Yom Kippur 5782
September 16, 2021
Jews and Race
Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz

Earlier I asked us to consider the many times in the Torah the people of Israel were counted in a census and the concerns it raised. Now I ask that we turn our attention to a contemporary census and its challenges as the results of the 2020 United States census were recently released. Hearing about the census took me back to my experience responding to it. There is one question I always find myself getting stuck on, whether in a census or elsewhere. It is the question that asks us to indicate our race. Do you relate to that quandary, wondering which box to check?  
I have heard a lot of our people describe similar discomfort.   

It starts with the fact that the US census is not permitted to ask questions about religious identity, so we can’t check off that box. Further, there is discomfort about the whole idea of race, knowing that race is a social, not a biological, construct, so the entire question makes us uneasy. While we know that the concept of race is based on questionable science, the category of race continues to exert a powerful influence on this country and must still be accounted for. A unique challenge we have as Jews is that in our gut, many of us don’t really relate to being described as white. Speaking for myself, I see my primary identity as being a Jew, and we know that Jews around the world, come in all colors.  

If we overlooked that fact, it was made clear by a study of Jews of color in the United States, the largest of its kind, reported on in August. Studies estimate that between 6 and 15% of American Jews identify as Jews of color and all agree that this number will grow in the future, a reality we need to respect and to address. The study confirms the complexity of labelling Jews by race. This is especially true given the soul searching this nation has had to do since the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an event that literally reverberated around the world. An outcome for our Jewish community is that we have had to take a hard look at issues of race and what they mean for us.  

For many years when discussing Jewish identity, I’ve always taught that we could best define Jews as a people, or an ethnicity, or even as a tribe. I would dismiss the suggestion that Jews are a race. Having delved further into the issue this year, I learned that the matter is far more complicated than I realized. Last year, when I delivered my Yom Kippur sermon on our responsibility to be anti-racist, I recommended that people read a fine book from 2008 by Emory University American Jewish historian Eric Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity. Our Downtown Study Group read it together and it really challenged us. I am especially grateful to our member Riv Ellen Prell, Prof Emerita in American Studies from the U of MN, who led the class when I was on my three-month sabbatical and who graciously joined us for the entire year studying Eric Goldstein’s The Price of Whiteness.  

Goldstein opens our eyes to new ways of understanding how Jews in America have related to the issue of race going back over the last 150 years. I was surprised to learn that in the late 19th century, Jews were fine with describing themselves as a race, and were commonly described that way by others. Jews immigrating here in that period largely came from Central Europe. They assimilated quite rapidly and often sought to leave behind what they saw as old-world religious observance, but they still saw themselves and were seen by others as Jews by blood. This racial identity distinguished Jews from other Americans, while enabling them to integrate into American society and enjoy its benefits.  

Goldstein captures the ambivalence Jews felt about our differences from the majority of Americans and especially our mixed feelings about being associated with black Americans, also a separate race, but one seen by most white Americans as a lesser kind of human. The most important distinction in America has long been between being labeled as black or white. Jews, most of whom migrated in the 19th and early 20th century from Central and Eastern Europe, did not want to be identified as black, with the persecution that accompanied that label. At the same time, they were not seen, nor did they really see themselves as white. Recalling our own past oppression, Jews would often recoil in horror at the ways black people were treated in the Jim Crow era after the civil war and beyond. On the other hand, we maintained our claim that while we were surely a race, ours was a praiseworthy race and we touted our accomplishments so as to enjoy this country’s benefits.  

Goldstein traces how the Jewish embrace of the concept of race receded with the rise of Nazism. New language emerged to describe ourselves, as anthropologists in the 20th century dismissed the validity of race as a biological category. The despicable use of race by the Nazis turned American Jews away from a racial definition and led us to instead describe ourselves as a Jewish people, or an ethnic group.   

During World War II, many Jews who served in the military got to see up close for the first time the horrendous racism experienced by black people who also served our country. Yet when they returned home from the war, blacks and Jews experienced vastly different prospects. Jews were able to take advantage of veteran’s benefit and of greater social acceptance. Discrimination against Jews in housing and employment that was pervasive before the War diminished, but it was still very real for black people. A powerful example of this are housing covenants, promoted by the real estate industry to preserve white neighborhoods, stipulating that homes in certain neighborhoods could never be sold to black people. Jews had generally broken through those barriers that once applied to us as well.  

This pattern of systemic racism has been uncovered in ground breaking research by the U of MN’s Mapping Prejudice Project whose efforts are especially critical given this city's contemporary racial disparities, which remain some of the largest in the nation. As their research shows, “covenants created demographic patterns that remain in place in Minneapolis today. Residential segregation reinforces other disparities in employment, education and health care. Most notable is the gap in homeownership rates. While 78 percent of white families own homes in the Twin Cities, only 25 percent of African-American families have title to their dwelling.” Their research shows that these disparities did not happen accidentally and that everything since then has compounded upon that initial pattern. https://www.aclu.org/aclu-magazine/aclu-magazine-fall-2021 p. 21. 

As we consider the challenges facing this country, I ask that we as Jews use this Yom Kippur to do cheshbon hanefesh – personal and communal introspection of what this means for us as Jews. Having benefited from privileges we have enjoyed as American Jews, because for the most part we are seen as white, places special responsibilities on our Jewish community to right the wrongs that pervade American society. Just as our Torah repeatedly reminds us of the lesson of the Exodus story, that we are obligated to care for the stranger because we were strangers in a strange land, I believe we have a special responsibility to work to end racism because we know what it means to experience persecution because of who we are.  

  I am grateful that our congregation has been taking this responsibility very seriously. After the events related to the murder of George Floyd, we established an Antiracism Committee chaired by Dudley Deshommes Kohls and Sharon Garber that has worked hard to better understand the dynamics of racism, to educate our congregation about this and to engage our congregation in the work of ending racism wherever we encounter it. A starting point of that effort has been to better understand the feelings and to support Jews of color in this community who often feel marginalized. Some 80% of respondents to the survey I cited earlier report having experienced discrimination in Jewish settings. 

Adath’s Antiracism Committee is attuned to the reality that it is very tempting for us to ignore systemic racism, or to discount it as something that is for the most part behind us. But we have seen how real is the continued impact of racism in this country. We saw it on terrifying display in Washington DC this past January 6th when our US Capitol was assaulted by a mob trying to overturn through violence what they failed to accomplish through elections. It is no coincidence that this mob carried Confederate flags into our US Capitol building for the first time ever. It is a serious threat to the very essence of American democracy when the peaceful transference of power is upended by fake claims of voter fraud. Make no mistake that this insurrection was grounded in continuing and deeply embedded racism and that many of those who promote these lies also promote violent antisemitism as well.  

We know that just like racism is very real and deeply embedded in this country, antisemitism is sadly not a thing of the past. We must not hesitate to speak out as Jews when antisemitism is ignored or downplayed. The threat of violence is quite real as we saw just three years ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Sadly, we were reminded of the reality of these threats last week when our neighboring Beth El Synagogue had to close for the day and all local shuls had to enhance our security at considerable expense. We are grateful to the JCRC for the role they play coordinating security for our Jewish community and for other endangered faith communities. We are also grateful to the Minnetonka Police for their support. With the help of our Antiracism Committee, we are taking very seriously the need to balance the real need for security with an understanding of how a police presence adds to the anxiety of black people and people of color when they come here. We will continue to work on this issue in the coming year as we hopefully meet increasingly in person.  

This year we will have an opportunity to closely study the issue of antisemitism when in early November we welcome as our scholar in residence Sister Mary Boys, a renowned expert on this issue and collaborate with the Minneapolis Institute of Art when they display an exhibit of the work by Des Moines based Argentinian Jewish artist Mauricio Lasansky’s Holocaust prints. Sister Boys will share her life long experience educating people to end antisemitism. She will help us to better understand what it means to be anti-antisemitism at a time when we are working as well to be antiracist. One effort need not come at the expense of the other. Let us stand together to combat hatred.  

A powerful true story brings that message home. It is told in a drama entitled “From Behind the Sun” that premiered in February 2019 at Metro State University’s Whitney theater. Written by a local musician Stan Kipper and a Seattle artist Laura Drake, it is based on the Kipper family’s experience trying to buy a home as a black family in Minneapolis in 1956. His father Obie and mother Mary had moved here from Chicago believing that there were good opportunities to be found. Obie Kipper found a good job working for the US Post Office and Mary was one of the first black school teachers in Minneapolis. Living in the Nicollet Park neighborhood, they found a home at 45th and Oakland between Park and Portland they believed would be better for their growing family. They also knew that it was located in south Minneapolis, where black people were blocked from living through a practice known as redlining.  

Obie Kipper and one of his co-workers from the Post Office cooked up a plan. The co-worker named Abraham in the play, based on a real person, was a Jewish guy who had been encouraged to move to Minneapolis by Obie. They had served together in Italy in World War II in the 92nd Infantry Division, a segregated division for African Americans, the only one to see combat in Europe. Abe, a white Jewish guy had served as Obie’s sergeant in that division and they formed a powerful bond. These were tough guys who would not back down from a good fight. They came up with a plan for Abe and his wife to present themselves to the realtor as Obie and Mary Kipper so as to get approved for the mortgage they would not otherwise be able to get.  Abe brought Obie all the documents to sign and it was not until it was time to hand over the keys that the real Kippers showed up to the realtor’s shock.  

The family was jubilant at having been able to buy that home, but that was not the end of it. After moving in to their new home at 45th and Oakland they received terrible abuse from there “neighbors” who hollered curses and epithets at them, did disgusting things to them, and made it clear that a black family was not welcome. After a brick was hurled threw the picture window, Obie and Abe stood guard in front of the house to put a stop to the attacks. Stan reports that the attacks did stop after about a month, but “for-sale signs” started to pop up all around the neighborhood. That is what black people who had served their country experienced in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Stan has turned his family’s story into a drama that teaches an enduring lesson of the meaning of true friendship and what it looks like to be a fearless ally. I had the privilege of speaking to Stan Kipper to hear him tell his story. He described to me how people from that neighborhood showed up at performances of the play with their mortgages in hand to show that they still included racist covenants, even though the courts had long since made them illegal.   

