Amazing New Biblical Scholarship website

TanakhML

OK, so not everyone wants to find the latest biblical scholarship technology. I know. It certainly has little to do with sustainability or technology.

But it’s very cool!

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So what does charisma have to do with being a Rabbi?

Since my rejection from HUC (number 3 – I’m a sucker for punishment!) I have been struggling with myself: I know that my performance in the interview was not charismatic, and that is the main reason the Reform Movement doesn’t want me as a rabbi. A recent post on IWORSHIP, a Reform email list, contained this lay explanation: “We search for rabbis according to their ability to lead, teach and inspire. We search for cantors according to their ability to sing and teach bnai mitzvah. Inspiration is a bonus.” – which kind of explains why a certain Rabbi on the HUC Israeli Program committee suggested that I become a cantor, not a rabbi.

On another list, there has been an ongoing discussion about charisma and leadership, following last month’s debacle, the unmasking of Bayit Chadash’s Rabbi Mordechai Gafni (with whom I at one time had hoped to study, until I heard about his shadow side).

Rabbi David Bockman wrote this very moving letter. I imagine that if I had set out to study for the Rabbinate when I first heard the call, I might be in the same place. His words speak very deeply of my own feelings:

Hevraya

This will not be a well thought out and crafted note. I’m not asking for a specific answer to a query, but I wanted to open up a discussion of the sort that seems to be rising in importance these days. Or maybe it’s just my personal hang-up…

It seems to me (LAD) that *personality* is becoming more important in the job/profession of a rabbi these days, or – at least – it’s gaining in prominence. Here are some of the factors that make me think this:

- when I graduated from JTS (‘86), the expectation was that being a congregational rabbi was about halacha, about pastoral care and leadership (whatever that means), about programming, about education (I had learned these things pretty well)
- somewhere between then and now, there was a lot of focus on ’systems’ (congregational cultures) and how to manage them (CEO model? – Elliot Schoenberg is very big into these ideas)
- some current trends: Mordecai Gafni, Shlomo Carlebach, etc. Personality or charisma seems to be a decisive factor in success these days, whether or not one’s music is very good music or one’s torah is very intelligent or true torah

After all, look at George W. Bush. He seems to ‘chariz’ many people (I don’t seem to be one of them), but it’s not because of his knowledge or his success in organizing the country into a system that seems stable and successful, at least from the way I see it.

Sure, he pushes his agenda through, but it’s like a baby that cries and gets its parents to give up their own aspirations for a number of years. Because it is insistant and single-minded, the baby ‘wins’. That should not be looked to as a desideratum, though. Saying that someone gets results is not – to me – anything to recommend them. Only if you say that the results are good or wise or just or legally sound do results really mean much to me.

I’ve been in the rabbinate for 20 years now. I know that I’m not much of a charismatic person, and I never will be. I also know that I’m very intelligent, creative, sweet and a deep and considerate thinker. I’ve never been extremely popular, but I’ve always stood up for people on the fringes whom celebrity types seem to disenfranchise or crush somehow. That’s who I am, and as the years go on, I become more like myself.

Should I just hang it up and pursue a different career than the pulpit rabbinate? My wife would love that, certainly. Maybe the placement commission would be happy to never have to try to send my resume to any more congregations that want mainstream rabbis.

L’idach gissa, I feel drawn to this work, because I feel I have *different* things to do and teach. My new shul president tells me about how my sermons don’t speak to the people because they don’t make them happy and aren’t topical enough or simply structured enough (“they don’t end when you think they will”). But almost every shabbat I have someone come to me and say “that sermon really spoke to me, and I needed to hear it. Thank you,” or “you really hit the nail on the head,” or “Man, I
hope that Bar Mitzvah kid listens to what you said because it was beautiful and it was just what he needed to hear.”

I’ve been compared (unfavorably) over the last number of years to other clergy people who I am told have charisma and people are drawn to them. Yet, when I see the abuses these people perpetrate and the way they destroy communities either for their personal gain or for extremist causes they support, it makes me want to cry.

I don’t believe that charismatic people are *by their very nature* narcissistic and corrupt. I just know that I’m not one of ‘em. And I am foolish enough to think that by doing the work I do I can benefit Jews and Jewish communities and bring more of God’s Torah to light.

Am I deluding myself? Should I try to be surfacy and ‘pretty’ and ‘happy’ to keep a job, even though I feel I am really doing a disservice to the community? Should I focus on getting sippuk nefesh from writing, in this era when nobody reads anymore?

