Innovation Isn't New

A number of months ago I was listening to a Grantland (Z'L) Podcast where they were discussing the different way that teenagers today watch television.  Instead of watching in on the television, they watch it on their computers and tablets and swallow it up in binge watches.  One of the podcast discussants, Andy Greenwald,  mentioned that he was at a high school and asked them what shows they were into these days. Was it The Walking Dead or 2 Broke Girls?  They told him no and asked him instead if he had heard of this other great show they had all watched the previous weekend.  "Andy, have you ever seen Friends?"

Over the course of the previous several weeks, this whole friend group had watched just about all 236 episodes of Friends.  It wasn't the latest, most hyped television program around, it was simply one of the shows they came across on Netflix.  While advertisers and networks struggle to create programs specifically designed for this new generation, they are finding fulfillment watching a show from the 90s. 

The easy Jewish takeaway from this lesson is that older traditions can still have value and that newer isn't always better and that is certainly true.  I would prefer, however, to look at this issue through a different lens.

I would like to argue that innovation isn't about finding or creating the new great thing, it is about accepting and understanding the world in which we live.  More often than not innovative ideas are not actually new, they are instead a prompt responses to new trends and new needs.  Too often, we allow nostalgia or turf wars to stand in the way of making changes that are to our own benefit.  We want to think that what we have always done will continue to work, even in the face of a changing world.

Creating a more concierge program for teens is a wonderful idea due to the tremendous amount of commitments that teenagers have today.  While it would be called an innovation to present a more personalized program for teens or even for younger students, it is in fact simply a recognition that children and family needs have changed and we need to accomodate them.

Providing podcasts or greater opportunities for virtual learning is innovative, but only because the creators of those programs are recognizing the new ways that people consume information.

From the important works Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam and The Jewish Within from Steven Cohen and Arnold Eisen and others, we know that people are looking for personal fulfillment and are not simply going to belong/support without good cause.  The era of doing things because it has always been done has passed.  People want to support a few areas that are meaningful to them.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon Jewish institutions to not view the need for personal meaning and relevance as selfishness but as a modern truism.    While we could bemoan the change forever, I'd rather we spend time acknowledging where we are at and doing all that we can to face that reality with honesty and integrity. 

Innovation isn't new.  It can be the same response that was issued by Mordecai Kaplan 50 years ago, Maimonides 1000 years ago or the Rabbis of Yavne 2000 years ago.  It is at its core simply recognizing the world in which we live and embracing it rather than rejecting it.  Then we will be able to be innovative not because we know something that everyone else doesn't but because we know exactly what everyone else does.

The Stain in the Kittel

On my way home from dropping my son off at day care, I stopped to pick up my dry cleaning.  As I arrived, the woman who works at this particular dry cleaning (who always remembers who I am which always amazes me) told me that my "long white thing" came back with a stain still on it so she sent it back.  It would be back this evening. What she was talking about was my kittel, the long white garment that I wear over the High Holidays.   I said thank you and drove away, but couldn't help thinking about what an apt metaphor the stain on the kittel was.

Every High Holidays I appear exclusively in white symbolizing, among other things, my purity and spiritual cleanliness that holiday season.  What a wonderful statement it would make if I were to show up in my white kittel, but with a large noticeable stain.  As much as I would like to seem like I am entering the holidays pure and blameless, that stain is a reminder that none of us are coming before the Divine entirely pure.  All of us have stains, all of us have mistakes and flaws.  By coming before God with the stained kittel, I would be telling God that I am not blameless but instead asking God to accept me stains and all. 

I will pick up my kittel tomorrow and I am hoping that the stain will not come out.  I hope that I will be able to have the confidence and self-awareness to walk before my community and my God with a stained kittel, asking them both to accept me as I am, stains and all.

When A Sermon Won't Do

All too often, I feel frustrated by sermons and blogs.  They are cathartic for me, but then I become frustrated because as soon as the words leave my mouth or are deposited into the emails of our members they already begin to dissipate into the expanse of our all too busy lives.  I talk about something but we can't do anything about it right there and then.  Sometimes, moreover, the sermon I want to give, I can't. Whether it is because of our varied politics or simply because I can't bring myself to speak about a dead 3 year old at a family's Bar Mitzvah celebration, it simply isn't the appropriate venue. While I buy into Abraham Joshua Heschel's idea that prophets (and I'd add rabbis) are meant to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," how can I show this picture

 

and then welcome the Bar Mitzvah boy up to lead us in Musaf.  Sometimes sermons and congregational emails aren't the right place to express all that I have to say, which is why I am reclaiming this blog.  I hope that this will be a place where we can not only discuss important ideas, but also inspire meaningful action.  If we are mortified by the refugee crisis that our world is facing, perhaps the most significant since World War II, there are tangible things we can do.  So many of us cannot go on with our lives as usual having seen these photos, bringing the horrors home in gruesome ways, how can we even begin to make a dent?

