Rabbi's Sukkot Reflections Fall 2023

Rabbinic Reflections on the World Parliament of Religions

Jonathan Seidel . Sept 11, 2023 - just before Rosh HaShana - A Jewish New Year message

Its Sept 11 once again and it’s part of my own history to remember the horrible attack on our country 22 years ago, in the year that many of our students were born. It was only on month since my family and I arrived to begin a new life in Oregon…In October of that year I was part of the planning committee to organize a memorial and interfaith service in Eugene dedicated to grieving and also to peace. I’d like to share a few words about my latest powerful and transformational experience in the world of interfaith/ interpath work.

This past month I attend 6 days of the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, held at the massive McCormick place conference center and I’d like to share some of my observations, extraordinary experiences and hope for the future with you here.

The World Parliament was established in Chicago in 1893 and saw the World’s first interfaith gathering on a global scale with thousands attending from across the planet. North Americans and many Europeans were treated to presentations by African, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Pacific religious teachers and leaders in a decidedly colonial expression of sharing that had lasting and large ramifications for Interfaith” movements. The Chicago gathering was the last for a hundred years (largely because of global conflict) and in 1893 once again the Parliament met in 1993.. It has met roughly every four years since and my first was in 2015 in Salt Lake City – hosted by LDS so graciously. This past August I chose to attend as a representative of the Oregon Board of Rabbis (of which I am chair) and as President of the Oregon Interfaith Hub, a local organisation which creates services and liturgical experiences and collaborates with statewide efforts for Justice on many fronts.

Some highlights of my week at the WPR

An excellent discussion of current Catholic – Jewish efforts towards combating anti semitism in North America presented by the New York Archdiocese and the

American Jewish committee. Perhaps people are not aware but that the overwhelming majority of hate crimes are directed against Jewish institutions…the session was sobering.

There were many moments of terrible decision-making opportunities: do I view a film on Gandhi’s wife and her work as an early feminist/activist in India? Or attend a session on Druidic spirituality, Christianity and psychedelics? (I’ll let you guess which one I participated in ) Or perhaps - do I attend a Sikh dharma and kirtan session or a session on Palestinian Christian activism against the Israeli occupation ? Most but not all sessions (how could everything be fantastic?) were exhillerating and refreshing …including many covering the matrix of science and spirituality. So hard to choose …

One of the most important sessions I attended was presented by two fellow Eugenians – “Swords into Plowshares” – a project based in UNESCO that is attempting to convince nations to donate 1% of their GDP to peace-making, resources for the impoverished, food justice and other social justice work that would make Dorothy Day and Abraham Joshua Heschel happy. There

is so MUCH we can do in converting small percentages of the enormous military budgets into assistance for health, food, education and medical needs on this planet – let alone to fund more alternative energy projects in light of the current quasi apocalptic climate crisis and emergency

Another inspiring and rather delightful event was attending “Langhar” the free lunch donated by the British Sikh community that fed thousands of us each day (and provided many opportunities for connection) The food was delicious as well.

Throughout the gathering of WPR I was thrilled to hear dozens of amazing speakers for peace and social justice, including a remarkable sermon-like welcoming presentation by the current mayor of Chicago, the honoring of Rev Jesse Jackson for a lifetime of service and finally the Cosmic Mass officiated by Rev Matthew Fox. In the latter ritual I was called up to offer the blessing over the wine and the bread. Matthew introduced me as a “stand-in” essentially for Jesus at the Last Supper (or Passover meal, depending upon which Gospel author you are following) a re-enactor of the Kiddush and Motzi. This

was followed by ecstatic dancing for another hour and 300 people of all ages were in the room having a post Covid great time ( Praise the Holy One that I didn’t contract yet another episode) Participating in this Mass was a first for me, and my initial voyage into this extraordinary moment of celebrating the Sacred Earth and celebrating the Divine both transcendent and immanent. A true catalytic interfaith moment for me .

It has been an honor to teach at UP and I look forward to speaking with you about future interfaith programing that affirms the integrity of continuing Catholic – Jewish and multiplex spiritual experience as we work together in Portland for justice and to implement the Mitzvah of healing the sick, protecting the marginalized, advocating for democracy throughout the world, protecting our planet from destruction and educating the next generation. From the Social Gospel taken from the powerful and empowering words of Jesus to the commensurate and congruent message of Tikkun Olam – each other and fixing the broken world, the imperative right now is upon us.

Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Seidel is currently the Minyan Rabbi-in-Residence adj faculty in the dept of Theology at UP, current chair of the Oregon Board of Rabbis as well as President of the Oregon Interfaith. He spends time between California, Oregon and the East Coast

Rabbi Diane Elliot's D'var Torah Rosh HaShana 5783

Cry Out and Awaken!

Rosh Hashanah 5783

R. Diane Elliot

Have you ever been awakened from a nightmare by a voice crying out in the night, only to discover, as you claw your way to the surface from the depths of the sea of sleep, gasping for air, heart pounding, that the screaming voice that woke you, was your own? That a voice, issuing unbidden from your inner depths, had pulled you back from the edge of whatever fearful tale your sleeping mind was spinning?

So does the commanding voice of the prophet Isaiah call out to us across the millennia, breaking through apathy and despair with words of relief and release: “Nachamu, nachamu ami, comfort, comfort, my people!”[1]—the very first words of the first of seven special haftarah readings marking what are called the Seven Shabbatot of Comfort.

Back in August, some seven weeks ago, these words launched the journey of teshuvah, of return, that has led us to this Rosh HaShanah eve. We begin our trek amidst the ruins of the Holy Temple on Tisha B’Av, that day of harsh remembrance, when we acknowledge and grieve utter destruction beyond comprehension—repeated losses of security and safety, of love and life and home—the flavors of loss that we as Jews know so well and that are now rampant in our world as war and political violence, hunger and climate disasters displace people from Pakistan to Ukraine, from Somalia to Guatemala.

There on Tisha b’Av, sitting year after year in the very ashes of our lives, we begin the journey home, the journey toward Rosh HaShanah, and the possibility of a new beginning. The prophet’s words, traditionally chanted on that first Shabbat after Tisha B’Av, soak like a healing balm into our shattered souls [sing]: “Naḥamu, naḥamu naḥamu ami….”

Isaiah’s next words cut through the numb silence of desolation and disconnection: “Kol koreh ba-midbar”––a voice cries out in the wilderness, a saving voice, an urgent voice, waking us from a seemingly endless nightmare of pain and loss––a voice that sparks in our souls the dream of teshuvah, the possibility of return to innocence, to sanity, to connection: “p’anui derekh HaShem, clear a way, a path for God! ki mal’ah tz’va’ah, for your time of exile is over.”[2]

Here we are, my friends––another Rosh Hashanah, we’ve made it! Thank God, we are here together to buoy one another up and to celebrate the turning of the year, the possibility of transforming pain, of lifting up joy, of expanding love, of reconnecting with Essence and making a fresh start. The theme that weaves through our prayers and songs, the yearnings of our hearts this year— “Awaken and Cry Out for Justice!”—calls us to a wider, more expansive kind of teshuvah, a generous teshuvah that extends beyond the repair of our inner selves and personal relationships and demands of us a commitment to people outside our circles of family and friends, to generations yet unborn, and to the larger unfolding of our world.

This is a time to wake up, the Sages tell us, to the truth of our lives, to strip the blinders from our inner eyes, so that we can see ourselves and the world more clearly, more truly, so that our voices can ring out strong and pure, calling out injustice and evil where we see it. “Uri, uri, shir daberi, wake up, wake up, utter a song! Kavod YHVH alayikh niglah, The Divine Presence is revealed over you!”[3]

So often, I find that it’s the very crying out—the voice of my own deepest self emerging, or the anguished voices of others—that triggers my awakening and knocks me out of complacency. Voices banging on the doors of my heart, “kol dodi dofek, pitchi li, open, open to Me!”[4]—the muffled moans of those who’ve been suffering quietly around me for generations, unnoticed; the voices of courageous truth tellers calling out lies and corruption; the cries of longing, grief, or joy issuing unbidden from my own throat; and sometimes, the conspicuous absence of voices—an empty schoolroom, once alive with the sounds of children learning and laughing, a silent garden, once filled with birdsong and the hum of bees. These sounds, even more than words, break through the constant noise and natter of business as usual. They jolt me awake, and point me in a different direction. Teshuvah.

