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Annual Meeting 2015 Opening Prayer

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Offered by Barbara Boyk Rust

AARCAnnualMeetingNov-22-2015Dear God,

Thank you for this morning, for this time and this place to meet and share our thoughts and wishes for the well being of our sacred community.

May we receive the wisdom that we need to move ahead with ease and strength.

May we listen to each other with open hearts.

May we speak with caring and respect.

May we act in balance and alignment with our needs and our resources, with our creativity, our energy, our time, and our finances.

May we be guided to create and act in accordance with the depth of our commitment to ethical values honoring all life, in support of healing and blessing for ourselves, humanity and the earth.

Thank you so much for a community that cares, respects and opens, sharing common aims for honoring self, family, community and the world.

Amayn

Human Rights Activism is a Source of Light

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truah_logo_web_no_RHRNAFor our Shabbat morning service during Hanukkah this year, December 12, AARC will be joining hundreds of other congregations around the U.S. in a focus on human rights activism.  “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” an organization with a long history of Jewish ethical and social justice leadership, organizes this annual Human Rights Shabbat. Rabbi Alana Alpert, rabbi at Congregation T’Chiyah in Oak Park and community organizer with Detroit Jews for Justice–and our visiting rabbi this year–is among the 1,800 rabbis who are part of the T’ruah network. She will be leading our service on December 12 and we’ve invited members of T’Chiyah to join us in Ann Arbor.

T’ruah offers organizational and intellectual support for Jewish work on issues such as ending mass incarceration, justice for farmworkers in the U.S., and standing against Islamophobia.   Rabbi Robert Dobrusin of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor is a recent past Co-chair.  At its website  are abundant excellent study, worship, and advocacy materials (including one study guide based on Margo Schlanger’s AARC d’var torah from Yom Kippur services a couple of years ago).

The roots of T’ruah as an organization go back to the early 1970s, when a cohort of Reform rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati brought their anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights activism into their rabbinic training. Some, like Rabbi Myron Kinberg z”l (my brother), as undergraduates in the ‘60s, had trained with Clergy and Laity Concerned to do counseling with conscientious objectors. Others had been Freedom Riders, helping to register Black voters in the South. When they became rabbinic students in 1967 and 1968, they read the texts with those fresh experiences. The T’ruah website quotes one key text newly understood as a call for racial justice and human equality: “Beloved is all humankind for they were made b’tzelem Elohim (in the image of God). Doubly beloved are they, for they were told that they were made in the image of God. As it says: ‘In the image of God was humankind made.’” (Genesis 9:6) Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 3:14.

Upon ordination in 1972, one of this cohort of students, Rabbi David Forman z”l, made Aliyah. While leading the struggle for religious pluralism in Israel as director of the Israel office of the Union for Reform Judaism (1976-2003), he also founded Rabbis for Human Rights in 1988, in Israel. Another of the group of HUC students, Rabbi Bruce Cohen z”l, ordained in 1973, was sent to Israel to do peace work by his New Haven congregation in 1976 following the murder of five Israeli Arabs during protests in Nazareth, northern Israel. Rabbi Cohen co-founded, with Farhat Agbaria, the organization Interns for Peace, which for many years focused on bringing American Jewish college students to Israel to work on projects with Israeli Arabs and Jews. One such college student was Israeli’s Rabbis for Human Rights long time and current President, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who worked with Interns for Peace in 1981-1983.

In 2002 Rabbis for Human Rights-North America was founded as a multi-denominational network of rabbis and Jewish communities to protect human rights in North America and Israel. Renamed T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in 2013, it continues to continue to call on its supporters in North America and around the world to educate and advocate for an Israel embodying our highest Jewish values.

Human rights movements gain their strength from the power of the people as a whole, the soul of a movement rather than the individual bodies who take part. As individuals we might tire, our bodies might weaken, but it is the light of our collective power – which grows brighter and brighter over time – that gives us the strength to go on. Likewise, charismatic leaders come and go, and we might think it is their light that inspires us and produces change. But they, too, are bodies, which wane and dwindle. A truly wise leader nurtures the souls of the movement, builds towards a systemic victory. He or she lets their light burn with others, rather than standing aloft as the shamash.

 – Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster from a Human Rights Commentary on Chanukah

Please join us on Saturday morning, December 12, as we celebrate this Human Rights Shabbat along with congregations across the country.

Barbara Boyk Rust: Spiritual Leader and Teacher

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BBRustBarbara Boyk Rust was one of AARC’s founding members.  Eighteen months ago, she was ordained as a spiritual teacher and leader by a Bet Din of four leaders.  Her approach to Jewish observance centers around meditation and sacred chant.  Along with member Allison Stupka, Barbara will be leading our Kabbalat Shabbat service on Friday, December 18, at 6:30. Here, Barbara shares with the community some of her thoughts about her recent ordination process:

What prompted you to undertake the process of ordination? What was the preparation like?

Before moving further into spiritual leadership I needed the review and affirmation of others whom I hold as teachers, mentors and guides.  I needed them to say either “yes” or “no” to my sense of being called to teach and lead in a spiritual context.

Early rabbinic ordination, smicha or smichut l’rabanut, involved the laying on of hands from one rabbi to the next.  Some of the meanings of smicha are to rely on, or to be authorized.  Though I am following a unique path, it did not feel appropriate to me to take further steps authorized by myself alone.  Using a template similar to the origins of Jewish rabbinic ordination I held myself accountable to those who teach me and those whom I serve for recognition, validation and affirmation of this step of my journey as a spiritual leader and teacher.

Part of what I shared with them was the story of my journey, recapped briefly here:

I have been pursuing my spiritual path consciously since my mid-teens.  For more than half my life now, individuals, families and communities have asked me to serve as creator, facilitator and leader of holiday and life cycle celebrations.  Long ago, Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi said something to the effect of, ‘if 200 people think you’re a rabbi, you’re a rabbi.’  While I met that criteria long ago, I decided not to complete rabbinic training through the Aleph Rabbinic Program though I was enrolled in it for some years while I completed an interdisciplinary doctorate at The University of Michigan in Higher Education and Clinical Psychology. [Read more…] about Barbara Boyk Rust: Spiritual Leader and Teacher

Poetry by Janet Eigner

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chamisaDuring a break in High Holiday services, AARC member Sally Fink brought me a copy of a stunning poem by her friend, the Sante Fe, Jewish poet, Janet Eigner. How grateful I am to be introduced to her! The poem, Sanctuary, has yet to be published so we can’t put it up on this blog yet. Below is another of her exquisite poems. And here is a wonderful review of Eigner’s second poetry collection, What Lasts is the Breath, “Reflecting on her contact with the Hopi and how it deepened her understanding of Judaism, Eigner said, ‘I do understand that ruach, (breath or spirit or wind) all can refer in Jewish belief, to God, and that the concept began simply and gained God meaning over the centuries of Jewish evolution.’”

Isaac’s Blessing
by Janet Eigner

When Isaac, a small, freckled boy
approaching seven, visits us for Family Camp,
playing pirate with his rubber sword,

sometimes he slumps in grief,
trudging along, his sacrifice and small violin
in hand, his palm over his chest,

saying, Mother is here
in my heart. Before he leaves for home,
we ask if he’d like a Jewish blessing.

Our grandson’s handsome face ignites;
he chirps a rousing, yes, for a long life.
We unfold the prayer shawl,

its Hebrew letters silvering the spring light,
hold the white tallis above his head,
recite the blessing in its ancient language

and then the English, adding, for a long life.
Isaac complains, the tallis didn’t
touch his head, so he didn’t feel the blessing.

We lower its silken ceiling
to graze his dark hair,
repeat the prayer.

Rena Seltzer at Book Festival Local Authors Brunch

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renaAARC member Rena Seltzer will give a short presentation on her book, The Coach’s Guide for Women Professors, as part of the Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival’s local authors brunch on Sunday, November 8 at the JCC.
The brunch and conversation with the authors begins at 10am with author presentations at 10:30am. Brunch is $10 in advance for JCC members, or $15 for non-members, and $15 at the door. Advance purchase is recommended. The presentations are free and open to the public.
While you’re there, check out the Children’s Books sale, where you will be able to choose from over 120 titles chosen by AARC Beit Sefer Director Clare Kinberg.