It is an incredible story that I feel privileged to be able to share with you today. It reminds us of how we can stand up fearlessly as Jews against racism.  

In the New Year, let us strive to balance working to end systemic racism in our country, while standing up for our rights as Jews to live in peace. I continue to maintain that Jews are not a race, but we have seen that race continues to exert a powerful influence on our society and on us as Jews. My study this past year of whiteness and of Jewish identity have made my choice somewhat easier when asked to identify my race. I still bristle at seeing the question about race, whether on a census, or in some other survey. I still do not really self-identify as white. But since I, like most Jews, are seen as white in this country and have the privileges that come with it, so I check the box on the survey that says I am white and accept my responsibility for continuing to end racism and to end antisemitism in our country. May that time come soon and in our lifetime. 
 
 
 
 
Intro to Musaf 
 
In Judaism there is great ambivalence about counting people. There is a custom that when needing to count up ten people to make a minyan, one does so by saying “not- one, not-two and so on. Another custom for determining that there are ten people in the room to make a minyan is to recite a verse from the early part of the morning service (Siddur Sim Shalom Daily p, 113) Psalm 28:9-  
Rescue your people Hoshea et Amecha, bless your heritage, uvarech et nachlatecha, tend to them and carry them forever ur’aim v’nasem ad olam.  

In the Hebrew that is ten words.  
Why the ambivalence about counting people in Judaism? In the ancient world a census was taken primarily for two reasons, one was to collect taxes and the other was to prepare for war, which meant they needed to know how many men would be available for combat. These are two good reasons explaining ancient concerns about a census.  

There were at least four times in the Torah that a census was taken of the people of Israel. They anticipate the arrival of the people to the land of Canaan where they will engage in combat. We see this in the book of Numbers in Parashat Naso when such a count is taken and again in Parashat Pincus. In both places the language that is used is to lift up the head of each person, reminding us that even as we count the group each individual counts.  
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In Parashat Pinchas there is the counting of the Jewish people and the appointment of Joshua as Moses’ successor. God is referred in that parashah as “God, Source of the breath of all flesh (Elohei Haruchot L’chol Basar)… (Bemidbar 27:16), it is the only time this name for God appears in the Bible as  

According to Rabbi Mordecai Silverstein of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem this name of God is the basis of the special beracha – blessing that is said when a large group of Jews gathers- we say “Blessed are You, Lord our God, who knows all secrets” Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Chacham HaRazim.  

Why is this the blessing for a large gathering of Jews? What exactly does that mean. Rabbi Silverstein explains that according to our sages, God Chacham HaRazim is the one who know all secrets because God is Source of the breath of all flesh E-lohei Haruchot L’chol Basar.  

As Rashi says in his comment there: "Just as no two faces are alike, so, too, no two people's ideas are alike." But most important for our sages, God knowing the thoughts of every individual means that God values the individuality of each and every person. (See Bemidbar Rabbah 21:2). 

Let us consider this idea of the value of the community and the value of the individual in which every person is created in the image of God and counts. 

Yom Kippur Day Final Prayer  
 
God Chacham HaRazim the one who know all secrets because  
You are the Source of the breath of all flesh E-lohei Haruchot L’chol Basar.  

We appreciate being able to gather as a community whether in person or on line and are thankful for the blessing of resilience providing us with the strength to get through this challenging time.  

We long to be able to gather together in large groups again to praise you and give thanks and to once again life our voices together in song.  

God who knows the thought of every individual and places value on each and every person,  
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give us the clarity of vision and the determination to build a world in which justice reigns, in which we stand up against hated and in which every person is treasured because they are created in your image.  
And let us say Amen 
 
Note: 
 
On Rosh Hashana I introduced the congregation to Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett’s, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. This week I call your attention to what they have to say about race in this country. The Upswing calls for us to embrace the values evident from 1895 to the 1960s when this country experienced greater communal social cohesion and economic equality, following the rampant individualism of the Gilded age, which we have seen reemerge. Putnam and Garret have a powerful chapter showing that this national upswing was also experienced by African Americans primarily because of the Great Migration that brought many black people North to improved living conditions and through gains achieved in the lead up to and during Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Sadly, Putnam and Garrett also document how that progress was reversed in the last half century. The 1970s saw white backlash against black progress, which they consider, “an important part of the story of how and why America turned from “we” back to “I.” It may even be the case they say, “that America’s larger turn toward “I” was, in important respects, a response to the supreme challenge of sustaining a more diverse, multiracial “we” against a backdrop of deep, historically embedded, and as yet unresolved racism.”      p. 242.   

Shabbat, October 16, 2021
Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Minnetonka, MN

Sermon titled: Abraham's Journey through the lens of Mussar.

Sign ups are open for our selection of Mussar classes. To learn more and to find the links to sign up, please visit www.adathjeshurun.org/mussar.

Two years ago, in October of 2019 (which now feels like a lifetime ago), I had the privilege of a spending a Shabbat in the Philadelphia area at a Mussar retreat organized by the Center for Contemporary Mussar. It was led by Rabbi Ira Stone, a leading figure in bringing a contemporary understanding of Mussar to a new generation.

Define Mussar: Jewish spiritual practice to work on character development through the lens of traditional Jewish text and sources, as reflected through various middot/ soul traits such as patience savlanut, or orderliness seder.

We have developed a vibrant Mussar learning community here at Adath and similar classes can be found at various synagogues and schools around the Twin Cities.
We were fortunate to have hosted Rabbi Stone at Adath as a scholar in resident in March of 2017. We had a great turn out and he commented, “Who knew that there was such a vibrant Mussar community in MN? We have built it up considerably since then.

Today I want to spend some time studying the text, at least part of it, that formed the basis of that Mussar Kallah I did with Rabbi Stone two years ago this week.
Look at the opening verse Gen 12:1


Rabbi Berezovsky was born in Belarus. He made Aliyah in 1933 and eventually was designated the Rebbe of the Slonimer Hasidim and the head of their Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Bet Avraham. His teachings are captured in the text before us Netivot Shalom, as Rabbi Stone labels it, or Nisivos Sholom as it would be pronounced in the Slonimer’s world. It is a considered an important contribution to Mussar literature, combining the rigor of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, where the Mussar started as a Movement by Rabbi Israel Salanter, with the religious passion of Hassidism.

In May of 1998, I actually got to meet with him in his study with my friend Rabbi Elie Spitz at his Yeshiva Bet Avraham in Meah Shearim. I spoke about that encounter in a sermon I gave on Yom Kippur in 1998. Elie had been in Israel that year on sabbatical studying with Prof Zev Falk of Hebrew University, who was intrigued by the writings of the Slonimer Rebbe. I was in Israel for a short time and Elie and I got to spend the day together in Jerusalem. Elie wanted to make a future appointment to see the Slonimer at this Yeshiva. We made our way over there and got to speak with his secretary to see if an appointment could be arranged. He told us to wait and when he returned much later, he said that the Rebbe would see us now. I was not expecting to be part of this. We encountered the Slonimer Rebbe in his study, frail and in his bed. It was about two years before his death. We introduced ourselves and explained that we were Conservative rabbis from the United States and he gave us his message. I will return later to what he said to us.

For now, let us turn back to the Slonimer’s commentary on parsahat Lecha Lecha.
Rabbi Isaac Luria – HaAri of Sefat 16th c Leading rabbi and mystic whose conception of the creation story forms the basis of contemporary Kabbalah often referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah. You may be familiar with Luria’s teaching found here that every person is put into the world for a unique purpose. We often see it in the version written by Martin Buber, used at baby namings, that every person is brought in the world with a unique purpose.

The Slonimer is raising the key Mussar question: How are you perfecting your neshama/soul, which you alone were put into this world to achieve?
That destiny is unique for each of us. This is in line with the Mussar practice that while the principles of Mussar apply to all of us, each of us has our own work to do. This makes the soul curriculum of our Mussar work quite individualized.

Each of us, like Avraham, is on a soul/sole journey.

The Slonimer says this is “To teach that this is the task of the person, to walk always forward on the path of their destiny. This is hinted at by the three times the language of (Hebrew) journey.” He explains that this is exemplified in the three lecha lecha periods of Abraham’s life.

There is much more in the Slonimer’s commentary to Lech Lecha. In Phila at the Mussar retreat we spent the entire Shabbat in study unpacking it with Rabbi Stone’s guidance, along with other activities.

Before I conclude let me return to the encounter with the Slominer. When we left the Yeshiva, one of his Hasidim came chasing after us wanting to know what their rebbe had said to us. In Hasidism they believe that the Rebbe has a special pipeline to God so it was very important to know what he said. Well, the Slonimer heard that we lived in the United States and pronounced that we both should be living in Eretz Yisrael and not in galus or diaspora, or really in exile, as he sees it.

Unlike his Hasidim, I do not subscribe to the idea that their rebbe has a pipeline to God. I suspect that the Slonimer was imposing on us his view of the world, understandably given that he narrowly escaped the Shoah and saw his entire world destroyed by the Nazis. But following his teaching here, that each of us needs to realize and fulfill our unique destiny, I do not believe that mine had to conform to his view that all Jews should life in Israel. But who knows? Avraham didn’t get called to go to Israel until he was 75.

Each of us has to do the work of finding our destiny and Mussar provides a spiritual practice for clarifying it and perfecting it in the service of others.

Our Intro to Mussar will begin Mon evening Nov 15. I will be teaching it with our member Hope Melton. Heidi Schneider, who attended that Mussar retreat with me, will be teaching our continuing Mussar Vaad. I will also teach an advanced Va’ad studying a kabbalistic Mussar text Tomer Devorah that I will be learning with Rabbi Ira Stone this year. See our Adath website Mussar page for more information.

