Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Posts by Members

RSVP to “Lesson of the Homeland” and the Stories We Tell: A Conversation with Anat Zeltser

by

Anat Zeltser is the Ken Burns of Israel. Over the past 25 years, she has made deeply researched and thought- provoking films about Israel’s  identity,  history, culture and politics. 

On Sunday, April 26, the AARC and wider Jewish community will have the opportunity for a conversation with her about her work. Gilad Halpern, a journalist and media historian will lead a conversation with Anat, and there will be time for questions from the audience. 

Both Anat and Gilad have been Fellows at the University of Michigan’s Frankel Center this year and will soon be leaving town. This event is a rare opportunity to meet and learn from “the best documentary creator in Israel,” (according to one of her reviews); another Israeli critic describes her work as  “mesmerizing, informative, and profound.” 

We ask that participants come having watched the first part of her series “Lesson of the Homeland.” A link is here. It’s about 30 minutes and has subtitles.

Please RSVP below for the conversation.

Event Address: Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor, 2935 Birch Hollow Dr, Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

Time: 12:00 – 2:00 pm, bagels, fruit and coffee/tea available.

Gilad Halpern, Moderator
Anat Zeltser, Documentarian

When Is a Killer Not a Murderer? by Elizabeth Brindley

by

**Update: It came to my attention that I edited out a line that provides some really important context. I know the FBI has since stated that the Temple Israel attacker killed himself, while initial reports stated the guard on duty fired the lethal shot. I don’t trust Kash Patel, so I made a deliberate choice to stick with the initial narrative. You are allowed to feel how you feel about this choice.


It’s no light thing to take a life, even when it is your duty in a dangerous situation, or for a justified cause.  Killing another person is complex, and throughout Torah we see that the legal and social consequences can be as nuanced as the cause of the crime.  The Torah does not say “you shall not kill”.  It says “you shall not murder”.  So what’s the difference?  Do we know anymore? 

The difference seems to be based on intent:

  • Murder (retzach) is intentional – you lay in wait for a victim, or plan their demise, or otherwise plan the act of violence.  We’re told to punish murderers by court execution.  
  • Manslaughter (shegagah) is accidental – you didn’t mean to kill the person, but you’re still directly responsible for their death.  Say you’re chopping wood and the head flies off and kills someone – that’s all you, my guy.  You’ve got to flee to a sanctuary city now! You can’t come back until the High Priest dies.  

I also learned the situations in which killing another person is permitted or at times even required, which are probably as unsurprising to you as they are to me: 

  • Self-defense – You are permitted and at times even obligated to stop a violent attacker (“rodef”, meaning pursuer).  “If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill them first” is from Sanhedrin 72a, and it’s probably the most metal one-liner I’ve ever heard in any of my decades.  
  • Immediate threats – If a burglar breaks in in the middle of the night, you can assume he’ll kill you if you interrupt him, and kill him first.  That kind of thing.  
  • Court Executions – Also not murder, but the bar for evidence to justify the action is very high.  Under modern rabbinic law, it pretty much can never happen, if I’m understanding right.  
  • War – Also not murder, but it does carry weight and can only be done under strict approval.  Apparently King David was denied rebuilding the temple because he had “spilled too much blood.”  

While researching this I found one of the most metal quotes I’ve ever heard, and was shocked to find out it came from the Talmud! Senhedrin 72: “If you someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”

The Golem & The Guard

When I was in my undergrad, I wrote an essay linking the story of the golem with the criminology theory of violentization, and the roving packs of young Jewish men that patrolled the streets of Jewish neighborhoods in Chicago around Prohibition and World War II.  They did this to protect the neighborhoods and residents from outsiders with ill intent.  I’m not talking organized neighborhood watches – I’m talking teen thugs taking matters into their own hands.  I imagine a Gangs of New York or Many Saints of Newark situation, but with more garlic and lox. 

(Note: It has been almost 10 years since I wrote this paper.  I may be paraphrasing and approximating quite a bit.) 

These gangs formed in response to violent actions from non-Jews and hostile governments.  A Russian pogrom around 1920 started a wave of antisemitic attacks across the world, and the first of these teen gangs started to defend against the threat of local antisemites getting funny ideas.  A similar wave of antisemitism rose during World War II, with a similar response from teenage Jewish boys in the ethnic neighborhoods.  

Violentization is a criminology theory developed by Lonnie Athens, and describes a multistage process by which people transform from being nonviolent citizens to violent offenders. Athens poses that it occurs in five stages: 

  • Brutalization, or violent subjugation, wherein authority figures coerce the subject or there’s an element of personal horrification (like maybe watching your neighborhood get bombed or your friends and neighbors put in camps.)
  • Defiance, when the subject realizes they are being brutalized, and try to seek help for their crises 
  • Violent Dominative Engagements, where the subject begins using aggression, intimidation, or superiority to establish dominance
  • Virulency, which is a marked willingness to use violence to attack another with minimal provocation
  • Violent Predation is the most intense stage of this process, and is marked by a lack of remorse and focused intent to harm the target.  Personality disorders with violent behaviors can fall into this.  