Our Torah tradition is filled with such sounds, such voices that arouse and awaken, inspire and engender: “Kol damei ahiv,” the voice of the blood of Cain’s murdered brother, Abel, cries out to God from the very earth.[5] “Abraham, Abraham!”––an angelic call awakens our primal father, his knife raised to slaughter his son Isaac on the altar, from the trance of human sacrifice.[6] And the cries of the rejected Hagar and Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, cast out into the desert, dying of thirst, draw forth mercy from heaven and the gift of life-giving water.[7]

It is the groaning cries of the Israelite slaves, mired in degradation in a life-denying land, trapped in a nightmare of oppression, that set in motion our people’s epic saga of return, the Exodus, which leads directly to our being gathered here, together, this evening. For, our tradition teaches, the Israelite dream that became the Jewish people collapses time and space into “no before or after,” so we were all there too. God hears their moaning—our moaning—and remembers the covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, “Va-yar elohim et b’nei Yisrael, va-yeda Elohim, God saw the Children of Israel, and God knew.”[8] Even God has to be woken up.

What gives voice such power to awaken, to draw us toward compassionate action or, if misused and abused, to stir people to acts of violence and hatred? Perhaps it is that the voice, this shaping and vibrating and sharing of breath, makes our very soul, our neshama, audible. Is not voice itself, in our mythic and mystical canon, the very instrument of Creation? “And God spoke….” the world into being.

When we hear and feel the voice of truth, does it not also awaken the deepest truth in us, call us to action on behalf of the other, on behalf of our planet, in ways both mysterious and simple, deep calling to deep? And when I am paralyzed by fear, numbed by trauma, is it not the release of my voice, starting as a trickle and building to a raucous scream, that must crack the ice of dissociation to reopen the channels of connection?

I think of the voices, the distinctive timbres and rhythms, that have energized me, galvanized me, encouraged and called me to action: my 11-year-old self, thrilling to the ringing summons of a new young president, rousing a somnolent nation on his inauguration day, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!” My teenage self, vibrating to the thundering conviction of a great black American preacher and civil rights catalyzer, declaring “I have a dream” and vowing to persist in truth-telling and nonviolent resistance until, in the words of the prophet Amos, “justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”[9]

More recently I’ve been moved by the tender, impassioned urging of a young Sikh—s-i-k-h—American civil rights activist, Valarie Kaur, exhorting us to breathe and push, to birth a new kind of love—love as sweet fierce labor, bloody, imperfect, life-giving—love that enables us to tend to our own wounds, so that we have the wherewithal to tend the wounds of our enemies, to see and hear them as human beings with stories of their own, to approach the other with curiosity instead of hatred, to see no stranger. This, teaches Valarie Kaur, is revolutionary love, the kind of love that, applied with sustained communal effort, can topple oppressive systems and, with time and persistence, bend the arc toward justice.[10]

And I hear the voices of the next generation: the powerful witness of Emma Gonzales who, as a 17-year-old survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Florida, spoke out just days after a disgruntled former classmate gunned down 17 students and staff and injured 17 more at her high school, decrying the inaction of politicians bought off by the National Rifle Association, shouting out over and over, “We call B.S.! We call B.S.”[11] And the choked, angry voice of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, addressing the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York City: “How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words!”[12]

Empty words. How will we fill our words in the year ahead? Join our voices with those of our inspired leaders and our outraged neighbors, translate words into actions, small acts that, when taken together, will roll down like a mighty stream, cutting through the accreted layers of duplicity and cynicism, greed and racism baked into our society’s institutions?

How will we allow the voices of the suffering, the dispossessed, the murdered, the dying species, the Earth herself, to awaken us, energize us, and move us to become the eyes, ears, hands, and hearts of God that we were always meant to be? How shall we breathe through the fires of pain and refuse to let them harden into hate? How will we, in the ringing words of Isaiah, clear the path of God, make a straight road through the desert for our Godliness? What will you do differently this year? What can we do together?

I close with this excerpt of an invocation by James O’Dea, Irish-born activist and mystic, award-winning author of The Conscious Activist and numerous other works, a peacemaker who has conducted societal healing dialogues in war zones around the world and taught peacebuilding to a thousand people in 30 countries. He calls this piece “This Consecrated Hour”:

Do you not see them

the ashen ones

the gray ones

the starving orphans

the seduced innocents

the decimated specters of conflagration

all the beings trampled in degradation

crowding our collective shadow field?

