Finding kehilla in Las Vegas

The last month took me from hurricane-damaged New Jersey and New York to Las Vegas, where a first-ever gathering of United Synagogue's General Assembly of Kehillot was held. About 130 of United Synagogue's affiliated congregations were represented, serving as a shareholders' group. United Synagogue's board of directors met at the same time, privileged to be addressed by Michael Leven, President and COO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, who shared very touching stories about the formation of his Jewish identity and that of his children.

Next door, more than 400 members of the Women's League for Conservative Judaism held its 2012 convention, learning from Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Chancellor Arnold Eisen, and Dr. Ron Wolfson, who unveiled Women's League's new strategic plan.

Remarkable women were honored by Women's League, like Blanche Meisel, who began her life in New Jersey as a passionate worker in the movement for Soviet Jewry and, after retirement, continued to make an impact on the Las Vegas community and in Israel, helping to establish the TALI educational program at the HaDror School.

And, in the custom I have written about before, we all gathered for a Shabbaton prior to our meetings on Sunday, spending time in the two Conservative synagogues in the area.  Shabbat, Las Vegas-style, meant music-filled services at Temple Beth Sholom, and a welcoming motzei Shabbat dinner at Midbar Kodesh that featured one of their members, Dr. David Schwartz, speaking about gambling in the Jewish tradition - a perfect topic as we prepared to spin our dreidels later in the week.

Although we didn't stay on the Las Vegas strip, it is impossible to escape casinos - they're in the airport, for Pete's sake. Our hotel  had a casino area strategically placed in the center of the complex of buildings; you had to walk through it to get to the conference center and hotel rooms.

Besides conducting business in the meeting rooms, the Women's League volunteers, Conservative movement organizational representatives, Jewish communal professionals, vendors and visitors renewed friendships, held planning conversations and made introductions in the hallways, in the restaurants, between the rows of gamblers in the casino, and in the outdoor walkways.

Even with the background noise of slot machines, we found kehilla - community.

Hurricanes and Hunger

I have not written a post since Hurricane Sandy hit because I have been busy. I was one of the east coast residents who lost power and had a home damaged.

Don't feel sorry for me. I have two homes, and was able to live in one with only the discomfort of power out for four days while the vacation home was flooded. We're finding out now the extent of the structural damage to the foundation of our home in addition to the appliances we lost. But all will be repaired and replaced. We feel lucky.

I use the word, lucky, intentionally, because it's usually luck we think of first when we try to explain who and why disasters, accidents, or illnesses strike. The idea of luck is complicated, though:

• Hurricane Katrina didn't affect me. Was I lucky then and unlucky during Hurricane Sandy? 
• Was I luckier that my two bouts of breast cancer in my 40's were treatable, compared to my friend's terminal pancreatic cancer when he reached his late 60's?
• My parents raised me in a three-bedroom, one bath, house, feeding six people on a total of about $20 a week in the 1960's. Today, I have two houses and plenty of food. Am I luckier than my parents? 

Our rabbis and sages knew there is no way to measure or compare luck based on what happens to us.

From the Babylonian Talmud, Moed Katan, 28A:

תלמוד בבלי מסכת מועד קטן דף כח עמוד א

אמר רבא: חיי, בני ומזוני, לא בזכותא תליא מילתא, אלא במזלא תליא מילתא. דהא רבה ורב חסדא תרוייהו רבנן צדיקי הוו, מר מצלי ואתי מיטרא, ומר מצלי ואתי מיטרא. רב חסדא חיה תשעין ותרתין שנין - רבה חיה ארבעין, בי רב חסדא - שיתין הלולי, בי רבה - שיתין תיכלי. בי רב חסדא - סמידא לכלבי ולא מתבעי, בי רבה - נהמא דשערי לאינשי, ולא משתכח

Rava said: Life, children, and food do not depend on merit; rather, they depend on luck. For Rabbah and Rav Hisda were two righteous rabbis - one would pray and rain would come, and the other would pray and rain would come. [Yet] Rav Hisda lived 92 years and Rabbah lived [only] 40 years. In the house of Rav Hisda there were 60 marriages; in the house of Rabbah, 60 deaths. In the house of Rav Hisda, there was pure wheat bread for dogs, and they did not want. In the house of Rabbah, there was even a lack of [poor quality] barley bread for people. [Translation by Uri L’Tzedek]

(Thanks to On1Foot for the Hebrew and translation above.)