It seems kind of obvious to me to have the stages laid out like this.  You witness repeated violence against yourself or your community, you start acting out to try and ease your suffering in other ways and when it doesn’t work, you escalate to more aggressive means.  The longer that those means are ineffective, or the brutalization continues, your violent anger increases and increases, and eventually you’re desensitized to it.  

So how does the golem come in?  It was a creature made specifically to do violence – a Jewish construct that wasn’t a Jew.  In a way the Jewish gangs, violentized as they were by the antisemitic policies and actions, were golems. The golem wasn’t a murderer, because it only harmed those who would harm the Jews.  I’m sure they were not considered the most adherent of Jewish boys, likely giving up Jewish values or observances, maybe in order to do the work of protecting their neighborhoods when the police would not. 

The guard who killed the Temple Israel attacker was not a murderer.  At that moment, he was obligated to protect the staff.  But that does not mean the act was without weight – I sincerely doubt the guard is a sociopath.  He was likely traumatized just as the staff and students and community were. But perhaps he was a bit like a golem – not Jewish, per se, but an instrument of our protection, and a damn fine one.  The act was appropriate  – he did what the Sanhedrin quote suggested and shot first to avoid having himself or the people in his charge killed.  Lives were saved by this violent act, as much as we abhor it.  

A very important figure in our story was also a killer – Moses! This year while reading the portion, there was a line that struck me – right before he kills the taskmaster, he looks around.  He checks for witnesses.  That’s an element of premeditation.  It’s literally murder.  But it does not stop him from being a powerful instrument of G-d’s power and presence.  It doesn’t stop him from being a leader that the entire community turns to for guidance.  It doesn’t stop G-d from explicitly choosing him for a great task that would lead an entire people out of slavery.  But maybe it did stop him from being permitted into the Promised Land.  While paying your debt to society may mean that you lose certain privileges, like dying in the Promised Land for Moses, or being separated from your family and community for a prison stay – it should not also mean that you are only ever seen as your crime.  

The Inmates

All this brought me back to the men housed where I work.  We definitely house many people who premeditated their crimes.  We also house people that have long, long histories of crimes of increasing violence. But we also have people who didn’t have good options at all, and who were victimized in many ways themselves.

I had a library clerk for a few months who told me that when he was young, around 8, his mother taught him to use a hand gun.  She worked two jobs and could not afford childcare, and was forced to leave him alone with his 3 younger siblings, in a neighborhood where break-ins and drive-by shootings were commonplace.  He grew up with pressure to join gangs because it was often the only form of safety for young folks in a community that was targeted by police, who ostensibly are meant to protect us, and at risk of victimization by older kids in equally desperate circumstances.  

They had nights where there was no food.  Or nights where their mother bought two large McDonalds and split it among the four kids, but eat none herself.  So when my clerk was old enough (around 11 or 12, he said) he started running for local drug dealers to help pay for groceries and school clothes.  By fifteen he was selling the drugs himself.  He entered the prison system at seventeen when he killed a member of a rival gang in a drive-by shooting.  My clerk told me that that gang had been driving through neighborhoods and menacing them for some time before it escalated to this level.  

I don’t pretend to understand the finer points of growing up in that kind of existence, where violence is constant and expected, and it would be foolish to think that people don’t leave out some incriminating details when telling you their life’s story.  But it really makes me wonder: What kind of choices do people really have, when we allow members of our community to live in neighborhoods that are overpoliced, bombed, or underfunded?  When you need to feed your children, but there are no jobs in your area since the factory closed or relocated to Mexico, sometimes selling drugs is your best bet.  What about when they’ve watched their friends and families and places of worship be repeatedly firebombed or used like human shields? 

As Much of a Conclusion as is Possible

What I like about Parasha Vayikra is that the Torah does not say “if someone transgresses” it says “when.”  It just knows it’s going to happen, because of course it’s going to.  We’re human! Some of our mistakes are very bad and very ugly, but we are going to make them.  At one point in Vayikra we are told that people who cannot afford to bring an offering of animal can bring an offering of a choice flour.  It takes into account the circumstances of the transgressor when deciding the punishment or reparation, and I believe that a merciful justice system would do the same.  

Prisons now do not treat inmates like humans have made mistakes.  We treat them like meat to be warehoused, whose only label is the crime they committed.  Through funding and political avenues, social-emotional education and programming opportunities are regularly denied to high level offenders due to being “the worst behaved” – and they are.  Believe me.  It’s like working in a warzone some days – but they are also statistically more likely to be illiterate, to be from tumultuous homes, to have behavior health concerns, to be outright mentally ill, or to just never have had a trusted authority or adult figure in their life to teach them better skills.  To provide a truly just system, one that made people better and actually equipped them with skills to make their lives better for themselves, instead of traumatizing them in the name of punishment, our duty as society has to shift to recognize that prisons are used as a threat for social control – it can’t actually be a place that helps you under the social structure we have now, which is essentially conform or we’ll throw you in this hell hole.  You’ll eat slop.  You’ll get raped by your bunk mate.  The officers will degrade you and abuse you.  You won’t have any privacy. The minute the cell door slams behind you, you stop being a human in many ways.  

