Sunday, August 13, 2023

Announcing: Layers of Meaning: Jewish Reflections on Popular Culture! (Volume 4 in The Writings of Rabbi Gary Creditor)

https://a.co/d/9hQvuOp


In Jewish tradition, text is the thread that weaves the world together and an emotional relationship with text, nurtured over time through scholarly reflection and profound introspection is the heartbeat of identity and practice. This book of Rabbi Gary Creditor's sermons over many years implicitly demonstrates the evolution of text, from ancient scrolls to the realms of movies, songs, and theater. In the journey through the evolution of text, popular culture emerges as a new chapter. Rabbi Gary Creditor's teachings bridge the sacred and the contemporary, revealing that the essence of authentic Jewish response remains unchanged—an ancient call to engage, reflect, and connect with the world through the prism of our deepest humanity.

Sunday, December 12, 2021

For These We Give Thanks

 For These We Give Thanks

Rabbi Gary Creditor

November 22, 2021

Richmond, Virginia

 

When Reverend Erol Rohr contacted me with the invitation to speak here today, I mentioned to him that while in high school in Belleville, New Jersey, I was in the Key Club, sponsored by the Kiwanis. Over the decades and miles I proudly have my pin and bell. It makes this a very special privileged and feel most honored to be here and share this thoughts and reflections.

 

Introduction

Some prayers, perhaps being sung or recited from youth, and maybe in rote-like manner, we miss the really very deep and crucial insights they contain to help us travel the journey of life.

 

I turn to the daily Jewish liturgy, originally and usually recited individually upon awakening. Perhaps due to growing older, perhaps due to the weight of these times we live in, I share these pieces with you to illustrate my theme “For these we give thanks,” appropriate for this season and to uplift all our hearts.

 

I. Modeh Ani

 

“I gratefully thank You, O Living and eternal King, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion – abundant is Your faithfulness.”

 

A. Thank God I’m alive! Maybe when I was young, younger, I took for granted that I would wake up in the morning. Age and experience has taught me to be a lot more cautious. So the first thing I do upon waking is to rejoice and give thanks, whether it’s raining or sunny, despite any bodily aches and pains. Thank You God, I’m alive!

 

B. I learned this piece as a youngster with its lilting simple tune. I didn’t realize that embedded in it was a tremendous faith. While my first stress was on “I’m alive,” now it is on “Thank you God.” I feel and rejoice in God’s compassion. He/She cares for me -  always! In the world we live in, weighed down with so many pressing issues and concerns, I/we have gratitude to God for His loving care.

We are not alone.

We have hope!

We smile!

For all these qualities, we give thanks.

 

II. Asher Yatzar

I first discovered this next private piece of liturgy in sixth grade. It was posted on the bathroom door at the Jewish day school I attended. As all young boys, it elicited inappropriate comments and snickers. But along the journey, I have recited it daily with increasing fervor!

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who fashioned man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many cavities. It is obvious and known before Your Throne of glory that if but one of them were to be ruptured or but one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You. Blessed are You, Lord, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.”

 

Thanks God my body is working!

Regardless if its needs a little medical inducement, I wake up and say: “Thanks God I can touch my toes! Thanks God my body is working!”

 

As a youngster I was too oblivious and nobody talked to us explicitly when they gave us a sugar cube in a little paper cup. I really didn’t understand what polio could do to the body. Only later, when learning about FDR did I “get it.” Now at age 73, after twenty months of pandemic, I tremble when I recite privately and silently this prayer and humbly say “thank you God” for wondrously allowing my body to work properly, and pledge to Him to do all I can to keep it that way.

 

By reciting this prayer daily I remind myself that this mortal body is a gift from the Eternal God, whatever its shape, whatever its size. And I must protect it and do it no harm. It is “like” a Christmas gift, a Hanukkah present, unwrapped every day, with a gift tag reading “I love you,” signed “God.”

For the mundane and not so mundane bodily acts, each morning I express my gratitude..

 

III. Asher natan la-sechvi

 

There is a string of fifteen or sixteen simple one line blessings originally and still meant to be recited individually after rising, but in some synagogues, as my home synagogue in my youth, they were incorporated into public prayer. All of them really express gratitude and thanks. One stands out and several can be grouped into a common theme, all particularly relevant for now and these days.

 

A.    The first blessing uses the language of the rural, agrarian setting.

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who gave the rooster understanding to distinguish between day and night.”

