Posts by Members

Sympathy for Azazel

September 29, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Yom Kippur 5776 talk by Sam Bagenstos

When Deb Kraus asked me to give a talk on the scapegoat parsha, I was intrigued and intimidated. It should be obvious why I was intimidated—this is a deeply learned crowd, and the chances of embarrassing myself by offering some half-baked reaction to one of the most studied portions of Torah were high.

But why was I intrigued? Well, in part it goes back to my days misbehaving in Hebrew School. In Fourth Grade or so, all my buddies and I did was try to learn to curse in Hebrew. I remember one of them leaning over in class, whispering to me what he said was the Hebrew for “Go to Hell!”—I still don’t know whether he was right; we were all just making stuff up—which is the first time I recall hearing the word, “Azazel.” Yes, even though it was the Seventies, “Go to Hell!” was as transgressive as we got, I’m ashamed to say.

Ever since then, I’ve found the scapegoat story somewhat fascinating. I mean, we’re Jews—I thought we didn’t have much of an idea of Hell, or a devil, or anything like that. Yet here we see, right in Leviticus—the most prescriptively legalistic book of the Torah—that Aaron must take the two goats and draw lots, with one goat designated for the Lord and the other “for Azazel.”

This is apparently the only place in the Torah in which the word “Azazel” appears. And a debate has raged for centuries about what, exactly, the word means. Some do in fact interpret “Azazel” as referring to a demon, evil demigod, or fallen angel. (The suffix “-el” often denotes an angel’s name.) Others interpret “Azazel” as referring to a rough mountain—in other words, it’s the place where the goat is sent. Note that the Torah does not say anything about what happens to Azazel’s goat once it is set free. It just says that “the goat shall carry on it all [the Israelites’] iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.” Nonetheless, the Mishnah tells us that the tradition during the time of the Temple was to push the scapegoat off of a hard, rocky cliff. And “Azazel” may simply have referred to the cliff.

But then there’s the third, simplest interpretation. “Azazel” might refer to the goat itself. “Ez”—Hebrew for goat—plus “azal”—apparently the Aramaic word for “to go.” So “Azazel” might simply mean, roughly, “the goat that went away”—just as the English “scapegoat” means “the goat that escaped.” Obviously, it’s the first of these definitions that inspires my title, Sympathy for Azazel—thanks Mick and Keith!—but I’m actually more interested in the other two, as you’ll see. [Read more…] about Sympathy for Azazel

What makes a moment religious?

September 16, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Comments written by Julie Norris, delivered by Kevin Norris on Rosh Hashanah 2015

What makes a moment religious?

What makes an experience feel religious?

Is it a glimmer of a feeling, or a feeling that encompasses you?

What is your recipe for a religious moment?

This July 4th weekend, I was so struck when I had an experience that I expected to be a lot of nostalgic fun, but which shifted into something that felt unexpectedly, but unmistakably, religious.

We took a train to Chicago to meet up with our adult daughter, for the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary, fare-thee-well concert. 3 nights under the stars at Soldier’s Field with 70,000 tie-dyed faithful.

And it happened almost immediately – the awareness that somehow this felt religious. It never struck me as religious in the early 1980s as I followed the band up and down the east coast, but now, the awareness of the rituals and culture surrounding this music led me to think about some of the similarities between the shows and services.

First, the music. Many of us are so deeply moved by music. The melodies and harmonies you recognize from decades gone by and the knowledge that these same tunes are known and appreciated by millions. The verse and refrain that feel like coming home.

There’s the rhythm of sitting and standing in unison. How do 70,000 people know, without being told, when to stand but this crowd knew. And through 3-1/2 hours, 3 nights in a row, if you closed your eyes to sink fully into the moment, suddenly a recognized chord or phrase that you hadn’t realized how much you’d missed hearing would emerge and you’d be drawn to your feet. And when you open your eyes you see that everyone else has stood too, in a collective expression of joy and appreciation.

Then there’s the text or lyrics, full of poetry and meaning, full of space for interpretation. And as I gaze at my daughter, I see that these words have now been passed on from one generation to the next.

Welcome Rabbi Alana Alpert

September 5, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

by Deborah Fisch

During the Aug. 28 Shabbat service, visiting rabbi Alana Alpert explained her route to the rabbinate. While her first love was community organizing in service of social justice, she worried about the high rate of burnout such work entailed. Rabbinical school seemed to her a way to prepare to help those leaders most at risk for burnout. “I never expected to be a rabbi with my own congregation!” She now splits her time as a half-time rabbi for Congregation T’chiyah in Detroit and as a community organizer with Detroit Jews for Justice – and one of our visiting rabbis.

