One Virginia Rabbi's Commitments to Equal Marriage

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor's writings on Equal Marriage:

Our Vision of Society Requires 

A "No" Vote on the Marriage Amendment 

or 

"Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself" 

November 3rd, 2006

http://rabbigarycreditor.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-vision-of-society-requires-no-vote.html

We Are All God's Children

June 15, 2012

http://rabbigarycreditor.blogspot.com/2012/06/we-are-all-gods-children.html

I Don’t Want to Share the Ten Commandments

I Don’t Want to Share the Ten Commandments

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

January 18^th, 2014

I would like to make a controversial statement.

“I really don’t want to share the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments, with anybody. They are Jewish. They are ours. Exclusively ours.”

I am sure that you are wondering what has happened to me in these waning months that I should make should a seemingly harsh statement, but I assure you that there is deep and ample foundation and corresponding clear explanation for it. It has far reaching consequences.

I grew up with the small plaque of the Ten Commandments on the short wall in the hallway of our home. While I couldn’t recite all ten, never mind in the correct order, I knew, just by seeing it every day that this text was uniquely mine, ours. I change the language from uniquely to exclusively. It is not the details of each statement, not whether there are more or less ten commandments, or whether the first statement is even a commandment at all. It has nothing to do with sharing a moral code with the rest of the world. The essence is in the purpose of the totality of the text.

This text, embedded in the Book of Exodus, is like a ketubah. It is the marriage document of God – YHVH - and Israel, from the moment of Sinai until the end of time. If Israel would accept these terms of marriage, then God would take Israel to be His forever.

No other people can stand in that relationship.

While all people will be His children, Israel and only Israel can be His “First born.” If Israel had rejected the Ten Commandments, it would have meant more than “rejecting God.” It would have meant that Israel refused to stand in the marriage bond. When the bride walks around the groom either three or seven times, she is declaring by those circles that the bond between he and she is exclusive. Sinai, with its thunder and lightning encompassing Israel at its foot created the same imagery of exclusivity between God and Israel. Just like under chuppah, this is a two way street: YHVH is Israel’s only God; Israel is YHVH’s only people. The Aseret HaDibrot, far from being “just a text” is the instrumentality of this relationship. Just as when a couple “love each other” creating a romantic bond, it isn’t legal without the license. The Aseret HaDibrot is the license that creates the exclusive bond of Israel and YHVH. That is why I don’t want to share the Ten Commandments. I can’t, unless I want to dissolve the bond, the marriage, the covenant with YHVH. And should I do that, I forfeit the right to be Israel, relinquish the terms of the covenant, and surrender my essence and thus my existence. Israel would be over.

Several pieces needed further amplification. I don’t use the generic term “God” but rather the unpronounced but exclusive Hebrew name referred to by its four Hebrew letters YHVH. Sometimes I wish that we could pronounce it because it would enable our distinctiveness to stand out clearly. Islam uses Allah. Christianity says Jesus. Jews say YHVH. And while behind the veil there is a mystery that we cannot know about the divine thus counterbalancing these words with a sense of humility, on this side there are specific differences between that give meaning and purpose to each individual faith. We are purposefully different.

Secondly, a belief that I have often repeated, if I don’t have a purpose to my identity, if there is no motivation for me to be different, if there is no understanding to my difference, then I can easily relinquish it. Growing up I knew that I was different. Others had Christmas trees; I had a simple menorah. I went to Religious School and they went to learn their catechism. They went to CYO dances on Friday night and I went to shul. Those differences were enforced by my parents and by the society I lived in. They didn’t want me there as much as my parents wouldn’t let me. But upon leaving home, embracing the autonomy of adulthood, and as society changed, I needed core, motivating reasons to remain a Jew. There comes a moment of decision for everyone. Being a member of the faith community of Israel is to choose to embrace the covenant and to stand in relationship to YHVH. We choose to link ourselves in this bond.

