September 2007 • Elul & Tishri 5767-5768 www.kolotchayeinu.org

congregation kolot chayeinu • • voices of our lives

The East River is not re-ally a river, as any seasoned New Yorker can tell you. It is a tidal estuary. Last

fall, from my studio with a view of the 59th Street Bridge, I watched the “river” flow north for several hours at a time, then south for several hours. I didn’t like it. Rivers, after all, should run south. It disturbed me to see the brute strength of the water pulling the construction buoys in my view almost 20 feet to the north. There was a wild-ness and almost violence to it and I was much more comfortable when the river flowed south. The water didn’t seem as choppy. I could focus on how much the leaves had changed color on Roosevelt Island since the previous day.

It was in this place that I discovered how special our Kolot community is. I was free to observe the East River, re-ally watch that estuary closely, because I knew my family was being cared for. They were receiving meals and prayers daily. I was able to pretend that I was in a private studio with an amazing view, rather than lying in a hospital bed in excruciating pain. This was truly a tremendous gift.

My teapot handle broke. That’s it. A stupid accident that could happen to

anyone. But it put me in the hospital for two weeks. There I learned a lot about burns and grafts and pain and Kolot. Shelly Weiss and the Kesher Commit-tee organized meals for us for almost a month. The outpouring from people I didn’t even know was incredible. And we received food that we actually wanted to eat! Not just chocolate and cakes, but full meals, lovingly prepared. It allowed us to function in a much fuller way. I don’t think I have ever felt so cared for and loved and lucky.

But after a while, all this receiving started to feel like the river running north. We felt uneasy. Over-indulged and a bit guilty. So, I reluctantly told Shelly that we didn’t need more help. OK, I admit that I secretly fantasized about milking it for a little longer. It was just so delicious!

As I healed and the taste of this generosity lingered, Steve worried about how we could ever re-pay this kindness.

I informed him, trying not to be too smug, that bodies of water can flow in more than one direction. There is an art to receiving too. Rather than having a tit-for-tat checklist of indebtedness, I can only hope that I will be inspired to be just as generous myself. And isn’t that what a sacred community should do?

I wondered why I had been so un-comfortable when I was in the hospital with an estuary running north. Maybe it is just about what things are called that I struggle over. A tidal estuary is calling

itself a river. And it is not a river.So, what does a sacred community call to mind?

Those words also can make me squirm a bit. It sounds like something ethereal and hard to grasp. Maybe cultish. But really, show-

ing up with food when someone needs

it is a very sacred act of love. It is not ethereal

and certainly not difficult to grasp. It made me feel more connected

and forever grateful to all Kolot mem-bers. And for those who know my deep struggle with what things are called, I say thank you. Thank you for the food. And thank you for helping me see be-yond the words. ■

The East RiverBy Pat cassidy

� V O I C E S

The interview that follows stemmed from a class held at Kolot Chayeinu this spring about gender and Judaism, a class I helped to bring to Kolot so that we might learn together and consider how Kolot could be a

more comfortable home for transgender and other gender non-conforming people. In the process I hoped we might all learn more about being the kind of sacred community we strive to be.

It was a wonderful class in which we studied biblical and rabbinic texts with new kinds of eye-opening questions and explored our own relationships to gender. The third of three classes was reserved for Kolot members only and focused more on Kolot’s own actions. Following the class, we moved forward with actions we had agreed on that night: We created “All Gender Restroom” signs for the restrooms at Kolot; we changed our by-laws by a vote at the congregational meeting to included the words “gender identities” in the list of who we are that ends our mission statement; and Kolot

member Stuart Garber wrote about his experience of the class and interviewed me on the subject. That interview follows.

Since the interview, I have had a chance to talk with other Kolot members about the issue of Kolot as a comfortable place for people - not only transgender people - who do not fit a norm we may have - even unconsciously - in our minds. I have been reminded that it often “takes two to tango” - that while we try to improve our way of reaching out to people in as welcoming a way

as possible, it is also reasonable to expect new people coming in to reach out. It is an important reminder: Sacred community is a mutual endeavor.

