My Journey: Our Journey

My Journey: Our Journey

From the Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

I did not begin my life "religious." My parents were representative of their time and place from Brooklyn, New York. We were very "Jewish." All four of my grandparents were European. Our cuisine was typical. I grew up hearing Yiddish. We were unaffiliated.

Where did you begin?

 

The town we moved to N.J. only had a Conservative synagogue. I attended its Religious School three days a week. It was typical. But it caught my soul. I can't explain it. I began a personal, religious journey, self-orchestrated and infused with learning, passion, and Yiddishkeit from teachers from every direction. From little or no observance I personally moved across a continuum, adding pieces as a result of my experiences. When I graduated high school I made a quantum leap – I would now observe Shabbat, Yom Tov and Kashrut completely. I grew and gave direction to my life.

What was your Jewish influence?

 

All this time I remained firmly entrenched and engrained in the Conservative Movement. I prayed with our siddur. I worked in our camping movement, Ramah. I was a participant in USY and the little known LTF. I studied at our center of our learning, the Jewish Theological Seminary and its center in Jerusalem. My life has been entirely intertwined with Judaism, as proposed, taught, perpetuated through the prism of Conservative Judaism. My sermons, classes, teachings, presentations of Judaism are exclusively through that lens. My (and my family's) observance of Judaism reflects the core and foundational teaching of the Conservative Judaism. Make no mistake.

Is some part of Judaism uniquely yours?

 

I have grown up watching the synagogue change. I was an active participant in its becoming egalitarian. My rabbinic career mirrored its struggle. I have been confronted with intermarriage and have responded to hundreds of pleas, questions, requests – some that I could not say 'yes' which pained me– as American Jewry has had its journey. I had to form policies and procedures to respect all sides of equations that are more complex than any mathematical formula. My answers affected the lives of my congregants, to whom I felt responsible, and my synagogues.

Have you been responsible for others' welfare?

 

It has been a fascinating journey, at times a difficult journey, and always a challenging one. I grew into a set of principles. I see them as the inheritance and the distillation of thousands of years of our people's faith while being immersed in an intense vortex of changes. Sometimes I think that a roller-coaster ride would have been easier.

How would you describe your journey through life?

 

I share this preface with you, so that it is understood by all, that my journey has led me to much soul–searching, listening, consultation, reading, meetings of colleagues, and studying of our extended scene. It was not easy or comfortable. Yet it resulted in my writing a proposal for the Ritual Committee to create an Alternative Erev Shabbat Tefilah venue. We analyzed it deeply and honestly. I revised and rewrote it in light of that conversation. This proposal was accepted from the committee by the Board. I came to believe there is too large a stretch in our community so that one venue can be the right one for all members. Whether I personally subscribe to one or the other is not relevant. It is more important to create other/new doorways into our synagogue center under our umbrella while being a Conservative synagogue. I hope that the lay leadership will now actively bring this forward. It should be very exciting. It creates many opportunities. Time and experience will show which resonate with our current members and attractive new ones. Perhaps the imagination of the prophets of many people streaming to the Temple in Jerusalem can come alive in our synagogue. We have many locations to become sacred spaces. There is no limitation.

 

I ask you: What has been your journey? Where did you begin? Where are you now? Have you drawn from the well of Judaism? What does it mean to be "religious?" Who sees themselves in the context of the Jewish people, and not just on an individual journey? Maybe we can join journeys together.

 

 

 

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org

 

The Passover Seder: Order out of Chaos

The Passover Seder: Order out of Chaos

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

Richmond, Virginia

 

The Passover ritual observance on the first and second nights of the holiday known as Seder "makes order out of chaos." It is more than just a play on words, the Hebrew term for the ritual, 'Seder' referring to the order of the rituals of the night. It is more than restoring order to the household after a thorough cleaning and complete change of dishes, pots and silverware. There is a higher meaning that reaches from antiquity to us. Passover is timeless and speaks to every generation.

