Letters to the Editor
Thanks From an Editor
As the only person in our movement who has had the privilege of serving in the position of editor of two of its major publications (Women’s League Outlook, 1981-1984, and United Synagogue Review, 1984-1988), I want to commend all those who participated in the production of one single magazine for all the arms of our movement.
This concept was initially put forth in 1977 at the first groundbreaking Conservative movement summit conference of our top-ranking leadership, but was rejected then as far too impractical. I cannot heap enough praise upon those who have finally made this prospect a reality, and the superb publication that has ensued. Unifying us all on the same page is incomparable. CJ is a kol b’kolot, an amalgam of several different voices into one movement voice that unites us all in a blending of thought and purpose, so needed at this time in our history. This extraordinary effort speaks volumes about the future of Conservative Judaism. Bravo and kudos to all those who brought CJ: Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism to fruition.
Ruth Magil Perry
Former President, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
On Knowing the Words
I salute Norm Kurtz, president of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, in his call for Hebrew literacy (“Hebrew Literacy: Sine Qua Non for Synagogue Involvement,” Winter 2007). He says that fulfillment in prayer doesn’t really exist if we cannot read and understand the Hebrew. How right he is.
Mr. Kurtz repeatedly refers to “newcomers,” “converts,” “non-Jewish significant others,” and so on. I would underscore that plenty of people who are well entrenched at synagogue services, and who have been attending for decades, also don’t understand the meaning of the Hebrew prayers. The problem is very deep.
Toward the end of his article, Mr. Kurtz translates kavanah as “passion.” I hope he doesn’t mind if a rabbi offers a gentle correction. The root meaning of kavanah is “to direct.” Kavanah is concentration on what you are saying, so you direct your prayers to God. In Hasidic Prayer, Rabbi Louis Jacobs writes, “Kavanah in prayer means that the worshipper ... is aware of the meaning of the words he utters.”
Some people, perhaps even some rabbis or cantors, think that the singing and the feeling are sufficient to carry the service. I disagree. May God bless us with exalted melodies and euphoric moods. But melody and mood are not compensations if we don’t actually know what we’re saying.
If I may parse the human body in the following manner, I would say that passion comes from the heart, kavanah from the brain/mind. Do we need more passion in our prayers specifically, and in the Conservative movement generally? Absolutely! But for all that we fall short in religious affairs of the heart, I submit that we are even more wanting in the realm of the cerebral. It’s high time that we admit that Jewish worship is in large measure a cerebral experience. There is no reason that a practicing Jew should not learn the basic meaning of his or her Hebrew prayers. There is no excuse for a community that is among the world’s most intelligent and intellectual to be unable to translate the fundamental words of its religious tradition.
It is said of some people that they know the words, they just don’t get the tune. It’s time, at long last, at least to know the words.
Rabbi Stephen Listfield
Tree of Life Congregation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Norman Kurtz’s column in your winter 2007 issue was very moving to me. It stresses the importance (to our satisfaction and good feeling) that comes from the ability to read and understand Hebrew.
Decades ago I attended Hebrew classes (6 days a week, Sunday through Friday) at what was then Yeshivah Etz Chaim in Brooklyn, and then I went to Herzliah Hebrew Teachers High School and Seminary in Manhattan. At those schools, I learned to understand Hebrew.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could devote at least one page of your magazine in each issue to examples of reading and translating Hebrew materials and also to invite your readers to respond.
Donald R. Waisel,
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Removing Barriers to Religious Freedom
Rabbi Epstein’s article in CJ’s winter 2007 issue, “Removing Barriers to Religious Freedom,” brought much-needed attention to some of the problems that we face in Israel concerning conversion.
As he mentioned, the Masorti movement is a partner in the Institute for Jewish Studies, a joint venture of the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency, the Masorti movement, the Reform movement, and Orthodox representatives, aimed at educating potential converts, who then are converted by Orthodox authorities. Rabbi Epstein rightly pointed out the terrible problems the institute faces because of Orthodox authorities’ failure to cooperate in this crucial venture.
The result has been that of all those who go through the courses, only a small number, amounting to no more than a few hundred a year, are ever converted. Unless a solution to this problem is found, the institute’s very existence is endangered.
It should also be made clear that in participating in this institute, the Masorti movement insisted that it would continue its own conversion court and educational programs in order to serve the potential converts who are not interested in going through the Joint Institute and an Orthodox conversion, or those who are not eligible to study there. The institute, for example, offers classes only in Russian plus a few in Spanish.
Indeed, the Masorti movement now is raising funds to expand our already active conversion program in order to meet the ever-increasing demand. We also are asking the Israeli supreme court, in a pending case, to decide some still-outstanding conversion matters in our favor, so Masorti converts who are converted in Israel will receive the same rights and recognition as those now converted in America and throughout the world.
Together with the Reform movement, we are actively engaged in negotiations with the office of the prime minister in order to advance the status of those we are converting and of future would-be converts.
