Tag Archives: love

Three short essays by Matt Eisenfeld, z”l, come to light

3 Feb

Matt Eisenfeld studying in yeshiva, 1993-94.

Matt Eisenfeld’s 3 papers, First Year Rabbinical Seminar, Rabbi Joseph Brodie 1994-5

This post is dedicated to the memory of Matthew Eisenfeld, z”l, whose 49th birthday would have been on February 5, and Sara Duker, z”l.

My teacher Rabbi Joe Brodie called me out of the blue last month. The now retired Vice-President for Student Affairs at the Jewish Theological Seminary noted that he was going through old papers and came across three short essays written by Matt Eisenfeld, z”l, 25 years ago in the academic year of 1994-95.

Rabbi Brodie was Matt’s teacher that year in the JTS Rabbinical School First Year Professional Seminar. Students are encouraged in seminar to reflect upon their personal theology and visions for the rabbinate. Each year has a particular curriculum and the instructors guide students to articulate responses to issues in contemporary Jewish life as expressions of their developing philosophical thinking, pastoral skills and communal leadership.

Rabbi Brodie was aware that I collected many writings of Matt and his girlfriend Sara Duker, z”l, after their murder on the Jerusalem #18 bus on February 25, 1996.  I initially assembled the writings in a memorial album that was displayed in the Matthew Eisenfeld and Sara Duker Beit Midrash. On the occasion of their 20th yahrzeit in 2016, I was blessed, with the help and support of the Eisenfeld and Duker families, to be able to publish the contents of the memorial album as the book Love Finer Than Wine: The Writings of Matthew Eisenfeld and Sara Duker. Now, thanks to Rabbi Brodie, some additional material has been recovered, and I’m pleased to be able to share it more widely.

In Love Finer Than Wine, several essays written by Matt in the early 1990s reflect a certain spiritual struggle and turmoil as he sought to find his home in the Jewish world. He was shaped in significant ways by all three major streams of American Judaism, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. A true pluralist, he found good in all of them, while at the same time he critiqued them all as well.

In the academic year of 1993-94, Matt and I both spent the year studying in Israel at Yeshivat Hamivtar in Efrat, an Orthodox institution led by charismatic Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and Chaim Brovender. Other JTS students over the years had studied at Hamivtar as a means of deepening exposure to classical rabbinic texts prior to continuing studies at JTS. Nevertheless, there was often subtle, occasionally overt, pressure from the rabbis and students in the yeshiva community to obtain Orthodox smihah (ordination), rather than Conservative. Matt and I each struggled and questioned our future plans. We ultimately resisted the appeals of the yeshiva community and entered JTS Rabbinical School as we each planned in Fall, 1994. Nevertheless, Matt still had questions as he entered JTS, and he did not rule out transferring to an Orthodox institution.

As I note in the introduction to Love Finer Than Wine, I believe that during our second year of Rabbinical School in Jerusalem, 1995-96, Matt made peace with Conservative Judaism and would have returned to JTS in New York the following fall. By the time of their death, Matt and Sara had a very strong loving relationship that likely would have resulted in marriage. Sara was a Torah scholar in her own right even as she pursued a career in environmental science.  She was active in the Jewish community and was passionate about active and equal participation of women in Jewish public ritual and leadership. Based on the state of their relationship and the trajectory of their shared spiritual journey in 1996, it is unlikely that Matt would have transferred to an Orthodox institution the following year.

Back in 1994-95, Matt’s spiritual search was more in flux. In the first of the three essays found by Rabbi Brodie, dated 1/31/95, Matt reacts to an essay by Rabbi Daniel Gordis, “Positive-Historical Judaism Exhausted: Reflections On a Movement’s Future, published in Conservative Judaism, Fall 1994.

In the second essay in this group (undated), Matt wrestles with the issue of egalitarianism in the Conservative Movement. Even though by this point women’s ordination at JTS was already a reality for a decade, there was still a degree of unsettled agitation in the Conservative Movement. While the majority of Conservative congregations counted women in a minyan, there were still many congregations in the early 1990s , particularly in Metro-New York and Eastern Canada, that did not. Even JTS continued to maintain a traditionalist daily minyan in which men and women sat separately and only men led services and counted in the minyan. Matt, as he expresses here, does not reject the theory of egalitarian ritual practice, but questions the Conservative Movement as a whole in its commitment to halakhah (Jewish law) and whether recent changes in the Movement at that time had adequately adhered to halakhah.

