How the URJ Biennial exacerbated my pet peeves with the Reform Movement

I did not attend the URJ Biennial in San Diego.  My parents did, and I watched videos, though not live broadcasts, as I was busy during the days it occurred.  I was impressed with several of the pieces that are now available on the URJ's YouTube channel including R' Rick Jacobs' keynote, the women clergy (many of whom I learned from at camp and in NFTY) talking about how important NFTY was to their own experience, and R' David Ellenson's d'var torah and blessing of R' Aaron Panken.  I enjoyed learning about the work of the Ruderman Foundation, and fun facts about the progressive nature of the Women of Reform Judaism.  Neshama Carlebach explained how she was made to feel at home in the Reform Movement and is now choosing it for herself.  The cast of musicians was tremendous.  I experienced both naches and horror as current NFTYites cheered (naches because it's NFTY and horror because the cheer has changed in minor ways in the ten and a half years since I was a NFTYite).  I felt proud of the Movement in which I was raised.

Watching the videos from the Biennial also made me aware of the ideological distance between myself and the Reform Movement, even as there are more and more Reform Jews whose personal observance is traditionally radical rather than rebellious.  I felt alienated from the spectacle of pride in a Movement in various ways.

Ideologically, the movement is democratic and capitalist.  The Reform Movement is the movement most focused on inclusion of interfaith families, most talkative on issues of social justice, and claims it is the queer-friendliest (although it does not use that term).  These attributes were trotted out over and over to justify the Reform Movement's market share in America, propped up with unsurprising data from the Pew Research study on American Jewry.  As a socialist raised in the context of multiculturalism who has had the privilege of being a part of genuinely pluralistic Jewish spaces as well as post-denominational Jewish spaces, the competitive nature and liberal democratic values espoused to back it up were a turn-off.  I'm not interested in beating other groups of Jews (or anyone).  And, as my high school English teacher would say, show, don't tell me, that I should want to be a part of your organization.

The Reform Movement has what Rick Jacobs described as respectful differences with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.  Support for Israel as a political entity as the democratic and Jewish state was talked of the entire time, ignoring the socialist history of political Zionism, and almost entirely ignoring the injustice of occupation in favor of struggles within "Israeli" society for women's equality and religious (read Jewish religious) freedom (on which R' Rick Jacobs said the Movement and Bibi have respectful differences).  Furthermore, both Bibi and Vice President Joe Biden talked about the importance of keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  Cue Tom Lehrer's "Who's Next?".  My thoughts on Israel, and on the relationship between Israel and American Jewry are quite complex.  Suffice it to say for this that I think the focus of American Jewish engagement with Israel should not be parroting support for injustice by buying into excuses.  The Reform Movement has a vested interest in Israeli politics, having programs and institutions there, and not having its rabbis recognized by the theocratic machine.  Therefore it should be outspoken on every issue that it cares about relating to Israel, and it should not describe any differences regarding subjugation of human beings as "respectful".  It should not stand by when Israel blames the failure of the Peace Process entirely on Palestinians.  As a well-organized body of progressive American Jews, the URJ should exercise its critical perspective on the ways in which Israel does not live up to Reform Jewish values, just as the Religious Action Center does the US government.

Lastly for the major issues, the Campaign for Youth Engagement grates my nerves.  Don't get me wrong; I support the involvement of young Jews in Jewish life.  I benefited tremendously from URJ camping (9 summers at OSRUI and one at Kutz), and my involvement in NFTY led me to feel like a part of the Jewish community rather than a token or an outsider.  The messaging of the Campaign for Youth Engagement is patronizing at best and selfish at worst.  Selfishly, it reads: the reason we should engage youth is that we need somebody to take over for us in 25 years.  The patronizing read is the message: youth are the future of our movement.  As a teenager, being called "the future" was one of the worst things you could say to me.  What I learned from being engaged as a kid and as a teen was that I did not have to wait to express my Judaism.  I was a Jew then, and I could live Jewishly.  My thoughts, insights, learning, and actions as a Jew mattered, even my first summer at camp when I was nine.  As I grew up in the realm of informal Refom Jewish education, I found support for my deepening religious observance in the youth movement and in the professionals who served it.  I found a camp counselor who was extremely traditionally observant.  I found the first person I called my rabbi (who is not ordained as such) in my teacher and mentor Danny Maseng, who implanted within me not only a love for Jewish music but the seeds of the spirituality I am currently building for myself.  I found the first rabbi I would call my rabbi in NFTY in the form of R' Arnold Jacob Wolf, z"l, who knew how to criticize my point of view and point me in the right direction while taking my angry rebellious teenage self absolutely seriously.

