In Joshua's Shoes: 5-Minute Drash

I know I've already posted my drash in video and printed form on this blog. But are you curious about the process?

Check out my new post at TC Jewfolk.

You can see the new talit I bought a few weeks ago.

In Joshua's Shoes: 5-Minute Drash

My Drash on Parshat Mikeitz

This is the video of my D'var Torah from Monday on Parshat Mikeitz. I've included the text that I wrote as well.




Boker Tov,
Whatever happened to that cousin you used to be close with? What about
your neighbor you spent so many summers with? What is going on in the
life of that guy you sat next to in Biology 101 Freshman year? As our lives
progress, it is easy to lose track of these people. Thanks to websites like
Facebook, it is easy to think that you are still connected to these people,
but are you really?

Imagine what your “Year In Israel” would have been like 10 years ago?
What about 20 years ago? With our hectic course load, field trips, trumah
projects, committee meetings, and additional responsibilities ON TOP OF
being thousands of miles away from home would have been very stressful.
Especially without reliable contact back home. What about before phones,
telegrams or post?

Joseph finds himself miles away from home with a completely new life. He
has a wife, two kids and on top of that, the stressful job of providing food for
all of Egypt during massive famine! He has no contact with his family and
claims to not remember them at all.

I hate to admit it, but earlier this year I fell into a similar trap. I’m not
comparing the stresses of HUC to the stresses of being in charge of
Pharaoh’s household and foodstuffs in all of Egypt, but it was easy to
quickly catch up with people back home. I would just chat with people
on facebook for a few minutes and then rush back to homework. I got
pretty good at typing, “We’ll catch up more later,” or “Can I talk to you next
week?”

Then, two weeks ago I realized I needed to make a change.

After Havdallah, I was on the phone with my mom. She told me that she
had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This is the first time in my adult
life that I have been forced to face the mortality of someone I love. While
thinking about the possibility of losing someone at any moment, I realized
that I need to be better at staying in touch with people stateside. The good
news is that I have a second chance. The prognosis is that eventually she
will be healthy.

Since then, I have been making a conscious effort to keep up on people’s
lives. This was an tough way to learn this lesson, although often it takes
a shock to wake us up to something that is wrong. Instead of waiting for
something like this to happen to you, you can learn from Joseph.

But how?

After more than 20 years without seeing his family, nine of Joseph’s
brothers arrive at his doorstep. The Torah describes reunion from Joseph’s
perspective,


“Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them.”

This should be enough, he sees his brothers and recognizes them. It’s not.
The very next passuk says again;


“And Joseph knew his brothers.”

Why does Joseph see and then recognize his brothers AND LATER know
them?

Ibn Ezra attempts to explain this,
“From the start he recognized that they were his brothers, and afterwards
he looked at each one and recognized him…’”

Joseph saw the men and very quickly recognized them as his brothers. But
it was only after taking the time to closely look at each one that he was able
to remember who they truly were. It takes a lot of work to establish a close
relationship, but even more to repair a broken one.

As you can imagine, Joseph is shaken by this experience, and he notices
that his full brother, Benjamin, is missing. In order that rest will bring
Benjamin to Egypt, Joseph devises a plan, imprisons his brother Simeon
and tells the rest that they are never to return without their youngest
brother.

The nine brothers return to Canaan with their food. But the famine persists
and they are hungry again. After a long discussion, Israel allows them to go
to Egypt with Benjamin. When they arrive to Joseph, he sees Benjamin and
asks,

“‘Is this your youngest brother you told me about?’
And he said, ‘God be gracious to you, my son!’

“Then Joseph hurried (from them) because he was stirred by his
compassion for his brother that he wanted to weep, and he went to his
chamber and wept there.”

I believe that Joseph is not only weeping in compassion for his brother.
There is more to it than that. He is also weeping because he regrets
not being there for Benjamin as he grew up, and because Joseph is
overwhelmed with happiness for the opportunity to connect with him at this
point.

Remembering to stay connected is important, especially when you are
busy. This is also something we need to keep in mind. We have all chosen
a career path that, like Joseph’s, will take us far away from our families and
friends. It has the potential to use every last ounce of our energy and every
second of our time. We will need to remember to make time for our friends
and family. Even though, as Ibn Ezra points out, it takes time and effort to
do so. It is easy to think that “Stop ‘n chats”, or a quick Facebook message
are enough, but they really are not.
If you do not put forth the effort, you might not be as lucky as Joseph.
There might not be a day, 20 years later, when you can reconnect with
someone. They might not be there. So why let them drift from your life in
the first place?