What would happen to our justice system if the attitude shifted to “you have acted poorly – what caused it?  What support can you be given long term that prevents this from happening again?” What could happen to the world if we shifted from viewing one another as enemies, and started to think about what might be causing the bad behavior – and how we can remove that hindrance.

AARC to Join the 5th Annual Fair Housing Awareness Bikeathon in Detroit! – From Robin Wagner

by

On Saturday, April 25, 2026, we will have the unique opportunity to grab our bikes, head to Detroit, and take a ride through some civil rights history as a sponsoring organization of the Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit’s annual Bikeathon!

Sharon and I have participated in this event several times and can assure you that it is a great event! Each year features a new route that takes the 100+ riders to various landmarks and sites important to the history of Detroit and the civil rights movement. In 2024, we started off at the Virginia Park Shopping Plaza, built in the 1960’s by the community’s residents who wanted to create positive change after the unrest of 1967. Next to the plaza is the 12th Street Memorial and Gordon Park, which commemorates the family and friends who lost their lives during the Detroit uprising of 1967 in protest of racist abuses by the city’s police department. A docent was there to share that history with us.

Other sites over the years have included the apartment where Rosa and Raymond Parks lived from 1961-1988, the New Bethel Baptist Church, Congregation Shaarey Zedek (with a tour and talk), the Ruth Ellis Community Center for formerly homeless and at-risk LGBTQ+ youth, the Detroit Association of Women’s Clubs, which fought racial zoning restrictions to build a home for 70 Black women’s clubs with over 3,000 member to focus on community development work, and an amazing Veteran’s Housing building that has become a national model for housing with supportive services.

This year’s ride will begin with a tour of the Ossian Sweet home. Dr. Ossian Sweet, https://ohsweetfoundation.org/, earned his medical degree at Howard University and then moved to Detroit to practice medicine in the Black Bottom neighborhood. In the early 1920s,he and his wife Gladys bought a home on the east side of the city. They were met bys ome 500 white men, women and children who surrounded the home and hurled stones at the house, smashing windows. The Sweets, with their family and friends, feared the escalating violence by the mob and fired warning shots into the crowd. When the dust had cleared, one man was dead and another injured. All eleven people inside the Sweet home were charged with murder. In 1925, Clarence Darrow defended the Sweets in a landmark trial followed by the entire country. The not-guilty verdict is seen as a turning point in our justice system.

Our ride this year—a leisurely 14 miles over several hours—will also take us through interesting stops in Grosse Pointe. The entire ride is escorted by the wonderful members of the 313 Cylones, a Detroit bicycle club that is part of a national association of bike clubs named for Marshall “Major” Taylor, who was the first Black track cycling champion in 1899.

AARC to Join the 5th Annual Fair Housing Awareness Bikeathon in Detroit.docxKey Details:

Saturday, April 25, 2026, from 10 am to 1:30 pm, kick off at the Fair Housing Center’s office in Detroit:

5555 Conner Street, Detroit 48213.

(allow an hour+to get thereand unload yourbike.)

RAIN OR SHINE–so dress for the weather!

HELMETS ARE MANDATORY!

How do I sign up?

So glad you asked!

It’s a great family event, so consider bringing the whole mishpocha!

(I will be bringing my little dog Casper, who sits in a basked on the front of my bike.)

A member of the congregation has already provided the rider fees to cover 20 AARC riders.But times are tough for civil rights organizations like the Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit. Their federal funding has been severely curtailed, with significant limits placed on their core activity of systemic enforcement of housing rights. So, we ask that each AARC member also make a donation to the Fair Housing Center to participate in the ride.

To Sign Up:

1.Head to this web page to sign up as a rider. You do not need to follow the link to pay the rider fee, since your fee has already been paid.

2. Instead, go to this web page to make an additional donation to the Fair Housing Center. We suggest a donation of at least double-chai ($36) for each adult rider and chai($18) for each child. In the notes section indicate that you are part of the AARC group.

3.Email me at robin.b.wagner@gmail.com to let me know how many you signed up so that we can keep track of our group size and help coordinate carpooling to Detroit for the bike ride.

Let’s help the Fair Housing Center build back up their resources to investigate complaints of housing discrimination and help victims get justice and equal opportunities for housing.

Finding Awesome Places by Elizabeth Brindley

by

“Mah nora hamakom hazeh!” – “How awesome is this place!” Jacob exclaims this after realizing he has had a divine encounter while sleeping on the side of the road, using a rock for a pillow.  He didn’t realize he was roughing it in the house of G-d, but lo! 

The phrase from this week’s portion, Vayetzei, first popped out at me a few years ago in Toba Spitzer’s “God is Here: Reimagining the Divine”.  At the time I was new to the prison system, struggling to adjust to the environment, and trying to fill the ample amount of downtime I had as a government employee with some Jewish thought.