Let me conclude with one last comment from the Slonimer’s comment on Lech Lecha:
“Year after year the Holy One gives one opportunities in order to journey further in holy service and not to stand in one place.”
I invite you to take the next step in your journey
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Parahshat Lech Lecha לֶךְ־לְךָ֛
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה' אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם
The LORD said to Avram,
לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ
“Go forth from your land, your birthplace and from your ancestral home
אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃
to the land that I will show you. Genesis 12:1

We find in the Midrash (Beresheet Raba 39.9) Rabbi Levi said: “Twice it is written “Lech Lecha” and we don’t know which is more beloved - the first (Genesis 12:1) or the second (Genesis 22:2). From what is written “to the land of Moriah,” it seems the second is preferable to the first. However, it is still unclear between the two tests that are described in the language of Lech Lecha which is greater and more beloved. Whether it is the test of Lech Lecha from your land, your birthplace your ancestral home, or the test of the Akeda.

Seemingly we are greatly surprised. How is it possible to compare the two? Isn’t the test of the Akeda higher and more difficult for a person akin to giving up everything in their own life? And especially according to what is written in the Torah, “Take your son, your favorite, the one you love, Yitzchak.” For at the very hour the Holy One said this to him that love put every other middah of love in the world to shame and it is not possible that there is any test greater than this. So, how is it possible to doubt which (test) is more beloved?

In addition, we can say regarding the locution “Lech Lecha,” if according to the commentary of Rashi “Lecha” means “for your benefit” behold that which is written Lech Lecha to the land of Moriah does not fit this interpretation. Moreover, we find in the Torah three times when God spoke to Abraham in the language of journeying: “Lech Lecha from your home.” Gen 12:1 “You shall walk [Hitalech] before me and be upright” Gen 17:1 and Lech Lecha to the land of Moriah – the test of the Akeda 22:2 and we will discuss the meaning of this.
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It can be said about this matter what we find in the introduction to “The Foundation of Worship” in the name of the Ari Hakodesh [Rabbi Isaac Luria], that no person is comparable to another person from the day of their creation and forward. And no person can repair that which is another’s to repair. Namely, each individual has their own destiny and task that their life is meant to work out. Included in this are those particular tasks that befall them for them to repair, as is well known. The Holy Blessed One appoints for each person all the tests and challenges for which they have all that they need to repair the task that they are meant to repair and to fulfill their destiny and task in the world.

Every challenge in the life of a person, material or spiritual, good or bad, all of them are given to them in connection with the repair of the world for only by way of these challenges are they able to achieve their destiny. And except for these they are not able to fulfill their task to repair. Since to each person there is a specific destiny, therefore there are different challenges for each. To one life is easy and to another it is more difficult.

Generally, what appears to one to be the course of their life’s journey cannot be the same as the life journey for another. Since each person has their specific task given to them with all its challenges, they are given the faith that they are able to fulfill their destiny. Even if their situation in life is difficult, they must strengthen themselves that this is only so that they may arrive at their particular repair, for nothing evil comes down from heaven and all is for the good of the person in order that they may repair everything connected to that which they must repay and, in this way, fulfill their destiny in the world…
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This brings us to Lech Lecha from your land, your birthplace and your ancestral home. “Go forth” – that is to your destiny, to the correction of your neshama that you need to do in this world. This is the essence of your task as a person as it is said in the Torah of our ancestors - while a person in this world learns, prays and does good deeds, if they do not correct their destiny regarding what they must correct in this world then when they ascend to the upper world they will be asked: “What did you work at in this world?” In other words, if they did not correct the important things, the task that was your destiny, in the world. And this is what God said to Avraham and included in this also a lesson for all Israel, the seed of Avraham, “Go forth” in other words, journey toward the correction of neshama that is appropriate to you, is your goal, is allotted to you, regarding your land, your birthplace, your ancestral home, that is, all of the conditions and intentions that are natural for you…
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Slonimer Rebbe, Netivot Shalom, (Jerusalem, 1982), Parashat Lecha Lecha
Translated by Rabbi Ira Stone, The Center for Contemporary Mussar, 2019

Bob is a member of Adath and an immigration attorney at Fredrikson & Byron in downtown Minneapolis. Bob concurrently serves as the Chair of HIAS. Bob was named as the 2017 recipient of the Sidney Barrows Lifetime Achievement Award of the Cardozo Society, the affinity group of Jewish lawyers, jurists and law students in the Twin Cities, for his professional achievements, community service and love of learning. 

​Rosh Hashanah 2021 5782
First Day September 7, 2021
Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Minnetonka, MN

         We are so not where I thought we would be this Rosh Hashanah. Earlier this summer, I was hopeful that by the time we got to these High Holidays my sermon would be a chance to look at the pandemic from the rear-view mirror and to reflect on lessons learned. The reality of the past month or so has been truly disappointing. We had tasted and were starting to enjoy our growing freedom now that so many of us have been vaccinated, but with the sudden onset of the Delta variant things have sadly taken a turn for the worse. We are seeing hospitalization and even death rates in our country paralleling last year, because not enough of us have been vaccinated, and not enough of us have taken seriously the need to mask, especially indoors and when in the midst of large groups of people. 

         I am grateful that here at Adath Jeshurun, we have showed so much good sense in the face of the pandemic and that our people have taken the needed precautions so seriously. People at Adath Jeshurun have really lived up to our Hebrew name, which means “the gathering of the righteous” by being so supportive of our decisions to prioritize people’s health and safety above all, as we have adjusted to these challenges. It has required an extraordinary effort of shuls, schools, medical centers, really anyone with responsibilities for keeping people safe and has surely tested everyone’s resilience. 

         We can be proud that our Jewish community nationally has been highly responsible in the face of this pandemic. You may have heard of a survey done by the Public Religion Research Institute in late July indicating that Jews have, “the lowest levels of vaccine “hesitancy” of any religious group in the country…with 85% vaccinated or planning to get the shot — compared to 71% of all Americans. https://forward.com/news/473643/jews-accept-covid-vaccine-religious-groups-survey/
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         The Jewish approach to the matter is captured beautifully in an article published in January by my rabbinic colleague Micah Peltz, who serves as Senior Rabbi of a prominent Conservative shul in New Jersey. Micah grew up here at Adath and is still closely connected to our congregation. Rabbi Peltz wrote a teshuvah (a rabbinic response), unanimously approved by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. He concludes definitively that, “vaccination is a Jewish imperative when recommended by medical professionals.” He further observes that this conclusion is shared by all mainstream Jewish religious movements. https://www.jewishexponent.com/2021/01/28/getting-a-covid-19-vaccine-is-a-jewish-imperative/

         This is not something we can take for granted. Despite the willingness of the majority of Americans to follow necessary public health practices, we are still in a difficult place because too many people have chosen to ignore medical evidence by resisting mask mandates and refusing to be vaccinated, which they see as an infringement on their individual rights. I understand that my speaking about this issue touches on politics, which makes some people uncomfortable. The reality is that it is quite impossible to separate moral issues from the realm of politics. To suggest we should not touch on politics is to assert that clergy should be silenced on the great moral issues of our day. To be silent, or avoid speaking about tough issues, would leave us “standing idly by the blood of your neighbor, lo ta’amod al dam re’echa,” which our Torah explicitly forbids. To do so would be a betrayal of Jewish tradition in which religious figures, whether it was the Biblical prophets, or our ancient sages, did not shirk the heavy responsibility of speaking to the real-life situations faced by people, which invariably have a political dimension. Certainly, we are obligated to be respectful of differences of opinions and conflicting values. Certainly, we must stay above partisanship, because no party has the corner on truth. Still, we have a moral and Jewish obligation to address issues even when they touch on politics where people may disagree.  

         It pains me to say it, but the truth is that the extreme assertion of individual rights and liberty in the political and social life of our country have had deadly consequences for this country and for the world this past year and a half. Literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country have died needlessly because of the denial of developing scientific understandings and recommendations for best health practices related to COVID-19. 

        The extreme assertion of individual rights and liberties is very much at odds with how Judaism views the place of individuals and community. My teacher Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a leading thinker of our Conservative Movement, illuminates this issue in his outstanding book To Do the Right and the Good- Fundamental Principles that Guide Jewish Social Ethics writing that, “Jewish tradition places strong emphasis on the worth of the individual. Human worth derives first from being created in God's image.  Dorff, p. 5.     
                       
         While affirming the sacred value of each individual, Rabbi Dorff goes on to explain that Judaism is fundamentality communitarian in its approach. He cites the legal philosopher Milton Konvitz who captures the normative Jewish view, which I quote, without adapting to our normally egalitarian approach: 

         “The traditional Jew is no detached, rugged individual…He is an individual but one whose essence is determined by the fact that he is a brother, a fellow Jew. His prayers are, therefore, communal and not private, integrative and not isolative, holistic and not separative....  [Konvitz goes on to write]
This consciousness does not reduce but rather enhances and accentuates the dignity and power of the individual. Although an integral part of an organic whole, from which he cannot be separated, except at the cost of his moral and spiritual life, let each man say, with Hillel (Sukkot 53a), "If I am here, then everyone is here."   (Dorff, p.20-21) 

         What a powerful point Konvitz makes based on a less well-known teaching of our ancient sage Hillel: 
"If I am here, then everyone is here."  אִם אֲנִי כָּאן — הַכֹּל כָּאן
that on one hand when I am here, I am here on behalf of everyone.
In the Talmud Sukkot, Hillel goes on to say 
“And if I am not here who is here? וְאִם אֵינִי כָּאן — מִי כָּאן”
, which can be understood to be teaching that no one is expendable to a community. As Hillel conveys in this and his other teaching I introduced earlier, the community and the individual in Judaism are inextricably linked. 

        This view of the world is consistent with an approach to American Democracy called Communitarianism developed in the 1990s to push back against excessive individualism and narcissism in asserting that citizens have a responsibility to uphold the common good. 
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1996/07/the-abcs-of-communitarianism.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/communitarianism

         It should come as no surprise that many of the scholars who advanced this concept of communitarianism have deep Jewish roots, such as the respected political thinkers Amitai Etzioni and Michael Walzer. Another is Michael Sandel, the distinguished Prof of Law at Harvard University. Forgive me for expressing some Adath pride in noting that Sandel spent his early years in Minneapolis and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Adath in 1966, before his family left Minnesota. 