Thirdly, every faith community makes its own claim of exclusive relationship with God. They must. Each faith needs to validate its existence. This is normal and natural and necessary. I respect all faiths to make such claims. As a Jew, I do too. I don’t seek to supersede any other faith. Yet I won’t be superseded either. To exist, I must stand firm and upright in believing in the correctness of my faith. Otherwise, why not give it up?

Fourth and lastly, in the essence of the marriage bond, our fidelity to YHVH was rewarded with His protection and the promise of a small sliver of land called Canaan, Eretz Yisrael, Palestine and Medinat Yisrael. From our birth, our home was, is and forever will be in Eretz Yisrael. It is hard to write this piece without sounding like a hawk, but I am neither a hawk nor a dove, even as I have alternatively embraced both sides of the political spectrum.

One of the consequences of standing in the exclusive bond with YHVH, one of the results of being Israel the people, is to have Israel the land, is to have Israel the State. Israel is a Jewish state because throughout our long history, Israel the people have remained faithful to the covenant with YHVH and this was the place promised and given to us. It is the only homeland.

Scratch the earth and you will find testimony to our residence for thousands of years. Forcibly removed by the Romans and later conquerors, it was and is our right to have returned under international law, and to defend our lives, our faith, and our people.

The nascent state pledged to respect the rights of the Arabs. If they had not invaded in 1948 they would have had their state. They sought to annihilate us. They failed. They suffer the consequences and are not rewarded.

In 1967, unprovoked except by our very existence, they again sought to annihilate the state of Israel. This one I remember. They failed. They don’t get rewarded.

If Arafat had agreed Barak’s offer they would have already had a state with nearly all the West Bank, part of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Instead he unleashed the intifadas that murdered hundreds upon hundreds of civilians. They failed. They don’t get rewarded.

To this very day, despite every reason to do otherwise, Israel offers to negotiate a respectful peace. This week was perhaps a turning point in that history. Abbas stridently rejected recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and Arab foreign ministers joined in supporting him. They again insisted on the right of return, a Trojan Horse to destroy the State of Israel. They continue to refuse to understand us and our history back to Sinai. After the Six Day War the Arab world at Khartoum issued their three “no’s” of recognition and peace. Nothing has changed except the tactics. Vice President Kerry should not be duped.

As a Jew I cannot divorce myself, we can eliminate our bond to the land and State of Israel and specifically as a Jewish state any more than I, we can divorce or separate myself, ourselves from the bond to YHVH and remain Jewish. Through Israel’s acceptance of the Ten Commandments as recorded in this week’s sedra our faith and our land are indelibly and eternally are woven together. Long ago the Rabbis declared: The Land; The People; and Torah are one.

These words are not intended to be strident, only firm. The world is too dangerous a place for weakness and self-doubt. While far from perfect, I am immensely proud that Israel is Jewish and democratic, where a person of any faith, from any place can live. I am immensely proud that separately our daughter Tzeira and her fiancée Arsen chose Israel to be their home. My family, our families, separated from the Land for two thousand years but keeping faith with YHVH has returned home. They will firmly reestablish our roots in its soil.

And this Jewish state, in Helen’s words will live forever and ever.

What Is An “Orphan Torah”? What Is A “Lost Congregation?”

What Is An “Orphan Torah”? 

What Is A “Lost Congregation?”

From The Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

With the Aron HaKodesh, Holy Ark, so central on our bemah, perhaps you have failed to notice that there is another Torah that is encased to my right (your left). It is the Orphan Torah. This Torah was saved from the Holocaust among the 1564 that were discovered in Prague at the end of World War II that survived from the communities of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. These sacred scrolls were taken by the Nazis from their communities as their rightful owners were murdered. All that remains from these communities are the sacred scrolls. They are orphans.