ICPJ 50th Anniversary: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

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icpj 50thby Deb Kraus

When Ruth Kraut approached me five years ago to see if I wanted to be on the board of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ), I had only the slightest sense of what they did. I was aware that most of the people I knew who did political work were at least tangentially connected to ICPJ; what I didn’t know is that I was actually one of those people!

ICPJ coordinates the local CROP walk every year. I had walked in the CROP walk. Back in 1998, ICPJ organized a peacekeeping team to mitigate between the KKK and the equally angry counter demonstrators when the KKK came to Ann Arbor to recruit. I went to the peace demonstration that day. [editor’s note: For more news of that day here and here.]

Every year, ICPJ goes to protest at the School of the Americas, and I knew that Rebecca Kanner did civil disobedience that landed her in prison, but I’m not sure I knew that this was in the context of ICPJ. When I was a graduate student, I heard about and participated in an anti-war protest when George HW Bush was the UM commencement speaker. Just this past weekend, I found out this, too, was the work of ICPJ. And as our shmita team would attest, there was a lot of cross-pollination between our work and ICPJ’s theme year work on Food and Justice.

This is a subset of the great work that this organization has spearheaded. I am pleased to be involved in this work, and pleased that so many of you have some involvement in ICPJ as well. In fact, I sometimes joke that ICPJ is our social justice arm.

So here’s my ask:

In less than three weeks, ICPJ is hosting an anniversary dinner party to celebrate 50 years of peace and justice work in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.

It will be at 6 p.m. at the Morris Lawrence Building at WCC on Saturday, November 14. There will be remembrances from past decades, a silent auction, and a preview of what is happening in 2016. And our own Rabbi Alana will be one of the two keynote speakers as ICPJ looks ahead to the next 50 years.

Dinner will be family-style service with chicken and vegetarian options, sourced with fresh, local, seasonal ingredients.

The dinner is $50/person.

You can rsvp via email (jane@icpj.org) or phone (734-663-1870)–in which case you will be asked to send in a check–or you can get your tickets online.

I know it will be a great night, and I hope you can join me.

Member Profiles: Mark and Erica Ackerman

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erica ackerman mark ackermanMark and Erica Ackerman have lived in the Burns Park area of Ann Arbor since 2001. Mark is a professor at UM in the School of Information and in the Division of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering where he does research in human-computer interaction (social computing). Erica is a web developer at the University, as well. They have two grown children, Rebecca and Zachary. Rebecca is a data analyst for a non-profit in New York City, and Zach was recently elected to the Ann Arbor City Council. You can read an interview with Zach about his election here.

Among other things, Mark is a news junkie, and Erica is active in the Democratic Party and has a passion for fighting global warming. An example of Erica’s blogging on the subject can be seen here. Mark and Erica began coming to AARC High Holiday services several years ago, and have gradually gotten more involved in the congregation.

Mishkan/Sanctuary: Encountering the Sacred in Space and Time

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Yom Kippur talk by Carole Caplan

sunsets-over-farmThe day outside is cool, but the bright sun filters through the trees and warms me every now and again. I can hear the rustle of the wind in the branches above, and the call of something further away, maybe a loon, making its way to more hospitable winter accommodations. The crackling of the leaves under my feet step after step, make it clear to me that out of nowhere and all too soon, fall has arrived.

Baba walks ahead of me, and my soul, battered and bruised from the turnings of seasons before, struggles to keep up with this wise man in every way. “I tend the path,” is all he says to me, and I wonder, if I am here to learn from him, how or why or when. We walk quietly together, yet completely alone, for a long time, step after step.

The woods grow deeper and I can smell the moss on untouched earth in this old wood forest that has stood here longer than I will even be alive. Baba moves a tree limb that has fallen in our way. Come this way he motions, and without words I hear him say, “I tend the path, Carole, for you.”

Step after step we make our way along the edge of the forest to an opening that overlooks a large field. Its expansiveness holds the possibility of future crops, of dreams, of desires, of growth, of success, of nourishment, of failure, of disappointment, of need, of drought, of lack; of death. I sense that all of these have happened here in this field before. Is it knowledge or preparation that makes the difference? Is it repentance or punishment? Is it chance or luck? I hear no answers, and quickly retreat back to the woods, overwhelmed by the acknowledgement that so many things will always remain outside of my control.