While we can't predict or control luck, we can control how we approach the suffering we see around us. Our communal response to the people affected by Hurricane Sandy has been inspiring, from New York's combined efforts to national support, and, also, United Synagogue's response in cooperation with the Rabbinical Assembly.

There is another initiative beginning today that is less in the headlines, but is equally intended to respond to suffering: the Jewish Community Food Stamp Challenge.

One in six households in America struggle with hunger issues. Hunger isn't like a hurricane; it doesn't have people shouting out warnings and predictions of it. It doesn't fill our news reports or even our Facebook pages. It is up to us to call on each other to be aware of it, and our clergy and Jewish organizations are doing that this month. 

The Food Stamp Challenge has support from across the Jewish communal spectrum, and is sponsored by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, United Synagogue, the Rabbinical Assembly, Cantors Assembly, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the American Conference of Cantors.  Read about the rabbis, cantors and other leaders who are taking the Food Stamp Challenge. And for an inspirational framing of the challenge, read the Kol Nidre sermon from Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin, of Israel Center of Conservative Judaism in Flushing, NY.

The "challenge" is to live for a week on the food that can be purchased with the same amount of money as a person on food stamps: up to $31.50 per person, or about $1.50 per meal. You can participate in several ways by taking the Challenge yourself and setting up a donations page, or donating the amount of money that you would have spent on food for the week to an organization dealing with hunger issues, or donating to someone who is taking the Challenge. Go to the Conservative Movement's Food Stamp Challenge Facebook page to also find out about how synagogues are supporting these leaders.

Because of the interruption of many of our lives from Hurricane Sandy, the organizers of the Food Stamp Challenge are moving the window of time to take the Challenge by Thanksgiving. There is still time to do it. There is always time to donate.

A hurricane reminds us about luck. The rabbis reminded us that luck affects food as well. We can't stop a hurricane, but we can work together to diminish hunger.

All Are Welcome in a Hurricane

Like most of the residents of the east coast, except for the hardiest warning-ignorers, I am watching the Weather Channel and preparing for life without electricity. It's fascinating what becomes important - charging up my electronic devices, stocking up on water and non-perishable food, and getting my laundry done. (Special thanks to one of my Facebook friends who suggested freezing batches of coffee.)

The breathless meteorologists predict that Hurricane Sandy will be an unprecedented event, affecting millions of people. This is where kehilla - community - becomes real.

Last year, after Hurricane Irene, Temple Sholom in Greenwich, CT, put the concept of kehilla and the stability of their synagogue building together to help the entire community. In his Torah teaching from September 2, 2011, Rabbi Mitch Hurvitz describes what they did:

As a professional staff, as soon as we saw that our community would be in the path of the hurricane, we took action and mobilized.  We came up with a careful process; did a Costco run; brought large quantities of kosher food and drink to the shul; set up the lounge with tables, chairs, and snacks; made sure our WiFi was in working order; took an inventory of our board games and kids activities; and prepared our spiritual home to be an effective physical refuge for all those in need. Like everyone else, we had no idea whether or not we would have power; we didn’t know if we would even be able to open our doors. But we did know this much: in taking part in this process, we weren’t accepting powerlessness. We knew we would be ready to serve our community in the best way we could, whenever the time came.

And the time, fortunately, arrived. After the storm, when we received the “all-clear” from the Town of Greenwich, we put the word out:  "Our doors are open – all are welcome.” These three simple words made the key difference between the perception of insularity, and the spirit of community.

What are kehillot doing about this storm? I see that Rabbi Aaron Gaber of Congregation Beth Judah in Ventnor is posting evacuation sites on Facebook. Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, VA, not only has helpful emergency information on its website, but they also have an online form to notify them if someone needs help with evacuation. In Baltimore, the local news reported what churches and synagogues are doing to help people with early voting.

Preparations for emergencies and disasters need to be done well before the Weather Channel tracks a storm bearing down on us. I hope that all of our kehillot have used the resources from United Synagogue and other organizations long before this weekend to ensure safety and security. Emergencies like the hurricane coming towards us are a chance to live out the full concept of kehilla as sacred community when we actively find ways to reach out and be responsible for one another.

Share with me what your kehilla is doing. I'll post it here and on the United Synagogue Facebook and Twitter feeds. Your ideas might help someone else take action.

Stay safe, chevre.

Turning 100

If you were 100 years old, and could throw yourself a party, what would you do?