Still, for me a sacred community is defined in part by its edges, its fringes. That is clear, I think, in the interview here. I am grateful to Stuart Garber for his good questions and for the push to express some of what had been concerning me. I look forward to hearing from you as well.

In hope, Rabbi Ellen Lippmann

FROM THE RABBI

SG: Why is this issue — Judaism and gender — so important to you?

REL: For a couple of reasons. One is actually the reality of having had a number of transgender people be pretty active and regular at Kolot and then disappear - and then wondering how much of that is about ways that we’re not so good on gender issues. I don’t think that is the only reason they may have left, but I know that it’s definitely partly that and I am sad about it, sad that they aren’t around any more.

The other thing for me is that I’ve always been someone who wanted to attend to the fringes. When I spoke at Lisa’s school last month about my approach to community (The Academy for Jewish Religion, where Lisa B. Segal is a cantorial student), I said that when I take out my big, beautiful woven tallis with all its lovely colors and fabric, it’s still the fringes that are the crucial part, and that’s true for community, too.

And then somebody asked me, “who is on the fringe at Kolot?,” because it was clear that we were saying that many different kinds of people were already here. And I said that, for me, transgender people are our crucial fringe. I’d like them not to have to feel they are so much on the fringe.

Every Jewish community has to think about its core, but it also has to think about its fringes, about those who are being discrimi-nated against – and not just for being Jews. There are transgender Jews who are looking for community - and the more traditional communities are – by and large - not going to be home for them.

So, where else are they going to go? If we’re not adequately responding to them, I think we have one fringe missing from our tallis. We’re not complete in that way.

So it’s personal and for me it is a religious obligation. As I gather the tallis fringes, which I do as I say the Shema - traditionally done to represent gathering Jews from the four corners of the earth to bring them to Israel - I think of it as gathering Jews of all kinds together.

the way you speak of it here feels intrinsic to the idea of Kolot.Yes. Kolot Chayeinu. Voices of our Lives. Who’s the “our”? Who gets to be part of the “our”? And who says?

you, yourself, have known so many levels of fringe. a lesbian woman rabbi…

a non-Jewish partner!

did you have an inherent sensitivity, a solidarity, for trans people because of your own experiences or did you too have to find your-self challenged?

I had to find myself challenged. I’d love to be able to say, “oh yeah…,” but I’ve found it really challenging. I don’t always deal well

A conversation with Rabbi Ellen LippmannBy stuart GarBer

continued on page 4

High Holydays 5767

Judith Kane Ellen Roff Peter Blauner & Margaret Tyre

General

Nancy Goldhill Sarah Dranoff & David Barthold Cynthia Greenberg

Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund

Ronda Zawel & Adam Friedman

Music Fund

Mary Ann Wilner

Kolot Tzedakah

Lisa Segal & Arthur Strimling Lisa Sigal & Byron Kim

CHAI Fund Donation

Steven Flax & Pat Cassidy

Off The Bimah

Trisha Arlin Phyllis Arnold Lisa Auerbach Mark Berns & Stanley Panescot Ralph Buchalter & Kent Gibson Jacqueline Burger Larry Chanen & Jack Burkhalter Suri Duitch Ann Eisenstein Adrienne Fisher Steve Flax & Pat Cassidy Adam Fredericks Ken Freeman & Colleen O’Neal Jeanny Heller Marc Gross &

Susan Ochshorn Rachel Hyman Ellen Lippmann & Kathryn Conroy Sarah Lowe Steve Markowitz & Mary Haviland Judy Mann Jonas & Marie Nachsin David Novak Russell Pearce Howie & Millie Segal Andrew Stettner Arthur Strimling Ronda Zawel