The Westminster Memorial Scroll Trust was created to preserve these scrolls and find synagogues to adopt them. Temple Beth-El has scroll number 298. It is on loan to the synagogue with the condition that it is displayed in a respectful, commemorative manner. Thus it sits in its own prominent case, perpetually enshrined on the bemah. Yet while the town of origin is known for many of the scrolls, there was no entry next to number 298. Not only are its owners dead, they are not even known. This is truly an Orphan Torah. Since it was brought to Temple Beth-El by Bea and Jack Fine, we have been its family, its guardians. When I host groups from parochial schools and colleges, this is the only Torah scroll that I open for them to view.  I tell them the story of the miraculous survival of this Torah, indicative of the eternal power of Judaism and of its bearers, we, the Jewish people. This Orphan Torah is a witness to history, a witness to our national indestructibility.

Just as there are Torah scrolls whose place of origin cannot be identified, there are communities that are not connected to Torah scrolls. There were about 210 Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia, 60 in the Sudetenland, and 20 in Prague itself. The destroyed communities that have no existing Torah Scroll or other ritual objects are the Lost Congregations. Jewish history in Europe has a long history. It was rich in learning, music, customs, literature, humanity. The Holocaust swept it all away. That world is gone forever.

On February 8^th, 2014 in the Westminster Synagogue in London, there will be a Service of Rededication commemorating 50 years since the scrolls arrived there. I am sure that it will be most meaningful.

I invite you to join on Friday, February 7^th and 8^th, 2014 at Shabbat services for our own program of memory and dedication. At Erev Shabbat services I will speak about the history of the scrolls and the process of their salvation. This will include a little of the history of this part of Europe. I have prepared a pamphlet based on materials from the Trust. On Shabbat I will continue this exposition. We will also take our Orphan Torah from its case and include it in our Torah procession. Following the Haftarah, tables will be set up tables in the Sanctuary and the Orphan Torah scroll opened to be viewed. This will be an especially moving moment. I will file a report of this Shabbat with the Westminster Trust to include it in their memoirs.

I bequeath to you the opportunity to identify a Lost Congregation and adopt it as your own, reuniting an Orphan Torah and a Lost Congregation. We have given life and perpetuity to this Torah scroll. By selecting a congregation from those destroyed, learning about it and including it in many ceremonious ways, you will be able to give it a measure of eternity as well. Our Torah lives! The Jewish people lives! Forever and Ever! 

Amen.

42 U.S. university and college presidents have publicly rejected the boycott of #Israel. Not one has endorsed it.

Click here for the running list:

http://avimayer.tumblr.com/post/70821835473/universities-standing-strong-for-academic-freedom-and

To The Virginia General Assembly: What Will You Do In January?

To The Virginia General Assembly: What Will You Do In January?

From the Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Somewhere around the end of December/the beginning of January we complete reading Sefer Bereshit and begin reading Sefer Sh’mot. We move from the story of the patriarchs to that of the enslavement. In the very first parsha/sedra we read about Moses, the person who will dominate four books of the Torah. His life is threatened by Pharaoh twice, first anonymously in the original edict to kill all the Hebrew boys and secondly after he defended a Hebrew slave and killed the taskmaster. Either Moses ran away or was certainly put to death.

He flees to the wilderness of Sinai where he marries Tzipporah, works as a shepherd for her father Jethro. While doing so he has the transformational experience of meeting God at the burning bush. God commands Moses to return to Egypt and be His agent in freeing the children of Israel. This is a compelling, forceful and driving narrative. We read it every single year without fail. Every year we hear God’s command to Moses to set the people free.

Is it just coincidental that we read this section of the Torah when the General Assembly meets and has days set aside for lobbying by the people of the Commonwealth? I don’t. You and I are not Moses and the General Assembly is not Pharaoh. Yet there are many people crying to be free. There compelling issues that cannot be ignored if we want to make a better, healthier and freer society. In January God says: “Go down Moses…” In January I hear God’s voice: “Go to the General Assembly…”

What shall we say to our representatives?

I want to ask them one and only one question:

Who is more hard-hearted: Them or Pharaoh?

Answering that question will answer everything.

Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Hebrew boys and let the girls live. Today it seems that they don’t care if its boys or girls. How many times will a young person obtain a gun and kill – in schools, in hospitals, and in the streets of Richmond? Do the names Sandy Hook and Newtown not resonate and cause trembling, the same as Moses felt before God and the Burning Bush? Did Bonnie Marrow and all her brothers and sisters in death die in vain?