 

While we use alarm clocks of one fashion or another, the rooster crowing says that night is changing to day, the globe is rotating properly, arise and see the majestic dawn. I confess to still burning the candle from both ends, and I relish seeing the changing hues from pitch black to shining light. For this Divine Gift, incomparable in all the galaxies, I/we give thanks. This experience, this blessing sensitizes us to the beauty of nature, the exquisiteness of the natural world. My mind always “hyper texts” to the Rabbinic midrash, that after telling Adam and Eve to take care of the “Garden” He says “And if you ruin it, there will be none to set it aright.”

 

This first blessing in the string is a daily and perpetual ecological wake up call! I can add our motto “reduce, reuse, recycle” and take pride that my recycling bin  is fuller than my supercan. The inner compulsion to do all I can and support endeavors to deal with climate change, clear water and clean it, preserve green open space and purchase foods and goods wisely is impressed upon me every day through the recitation of this blessing! For this blessed sphere that supports human life, I/we give thanks.

 

B. I will conclude these remarks with other blessings from this unit by joining several of them together. Long before we had the language of “first responders,” these blessings sensitized  the reciter to their strengths and others weaknesses, and the need to fix, address, change their condition.

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who gives sight to the blind.

                                                                                         Who clothes the naked.

                                                                                          Who releases the bound.

                                                                                          Who straightens the bent.”

Because of its condition, I only occasionally pray from a prayerbook printed in Frankfurt, Germany in the late 19th or early 20th century. It includes a line that I never saw elsewhere.

 

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, Who raises up the lowly, the fallen.”

 

One can relate to these simple blessings in multiple ways, personally, communally. For me, every morning I recite them, I think of our middle daughter, Lt. Commander, Rabbi Yonina Creditor, chaplain United States Navy. Previous to September 11th, 2001, while she was in college, she enrolled and became a volunteer EMT in New York City, stationed in Central Park, serving the Upper West Side. In the days, weeks and months after 9/11 she missed school whenever her unit was mobilized to support those excavating the ruins of the Twin Towers and surrounding area. When I read this obscure and single blessing, I give thanks that our daughter joined her selflessness to that of so many others, to raise the fallen, elevate those lowered. To her, for her and all the others, I daily and humbly give thanks.

 

And they have been joined in particular these past twenty months with those in hospitals, clinics, the RIR and other places giving vaccines, the store workers and bus drivers and others. As much as we have a proclivity to complain, to kvetch, let us set it all aside and lift up our eyes to our world, to our fellow human beings of every color, race, creed and origin, to the sun, moon, sky and earth, to our bodies, to life itself, and not take for one moment, not take one scintilla of it for granted. Ever. For all these, I/we most humbly, most sincerely, daily and forever give thanks.

 

Conclusion

 

So let me conclude with a memory. In the later years of his life, as the family gathered for Thanksgiving meal, my father would briefly reflect on family events, give thanks and hope for the future. This Thursday, around your tables, with family, friends, or alone, with or without glass in hand, let us lift up our eyes, our hearts and in your own words, let us give thanks.

 

Again, I thank you for this opportunity and wish you and your families, a happy, healthy and blessed day of Giving Thanks.

 

Shalom.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

This is the Time for Truth and Justice

This is the Time for Truth and Justice

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Richmond, Virginia

January 27, 2021

So many words have been thrown about to describe the events of January 6th, 2021 and then President Trump’s role. That day is inextricably connected to his attempt to disqualify the election results in Georgia where he said: “Find me 11,780 votes.” This was far more than a riot. This much beyond an insurrection.  This was an attempt at a coup d’état. This was an intentional plot to overthrow the constitutionally elected government of the United States. Words have meaning. Every word he said at every rally is inexorably linked to that day and that event, that should also be a day that “lives in infamy.”

I implore that news commentators. I beg the newspaper editors. Stop the euphemisms.

Say it plainly. Print it honestly.

Hold every single representative and senator to the highest bar of truth and justice.

Not once before in our history has there been an orchestrated attempt by the sitting president to overthrow this democracy and most certainly be prepared to declare a dictatorship.

While that last statement might seem extreme, a word I use intentionally, let us imagine the consequence if the invaders of the Capitol had been able to capture Representative Pelosi and then Vice President Pence, and the other Senators and Representatives. Hearing now their voices, chants and slogans, what they threatened to do, to see from their own electronic devices the weapons that they were carrying into the building, there certainly would have been more deaths that just the one policeman. Momentarily setting all other important issues to the side, with Donald Trump in the White House and in control of the executive branch, the legislative branch in shambles with many dead, and the judicial branch powerless, the next step was clearly for him to declare martial law, that the implementation of the elections was impossible, and that he would continue to be president! With the militias, white supremacy groups, antisemitic groups in Washington, D.C. and also proposing to attack state capitols, and armed with heavy attack weaponry of every variety that no one has had to backbone to outlaw, this was not an insurrection. This was a well-planned coup d’état, endorsed by Donald Trump and stoked by his every lie and subterfuge!