The context Spitzer used it in, at the time, didn’t particularly speak to me, as reading the phrase a dozen times in the Torah portion apparently hadn’t, but this time the phrase stuck.  What did it mean to really be here, in this place?  Is any place holy if you’re present with it, or are there other conditions to this awesomeness?  I personally spend a lot of time in very unpleasant spaces – until I went on leave, at least one hundred and sixty hours of my month were spent in a facility that is at times violently punitive, deeply biased, and regularly smells like an oppressive blend of hot peppers, sweaty bodies, and overflowing grease traps. The air conditioning and circulation went out every time an inmate broke a sprinkler head in their cell, and that happened at least twice every day when someone got upset.  My co-workers and some patrons regularly spoke disrespectfully to me, if not downright abusively. My physical appearance was frequently scrutinized and openly criticized or commented on by both inmates and coworkers, and on more than one occasion inmates have tried to physically touch or seize me through the cuffport in their cell door while I was delivering reading materials. Once, my life was threatened by a patron because I could not provide a James Patterson novel. As much as I love my work, it is at times terrifying.  Most nights I came home smelling like capsaicin and wanting to shrink away from and forget all the awful human behavior I witnessed on the daily.  It was hard to imagine where G-d could be hanging out in this hellscape.

Where you find G-d probably depends on how you understand the concept, whether you believe it as an external or internal divine force or a non-force, or whatever have you.  Personally, I think of G-d as more of a state of peace and wholeness.  When you act out of loving kindness, out of community, out of forgiveness, any time you choose to practice a mitzvah or to be kind rather than give in to your (totally natural and understandable) baser habits, you’re in touch with the holy.  I think the Hebrew people wandered into the desert and at Mt. Sinai experienced something that we have spent 3000 years trying to articulate and make sense of. But regardless of how you conceptualize G-d, once you start looking for something, you tend to find it. So it was with my new mission to find G-d in such a miserable pit.  

Mutual aid between inmates is complicated and vulnerable to abuse by bad actors, but for the most part they are generous with one another.  Nobody has anything, and so they share it all.  Tablets to make phone calls home, sharing extra commissary when someone was short on money, and even inmates with paralegal experience preparing legal work free of charge for fellow inmates.  Is G-d in the person who appears with the help you need, just when you need it?  

Because my facility largely houses men with heavy sentences, we don’t release many people back home, but we do release one or two a month.  They walk out the front door wearing street clothes for perhaps the first time in more than a decade, and get to hug and kiss the loved ones waiting to pick them up.  They look so proud of themselves, so joyful to be free to make their own choices again.  Is G-d in the reuniting of a family, the repair of a community ravaged by racist practices and policies, or the ability to pick what you get to eat for lunch? 

Does G-d exist in the adult learners who finally, finally graduate with their GED or Diploma, or even a college degree – is G-d in their beaming faces? Is G-d dwelling in the inmate who tells me the library is the only place he feels like a person? Is G-d in the library, or maybe the collection of knowledge that might help these guys build the tools they need to turn their lives around? And if G-d is in these places, isn’t it my duty that I pursue them and continue to create the best conditions for them to occur? Is the pursuit of these conditions for others justice? 

I see G-d where I see people connecting now, and for as dark and awful as a prison can be, moments in it can be equally as beautiful and human.  There are always bright spots in the dark, and that is where G-d dwells.  Those are the awesome places.  

Why I Chose Reconstructionist by Elizabeth Brindley

by

I wasn’t born a Jew.

Well… maybe that’s not really accurate. The more I learned about Judaism, the more it felt like getting to know myself, so maybe I was always Jewish deep down. Judaism had never occurred to me as an option. I was raised Lutheran, but had never connected with it, and I had explored other practices like Wicca and Buddhism trying to find something that brought the peace and guidance I think I was really looking for. It wasn’t until I took a Jewish Children’s Literature class, which necessitated a basic understanding of Jewish beliefs, that I really started to wonder if this was a good fit. I liked the idea of Tikkun Olam, and Yom Kippur sounded like a really meaningful holiday. Eventually I decided to talk to a Rabbi, and I told myself I would keep practicing Judaism until I didn’t like it anymore. But the longer I’m here, the more I like it, so… here we are.

Regardless, I didn’t have a Jewish family around growing up, aside from Rabbi Scott z”l, a family friend, and much of my Jewish education has been in formal settings like a Jewish Children’s Literature at Eastern Michigan, a couple Judaism 101 classes, and a Beginner’s Hebrew Class. I’ve read A LOT of books about the history and various practice ways, but I focused a lot on the mystical, the yummy (food!) and the folk. I found my corner of Jewish study very quickly, but it took much, much longer to feel like part of the Jewish community.

Rabbi Robert Scott

SCOTT, Rabbi Robert. Beloved husband of the late Ardis K. Scott, cherished father of Jeffrey Paul Scott, David Simon Scott and Stephanie Tara Scott (Jeremy Wilson). Also survived by his loving dog Motek. Dear brother of Philip (Marsha) Scott. 

Being a convert can feel very insecure. Is it weird to tell you I’m a convert in conversation? Should I keep it to myself, tell you when it’s comfortable, tell you up front? Does it even matter to you? Will it change how you talk to me if you know? Do I know enough to be here? Am I doing something inadvertently to out myself as a convert?