         I want us to consider the work of yet another champion of the concept of communitarianism, the American social thinker Robert Putnam. Putnam did not celebrate his Bar Mitzvah at Adath. Still, his is an important voice for us to hear. His now classic book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), published more than twenty years ago documented the significant decline in America of communal organizations and activities, as the title suggests, people were becoming less inclined to join bowling leagues and instead did things alone, or with a small circle of family and friends. Putnam provided us with an early warning about the consequences of this trend. This past year he finished a new book, co-authored with his student Shaylyn Romney Garrett, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again.

         Here Putnam and Garret carefully review the economic, political and social data of the last 100 years to support their claim that we are living in a time that is the most radically individualistic since the period that extended from the 1870s to the end of the 19th century known as the Gilded Age. That was the age of the robber barons, when great fortunes were amassed by those who led the way on the latest technologies at a time of mass industrialization. The Gilded Age was a time of unbridled individualism in which the few benefited at the expense of the many, in which there was rampant inequalities of wealth. Putnam and Garret powerfully make the case that this country has returned to a state where similar conditions exist doing enormous harm to the fabric of our country and to the wellbeing of so many. Like that of the Gilded Age our time is also marked by:

Dramatic economic inequality
Lack of compromise in politics
Less cohesion in social life
Less altruism in cultural values.       Does all of that sound familiar?

         So what is the upswing to which the title of Putnam and Garret’s book refer? Charting diverse economic and social trends, they illustrate how the excesses of the Gilded Age began to be reversed from about 1895 until the 1960s when a spirit of progressive reform took hold in this country. In every area of American life, from bottom to top, there emerged a sense of revulsion for the rugged individualism that did so much harm to this democracy and replaced it with an ethos of people committed to working for the common good. During that period- about 65 years long- greater economic equality was achieved, there was more cooperation in the public square, a stronger social fabric developed, and there was a growing culture of solidarity. Putnam and Garret reveal that beginning in the 1960s, that progress started to be dismantled, a downswing began and we have now sunk back to low points, by all kinds of measures, equaling the worst excesses of the Gilded age.
         Thankfully, Putnam and Garret do not leave us with just a lament about what has transpired. They also offer a message of hope. At the start of the 20th century Americans of all kinds and from every quarter pushed back against the focus on the “I,” rampant individualism and selfishness of the Gilded Age that had corroded the country. People across lines of party began to commit instead to the “We,” the widespread adoption of communal norms and values that resulted in the upswing they ably document. Their book is a call for Americans to once more stand up for each other and for the common good. They reject radical solutions, calling instead for a different kind of politics that once again allows for compromise to achieve the greatest good. Putnam and Garret assert the need to champion the rights of all over the rights of some, in keeping with the principles of communitarianism championed by thinkers such as Sandel, Etzioni and Walzer.  

         This communitarian ethos is very much in the spirit of how Judaism views the world in which we honor the value of every individual, created in the image of God, while joining together in a communal covenant for the sake of the common good. This view grounded in the teaching of our ancient sage  Hillel has always been at the heart of Conservative Judaism, which is respectful of individual difference and individual conscience, while urging us to join together as a community and as a Jewish people to work for the perpetuation of Jewish values and practices and the betterment of the world. 

         Putnam and Garret’s book, published last year, may have come at just the right time when the devastating pandemic has shown us how damaging the assertion of individual liberties can be when promoted at the expense of the greater good. Perhaps his pandemic will provide the needed wakeup call to the dangers of radical individualism, which has done enormous damage to the fabric of our society and literally cost the lives of so many.  

​         Only time will tell whether we will embrace a commitment to community and the wellbeing of all and witness a new upswing as the decades unfold. We stand ready as an Adath Jeshurun Congregation to realize that hope and to support that vision. It is the vision taught so powerfully by the ancient sage Hillel-
If I am here, then everyone is here."  אִם אֲנִי כָּאן — הַכֹּל כָּאן. And if I am not here who is here וְאִם אֵינִי כָּאן — מִי כָּאן?”  teaching us that the community and the individual are inextricably linked and that we are each responsible one for the other. Let us stand together and see to it that this necessary shift happens soon and in our times. And let us say Amen.

​         One of the best-known teachers of the rabbinic period is the sage Hillel.              His teachings continue to be invoked. One of his best-known teachings is found in the collection of rabbinic sayings- Pirkei Avot- The Wisdom of the Sages where in chapter 1:14 we find his often-quoted aphorism: 
If I am not for myself who will be for me?
אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי.
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. 
And if not now when?
וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי ?  
         In the Hebrew you can hear the cleverness of the language and the rhyme. 
As we prepare for our Rosh Hashanah Musaf, Amidah I ask that we consider what this teaching means to us at this time and why it has held up so well all these hundreds of years? In our times, when looking out for oneself is such a preoccupation, we might think that Hillel is supportive of that stance, while putting limits on it, which is a reasonable interpretation. 

       Dr. Joshua Kulp of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem offers an alternative explanation (Kulp’s Mishneh Commentary Sefaria) to unlock another possible meaning of Hillel’s enduring words. He writes: 
         
         This first statement of Hillel’s [If I am not for myself who will be for me?]
is not a statement lauding selfishness, but rather a statement which places a person’s character and qualities squarely on [their] own two shoulders. A person must work in this world to acquire [their] own merits, for no one else can do this on [their] behalf. 

         The second statement [But if I am only for myself, what am I?] balances out the first. Although a person must be concerned for [themselves], these responsibilities do not end there. One who does only for [themselves] does not contribute to [our] people and to the world. [A person] is not important, for when [they pass] away, no one else will be affected. 

         Kulp concludes: Finally, [explaining the third clause- And if not now when?] if a person puts off their responsibilities, when will [they] find time to carry them out? As we say in English, “now is as good a time as ever.”

         It seems to me that Hillel here is echoing other similar teachings of his. 
I will explore one of those from the Talmud Sukkot later in my sermon.  Another well-known teaching of Hillel’s is found in the second chapter of Pirkei Avot 2:5 where he states: 

Do not separate yourself from the community
אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר
Do not trust in yourself until the day of your death. 
וְאַל תַּאֲמִין בְּעַצְמְךָ עַד יוֹם מוֹתְךָ

         In this teaching Hillel observes how easy it is for an individual to go it alone, being a community of one and convincing themselves of the rightness of their position. So, Hillel here tells us be careful about that. Adopt a position of humility, rather than assuming with confidence that you are right. 

         As we begin the repetition of the Amidah, consider where you are in light of this teaching. If we understand Hillel as commonly interpreted- are we looking out for ourselves within the appropriate limits of not being overly focused by taking responsibilities for the needs of others? Or as Josh Kulp asks: Are we working to improve ourselves, as no one else can do it for us and also working to improve the world? And as we find in his second text- are we separating ourselves from our community? Are we overly confident in the rightness of our position, or do we carry ourselves with necessary humility? 

        Let us take this time of reflection of the Musaf Amidah to consider these challenges and to seize this moment to correct course in the New Year. 

     Reflecting on the devastating impact last week of Hurricane Ida, when so many people succumbed to the horrible storms and had to be saved from their cars and homes, reminded me of a favorite story that makes a powerful point. I heard this parable long ago and delighted when I saw it used as the key lesson of an entire episode of the West Wing called “Take this Sabbath Day.”

          In this episode, President Bartlett is asked by his senior staff to consider commuting the death sentence of a convicted drug dealer whose appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court. The advisors seek their own advice from various sources including a rabbi, and a Quaker campaign adviser.  President Bartlett, a devout Catholic, requests his parish priest, Father Tom Cavanaugh [played by the marvelous actor Karl Malden], come to the White House for his guidance on the matter.

       President Bartlett had his advisers look for a way the public would find palatable to commute the sentence.  But in the end, he tells the Priest “I’m the leader of a democracy, Tom. 71% of the people support capital punishment. The people have spoken. The courts have spoken.”
Father Cavanaugh asks if President Bartlett has prayed about the issue, and the President replies that he had prayed for wisdom.  “And none came?” Father Cavanaugh asks to which the President replies “It never has. And I’m a little PO’d about that.”

        Father Cavanaugh then tells the President the following parable: 

      You remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town, and that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." The waters rose up. A guy in a rowboat came along and he shouted, "Hey, hey you, you in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety." But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me." A helicopter was hovering overhead and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I'll take you to safety." But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety. Well... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter he demanded an audience with God. "Lord," he said, "I'm a religious man, I pray, I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?" God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?"

       I love that story that teaches a very Jewish lesson that prayer can only take us so far. Our prayers can give us clarity about values to strive for and provide an opportunity to reflect on our circumstances and express gratitude even in the most difficult of situations. But prayer in Judaism is never a replacement for taking action. Waiting on God to act is no replacement for the responsibility we each have to reach out to others in need and for those in difficult circumstance to have the wisdom to accept that divinely inspired assistance when it is offered. 

       Sadly, it requires no stretching of that story to write a new ending that applies to our times in which God replies, “I sent you public health warnings about appropriate distancing, I sent you masks, I sent you vaccines. What are we doing here?

        As we turn to the Malchuyot section of the Musaf, let us have an appropriate sense of God’s role in the world and our individual and communal responsibilities.

     ​Several weeks ago, when we were reading Parashat Ki Tavo toward the end of the book of Deuteronomy, I came across a wonderful D’var Torah by Ilana Kurshan of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem that I knew immediately I would want to share with you today. In that Torah portion, Moses describes the kinds of blessings the people of Israel will experience if they are loyal to God’s covenant and the kind of curses they will experience if they fail to uphold it. The list of curses are very rough, culminating in God’s threat to return the people to Egypt to endure a fate even worse than the original experience of Egyptian bondage. Kurshan points out that the curses seem to be based on the plagues that struck Egypt before the Israelites were liberated. 

       One of the most vividly described curses echoes the plague of darkness: “The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and dismay. You shall grope at noon as a blind man gropes in the dark” (28:28-29). The rabbis often comment when they notice Biblical language that seems to be repetitive or superfluous. In the Talmud tractate Megillah (24b), one of the sages Rabbi Yose raises a question on this verse from Ki Tavo, “Why must the Torah specify that the blind man is surrounded by darkness? If he is blind, won’t he have to grope around regardless? What difference does it make to a blind man whether there is light or not, since the blind man cannot see it anyway? 

