Rabbi Dan Moskovitz

Every summer I do the Jewish equivalent of this act of regression, I spend a week at a Jewish summer camp as the rabbi in residence.  Over the last three years that camp has been here in LA at Camp Alonim in Simi Valley.   Where this year hundreds of Jewish kids are spending the summer swimming, riding horses, playing gaga, having song sessions after lunch, Israeli dance late into the night, wearing white on Shabbat and acting out the weekly torah portion in skits and conversations that can only happen in a sanctuary made of trees and windows open to the sky.

If you can’t tell I love camp.  I am a rabbi because of my Jewish summer camp experiences as a teenager.  Just look at a Jewish summer camper, they are tan, they are filled with energy, most days they are covered in paint or dirt, or both and most of all they are experiencing Judaism in a way that is making a lasting and profound impact on their lives – they are experiencing it through a joy filled community of peers.

But the lessons of camp, its transformative impact and value is not just for kids, its for grownup too.   Through the eyes of Jewish summer campers we can see that they are loving Judaism right now, they are connected to each other and to a power in their life, be it God, community, Jewish history, practice or culture that is greater than they knew before.

So what’s the secret, what is it about camp that is so helpful and inspiring for the Jewish experience?  What can we learn from these kids that can teach us as adult how better to appreciate the gift of our Jewish identity? (Please share your answer in the comments field below) 

There are some many things I want to highlight just three lessons that we can take from camp and apply in our own homes and Jewish lives.

1. Shabbat is different time, its special time.  At camp on Shabbat the food is better, we clean ourselves up, we dress in white, we sit with our friends (old and new), we take our time at the meal, we sing songs and dance afterwards.  We sleep in on Saturday morning, we connect with nature, we have a long period of time to relax or take advantage of the things we didn’t get to do during the week, and we end Shabbat with a ritual that truly marks the time as different from the week that lies ahead.  We can do this in our homes as well, we can make Shabbat, we can make time for Shabbat, we can tell the world it has to wait, this time, our family comes first.
2. Prayer at camp is a collaborative experience; it doesn’t exist unless you help create it.  As a rabbi at camp on Shabbat I tell a story, some kid or kids with a guitar plays music but the campers own the service, they chose the prayers, the melodies, the readings, the setting.  We need to do more of this in our congregations.  Yes gone are the days where to sit in shul meant to sit on your hands stark still. Indeed now in synagogue we sing along, we clap, but we cannot stop there we need to help create, to the shape the experience, to own it.  Because prayer is not the sole responsibility of the rabbi or the cantor.  In Judaism it takes a community to truly pray, so we all have to contribute and not just our voices, but our yearnings and our desires, we must make plain what we need from this service and then together let us capture it.
3. Camp runs on Jewish time.  No I don’t mean everything is 15 minutes late.  What I mean is that you don’t have to go to a certain place to feel Jewish, its in the air, its in the food, its in the names of buildings, the types of activities.  Judaism is a consistent thread that runs throughout your day.  From blessings in the morning and over meals, to the art projects and stories shared around the camp fire.  Of course it is hard to do in the real world with so many things competing for our attention and energy.  But if we continue to treat Jewish faith and practice as something kept under glass, break only in case of emergency or family crisis or lifecycle event we’ll never truly learn how to use it, let alone own it for ourselves.

There is much more that camp can teach us about the joys of Judaism, but lets start there, with purposeful Shabbat, with collaborative prayer and with an embrace of Jewish ritual every day not just now and then.

You can’t spend the rest of your life in kindergarten (though my mother tells me I did spend two years – apparently I failed scissors) and camp is only for a few months of the summer.  But we can each of us, kids and grownups bring a little bit of camp into our daily lives, sprinkle it around your family and throughout your Jewish identity, and see what grows there – your kids will thank you and you’ll thank yourself too.

