Bar Mitzvah Training: It's not just a job....

The New York Times story about on-line bar mitzvah preparation caught lots of attention (at least for a few minutes).  You should read it if you have not.  It offers a window into some basic problems we face in the American Jewish community today.  First, what do synagogues matter anymore?  It is possible to do everything Jewish without a synagogue.  We often say that the community you find in a synagogue is vital to your Jewish life and not available anywhere else.  Whether or not that's true, the parents featured in the article don't seem to care.  And yet, they DO want bar mitzvah ceremonies for their kids.  Or do they?  The other important issue in the article is about the meaning of bar/bat mitzvah?  The final line of the article says it all: "Once Joanne Kapsack had found a rabbi for Eli to work with, she pretty much bowed out of the preparations, she said. “I just cared about the party."  I am sure this happens equally often in our temple (and others).  I must admit that I have never been a bar mitzvah party naysayer.  I've either stayed out of it and treated it as something outside my scope or I have embraced the idea of the parties as part of the mitzvah and part of the community gathering that can occur.  But, nothing has disappointed me more than hearing the post-event assessment from two recent bat mitzvah mothers: it was a let-down.  They whole experience, when it was all said and done, was a let down for these mothers.  What else could it be after all the hype, the buildup, the money and time spent on it?  I have no problem adopting new technology - though I don't really want an office that looks like the trading floor of a brokerage house.  I have no problem with adopting different standards than previous generations simply accepted in order to become temple members. I also have no problem with completely revolutionizing the way we do Jewish education in general.  But I do have problems with the ongoing march toward deification of bar and bat mitzvah.  Within this trend is not so much innovation as desperation.  We will do anything, it seems, to make our kids and ourselves feel good while we and they wallow in ambivalence about our Judaism.

We just found God

For immediate release

Temple Sinai Board of Trustees announced tonight that God has been found and returned to the temple's mission statement.  "Apparently, God had been inadvertently lost these past ten years," says Rabbi Jonathan Roos, "we were pleased to see how easy He was to find."  Mission statement experts report that 91% of all consumers, members or customers of an organization never look at a mission statement.  "It is no surprise," one expert who wished to remain anonymous told us, "that God could be dropped from a mission statement without anybody realizing it.  It probably happens all the time."  Board members were pleased to see God back in the temple mission though nobody could remember exactly when He left.  God's return to the mission statement still requires full congregational approval at the annual meeting in May 2011.  Roos does not expect much resistance to God's return but reminds readers that "hester panim" - God hiding from humanity - is a common divine behavior that could occur at any time between now and the meeting.  Other sources, however, were quick to point to Hasidic teachings that say, "Where is God? Wherever we let God in."  Still, you might want to show your support for God at the May meeting.

(Caveat: this is not a real press release but a joke suggested after tonight's board meeting where a motion passed unanimously to add the phrase "worship of God" to our temple mission statement)

Israel is for liberals

Tablet Magazine (online) ran a story showing Israel to be a liberal's dreamland.  While the mainstream news is dominated by stories of the Obama administration clashing with the Netanyahu government over housing in Har Homa, another picture of Israel emerges from the stories of Gili Shem Tov and the Israeli Health Ministry's approach to medical marijuana.  Shem Tov is a sports reporter on Israeli TV and openly lesbian. She is also now the first competitor on any country's version of Dancing With the Stars, to dance in a same sex couple.  The Health Ministry is considering paying for marijuana for medical use for Israelis in the national universal medical coverage.