The third essay (also undated) is Matt’s response to a hypothetical situation proposed by Rabbi Brodie in which the president of a Conservative congregation resigns his position and membership in response to the rabbi of the congregation not officiating at a bat mitzvah because the student, whose mother is not Jewish, never underwent a formal conversion to Judaism and is therefore not Jewish herself according to halakhah. Rabbi Brodie asked his students to react to the psycho-spiritual dynamics of this situation. Here, we have Matt’s response from 25 years ago.

May the memory of Matt and Sara be for a blessing.

Matt Eisenfeld’s 3 papers, First Year Rabbinical Seminar, Rabbi Joseph Brodie 1994-5

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A glimmer of hope in a trying week

3 Feb
Muslim and Jewish families unite in protest over Executive Order

Muslim and Jewish families unite in protest over Executive Order

What is the essential mitzvah of Passover? It’s not eating matzah. It’s not cleaning your house and getting rid of hametz. Yes, the Torah mentions those as mitzvot, but I believe they serve a larger purpose that is spelled out in Parashat Bo: passing on our tradition to the next generation.

On at least three occasions, we find in Parashat Bo mention of children:

1. God brings two more plagues on Egypt, locusts and a thick darkness, where people could not see one another for three days. Pharaoh tries to work out a compromise, letting the Israelites go taking their elders, but not their young ones. Moses insists, bin’a’areinu uvizkuneinu neleikh—with our young and with our old we will go.” Moses will not settle for anything less. He states his case loud and clear that we, the Israelite people, are all in this together. We need one another. The young need the old and the old need the young.

2.

In today’s Torah reading, we study the foundation of what we recognize as the Passover seder. The Paschal lamb must be eaten with matzah and maror.  I find one verse in this section to be particularly striking (Exodus 13:8): V’higadata l’vincha bayom hahu leimor, ba’avur zeh asah Hashem li b’tzeiti mi-Mitzrayim—“And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.’” From this verse, we derive the mitzvah of telling the story of our people. It was not enough for the Israelites to get out of Egypt. They committed themselves in a public ritual to tell their story from one generation to the next for all time. We should all remember where we came from, and we should always remember our responsibility to make the world a bit brighter and a bit better for the next generation.

3. וְהָיָ֕ה כִּי־יֹֽאמְר֥וּ אֲלֵיכֶ֖ם בְּנֵיכֶ֑ם מָ֛ה הָֽעֲבֹדָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לָכֶֽם:

“Your children will ask you, ‘What is this service to you?’”

This is the origin of the familiar seder custom of having the children present ask the Four Questions. This verse is also one of three references in this parashah plus one in Deuteronomy that the Haggadah connects to the prototypical Four Children whom parents are obliged to engage in discussion at the seder. The whole point of the seder is to connect with the next generation so that they may connect with Jewish tradition.

In our day, our children are watching to see how their Jewish mothers and fathers respond to the Trump administration’s abuse of vulnerable populations. On January 27, President Trump issued an Executive Order banning refugees and permanent residents who originated from seven predominantly Muslim countries.  A number of permanent residents were detained and denied entry at US airports. The order had the effect of discriminating against our Muslim neighbors on the basis of their religion. Protests erupted spontaneously across the country protesting this illegal and immoral action.

I attended a rally on Sunday at Palm Beach International Airport and was inspired by the large cross section of our community united to raise our voices in protest against this action.

As protests continued throughout the week, there was a rally at Chicago’s O’hare International Airport on Monday that got a lot of attention. A photo from that rally went viral. In the photo were a Jewish man wearing a kippah and his young son on his shoulders wearing a black velvet kippah. The young boy was holding a sign that read “Hate has no home here.” Standing just a few feet away was a Muslim man with a young girl on his shoulders. She was wearing a hijab and was holding a sign that said “Love.” The boy and the girl were looking at each other and smiling.

The Chicago Tribune published this photo and within hours it was retweeted 16,000 times. After the photo went viral, the Tribune ran a follow-up story in which the reporter tracked down the two fathers, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appel and Fatih Yildirim. The boy’s name is Adin, and the girl’s name in Meryem. The families had never met until that rally. The fathers exchanged phone numbers.

When they started hearing from hundreds of friends and acquaintances after the picture was published, they texted each other, in awe of the way the small moment became momentous.