I Guess This Means I Need A Tie

One of the best parts about having a major role in services at HUC today is that I needed to dress up. Slacks, button down shirt, dress shoes and a tie. I was a little bummed that I didn't bring a sport coat to Israel with me. What was I doing today? Today was delivering a D'var Torah. I'm not going to spoil too much of the process since there will be a post up on TC Jewfolk later this week. It was exciting, nerve-wreaking and fun all at the same time. The hardest part, though, was watching myself afterwards.

HUC records the D'var Torah that we deliver so we can learn from it. As my advisor said, it's more about the process this time. Clearly there were things that I didn't do the way that I wanted to. And there were little things that I wish I hadn't done, like go too far off what I wrote out and lose myself.

On the whole, it was a great experience. I'm trying to not dwell on some of the little things and remember that this is still a learning process. And now it's on to working on my service that I get to lead in late January. I probably don't need two months for it, but I love leading services. I'm going to have fun working on that!

3 Hours in the Library

Yesterday I spent three hours in the library doing research. Not the same research that I had been doing for five years at the University of Minnesota with my nose deep in history books. Instead, by the end of the first two hours, I had a stack of five different editions of Torah translations, three different commentaries on the Torah portion and I had picked up and put down a handful to a half-dozen other commentaries, Midrash and more that I decided were not useful to my purposes.

What do I have to show for all of this work? More than two pages worth of notes and a bunch of different ideas about what I want to talk about. Now comes the hard part. Reducing all of this material into a 500-word D'var Torah. For those unfamiliar with this term, a D'var Torah is basically a short sermon but focuses more on the portion of the week and some of the commentaries related to it.

Much like making a sauce (something I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to do), you have to reduce and reduce and reduce until you get to the solid result. The advice I was given by my advisor is that this exercise is mostly about the process, and less about the product, although the product is important.

So my task for the next week? Make it relevant, and be ready to edit it.

The bottom line? This is so much fun! I could honestly have spent all day in the library doing this, but there are classes to get to.

Speaking of classes, back to homework.

Rabbi Kravitz's Rosh HaShanah Sermon, 5771

The following is NOT my work in any way shape or form. It is the sermon that Rabbi Kravitz delivered at Adath Jeshurun in Minnetonka, MN on Rosh HaShanah this year. I found it fascinating and it connects to some of the things I have been thinking and talking about here in Israel.

Rosh Hashana I 5771 Sept 9, 2010

Support Religious Pluralism in Israel

This is a ketubah- a Jewish marriage contract. Ketubot come in
different forms, some quite simple and others beautifully illuminated. The
ketubah confirms the commitment that two Jews make when they marry in a
Jewish ceremony. I ask for a show of hands, how many of you have a copy
of your parent’s ketubah? Clearly, if your parents are not Jewish or they
didn’t have a Jewish wedding ceremony you don’t have one. I have no idea
what happened to my parent’s ketubah.

How many of you have a ketubah for your grandparents? I don’t.

How about your great-grandparents? Unlikely.

A young man in our congregation, let’s call him “Ari”, contacted me
this year for assistance as he plans to marry a Jewish woman in Israel and
was asked to provide these documents, and others, to prove he is a Jew. You
cannot imagine the hassles he has had to go through. Thankfully, it looks
like he will be successful establishing his Jewish ancestry. However, if a
non-Orthodox conversion had been found on his mother side of the family,
the door would have quickly closed on his plans.

Let me assure you that “Ari” found the experience infuriating. You
should also know that what he experienced is now the norm in Israel.
Orthodox rabbis on the payroll of Israel’s government are charged with
determining whether a person who claims to be Jewish satisfies the
standards of the Chief Rabbinate. Since the creation of the State of Israel the
Chief Rabbinate has had sole authority overseeing Jewish marriage and
divorce. They have not, in the past, had authority to rule on “who is a Jew”
for the sake of citizenship under the Law of Return, which allows anyone
with at least one Jewish grandparent, or converted by a rabbi of any of the
major movements, to immediately become a citizen of Israel. That would
have changed this year thanks to Knesset member David Rotem, whose bill
you likely heard about this summer. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s
first focus on the issue of how any of us who is born Jewish would prove
that in Israel today.