Perhaps complicating things somewhat was that I converted in a Reform setting. If you’ve never participated in Reform practices, it is highly individualized. I think of Judaism like a spectrum. The most Orthodox, like the Chasidim, I explain like this: They follow ALL the commandments to the T, because God gave those commandments, and as you follow them you find meaning in them. You do and you understand, right? Reform attitude goes in the other direction — you practice the mitzvahs and rituals that make you (the individual) feel Jewish. I explain to folks who ask that Reconstructionist Judaism sits somewhere in the middle. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with either end of the spectrum, but I am a person who likes structure and tradition and community, and Reform spaces just felt too loose for me, and left me feeling untethered and a little lonely. It was hard to find Reform spaces where my penchant and desire for intellectual study, critical analysis or mystical experiences necessarily fit the culture. I love the folkways, the women’s practices, the hidden histories of Judaism. The “hot takes” as the kids say. They weren’t necessarily frowned on in Reform, but I was hard pressed to find anybody who had read The Hebrew Priestess or was super interested in the Witch of Endor, or Judaism’s attitude towards folk magic practices, much less wanted to talk about them or incorporate aspects into their personal practices. While the Rabbi of my home temple in Ohio is very progressive and we can discuss these topics, the larger culture of the Temple wasn’t quite there, which is something I learned I wanted after a few years into my Jewish practice.

My experience with Reconstructionist Judaism, however, has been the perfect mix of tradition and innovation. It was a Jewish friend from a Reconstructionist congregation who introduced me to the idea of Eco Kashrut, an altered form of Kashrut that values caring for the planet and its creatures or separating ourselves from other cultures, a view which I have slowly introduced to my family over the last few years. Every time I prepare a meal, I know that I have excluded meat and included as much local and homegrown produce as I could because I intentionally chose to. In fact, I knew AARC was the right place for me when my very first time working 4th Friday, the idea of vegetarian diet being the ideal in the Torah came up. It was reinforced recently when Rav Gav showed me her song list and it had several niggunim and chants from Rabbi Shefa Gold.

Reconstructionist Judaism’s idea that Judaism is an evolving civilization, not just a tradition, was one of the biggest draws I had to this community. I mean yes, you pay me to be here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t connect with or participate in services to the extent I can while I’m there. Now that I know AARC is here and what they’re about, it’s likely I would have two congregations I was part of. I would come join in even if you weren’t paying me to do so. I am proud that the Reconstruction Movement created teachers like Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who is queer and black. I’m proud that this movement celebrates its black, brown, female and queer members, not just accepts them. I firmly believe that this culture, which I have found to be full of joy and pride and commitment from those involved, is informed by RJ’s core values:

  • Learning from the vast storehouse of Jewish wisdom and practice while understanding that the past has a vote, not a veto;
  • Openness to insights from contemporary society, especially democratic practice and commitments to advancing equity;
  • Thinking, dreaming and making decisions in conversation with community—the community gathered around us today, the voices of our ancestors, and, as best as we can anticipate, the needs and aspirations of the communities of tomorrow;
  • Feeling empowered to reconstruct and co-create rituals, practices, texts and more in order to build the Jewish community we want to live in

I love the Reconstructionist space you (we) have made AARC. I am proud to be part of a community that celebrates its diversity, not just accepts it. Where are times I felt like my Reform practice was disconnected from the community. In the Reconstructionist space I feel not only connected to my spiritual ancestors, but to those people present with me, and those who have not yet joined us. Not to be dramatic, but it feels a bit like the Jewish folks sealing the covenant with G-d at Sinai. By innovating Judaism and continuing to connect it to our constantly changing and modernizing lives, we keep it alive for future generations to find peace and comfort in, and continue to build on thousands of years of memory and learning and community. Thank you, thank you, thanks for inviting me in.

Rosh Hashanah 2025 Drash by Sam Bagenstos

by

By Sam Bagenstos

Rabbi Gabrielle introduced this drash by referring to the power of memory.  I may be taking the point in a different direction than she intended, because I’m going to talk about how memory can sometimes have too much power over us.

For many of us, memory is central to what it means to be Jewish: memory of resilience in the face of oppression, memory of ultimate triumph, memory of the great contributions of Jewish scientists/lawyers/baseball players/what have you.  These collective, communal memories are a part of who I am, just as, I am sure, similar memories are a part of who you all are.

The liturgy tells us that “Nothing is forgotten in the presence of your Throne of Glory.”  But I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the dangers of too much remembering–too great a focus on our communal memories.

One danger is unwarranted nostalgia.  We may fixate on a time when we remember everything as better than it is today and try to go back.  It’s not just people in red baseball caps that say “Make America Great Again” who do that.  How many of us have secretly hoped to go back to a time before some rupture, some change, something that happened that unsettled all our basic understandings of the world?  (Maybe that something was the rise of all the folks in red baseball caps.)  But there are some facts we can’t ignore: even in our wished-for time before the fall–however we define it–everything wasn’t so great.  And the world has changed too much to go back in any event.