In her Dvar Torah, Rabbi Alpert examined a verse from Parsha Ki Teitzei: “When you build a new house, you shall make a guard rail for your roof…” She found this verse’s practical application in preventing potential harm to be immediately relevant to her recently purchased fixer-upper, in which she and her partner discovered rotted beams that threatened the stability of a second-floor balcony. While the installation of a roof rail or replacement beams improves physical safety, Rabbi Alpert also inferred a symbolic meaning for the rail: it acts as a limit on pride of ownership of a house – a necessary check on entitlement and privilege in the midst of poverty and homelessness.

We welcome to our congregation Rabbi Alpert and the many other newcomers who attended the service, including a large contingent of U-M Law School students. The usual outstanding potluck dinner followed the service, which this time might appropriately have been titled, “Celebration of the Tomato.”

Shabbaton: Privacy/Security/Inclusivity/Salad

August 25, 2015 by Margo Schlanger

By Dave Nelson

On the weekend of August 14 AARC was pleased to host a shabbaton with Rabbis Michael Strassfeld and Joy Levitt, who will be visiting us several times this year, including for High Holy Day services. Strassfeld and Levitt are two of the most distinguished rabbis currently working in the Reconstructionist movement, and the mid-August Shabbat evening service they led was fresh and lively—a promising glimpse of what we might expect for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Rabbi Joy’s Kabbalat Shabbat sermon was concise and graceful. She deftly explored what appeared to be trivial (and somewhat contradictory) rabbinical opinions on the proper construction of courtyard entryways: Who can be obliged to chip in to pay for it, how the doorhandles are to be mounted, where a gatehouse should be located, and so on. But she teased out a very powerful, surprisingly relevant message about how we are morally obligated to work together to maintain our privacy and security, without inadvertently fostering exclusivity. While there are obvious overtones here—especially in an age of shared and contested borders, gated communities, large-scale protests, and larger-scale dumps of hacked databases—what the rabbi chose to highlight was the slightly more subtle moral hazard: When we become too wholly focused on maintaining our own security and privacy, we make ourselves entirely inaccessible to the cries of those in need of our assistance.

As ever, the potluck was delicious and diverse. Quinoa and kale were in surprisingly short supply, but a variety of exceedingly fresh tomato and cucumber salads more than compensated for this omission.

Q&A with City Council Primary Winner Zachary Ackerman

August 12, 2015 by Emily Eisbruch

Zachary Ackerman, 21 year old U-M student and son of AARC members Erica and Mark, won the August 4, 2015 primary for 3rd ward City Councilperson and will run unopposed in the November election. In the busy days following his primary victory, Zach kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his experiences, including his Jewish upbringing.

Emily Eisbruch (EE): Congratulations Zach! How do you balance your campaign with the responsibilities of being a University of Michigan student?

Zachary Ackerman (ZA) : Balance in one’s personal life is always difficult to strike. Luckily, being a student allows for flexibility. This summer, when I really hit the campaign trail running, I was working full time at the University’s IT department. From time to time, people will express concern about how I will balance work on Council with work as a student. The reality is that I will only be both a student and a representative on Council for one or two meetings.

EE: How has this campaign experience compared to your expectations? What have you learned? What are your hopes moving forward?

ZA: I’ve worked professionally for Democratic politicians for a number of years, but being the candidate is very different. Knocking on fifty strangers’ doors a day is really putting yourself out there. What I found most interesting and most valuable is how different each household, each street, and each neighborhood in the Third Ward really is. It was critical that I did knock every door in the ward because every household proved to have its own concerns with the City. I look forward to getting to work to address those priorities.

EE: How, if at all, did Jewish upbringing or education feed into your interest in public service?

ZA: I was raised on stories of my great-grandparents and my grandfather. My grandfather’s parents came to the United States in the wake of the Russian pogroms. Like so many they had nothing to their names but their faith and family. They settled in Columbus, OH and opened up a small tailor shop, which went on to serve the growing Jewish community of Columbus. It was there that they helped found an Orthodox congregation and raised my grandfather. My grandfather died young from wounds he sustained in Italy in WWII, but he used his short life to its utmost. After the war, he became a pharmacist, serving the community his parents had helped root. As the owner of Ackerman Drug, he helped local kids pay their way through school, and filled prescriptions for the sick and indigent. I was raised to be a mensch like my grandfather. I was raised to believe community can and should take care of its own.

EE: Tell us about your Jewish background. Did you participate in Jewish activities growing up?

ZA: I grew up a member of the Beth Israel congregation here in Ann Arbor. There, I attended Hebrew school three times a week and became a bar mitzvah (my Torah portion was Ki Tavo). A few years ago, my parents joined the AARC. Since then, I’ve joined them for High Holiday services and look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

EE: Thank you Zach, and we hope to see you soon at the AARC also!