The First Cut is the Deepest

Circumcision in the Modern American Jewish Experience

 Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Temple Judea

Context:

There are people who find brit milah (circumcision) a profoundly meaningful way of connecting with the Jewish people and there are those who don’t. . . . People have to fulfill their inner sense. .  (Northern California Jewish Bulletin)

The only thing this sentiment, so quintessentially of the moment, neglects to acknowledge is that people’s “inner sense” is itself inextricably connected with the culture in which they find themselves. Should that larger culture come to judge brit milah to be not only medically unnecessary but also brutalizing and mutilating, the number of Jews who find the practice “profoundly meaningful” will assuredly diminish, and the abhorrence of it expressed by some early Reform leaders will return with a vengeance.  (Jon D. Levenson , The New Enemies of Circumcision Commentary Magazine 2000)

Text #1:

Abraham asks God, “If circumcision is so precious, why was it not given to Adam?”

This question can be understood in at least two ways:

• If milah (circumcision) is so special why wasn’t it commanded to Adam – so that it could be observed by all human groups?
• If milah is so special why did God not create males without foreskins in the first place?

Two Reponses from Rabbinic Tradition

Answer #1:

Replied the sage: “Whatever was created in the first six days of creation requires that something more be done to it: mustard needs sweetening, lupine needs sweetening, wheat needs grinding, and man, too, needs to be perfected.” (Midrash BR)

Answer #2:

[God says to Abraham], “That’s enough!  You should be satisfied that you are alive in this world together [that I bothered even to create you]; that I am your God and your protector.  If you will not undergo circumcision then the world has gone on long enough.

Commentary:

To the Bible and the ancient rabbis alike, brit milah is not a personal option for Jewish boys. It is a mitzvah, a religious act commanded by God as part of His gracious offer to bring the Jewish people close to Him in holiness. To say that a Jewish child will decide whether to fulfill the mitzvah himself upon reaching adulthood—“The only persons who may consent to medically unnecessary procedures upon themselves are the individuals who have reached the age of consent,” goes the Declaration of the First International Symposium on Circumcision—is like saying that he will at the same point decide what his mother tongue will be.

In this key regard, Classical Judaism takes its place unmistakably on one side of the struggle over the long-term effects of contemporary liberal culture.

Where that culture speaks in terms of human rights and the supremacy of personal choice, the ancient sources of Judaism speak powerfully of human duties (and of more duties for Jews than for Gentiles).

Where it tends to endorse the voluntary character of identity, classical Judaism speaks of an inherited membership in a people from whom the individual is not free to resign.

Where many today celebrate being whole (“intact”), classical Judaism pursues holiness, and always prefers the moral to the aesthetic.

Where liberalism has embraced the interchangeability of sexual roles, Jewish sources see men and women as different by nature and by the plan of nature’s divine Author.

Where much of contemporary American culture now places the highest valuation on pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, and on the avoidance of any sort of pain, the classical Jewish texts value the willingness to suffer for a worthy cause, speak of the sanctity of marriage, and elevate self-control over self-expression.

In light of these radical disparities, it begins to seem no accident that circumcision, the very sign of the covenant between the Jews and their God, should have become the latest front in the battle over the Jewish future in America, or that the values at stake in this battle should turn out to include not only those of contemporary Judaism but, mutatis mutandis, those of contemporary America as well, a society undergoing a painful sorting-through of its own moral and cultural dispositions.

For the sake of all parties concerned, and quite aside from the fate of specific medical procedures, one can only hope that victory in this struggle goes to the values that once were much more common in America than they have become, and that firmly underlie the theory and practice of brit milah.

(Jon D. Levenson , The New Enemies of Circumcision Commentary Magazine 2000)

As I return to the day to day life of serving my congregation I am struggling against the muscle memory of not wanting to just do things the way I have done them for the past 12 years in the rabbinate.  The text that keeps coming to mind is from Pirkei Avot Chapter 2, “Rabbi Shimon says: c’she’atah mitpalel, al ta’as tefilat’cha keva – Rabbi Shimon says, when you pray, don’t make your prayer keva, fixed (routine).  The alternative being Kavanah to perform your actions with a purposeful, considered intention.  I have tried throughout my spiritual life to be guided by this principle, and find it even more important now after sabbatical.