So I will go to our representatives in the General Assembly and lobby for more extensive back ground checks on gun buyers, reduction of available fire power and other means of reducing the bloodshed that stains our streets and breaks our hearts.

In the reverse of the Israelites’ predicament of wanting to get out of Egypt, we have a population who want to stay in America. For them, this is the Promised Land. Remember, the Israelites did not have visas to get into Canaan. Our ancestors were truly illegal immigrants. These people, here, are our neighbors, workers in the grocery stores, tending to our lawns, picking the vegetables and fruits and raising their children to be honorable and dignified Americans. How shabbily we treat them. I am not aloof from the complexity of the matter. But I believe that the Senate passed a bill that is the best approach. In Sefer Sh’mot we are commanded to care for the stranger because we were them.

So I will go to the General Assembly to lobby for laws that, at least locally, will improve their lives, include a measure of justice, and reflect the attitude that we sought for our ancestors.

I have really one question for the General Assembly:

Who is more hard-hearted: Them or Pharaoh?

Answering that question will answer everything.

In January I will ask that of the General Assembly.

What Will You Be Doing This January?

Intersecting Holidays

Intersecting Holidays

From the Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Normally Hanukkah and Christmas are juxtaposed by the secular and Jewish calendars. Christmas is a central holiday for Christianity and Hanukkah is considered of the minor Jewish holidays, not recorded in the Bible and only minimally mentioned in the Talmud. These two holidays are theological opposites, one celebrating the birth of the central figure of the faith and the other commemorating the fight to preserve Judaism. Why is this year different from every other year?

The answer is found in the intricacy of the Jewish calendar being a hybrid of a lunar calendar adjusted to the solar calendar. The holidays must occur in their proper seasons. Just imagine Passover in December and Rosh HaShanah in July! Can’t happen! The Jewish calendar is designed to keep order. Yet this year we celebrated the extraordinary event of Hanukkah juxtaposed to Thanksgiving. It won’t occur again for many millennia.

Long discourses could be written on the origin of Thanksgiving, debunking some of its myths. We know that the early settlers to this continent, illegal aliens to the Native Americans, would shortly dispossess those who had helped save their lives. We have created self-serving mythology. Yet the need to be thankful and express it is rooted in the Torah with the holy day of Sukkot and the bringing of the First Fruits to the Temple. More important than the sales and football games is the need to acknowledge that we have been blessed to have what we have. Furthermore, if we are really truthful with ourselves, we need to act upon the knowledge that not all people have been blessed like we have been. We need to be a blessing to others. Our sacred liturgy compels us to assist all others in need, the poor, the stranger, the orphan and the widow, in Biblical language, to rise from their poverty and enjoy the same level of blessings that we do. I am glad that our Biblical teachings are the foundation of the thoroughly American holiday. Our Judaism and our American heritage are complementary one to another.

Hanukkah must be understood accurately to have its authentic power. It was not a fight for “religious freedom.” It was war by the Jews against the onslaught of Hellenism, culture and religion, to be Jews faithful to God and Torah. In the beginning it was civil war among the Jews themselves, those who would be faithful and those who abandon it. The struggle began with a small number, a faint light in the Judean mountains and would last for decades. The liberation of Jerusalem and the rededication of its Temple were temporary. Yet because of the Maccabees Judaism would survive, thrive and triumph while the Greek and Roman empires would crumble. Hanukkah is a distinctive holiday for the Jewish people. It is a specific narrative of the Jews would who fight even to the death to preserve the faith. It is a very different holiday than Thanksgiving.

I am proud to observe both holidays, as a Jew and as an American. Their juxtaposition gives me pause to realize how blessed I am, we are, to have such a personal richness. But I do not combine the two. One expresses a general thanks for what we have. The other celebrates our existence and our purpose as Jews. I hope that you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving. From our far-flung family to yours we wish a happy and meaningful Hanukkah.

