituals and community gatherings generate memories that can last a lifetime.    Lighting Chanukah candles every year calls to mind both the present and the past.    Rhonda and I can recall lighting candles over the years in our shared home and before we met. Two of our Chanukah menorahs that we light now come from our childhood homes.  They evoke the times when the lessons we learned during our upbringing formed the foundations of who we are now.  

      At the convention in Chicago, several large panels displayed the names of every congregation (over 900) that is a member of the Union for Reform Judaism. Each congregation was represented with a leaf on a tree.   I had my photo taken with leaf that read “Temple Beth-El, Las Cruces, NM.”

      At one point, I happened to walk by as members of my home congregation in the midwest were assembling themselves for a photograph of all of them pointing to their Temple’s leaf.   I volunteered to take the photo, and had the chance to meet the youngest member of their delegation, a college student named Ben.   I know his mother, and his grandparents and my parents were active participants in the congregation together for many years.  My conversation with Ben was a ritual unto itself: a sharing of connection and memory.  

    That is why we celebrate holidays and life events, why we commemorate the lives of loved ones who have died, and why we join together as community members for important occasions.   

       May all of our our rituals, and remembrances, fill us with light, hope and joy.  

     

How do we extend a welcome? Column for the Las Cruces Bulletin on December 13, 2019

  How do we extend a welcome?

  How do we like to receive a welcome?

  On Sunday, November 24, 2019, the Temple Beth-El Social Action/Adult Education committee sponsored a special program entitled, “Welcome!  An Interfaith Conversation.”   This was the fifth year of this interreligious discussion series that brings together local community members from different faith groups to offer their insights and thoughts on a theme that is common to various traditions.

   To begin the program, Daisy Maldonado (from the Southern New Mexico Islamic Center), The Rev. Carol Tuck (retired United Methodist minister), and I shared teachings from each of our faith traditions and sacred texts.  Beginning with Abraham and Sarah welcoming three guests to their tent (who were messengers from God with a special promise about a child to be born to Sarah), we all focused on the centrality and necessity of offering warm and complete hospitality to guests who come our way.  This notion was illustrated well by verse 2 from Chapter 13 of Hebrews in the New Testament: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

   The story of Abraham and Sarah opening their tent to the three guests in Genesis Chapter 18 teaches a core set of values for showing hospitality. Be humble. Be enthusiastic. Prepare with sincerity, with speed, with an eye for presentation, and with a desire to make guests, whether expected or unexpected, feel totally comfortable and at home.

   Our small group conversations during the program focused on telling stories of when we were welcomed well, and times when the welcome could have been better.  Participants in each group developed a “hospitality primer,” with suggestions that can remind us how we can best greets guests with a generous spirit.  

    Here are some of the guidelines for hospitality that emerged from our discussions:

• A smile is the very first and easiest welcome.

• Look at guests (make eye contact) and let them know that you are glad to see them.

• Engage them and respectfully ask them questions.

• Listen to guests and become familiar with their stories and their needs

• Teach others how to be hospitable by example.

• Introduce the new person to other people.

• Feed people and have extra food available

• Show empathy and compassion (see yourself in the shoes of the guest).

• Be sensitive to food and dietary needs. Don’t assume.  Ask what is needed/wanted.

• Invite the guest to participate and lead.

• Be respectful, and treat the guest as special and of high status.

• We learn from the generations

• Pay it forward:  generosity makes you feel good, when you have more than you need, share it with people who are in need.

• A little gesture of kindness can change a life.

• Be open, but be careful with people who show signs of aggression. Offer them safe words.  Use your instincts.

• Don’t be afraid to reach out. The risk is worth taking...or what kind of world would we have?

• In hospitality, you feel warm, happy and safe.  You feel valued and spread goodness.

• When you welcome others, you get a gift.

  At this time of year, filled with special celebrations, and throughout the year, may we be blessed as hosts, and as guests, who exude warmth, care, and gratitude that can bring us ever closer together.

What I Learned and Experienced at the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial December 11-15, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois (From the Temple Beth-El Las Cruces Adelante Newsletter for January 2020

Temple Beth-El is part of a much larger community which is hard to imagine within the confines of our own con- gregational building. I have attended all of the biennial con- ventions beginning with 1987. The sheer number of attendees always has impressed me. Nothing in the Jewish communal world has matched, for me, the sound of 5000 people singing the Shema at the Friday evening service or revisiting popular Jewish songs and worship tunes at the song session later the same night.