It is so easy for each of us (not just rabbis and not just with prayer) to slip in to the comfort zone of ‘that’s how I have always done it’.  The challenge of course is to continue to learn, grow and reinvent ourselves.  We are encouraged to do this by our tradition because to just rely on our old tired but true ways is to deny that thing makes us uniquely human and not machines.  A machine can perform the same repetitive task time and again, never tire, and never make a mistake.  In fact if you ask a machine to do something that is is not constructed or trained to do, that is often when the machine breaks down.  With people it is of course just the opposite – we are most alive when we push ourselves to try and do the unfamiliar.

In my brief week back at the congregation I have tried to make a conscious effort to do things differently and it has been both fun and a bit unsettling.  Its fun because I am trying out some of the new insights and techniques I discovered during my studies.  My conversations with b’nai mitzvah students are different, the format of my weekly Torah study is evolving, I’m trying some new things in worship, and trying very hard to use the phone and technology in a way that I don’t feel enslaved to it.  I’m even using some new jokes on the bimah – you must know its not easy for a rabbi to give up a tried and true good one liner.  Its only been seven days, but so far the intentionality of trying to be unpredictable to myself has been invigorating.

So lesson one, on my first week back is don’t go back to how it was, even if the old ways were pretty good.  Honor the change, the growth we experience as human beings when we make a routine out of not doing things routinely.

The art and the joy of parenthood is how to raise a self-reliant child who grows to become a self-reliant adult. How do we pass on to our children the knowledge, skills, values and beliefs they will need so that the teaching will remain with them when we are no longer ever-present?

Toward this end, Jewish fathers have particular obligations. The Talmud instructs that a father is obligated to provide his son (child) with Torah, a trade and, some say, to teach him how to swim (Kiddushin 29:A). This formula is interesting, because when the Talmud makes a list, it is meant to be all-inclusive; if something else was needed, it would have been on the list. Thus, our tradition instructs that a father has three sacred obligations in raising a child.

Torah is perhaps the easiest to explain, even if it may seem the most remote to many a Jewish dad. The mindset of the rabbis of the Talmud was focused on Jewish education and the importance of Torah within that framework. Torah, in their view, was not merely knowledge and education, and it was much more than holidays, rituals and stories. Torah serves as the cornerstone of Jewish life — it is morals, ethics and values. Its focus is how to be a good person and, particularly, how to be a responsible Jew. This responsibility is not taken lightly at all; if a Jewish father could not teach his son, it was his responsibility to find his son a teacher to perform the task. What Torah will you teach your child, and how will you teach it?

Teach your child a trade? This may seem far more applicable to our lives today. The ability to support oneself, make a living, plan for the future and support your community has often been stressed in Jewish fathering. But this commandment is about more than finding a good job — it is about legacy and tradition, about knowing the value of things earned and their value in years to come. To teach a child a trade in our modern 24/7, 60-hour workweek world is to teach your child not only to work, but how to work. It is to model the importance of the work/life/family balance. The question then is not what will they do when they grow up, but rather how will they do it? What can you teach from your lifetime of working so they remember that we work in order to live, not live in order to work?

And last is swimming. This concept is perhaps the most important of all, because at its core swimming is about survival. One learns how to swim so he or she will not drown; how fitting that the rabbis entrust this small and somewhat minor task to the Jewish father. To swim, or survive, so to speak, means to have courage and perseverance to navigate the rough waters that lie ahead in life. To swim is to let go of the side of the pool and wade purposefully into the unknown and come out safely on the other side. How will you teach your child courage and perseverance?

In all the roles a Jewish father plays, there is an essential element that is constant: time. How can a father properly introduce his child to Torah, a trade, teach courage and perseverance if he is not around? All of the above seems daunting in the abstract, but when your life is the lesson, the teaching happens for good or for ill whether you are present or not. So the most important task commanded to a Jewish father is: Be present!

Even the simplest task, when done with child in tow, can reap invaluable experience. Leading by example, being a trainer for life, is not easily done in a world of busy schedules, but it can be done. The interaction between father and child during those times provides a lesson in living. It is during these moments when Torah can be passed along. It is also during these moments when a child can learn what it means to be a father and provider, who his/her father is and what priorities have been set in life. It is in all of these moments, as your child watches you live Torah and ply your trade, that they learn from your courage and perseverance, especially in the face of adversity.