 

The Biblical text of Exodus gives scant information about the Israelites' condition in slavery, but it must have been chaotic. The ancient world devoured slave populations in building their monuments. As grandiose was the project, so was the consummation of the population. The Biblical reference to 'rigour' and the Israelite pleas only points towards their unimaginable subservient condition. Especially Pharaoh's decree to exterminate the male children wrecked havoc upon the Israelites. Their redemption restored order to the human condition and set a model for all times. Slavery is morally and ethically wrong. It is a sin. God finally intervened to end it. We must act in God's place and with His inspiration and assistance to forbid its recurrence.

 

At the Seder table we use 'action' symbols that just barely indicated the cruelty but are the best possible way to remind us, awaken in us to the abhorrence of slavery. They give us a taste that will linger on our mouths and in our souls. We dip twice. First a piece of green vegetable that symbolizes the yearning for birth, for optimism, for the future, is dipped into salt water, symbol of the copious tears shed. Who remembers crying so hard that tears stream down cheeks and into their mouth? At Seder table we do. The second time a bitter herb, often a slice of horseradish is dipped into a ground mixture of apples, nuts, and wine symbolizing the mortar used in construction. The biting sting of the horseradish is only slightly tempered. Who ever eats anything purposefully bitter? At Seder table we do. I can't possibly know what it means to be a slave, to live in bondage 150 years ago, never mind three thousand. But I can remember.  I can taste the saltiness of the water and the painful taste of a bitter herb, used two separate times in the Seder. I never forget not the taste nor history.

 

The most popular symbol of Passover is the Matzah, called 'poor man's bread' or 'bread of poverty.' It must be unleavened because leavening is really a process of fermentation which is really a corruption of the grain. Every time I eat a piece of matzah I remember that slavery is a corruption of the human condition, that bondage destroys both the enslaver and the enslaved. Matzah is dry. Slavery dries up the human spirit. Even tears don't necessarily help the matzah go down. Just as normally we wish for bread that has risen, we realize the need to raise our fellow citizens from poverty, out of economic or any other enslavement to a redemptive life.

 

The unique booklet used at the Seder is called the Hagaddah, meaning 'the telling.' Created in antiquity with continued layers added, it cites passages in Deuteronomy and Joshua for it speaks to generations like us, who weren't there, who didn't have the personal experience. In unique fashion, we the readers of the Hagaddah speak in first person, present, citing other Biblical verses as if "we were there." We read ourselves into history. Psychologically, spiritually, we transport ourselves in time to imagine the horror of Egyptian bondage and then give abundant gratitude to God for our redemption. In the Hebrew language there is no clear delineation of tenses, the past, present and future merge into an unbroken continuum. I am part of the Israelites in Egypt and they are part of me sitting at Seder in Richmond, Virginia.

 

Of the rich content of Seder and the Hagaddah I cite the inclusion of Elijah the prophet and a special glass of wine set for him. Elijah is the only Biblical figure that doesn't die but is whisked to heaven in a fiery chariot. In Jewish tradition he will return and be the forerunner of the Messiah. In Jewish thinking there are three Passovers: the historical one in Egypt; all the Seders of the present, and the ultimate Passover, harbinger of the redemption of all humanity from enslavement, from poverty, from cruelty of any form. At the Seder we open the door, and ceremonially invite Elijah in our homes, into our hearts and into our lives. We hope that our Seder will presage the imminent redemption of all. Then the true divine order will be restored and we will all live in peace and tranquility.

Easter and Passover: Bound in Time; Bound Forever

Easter and Passover: Bound in Time; Bound Forever

April 19^th, 2011

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

The holy days of Easter and Passover have been inextricably bound together from the death of Christianity's central figure of Jesus. The Gospel traditions, written decades, even a hundred years after the actual events, portray, with significant differences, the last days of Jesus' life as connected to Passover. He is in Jerusalem, the center of the pilgrimage festival. The last meal is understood to be a Seder. His death occurs on the holiday. There are significant issues to be raised with the Gospel traditions. Yet Christianity has deep theological motivations for this association. It combined the Jewish ideas that Pesach of the past-and-present augurs the Messianic ultimate redemption of Pesach-of-the-future with the Paschal sacrifice of the lamb and the first Pesach in Egypt where the blood of the lamb was smeared on the doorposts to ward off the Angel of Death, thus effecting salvation. This was then connected to the Yom Kippur sacrifice which effected atonement from sin through the dashing of the blood on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. All these elements are necessary for Christianity's foundational theology. For that faith, his death must be on Passover. Easter and Passover are forever linked.