A URJ cynic would look at my life and say I am not a success story of Reform Jewish youth engagement. My primary Jewish involvement is not through a Reform congregation, but rather an independent Jewish community called Mishkan run by Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann (ordained at the Ziegler School at American Jewish University, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement) who was also taught by Rabbi Wolf. Since June, for the first time in my life, I do not belong to a URJ congregation.  (Two of the congregations I'm looking at joining happen to be URJ congregations, and one is more traditionally observant than most URJ congregations.)  I married a non-Jew, who, if he survived, would have made the most fabulous rebbetzin [sic].  I am looking toward becoming a rabbi and HUC-JIR is not even on the list of schools I'm considering.  After my first year as a camp counselor, I did not stay involved with OSRUI.  I am far to the left of the Reform Movement politically.  While I consider social justice to be of paramount concern for any Jew, my personal Jewish focus has turned more and more to tikkun middot (which I first learned about at sija in the Bayit at camp).  My theological views include a God that still actively performs miracles.  I can read resurrection of the dead and praying for the coming of the Messiah in metaphorical ways, although I generally prefer to talk of geulah rather than goel whenever possible.  I don't pray for a return of the beit hamikdash, but I do mourn its loss. I believe that we do not have to discard halaja to come up with ethical Judaism.  My political Zionism and my religious Zionism are separate. I don't feel there are any areas of Judaism that are not deserving of questioning.  I feel that there need to be ritual boundaries between what Jews are able to do and what non-Jews are able to do.  This perspective is particularly informed by my growing up with one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent and that non-Jewish parent later converting.  I don't believe that saying we are welcoming makes us so.  And I believe that talking about gender equality as women being equal to men enforces a binary that we should not be enforcing.  So, I'm in no way, the married-to-someone-I-met-in-Tzofim-become-Rosh-Eidah-go-to-HUC-JIR-or-law-school-or-med-school-join-a-Reform-Temple-20s-and-30s-group-future-URJ-board-member success story that the Campaign for Youth Engagement means to create.

However, without Reform Jewish informal education, I would have maxed out the Jewish knowledge of my congregation at an early age.  Without Danny's presence, Judaism would seem entirely intellectual to me.  Without Rabbi Wolf, Judaism would have become a boring set of rules that I didn't even follow.  I would not have developed a daily prayer practice and a reverence for Shabbat.  My parents would not attend synagogue on a weekly basis, and my dad has told me it was my passion for Judaism developed at camp that brought him into the Jewish community as a Jew and not just as related to us.  My partner would not have been enthralled by the rhythms and ethos of Jewish life. We would not have lived in the rhythm of the Jewish week.  And the thought of becoming a rabbi most certainly would not have occurred to me if I had not decided it was the best way to keep coming back to camp every summer for the rest of my life at age nine.  My Judaism might look like my brother's.  My brother had sporadic engagement with Judaism as a youth including a trip to Israel for the Eisendrath International Exchange, had a minor in Jewish studies at San Francisco State mostly because of the rampant anti-Semitism on that campus, and now his Jewish observance is mostly driven by his devout Catholic wife saying "don't you guys do this" and "shouldn't we...".  Judaism for him is at worst something he's stuck with and at best a peripheral connection to the rest of his family.  But then again, he and his wife belong to a Reform synagogue.  There's another possibility for what my Judaism might look like.  I might have gone what R' Benay Lappe calls "Option 2" and thrown out the baby with the bathwater, becoming an atheist who was raised as a Jew or identifying as "spiritual, but not religious".  I might have considered myself too good, too evolved, and too enlightened to practice ancient tribal customs.  My only engagement with Judaism might be seder at my parents' house.  Surely, if somebody had dismissed a teenage me as merely "the future" of Judaism instead of recognized me as a part of its present, I would have been dismissive in return.  Instead, camp and NFTY created places where I could be taken seriously where I was, where I developed the passion which led Judaism to be a central aspect of my life, and where my critiques of current Jewish practice started.  I don't need to feel a part of the Reform Movement, but I do need to feel a part of the Jewish people.  And I didn't feel an emphasis on that from the Biennial.

Drawing Strength from the Hardest Moments - #FuckCancer

Mr. Boy had methotrexate injected into his spinal column today, one element of his chemotherapy.  That process is painful and he'll be sore for a few days.  We're getting used to the routine of him being in cancer treatment.  We Skype before the doctors round on the patients, because after that, his day in the hospital is full of constant interruptions.  Sometimes we talk later, but we don't have deep conversations after 8AM.

