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Yom Kippur Afternoon Programming
As always, AARC will have afternoon programming on Yom Kippur, in between the Morning and Torah service (10am-2pm) and our evening non traditional Yizkor service (5:30-6:45pm). The afternoon programming is 2-5pm; come to one part or all, as you choose. At 2, there will be an hour guided meditation–or take a break, perhaps for a walk through the beautiful grounds of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation building. From 3-3:50pm, we will host a workshop on institutional racism and insider/outsider status by Ann Arbor activist La’Ron Williams, and at 4-4:50pm Rabbi Michael Strassfeld will lead a discussion of the Book of Jonah.
This year we are trying something new: having a respected and honored guest lead a Yom Kippur afternoon workshop that will draw us to use our open and vulnerable condition to make meaningful change. La’Ron Williams conducts workshops – with schools, business organizations, and non-profits – on the fundamentals of creating inclusive communities across a number of lines of diversity. His workshops are always informative, entertaining, and filled with opportunities for personal growth and organizational development. La’Ron is also a nationally acclaimed, award winning storyteller who, for more than twenty-five years, has toured extensively presenting highly participatory, music-spiced programs composed of a dynamic blend of original and traditional tales. He is known for his pronounced commitment to justice and peacemaking – a commitment made concrete through his involvement with the Racial and Economic Justice Task Force of the Ann Arbor based Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, and via his work with Washtenaw Faces Race, an all-volunteer, inter-racial, interdisciplinary group that consciously and consistently works to dismantle racial hierarchy and promote racial equity in local institutions within Washtenaw County.
La’Ron describes the Yom Kippur afternoon workshop:
In the main, America’s understanding of racism remains stuck in the 1960s. Most of us only recognize it when it shows up as it did in the June shooting at the AME Church in Charleston – in overt incidents of violence, or as easily identifiable, interpersonal acts of discrimination backed by the ill will of a few individuals.
Because we think of it that way, the remedies we envision for it are part-time, incidental, and situationally applied to those we identify as its victims. In truth, 21st century racism cannot be remedied in our spare time. It lies deeply imbedded in all of our institutions; operating constantly, continuously, and “invisibly” — to perpetuate, in hundreds of ways that remain largely unmentioned, unidentified, and unexamined, a hierarchy of White advantage.
This presentation is designed to help its participants begin to recognize and understand the pervasiveness and effects of this contemporary “stealth” racism. Using a blend of storytelling, lecture and dialogue, we will focus on concept building, increasing our awareness of our personal racial identity development within an already racialized milieu, and identifying the major illusions that act to thwart our efforts to achieve inclusion.
Then at 4 o’clock, Rabbi Strassfeld will lead a discussion of the Book of Jonah, traditionally read on Yom Kippur afternoon. What a one-two! As commentator Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg writes in The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on Biblical Unconscious, “The enigmas that enrage and sadden Jonah are not riddles to be solved. They remain; God invites Jonah to bear them, even to deepen them, and to allow new perceptions to emerge unbidden. In a word, to stand and pray.” And as Maya Bernstein comments on this: “And so we, Jonah-like, enter the synagogue as he entered the fish, and as we stand in the dark, unseeing, we call out to our Creator. We do not answer these riddles; rather, we immerse ourselves in them and let them take us over.”
Another Translation of Psalm 27
We are midway through Elul (check out the full moon at our BBQ tomorrow August 30). Below is a third translation of Psalm 27, traditionally recited each morning of Elul in preparation for the Yamim Noraim/Days of Awe. You can find the first two translations I posted here and here. (Next week I’ll post a fourth.) In her inaugural leading of Kabbalat Shabbat services last night as our visiting rabbi, Rabbi Alana mentioned the psalms/tehillim that are part of the Friday night service, which started me off thinking about how much of our liturgy is drawn from the Psalms. According to this source, “seventy-four of the hundred and fifty Psalms are incorporated bodily in the Siddur.” The Reconstructionist siddur uses many interpretive translations of the Psalms. The interpretation (can it be called a translation?) of Psalm 27 below, by Rabbi Patti Haskel, is the most colloquial I’ve found. I love it that she can translate the ponderous beseeching of the psalm into these light, easily relatable words. You can find this poem on Ritualwell.org (a wonderful resource for many things) here.
Psalm 27/Poem by Rabbi Patti Haskel
Good morning, God, happy Elul.
This day, one thing do I ask of you, God,
One thing do I seek:
To dwell in your house
All the days of my life.
… and while I dwell with you
Perhaps a few more things I might request:
Good health is at the top of my list—
For me, my family, my loved ones,
While we’re at it how about everyone, everywhere.
And perhaps food:
A healthy nosh for all who are hungry.
Quench all hunger and thirst with your love.