If you can do these things, there will come a moment when your child will turn to you and say, “I got it, Dad,” and you will know that he/she truly does. At that time, maybe say the “Shehecheyanu,” the blessing for having survived and been given strength to bear witness to a joyous occasion — in this context being told you’re not needed truly is a time for blessing. Oh, and one more thing, you might cry (yes, men do cry). But know this: Those tears will be bittersweet, the day you become redundant.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz

There is much to say about the exploits of Congressman Anthony Weiner, none of it very kind and much of it inappropriate for synagogue let alone polite conversation.  But a question needs to be asked; why would a successful, 40 something married man, albeit a Jewish man, with a baby on the way flirt with younger women online?

That is fundamentally the question that has been asked about this sad incident since the congressman took the podium and so publicly confessed his sin of sexting.  The answer I have found tends to fall into two camps.

One group, made up largely of married women of his generation and older men and women respond with three words, “What an idiot”.  When asked to explain what they mean, they offer that he is a sad, impish man-boy who never grew up and accepted the obligations and responsibilities that come with adulthood.  He’s not a man – one married mother of three wrote on her Facebook page.

The second group which is largely younger single adult men & women and married men of Weiner’s generation respond with the same three words, “What an idiot” but when asked what they mean is, “What an idiot he is for getting caught.” As Time, Newsweek and any afternoon Dr. Phil like TV conversation on a couch have shown us, sexting, flirting, internet chats, online porn, facebook friending and far more traditional and egregious intimate encounters are the worst kept secret of the internet age.

There are entire websites dedicated to this very activity, of facilitating married adults (overwhelmingly men, but not exclusively) in the act of stepping outside their marriage for experiences along a whole spectrum of adulterous activity.  No not everyone is doing it, but a lot of 30-40-50 something guys are, enough to support a whole industry and to cover the airwaves and internet with weekly examples of some married guy getting caught doing something salacious with another woman.

So a second question compels, “What is wrong with middle aged men in the 21^st century?”  Why are they not satisfied in their relationships, why do they seek validation from other women?  To be sure it is a complex and uncomfortable topic.

It is complex because we don’t really know what is going on in another person’s marriage – but we know enough to know that marriages are always a work in progress and because they involve other people there are seldom simple.

Its uncomfortable because we know a lot of 30-50 something married men, they sure look happy and responsible, and with the exception of fascinations with Fantasy Baseball and Video games they appear to be grownup and mature individuals.  But beneath that accomplished, easy going exterior there is a crisis brewing with the American Male – he is broken, defeated and unhappy.

I don’t make a statement like that out of thin air.  I have spent the past 8 years of my rabbinate working with men of this certain age in a monthly men’s group in my home, on retreats, in counseling and writing about the challenges men face.  I can tell you that I hear a lot of pain out there.  I hear men pulled in a hundred directions at once, with immense expectations placed upon them to succeed and provide since the beginnings of adulthood.

The modern man, like the modern working mom is expected to bring home the bacon, and fry it up in the pan, and change the diapers, fix the gutters, coach the soccer team, help with home work and drive carpool.  The problem is two fold, one women sought this equality of gender roles, for large part men never did.  They wanted to be more involved than their own fathers but they didn’t want to become their mothers.  The second problem is where women largely have social networks where they can discuss the complex and competing emotions of being a bread winner and a sandwich maker, men don’t talk about those things with other men.  We talk about our jobs, we talk about sports – we don’t talk about balancing the work family divide – not easily and not with other guys anyway.