It's hard to find the kind of support we're looking for.  Most support for cancer patients and their families focuses on hope.  What's important is that you have a positive attitude, there's a chance you could beat it, you could be one of the lucky ones if you just try hard enough.  What's important is that you think you have a chance you could survive.

Mr. Boy's cancer is such that the best hope is that he may survive for a little while longer and retain some quality of life, two years is a coin toss, five would be incredible - not good news for a thirty-one year old.  Our spiritual focus has been coming to terms with his death while trying to stay in the moment and enjoy whatever time we have.  The support focused on grief and loss seems altogether inadequate.  Not to say that it doesn't help, but grief is hard, and it takes time.  It takes time to let go of happily ever after, to let go of the possibility of children, to let go of dreams.  And incessant talk of death distracts from today.  Without knowing what Mr. Boy's quality of life after chemo will be, it's hard to make bucket list plans or even regular plans.  Taking joy in the now is

But we are finding strength from people who are share about their hardest moment facing terminal cancer.  People who have been told similar things that we have been told, or further along when the doctors tell them there is nothing more they can do.  One of the strongest stories that we grab on to is that of Superman Sam and his family.  A part of my extended camp community, Sam is an eight-year-old with AML now out of treatment options.  His parents blog at http://supermansamuel.blogspot.com about the experience of dealing with his cancer.  I've followed their story for a while, and Mr. Boy furiously caught up with it after his diagnosis.  We're members of Team Superman Sam, and we thank the Sommer family for sharing what's real about their experiences on a daily basis.  Sam is in our prayers, and we think he's incredible.  We hope he fills his remaining time with joy and love.  Mr. Boy hopes to do the same with his.

If Tisha b'Av falls on Rosh Jodesh, do you fast?

The title of the above refers to a trivia question I once answered.  It's a trick question, because Tisha b'Av means the ninth day of the month of av, so it can never fall on Rosh Jodesh, which is the first day of the month.  That said, if Tisha b'Av falls on Shabbat, you commemorate it the next day instead.

Last night, I attended Mishkan's Tisha b'Av observance, which included Ma'ariv, Reading of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations), and a conversation about our sadness and love when it comes to Israel.  As a Tisha b'Av observance, it was the closest I have come to my Tisha b'Av experiences at OSRUI - meaningful, hot, and at some points frustrating.  The pain in the room was real and the mood somber, but somehow, in leaving with the brokenness of the day, I came out more whole.

I did not grow up with a Tisha b'Av observance in my family.  As someone with staunch Reform upbringing, Tisha b'Av was (for those who knew about it) considered an inappropriate holiday to commemorate because the Reform Movement does not believe the destruction of the Temple to be a bad thing, and therefore does not mourn the event.  However, Tisha b'Av was commemorated at my summer camp, in a beautiful fashion that bestowed the day with contemporary meaning for this mourning.  We talked about sinat jinam, the senseless hatred that Jews see as our part in the destruction of the Temple.  But more than that, the ritual was well-crafted to imbue the day with sorrow and with connection to the history of the Jewish people: tragedies and persecution included.  Living in a time of relative peace and privilege for Jews, this connection was new for me.  I am here because my ancestors responded to persecution by making themselves stronger, because the response to the question eicha has been that part is under our control.  We find things we could have done better even when we recognize that others are responsible for inflicting violence, persecution, and genocide on us.  We could sit in our hatred of them or of God, but instead we reflect on what it is about us and the way we live that exacerbates the damage done to us by others.

I remember that unit heads carried the Torah from our units to Port Hall as the rest of us joined hands and walked singing Don McLean's "By the Waters of Babylon."  We entered Port Hall where we snaked around and joined hands with other units as well until everyone had entered and we sat on the ground.  Passages of Eicha were chanted in Hebrew and read in English, and the list of tragedies that ostensibly occurred on Tisha b'Av was read: destruction of the first Temple, destruction of the second Temple, the start of the first crusade, expulsion of the Jews from England, expulsion of the Jews from France, expulsion of the Jews from Spain, declaration of the Final solution, and the beginning of the deportations from the Warsaw ghetto (not to mention the Toraitic events that the rabbis associated with the day).  The history of how each Torah came to be at camp was recounted, with background information of situations of persecution and how Torahs were rescued if that was the case.  Esa einai was often sung, and we walked back after in silence, which was not a common sensory experience at camp.  The next day (Jewish days start at sundown and go to sundown) we would bury religious texts that were no longer usable in the camp genizah.  I don't know how the custom of adding to a genizah became associated with Tisha b'Av, but my conjecture is that Jews find the loss of text to be of similar importance to the crash of an entire way of life.  I carry nostalgia for that Tisha b'Av experience: the sense of connection to my people when all seems lost, and of being able to take concrete action to mourn the past but also of being able to take concrete action to build a better future.

