Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

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WHY MIRC NEEDS OUR HELP NOW

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Support our MIRC Fundraiser!

By Steve Merritt

I’ve recently been in touch with Christine Sauve, communication officer for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), to better understand and be able to share with you about their work in the current political climate. MIRC is the leading provider of free legal services for immigrants in the state.

Increasing Demand for Services

Since the Trump administration took office in January of 2025, according to Suave, MIRC has received an extraordinarily high volume of inquiries. Last year, they took over 5,000 calls for legal assistance and handled 1,521 cases. They are currently receiving as many as 40 calls a week from newly detained immigrants and recently expanded their intake team to better manage the volume.

“The number of people being detained in Michigan is five times higher than previous years,” she said. Many detentions result from the increased involvement of local law enforcement, she explained, especially traffic stops that inappropriately escalate when local officers call ICE or CBP.

MIRC has historically worked in three main areas: direct legal services, advocacy, and community education, such as Know Your Rights training. With the increase in detentions, however, they have had to shift resources toward their detention work. A key part of that work is quick support in filing habeas petitions, because policy changes have made it harder for detainees to be released on bond.

A Constantly Changing Environment

The legal environment is turbulent, with about 700 immigration policy changes enacted under the new administration. According to Suave, “this blistering pace of change–changes that have real and consequential impacts for Michigan families–leaves everyone reeling.”

MIRC’s Unique Role

MIRC is the only nonprofit legal service provider designated to answer calls from people in immigration detention in Michigan. It is also the only Michigan organization listed on the pro bono list given to people in removal proceedings in immigration court.

The federal funding for several key MIRC programs–its Helpdesk in immigration court, its representation of over 1,000 unaccompanied minors, and its support for individuals deemed mentally incompetent to represent themselves, have all been terminated. While some services have been temporarily restored through litigation, the programs remain on shaky ground. “The starts and stops have made it more stressful to maintain service and staffing,” she said. Some staff have even received hate mail.

“As you can imagine, it is painful to bear witness to the suffering our clients and community members are experiencing,” said Suave. “We see families separated, struggling with the loss of a breadwinner, people not receiving the care they need in detention, and untold worry and anxiety.”

At the same time, “we have been buoyed by the incredible show of support from communities across the state, communities who know and love their immigrant neighbors,” she said. “We have been inspired by the notes of appreciation and creative fundraisers to support our critical work, so that we can help more people have access to free legal services when they need it most.”

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You–yes, you!–can help MIRC help these immigrants. Please buy a ticket or donate to our fundraiser on behalf of MIRC. Every dollar we raise for them will help pay for critically needed legal services.

Latin Music & Dance CELEBRATION!

Saturday, June 13, 6:00-9:00 pm

First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor

4001 Ann Arbor-Saline Rd, Ann Arbor, MI 48103

This event is both a celebration of Latin culture and a call to support our immigrant neighbors. It will feature Paul Vornhagen’s Afro-Cuban jazz band Tumbao Bravo playing music for listening and dancing. The doors open at 6:00. There will be dinner by Pilar’s Tamales and a cash bar. An optional salsa lesson with Mambo Marci from YA Salsa starts at 6:30. The band will take the stage at 7:15. Tickets are $50 per person. The registration deadline to attend is June 6. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to donate. Buy your tickets or donate here!

For more information contact LatinMusicAndDanceCelebration@gmail.com.

Time to stand up for our immigrant neighbors! by Steve Merritt

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Back in January, Jeff Basch posted on Reconchat about an interfaith coalition on immigration coming together in Ann Arbor. When he asked if any of us were interested, it called out to me.

I had worked for eight years as a Spanish interpreter in courts, hospitals, schools and community mental health. I was often there in people’s most difficult, intimate moments—during jail visits, medical procedures, school meetings with parents, and in the privacy of therapists’ offices.

In those years, I got to know the Latino community. What I saw were people working multiple jobs to feed and clothe their kids, paying social security taxes they’d never collect on, and trying their best to live under the radar. They took jobs no one else wanted. They prioritized family and friends. They went to church. They are not so different from any of us. And they are here for the same reasons most of our ancestors came: To escape danger and/or seek a better life for themselves and their kids.

They do not merit the harsh, dehumanizing treatment they are receiving. The Torah calls on us 36 times to care for the stranger in our midst, often cited as the most frequently mentioned commandment. If there ever were a time to heed the call to defend our immigrant neighbors, it is now.

In what became the Interfaith Funds for Immigrant Justice coalition, 23 congregations committed to raising $100,000 so that the Michigan Immigration Rights Center (MIRC) could hire more legal staff. At the AARC, David Speyer quickly organized an immigration-themed Purim party to raise money. In mid-March, Kira Berman put on a benefit cocktail party. You can read about our next fundraiser below.

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The Latin Music & Dance CELEBRATION! on Saturday, June 13, 6:00-9:00 pm, is our next benefit for MIRC. Paul Vornhagen’s Afro-Cuban jazz band Tumbao Bravo will headline an evening of music for listening and dancing. We’ll be at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Abor, which is co-sponsoring the event with us and providing the venue.

The doors for the event will open at 6:00 with dinner from Pilar’s Tamales and a cash bar. A salsa lesson with Mambo Marci from YA Salsa will start at 6:30. The band will take the stage at 7:15.

