News from the 2007 Biennial Convention

Sunday, December 3

Todah Rabah Again

We are truly blessed by the depth of knowledge our lay leaders have, and by their willingness to share it with us.

Yesterday we listed the Shabbat service leaders and Torah readers; today we’d like to honor Sharon Steinberg, Ray Goldstein, and Irwin Scharf, who read haftarah on Shabbat. Yesterday, Eugene Zinbarg,Fred Katzenstein, and Richard Skolnik led the davening. Scott Kaplan and Paul Kochberg led shacharit today, and Jedd Moskowitz and Marc Neiwirth leyned.

Todah rabah to everyone who led services. Thank you for contributing your kavanah, as we proved yet again that there is unity to our diversity.

Reinvisioning the Synagogue

Dr. Ron Wolfson, the president and co-founder of Synagogue 2000 and Synagogue 3000, is able to talk about the Conservative movement from real and deep knowledge. He is a true son of the movement, born into a Conservative family in Omaha and into Beth El Synagogue, the city’s Conservative shul. USY changed his life, he said, so much so that he remembers the day when that change happened.

From that position, he is in a position to do some “compassionate truthtelling” – and he did. The self-professed “eternal optimist” said that “the future is bright” – but we’re not there yet. “We have a lot of work to do to transform relationships, inspire leadership, and recruit and train a new generation of leaders to gather the strengths of the movement as we move into the future to craft the synagogue of the 21st century,” he said. Doing so will demand that we pay attention to our members, both the ones who show up all the time and the ones who don’t. We also have to pay attention to those people who are not part of our community; we must welcome them when they come to us.

It is not enough merely to offer programs, although of course we also must offer programs. We have to build synagogue of relationships, both the relationships between people and the relationships between people and God. We must create spiritual relationships, where people understand that the Torah means life, in a synagogue where they engage in serious prayer, serious study, and a personal commitment to repairing the world.

The Conservative movement is blessed with some of the most creative rabbis and cantors around, who are developing some of the most creative services in all of Jewish life. We just must learn how to believe this truth, and then to share it with the world.

Our synagogues must tailor their services to each person; unity in diversity means, among other things, that many minyanim, filling many needs, can meet in one building, as part of one community; everyone will join in the kiddush. Similarly, each member should be encouraged to join in the activities that speak most to him or her. There is no one size that fits all.

And most basically, we must not shy away from God-talk. We are on earth to be God’s partners in the work of completing and perfecting the world. A synagogue should be a place where the deepest religious questions can be asked; spirituality is precisely the act of asking those questions. We must remember that we do God’s work because as human beings we are made in God’s image. There is a spark of divinity in each of us. All we have to do is ignite it.

Report from the Law Committee

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, who is among many other things a philosopher, an academic, and perhaps the Jewish world’s leading bioethicist, also is a longtime member and the new chair of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

The law committee is studying a huge range of issues, which demonstrate the vitality of the Conservative approach to halakhah, he said. At its next meeting, the committee, which has 25 voting members, all rabbis, will consider what he called “mitzvah children.” That’s what Rabbi Dorff calls those children born in response to the call to parents to have one more child than they had planned, for the sake of the Jewish people.

The next teshuvah under consideration will investigate the halakhic status of veal; it will urge Jews not to eat any veal other than free-range because of the cruelty involved in raising and slaughtering veal calves. Next up will be one looking at intellectual property. This is a particularly interesting issue because for Americans it is a slam dunk, Rabbi Dorff said, enshrined as it is in the Constitution. Moreover, a basic halakhic principle is that as Jews we must obey the law of the land in which we live. But, he said, the idea of copyright is alien to Jews; the Torah was to be disseminated as widely as possible, as was all Jewish knowledge. Times change, technology changes, assumptions must be investigated and basic principles applied.

Other upcoming teshuvot involve the genetic testing – of course testing for fatal or severe disease is encouraged, but given the danger that eventually pregnancies might be ended if the baby will be of the wrong gender or eye color, where must the line between approved and forbidden tests be drawn? And may someone adopted by Jews and converted to Judaism as a child be able to be called by the adopted parents’ names, or must he or she always be called to the Torah as a descendant of Abraham and Sarah?

The only movement that deals authentically with Jewish law is ours, Rabbi Dorff said; we acknowledge both its primacy and its continual evolution as a living organism. That process will continue; the law committee’s next meeting is December 12.

Honoring Young Leaders

At lunch yesterday, United Synagogue recognized a dozen young leaders, who had been nominated by their congregations and regions for their commitment, energy, and creativity. They already had breakfasted with our international president, Dr. Ray Goldstein, and our executive vice president, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, where they discussed how to develop more young leaders, as well as the issues that most affect them and their cohort. We will follow up by setting up a young adult task force and a listserve that will allow them to stay in touch with each other.

At dinner – a truly scrumptious barbecue buffet, staffed as always by a virtual army of punctiliously polite, extraordinarily vigilant waiters – Dr. Goldstein thanked the outgoing board and officers and welcomed the new ones as he installed them. Then, as he began his second two-year term, he told us of his vision for the movement.

His 3-year-old grandson, Payton, like all children, always wants to know why, and that is a valuable question; coming to the core reason can be as hard as peeling an onion to its center. At our center, he suggested, is our desire to bring Jews closer to the mitzvot, performing them and loving them. Our goals must include helping along the renaissance of Conservative Judaism, along with our renaissance of pride in the movement.

“I am proud to be a Conservative Jew,” he said. “I am proud to be part of the movement that has the intellectual and halakhic integrity to grapple with the question posed by the intersection of today’s problems and possibilities. I hope you share that pride.”

As he listed his goals for his last administration, which have been met, and the goals for the new one, Dr. Goldstein made clear that his deepest hope is for the unity of the movement; that the various branches and organizations that make up Conservative Judaism can come together to make all of us stronger than any of us could be alone.

Projects such as the joint mediation program between us and the Rabbinical Assembly; the Walking With God series with our partners the Ziegler School and the RA; the Spirit Series, with the Cantors Assembly; Ozrim, which we are relaunching together with NAASE, the North American Association of Synagogue Executives; and the new magazine CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism, with Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Mens’ Clubs. And then there is the new hekhsher tzedek, the Conservative movement’s certification, added to meat that is ritually kosher if it also has been produced in a way that respects the rights of the workers who produce it. The hekhsher tzedek, a joint effort between United Synagogue and the Rabbinical Assembly, has produced a great deal of exciting publicity for the movement.

“Every joint program is to be celebrated,” Dr. Goldstein said. “We are one movement, one team.” Moreover, he added, he is pushing for one huge convention for the all the organizations in the movement, to be held no later than 2011. The suggestion was greeted with applause.

His grandson was born during Chanukah three years ago, Dr. Goldstein said, and his birthday will be celebrated during the holiday of lights again this year. Noting that the Temple in Jerusalem was rededicated during the first Chanukah, he added, “I can’t think of a better gift for Payton and his peers than to rededicate ourselves to our continued passion for Conservative Judaism.”

L’hitraot - See You Two Years from Now in Cherry Hill!

It might have been bitterly cold or even snowing back home but the warmth of the Florida sun penetrated the vast halls through the massive windows of the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort. We’ve spent the last four days learning, talking, davening, and eating together, playing Jewish geography, celebrating Shabbat, remembering what ties us together and forging even more bonds.

We hope you all have a safe trip home, and that you take some of the spirit of the convention home with you and share it with your congregation.

And we are all looking forward to getting together again in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, in 2009.