Physiologist Warren Farrell points out that this brokenness comes because men are not allowed to be human beings anymore and instead are conditioned to be human doings.  Conditioned by society toward the endless pursuit of wealth and success – the modern middle age man is under so much pressure to success, produce and provide that he is looking for escape at every turn.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes in his book, ‘The Broken American Male’.  “We have created a hyper-competitive society where the worth of a man is judged by one thing and one thing only: his professional success, measured in how much money he has, how much power he wields, and how famous he’s become.”  And so as Rabbi Shmuley explains men escape:

• They escape these pressures by rooting for other men, more successful men in bright colored uniforms as they compete against each other in sports.
• They escape into their work, under the misguided assumption that if they can accumulate enough wealth, power or success they can escape the burdensome expectations that society has placed upon them.
• They escape to the Internet and the anonymity that extramarital affairs, real or imagined provides them.

Which brings us then to a Jewish response and this week’s Torah portion.  In it the Israelites complain to Moses that they are tried of the daily servings of manna that is falling from heaven, they remember longingly, if inaccurately the varied and delicious menu of slavery in Egypt.  Moses hearing this complaint petitions God for meat for the Children of Israel and then adds.  “[God], I cannot carry this people by myself, for it is too much for me.  If you would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg of you, and let me not hear their complaining anymore.” (Numbers 11:14-15)  God hearing Moses’ plea does two things.  First he provides quail to satiate the people’s physical hunger, and then he tells Moses to gather 70 other men in the tent of meeting so that, “I will come down and speak with you there and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them, they shall share the burden of the people with you and you shall not bear it alone.”  (Numbers 11:17).  God heals Moses’ emotional burden by giving him a group of guys to share the load.  So that he is not alone, so that rather than escape in isolation he can experience a camaraderie of sprit and purpose.

I don’t know the specifics of Congressman Weiner’s problem, but I am confident that at its core this man like so many men his age lacked good male friends and role models that he could confide safely confide in and open up to.  That is the work our men’s group, our brotherhood and our congregation have been trying to do over these many years and it is the work we must encourage the men in our life to do going forward.  If Moses can ask for help and form a support group of 70 other men, so can we!

Shabbas to the tune of “Friday, by Rebecca Black”
lyrics by Rabbi Dan Moskovitz

Downtown Jewish Community Project – Rabbi Darren Levine

DJCP is what has come to be known as a startup community. The TriBeCa area of NYC has not been known as a center of Jewish life in the city for some time. But the area like many in the city is experiencing a Jewish resurgence led by young families who are moving into the loft district. as has been the case throughout the American Jewish experience where young Jewish families move soon after a Jewish community grows. Where 50 years ago that growth would have been a synagogue building and religious school, a rabbi, dues and a building fund the approach of DJCP is new for a new era of Jewish life.

Rabbi Levine envisioned a store front operation that served a fresh innovative Jewish product to a discriminating Jewish consumer. DJCP is a modern glass fronted retail space that ‘markets’ Jewish education to an ever expanding clientele. With no membership fees, consumers of it’s services pay as they go for a progressive Jewish pre-school, religious school, b’nai mitzvah training, adult education and family learning. While Darren is a Rabbi, he is not in a pastoral role. DCJP has a young and creative staff of fresh Jewish educators do are dedicated to assessing the needs of their ‘market’ and delivering content with fresh appeal and hip handles. This ‘apple store’ approach to Jewish education makes access extremely easy. Where a traditional synagogue sets up a labyrinth of hierarchy, DJCP puts everything in display. Know what you want take it off the shelf, have a questions ask their version of the ‘Genius Bar’. Need more hereva the classes we offer. Want to just hang out and explore they have place for that too. DJCP is product driven, but like a very good retailer at it’s core it is about customer service. At DJCP customer service has the added element of being a holy expression of Jewsih affinity.

DCJP is perhaps best exemplified by its lobby with it’s cafe tables, juice and bagel bar and reading nook. Think Jewish Starbucks – the goal is to provide tasty snacks for the body and the soul. The ‘receptionist’ staffing the welcome desk is a trained community organizer whose primary job is not to tell you where you can find a class in the building, but through conversation to help figure out what class would be best for your Jewish journey.

This was one of the innovative approaches to community engagement that DJCP and Rabbi Levine bring to the table. Rabbi Levine sees every interaction as an opportunity for deeper connection and to guide someone on their Jewish journey. Taking a position as ubiquitous as the front desk receptionist and making them a Jewish professional trained in relational development is the kind of ‘duh’ forehead slapping observation that you find many times as you walk through DJCP.