Has the wheel of fate rolled in such a direction that someone like me ought to get out? Might it someday soon roll another way? I know that there are few prophets these days, and of those hardly any are anywhere near accurate, but still…

Is this truly a big culture trend, or has it really always been this way?
Any ideas, eitzot, discussion?

R’ David Bockman
Bergenfield, NJ
(UJ &) JTS ‘86

I pray to have the opportunity to serve.

—————————————————–

I want to make something clear – I continued to knock down the door at HUC for 5 years, not because I have some masochistic wish to make a fool of myself, nor for any great love of the program, one to one identity with the movement, or other ideological center, but for one very meaningful reason – HUC is the only liberal movement with a Rabbinical School in Israel. (Masorti is not liberal in my book – I cook on shabbat, for one thing…)

I desperately don’t want to uproot my family forever, just to get rabbinical ordination. If I didn’t care about that, I’d be in Philadelphia or Boston already for a year.

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Commenting on someone else is a beginning

i wrote this comment on Shalom Auslander’s nextbook page:
Nextbook: House of the Holy

Now go write in the holy tongue. After twenty years in the Promised Land, I can’t write either English or Hebrew. Can’t, that is, but at the moment am, or should be both, but as the form and the site are probably Hebrew-unabled, I’m doing it in English to work out my block on the Hebrew side of my brain.

I hadn’t thought of the holiness fear thing. I guess that’s because I didn’t grow up catholic, er, orthodox. Interesting set of fears.

I want to add that there are some more issues involved in writers’ block, whatever it is and whether it exists at all. Some psychologists or psychiatrists or neuroscientists talk about actual physical blocks in the brain, whatever it may have been that put them there. I think Peter Whybrow, maybe, writes about it in one of his books.

Like why was it that I couldn’t remember the name of Caleb Carr as I was writing an email this morning, and only when I typed out “early 20th Century New York mystery novel with Teddy Roosevelt” and pushed the enter key on the google.com window did his name come out. Until then I could only think of a name that -now- eludes me!

I have to say that writers writing about writing is probably pretty boring to anyone except another writer, Though.

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Pessach Hagadot

I haven’t posted here for ages, but here are some funky Hagaddot available on pdf to add to the pot:HAGGADAH ZINE

Are you looking for a politically progressive, anti-racist haggadah that includes beautiful writing, ritual, humor and reflection? Wish you could find a haggadah that is in solidarity with Palestinian liberation, and also rich with multicultural Jewish traditions and history?

Then there’s Velveteen Rabbi�s Haggadah for Pesach

Several years ago I became dissatisfied with the haggadah my family had always used for Pesach. I wanted something that moved freely between traditional texts and contemporary poetry, written and assembled with a progressive spirit but usable by Jews (and non-Jews) across the political spectrum. I wanted something that would draw seder participants in, offering opportunities to speak singular fears and dreams as well as chances to sing together and pray together.

Out of that liturgical longing arose what has come to be one of my favorite recurring projects: writing, editing, and assembling a haggadah for Pesach.

New – Sacred Food Project

I want to draw attention to Aleph’s Sacred Food Project:Welcome to Sacred Foods Project

By linking faith and business in practical ways, Sacred Foods is working to return robust health to our soil, air and water, ensure decent working conditions, increase access to affordable and culturally appropriate foods and protect the welfare of animals.

Even those of us who eat meat need to recognize that kashrut is not just about opening another market – but about right livelyhood…

We’re making headlines – or at least waves – maybe at least a ripple

The Dartmouth Green Magazine � Green Shalom: The New Kibbutz Movement

There is a Hebrew phrase, tikkun olam, which means the perfecting or the healing of the world. Translated into action, this Jewish concept is essential to the environmentalist cause; as human beings continually evolve, the earth turns on its axis and resonates with conscious energy.

Thanks for the promo, Lil! Now let’s get all the students hitting the website and clicking on the Arava program link, and we’ll be all set! C’mon kids, sign up now, you’ll have a great year!

Shabbat Tezave

I walked into shul last night, a few minutes late, and there was a big crowd, a JNF college tour group. My wife was busy finding seats for her guests, the kids stayed outside to play football, and there was only one seat left – the one I usually sit in when I lead the service. Everyone was singing ‘Yedid Nefesh’. I had begun singing the moment I walked in, and noticed that I brought the kahal into tune. Nothing new here. After sitting down, I looked around, to see who was leading. No one from the community was in the front row, except two who aren’t yet at the stage of being shatz. I mouthed to one of them, who? and she mouthed back, pointing at me ‘you’. I shook my head, she nodded. I took over.Usually, when there’s a big group of guests, like this weeks’ JNF group, Dafna, the manager of our guest facilities, gives me the nod in advance, so I show up on time.