     Rabbi Yose’s question about this curse comes up in the context of the rabbinic discussion of communal prayer where the rabbis pose a question about whether a blind person may lead the congregation in the Shema, which is preceded by a blessing about the creation of the sun, moon, and the stars. Rabbi Yehuda argues there that since a blind person has never benefited from the light of these heavenly bodies, he may not recite this blessing. The other rabbis challenge Rabbi Yehuda observing, “Who says you’re not allowed to speak about something just because you haven’t experienced it first hand? People often expound on matters with which they have no direct experience.” As an example, they point to the many rabbinic comments on the divine chariot from the prophetic book of Ezekiel that none of them had actually ever seen. 

       At this point Rabbi Yose chimes with his question to justify the blind person reciting the Shema and the blessing before it referencing the heavenly lights by telling the following story: 

      Once Rabbi Yose recalls he was walking around in the darkness of night when he saw a blind man pass by holding a torch. Rabbi Yose asked the blind man why he was carrying a torch given that he is blind and could not see its light. The blind man responded, “As long as I have a torch in my hand, people see me and save me from the pits and thorns and thistles.” 

    Rabbi Yose explains that throughout his entire life, he was troubled by the verse from Deuteronomy 28 about the blind man groping around in darkness, but after this encounter with this blind man, he realized that even a blind person can benefit from light because it enables others around him or her to come to their aid. He thus came to understand that the curse in Ki Tavo is so severe because the blind person described there did not even have the benefit of a torch to alert others; and instead, gropes around in darkness, and no one can help. 

       Ilana Kurshan offers us a lesson based on this parable of Rabbi Yose’s encounter with the blind person as a reminder to all of us to allow others to help us in our own journeys through darkness. We all go through periods in life when we feel like we are groping around, unsure how to move forwards and terrified of all the stumbling blocks in our path. In such moments, we should not be afraid to shine light on our own distress and allow others to alleviate our suffering. 

      Indeed, as Rabbi Yose learned, it was not just the case that he was in the position to help the blind man; the blind man was also able to help Rabbi Yose by illuminating a puzzling text. The blind man’s torch thus cast light not just on the pits and brambles, but also on a thorny verse from our parashah that had previously tripped up and blinded Rabbi Yose. 

       We should never think that we are in things alone. As we begin the section of the Zichronot, let us not forget that we are blessed to have people whether it be family, friends, or community to help us illumine the path and to remember that we have a responsibility to carry that torch for others as well even at a time when we are stumbling in the darkness. 
 
      Based on the teaching of Ilana Kurshan of the Conservative Yeshiva. Torah Sparks Parashat Ki Tavo
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKWxcMhTlNrvtNRvjfHwDsTDzhLjPZSdXlCmclpnWKrllhrHgkztRJFmVrwCqfLZLng

I would like to tell you a story about a remarkable man I had the privilege to meet. What brought us together was unfortunate, but the meeting was a blessing, indeed a lifesaving thing. His name was Fred Epstein. Fred was a pediatric neurosurgeon who invented revolutionary surgical procedures to deal with brain and spine cancers that were previously considered “inoperable.” He also pioneered a delicate procedure to detangle the nerves of the spinal chord from scar tissue, a common problem for children born with spina-bifida. It was this procedure that brought me to Dr. Epstein’s office.

My first son, Elazar, was born with spina-bifida. Immediately after he was born, a surgeon closed a lesion on his back. That surgery healed well on the surface, but over the next six years, scar tissue from that surgery became entangled with Elazar’s spinal column. It became apparent when Elazar developed a progressive scoliosis. If left untreated, the tethered chord and scoliosis would have compromised our son’s ability to stand, sit, and possibly even to breath, or eat food. Elazar’s doctor referred us to Dr. Epstein, and we were fortunate enough to get an appointment very quickly, to see him at the Rusk Institute of New York University Hospital.

This was back in 1988 when we lived in Central New Jersey. We drove to Manhattan, and pulled into the hospital parking lot to park. A sign said parking would be $23. Welcome to New York. But we needed that appointment. When I got a closer look at the sign, I saw that is read: $23 per half hour… That was the easiest part of the day to deal with.

We met Dr. Epstein, and found him to be a very friendly man. He greeted us warmly. He gave us his undivided attention, and spoke sympathetically to us. He kibitzed with then six-year old Elazar, and spoke directly to him, as he explained the surgery to us. Elazar, no stranger to doctors and hospitals, held his own, and the two of them hit it off. Dr. Epstein gently warned us of four serious considerations. First, the tethering could be so severe there would be no way to untangle the chord. Second, the procedure could leave Elazar more impaired than he started, and he was already paraplegic, unable to walk without braces and crutches. Third, the tethering could come back in the future, but Dr. Epstein told us there were ways to try to prevent that. Fourth, the usual risks of surgery and anesthesia; which are never to be underestimated. But, he added, if the surgery worked, Elazar would have a decent chance of avoiding the complications of the scoliosis.

Dr. Epstein let us ask our questions, and then told us we should think it over for awhile. He shook Elazar’s hand and gave him a wink. Then he insisted we get a second opinion. And I tried for the next two weeks, to no avail. I called every neurosurgeon in New Jersey, and could not even get an appointment. When they heard we had already seen Dr. Epstein, they all said the same thing- “Why are you calling me? You already saw Epstein. He’s the one who does this.” Frustrated, I called Dr. Epstein’s office back, expecting to get his assistant or a nurse, but instead, I found he had given me his personal number, and he came on the line himself. He listened to my tale of frustration, and barked. “Whattaya mean they won’t give you a second opinion?” He was annoyed, but it also made him chuckle, and he put me at ease. I asked him - “Let me ask you this. Who disagrees with you? Who is your rival? Who is the Shammai to your Hillel?

”That really made him laugh. He totally got the Talmud reference. He asked if I could
make my way to Philadelphia. No problem - we lived about halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. So he gave me the phone number of his “rival” at the Children’sHospital of Philadelphia. I recognized the doctor’s name, but couldn’t remember why, just then. Years later, I discovered that the Philadelphia doctor had invented a shunt that had been implanted in Elazar’s body a week after he was born. The box the shunt came in, along with a set of instructions for installation, actually came back with Elazar after surgery, caught in the folds of his blankets. The Philadelphia doctor’s name was on the box. We held on to that box for years, not knowing if it was something important we needed to keep - and then I wondered - do surgeons read those instructions on the job, the way I read instructions to put together furniture from IKEA?

Anyway, a few days later, we drove down to Philadelphia for our second opinion. It was a very different experience. Parking was a lot cheaper. But the doctor in Philadelphia was gruff and impatient. We had gingerly carried x-rays and MRI’s with us, and he gave them a quick look and tossed them onto his desk. He read Dr. Epstein’s report, and he shook his head and tossed that on the pile of scans. Then, with very little sympathy, he gave us the same somber warnings about the potential risks of the surgery. He painted a very bleak picture. Then he kind of dismissed us; and we packed up our scans and prepared to go. I don’t remember him saying anything to Elazar. But, as we got the door to leave, the doctor said, “One more thing! If you choose to do this surgery - don’t let anyone but Epstein touch your kid.”

It was all we needed to hear. A few weeks Elazar was admitted to NYU Hospital for the surgery. The morning of the surgery, Dr. Epstein came to speak with us, smiling, gentle, reassuring, but he also came with an apology. He said he had a speaking engagement in Cleveland that night, and if the surgery ran too long, he would have to call in a favor, and another doctor would close Elazar’s back. He felt awful about it. But he assured us that he alone would do the untethering.

It was a very long surgery - about five hours. He did need to leave before finishing. But, it turned out, he called in a top micro-surgeon to do the closing, who did a brilliant job, leaving almost no scar. After the surgery, we stayed in Elazar’s room, camping out on chairs, watching him sleep. To our surprise, the phone rang late that night. It was Dr. Epstein, calling from Cleveland. He finished his lecture, and he called to see how things were going. I proceeded to give him a detailed update on Elazar’s condition, and he laughed. “I know all that stuff. I already spoke to the nurses. But how are you doing?” From Cleveland.

That phone call was a true act of hesed. The biblical term hesed is difficult to translate into English, because it really has no precise equivalent. We usually try to translate it with words like “loving-kindness,” or “mercy,” or “steadfast love,” but those words always seem to fall short. Hesed is a broader value. Hesed is something you could possibly do with money, like tzedakkah, but it is more precisely done with one’s person - with one’s neshama. It can be given to the rich and the poor, the living and even the dead. It is measured by the tirchah involved - by how much a person puts himself or herself out, to do some act of kindness. 

I’ve thought about that phone call for many years. It makes me think about how hard or easy it is to be nice, to be a mensch. How much energy does it really take? A simple phone call, a gesture of kindness…can make such a profound difference in someone’s life. Ironically, it was Shammai who taught this lesson in Pirke Avot (1:15)

“Shammai said: Make your Torah fixed, say little but do much, and receive every person with
a cheerful countenance.” It makes such a remarkable difference when a person makes that
extra effort. There is even a little lesson about hesed in this week’s Haftarah:

In all of Israel’s tzurris, God was too troubled, the angel of his presence delivered them. (Is.63:9)

The verse speaks about God’s compassion for Israel during their exile in Babylonia, and how that loving presence helped them through that ordeal. It is a paradigm for empathy and compassion. As God watched us suffer in our ordeal of exile, it hurt God’s heart, too. God identified with Israel’s pain.

Acts of hesed are built from empathy; the active representation of the covenant between Israel and God, and when we do acts of hesed for each other, it defines our social contract as a people. It brings a little God into our relationships, into the world. We can be a presence of caring for each other, when we help each other face the inevitable ordeals of life.

The Talmud establishes hesed as one of the core pillars of human behavior. “The world rests upon three things,” it says in Pirke Avot, on Torah, on avodah, and gemilut hasadim.” (Pirkei Avot 1:2) No matter how learned we are, or how devout and observant, without hesed, the world falters, like a three-legged stool that can’t stand without one of its feet. Fred Epstein showed us hesed when we truly needed it; and it helped us enormously.