In March, 2008 Gershom Gorenberg, a respected Israeli journalist
wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine called, “How Do You
Prove You’re a Jew?” in which he warned of this development that our
congregant “Ari” experienced first hand. Gorenberg wrote about a young
Israeli woman named Sharon who went with her fiancé to the Tel Aviv
Rabbinate to register to marry. The Orthodox rabbi staffing the city office
that registers weddings asked Sharon to prove that she was Jewish by
bringing a copy of her parent’s ketubah, the document that many of us here
do not even have.

It so happens that Sharon’s family is from Minneapolis. Her mother,
Suzie, now 68, grew up here, made aliyah and lives on kibbutz. Suzie’s
background is similar to that of many of our members. Her grandparents
were Jews who came from Russia at the turn of the 20th century. Suzie’s
parent’s Belle and Julius Goldstein married in a Conservative ceremony and
were members of Beth El Congregation going back to when it was on the
North Side. After graduating from the U of MN, Suzie went to Israel where
she met a British non-Jew. They married in a civil ceremony in England, as
there is no civil marriage available in Israel. Since there was no Jewish
marriage, there was no ketubah. According to halacha, Jewish law, their
daughter Sharon was indisputably Jewish, but the office of the Chief
Rabbinate put the young woman through the wringer until they agreed.

As “Ari,” the young man from our congregation, found out this
process is not unusual in Israel, As I said it has become the norm. As
Gorenberg explained in his NY Times article, “the state’s Chief Rabbinate
and its branches in each Israeli city have adopted an institutional attitude of
skepticism toward the Jewish identity of those who enter its doors…The
Israeli government seeks the political and financial support of American
Jewry. It welcomes American Jewish immigrants. Yet the rabbinate, one arm
of the state, increasingly treats American Jews as doubtful cases: not Jewish
until proved so.”

So I ask how many of us could prove to an Orthodox rabbi in Israel
that we are Jews? Let me share another troubling story that does not have a
happy ending. In April, a story appeared in the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Achronot (4/30/10) about a young woman named Jessica Fishman who made
aliyah seven years ago and joined Israel’s army. Jessica’s Dad Les served as
President of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights. Before Jessica
was born, her mom converted to Judaism with a Reform rabbi, with mikveh,
in St. Louis and then moved to the Twin Cities. Here the family lived a
traditional Jewish life observing Shabbat, keeping a kosher home, and
sending their kids to Herzl Camp. Jessica traveled to Israel as a teenager
with USY and spent her junior year at Hebrew University. After college she
made aliyah. Hers is an impressive example of the kind of Jewish
commitments that can be shaped by the institutions of our community.

After two years of army service she settled in Herzliya where she met
an Israeli guy. When they decided to get married they went to the local rabbi
who began to investigate. When he learned that her mother converted with a
Reform rabbi he explored no further. Eventually the couple split up and
Jessica, who was so committed to living in Israel, left the country. When
interviewed in April, she said she had no intention of returning. How tragic
when someone who was so committed to Israel is pushed away!

These are the kinds of travesties being perpetrated by Israel’s Chief
Rabbinate. Let me be clear, I would not presume to suggest that Orthodox
rabbis do not have the right to determine who they believe fulfills their
requirements for conversion, or the right to decide for themselves “who is a
Jew.” They absolutely have that right. The outrage is when a Chief
Rabbinate is empowered to act on behalf of the State in making those
decisions.

This was why so many of us were roused to action this summer when
Knesset Member David Rotem, representing the Yisrael Beiteinu party made
up largely of Jews from the Former Soviet Union, proposed to change
Israel’s law. He would have expanded the authority of the Chief Rabbinate
to rule not only over the personal issues of marriage and divorce in Israel,
which is bad enough, but for the first time empower them to make decisions
over who is eligible to be granted Israeli citizenship. Rotem’s stated
intention was to address the needs of the hundreds of thousands of Jews
from the Former Soviet Union of questionable ancestry, who wish to be fully
accepted in Israel. In order to get the support of the powerful minority
religious parties, the proposed bill would have undercut the conversions of
non-Orthodox rabbis in the Diaspora, and even of Orthodox rabbis whom
the Chief Rabbinate does not consider sufficiently Charedi ultra-Orthodox.
Thankfully the outrage expressed by leaders of the Conservative and Reform
Movements, with the crucial support of Natan Sharansky, who heads the
Jewish Agency and Jerry Silverman, the President of the North American
Jewish Federations, and others, led to the tabling of Rotem’s bill.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received more than 60,000
messages expressing concern. Nearly 27,000 of those were emails sent
through the link on the Masorti Movement’s website. For now the Rotem
bill is tabled, but not dead. Negotiations are supposed to take place before
the Knesset reconvenes in October.