Morgan Buroker D’var Torah, August 1, 2015, Parshah Ve’ethanan

August 3, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

Hello, shabbat shalom! I am so happy that now I get to tell you about my parshah! My parshah is called Va`ethanan. Va`ethanan is in the book of Deuteronomy chapters 4-7. The whole book of Deuteronomy is a series of speeches given by Moses reminding the Jews, who are standing at the shore of the Jordan River, of their history and the rules to follow in the land. Deuteronomy means “second law” because this is the second time the rules have been stated to the Jewish people. (The first time being after the Jews left Egypt).

Va`ethanan means “and I plead.” In the beginning of my parshah, Moses begs (pleads) to God to let him in the land after he is told he could not go. He was not successful. Next, the Ten Commandments are restated and the Shema and V’ahavta are declared. Also in the parshah is a famous verse that inspired the Passover haggadah that says “When in time to come, your children ask you, what mean the rules and laws that the Lord your God has enjoined upon you, you shall say to your children, we were slaves to the pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord freed us from Egypt with a helping hand.”

Today I will be talking about the Ten Commandments, from Deuteronomy chapter 5 lines 1-18. Moses is restating the commandments. Almost all people who left Egypt died on the 40 year trip to Israel, so a whole new generation of people who had not heard the Ten Commandments were there to hear them. That is why Moses needed to restate them. Also, the Ten Commandments are important because if you don’t do a commandment, it could sacrifice your chances of living a good life in the promised land.

The big thing that I am focusing on is the commandment “Honor your mother and father.” This commandment is very interesting to me for many reasons. One reason is that God actually had to tell us to honor our parents. God could have made a more important commandment, like “treat animals right.” Animal abuse is a more important problem in this world; not that I’m saying honoring your parents isn`t important. It’s just not as important as some problems in the world. Now why does God actually need to tell us to honor our parents? If God didn’t, does God think that we wouldn’t do it? But the thing is, just because there is a commandment about something doesn’t always mean that people will still follow it, people don’t always honor their parents. [Read more…] about Morgan Buroker D’var Torah, August 1, 2015, Parshah Ve’ethanan

D’varim, Tisha B’Av and the Meaning of Justice

July 26, 2015 by Margo Schlanger

My d’var Torah for Shabbat, July 24, 2015.

Painting: The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans

I want to talk today about what I see as a connection between two things: Tisha b’Av, the fast day that begins Saturday evening, and D’varim, this week’s parsha.

I’ll start with Tisha b’Av, the holiday when, traditionally, Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple and the forced exile of the Jews from Jerusalem.

Here’s a story, a fable, from the Talmud about how it is that that destruction came about:

There was a man who was very good friends with someone named Kamza and did not get along with another person with a similar name, Bar Kamza. This man was preparing to host a large banquet. He told his servant to invite his friend Kamza. But the servant made a mistake and invited Bar Kamza.

The host was very surprised to see his least favorite person, Bar Kamza, at his party, and ordered him to leave. But Bar Kamza did not want to be thrown out; he thought that would be humiliating. So he offered to pay for his portion of food. The host refused. Bar Kamza next offered to pay for half of the expenses of the large party. Still the host refused. Finally, Bar Kamza offered to pay for the entire banquet. In anger, the host grabbed Bar Kamza and physically threw him out. [Read more…] about D’varim, Tisha B’Av and the Meaning of Justice

Of Iftar and Izmir

July 8, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

By Ellen Dannin

Most who know anything about Jews know something about the traditions and culture of Ashkenazi Jews – the Jews who lived in Europe and spoke Yiddish. Fewer people know about Jewish culture and history in the Middle East and Mediterranean areas. While Ashkenazi Jews traditionally speak Yiddish, which is a mix of Hebrew and German, Mediterranean Jews spoke other languages that were based on Hebrew, such as Ladino, and were an amalgam of Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish.

A few weeks ago, the NY Times reported on a less well known part of Jewish culture to be found in Arab speaking countries. In those areas, Jews found centuries of safety and enlightenment in the midst of a scientific revolution. The Times story described the Danan Synagogue, which was named for a rabbinical family whose lineage goes back 50 generations to the 17th-century. Since Hebrew is traditionally written without vowels, there can be many spellings that sound alike. So it is probable that the Danans in the article were related to the Dannins, my family. Over the centuries, they lived in Izmir (Smyrna), Morocco, Spain, Turkey, and eventually made their way to Sweden in the early 19th century and on to Indiana.

The rituals of the Muslim holiday Ramadan are now being observed, through fasting and prayer, but also through Iftar – the evening meal eaten during Ramadan. While I lived in State College, PA, the Turkish community invited me and several hundred other non-Muslims to enjoy the Iftar meal with them and to learn about their culture and values.