Over the next few years after we met him, Dr. Epstein went on to build a unique pediatric neurosurgery center where the patients, all children of course, many of them cancer patients, were given a comfortable, child-friendly place to live as they healed. He encouraged his patients to be playful during their stays in the hospital. There were stories of stolen surgical gloves that turned into water-balloons, with occasional ambushes of the doctors and nurses in the ward. And Dr. Epstein loved it. He built a place of hesed.
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Thirteen years after Elazar’s surgery, in September of 2001, soon after the devastation of 9/11, Dr. Epstein went for his daily 20-mile bike ride near his home in suburban Connecticut. His front tire hit a depression in the pavement. He pitched forward, over the handlebars, landing on the pavement, helmet first. The impact knocked his brain against the back of his skull, tearing a blood vessel, causing a bleed over the surface of his brain. He was rushed to a trauma center, emergency surgery was performed, and he lay in a coma for 26 days.

He was weaned from his ventilator, and when he was well enough, he went to the rehab center at NYU hospital. After six months, he was able to return to his practice, but, for the rest of his life, he was unable to perform the life-saving procedures that he had developed. Thankfully, he had trained other surgeons who could carry on his work, and they do so, to this day.

Becoming a patient in his own hospital, Fred struggled, physically and emotionally, to reclaim his career. He attended surgeries, but had to stand on the sidelines, offering advice and assistance, but from a distance. But he never stopped trying or learning. He visited the children’s ward often, to interact with the children, and found he gained insight and courage from the resilience of those little patients, who, like my son, came to his office seeking miracles.

One of those inspirations came a patient named Naomi, who Dr. Epstein had treated before his accident. When Naomi was only four years old, she came to his attention in grave condition. She had a complicated brain tumor that was wrapped around two arteries, one of which had already bled, putting her in a coma. This was long before today’s sophisticated imaging capabilities, and before there was a lot of surgical experience to draw upon for reference. Fred knew that Naomi’s chances were poor, but if he did nothing, she would surely die.

He planned two surgeries. In the first, he reduced the swelling from the bleed, hoping to address the tumor after she gained some strength. A few days after her first surgery, she came out of her coma. With her head wrapped in bandages, he found her standing up in bed, announcing defiantly, “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to ride a twowheeler!” 

If I get to five. Already at age four, she had surmised that getting to five was more of an if than a when. That reality calls to mind the haunting liturgy we will soon recite on Rosh Hashanah, the Unetaneh Tokef, where the Mahzor intones: On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and the Day of Atonement it is sealed:

How many will pass on, and how many will be born, who will live and who will die, who will live a long life and who will come to an untimely end, who by fire and who by water, Who shall live to four, and who will get to five… Life can be so precarious, and life is always precious, and this is all the more apparent when the life is at the tender age of four years old…

Each day, on his rounds, Fred would check on Naomi, only to find her bouncing on her bed with more declarations. “If I get to five, I’m going to beat my brother at tic-tac-toe!” Another day: “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to tie my shoes with a double knot!” Naomi never asked if Dr. Epstein thought she was getting to five. She had more conviction about that, than he did.

Naomi declared her intention to learn to jump rope - backwards - and to learn how to read. Her determination inspired him then, and the memory of it, after his bike accident, continued to inspire him even more.

Naomi survived her second surgery. She got to five…and to six, and seven, and then some. But she suffered some brain damage when the tumor was removed. At age 33, she was able to hold down a job as a grocery clerk. She wrote letters to Dr. Epstein faithfully over the years, and he, ever the mensch, wrote back. Now, the job of a grocery clerk might not seem impressive compared to the careers other young women attain these days, but for Naomi, it was like climbing Mt. Everest. Backward.

During his own recovery, Dr. Epstein thought about how Naomi continually raised the bar in her life; going from challenge to challenge, with determination and a smile, if not joy. He reflected on her resilience, and wrote the following about it:

“Naomi taught me that the child’s determination to embrace the next stage of life, to become more powerful and master new skills, can be a lifetime asset. She reminded me that whenever I ran up against a tumor that had “inoperable” stamped across it, I had to focus on the child whose life was on the line. That was a crucial lesson for me at a formative stage of my career. It strengthened my resolve never to give up on a child, no matter how daunting the course appeared.

Children are geniuses at raising the bar for themselves, clearing it, and then setting it one notch higher. Working with children raises the bar for me, (he wrote) and for everyone else whose lives they touch. They inspire us to dig deeper for the strength to do what feels hardest, what’s scariest. And to do that, we have to again become young at heart.

Much has been written about how important it is for adults to model behavior for children. What I’ve discovered again and again, (he wrote) is that children can model courage and character for adults…”Dr. Epstein, alav ha-shalom, passed away from melanoma in 2006. I guess all that time he spent riding his bike in the sun, took its toll. Or, it could have been the many summers he spent on the beach of Fire Island, where he, while on vacation, volunteered to help fellow vacationers, many of them physicians (those who paid attention in Hebrew School) run a pop-up Conservative Synagogue, so they could daven while spending time on the beach.

Elazar and I were blessed to have met him, and to have enjoyed the benefit of his genius and his hesed. I will never forget his menschlich-keit, his optimism, his kindness to us, and his determination. I still think of Dr. Epstein from time to time, especially at this season of the year, when Rosh Hashanah approaches. It’s at this season that we think back and think forward - to the year that passed and the year that we pray we will be granted. We think about the challenges we faced last year, and about those we might encounter next year. How should we face a new year, especially after this last one - with all of the uncertainty and loss, and fear? How do we find the spirit of optimism we need to grab hold of the new year, and use it for all it is worth?

I like to think that Rosh Hashanah is our wake-up call to remember never to take a day of life for granted. We are, even with the tzurris of life, lucky to be alive. The future is always uncertain. We fool ourselves into thinking we know that the future holds. Who predicted 2020 was going to be such a disaster? In reality, none of us knows what pain or pleasure will come tomorrow. But what a gift it is, to recapture that child-like optimism, that imagines that the future can be brilliant, that we can learn to jump-rope backwards, or conquer a pandemic, or have some other, life-enhancing breakthrough. It takes courage to think that way. After the past year and half of pandemic, and the violence in our streets, and for many, the economic hardship, we’ve been through a lot. It will take courage to move forward.

In the Torah, when Moses passed the torch of authority to Joshua, he imparted a message about courage. Moses blessed Joshua, saying chazak ve’ematz “be strong and courageous.” You will lead the Israelite people into the Promised Land: chazak ve’ematz. We find a similar charge at the end of every Jewish year. For the month of Elul and a few weeks beyond, we have been reciting Psalm 27, daily. It ends with these very words of encouragement: chazak veya’ametz libecha, “be strong, and strengthen your heart.” The Psalm encourages us all to cultivate the inner strength we need to meet whatever challenges emerge in the new year.

The New Year begins Monday night. It is time to raise the bar another notch. If there is one imperative for the Jewish people this coming year, it should be to bring more hesed into the world. We have seen such rancor between opposing political sides, such terrible things said on Twitter and horrible words spoken in Congress. We need more words of kindness and deeds of hesed in the world. And we can all do that! We may not be world class neurosurgeons, but we can all be purveyors of hesed.

Acts of hesed redeem the world, say the Rabbis. So this Rosh Hashanah, let’s push ourselves to do better with the time God has granted us, and to bring a little more hesed into the world.

So let’s plan to learn new things, or plan to study really old things from our tradition; let’s pledge to embrace new challenges, and face the uninvited challenges of life with courage. We can remind ourselves to be more of a mensch than a grouch. We can challenge ourselves to go forward in the face of uncertainty; a willful act of human optimism we once knew so well, when we were children.

It’s far easier to list the many ways, or many outcomes that could be disappointing and frustrating in the year to come. We can’t let that stop us from dreaming. After the past year and a half, we deserve a happier, kinder new year. May it be a year of achievement and learning and joy, and discovery, and hesed.

“If I get to five…” That is the name of the book Dr. Epstein wrote about his recovery from his bicycle accident. It is subtitled, “What Children can Teach us About Courage and Character.” It’s a tear-jerker, but it’s a good read.

If I get to five.
If I get to tomorrow.
If I get the chance.
Take that chance.
Make those plans.
Raise that bar.
Never lose hope.
God willing, we will all get there, in health and in happiness, this coming year.

Presentation of Pew Study of Jewish Americans, August 2021

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Kravitz invited me to speak today about the Pew Research Center Study of Jewish Americans that was released a few months ago. This would have been the ideal topic for Parasha Shemot when God commands Moshe to take the sum of the children of Israel for an egalitarian tax, and then later in the same portion calls for another accounting of the Israelites. However, today we read Parasha Shoftim, an especially rich one about law, morality, peace, war, and sorcery. This parasha is a wonderful text for an anthropologist to think about because there are sanctuary cities in other societies, and sorcery and witchcraft appear historically throughout the world. But that is not what I have been invited to discuss with you.

It is because I am an anthropologist that Rabbi Kravitz invited me to talk about this survey. My scholarship over the last decades has focused on American Jewish life-whether about synagogues, culture, gender, politics, youth, antisemitism, or race. My methods have been qualitative and historical. I study Jewish life by spending time with Jews to learn about how they think about their lives in various communities and experiences, and I look at the documents of the past. Surveys of Jews, by contrast, measure what they do, believe, and do with others. They are studies of individuals and allow sociologist to analyze that data. Survey research has been critical to the development of what me might call the social scientific study of American Jews, a field that developed following WWII. These surveys have become central to any discussion of American Jewish life by scholars of many types and within Jewish communities throughout the U.S., Israel, and elsewhere.

There are many explanations for why surveys of Jewish life have existed since the 19th century. The most basic one is that the U.S. census does not include a question about Americans’ religious affiliation. It is a violation of the First Amendment for the Federal government to ask a person what his or her religion is. There is, therefore, a long history of scholars creating surveys of religious life in America because census data cannot. However, Jews are such a tiny portion of the U.S. population that they cannot be adequately represented in them. Therefore, Jews conduct their own surveys, and for many reasons. For example, Jews have most often been interested in understanding not only how many Jews lived where in the U.S., but their ages, their incomes, their occupations, and many other questions that reveal demographic information about Jews. Social scientists, usually engaged by communal institutions like Federations, undertook these studies for cities, most often to understand the needs of their own communities.