In October, with God’s help, I am going to Israel on a mission
arranged by the Masorti Movement, our Conservative movement in Israel. I
will be joined by recent past President of our congregation Heidi Schneider,
to send a clear message from our community that we find it unacceptable for
Charedi rabbis to have authority over the State of Israel, let alone over the
Jewish world. We will be speaking up for our young congregant “Ari.” We
will be speaking up for Sharon and for Jessica and for every person in this
room who would struggle to prove that they are Jewish to the satisfaction of
the Chief Rabbinate. Look around the room. How many of you would have
trouble proving to them that you or your children or your loved ones, or your
friends are Jewish? Heidi and I are going to Israel on this mission for each of
you and for all of us who care about you.

There are many things to worry about for Israel- the real threats posed
by Iran, by Hezbollah in Lebanon and by Hamas in Gaza. We worry about
the growing efforts to de-legitimize the very existence of a Jewish State,
efforts we must adamantly oppose. I am grateful that a renewed peace
initiative between Israel and the Palestinians was launched last week in
Washington and we pray for its success, though based on painful past
experiences we worry about that also. As a community we have stood up on
behalf of Israel time and time again and will continue to do so. It is
disheartening, however, to see our support taken for granted and our
legitimacy as Jews called in to question. It is unacceptable for Israeli
politicians to succumb to the blackmail of ultra-religious parties seeking
exclusive control in defining “Who is a Jew.”

I would be surprised if every one here is not outraged by the stories I
have told. What I find astonishing, however, is the incredibly lackluster
response of our community to these issues. Though, thankfully, many of our
members are active as advocates on behalf of Israel, through an array of
organizations, when it comes to the issue of religious pluralism in Israel they
are almost silent. Minuscule portions of our people’s contributions to Israel
are directed towards addressing these issues. It seems that the only time that
the issue of religious pluralism in Israel gets serious attention from most of
us is when there is dramatic news, such as the recent attempt to pass the
Rotem Bill.

You need to know that Israel is undergoing dramatic changes before
our very eyes. Israeli journalist Isi Leibler, in an article in the Jerusalem Post
(4-2-10), describes the rapid growth of the Charedi Ultra-Orthodox
population in Israel. According to Leibler, in the 1980s Charedim comprised
4 percent of Israel’s population, today they represent 10%, or about 700,000,
averaging 8.8 children per family. At that rate, in less than two decades,
Charedim could amount to 20% of Israel’s Jewish population.

Consider another sobering statistic, currently, 25% of all Jewish
primary school-age children are enrolled in Charedi institutions – double the
proportion of 10 years ago. Many of these do not celebrate Israel’s
Independence Day, do not recognize the Israeli flag, do not permit the
singing of “Hatikva” and discourage their students from serving in the Israel
Defense Forces. If this trend is maintained, 20 years from now, 40% of
Jewish children will attend Charedi schools. Assuming these trends
continue, what do you think Israel will look like twenty years from now?

This past March we heard a vivid description from Rabbi Gil
Nativ, the rabbi of our sister Masorti Congregation in Omer, Magen
Avraham, of the increasing polarization taking place in Israel. He described
how every year before Simchat Torah he goes out to buy flags for 'Hakafot,'
the circling we do with the Torahs to celebrate the completion of the reading
cycle. Two decades ago he could easily find flags with a picture of boys and
girls dancing around a Torah scroll.

These flags have almost disappeared from the market. Now there are only
boys and men dancing on these paper flags! (Also note the absence of the
Israeli flag!)

He observed that the manufacturers are careful not to upset the 'religiously
correct.'