 

Passover must fall on the full moon after the vernal equinox which falls on or about March 21^st every year. The Torah describes Pesach as Hodesh HaAviv, the holiday of springtime and that all the holy days must occur in their proper season. There is an elaborate and complex formula to maintain the Jewish calendar. For Christianity, the Council of Nicaea in 325 set the celebration of Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Because of both systems, Easter and Passover are bound forever in time.

 

In the church calendar Friday April 15^th was "Good Friday." Together with Easter Sunday, it is the most holy time in the Christian calendar. It is the culmination of the period of Lent and several observances such as Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. For the Jewish people, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, making it the Holy Roman Empire, this period of time was the most dangerous for the Jewish people. Church preaching indicted us then and forever as guilty of the death of Jesus. Even to our own day people such as Mel Gibson created a terribly powerful movie, the Passion of Christ, visually transmitting the words preached for nearly two thousand years. Based on a passage in Matthew (27:25) put into the mouths of Jews: "His blood be upon us and our children," our blood flowed in every corner of Europe by the hands of those enflamed by Easter preaching.

 

While there are many causes for the Holocaust, it is clear that hatred of the Jew flowed directly from the symbiosis of Easter and Passover. If they could have been disconnected theologically, if they could have been separated chronologically, but when added to this lethal brew the canard of the Blood Libel, that we used the blood of Christian children to make matzah, the die was cast. There is no one cause to explain the Holocaust. While the imagery of the binding of Isaac shed no blood, the binding of Easter and Passover shed copious amounts of Jewish blood throughout the millennia.

 

Perhaps that makes the recent publication of Pope Benedict XVI's book "Jesus of Nazareth" so important. We live in a time of theological wind shears. There is a great tension in Christianity over the true direction of the Gospels, whether it is towards fundamentalism or over the issue of married priests or homosexuality. Judaism is stressed by the tension between fundamentalism/orthodoxy as the only true path or interpretive approaches that are also strained between conservative, with a small 'c' and liberal wings, all concerned with a growing secularism. And Islam is certainly under the microscope theologically, its view of non-Muslims, its geopolitical postures, and its vision of the world for the future. That is in parallel with Christianity – that everyone be Christian, or, that everyone should be Muslim. It leaves little room for us Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths, and those having no faith. I wonder if Heaven can even sort this out. Into the mixture comes Easter and Passover.

 

This is really a course in comparative theology, but to keep within our time frame I offer excerpts from the review by Rabbi Eugene Korn, American director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understand and Cooperation, who I met and learned with when the Interfaith Center for the Christian and Jewish Studies met here in Richmond.

 

"…Benedict provides an extensive rationale and a close biblical analysis of why Jews bear no blame for Jesus' death. In his reading of the Gospels and Catholic theology, it is clear that no one  should be blamed for Jesus' death, since, as he argues, the crucifixion was necessary for God's plan of universal redemption. In Benedict's keen hermeneutic, even the hitherto toxic cry of the Jewish mob is a plea for purification and salvation because that is what Jesus' blood signifies in Christian teachings. It is a cry for reconciliation, not of vengeance or admission of guilt."

 

Concerning the idea that Christianity superseded Judaism, Benedict has always written that that would occur at the end of time, "and he has maintained that Jewish unification with the church is 'hardly possible, and perhaps not even desirable before the eschaton.' In his latest book, he expands this idea, insisting that for now 'Israel retains its own mission' and that saving Israel 'is in the hands of God' – meaning, presumably, not in the hands of Christian missionaries." I echo Rabbi Korn's further comments: "Had Christians followed this doctrine throughout the millennia, less Jewish blood would have ran in the streets, and Jews would have been freer to practice their faith with dignity."