Go find them

in this, this consecrated hour of human becoming

find your estranged, your lost and abandoned family

and embrace them into the vital marrow of your life.

Kiss them until the ashes of their betrayal

turn from gray to red

and the blush of love blows through

the One Soul, the One Life of All….[13]

What voice is calling out within you tonight? How will you answer?  Let’s sit silently for a moment and breathe together.

[1] Isaiah 40:1

[2] Isaiah 40:3

[3] from L’kha dodi, piyyut sung during Kabbalat Shabbat service, quoting The Song of Deborah (Judges 5:12) and Isaiah 60:1

[4] Song of Songs 5:2

[5] Genesis 4:10

[6] Genesis 22:11

[7] Genesis 21:16-17

[8] Exodus 2:24-25

[9] Amos 5:24

[10] see Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger, A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, One World, NewYork, 2020.

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmO89T3G1w

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU

[13] hear the full interview with James O’Dea at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aunsQChqWWY

From Shelah to Korach. Pursuing Justice in Light of Post Roe v Wade (by Rabbi Jonathan Seidel)

Every Parasha is strong, always present to us and challenging. Last weeks Parsha which shows the painful lessons of the False Reports of the Spies having grave consequences…many more years of waiting to go into the Land, and a deeply disturbing punishment of the those in the Midbar who cannot enter, only the next generation…Its as if they went “nowhere” coming out of Egypt and are still enslaved in this speaking silence of the Wilderness…And this weeks news seems to suggest the same: we have moved backward into the slavery of illegal abortion, far worse access to women’s health care and the danger of being in a new wilderness after the demise of Roe v. Wade. Whatever your position might be about “Personhood” and yes, there are many Jews who consider abortion to be murder (not the majority by far) one must see this Conservative strategic move as a triumph of the Christian right wing. Do we really want to force 12 year old vicitms of Rape to give birth? Victims of incest? Women whose lives are endangered by pregnancy? We as Jews, as ethical Americans must allign with people of color who are far more endangered by the new Supreme Court ruling. This latest move, to my mind, which hints at further dark ominous decisions, provides further evidence of the March of the Conservative Christian Right wing and allied with White supremacy. We must fight back and question this decision decisively with action. The time of mourning is over and the time of “Hora’at Sha’ah” הוראת שעה (critical time) for women’s rights over their own bodies is here…I hope we can all question leadership right now, but unlike Korach, do it in the right way. Let’s find a way to get out there and protest, make our voices known and create the energy to force the President’s hand to help protect women’s rights. Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof…צדק צדק תרדוף lets pursue justice justly and and get going to find ways to save our country from the wave of gun violence and the assault on women’s rights. It’s the Mitzvah of the Moment and requires the courage of Caleb and Joshua.

The Minyan Then and Now

Travel with us through time with this slideshow spanning 4 decades.

How Did The Aquarian Minyan Get our First Torah?

How Did The Aquarian Minyan Get our First Torah?

By Reuven Goldfarb and Ljuba Davis

Ljuba:
I remember the events around the acquisition of the Minyan's Torah well. I brought my godparents Marie and Lew Winston to Barry and Debby's wedding and that was Marie's first exposure to the Minyan. When she found out that the Minyan did not have a Torah of its own she told me, "This is what I've been waiting for, finding the right community who would welcome a Torah as its own and really treasure it!" When she heard that there was a Torah available in SF we went together to look at it----and she fell in love with it!

Marie's parents were orthodox (from Tacoma, Washington) and her father was the rabbi of a little shul. Marie's mother donated a Torah to her husband's shul years before when Marie was a child and, as Marie had told me on numerous occasions, she knew that someday she would do the same thing - She just needed to find the right community for her to fulfill this mitzvah. For, though they were long-time sustaining members of Cong. Beth Abraham of Oakland during Rabbi Shulweiss's rabbinate there, Marie felt that CBA had many Torahs and was not in need of another one!

I have pictures of my 6 year-old daughter Sabrina holding one of the poles of the chuppah during the Torah's procession down Bancroft Avenue.