Another danger is unwarranted analogy.  We may fixate on particularly salient collective memories–perhaps especially painful ones–so much that we mistakenly see that history repeating everywhere.  Sometimes, we’re right:  Today, fascism, eugenics, and anti-semitism are resurging.  But we err when we let our painful communal memories lead us to see anti-semitism in legitimate–even harshly phrased–criticism of Israel for the injustices it is perpetrating in Gaza and elsewhere.  In these cases, memory leads us astray–it leads us to act from fear rather than from our basic humanity and the values we endorse when we are our best selves.

And a connected danger is unwarranted partiality.  Our community is not the only one with collective memory.  In Hebrew school, I learned a story about 1948–a brave band of people like me (I could even fool myself that I looked like Paul Newman in Exodus), underdogs who fled or were kicked out of every country in the world, fought for a place where they (we) could finally be safe.  For the people who lived in Palestine at the time and their descendants, though, 1948 marks the Nakhba, the tragedy in which they were kicked out of their homes, had their property taken, and from which they would never know safety.

The point is not to ignore or disparage our collective memories.  They are a source of strength and resilience as we navigate fearful times.  They are a part of who we are as a community and as individuals.  As I was flipping through the machzor during the Amidah, I found this passage from Isaac Leib Peretz on page 385 that captured the point: “If you have no past you have no future either, you are a foundling in this world, with no father or mother, without tradition, without duties to what comes after you, the future, the eternal.”

So the point isn’t to scrap our memories.  It’s to understand the limits of those memories–to recognize that our communal values are also at the center of who we are.  Values like those expressed in our Haftarah portion on Yom Kippur: “To unlock fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke.”  In 5786, I will recommit to living those values.  Shanah Tovah.

Creativity Kavanah (Rosh Hashanah 2025)

by

By Kathryn and Seth Kopald 

Kathryn’s paragraph 

Rav Gav asked Seth and I to share how the power of creativity shows up in our lives and how it has allowed us to step into the fullness of life. 

For me, art making has become a sacred practice, and it’s been especially important during the past year which has had its share of challenges, sorrow, and pain. It is a place for me to connect, shift my perceptions, and know myself better. Engaging in the creative process, using my hands, quieting my mind is a sanctuary that I return to again and again. It allows me to step into my power, and be more fully present in the world. 

Seth’s paragraph 

Creativity is a life force that carries wisdom, potential, and hope. Creativity is not only expressed through making art, or making anything; it’s also a way of thinking and being. I like to use my creativity while woodworking, art making, playing music, writing, and more. It’s a place where I don’t follow other people’s rules, unless I choose to. 

Mitchell Widharma, a friend who was deported this year, just posted this on FB, “Be weird, do art”. To me, he’s an example of holding your power. 

Next, Kathryn and I will read a poem that we co-created. We each wrote ideas that were important to us on strips of paper, and we moved them around on the kitchen table until this poem emerged. We hope it’s meaningful to you. 

Creativity is the expression 
of Aliveness 
We are driven to 
moved by 
examples of 
pure expression 

It is nourishing to the very core 
Of who we are 
Connecting and reconnecting 
To the Divine within 

Creativity is 
Free Will 
My hands 
move 
with 
Divine Sovereignty 
I create for me 

It’s the why 
The purpose 
The heart 
Of all I seek to do 
And become 

Creativity is Freedom 
You cannot control my connection 
to the Divine flow 
There’s no right or wrong 
endless possibilities 
In this moment 
I AM 
Eyeh Asher Eyeh 

It’s unstoppable 
Its public expression 
can be controlled 
Its private expression 
CANNOT 

2
Creativity 
is one of the innate 
powers of all humans 
And it's one of the first 
to be squelched 
But the Pilot Light of Creativity 
can never be extinguished 
We need to give ourselves permission 
to turn on the gas 

As we create 
we are in a state 
of transference 
Ideas transferring 
out of our bodies 
Hands 
Mind 
and spirit 
Engaged 
Bringing hope 
when the world 
feels hopeless 

Creativity 
a force that moves 
through me 
A higher power 
who doesn’t 
follow 
human rules 

Connecting me deeply and fully 
to my own inner wisdom 

Creativity 
will live 
with or without me 
I pick it up 
or someone else will 

To make change 
when change is needed 
To make sense of 
what doesn’t make sense 

3
To feel into sadness and loss 
and see 
the beauty 
in feeling those things 

To release 
what was given to me 
what I didn’t ask for 
and 
what no longer serves me. 
To cultivate joy 
when joy cannot be found 

The way 
to tap into 
creativity 
is to be fully present 
in the moment 
where the fullness of life 
resides 

To be here 
in this moment 
present when the world 
feels darkest 
To be a light 
and point the way

Shedding of Skin (Yom Kippur 2025)

by

By Seth Kopald

This is the year of the Snake in Chinese astrology, the wood snake actually. The Chinese Lunar New Year began January 29th, two days after my mother died. The year of the snake is a time of personal growth, transformation, and adaptability. 