However, beginning in 1971, the Council of Jewish federations commissioned the first national survey, and like the United States census they have appeared, with various sponsors, more or less every ten years. It would be fair to say, without exaggeration, that scholars, communal leaders, and rabbis have fought about the meaning of this research ever since. Sophisticated methods, including how to decide who is surveyed and what are the best questions to ask, produce results that begin conversations, but they hardly end them. The ferocity of these debates, particularly among scholars, is such that the surveys in 2013 and 2020 were not funded by Jewish communal agencies, but by the Pew Research Center, which is a private organization devoted to highly sophisticated research on religion, among other areas. The studies were funded by a generous Jewish donor. Perhaps you can speculate about why that might have happened. Suffice it to say, the level of conflict over the 1990 survey was so heated that it appeared no national survey would again occur. That might still be the case in the future, and then the business of surveying Jews will return to where it began with surveys done of and by local Jewish communities, which have always been an invaluable source of information.

I want to share with you, as Rabbi Kravitz requested, a very small snapshot of some of the findings of the 2020 survey that are generally seen as the most important takeaways. I do not have enough time to even cover all of them.  You can, however, access the entire study on the website of the Pew Research Center. You can find a discussion of the top ten takeaways here https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/11/10-key-findings-about-jewish-americans/, or the whole study here https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/. These sites are intended for interested readers and not experts. They are highly readable.

First, you might wonder how this research was conducted and who they count as Jewish, which is the subject of one major debate. The survey was administered by phone or email. Contacts were made with over 68,000 adults in the United States.  Screeners asked people who answered if their religion was Jewish or if they considered themselves Jewish. It was up to the individual to state that he or she was Jewish. There were no external definitions. They also asked the person if he or she was not a “Jew by religion,” which is the term created by the designers of the study. 4,781 people fit the criteria of who was considered Jewish.  (The survey included 3,836 people who consider themselves as Jewish by religion, and 882 people who were self-defined as Jewish but not religious. They also surveyed people who were raised as Jews but no longer Jewish, but those people were not included in the count of how many Jews are in the U.S.

The first purpose of a census is to provide a count of, in this case, how many Jews are in the United States.  The Pew estimates that that there are 7.5 million Jews—1.8 million children and 5.8 million adults, which is 2.4 % of the population of the United States. The 2013 estimate was 6.7 million adults and children and a slightly lower percentage of the U.S. population. These surveys suggest that the number of Jews in the United States have continued to grow over recent decades. The Jewish population is more ethnically and racially diverse. 92% of American Jews identify as non-Hispanic whites (a technical term), while 8% identify with other racial or ethnic groups. However, for Jews 18-29, 15% identify with racial categories that are not non- Hispanic whites. Our future is multi-racial and multi-ethnic.

Moving beyond the census count, the survey asked many questions about the individual’s religion, politics, non- religious forms of Jewish identity, attitudes about Israel and antisemitism, and other items as well. Here are some of the results that were striking to me.

1.Rates of Jews’ affiliation with Judaim tracks with other Americans other than by age. The impact of age is crucial is crucial in virtually every aspect of the survey, not surprising, but it also holds some surprises with religious identification.Like Americans overall, Jewish religious affiliation is declining significantly among younger Jews.  41% of Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 identify with no branch of Judaism. That may not be unusual because people tend to affiliate with synagogues when they have families and Jews marry late. But among Jews 30-49, 36% identify with no branch of Judaism. By the way, that number is 35% for all Americans between 18 and 29 and 37% for 30-49. 27% of American Jews are now Jews of no religion.

However, what sets Jews apart in the 18-29 age group is that 17% identify as Orthodox. That age group is the most affiliated with orthodox Judaism of any other currently.  Only 3% of Jews over 65 identify as orthodox. And it is that age group that has the highest identification with Conservative Judaism, 25%. Given birthrates, Orthodox Judaism is poised over the next decades to become a larger share of Jews by religion.      

1. Intermarriage remains one of the key issues in each decade survey and has been a constant point of debate and controversy, and consumed communal discussions. The 2020 Pew survey demonstrates two interesting things. Intermarriage has continued to rise as predicted. But the children of the intermarried do feel connections with Jewish life, which was not what was predicted.

The percentage of intermarried Jews is now 42%, but the number is misleading. The reason it is relatively low is because Orthodox Jews, 9% of American Jews, have virtually no intermarriage.  Almost half of all non-Orthodox Jews by contrast, have a non Jewish spouse. In addition 60% of Jews who married in the last decade have a non- Jewish spouse.  Again, this reflects the larger US population where both inter-religious and inter-racial marriages are on the rise in the US.

Among Americans with one Jewish parent, young adults are more likely to identify as Jewish than in previous generations. One third of those 18-29 consider themselves Jews, but of those over 50 with one Jewish parent, only 12 % thought of themselves as Jewish.  Not quite a third of intermarried families are raising their children as Jews. While that number seems low, it is much higher than was anticipated several decades ago. In addition, we know from other studies that a significantly higher number of children are likely to attend Passover seders, celebrate Hanukah, or participate with family and friends in Jewish events.

The survey demonstrates again that in-married Jewish families are most likely to raise    Jewish children and those children are most likely to marry Jews. However, there is also no question that in-marriage is not the only means to create Jewish families.

1. Another important finding of the 2020 survey is that there is a significant increase in Jews’ perceptions of antisemitism compared to 5 years ago. ¾ of Jews believe that there is more antisemitism in America then there was five years ago. 53% feel less safe, and about 5% say they would avoid a Jewish event or place because of their fear, and 12% hesitated but attended anyway. This survey was conducted during the 2020 election season and political attitudes, including about antisemitism, formed an important backdrop to it.
2. The survey revealed that Jews continue to feel that support for and attachment to Israel is “important or essential to what being Jewish means to them.” But there were important partisan differences that are reflected also in political affiliations. 71% of Jews are Democrats or Independents who lean toward Democratic party.  80% of Reform Jews are Democrats. ¾ of orthodox Jews are Republicans and that has increased since 2013 when 57% of Orthodox Jews were Republican or leaned Republican. Attitudes toward Israel differ by denomination, and by age with younger Jews, who are non-Orthodox, having a lower sense of attachment.

 
What might we make of this very brief overview of some of the most important findings? Surveys, to reiterate, are simply one perspective on Jewish life. They tell us nothing about how people feel about their Jewishness, what their community means to them, how they create a Jewish life, with whom, where and when, or what or who affects their choices and ideas. They offer broad perspectives. No survey would have predicted a Trump presidency and its impact on Jewish life or the rise in antisemitism, for example. That is not what surveys do. We make our own destinies.
 
It is also crucial to understand how much Jews look like other Americans in terms of religious affiliation, intermarriage, and a waning sense of group attachment. Jews are also different than other Americans. We are far, far less religious in traditional, (meaning Protestant) terms, than other Americans, especially around belief in God. We are also more highly educated and have higher incomes. We are also, someone recently told me the most vaccinated in the U.S.

At the same time, Jewish life is fundamentally changing. More Jews are raised by non- Jews; more Jews are people of color; more white Jews live in households with people of color and more Jews are Orthodox. We, as progressive Jews in the middle, are tasked with a huge responsibility to understand how to be part of and respond to these changes, in a changing moment of racial reckoning and antisemitic rising white Christian nationalism.
 
This presentation coincides with two relevant events The first analysis of the US census was released this week and finds, of course, that we are living in a far more diverse nation. In addition, last week, a survey was released that was commissioned by the Jews of Color Initiative. This survey, with a far less sophisticated sample than the Pew study, but still of monumental importance, received 1100 responses from Jews of Color in 48 states. Researchers also interviewed 60 Jews of Color. The JOC Initiative is committed to fighting racism within the American Jewish community, and positively to get us to realize we are a multi-racial and multicultural people, and have been for centuries. More than 80% of respondents said that they have experienced racism in the Jewish community. Yet, those surveyed overwhelmingly love being Jews and are deeply committed to Jewish life. This is not the time to discuss this in any greater detail, but it is the right place to end. You can access the survey here https://jewsofcolorinitiative.org/premier-of-beyond-the-count-perspectives-and-lived-experiences-of-jews-of color/?fbclid=IwAR3bIWbpm8M0FP9rI1admLJ3X8aOaBh90Zo6XfGmWxRPhMQpTGAc8yVj8Nk  
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To conclude, surveys provide us crucial but very limited information. It is up to us to create the Jewish lives we believe in, and we should do that looking forward and not backward.

Heidi also served as president of Adath Jeshurun after years of service on the board of trustees, including acting as chair of the Adult Learning Committee and co-chair of the Adath Israel Committee. She is a volunteer speaker for the Jewish Community Relations Council, where she speaks about Israel and about Judaism in high schools, middle schools, churches, and civic organizations.

Heidi is a student of Mussar with the Center for Contemporary Mussar led by Rabbi Ira Stone, and she teaches Mussar classes at Adath Jeshurun.

Judy: I think I’ll just start at the beginning because a lot of it, I think of a lot of what has happened to me and who I am, is a result of where I grew up. My name is Judy Kamins Goldstein, and I was born and raised in North Dakota, back in the day, when there were small congregations in various cities, when there were one or two Jews in some of the towns, and not very many others.  ​

By the time I was a teenager, I became involved in BBYO, because the Jewish men and women in North Dakota and Northern South Dakota all belonged to B’nai Brith. There was the B’nai Brith Organization and the B’nai Brith Women, and the kids all belonged to BBYO. This was the main connection. I was from Minot and once we had a Rabbi, who stayed for, I think, a year- otherwise we were served by the travelling Rabbis who might come for the High Holy Days or by Mr. Gordon. Mr. Gordon was replicated in many other cities in small towns. He was a very learned man who would help the occasional Bar Mitzvah boy with his studies.  