Reuven:
As I recall, Ljuba Davis invited her friends Marie and Lou Winston to attend Barry and Debby's wedding at the Brazil Room in Tilden Park on Labor Day in 1976. They were greatly impressed by the spirit of that event. Two days later, Ljuba and Leo hosted Sheva Braches at their home on College Avenue. At some point during the festivities, Marie announced that she wanted to donate a Sefer Torah to our community. She said that her mother had donated a Torah to a synagogue, many years before, and that she, Marie, had always harbored the intention of performing the same mitzvah herself.

She went on to say that she had visited many synagogues, but all of them were replete with Sifrei Torah and therefore had no need of an additional one. Our community however, despite its evident spiritual wealth, did not have even one. She was delighted, therefore, to have happened upon the Aquarian Minyan, through the offices of her good friends Ljuba and Leo, and thought that we were the perfect place for her intentions to manifest. She was prepared to spend her own money, earned from the spiritual counseling work she did, to purchase a suitable Sefer Torah for us.

Burt Jacobson, Sue Goldberg, Yehudit and I went shopping for a Sefer Torah for the Minyan. At the time there was a Hebraica/Judaica bookstore located in the Richmond District of San Francisco, owned by a sofer (a scribe), Rabbi Reisman, who had recently moved there, with his wife, from Brooklyn. He offered us two Sifrei Torah, and we chose the older one. He repaired it, obtained a pair of axle-trees and attached the scroll to them, included a new mantel, and placed it in our hands.

We held a welcoming ceremony at the Berkeley Hillel Foundation on January 22nd, 1978, the 14th of Shevat, one day before T"U b'Shvat, the New Year of the Trees. Our friend Arieh Lev Breslow, and a violinist performed at the event, and among the speakers were Rabbi Burt Jacobson and Rabbi Yosef Langer of CHaBaD. Marie and Lou formally presented the Sefer Torah to the Minyan, with Yehudit and I receiving this gift on behalf of the community. Afterwards a crowd of us carried the Torah, under a chuppah, in procession down Bancroft Avenue, with Sara Shendelman singing and playing guitar.

These are the highlights as I remember them. I'm sure that others who were present can add to these recollections.

Kavod laTorah!
Reuven Goldfarb, writing from Tzfat

May 5th, 2017 / 9 Iyar, 5777

Drash on Sh’lach L’cha

Drash on Sh’lach L’cha
By Abigail Grafton

We are at Numbers 14, verses 20-25: which opens with words we know from the Holy Days: selacti kidvarecha: I pardon you as you have asked. The terms of this pardon are that all the adults who have seen signs and wonders will wander until they die and their carcasses drop in the wilderness. That generation will not see the holy land.

That’s a tough pardon. That’s a disaster. Forty years wandering in the wilderness. What happened? What did they do?
What was HaShem so angry about?

HaShem had told them they were going to have the promised land (and please we are not discussing this in terms of modern politics). They may have listened, but they didn’t hear.

The scouts came back from the Promised Land terrified. They saw people 9 feet tall, saying “and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” Joshua and Caleb saw differently: nothing to fear here: a land of milk and honey, a people whose protection has departed them.

The people heard the frightened scouts. They were panicking: “We’re all going to die! Let’s go back to Egypt!” Except for Joshua and Caleb, they forgot, or lost faith in, HaShem’s promise.

Taking this story out of its antiquated trappings, I read it as an allegory about how we receive and process information.

There are the things we see in our world. The scouts brought back a single bunch of grapes so huge it had to be carried on a plank. That was physical evidence, but the frightened people ignored it. Then, there are our impressions of what we see. The scouts either did or did not see giants who did make them feel very small and scared.

There are the emotions of the people around us: the panicky crowd wanting to go back to Egypt; the calm certainty of Joshua and Caleb. We have a choice of whom to hear.

Then there is HaShem’s voice. The generation that came out of Egypt saw signs and wonders, they heard a voice, and still they forgot when they were frightened. Today, we still have the opportunity to hear and to remember.

We can hear God’s voice in words of wisdom, in beauty around us, and in other people. And we can hear it inside ourselves, in our inner silences and our deepest places.

Like our forefathers and foremothers we have choices. We can hear or not; listen or not; remember or forget; go with the mob or listen to the truth; and we still have the possibility of dying in the wilderness or living in the land of milk and honey. We can choose what to see, hear and remember, inside ourselves and outside, with our hearts and minds, and most of all with our skill of holy discernment.

Please come up to the Torah if you are interested in developing and using the skill of holy discernment.