I’m curious what comes up for you when I say it’s the year of the snake. Many of us fear snakes and think they are somehow evil or malicious. I’ve always felt they got a bad rap. I think snakes are love, like any other animal. They are animals trying to survive like the rest of us. In Shamanism, related to the four directions, the snake resides in the South and guides us to shed and clear limiting beliefs. We all have seen the medical symbol of snakes coiled around a winged staff. The snake represents healing. 

Upon hearing that this is the year of the snake, I thought to myself, perhaps this is an opportunity to shed my skin and to step into a new level of being, and this year, the snake has been knocking on my door. 

For instance, I invited Rav Gav to say blessings with our family at my mothers bedside, a few days before she died. We all gathered around my mother as she moved about in a dreamlike state. I looked down and saw Rav Gav was wearing a snake bracelet, and it fit the moment as 

she explained how we were cleansing and elevating my mother’s soul. I was like, “Ok Shaman Rabbi.” 

My mom was the root of much of my suffering in life. Her own suffering made her unavailable and even vicious at times. I truly never had the mom I needed and deserved. And during Ravs ceremony, she said we were offering my mother forgiveness and forgiveness for ourselves. Everyone in the family felt what happened there, and when days later my mother died, something in me released. The preparation for shedding my skin had begun. 

Prior to my mother’s rapid decline, I started my own forgiveness process. I read a forgiveness prayer for 32 days, as instructed. I learned in that time that forgiveness is not forgetting, or making it somehow ok that someone hurt you. It’s about releasing the charge of it all. It was the charge that caused me to hurt myself through anger, resentment, and even spite. Letting all that energy go, allowed me to stand next to my mother’s dying body and hold her hand. 

Since then, this year has been a year of healing. So much so, I started to outgrow my skin. I joined many healing circles and practices, and last June I went to Oregon and gave some of my grief to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think you need to do all that to shed old skin, but for me, it was necessary. 

Snake has followed me throughout all of this. Of course there was Rav Gav’s bracelet. When I was in Oregon I went to a Tibetan shop and bought a few things and when I got home, I found

an earring at the bottom of the bag. It was a golden snake. And just last month while I was at my cranial sacral appointment I noticed my practitioner had a new tattoo on her arm. Can you guess? A snake. I see snake imagery everywhere. Over the last month it felt like my old skin started to flake off bit by bit and just a few weeks ago, while at authentic movement I laid on the ground and wiggled my body out of my old skin. 

So what does it mean to shed your skin? Is it Tshuvah? Returning to Self? This answer came through: in Tshuvah we are shedding old versions of ourselves that block access to our light, to our soul, to our essence, to our true Self. It feels like expansion because we release what doesn’t serve us, and there is more room for me, more room for you, to shine our natural light. When we release the negative thoughts about ourselves and our negative thoughts about others: we forgive and we can expand. 

Our skin holds our current belief system of who we are. If we think we are small, our skin stays small. So, if you feel comfortable doing so, please repeat after me: 

○ I am not what my thoughts tell me I am 

○ I am not what others have said I am 

○ I am not what I assume people think I am 

When we realize this, we start to expand, and our skin begins to notice. Then, it’s time to start to shed. 

Our false beliefs about ourselves and others, our hiding, our protection, our fighting, usually come from drops of bad experiences – over and over – filling our bucket with burdens. And luckily, healing can happen drop by drop too, at your pace. As you continue to empty that bucket, there’s more room for you, and as you emerge, your skin will be ready and will naturally shed. And perhaps, on this Yom Kippur – we can start by stepping into forgiveness. 

Thus, I would like to read The Forgiveness Prayer I mentioned above for all of us. So feel free to take this in if desired. 

If there is anyone or anything that has hurt me in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it. 

If I have hurt anyone or anything in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it. 

If I have hurt myself in the past knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it.

Source: Akashic Records Consultants International (ARCI) 

May you Return to Your Self and have a healthy and easeful year. 

Shanah Tovah

AARC Members Support Struggling Nicaraguan Jewish Community

by

By Steve Merritt

A handful of AARC members, responding to a post I put on ReconChat, stepped up to help the small, struggling Jewish community in Nicaragua rebuild. They gave me cash to purchase items as well as some Jewish objects, including family heirlooms. Their donations made up about a third of the almost 100 pounds of Jewish books and ritual objects that I was able to deliver to two fledgling Jewish groups when I went to Nicaragua in July.

Beth Israel and the Jewish Federation also provided support for this project. I have been going to Nicaragua since 2011, when I founded a literacy organization called CREA (creanicaragua.org) with expat friends. I have always been curious about the signs of Jewish presence I see wherever I go in Latin America. In fact, some historians trace that presence as far back as Columbus’s voyage in 1492, which coincided with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

I found the Jewish community in Nicaragua through Kulanu (kulanu.org), an organization whose mission is to “support isolated, emerging, and returning Jewish communities around the globe.”

A little history… At its peak in 1972, Nicaragua’s Jewish community was estimated at 250. The Jews were mostly farmers, manufacturers and retailers, and even owned the two largest department stores in the capital of Managua. They were prosperous. But when an earthquake decimated Managua in 1972, followed by the Sandinista’s socialist revolution in 1979, most of the Jews fled the country.