The large number of attendees does prevent a partici- pant from seeing people he or she knows. One delegate from Bellingham, Washington, who lived in Las Cruces some 30 years ago (we met quite randomly at the 2011 biennial), saw me on Thursday and said to me, “Why did it take us a full day to see each other?” One of the first people I saw this year was a member of my youth group and a fellow student at my high school. I had a chance to reconnect with two col- lege contemporaries who sang in the Hillel Foundation choir I helped to direct. On the last night, I passed by the delega- tion from my home Temple where I grew up, trying to take a photo by the “leaf” with their congregation’s name. I offered to be the photographer, and then I met the youngest member of the delegation, a college student whose mom and grandparents I knew. That was yet another demonstration of “from generation to generation to generation.” I saw congregants from the Temple I served in Dayton, Ohio, who knew both Rhonda and me as young Jewish professionals. The Karol delegation was completed by our niece Samantha Tananbaum, who works in social media Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Many of my rabbinic and Jewish music colleagues were there as well.

With every conversation I had, TBE Las Cruces found its way onto the American Jewish map for my fellow delegates.

The sessions I attended conveyed many pearls of wisdom. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, author of Pirkei Avot: A Social Justice Commentary, lamented how empathy has lost its place as an important value, and encouraged us to uphold respect and to stand for what we believe in an authentic way. Rabbi Ariel Burger, author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, noted that Elie Wiesel taught that education, coupled with memory, can enable people to stop themselves from committing atrocities of the likes that Wiesel saw during his lifetime. On Shabbat afternoon, I attended a session with Marc Freedman, author of How to Live Forever, and Laura Geller, co-author (with her late husband Richard Siegel) of Getting Good at Getting Older. Marc Freedman noted that loneliness is the single greatest threat to our well-being, at any age. Laura Geller encouraged us to LIVE a legacy, rather than just think about leaving a legacy. In an address to the convention gathering on Saturday night, Professor Deborah Lipstadt gave an excellent talk on how we should not let anti-Semitism define us, urging us to be the subjects of our Jewish identity, in control of our expression, rather than seeing ourselves as objects of scorn and hatred.

In other words, our Judaism should be about JOY and not OY.

I had the opportunity to hear many enjoyable performances of Jewish music, including Julie Silver (who visited us this past May), Dan Freelander and Jeff Klepper (creators of the “Shalom Rav” melody we sing), and many others. I heard many of the melodies we sing at Temple Beth-El dur-ing worship and other  programs throughout the biennial.

Delegates had a chance to visit famous Chicago sites on organized tours (my choice was Wrigley Field), which offered an opportunity for us to explore common interests beyond our commitment to sustaining our congregations back home.

 The URJ biennial has the potential to strengthen the foundation of our wisdom about Jewish life and to foster connections with the greater Jewish world. One of my music colleagues who attended for the first time said that there was no convention she had attended quite like this one. I urge Temple Beth-El members to consider participating in this gathering so that you too, can bring back home the special spirit of the URJ community.

Invocation - Temple Beth-El Las Cruces Board meeting - December 19, 2019

Eternal God, 

We have walked a path with You for three thousand years

Or more. 

We have celebrated Your presence in our lives. 

We have endured the contempt of others who did not understand

Our covenant with You

But at great cost.   

We have heard expressions of praise for our strength and our dedication to our heritage. 

Yet, we still experience attacks in the form of words and physical violence. 

We hear offhand comments that draw on age-old stereotypes. 

We see gravestones marked with insulting graffiti and overturned. 

Congregations have been violated by people bearing arms

By individuals destroying prayerbooks and Torah scrolls...

Even now and in the last several years. 

But these events do not define us. 

We are about...

Learning

Values

Leadership 

Shabbat 

Chanukah 

Passover 

Sukkot 

Weddings 

Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations 

Moments of Remembrance

Community 

Torah

Social Justice 

Love of God

And love of our fellow human beings. 

May the gifts of our heritage inspire us to contribute our wisdom and spirit

To a world that needs us 

And may you offer protection when necessary

And enable us to join with others to change hearts and minds 

So that our human family can draw ever closer together 

In respect, in cooperation, in hope, and in peace.