How is it that I have found myself here…here in this place…following a monk through the woods? I know I am searching. I know I am completely lost, yet I know I am somehow exactly where I need to be. Truly, this must be grace cradling me in her strong and loving arms.

My soul, that which time has completely walled off and simultaneously entirely exposed, begins to soften. I feel compelled to stop and lean against a tree too big for my arms to wrap around.

I watch as Baba walks ahead step by step. And then it happens. Through the deafening silence and the tears streaming down my face, I hear clearly and loudly what I never even knew I had been longing to hear… “I tend the path, Carole—and it is enough for me to do just that.” It was a simple but elusive validation. A much needed directive, urging me on. It is enough just to be. It’s not about how much you can do. Enough just to walk. Not to always be striving, struggling, hurrying, worrying to get somewhere. Not about what you can produce. Enough just to tend that which is in front of us on our path with our time, our talent, our hearts, and yes, with our broken souls.

Baba and I turn to head back to the others making lunch at the central house. In a wordless flash, I recognize this as a magic moment−a door through which I have passed and will have been changed forever. I don’t know how it is that I have found myself here in these woods, but I do know that here I have somehow found myself renewed.

So, this I know: I am here to tend the path. The path that has led me to a farm outside of Ann Arbor where I tend the gardens, and know it to be “enough.” The soil there outside my door holds the seeds that become the plants that provide the fruits that adorn the tables that I am being called to set–and this cycle nourishes every part of me. I hope you will visit me sometime. You see, there is a path there that wanders through the growing things that turn with the seasons. And perhaps once there, you’d like to join me, step-by-step, for a walk.

Our Kahal, Our Sacred Community

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Rosh Hashanah talk by Margo Schlanger

margoHi, I am Margo Schlanger, and I’m the chair of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation. I’m here to welcome you, whether you’ve been a part of our community for its full history of 22 years, or this is your first time spending time with us, or—as with me and many others—something in between.

My two children are 15; it’s been two-and-a-half years since their b’nei mitzvah. There was something about that morning that really epitomized AARC for me. Something, in particular, about the Torah service. The kids read Torah—the parsha was Mishpatim, laws—and they gave drashes in which they talked about the function of some of those laws at the time they were promulgated, and how we need to notice and critique the Torah’s failures with respect to equality in particular. Those of you who know my kids know that they have strong views about religion—like pretty much everything else. I was really proud of them—their moral and intellectual seriousness, their sustained engagement with Jewish texts and tradition, and their Hebrew skills. All that was nourished here in our AARC community. As usual in our services, someone else also read Torah, too—in this case, it was my sister-in-law, Ellie. Ellie is orthodox, and she had never read Torah in a mixed gender congregation before. We invited her, and she accepted, as an act of bridging her orthodoxy with our more liberal Judaism. It was about shared family feeling, and shared Judaism. I was really proud of her, and proud to be her sister-in-law, both because of her evident erudition, and because she was willing to participate, just for a few minutes, in our community that is so very unlike hers.

Anyway, back to why I’m standing here before you. To me, what happened at my kids’ b’nei mitzvah—both with them, and with Ellie—was the essence of our kahal, our sacred community. As it did during that Torah service, AARC during High Holidays and all year round offers a space and community where so many different kinds of people can gather, and can share whatever it is about Judaism that is most meaningful to them. Whether that is prayer and communal services, on Fourth Fridays, Second Saturdays, and holidays; connecting at our monthly pot lucks that follow Fourth Fridays; social justice projects; book club, Beit Sefer. For different members, different families, the draw is different—but we have created a kahal, a sacred community, out of all of us together.

And so now I get to the ask. Our community depends on you. That means both money and effort; we count on both, in so many ways. For many of the folks here, we depend on your membership, and your efforts on our behalf, and your membership dues. For non-members, perhaps you’d like to take the (very easy) plunge and become a member. But even for non-members not interested in membership—and we love having non-members come to our services, including these lovely High Holiday services—we depend on your support.

So welcome to our service, and welcome to this next year in our community. We will this year, together, enjoy many events and activities and meals and study sessions. We’ll do that with rabbinic leadership—Rabbis Strassfeld, Levitt, and Alpert—and with lay leadership, as we conduct our more permanent rabbi search. Please support this community—your community—as generously as you can.

L’shanah Tovah

[Editor’s note: You can easily renew your membership online right here.