We do hunger for more than food and drink, so
Please quench other needs as well.
Okay, how ‘bout safety.
Safety from earthquakes, hurricanes,
Safety from one another.
Safety from all that frightens us
Safety to rest in your care.
And laughter.
Please give us much fun, silliness
to giggle at, many many smiles.
Smiles as we watch children investigate their worlds,
Smiles as we explore the lives of our elders.
God, let me behold your graciousness
Today… each day of Elul… each day
Of this year, and next, and then the next,
While I visit your temple
And immerse in your love.
Shabbaton: Privacy/Security/Inclusivity/Salad
By Dave Nelson
On the weekend of August 14 AARC was pleased to host a shabbaton with Rabbis Michael Strassfeld and Joy Levitt, who will be visiting us several times this year, including for High Holy Day services. Strassfeld and Levitt are two of the most distinguished rabbis currently working in the Reconstructionist movement, and the mid-August Shabbat evening service they led was fresh and lively—a promising glimpse of what we might expect for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Rabbi Joy’s Kabbalat Shabbat sermon was concise and graceful. She deftly explored what appeared to be trivial (and somewhat contradictory) rabbinical opinions on the proper construction of courtyard entryways: Who can be obliged to chip in to pay for it, how the doorhandles are to be mounted, where a gatehouse should be located, and so on. But she teased out a very powerful, surprisingly relevant message about how we are morally obligated to work together to maintain our privacy and security, without inadvertently fostering exclusivity. While there are obvious overtones here—especially in an age of shared and contested borders, gated communities, large-scale protests, and larger-scale dumps of hacked databases—what the rabbi chose to highlight was the slightly more subtle moral hazard: When we become too wholly focused on maintaining our own security and privacy, we make ourselves entirely inaccessible to the cries of those in need of our assistance.
As ever, the potluck was delicious and diverse. Quinoa and kale were in surprisingly short supply, but a variety of exceedingly fresh tomato and cucumber salads more than compensated for this omission.
2nd Translation of Psalm 27 for Elul
Elul, a month of spiritual preparation for the Yamim Noraim/Days of Awe. Here is another interpretive translation of Psalm 27, which is traditional to recite daily during Elul. I found this translation, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, on Rabbi Rachel Barenblat’s blog, the Velveteen Rabbi. You can access the original blog post here.
Psalm 27, as translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Yah! You are my light.
You are my savior.
Whom need I dread?
Yah, with you as my strong protector who can make me panic?
When hateful bullies gang up on me, wanting to harass me, to oppress and terrorize me
They are the ones who stumble and fall.
Even if a gang surrounds me my heart is not weakened.
If a battle is joined around me my trust in You is firm.
Only one thing do I ask of You, Yah:
Just this alone do I seek, I want to be at home with you, Yah,
All the days of my life.
I want to delight in seeing You.
Seeing You when I come to visit You in Your temple.
You hide me in your sukkah on a foul day.
You conceal me unseen in Your tent.
You also raise me beyond anyone’s reach
And now, as You have held my head high despite the presence of my powerful foes
I prepare to celebrate and thrill, singing and making music to You, Yah!
Listen, Yah, to the sound of my cry
And, being kind, answer me!
My heart has said, I turn to seek you.
Your presence is what I beg for
Don’t hide Your face from me.
Don’t just put me down, You who have been my helper.
Don’t abandon me, don’t forsake me, God my support.
Though my father and my mother have left me
You, Yah, will hold me securely.
Please teach me Your way.
Teach me Your way and guide me on the straight path.
Discourage those who defame me
Because false witnesses stood up against me belching out violence.
Don’t let me become the victim of my foes.
I wouldn’t have survived
If I hadn’t hoped that I would see, yet,
Your goodness, God, fully alive on earth.
So I tell you, my friends: you too hope to Yah! Be sturdy!
And make strong your heart. And most of all, keep hoping to Yah.
Psalm 27 for Elul
Today is Rosh Hodesh Elul, tonight will be the first of day of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. Last night Rabbi Strassfeld and Rabbi Levitt offered us some meaningful words about using the month of Elul to prepare for the Yamim Noaim/Days of Awe. The way I understood their messages, we ask so much of ourselves during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, facing ourselves, making teshuvah/change, we need another month to prepare ourselves.
According to one rabbi, “sometime around the year 1745 Ashkenazic Jews began to recite Psalm 27 morning and evening from Rosh Hodesh Elul until Hoshanah Rabbah.” Perhaps some of us already practice this. Perhaps others will find it comforting and meaningful. Each week in the month of Elul, I will post a different translation of Psalm 27. The Hebrew with traditional translation is here. The first translation is by Rabbi Brant Rosen and you can find the blog where he first published it here.