Now that the charge of impeachment has been brought to the Senate, in the very building where this coup was attempted, fed, fueled and fanned by the President, who, is, which must be noted,  the military commander in chief, any Senator that votes against convicting Mr. Trump, and by doing so does not hold him responsible to this attempted seizure of the government, is guilty of treason themselves.  Either they are with us or against us! There is no other way!

It is not enough to comfort ourselves and say that “the system worked,” that a new president was inaugurated, that the co-conspirators are being arrested. This is not enough!

The conspirator in chief must be held responsible!

We must prove to ourselves, never mind the world, that we believe, want and will defend this constitutional democracy, where no person is above or beyond the law.

This is not a political sideshow.

Enough hiding behind obscure English.

Say it plainly. Say it clearly.

January 6th, 2021 was an attempted coup d’état of the United States of America.

Anyone who participated in it is guilty of treason. From the highest to the lowest.

While “unity” is nice, that is not the issue of the moment.

This is a time for truth and justice.

When no one will be brave, no one will be free.

This is a time for truth and justice.

The nation demands it. History demands it. All those who fought and died for America demand it. The future generations yet to be born demand it.

Now is the time.

The Senate chamber is the place.













Monday, November 2, 2020

**Special Announcement** New Book: "Will We Be Worthy: Reflections of an American Rabbi" by Rabbi Gary Creditor

**Special Announcement**

"Will We Be Worthy: Reflections of an American Rabbi"

by Rabbi Gary Creditor

foreword by Ruby Eisenberg-Creditor
edited by Rabbi Menachem Creditor
cover artwork: Ariel Creditor

From the Introduction by Rabbi Menachem Creditor:

What an privilege it is to be my father's son. In honor of my precious Abbah's birthday (on Nov 10), and prayerfully toward tomorrow, I'm thrilled to announce the publication of "Will We Be Worthy?," a curated selection of my father’s writings, focused on a Jewish vision for America. Collectively, they point toward a spiritually grounded, ever-aspirational national trajectory for the United States.

Be it Emma Lazarus & Immigration, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), 9/11, Gun Violence, Trayvon Martin, Cross Burning, or Equal Marriage, my father's voice reminds us all that Jewish creativity is never complete, as it serves as a bulwark against the threat of an increasingly complex and vulnerable world, a model of intentional evolution and interconnectedness of all being. In short: ‘it is what it is’ is not good enough. Jewish history teaches us that we can and therefore must make things better for all people.

When my father writes of his own glimpses into his ancestor’s eyes, when he reflects upon the experience of losing a friend, when he marshals Jewish energy to fight for a living wage, when he comments on a sports icon or the fate of our planet, he is channeling the calling that called his soul to action. Through his model we are being offered nothing less than the chance to be part of the great work of being partners with the Divine.

This is my father; this is my teacher.

_________________________
https://www.amazon.com/Will-We-Be-Worthy.../dp/B08M8FNV1H/

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

So That None Will Make Them Afraid: A Prayer for Independence from Gun Violence


So That None Will Make Them Afraid: 
A Prayer for Independence from Gun Violence

26th Annual Vigil and Advocacy Day
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia

Adonay Elohim – Lord Almighty

I invite the members of the General Assembly to stand where I have stood, next to the weeping, sobbing parents, siblings, grandparents, spouses and children before the open grave.

I invite them to answer the questions I have been asked: Why? Why did they die? Why were there guns? Why all this pain? Why all this violence?

I invite the members of the General Assembly to look into the cold, unforgiving ground and imagine that it is not some unknown stranger, but their parent, their spouse, their sibling – their child!

And then tell me why they are silent!
Tell me why they can’t pass laws!
Tell me why their hearts are colder than today’s air and the ground we stand on!

Adonay Elohim – Lord Almighty

Just as you made Pharaoh to release the Israelites, so too, make these legislators to release the bills from committee and enact the laws to restrict the sale of weapons of violence,

So that each man, woman and child can

            Sit on their porch
            Ride the bus
            Go to school
            Go to work
            Go to the movies
            Go to the dancehalls
            Walk down the street

            In peace

            and none will make them afraid.
     