I imagine that if I were lucky enough to reach 100, one of the most important things to me would be to gather my family and friends around me. I'd want as many of the people who started life with me as possible - my siblings and husband, cousins, nieces and nephews, childhood friends, in-laws and those I met along the way. By the time I'm 100, my sons will be on that list, too, since we would have spent more than 60 years together. I'd want to reminisce, and bring back the feelings from our shared history and the memories of the people who are no longer with us.

I would definitely want children at my party - my grandchildren and their children. I could puzzle about how they're acting and talking: Is that a boy or a girl? Why don't they use phones anymore? How can she write in the air in front of her - where's her iPad? I hope I smile at how different their world is from the one I knew. I want to search for the familiarity in their faces and voices, recognize glimmers of myself or my relatives in them, and know that even though I might not understand their lives, our familial DNA is in them and will be there in future generations.

The room would be covered with photos from my 100 years, and the young people will be surprised about how I looked and what I accomplished. Grandma drove that? Look at her hair - it was brown! She had a job? They'll understand that the outward appearance of someone they know at 100 years old is not her whole story. I hope they'll feel closer to me, and, rather than seeing me as the old lady in the chair over there, take away a different image of me after they leave.

I'd want the party to be more than cake and ice cream and a couple of words about how I had the good fortune to survive 100 years. I'd want great food and lots of laughter to make every person glad that they took the time to be with me that day. I'd give them things to take home to remind them of their connection not just to me but to each other. Living 100 years is not the accomplishment. Creating my family will be my accomplishment, and I want my 100th birthday to be about us and our future.

Why am I thinking about this?

100th birthday parties are front and center for me these days as I work with the team that is planning the Centennial Celebration of United Synagogue in Baltimore from October 11-15, 2013.

United Synagogue was founded by Rabbi Solomon Schechter, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, in 1913. The idea behind United Synagogue as a congregational organization came from Schechter as he placed his seminary graduates into primarily orthodox synagogues around the country. Their mission, chronicled by Michael R. Cohen in The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement, was to change the nature of religious services and education, with a vision of a new American Judaism.

Cohen gives us details about what the first Conservative rabbis encountered in congregations in the beginning of the 20th Century. In some ways, they're as unrecognizable as a photo of 100-year old grandma when she was 20. Cohen gives us a snapshot, for example, of Rabbi Herman Rubenovitz's experience in 1910 at Mishkan Tefila in Boston:

Though the cantor did have "a fairly good voice," he also had "very little musical education." During High Holiday service, "the choirboys invariably became restless," and often did not "observe their cues and had punishment administered by the cantor in view of the entire congregation. It became clear to me that this sort of thing had no place in the Conservative Synagogue."

Indeed!

Yet other accounts from that time are like looking at the picture of grandma in her youth and seeing the distinctive family features that recur generation after generation. All of us who work with congregations can see this dynamic alive and well today:

While Schechter's students often bounced from job to job and from city to city, they listed a variety of reasons as to why their positions did not work out...one of the most common reasons that these rabbis cited was their inability to navigate two very different factions within their congregations. Generally these factions were based on generational differences, with a younger generation clamoring for change and older generation urging the congregation to keep its traditions intact.

Cohen traces the birth of United Synagogue as Schechter's strategy to help new Conservative rabbis navigate the complexities and resistance to change from congregational leaders. What United Synagogue looked like then and how it has changed during its lifetime is as rich a story as any person who builds a network of family and friends over a century.

United Synagogue's story can't be told without telling the story of the Conservative movement, with its origins at the Jewish Theological Seminary, its sister organizations like Women's League of Conservative Judaism and Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs, nearly 20 Conservative affiliate cousins, and the programs, like USY and Sulam, that it created.

The best 100th birthday party we can imagine for United Synagogue is one that celebrates Conservative Judaism. We want to gather all of our family and friends from all parts of the Conservative movement and the Jewish community. We'll honor the impact of Conservative Judaism, and the people who continue to make an impact today. We'll launch new ideas and initiatives from United Synagogue as we reach the milestone of completing the two-year implementation of our strategic plan. There will be great food, lots of laughter, and time for connecting spiritually and communally.

We will get to know the people who are the next generation of Conservative Jews. If their definition of kehilla - sacred community - is new to us, I hope we can recognize that it comes from the same familial DNA that we call Conservative Judaism. When they leave, we'll want them to remember their roots, whether their Judaism is practiced in a synagogue building, at camp, on campus, online or anywhere else they find themselves.