Psalm 27: you are my light and my hope
you are my light and my hope
why should i fear?
you are my life and my strength
so why do i tremble?
when i contemplate surrender
to my dread of the unknown,
i hold tight to you
and your strength gives me strength.
i only ask one thing of you,
just this one thing:
that i may be welcome in your house
all the days of my life,
to dwell in your innermost place
in safety beneath
the softness of your wings.
be my shelter when
i am wracked by hardship and disquiet,
offer me sanctuary and from there
i will sing hymns to the darkness
with openness and love
do you hear my song?
do you hear me when i cry
to you?
do not turn away –
i seek you endlessly,
i turn constantly toward your light.
in my darkest moments
of this i am sure:
i will never be alone,
yes, even if my father and mother
abandoned me, you will be there
to gather me up
guide me in your ways,
lead me down the paths
of wholeness and peace,
remind me that no matter
how far i may stray
there is always a road
to return.
though i don’t always see it
i will ever trust in your goodness
right here
right now
in the land of the living.
hold on to your hope
and be strong.
the time of our return
will soon arrive.
Arpeggio by Tere Starr
Another beautiful note from Morgan Buroker’s bat mitzvah. As part of the Birkot ha-Shachar/Dawn blessings that acknowledge the start of a new day, the wonder of life and miracle of creation, Morgan’s grandmother Tere Starr, read a poem she had written. A perfect blessing for the day.
Arpeggio
by Tere Starr
Hope is the thing with feathers.
–Emily Dickinson
I’d almost forgotten
how good anticipation feels,
but then a blackbird came
and sang to me. He ruffled
his feathers, threw his head
back and he sang. Another
blackbird joined him, and then
another. The trio of grackles
created a cacophony.
Other species joined them —
mourning doves and blue jays,
mocking birds and cardinals –
otherwise drawn to water and food,
but now each one sang along,
and somewhere in the myriad
of separate voices,
a symphony was formed.
The birds sang simple truths
of touch and hope, the joys of sharing.
Their song, a gift that’s left by ancients.
And now, with time beside us as we spiral,
the harmony resounds. Arpeggio…
Anticipation signals the essential.
If I follow, it might even lead to love.
Q&A with City Council Primary Winner Zachary Ackerman
Zachary Ackerman, 21 year old U-M student and son of AARC members Erica and Mark, won the August 4, 2015 primary for 3rd ward City Councilperson and will run unopposed in the November election. In the busy days following his primary victory, Zach kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his experiences, including his Jewish upbringing.
Emily Eisbruch (EE): Congratulations Zach! How do you balance your campaign with the responsibilities of being a University of Michigan student?
Zachary Ackerman (ZA) : Balance in one’s personal life is always difficult to strike. Luckily, being a student allows for flexibility. This summer, when I really hit the campaign trail running, I was working full time at the University’s IT department. From time to time, people will express concern about how I will balance work on Council with work as a student. The reality is that I will only be both a student and a representative on Council for one or two meetings.
EE: How has this campaign experience compared to your expectations? What have you learned? What are your hopes moving forward?
ZA: I’ve worked professionally for Democratic politicians for a number of years, but being the candidate is very different. Knocking on fifty strangers’ doors a day is really putting yourself out there. What I found most interesting and most valuable is how different each household, each street, and each neighborhood in the Third Ward really is. It was critical that I did knock every door in the ward because every household proved to have its own concerns with the City. I look forward to getting to work to address those priorities.
EE: How, if at all, did Jewish upbringing or education feed into your interest in public service?
ZA: I was raised on stories of my great-grandparents and my grandfather. My grandfather’s parents came to the United States in the wake of the Russian pogroms. Like so many they had nothing to their names but their faith and family. They settled in Columbus, OH and opened up a small tailor shop, which went on to serve the growing Jewish community of Columbus. It was there that they helped found an Orthodox congregation and raised my grandfather. My grandfather died young from wounds he sustained in Italy in WWII, but he used his short life to its utmost. After the war, he became a pharmacist, serving the community his parents had helped root. As the owner of Ackerman Drug, he helped local kids pay their way through school, and filled prescriptions for the sick and indigent. I was raised to be a mensch like my grandfather. I was raised to believe community can and should take care of its own.
EE: Tell us about your Jewish background. Did you participate in Jewish activities growing up?
ZA: I grew up a member of the Beth Israel congregation here in Ann Arbor. There, I attended Hebrew school three times a week and became a bar mitzvah (my Torah portion was Ki Tavo). A few years ago, my parents joined the AARC. Since then, I’ve joined them for High Holiday services and look forward to seeing everyone again soon.
EE: Thank you Zach, and we hope to see you soon at the AARC also!