“I know the tension between the Jews and the Muslims. People think we hate each other. But we’re not fighting. When we come next to each other we can have normal conversations,” Yildirim said. “We can promote the peace together.”

Bendat-Appel said:

“I just feel like if this picture, in some small way, can bring a bit more light and love into the world, I’m so happy about that.”

According to the report, the Bendat-Appel family invited the Yildirim family to their home for Shabbat dinner last night, which hopefully took place.

This magical moment captured in photograph of a Jewish child and a Muslim child coming together to promote justice gives me hope that the message of Passover continues to ring true. Passover is meaningless unless we transmit our tradition to the next generation, inspire them, and engage them in the cause to create a better world.
Our children are watching us and the events around us. When they ask מָ֛ה הָֽעֲבֹדָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לָכֶֽם —what does this mean to you?—We’d better be prepared to respond in a way that will inspire them to fulfill the values of our people.  I pray that the innocent bond between two young children, one Jew, one Muslim, will lay the groundwork for healing in our country and our world.

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Love Is a Verb

2 Oct
The Torah's three commandments of love

The Torah’s three commandments of love

“Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now!” These words echo in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Broadway musical, “Hamilton,” the story of one of the least appreciated American founding fathers. The setting in which these words are sung is early in the Revolutionary War. The Americans are not faring well. Yet, the women who sing these words are brimming with optimism. War and bloodshed have engulfed the young nation, and still, there is a sense that better days are ahead.

Our Jewish tradition calls on us to cherish and affirm life, even when, or especially when, our world is rife with hatred, violence and fear. We gather on Rosh HaShanah for a communal wake up call to take careful note of the world around us and to commit ourselves to creating a better world. We take note of a sense of instability in our nation and around the world that has aroused fear, hatred, and even violence. The news is often overwhelming, and we may feel powerless in our ability to bring about change. Judaism demands otherwise.

Judaism demands that we not resign ourselves to fear, hatred and violence. Judaism demands love.  The Jewish concept of love is not random; it’s intentional. It’s not passive; it’s active. In the Torah, to love is a mitzvah, a commandment. On the surface, it seems ludicrous to legislate an emotion. In the Torah, love is a verb, ve’ahavta, you shall love. Love is an action. Love requires intention.

To illustrate this vital mission, I’d like to share three stories.  These stories are connected to commandments in the Torah on love, and, incredibly, each is connected to the climax of the High Holiday prayer Un’tane Tokef. The words u’teshuvah u’tefillah u’tzedakah maavirin et roa ha-gezeirah, “repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severity of the decree” provide a blueprint for us to fulfill the Torah’s commandment to love.

Story #1. A rabbinic colleague tells of receiving an urgent request to visit a patient who was very ill. The patient asked the rabbi to arrange for his sister to visit him. They had argued years earlier and then went their separate ways. When the rabbi phoned the sister, she accepted the invitation to see her brother at his bedside. The patient later told the rabbi, “Thank God I had the time to see my sister. You know, when I looked at her, I didn’t see the same person I had been angry with for so many years. I saw the young girl who had walked with me to school. I saw the young girl who brought me treats whenever she went to the store. I feel better now, but I am left asking myself the same question over and over, ‘Why did it take so long?’”(Klein, How to Forgive When You Can’t Forget, 60-61).

Three times the Torah instructs us to love. In Leviticus (19:18), we learn the familiar verse וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵֽעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ, love your neighbor as yourself. The Golden Rule! In the Hebrew, רֵֽע can mean more than just a neighbor, it is someone in your inner circle, someone close. We sometimes take these relationships for granted and allow anger, jealousy and spite to get in the way. However, like we saw with the sick man and his sister, there is path out of this place of “stuckness.” In Un’tane Tokef, teshuvah is one of the three pathways towards reconnection and renewal within our closest relationships.

In recent days, I’ve read many obituaries about President Shimon Peres z”l. On Yom Kippur I will reflect more on his legacy, but for today, one thing he said stands out for me. He once said, “[Reconciliation ] can’t be done if there is no forgiveness. Have you forgiven and can both [parties] move on? If you are focused on the past, you will not succeed. There will be no future.”

Teshuvah means return and reconnect, and that includes letting go the burdens of the past that hold us back so that we may move forward toward a renewed future. The High Holidays are our special time to reconnect. There are relationships in our lives that we need to renew. Someone needs to hear my apology, my gratitude, my appreciation. This is our time to make amends and rebuild love. Our future is at stake. The time for reconciliation is now.