            Amen.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

It’s Not Mine! A Sermon After the Supreme Court Ruling on Prayer

It’s Not Mine! 
A Sermon After the Supreme Court Ruling on Prayer
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Richmond, Virginia
May 9, 2014


The American Jewish community is caught squarely in the middle by the Supreme Court decision this week concerning prayer in public places. Being a Rabbi and often invited give deliver invocations and benedictions at public functions such as baccalaureates, created because they could not deliver sectarian prayers at high school graduations, in the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, and other locations in New Jersey and New York, I have lived in the eye of the storm. On one hand it was a personal honor to be invited to speak in the governing bodies of two states, to stand before graduating seniors and their families of greater Richmond, and before the luncheon of the Virginia (Richmond) Bar Association. Since God gave me two, I can say, and on the other hand I wish I hadn’t been asked. If I speak in the name of YHVH, replaced by the word Adonay meaning master, then someone else can invoke, bless and benedict me – I made that word up - “In the name of Jesus.” I don’t want them blessing me that way, so why should I do it to others? What is good for one particular religion is good for the other. And further, since there are more of them than there are of us, it is clear how prayers will be recited most of the time. And moreover, what the male, Protestant, white, Anglo-Saxon founding fathers could never have contemplated is that there is a significant and growing Muslim population besides representative Hindu, Buddhist and others who are equally franchised American citizens and must be respected. And, lastly, there is a growing segment of America who doesn’t believe in any deity at all and don’t want any deity invoked.

I first became of aware of this entire dilemma when I was in third grade in the 1950’s. We had just moved from Brooklyn, New York to Belleville, New Jersey. To give you an idea of population, there were four hundred and forty classmates in my high school graduating class. We were but four Jews among them. In third grade a classmate started mussing my hair. I asked him: “What are you doing?” However he knew that I was a Jew I don’t know, but he said: “Where are your horns?” I was more than mystified. I was horrified! Remember, I was eight years old. For most of my public school education before the Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem we opened first period with the reading from Psalms. Up and down the rows we went as every student had to read a Psalm. All were permissible but two, one exceedingly long and one exceedingly short. Then they, not me, recited the Lord’s Prayer. My third grade teacher, whose name I still remember, took me outside and asked me: “Is there something in that prayer that you can’t recite, which is against your religion?” I was in third grade! I wasn’t even in Religious school yet and I certainly was not versed in holy texts. Somehow I came up with my answer: “It’s not mine.” That, in a nutshell is my answer to the Supreme Court. “It’s not mine.” And in a democracy, I don’t have to walk out the door from MY public institution and you shouldn’t force it down my throat or in my ears.

The divide of the Supreme Court on this issue is also notable, five Catholics in the majority, one Catholic and three Jews in the minority. Protestants need not register. I have a very strong memory about the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy in 1960. He being a Catholic, the more than rumors went, he would take orders from the Pope in Rome. Perhaps just tongue in cheek, I would like to ask the NSA to check all the communications, which they most certainly must have, between the Vatican and these five justices. It was a very long snail mail. It is less than poetic that the majority opinion was written by a man called Kennedy. The irony is not lost upon me.

While people are scurrying to find silver linings in this ruling, I don’t see them. What do they mean by saying that non-Christians cannot be “denigrated?” What happens when there are non-Christians in the town or hamlet but no clergy of their faiths? How is there inclusion? What happened to the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious fabric of America that everyone has recognized? This flies in the face of everyone of every community. All across America there is a deeper understanding, appreciation and respect of being equal with each other with our differences, especially viewed in the reversal of attitudes towards the LBGTQ population through the subject of marriage equality. How dare he say that if I don’t like it, I should leave the room! That room is equally ours for everyone and no one has to leave it.

We have had a vested interest in this fight. As I have preached before, there is a Jewish woman in Danville, facing the identical situation, who consulted with me before proceeding with a law suit. She lost her anonymity but won the law suit which was held in abeyance because of this case before the Supreme Court. That victory is now pyrrhic, surely overturned by this ruling.

There is a true theological question to which the Court could not address, which doesn’t have an easy or simple answer.

Is God ever absent? Is God ever absent in any place or any time?

Here in the synagogue we have the Ner Tamid hanging centrally in the Sanctuary to indicate by its light that never goes out, that God is eternally present. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, he wrote that in Auschwitz one asked, “Where is God?” and Wiesel answered, “Here beside us.” Even, especially there, too.