The first thing we can do is look.  There was a debate in the New York Times newsroom whether to include the photos of the children washed ashore including Alan Kurdi, the 3 year old pictured above.  Was it wrong or necessary for people to see these images?  No one wants to see this picture and as much as we don't want to live in a world where atrocities like those in Syria occur, it is only by being willing to look and come to terms with that reality that will ever lead to any kind of change. As painful as this image is, we must look, we must cry, and we must acknowledge that these things are happening in our world.

The next thing we can do is learn.  Read about the refugee crises in Syria, Africa, and beyond.  Make sure that we call a refugee a refugee instead of a migrant if they are willing to risk their lives to leave the only place they had ever called home.  We can support and learn more about HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which was founded in the end of the 19th century to help Jews escape the Pogroms of Eastern Europe and now works to help all refugees who are in need, truly taking to heart the need to support all those in need for we too were oppressed and in need.

The final thing we can do is act. We can petition the White House to admit more Syrian refugees into our country using mechanisms such as https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/authorize-and-resettle-syrian-refugees-us.  If you are in Atlanta, New American Pathways (formerly RRISA) which helps refugees who are settling in Atlanta.  Under Barry Koffler's leadership, Congregation B'nai Torah collects supplies to furnish a home for a refugee family in Atlanta.  The objects being collected can be found at http://files.ctctcdn.com/305dad29001/12ed1185-ef1a-4ebe-b07d-7e3f092ecbe6.pdf with smaller items being collected at CBT and larger ones being collected at people's own homes. 

Facing such a global crisis, we can sometimes feel that there is nothing that we can do, but that is never truly the case and I am sure my list is incomplete.  What else can/should we be doing?  What projects are happening in other communities to make a change?  I would love to learn.

Shabbat Shalom

Trusting Our Teens

I am a 34 year old rabbi.  I observe the minutiae of Shabbat.  I only eat at restaurants with a hechsher. I am not permitted to attend or perform an intermarriage-a policy I support.  And I am exceptionally proud and impressed with the International Board of USY (United Synagogue Youth). 

Just this week, the 16, 17, and 18 year old leadership of USY (the Conservative movement’s youth program) voted to maintain certain standards of practice as well as adjust the language in reference to others.  To see our teenagers, the future (and current) leadership of our movement, take an active role in defining what it means to be a Conservative Jewish role model is inspiring. 

While many adults may think we know best, and some of us may disagree with the choices made as either too liberal or too conservative, I am so glad that it is not a decision that is ours to make.  If we want a thoughtful and meaningful Jewish future, we need to trust our young people with their own lives.  We need to trust that we have given them the tools to make smart choices and empower them to lead their own organization. These young people consulted their rabbis and teachers and studied the issue at length, and then came to an informed and difficult decision.

While the focus has been on the change in language to no longer explicitly prohibit the executive boards from inter-dating, it is interesting that the board simultaneously decided to not change its policies requiring the observance of Shabbat and Kashrut.  This determination unequivocally demonstrates that the teens at the helm of one of our movement’s most important institutions are being deliberate and thoughtful about what it means to be a Jewish leader.  They are recognizing a changing landscape and deciding for themselves what are the right changes to make and what are the proper standards to maintain. 

Adults will argue about what the correct policy should be.  They will bemoan the choices that these children are being permitted to make while many of these adults are never subject to any standards of religious observance or interpersonal conduct, nor would they ever impose a policy that would require their leaders to be fully Shomer Shabbat or Kashrut observant.

But it doesn’t matter what I think.  To me, whether or not I agree with every policy that these teens may decide, I need to be willing to accept and embrace their choices.   I need to allow them to express themselves and determine their own future. 

I am proud of the work of our teens as well as the work of our USY staff for their guidance and trust, and I look forward to an amazing Jewish future under their leadership.