This is just one of many examples of the impact of Charedi Ultra-
Orthodox Judaism on Israeli life. There are intense debates going on about
Chaerdi demands in Jerusalem that women be required to sit in the back of
public buses and that the planned light rail have some cars designated for
men only. This week the Jerusalem police recommended the prosecution of
Anat Hoffman, a rabbi arrested this summer for carrying a Sefer Torah
through the Kotel plaza on her way to services at the less conspicuous
southern section of the wall, established by Israel’s Supreme Court as an
alternate place for non-Orthodox minyanim. If successfully prosecuted, she
could be jailed for three years. Is that the kind of State of Israel that we have
worked so hard to create?

I wish no ill to the Charedi community. Let them be well! What is
unacceptable is that the bill for their growth is being paid for by massive
funding from Israel’s government! At present, over $400 million are
allocated to Orthodox religious services- hiring 3000 rabbis, providing local
ritual facilities and ritual items, with no more than $100k allocated to
comparable services for Masorti or Reform communities.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that establishing proper
separation between religion and state is critical to Israel’s survival; certainly
to its survival as a Jewish and democratic state. It is a given to us in America
that no one single religious sector should be able to control the public
square. We are blessed that this concept operates in the Jewish world here at
our Federations, where Jews of different streams and understandings sit at
the table together to maintain our communal structures. American Jewry,
following the Federation model and American democracy has much to teach
Israel.

As I said earlier, the national leadership of the Federation played a
crucial role in tabling the passage of the Rotem Bill helping to convince
Israeli legislators that its passage would create a serious fissure between
Israel and Diaspora Jewry, 85% of whom are not Orthodox. At the core of
the mission of our Federation is a commitment to religious pluralism,
permitting everyone to participate in the life of the community. We need
every member of this congregation to continue to give generously to the
Federation, which greatly needs our support to maintain our community and
care for Jews around the world and in Israel. We also need to send an
unmistakable message through our Federation that the issue of religious
pluralism in Israel is high on the list of our priorities.
In recognition of the importance of supporting religious pluralism, our
Minneapolis Federation, despite severe budgetary strains, agreed to offer a
$10k matching grant for funds raised this year for Israel’s Conservative
movement known as Masorti. Federation is offering the same match for
funds raised for Artza, Israel’s Reform movement. I ask for your help in
meeting that challenge, for which we are grateful, and hope that this match
will grow even larger in the future. Please take a look at the handout you
received today, which gives more information about the work of our Masorti
movement in Israel and about our concerns regarding the Rotem Bill. Israel
is desperately in need of our Masorti movement, which teaches a modern
and sensible form of Judaism and plays a crucial role bridging between
Israel’s religious and secular extremes. As the letter makes clear, significant
inroads have been made in providing that middle ground, even while at a
severe disadvantage for funding.

As we look to the future there is much to be worried about for Israel.
The external threats are great. The internal problems of Israel are no less so.
I ask that today we hear in the sound of the shofar a call to wake up as a
community and stop ignoring this issue of religious pluralism. If we are
indifferent to the developments I have described, we may wake up one day
and find that it is our child who is told they are not Jewish and I fear that our
children and grandchildren like Jessica Fishman will simply walk away from
the place that our people worked so hard to establish. If that occurs we will
have ourselves to blame because of our indifference. The failure to get our
people to fully embrace the cause of religious pluralism and to press for
greater separation between religious and state in Israel will be cataclysmic
for the Jewish people and for the future of the State of Israel as we know and
love it.

At the end of Yom Kippur, at the conclusion of the neilah service we
will sound the shofar and recite the words, “This coming year let us be in
Jerusalem L’shana Habaah Beyirushalayim.” I have painted a troubling
picture of what is happening to Israel. I have done so because I truly believe
that it is not too late for action. It is still possible for us to work on behalf of
a vision for the State of Israel that will welcome Jews of different
approaches and views to the table. The day is short and there is much to be
done... Hayom katzar, v’hamelacha merubah…but as the rabbis teach in
Pirkei Avot (2:20-21), “You are not obligated to complete the task but
neither are you free to neglect it Lo alecha hamelacha lig-mor, Vlo atah ben
chorine lee-ba-tel mi-mena.”

Let us join together in the work of building up our Masorti movement
in Israel, and in working for an Israel not dominated by a single
fundamentalist religious view. Let us join together so that Israel will realize
the visions of the founders of the State as a homeland for all Jews. “Next
year in a rebuilt Jerusalem Lshana habaah beyerushalayim habenuyah.”

Rabbi Harold J. Kravitz
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Minnetonka, MN