Chag Sameach!

Admat Kodesh – Holy Ground – Sinai and Richmond

Admat Kodesh – Holy Ground – Sinai and Richmond

November 15^th, 2013

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

While Moses is tending his father-in-law’s, Jethro’s, flock, he sees a strange sight in the distance and goes towards the bush that is burning yet not consumed.  From that bush God speaks to Moses and says: “Remove your shoes from upon your feet because the ground you are standing on is ‘admat kodesh’ – holy ground.”

What makes ordinary soil ‘holy’?

To answer that question I really need to define the word holy.

Then we need to deal with the implications of that definition.

Clearly in the Torah God specifies that the precise soil where He and Moses meet has transcendent meaning because it is the meeting place between man and God. The planet has inherent kedoshah, holiness, because it is God’s creation and thus we have certain obligations to take care of it. Yet this exact spot is holy because here Moses meets God, the ultimate human experience. But it was not just a tête-à-tête. Moses will leave this meeting under Divine command to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery to freedom and into national existence.” Holiness indicates something that is ultimate, above and beyond all else has happened here. Indeed, Moses was standing on admat kodesh, holy ground.

As best as I can discern, everywhere else in the Bible, human beings declare ‘holy ground.’ When Jacob sleeps at the place he will call Beth El, he proclaims that God was in that place and makes it special by pouring oil on its stones. After the Tabernacle is built in the wilderness of Sinai, every time and every place it is erected, the specific place for the Ark with the Ten Commandments is chosen by Moses and Aaron. Solomon will build the First Temple on the mountain top and this meeting place for God and Israel becomes holy forever. Each of these places has transcendent meaning. It never loses its holiness. It is holy, sacred, sanctified – forever and ever.

This is a critical concept:  transcendent meaning  caused by a transcendent event can change the status of otherwise mundane soil.

Death does this too.

A cemetery is admat kodesh, holy ground. It obtains this status because our human body, created in God’s image is, after God Himself, the holiest thing in existence. Our body is holier than the Torah. When buried in ordinary soil, it changes its status to admat kodesh, holy ground, and imbues that status to the entire area, even where no one is buried. That changes our behavior. We don’t eat on a cemetery. We don’t play music – except for military honors – on a cemetery. And we are not supposed to walk on graves, a difficult task in cemeteries without distinct demarcations.  Death, as well as birth, is a transcendent event for us and for God. It is the ultimate event in human existence, for, in traditional Jewish belief, it marks the transition of the soul’s existence from this world to the-world-to-come and life everlasting.

Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor and all the named and unnamed places of the genocide of our people is holy ground. I say that not because of the horrors that occurred there but rather because death has ultimate meaning and thus ultimate power. Death sanctifies the soil. Besides all else that can be rightfully said, the death of our people in those places was testimony to the eternality of the Jewish people to triumph over that evil. Those places are admat kodesh because our people there maintained their dignity, their Jewishness, their honor, their humanity and in death triumphed over evil. Their suffering and their humanity made ordinary blood-soaked and blood-stained soil admat kodesh, holy ground.

And you don’t play baseball on admat kodesh.

We do not have proprietary rights over suffering because of the Holocaust.

We do have a deeper empathy and sensitivity to suffering because of the Holocaust.

We do not own the word “slavery” because of Egyptian bondage.

We gave the world the belief in “equality” - that no person will be a master and none a slave.

Admat kodesh, holy ground is not just on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or wherever was the Burning Bush.

Admat kodesh, holy ground is not just where our dead our buried, but wherever anyone is buried.

Admat kodesh, holy ground is not just where our people have suffered, but wherever other people have suffered, too.

If God could hear the groans of the Israelites in Egypt, then He could hear those of the African-Americans in Richmond, Virginia.

You don’t play baseball at Arlington National Cemetery.

You don’t play baseball at Auschwitz.

And maybe they shouldn’t play baseball at Shockoe Bottom either.

Shabbat Shalom.