So I led the service, and tried to tie in some Purim themes as I went. Suddenly all these images tied together for me – Psalm 93 is about HaShem putting on a costume: �’ ��� ���� ��� ! wow! I tied it in! The week’s parsha is all about dressing up – in this case, Aaron and his son’s – is Purim always the week after Tezave? I tied it in. I tried to talk to these JNF college kids about the costumes we try on and off – I talked about Purim as the time when we actually take OFF our mask…

It was a great service – I love it when we have a crowd!

velveteen rabbi in one of her posts this week, mentioned New Orleans, Mardi Gras, and Katrina. Above I mention Psalm 93. I keep meaning to work Psalm 93 into a diatribe about Katrina. Eliyahu taught us long ago that HaShem isn’t in the storm, but in the still small voice that can only be heard after the storm…

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Amazing!

telshemesh.org

one story: as above so below

Rabbi Jill Hammer’s site is really beautiful! She makes a great effort connecting the Jewish Calendar with the cycles of Earth. I like it!

Still, I’m concerned about two seemingly missing holidays in our cycle: �� �����, the olive harvest and �� �����, the grape harvest. It seems to me that these might even be the most important of the holidays, for a Land-of-Israel based people. But for a slave people, having just come out of Egypt, there is sense in �� ����� the feast of unleavened bread, when the last of the winter wheat storage is almost gone, and the new barley ��� is only just ripening. There is sense in any agricultural people for �� ����� the feast of harvest, at the end of a long summer of harvesting, but it doesn’t really fit the weather patterns of ��� ����� The Land, where it is really in the beginning of the fruit harvesting, which lasts much of the winter. The feast of the firstlings �� ��������, recognized as �� ��� the festival of the shearing, becomes the ultimate festival, when the greatest gift is given, the Law of life, and so it becomes �� ��� ����, though we might see the ultimate gift being the life of the lamb, and you can see where that might lead…

It being early in the morning, I will not tarry here. I really just wanted to note Jill’s site, and consider the oil ���� and the wine �����, the two important crops of the Bible. Jill sets up a very nice symmetry in her material, one, two, four, eight, but perhaps the eightfold symmetry of the Celtic calendar is not so applicable to the Jewish calendar. The rhythms of the Land of Israel are not the same as those of the British Isles, nor of the Northeastern USA.

�� �����, we can’t all live in the promised land.

Count the Stars

The past few weeks, we have forgotten to do Havdalah. Last night, we were on the way to an event, and left the kids with a babysitter. The week before, we had some other excuse.In the winter, it’s easy, Havdalah is before supper. But once the hour moves back, as the days get longer, the motivation is different, supper gets longer, until, by the middle of the summer, Havdalah is the kids’ way of stalling bedtime. There is a middle ground, there’s always a middle ground, somewhere, but we haven’t found it yet.

Howard Smith has a lovely piece at Shma, that can give a little more motivation. He says that counting the stars before Havdalah connects us to Avraham Avinu:

Each Saturday night before Havdalah, the ritual that ends Shabbat, we are
told to go outside and count the stars � observe the majesty of the night�s sky. Okay, we only count up to three stars, but the idea is the same: as Shabbat fades and we face the impending trials of a new week, we should drop preconceptions, open our eyes, and consider. But why the stars?

What a challenge! Count them! One, two, three…

Another late TuBishvat post

Even in chilly North America, the sap is rising!Velveteen Rabbi: Happy (belated) New Year, trees!

As it turns out, one of my favorite seasonal markers coincided with Tu BiShvat this year: Ioka Valley Farm, the sugar shack nearest to our house, started to offer maple breakfasts again, as they do each year during sugaring season. I doubt they had any idea last weekend was the Jewish New Year of the Trees, but the synchronicity of it makes me smile. Today may be cold and windy, but in some deep way we’ve turned a corner toward the eventual coming of spring.

Although I doubt our Rabbis were in touch with the ancestors of the Iroquois nations, the fact that the sap rises with second moon after the solstice was known to them. Recently, it seemed to me that the argument between Bet Hillel (who favored the full moon) and Bet Shammai (who favored the previous new moon) was one of difference in climate between their locations. Now that I think about it, that’s a little weak. More likely, the date fluctuates between the two, according to the lunar cycle.