During the intermission, we’ll hear from Molli, a member of the UU congregation who answers the MIRC hotline. She’ll share some of the stories she hears from callers and help put a face on the people we are supporting.

It should be a fun, high-energy evening. And a chance to take a break from the depressing daily news cycle, find a little joy, and show support for our neighbors. Please plan to attend!

Tickets are $50 per person. The deadline for registering is June 6. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to donate. Buy your tickets or donate here!

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

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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

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**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

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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.

Why I chose the AARC

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Those were terrific blogs in the Why I Chose Reconstructionism series from Elizabeth Brindley and Dave Nelson. Now apparently it’s my turn.

For me, it’s a matter of valuing the caring, thoughtful community that our family has found over the years at the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (AARC).

Here are a few photos that show the special connections and spiritually enriching experiences that our Recon community provides.

Why I Chose Recon by Dave Nelson

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I chose Reconstructionism via process of elimination. I know that sounds like a left-handed compliment at best, but stick with me.

I had a Jewish childhood that was confusing and unpleasant in ways that will be familiar to many Jews born in the 1970s or before: 

When I was small lots of folks had lots of opinions about Jews. These opinions were rarely accurate, and mostly either callously (if inadvertently) cruel or awkwardly and unjustifiably admiring (to your face, at least). 

My earliest memory of public school was being relentlessly bullied on the bus by a kid nearly twice my age who didn’t like Jews, but did like detailed descriptions of Jews being tortured and murdered throughout history. At home in the neighborhood, a friend’s parent interrupted our game of touch football to pointedly insist that my parents were “real top-drawer people.” It was the only time I recalled him saying anything to anyone, apart from yelling at his own children to cut something the hell out. Years later I finally put together the puzzle when I began to notice how often someone would learn I was Jewish (“Oh!? You don’t look Jewish!”) and then abruptly opine that Sandy Koufax had been one helluva ballplayer, or that Mel Brooks was a real funny guy, or that Carl Levin was an honest politician and that was really saying something.

But clumsy or mean gentiles were only half the unpleasantness in my unpleasant Jewish childhood. The other half was Jews who took offense to me calling myself a “Jew” when only one of my parents had been born Jewish (…and the father, no less!). 

Unsurprisingly, I had my bar mitzvah and didn’t set foot in a temple or synagogue again for nearly a decade. 

When Cara and I got married, the rabbi who officiated was lovely, but was not from the large Metro-Detroit Reform temple where my parents were members and I had been bar mitzvahed; that congregation was uninterested in officiating an interfaith ceremony in West Michigan. The rabbi who did officiate (semi-retired from a tiny West Michigan congregation) had only one condition: that we promise to raise any children as Jews.  Cara and I agreed without thinking much of it. My wife was raised Catholic, and was more than happy to raise Jewish children instead of Catholic ones. I didn’t object because I didn’t have any problem with being a Jew; I had a problem with being treated poorly by people who had unresolved issues with Jews and Jewishness.

Then we had kids, and those kids got old enough to need religious instruction in order for us to make good on our promise to the very nice man in the very thick glasses who’d officiated our mishugina wedding in a Saugatuck gazebo.

One of my freelance gigs at this time was copyediting the Washtenaw Jewish News, which meant I read every word about every Jewish organization in town at least twice each month. This made me oddly well-informed about local congregations and their programming, given that I had been avoiding Jewish organizations for going on two decades and had never intended to ever join one again. 

Being well informed wasn’t encouraging. This was 20 years ago, and some of what I saw local congregations promoting was too close to what had stung me when I was a kid: workshops on how to “cope” with your child’s or grandchild’s interfaith relationship, talk about how they “tolerated” people from all traditions, and so on. 

I didn’t want my wife and children to be “tolerated.” I wanted them to feel welcomed. (Never mind that this was also an extremely convenient reason to keep avoiding the Jews I’d been avoiding since I was a teen.)

Cara—who was stuck leading this charge, because she makes good on her promises and her husband was refusing to productively process his childhood trauma—asked what about these guys, these Reconstructionists? Did I have a beef with Reconstructionists?

I did not. I’d never heard of them. I’d been bullied by Reform Jews and Conservative Jews and Humanist Jews and just sort of ignored by Chasidic Jews, but never to my knowledge even met a Reconstructionist. The word wasn’t even in spellcheck! 

  So we came to AARC Kabbalat Shabbat. I didn’t really know what “Kabbalat Shabbat” was at the time, and when it was over I still didn’t really know what it was: The liturgy and order of service and songs seemed almost entirely foreign. For me, this was a feature, not a problem: nothing about AARC reminded me of the Judaism that had excluded me when I was small.  Besides, everyone was very friendly and helped me find which page we were on, and there was plenty of kale and quinoa to go around afterward.

All of that was nice. But what has kept me choosing Reconstructionism with the AARC is the religious school. 

I’d gone to religious school for years, and it had taught me to at once be ashamed of not being a “real” Jew while also being conceited about my natural superiority as a Jew moving through a goyische world (“when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon,” and so on).

At AARC my children learned to be comfortable and confident as Jews without any sense that this made them better (or even really meaningfully different) from anyone else. Over the years we’ve had different Boards, different Rabbis, different teachers and curricula, different members, but the heart of it has remained the same—which is good, because my children have learned this, but I still have a lot of work to do.

Finding Awesome Places by Elizabeth Brindley

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“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

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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

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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.