Morgan Buroker D’var Torah, August 1, 2015, Parshah Ve’ethanan
Hello, shabbat shalom! I am so happy that now I get to tell you about my parshah! My parshah is called Va`ethanan. Va`ethanan is in the book of Deuteronomy chapters 4-7. The whole book of Deuteronomy is a series of speeches given by Moses reminding the Jews, who are standing at the shore of the Jordan River, of their history and the rules to follow in the land. Deuteronomy means “second law” because this is the second time the rules have been stated to the Jewish people. (The first time being after the Jews left Egypt).
Va`ethanan means “and I plead.” In the beginning of my parshah, Moses begs (pleads) to God to let him in the land after he is told he could not go. He was not successful. Next, the Ten Commandments are restated and the Shema and V’ahavta are declared. Also in the parshah is a famous verse that inspired the Passover haggadah that says “When in time to come, your children ask you, what mean the rules and laws that the Lord your God has enjoined upon you, you shall say to your children, we were slaves to the pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord freed us from Egypt with a helping hand.”
Today I will be talking about the Ten Commandments, from Deuteronomy chapter 5 lines 1-18. Moses is restating the commandments. Almost all people who left Egypt died on the 40 year trip to Israel, so a whole new generation of people who had not heard the Ten Commandments were there to hear them. That is why Moses needed to restate them. Also, the Ten Commandments are important because if you don’t do a commandment, it could sacrifice your chances of living a good life in the promised land.
The big thing that I am focusing on is the commandment “Honor your mother and father.” This commandment is very interesting to me for many reasons. One reason is that God actually had to tell us to honor our parents. God could have made a more important commandment, like “treat animals right.” Animal abuse is a more important problem in this world; not that I’m saying honoring your parents isn`t important. It’s just not as important as some problems in the world. Now why does God actually need to tell us to honor our parents? If God didn’t, does God think that we wouldn’t do it? But the thing is, just because there is a commandment about something doesn’t always mean that people will still follow it, people don’t always honor their parents. [Read more…] about Morgan Buroker D’var Torah, August 1, 2015, Parshah Ve’ethanan
Preparing for the High Holidays
by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld and Rabbi Joy Levitt
The process of change is a challenging one. The Jewish tradition considered that Rosh ha-Shanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) didn’t give us enough time to reflect on the past year and engage in teshuva–change or repentance–in preparation for the new year. Therefore the month before the High Holidays, the month of Elul, became the starting point of this engagement with change. The first of Elul this year will be August 16.
At AARC’s Elul Shabbaton (August 14-15), we will begin with a Friday night service. Three weeks before, on the 9th of Av, we hit rock bottom in the annual festival cycle. The fast of Tisha b’Av marks the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and the spiritual exile of Jews both as a people and as individuals. From that low point of existential aloneness, we move to reconciliation or more simply reconnection to God, to others around us and to ourselves. The rabbis found a hint of this in the name of this month, Elul. The Hebrew letters of Elul are the first letters of the verse Ani le-dodi ve-dodi li–I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. These words are from Song of Songs, a book of love and connection. Shir ha-Shirim/Song of Songs will be our overarching theme for the Friday night service.
The Shabbaton continues on Shabbat afternoon with a short minha/afternoon service. The Shabbat minha service has as its theme a sense of oneness underlying the universe. We also read a short Torah portion that focuses on a call to pursue justice/tzedek. After all, we are to engage in teshuva/change not just to feel better about ourselves but to engage in making the world a more just and compassionate place.
Following minha, the teens will meet with Joy to help plan children’s programming for Rosh ha-Shanah. Everyone else is invited to study with Michael some Hasidic texts about change/teshuva. Rabbinic Judaism’s attitude toward misdeeds can be summarized by the phrase “just say no.” Hasidism had a more complicated response. It suggested that transformation comes about by accepting the truth about yourself and then striving to change it rather than dwelling on your past failures.
Finally, both of us together will share our own Jewish journeys. It will be an opportunity to get to know us, and for us to get to know you. It will also be an opportunity for people to share pieces of their own spiritual journeys as we as individuals, and as a community, begin preparing for the High Holidays.
Please join us.
Click here for more information about Rabbis Levitt and Strassfeld, who will be leading AARC’s High Holiday services, as well as this Shabbaton. Rabbi Strassfeld will also return for two other Shabbatonim this year.
All events at the JCC, 2935 Birch Hollow Drive.
- Friday, August 14: Kabbalat Shabbat service and pot-luck, 6:15 (niggunim), 6:30 (service). Pizza for the kids at 6:15; childcare is available. (Let us know if you need pizza and/or childcare)
- Saturday, August 15:
- 2 pm: Minha, with Torah service: 2 pm (Molly Kraus-Steinmetz will read Torah)
- 3 pm: Teens prepare for High Holidays and kids’ service. Adults study Hasidic teachings about teshuva
- 4 pm: Jewish Journeys conversation.