The Masorti movement is proud to be participating in programs that will benefit the many non-Jewish olim who gladly would become Jews if offered a reasonable way to do so. As a halakhic movement that follows the ways of Bet Hillel, welcoming sincere converts into our midst, it is imperative that we continue and strengthen our own conversion programs and that we insist on equal recognition by the State of Israel for our endeavors.
Rabbi Reuven Hammer,
Head of the Rabbinical Court in Israel
Medicine as Midrash
I was immediately drawn to Dr. Ofra Backenroth’s essay, “Art as Midrash,” in the fall issue of CJ. I love the point that creating visual art helps students become more fully engaged, emotionally as well as cognitively, as they visually recreate biblical text. As a personal exercise, the making and interpretation of art allows the student to deepen and broaden (I almost said “illuminate”) the lineal text.
My own work for nearly 40 years has involved teaching medical students, resident physicians, and physician assistants. I have become committed to the medical humanities to help physicians become engaged imaginatively in the world of their patients, in their own inner worlds, and in the world of the relationship. I draw upon others’ paintings and poetry and my own poetry. I also encourage family medicine residents to write a poem or two about a difficult patient or a doctor-patient relationship, and then we discuss it.
If all goes well, what is learned from the exercise usually becomes incorporated in some subtle way in the clinical work. In Dr. Backenroth’s terms, the writing and discussion of the poem become a midrash! Used imaginatively and evocatively, words can penetrate other words.
Thank you for a great, and affirming, essay.
Howard F. Stein, PhD
Professor and Special Assistant to the Chair,
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine,
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
It's Okay to Thank God for Not Being a Woman
The prayer in which an Orthodox man thanks God for not having made him a woman has been criticized by both Elana Goldhaber-Gordon (“Why I Am a Conservative Jew,” Fall 2007) and Fred Zemke (Letters, Winter 2007). I am writing to provide the answer my father gave me when I stood before him, an indignant 8 year old, demanding an explanation of such seemingly sexist liturgy.
My father first explained that men were obligated to say the morning prayers and women were not because although there was nothing more important nor more sanctified than praying that a man could be doing at any particular time, a woman might have more important and more sanctified things to do in attending to her home and children.
I did not bristle at the implication that I would one day be a homemaker, as I could recognize that the commandments were not tailored for certain people in certain times but for the mass of women over the centuries.
An observant man, my father continued, thanks God each morning that he was not created a pagan, a slave, or a woman. The statements are made in that peculiar order, and each is in the negative. That is, the man does not say, “Thank you God for having made me a man” or “for making me free.”
I agreed about the oddness of the order and of the negation, for if I were asked to describe myself I would have said first that I was a girl and perhaps second that I was an American, I would not have left my gender till third, and I would not have labeled myself as “not a boy.”
My father said that the strange order and three “nots” had to be understood in context, which made the meaning obvious: a pagan does not know the Lord and cannot pray; a slave can pray but may not be allowed to; a woman can pray but is not obligated to. The Orthodox man is thanking God that he not only can pray and may pray, but that he is also obligated to pray. The prayer is not a sexist statement but a recognition that human nature is such that a man, without the obligation, might skip or put off praying and thus miss the benefits and satisfactions of the regular performance of his duty.
Pamela Tamarkin Reis,
Branford, Connecticut
A Torah Comes to Hartsdale
An article in the fall 2007 issue, “Finding a Torah in Poland,” brought to mind an incident with a rescued Czechoslovakian Torah. In the late 1960s, a number of young couples who had moved to Hartsdale, New York, grew tired of having to visit their parents for the high holidays and decided to form their own synagogue. I was a charter member of that synagogue, called the Woodlands Community Temple. Using a Torah loaned by another congregation, we held Shabbat services at a local Quaker church at first, but as more families joined we needed a larger building. We bought a beautiful large house and turned it into our synagogue’s home. With the new building came the need for our own Torah.
We learned from our rabbi, Sandy Ragins, of a stock of Torahs in Europe that had been rescued from the Nazis, and we put in a request for one. After some time, we were told that a Torah was being shipped to us. UPS took the Torah on the last part of its journey, and when the company learned what was in the crate it was carrying, it refused to accept any money from us for any shipping costs.
Alfred Opengart,
Hartsdale, New York
Faith and Logic, Oil and Water
Thank you for the thought-provoking winter issue. Especially interesting were Raymond B. Goldstein’s “God Talk” and Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky’s “On That Yes...”
The conceptual bases for scientific rational empiricism and for belief in religion stem from entirely different postulates. The rational empiricist atheist who attacks religious beliefs is emotionally irrational when he or she seeks to impose his or her belief system upon the religious person, who believes via faith, not logic. Similarly, religious believers are irrational when they seek to evaluate (i.e., impose upon) the belief of the rational empiricist from the standpoint of their personal belief postulates. These two postulated belief systems are entirely antithetical.
Oil and water do not mix; similarly, the rational empiricist belief system and the faith belief system do not and cannot mix. The one cannot negate the other for they arise from entirely different postulates.
Dr. Leo Shatin,
Boca Raton, Florida
(Dr. Shatin is a retired professor of clinical psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.)