Story #2. Just a few weeks ago, a Jewish artist in suburban Philadelphia, Esther Cohen-Eskin, woke up to find a swastika spray-painted on the garbage bin outside her home. Naturally, she was horrified by this vicious act of hatred as any of us would be. If this had happened to me I know I would try to erase all remnants of the swastika by either scrubbing it off, painting over it or buying a new garbage pail. That’s not what Esther did. She kept the swastika but painted over each of its legs a flower petal so that the end result was a beautiful flower. The story only began there. Esther’s neighbors were horrified, and with her encouragement, they painted swastikas on their garbage bins and then painted the same flower symbol over it as well as other symbols of love and caring. Soon Esther was receiving emails from total strangers in Canada, Germany and Ireland where people shared pictures of their own newly similarly decorated garbage bins. What started as the ugliest hate-filled antisemitism was transformed to solidarity and love.

The Torah expresses this kind of love as:  וַֽאֲהַבְתֶּ֖ם אֶת־הַגֵּ֑ר (Deut. 10:19), you shall love the stranger. It’s not enough to love people close to you such as family and friends. We’re told to broaden the circle of love. Why? כִּֽי־גֵרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם, because YOU were strangers in the land of Egypt. We know what it’s like to be other. We know what it feels like to be hated. Therefore, it is our sacred duty to cultivate empathy and kindness, like that Esther received from total strangers.

The Un’tane Tokef prayer urges us to show love not only to those in our inner circle, but also to the broader world. Through tzedakah, we bring healing to those around us to alleviate their suffering. We must draw upon our experience to empathize with those less fortunate than ourselves. If others are in pain, we must do what we can to heal, because we know what it’s like. We’ve been there. Esther’s neighbors put themselves in Esther’s shoes, and whether or not they were Jewish they said we are with you.

When we deepen love in the world by repairing relationships with those closest to us and by expanding kindness and compassion to those outside of our immediate circle, we are then most likely to succeed at the third kind of love, love of God.

This takes me to Story #3. It’s a personal story about a time recently when I felt the presence of God. At the beginning of the summer, my brother Henry got married. His wife, Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann has created an independent Jewish community called Mishkan Chicago that caters to a population of predominantly Jewish millennials—young adult Jews mainly in their 20s and 30s. On the Friday night before the wedding, Mishkan held a service with at least 500 people present. It was an overwhelming, inspiring outpouring of singing, dancing and love that is still reverberating in my heart. The enthusiastic and spontaneous joy in that extraordinary community embodied for me love of God.

We encounter the mitzvah to love God every day when we say the Shema:   וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת ה’ אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ, “and you shall love Adonai your God” בְּכָל־לְבָֽבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ, “with all your heart with all your soul with all your might” (Deut. 6:7). To love God correlates with the third pillar of Un’taneh Tokef: Tefillah, prayer. Teshuvah and Tzedakah open our pathways to authentic prayer. When we care about people near us and those further out, prayer affirms our relationship to God that we cultivate through love of humanity. Furthermore, authentic prayer is more than saying words. It reminds us that all other human beings are created in the divine image and inspires us to love our neighbors and strangers more. The service that I experienced at Mishkan did just that. Prayer is our invitation to affirm our relationship to God that we cultivate through love of humanity. Furthermore, authentic prayer is more than saying words. It reminds us that all other human beings are created in the divine image and inspires us to love our neighbors and strangers more. While our synagogues provide us refuge from the hatred and pain in the broader world, they also provide a structure within which we can model love. Love of humanity leads us to meaningful prayer. And meaningful, authentic prayer provides a structure within which to further cultivate love and take it back out to the world.

With unprecedented fear, hatred, bigotry and violence in our society, our task in this new year is to bring love into our community with intentionality and purpose. Love is a verb. Love is not random; it is an intentional action. This Rosh HaShanah, we reflect on a year in which fear and hate have caused so much pain to so many. I pray that next Rosh HaShanah will be different. I pray that we will reflect on 5777 and notice that we turned a corner. I pray that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s words will come to fruition and we will say once again wholeheartedly “Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”

May God give us the strength to unlock love and bring healing to ourselves, our relationships and our world.

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#TieBlog #Valentine

14 Feb
A tie of love

A tie of love

I know, some readers are probably saying Valentine’s Day is not a Jewish holiday. But when else am I going to wear this tie? Let’s bring more love into the world.

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