The observance last night included "By the Waters of Babylon" and traditional kinot.  It included chanting of Eicha and reading it in English.  We sat on a hard floor in the summer heat, and although candles burned, we started before sundown and the effect was not one of darkness.  And we had a "conversation" about Israel, which is a topic that many in the Jewish world see as so divisive that we only talk with like-minded folks.  I put conversation in quotes because it wasn't a conversation in the usual sense. We were first asked to consider where our love comes from when it comes to Israel and where our sadness comes from when it comes from Israel.  We were given paper and pens to write our thoughts and some time (although not enough) to consider.  Then we were asked to listen to those who volunteered to share.  This was an exercise in "vulnerable listening," we were told, which apparently means being attentive and nonjudgmental toward the speaker, but also not to display any emotional reaction you may be having.  Sharers were to take no more than three minutes each and were instructed to give their names at the beginning of what they said, speak in "I language," and say "Thank you for listening" at the end, to which the response from the community was "Thank you." These stipulations led one person to comment that it felt like a "Jews Anonymous" meeting.  I think these regulations were necessary for people to feel safe sharing about a sensitive subject, but by no means did they engender conversation.  Sharers could only focus their comments on their own experiences and feelings, which prevented anything I would call conversation (questions asked an answered, deeper thoughts provoked, progression of ideas possible) from taking place.  It was uncomfortable to listen to people vent their frustrations about Israel.  It was hard to maintain a non-emotional face listening as things I disagreed with or agreed with whole-heartedly were said, and especially as others bared their souls, it was hard to resist impulses to comfort.  The discomfort and pain were fitting for the day.  After the discussion and the reading, we had more space for singing and meditating on loss.  Then we had Ma'ariv (no, not traditional, but again, we started before sundown).  We spoke Ma'ariv, which gives an eerie quality to prayer, and is traditional, as music might increase the enjoyment of the experience, and the idea is that one is praying out of spite because one is in too much pain to do otherwise, and we left, only speaking what was necessary to clean up the space after use.  I walked to the Red Line in silence and rode home, also in silence.  To allow ourselves time to process pain and grow from it is extremely powerful.

Tisha B'av

Perhaps it is problematic that I associate Tisha B'av with haunting music and books - two of my favorite things.  But Eichah trope and other reflective music moves me.  At camp, we used the occasion of Tisha B'av to bury old unusable books with the tetragrammaton in a genizah.  The reverence for books in the Jewish tradition is one that my nerdy self also loves.  The pain of needing to dispose of a book as national pain was a wonderful lesson to learn as a child. Books are powerful and words have the capability to kill or to save lives.

On Tisha B'av, both Temples were destroyed.  Jews were expelled from England, France, Spain, and Portugal on the date.  World War I started on the date.  The rounding up of Jews into ghettos in Poland started on the date, and the deportation from the Warsaw ghetto also happened.  Whether some of these dates were actually on Tisha B'av is unknown, but the commemoration becomes a container for our anguish.

This Tisha B'av, I'm trying to recognize national and personal pain and also the hope of leaving that pain behind.  Tisha B'av starts a season of reflection, self-improvement, and t'shuvah, and we read at the end of Eicha a prayer for God to facilitate our process of t'shuvah.  I'm grateful that in the depths of our sadness, we have hope of a better world.

Memory

Memory is a funny thing, and I feel like I've been stuck in it all day.  Memories of my love have been swirling around me and popping up, and her brother asked me when I was going to stop being weird.  I was hanging out with some friends today to avoid spending all day alone in my apartment, and one was talking about James Taylor, so I mentioned that our song was "You Can Close Your Eyes."  I remembered her singing it to me for so long before I picked up on why she was doing it.  When I realized it, I felt stupid.

When today has been too much for me, I've tried visualizing the Beit Teva at Tzofim at OSRUI in my head.  It is the place I sought refuge at camp whenever I needed to.  I'm trying to see myself sitting on a stump surrounded by woods, with fewer mosquitos, of course.  And trying to get to that refuge in my head has helped when I feel like I need to escape.