Another is that they have Madrichim (guides) who go out to the schools each afternoon to walk the students from their public school classrooms to their Hebrew school studies at DJCP. The snack bar is a show case for up and coming bakers and caterers connected with the community. Think stay at home moms working on the next great cupcake recipe or salad concoction. The preschool is a progressive regio based model. Knowing that his target audience is dialed in to the latest research and online trends in education DJCP embraces new models.

So often when we think of Jewish preschool the term that comes to mind is Hamish. Idiomatically we translate hamish as warm and friendly, a preschool that hugs you. But the word actually means rumpled and lacking clear structure; that too would be an accurate description of the prototypical Jewish preschool. DJCP is appealing to a young urban population who have embraced structure and organization, as much out of the necessity of managing their busy work a day lives as from an iideological choice. The decision to chose a progressive preschool model fits perfectly with the aesthetic of this consumer. It is an insight that should not be limited to DJCP, but explored by other young, hip oriented Jewish educational endeavors.

The D anid the P in DCJP stand for Downtown and Project respectively and they are important commpoents of the enterprise. DJCP is emeshed in the TriBeCa community, many of their programs take place outside the store front in the surrounding environs. In this way they again lower the barrier and remove the obstacles to Jewish engagement. Through holiday parties, family learning and social action in the public square they go out to meet the Jews where they are or perhaps bring them to where they were affraid to be. Again under Rabbi Levine’s leadership it is all about relationship and connection. The goal is connection, content is important but secondary to connecting Jews wih each other.

In the last year DJCP hired a staff Rabbi to start to address the pastoral and spritual needs of the community. The initiative has had mixed results. Finding a rabbi that can work within such an eclectic environment and in partnership with a leadership team has been challenge. While at the same time the introduction of a singular rabbinic voice runs the risk of type casting DJCP as of a particular movement or ideology. DJCP succeeds because it is not easily pigeon holed as of this or that flavor of Judaism – therefore it can appeal to the widest possible constituency.

DJCP is struggling with becoming a synagogue. Some of its members would like to introduce regular worship services, and then the challenge becomes what those services look and sound like? Can they maintain their nimble, trending nature if they are locked into a particular movement or even a siddur. As an outreach organization if they look too much like a synagogue will they continue to attract their core constituency, the unaffiliated and the under affiliated?

But that is where the P comes in. At it’s core DJCP is an experiment, a project. They are taking a shot at something and that courage alone is making an impact on the community and across the country.

Romemu Independent Minyan, Rabbi David Ingber

I visited Romemu a Jewish renewal minyan on the upper west side for Saturday morning services. Rabbi Ingber was away during my visit and his abscene I am told was noticeable. The service was held in an old church and was preceded by an hour of meditation which I did not attend (nor because I have anything against meditation, I just couldn’t get there I time).

It was what I can best describe as a bohemian crowd of young and middle aged Jews. This is Jewish renewal and I think I saw a number of these folks in the parking lot a Grateful Dead show back in the 90s. That cool, I like The Dead – but it is definitely a particular esthetic. The service as it the mode of Jewish Renewal followed the traditional order of service (matbeyah t’filah) but made frequent use of poetic readings and melodies inspired by Shlomo Carlbach.

It was a prototypical renewal service (perhaps with Rabbi Ingber present it would be something more). The one innovation that I took away was the use of drum and guitar throughout the service. Two musicians served to underscore the entire worship, they never stopped playing; modulating their melodies and volume to match the order of the service. I found this musical setting to be very enjoyable and spiritually evocative.

And yet a Midrash teaches that when G-d’s angels; standing on the far shore of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds) broke into song and dance as the sea swallowed Pharaoh’s army G-d rebuked them saying: “How can you sing now; look what I had to do to my creation.’ (Midrash)

I thank G-d and the US military Bin Laden is dead – that justice has been done. But I am sad all of this, these wars, the loss of life, of innocence, of freedom was necessary. An evil man has been justly and violently killed (good riddance), yet evil and violence remain. So I sing, but I sing softly.