Back in those days, of course, girls weren’t Bat Mitzvah’ed, heaven forbid, so I grew up in BBYO. I became very active in that, and I was the regional president for a year, which entailed trips to the conferences, to the Twin Cities, Winnipeg was involved- that was always kinda fun, you know, a bunch of teenagers going across the border to Winnipeg. And then it was time to go to the University. Now, the common practice in the 50s was, especially if you had a daughter, you sent her to a university in a large enough community that had a reasonable Jewish population. Because, in the 50s, you not only went for your BA, your BS, or the unspoken reason, was to get your MRS. I was more interested in, you know, getting my degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, but as it happened, I DID get the MRS. One of you mentioned working with Hillel, so you must recognize the name Rabbi Louis Milgrom, who was an institution there in the 50s and 60s, and he had a saying “meet your spouse and the Hillel house”, and we all laughed about it! I met my husband on a Friday evening. They, once-a-month, had dinners and services at the Hillel house, and I was there with another fellow, when he said “come on, there’s somebody I want you to meet, he’s also from North Dakota.” And as they say, “the rest was history”. That man’s name was Alvin Goldstein.  

After his family left North Dakota, they settled in South Minneapolis and joined the Adath Jeshurun Congregation. Louie, Al’s father, lived a block from the shul, and went every morning and every evening and Al was affiliated there and [did the] USY, LTF kind of thing. So, after his service and when we were married, it was just logical that we would join the congregation. No shopping around was needed. I’m sure that we would have enjoyed the process, but [it was]  not an issue for us. So that was in 1959.  

We joined the synagogue and really didn’t do a whole lot at first. We were both working and very busy, and attended services. And then, in the summer of 1964, I remember distinctly because that was just before one of the children was born, I was asked to serve on one of the education subcommittees. And I said yes! I have been working on and off, mostly on, at various committees and various board positions since: Secretary of the congregation, President of the congregation, and everything in between.  

Talor: When you got involved with Adath, in sounds like you went from being kind of not being involved to being really involved over the course of your years. What was it that kept you coming back and taking positions and joining committees? 

Judy: Well, I have been a volunteer my entire life. I grew up in the type of household. My father was always doing some volunteer kind of thing in the general community. And I just grew up, that’s just what you did. My first volunteer job was in 9th grade. There was a junior Red Cross group at the high school, so that was my first volunteer thing. So, the concept of volunteering was just what you did. And I had been heavily involved in Hadassah in the community in Minneapolis. I was president of one of the groups and so it was just my mentality. I had one child at the time, and working, you know, it wasn’t the Gan then, it was the preschool then, committee, just seemed a logical place to start (because I was pregnant with my second).  

Mikaela: Definitely! What was your involvement like through Hadassah? Was that through Adath at the time or was that a separate entity? 

Judy: It was just through some of the women that I knew. We were all young brides and we got together and joined the Weitzman Hadassah and I was fairly new at it- very new at it. I think I had only been there about a year and I was asked to be president, and I said ‘sure, why not!’. 

Mikaela: That sounds like a theme, where people think very highly of you and ask you to do all of these positions.  
Judy: My philosophy is if you’re going to do something, first of all, don’t take a job that you aren’t willing to finish, and you aren’t willing to give your best effort toward. And, once you’ve made that emotional and mental commitment, follow through with it! And I just do! 

Mikaela: It’s so cool that you’ve been consistently at Adath your entirety, it sounds like, of being in Minnesota. What’s made you stay at Adath?  

Judy: Well, there’s absolutely no reason that Al and I ever would have left! I mean, that was his synagogue! He was on the Board occasionally from time to time, and it was comfortable for us. The staff, the philosophy of the congregation, the way the services were conducted, and the educational philosophy and opportunity were there for the children.   
Talor: Do you want to tell us about the National Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and the experience you had? 

Judy: I could talk about Women’s League for years! Women’s League for Conservative Judaism was founded in November or December of 1918 by Mathilde Schechter and different conservative congregations from around the country started joining. The Adath Jeshurun women joined on June 1 of 1919, so we were one of the first congregations to join the organizations. It had lots of different names before it ever became Women’s League. It didn’t become Women’s League until the mid to late 20s. It was the Sisters of Peace and all sorts of really interesting backgrounds. So, it was the way women at the Adath connected. Because you have to realize that back in the ‘20s, and the ‘30s, and the ‘40s and the ‘50s and into the early ‘60s, we really had no identity. I have, around here, some old Clarions and I was always Mrs. Alvin Goldstein. I didn’t become Judy Goldstein until the late ‘60s. That’s just the way it was. We cooked in the kitchen, we served the Men’s club, we ran a very successful gift shop, and we did other charitable kinds of things, but it was years before we could even be on the board. And it was many more years before a woman, heaven forbid, became president of the congregation. Well, Esther Katz opened the flood gates and there have been many of us since then.  
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Women’s League had conventions every 3 years at the Concord Hotel in Upstate New York. And, for those of us from the Midwest, it was a double treat not only being with so many sisters, but to go to the Concord up in the Catskills. And in 1982, there was a conference in November, and the region president, at that time, was Beverly Fine, who at that time belonged to the Adath Jeshurun, and as I indicated before, the Adath was a reasonably progressive congregation, and had talked about counting women in minyan- I forget exactly when that happened. But, as a branch, we had decided we were going to offer a resolution at the plenary conference. So, at the end of the plenary session, when the question was asked if there was any other business, Beverly rose, paper in hand, approached the microphone, and read the resolution, which asked that Women’s League strongly encourage the Jewish Theological Seminary to accept women in their Rabbinic program. And then all you-know-what broke loose. Lots of buzz, lots of conversation. At first, they didn’t know quite how to respond and there was talk back and forth. It was decided that the motion was out of order, because it had not gone through the Resolutions Committee, and the issue would be referred back to the Committee, and brought forth at our next convention in 1984. And of course, for the rest of the conference there was talk about “ugh, these women from the Midwest” and “what are they trying to do?”. So, by the time we returned for our 1984 convention, of course, the whole thing was academic, because Amy Eilberg had already been admitted and was a student in the Rabbinic program. But back in the days when United Synagogue Rabbinic Assembly, or whomever, was going around the country and having listening sessions about women being counted in Minyan, one was held at the Adath, and I believe, that we were counting them in Minyan before it became “official policy”.  

There were the days when women, of course, never put on T’fillin. I mean, that’s really sacrilegious. We had a staff person, a woman, who appeared at minyan one morning- she went regularly- and whipped out her T’fillin and put them on, and I remember my father-in-law talking about that, “how could she? How could they let her do that?”, and by the next week, he was okay with it. So, the idea of exposing people to some of these things.  

Talor: Everything kind of moved really fast after that motion was introduced. What were your thoughts as it was introduced? Did you think it would become a thing as quickly as the next convention? You said it was kind of academic and that they were bringing it up again because it had already happened, but did you think that that would become a reality? 
Judy: My hope was that eventually woman Rabbis would be permitted in the conservative movement. I don’t think that- I was hopeful, I was cautiously optimistic, but I really didn’t think it would happen at that point because things were always moving so slowly. But very pleased when it did happen.  

Talor: What kind of progress have you seen since that point? Was that the first domino to fall in terms of progress for women in organized [Jewish] religion? Walk us through where we were then to where we are now. 

Judy: It opened the door. If it is permissible now to have a woman Rabbi, why not have female Cantors? Not a bad idea! We have female Cantors [now]. We are producing female Rabbis. Now, we needed to get congregations at a point that they will accept them and hire them in pulpit positions, and that was not an easy task. How are we going to make our congregations comfortable counting women in minyan? Leadership on the board and presidencies were probably, maybe, one iota easier because during those times, women were taking leadership roles in business and in community organizations and were shown to be strong and effective leaders and could really do the job and in some instances, their skills were more appropriate than typical male skills.  

We’ve gone from, “can they do it at all?” to “now let's have a congregation, whose staff is representative of the congregation”. That is a HUGE leap. And if you think about it and maybe from, well, from the mid 80s to now, it isn't really that much time. Yes, it's a number of years but historically speaking it's just not that much time. I’m proud to say that the Adath has been out front, you know, in many of these aspects. 

Mikaela: Yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying-it's interesting. Since you've been a member, through a lot of this, you know, progression and change as Adath would do these progressive things that are ordinary today, would you agree with that being a long running theme of Adath? 

Judy: Yes, I do think that the congregation has been in the forefront, a lot of these challenges. And I think a lot has to do with the type of professional staff that we hire. 
I don't know how it happens because each committee is different. It's composed of different individuals, and a variety of viewpoints and skills, but generally speaking, we have managed to find just the right clergy person for the time, and to continue this forward view. So I think the lay leaders have to get some credit for it, because if we're smart enough to get the right professional staff, we've made it easier for all of these things to happen. 

Talor: Judy, I would like to know, you know, you've kind of always stepped up to leadership and kind of taken on the responsibilities you’ve needed to in order to exact the progress that you wanted to see. I would love to know like what advice or what words of wisdom, you would give to the congregation in terms of keeping that trend going. 

Judy: Well, I kind of have an idea in my mind of what needs to be done. I'm not sure how it's going to happen. But we, as I said earlier, we need to make the leap, the generational change. 
The next generation or two after mine have completely different views of what a religious institution, in this case the synagogue, should have in their life, what the role should be, how it should operate. And they are different. And each generation has a different point of view. And as my group ages out, and the next one comes in, we recognize things are going to be done differently. You're going to have to appeal and find what works to appeal to the next generation or two. But while doing that, the new leadership can't lose sight of the fact that there are still members who are used to things being done another way. And to figure out how to blend these two things together, to service both groups, I think is the challenge. I don't have any idea. And I thus cannot make a suggestion as to how to do it, but I do know that it has to be done. 
 
An example is technology. There are a number of people who are just not technologically proficient. And you have the question of then are we only going to have a Chadashot? Are we going to do away with the Clarion? And would that cut out the service to a large group? And blending together the generations and their needs is really, I think, the important task. And I'm cautiously optimistic that the leadership, the lay leadership, at the synagogue will be up to it.