This party will not be just about congratulating ourselves for surviving 100 years. It will be about how we create the Conservative kehillot for the next century. 100 years ago, United Synagogue started a congregational network that allowed Conservative Judaism to evolve as a movement. Next October, we'll form the foundation for our next hundred years. You won't want to miss it.

Waiting for the Tenth

On Monday morning I walked into services for Sukkot and was greeted warmly by the rabbi. "Kathy, we're so glad you're here," he said. "You're the tenth person...now we can start!"

At the end of services, he said to the 30 or so people assembled, "I know we all have our own groove and timetable for when we get here, but tomorrow we can't start until we have a minyan. So I'll ask you to please try to get here by 9:00. We depend on each other."

I didn't forget what he said, and had every intention of leaving early enough to get to the synagogue promptly. But the next morning I chatted with my house guests, drank that second cup of coffee in the sukkah before the impending rain would ruin my chances for the day, and I don't recall what else. I walked into the synagogue building at exactly 9:25 with another person. I could see Rabbi chatting with the seven other people in the sanctuary, and motion to the Cantor to start when he saw that numbers nine and ten had just walked in.

At that point, I remembered a time fourteen years earlier when another group was eagerly waiting for the tenth person.

I walked into morning services for Simchat Torah at a small synagogue in upstate New York. I was on vacation in the area, and wanted to say kaddish for my brother, who had passed away the year before. The rabbi and eight men, mostly elderly retirees, looked shocked and then joyous, as my entry interrupted their discussion about whether or not to wait or count a Torah as the tenth presence. When they learned that my last name is Elias, they called me, "Elijah," for the rest of the morning. I never felt more valued and necessary to a community than I did on that day.

I ran into the upstate New York rabbi two years ago at a conference. We remembered each other almost instantly, and he called me Elijah before he remembered my name is Kathy. He told me about how important my presence was on that day. What he didn't know was that it was a milestone day for me as well.

My Jewish journey began as an adult, when I converted to Judaism more than 30 years ago. Fourteen years ago, when I entered that sanctuary in upstate New York, I had learned to read Hebrew, and although I went to services regularly, every week felt like a test of my Hebrew skills and Jewish identity. I refrained from accepting an aliyah or any honor that would put me in front of the congregation. I approached every service as if I were the worst student in a class, hiding in the back and hoping not to be called upon.

My motivation to walk into the upstate New York shul that morning was to say kaddish for my brother. I'm not sure I knew what else would be possible. But those eight elderly men and their rabbi, and their expectation that I would take my place in sharing the joy of the Torah, swept away my reticence. I became the tenth person in their community and, for the first time, fully participated in a religious service.

The first time I said the Torah blessings was on that morning. The first time I held and danced with a Torah was that morning. The first time I felt the full inclusion into Jewish ritual life was that morning.

Being the tenth or the 110th person doesn't matter. Showing up matters. It is our presence in kehilla - sacred community - that creates the potential for something in someone's life to change, even if we never know about it.

We depend on each other.

Jewish Identity in the Back of the Room

For the first time in nearly 20 years, I sat with the rest of the congregation for Rosh Hashanah services instead of my usual perch up front where the action is, with the Cantor and choir. With a switch this year to the engaging new machzor from the Conservative movement, Machzor Lev Shalem, our hazzan, Cantor Eugene Rosner, also introduced new music. I had a heavy travel schedule, missed the rehearsals, and felt unprepared to fully participate. So I sat this year out, and spent my time in the back of the sanctuary, (waaaayyyyy back), where my husband and sons always plant themselves.

How we experience prayer is as much what is happening in the service as where it happens. There is an old joke about a new person taking a seat in the nearly empty synagogue and, expecting a warm welcome, is surprised when a man comes up to him and says, "You're in my seat." It makes us laugh at how unwelcoming we can be precisely because our physical places are so important to our prayer experience. Maimonides (Law of Prayer 5:6) said that one should have a fixed place for prayer, and when we look around a sanctuary and can predict where people will be because that's where they have always been, we see that wisdom in action.

My shul, Temple Beth Hillel/Beth El, has always had an egalitarian High Holiday policy: the seats up front are taken by the people who get there first. (That's one reason why my family, often the last to straggle in, happily sat on the air conditioning units on the back wall for a number of years.)  The families that are not sending their kids to the children's services sit back there.