Now there is an opportunity to share the Iftar meal here in Ann Arbor, this Sunday, July 12. I hope others from AARC will join me in accepting the invitation of the Niagra Foundation, St. Clare’s Episcopal Church, and Temple Beth Emeth to an Ann Arbor Neighborhood and Friendship Iftar at Genesis, 2309 Packard Rd. The evening will begin with a screening of the film Love is a Verb at 8:00, at 8:45 there will be a prayer in the Sanctuary, and at 9:15, fast-breaking in the Social Hall. Please rsvp here.

As a member of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, I value the opportunity to participate in observing Iftar and to learn from one another about our traditions and values. When we Jews observe Pesach (Passover), we recall the memory of Jerusalem, the city whose very name – Ir-Shalom – means City of Peace. May we all be at peace, and may we all live in freedom.

Civil Disobedience at Stewart Immigrant Detention Center

April 14, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

By Rebecca Kanner

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

rebecca at SDC — Anton Flores, Jason McGaughey, Kevin Caron, Maureen Fitzsimons, and Rebecca Kanner were arrested on Saturday, November 22, 2014 at the gates of the Stewart Detention Center

On Saturday, November 22, 2014, I participated in non-violent civil disobedience at Stewart Detention Center, crossing the line onto Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) property to call for the institution’s closure. When participating in civil disobedience, I am practicing a lesson that I learned many years ago in my ninth grade civics class: that sometimes breaking the law is a viable action by concerned people to protect our democracy.

Expressing my concern, I walked across that line to shine a light on a facility that I have only learned about over the last several years. I attended my first vigil at Stewart Detention Center in 2010; I returned again in 2011 and my third time was this past November. Each time was an incredibly moving experience. I was touched to hear stories from family members and friends about those who were detained in the facility. I heard about the horrible conditions inside and the tragic situations of those men locked up. Hearing these voices moved me to act and with my action express solidarity with the immigrants imprisoned at the detention center.

The addition of Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem, The New Colossus, to the Statue of Liberty in 1903 turned what was an icon of freedom into the Mother of Exiles, the “unofficial greeter of incoming immigrants” (John T. Cunningham). There have been times when our country was kinder to immigrants. Three of my four grandparents were immigrants, coming to this country as young children in the early years of the 20th century. They left the old country and the pogroms of Eastern Europe for a better life. My mother’s mother, Gramma Goldie, never did become a citizen and most of her life in the U.S., she was undocumented, though it was not talked about. But she was treated much differently than we treat immigrants today. She lived her life, raising my mother as a single parent, working, paying taxes, and collecting social security in her retirement. That was then and this is now. Now the immigration system is much changed. Now our country is much harsher, much meaner to the immigrant, to the stranger. [Read more…] about Civil Disobedience at Stewart Immigrant Detention Center

How an AARC Member Helped Strike a Blow against Discrimination

March 29, 2015 by Clare Kinberg

by Jonathan Cohn

Women who are pregnant now have stronger protection against workplace discrimination, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court–and a member of the AARC who argued before the Court late last year.

On March 25, the Court issued its decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, a case in which a pregnant woman (Young) claimed her employer (UPS) would not offer her the same kind of on-the-job accommodations it offered other employees with medical conditions. Young prevailed, winning the right to sue UPS under a law called the “Pregnancy Discrimination Act.”

Young’s lawyer was none other than Sam Bagenstos, who has been a member of the AARC since 2011. Sam, the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is a nationally recognized expert on constitutional, civil rights, and employment law. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and Harvard Law School, he has worked at the Justice Department and been a clerk to Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This was his third time appearing as an advocate before the nation’s highest court — and the second time that his client prevailed.

In academic and legal circles, Sam is probably best known for his work on laws about disability and discrimination. And it’s that expertise he brought to bear in the Young case, which called upon the Justices to parse the meaning of a 1978 law and what Congress had in mind at the time of enactment. By a 6-to-3 majority, with two conservatives joining the Court’s liberals, the Justices ruled that Congress wanted to make sure employers treated pregnancy no different than other medical conditions.

“The Court made clear that employers may not refuse to accommodate pregnant workers based on considerations of cost or convenience when they accommodate other workers,” Sam said. “The Court recognized that a ruling for UPS would have thwarted Congress’s intent in passing the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. This decision is a big step forward towards enforcing the principle that a woman shouldn’t have to choose between her pregnancy and her job.”

AARC members who don’t recognize Sam from his presence at congregation activities may know some of his family members — including his children, Harry and Leila, as well as his wife, AARC Board Chairperson Margo Schlanger.

Margo also happens to be a Michigan law professor and former Ginsburg clerk. No, they didn’t meet while clerking. But if you want the actual backstory, you’ll have to ask them.

By the way, you can listen to Sam delivering his oral argument at the Supreme Court here.