 

It is critically important that this message of our religious validity be transmitted in the widest forums. There is much interfaith work to be done because there remains much misunderstanding and even distrust. We, especially through our Pesach observance, renew in ourselves the faith that human suffering is morally wrong; that everyone is responsible for other's welfare; that we believe that the world is still unredeemed; that we eagerly await and welcome – through the opening of the door for Elijah – the ultimate redemption of humanity from all of its ills; that we pray for universal peace. For some that translates into social and political activism. It is right and proper to hear his Excellency Pope Benedict through his book arrive from a different theological path to similar conclusions. The world needs to hear from the highest religious leadership respect for Judaism and the Jews. It has profound impact in a multitude of places. We need to hear the respect given to us and our faith for its theological existence and message and take it to heart. This same message needs to be uttered by leaders of Islam. They are inseparable partners in the world's redemption. We have articulated our respect for other faiths while maintaining allegiance to our own. If we leave the ultimate disposition of earth and its inhabitants to God to occur at the end of time, whenever it may be, people of all religions can be united in saving us from ourselves.

 

"Now we are slaves, may next year find all people free."

 

 

“The Old Will Be Renewed and the Renewed Will Be Made Holy”

"HaYashan Yitchadesh v'Chadash Yitkadesh"

"The Old Will Be Renewed and the Renewed Will Be Made Holy"

From the Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

I attended the recent annual convention of the International Rabbinical Assembly. We are over 1,500 men and women Rabbis serving world Jewry in pulpits, universities, organizations and educational institutions around the world. We come from seminaries in New York, Los Angeles, Argentina, Budapest and Jerusalem. We are diverse in every way: language; gender; theology; age; backgrounds. We are all united in our love of God, Torah and the Jewish people. For us the Rabbinate is a dedication, not an occupation. It is who we are, beyond what we do. At convention we conversed honestly, openly, painfully, deeply. Every Rabbi present and those who weren't are facing the challenges presented to us in a world that spins faster and faster each day and by a society we didn't create with values that are at variance with Judaism.

 

We spent four days day together. We engaged in inner examination, self scrutiny and honest evaluation. It was important to hear from Minister of Kenneset Tzipi Livni, who almost became Prime Minister of Israel, that she sees the Conservative Movement, known in the rest of the world as Masorti Movement, as the only vehicle for the religious salvation of the State of Israel. That was echoed the next day by Minister of Kenneset Gideon Saar. Even as we contemplate the changing American scene it is vitally important to know that in Israel, Europe, Africa and Central and South America, the Masorti Movement is growing significantly in the number of congregations and adherents.

 

We agreed: there is everything right – we believe in our vision and proposition of Judaism. Conservative/Masorti Judaism has the right message for the Jewish people and the world. We need to propagate our message clearly and loudly. We need to continually adopt the new technology to spread far and wide our teachings of Torah, social responsibility, and God. We need to continually experiment without fear of failing in creating appealing formats. There is no guidebook. There is no manual. We are writing it as we go. We have faith and commitment in and to Conservative/Masorti Judaism. We Rabbis are committed to its future for the sake of God, Torah, the Jewish people and the world. There are significant challenges. We are facing them directly.

 

The heading for this column accurately describes my feelings during and after convention. It is written by Rav Kook, one of the leaders of the Jewish settlement in Palestine in the beginning of the 20^th century. Our proposition is not the jettisoning of our tradition. In every class I teach, with every visit to a Religious School class, with questions by young and old,  I see how steeped in wisdom and meaning is our tradition and our vision of it. When I receive classes from J. Sargent Reynolds  and VCU, from St. Michaels, St. Gertrude and others and I tell them that our wisdom stretches from 3,500 years ago to right now, they are dazed in amazement.  The challenge is to discover the formats, the models, the vehicles to make it known, make it felt; to take new ideas and imbue them with sacred meaning so they are not just fads and passing fancies but rather transmit authentic messages from Judaism. It will be trial and error. Some will work and some won't. Some will last and some will have a short shelf life. For God, Torah and the Jewish people, we are committed to try.

 

 

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Temple Beth-El

3330 Grove Avenue

Richmond, VA 23221

Phone 804-355-3564

Fax 804-257-7152

www.bethelrichmond.org