My prayer experience in the back of the room was certainly different this year. Ruined, maybe. There was too much to watch: People coming in, going out, re-connecting with old friends. One family brought bags of Cheerios and books to keep three children occupied, and the victorious look on the oldest son's face as he triumphantly settled on Dad's lap after his two sisters were banished, (presumably to the children's services) was unforgettable.

I found myself asking my 24-year old son, sitting next to me, "Did you guys do that to Dad?" He smiled and nodded.  "Is it usually this hard to hear Rabbi Cooper?" "Does the choir really sound like that every year?" He shrugged and whispered, "Sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. We never paid that much attention."

On our walk back home after services, my husband and son talked about Rosh Hashanah in the back of the room. Their memories were not about prayer or sermons, singing or spirituality. They were about being with each other. I realized that their fixed seats were purposefully out of the sphere of what they perceived as the "real" service up front. Getting there late was as important to them as getting there at all. Their experience with each other laid down memories and feelings that were more powerful than what the rabbi and cantor could accomplish.

My son said, "I can't tell you what it is about Beth Hillel. I know that I hated going to services as a kid. We had to be dragged there. I don't remember much about what happened; I just have this general warm feeling that I can't explain. Every time I go back now, even though it's only at High Holidays, I feel like I'm home."

I didn't go too far down the road with my son about how much more went in to building his Jewish memories - the regular Shabbat dinners, seders, sukkah-building, Hanuka celebrations. These were part of my memories, and the conscious effort I made to create a Jewish home for my children. In that moment, his memories were of sitting on an air conditioning unit in the back of the sanctuary next to his dad, stealing his brother's Cheerios.

I have to thank my husband for all those years he sat with our kids while I sang with the choir. I will apologize for the times I made fun of him for getting there "late." Jewish identity can be forged in the back of the room as well as in the front.

The Six Days of Creation on Twitter

Eleven small teams wandered the grounds of Capital Camps in Maryland last week looking for ways to show the six days of creation in photos. At least one person on each team was designated as the photographer who would load each composition with a caption up to Twitter, coded with a hashtag for their team: #Bereshit1, #Bereshit2, #Bereshit3, etc.

The people who didn't understand Twitter were uncomfortable at first. The people who regularly tweet, post on Facebook, upload photos, shoot videos and publish to YouTube were thrilled to show them what they've been missing. Working together, they creatively interpreted biblical text.

It was a team-building activity, with a bit of Torah, that was brand new for a United Synagogue staff retreat. Reflecting the variety of sensibilities of our staff, our submissions ranged from literal to puns, to some that might take a minute to understand. In total, they are a reflection of our diversity as a staff, our skills, and the different ways we view what goes on around us. Our collective Twitter profile for that day highlights us as a community.

Although it was a fun exercise, and probably something that has been or will be repeated in camp and school settings, it's also not just for kids. More and more, community activities are recorded in the cyber world. We upload photos and videos, comment and share articles, ideas, jokes, and, yes, sometimes some pretty mundane details about baking challah, as my Facebook friends saw on Friday afternoon.

But if you know how to navigate the online world, you can tune in to conversations that span minutes, hours or years. Today, on Twitter, I'm able to view the proceedings of a sold-out conference for non-profits from Board Source by searching for #blf2012.  Jewish educators talk regularly together with the hashtag #jedchat.

You can even watch communal preparations in real time. Here is the Twitter feed for #ShanaTova. In the two seconds it took for me to make a screen shot, eight new tweets came in. In the minute it took for me to upload this screen shot to this blog, 69 new wishes of Shana Tova came in to Twitter.

It's not that the people getting ready for the High Holidays have nothing else to do but post on Twitter. It's that Twitter has become an avenue for expression and connection. I find it glorious that I can see the excitement, reverence, irreverence and passion for Judaism this morning as thousands of people wish one another Shana Tova. (284 new tweets came up in the time it took me to write that sentence.)

To the people who worry about what our online activities will do to our ability to make real friendships, or that the cyber world also has its bullying and attacks, I'll ask that we save that discussion for another day.  Jews have a long history of recording our conversations - the Talmud is full of them. A Twitter feed does not rise to the level of Talmud, but I would argue that it can reflect our talmud Torah, study of Torah. 

And in this world at this point in history, finding kehilla - sacred community - online can be a gift if we know how to look for it.

May this year be one of peace and growth. 

#ShanaTova