A small number stayed. They were later joined by about 140 converts, including many who claimed Jewish ancestry. Eventually, a contingent of Jewish American retirees joined the mix, attracted by the lower cost of living and fleeing the northern winter. Though the Jewish community had been slowly rebuilding, early in planning my visit I learned that they had recently suffered a major setback. The Congregacion Israelita de Nicaragua used to meet in the hotel owned by its president, Kurt Preiss. But when Preiss died in 2022, unbeknownst to the congregation, his widow sold all the Jewish items, including their Torah, to pay off his medical bills. The community was left with almost nothing.

It was into this context that I was able to deliver two suitcases of Jewish supplies on July 31. They were packed with siddurim, a two-volume Shulchan Aruch, Chumashim, Psalms, Pirkei Avot, tallitot, seder plates, kippot, and an assortment of candle sticks, kiddush cups, seder plates, and Shabbat and Hanukah candles. And even a shofar! (More on that below.)

One of the Nicaraguan Jewish groups that I met with is led by an earnest couple in their forties, Keren Yojebed, a medical doctor, and her husband Meir, COO of a business. Sensitive to the political situation, they requested that only their Hebrew first names be used to identify them.

Keren Yojebed, pictured with her husband Meir. They are holding items donated by Idelle Hammond-Sass.

“We are a small community affected by so many limitations and economic problems,” Keren said in a thank-you letter to donors. “This makes it hard for us to count on having things like these that are so dear.”

She continues, “For our community, these resources are much more than objects: they are symbols of connection, identity, hope and continuity.” Because there are so few Jews in Nicaragua, Keren says their goal is to “unite all Jews regardless of their denomination, whether Orthodox, Conservative or Reform.” Their group of about 30 members, which they’ve recently named “Beit Shalom,” dreams of having its own building and Torah.

The shofar provided a special moment. Somewhat incongruously, surrounded by lush jungle, Meir blew the shofar… and he was immediately answered by a chorus of dogs! He had learned to play the instrument from YouTube. Listen here.

Meir blows the shofar, a call to the Jews of Nicaragua.

The second Jewish group is led by Alfonso “Chaim” Fried, a retired lawyer. He is the son of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Clearly proud of his Jewish heritage, he did not hesitate to have his full name appear in print or online. Chaim’s group of about 90 members is Orthodox with Hasidic elements. His face shone as he examined the donated items.

Alfonso “Chaim” Fried. Also pictured are his wife Jeaneth and Steve Merritt (right).

The two couples estimated that there are at most 300 Jews in the whole country of Nicaragua. Life in Nicaragua is not easy. It is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti, and its political situation presents difficulties. After spending time with them, I was struck that they would choose the additional challenge of being Jewish. And I was struck by the sincerity and intensity of their desire to maintain their Jewish identities and communities.

A special thank you to the AARC members who contributed to this project: Nancy Meadow, Janet Kelman, Neal Persky, Debra Gombert, Idelle Hammond-Sass, and Claudia Kraus-Piper. Former Ann Arborite Ed Kass, who has been visiting for the summer, also contributed.

I want to also acknowledge Martha Kransdorf, who played an important role in this project. She made the connection that resulted in the involvement of Beth Israel. Another contact of hers led me to the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires, which hopefully can be involved in supporting these two small congregations in the future.

What’s next? One possibility I floated with Keren and Meir would be a visit by a group of American Jews for a Passover seder in Nicaragua next year. Stay tuned!

Note: Jacob Schneyer, who grew up in the AARC and is the son of Debbie Field and Mark Schneyer, contacted me to see if I would be interested in 50 used Sim Shalom prayer books his havurah in Chicago was replacing. Because I was looking for Hebrew-Spanish prayer books, I put Jacob in touch with the folks at Kulanu to find out if one of the communities they support could use Hebrew-English books. It turns out the prayer books will be going to a Jewish community in Uganda!

The Mitzvah Committee and the Value of Community

by

By Debbie Field

As summer fades and the high holidays approach, we have an opportunity for
introspection, both individually and communally. How do we create a community where
everyone is included? How do we manage our differences, which seem particularly
acute in this historical moment?

Rabbi Jill Jacobs has written about the importance of community in Judaism and Sefaria offers some wonderful Talmudic teachings on Kehillah (community). Personally, I am convinced that simple mitzvot are the key to maintaining our ties to one another. Many congregants have told me how helpful it is to receive a meal or a ride or a phone call in times of need. When my father died, I felt very supported when the community crowded into our house for a shiva, brought food, and cleaned up. I have also cherished the chance to connect with community members by bringing them a meal.

Tara Cohen, Stephanie Rowden, and I make up the current committee, and we are
working to organize these efforts. Please fill out the Mitzvah Committee Survey, which allows you to let us know which mitzvot you wish to participate in to support your fellow congregants. Completing the survey does not commit you to anything, it simply allows us to include you in future requests.

Thanks to everyone who has already filled out the survey and offered help during this
past year; each friendly phone call or pot of soup helps create a bond that holds our
community together.

Please fill out here: Mitzvah Committee Survey