Do you leave your faith in here when you leave and not take it with you, to home, to school, to work? Is religion a behaviorism relegated to a slice of a particular time of our daily pie? Do we check our faith at the door?  No! A thousand times no! I don’t do that. A truly religious person can never do that.

Perhaps a better comparison is that my being a person of faith in God is more like my Bios computer program, always running, even when the computer is turned off. For a religious person, how can God not be present? For a religious person, the value system, the foundation for determining right and wrong in an ever changing world is always based on Holy Scripture, God’s word and the teachings of the tradition. It shapes my vision of existence. I wear my kipah at all times to remind me that I am always in God’s presence. In my synagogue the cloth that covered the lecturn extended over the edge and was inscribed in the Hebrew with the words from the Rabbis: “Know before whom you stand.” The artist of this synagogue placed at the epitomy of the room a line from Psalm 16: “I place the Lord before me always.” Is God ever not beside me? There can be no other way. Can I say: “Are we supposed to be Americans without faith?” Impossible.

Now what do we do? So I will tell you:

Every time I spoke in a public venue, I first reminded myself that I wasn’t speaking in here. Here, in shul, I use our particular and unique language, but not out there. I would sit for quite some time to frame my remarks for all to share, respecting all and every person present. I even think of those who don’t believe at all and how to respect them, too. It is very difficult. I didn’t say “Baruch Atah…” and I didn’t use Adonay. When I invoked, every listener could think of God in their own terms of reference. It wasn’t easy composing those benedictions and invocations, but it was necessary.

I could cite our faith tradition for a teaching, a value, a mitzvah, whose message was applicable and suitable to the time and place that I was speaking. I love to hear teachings from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism to learn how other faiths speak, how other faiths value. Written with sensitive language, infused with respect for others, I could never be offended but rather educated, motivated and elevated in listening to other faiths speak. And much we have in common! How holy we all are because of our different beliefs!

The Supreme Court missed a golden opportunity to teach America about tolerance, respect, and the holiness of each individual citizen. They could have united us in a spectacular way and not divided nor denigrated any of us. They could have enunciated the way to say “In God we trust” and honored everybody.

Now, as people of faith,  we have to start all over again.

Friday, May 9, 2014

My Final Bulletin Article: Shalom Ul’hitraot

My Final Bulletin Article: Shalom Ul’hitraot
From The Heart
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
June, 2014

Somewhere filed away is my first bulletin message. I remember that it was accompanied by a picture of a very young Ruby and me. It seems like only yesterday. Yet the miles and the years have been filled with the relationships and love of many people. Especially before the computer age and the inundation of a new congregation, usually larger, it was hard to stay in touch. As we are staying here in Richmond, this moment is different from all the others.

We have never lived in any other place as long as we have lived here with you. In these twenty-one years I have been so deeply involved with multiple generations of families that I can sometimes do the family tree as well as others. I look at a bar/bat mitzvah having officiated for their parent’s wedding and know their grandparents as well. This has been a unique journey for me as well as for families whom I have known and loved.

With the end of this month I will transition from Rabbi to Rabbi Emeritus and during July Rabbi Knopf will become the Rabbi of Temple Beth-El. We have already spent wonderful hours in conversation together and I look forward to his arrival.

Long ago a colleague wrote in his bulletin at the same juncture in time something to the effect that for all the years he was their Rabbi and friend, now he is just their friend. I quote those words and adopt them as my own as I share them with you. For all these years I have felt that I was more than just your Rabbi. I have felt true friendships, camaraderie and love. Standing on the bemah before you created a distance, but when I descended and we shook hands, hugged and kissed we bridged that space. It has been the content and context of my life.

For these years I have been your Rabbi and friend. From here forward I am just your friend. Rabbi Knopf will be our Rabbi. As the Rabbis teach us to learn from everyone, I am looking forward to learning from him as he will preach and teach us. My beloved pulpit will be his.

As you did towards me, for sorrow and joys, you will now turn toward Rabbi Knopf as your Rabbi for all officiations. May God bless him with Divine wisdom, strength and love. Should you wish my involvement, it is necessary to discuss that with Rabbi Knopf and he will be the one to be in communication with me. This transition must be done with respect and with love for both of us. This is what is right and proper. It will bring us joy.

I hope to see you in shul and sit among you as I sit next my beloved wife. Ruby and I have seldom had the pleasure of sitting together. We look forward to that blessing.

From our hearts and home to you and yours, Ruby and I send you our love.


Shalom u-l’hitraot