In honor of Grand daughter Hallie Grossman

Beatrice & Richard Sieburt

In Honor of Suri & Neil’s New Daughter

Trisha Arlin

In honor of Bayard Reuben Parker

Diane Holzinger

In honor of Lisa B. Segal’s beautiful baby naming cer-emony for Jonas Raymond

Stephen Fallek & Shari Coats Patty and Larry Fallek

In Honor of the June Birthdays of Kathy & Ted August Kathy August & Theodor Herzl

In Honor of Judith Kane’s 70th Birthday

Gloria Felton Gloria Norman & Andrea Goldblatt Judith Altman Eli & Sylvia Chatzinoff Rhona S. Goldman

Robert H. & Manuela Consentino Robert S. & Wendy A. Schachter Kevin & Janet Kavanaugh Neal & Shelly Kane Ganzer Ruth Deichman Arlene Spiller Charles E. & Patricia G. Spicer Irwin & Jennie Cass Joyce & Peter Kambourakis Kim Nadel & Jon Nadel Lauren Abrams & Donna Freeman-Tweed Marian Levine Ronald Z. & Maxine Plotkin Sol & Ruth Spolansky Irwin Rosen Joseph Samek Michael & Ruth Cash Michelle Teichner Phillip Saperia & James Golden Ruth Anne Cohen

In Honor of Stuart Garber’s 50th Birthday

Trisha Arlin Lawson Shadburn & Susan Ritz

In honor of Kolot’s New Presi-dent, Adrienne Fisher

George H. & Dorienne Sorter

In Honor of Lisa B. Segal

Trisha Arlin Philip Saperia & James Golden

In Gratitude for the Health of Arthur Strimling

Trisha Arlin

In Honor of the Kesher Group

Trisha Arlin

In Honor of the Spiritual Explorations Group

Trisha Arlin

In honor of Rabbi Lippmann & the staff of Voices

Barbara S. Cohen

Towards the Brooklyn Pride Kolot expenses

Phyllis Arnold & Deidre Leipziger

Towards the Professional Development of Lisa B. Segal

Russell Pearce & Michele Hirshman

Towards the Professional De-velopment of Ellen Lippmann

Russell Pearce & Michele Hirshman

In memory of Leslie, Robert Berkman’s sister

Trisha Arlin Derrick W. Johnston

In Memory of Dora Turkewitz

Liz Schalet & Andrea Bernstein

In Loving Memory of Ira Klein

Sheila Klein

In honor of Julie Gilgoff’s Torah Reading

Julie Gilgoff & Camilo Yubank

In honor of Rachel Hyman chanting the Torah and her devotion to Kolot

Ronald & Suzanne Katz Hyman

DONATIONS

V O I C E S �

SIMKHAS

New babies:

Yona Elize, born to Eddy Eh-rlich and Yvonne Brechbuler

Zelda, born to Suri Duitch and Neil Kleiman

Big birthdays:

Stuart Garber: 50 Judith Kane: 70

High school graduations:

Ben Master Noah Chasek-MacFoy

B’nai Mitzvah:

Maya Weitzner (in May), daughter of Peter Weitzner and Elyse Newman

Michael Hubbs (in June), son of Sigal Gino

Maya Park (September 8), daughter of Lisa Master and Ken Park

Farewell to people moving away- shalom and l’hit’ra-ot (until we see you again):

Leah Zimmerman, Kolot’s Educator, and Jeff Sacks, Laila and Bella

Lee Winkelman and Wendey Stanzler and Henry

Andrew Stettner and Jeanny Silva and Eli

Dede and Carleton Schade and Alessandra

Dalia Kandiyoti and Robert Lethem, Alegra and Shiran

Rabbi Rona Shapiro and David Franklin, Noa and Hallel

Welcome back to those who have been away a while:

Liz Schalet and Andrea Bernstein, Maya and Jonah

NEW MEMBERS

Elizabeth Berdann

Jenny Aisenberg

CONDOLENCES

Ed Cohen, father of Greg Cohen

Leslie Berkman Johnson, sister of Robert Berkman

� V O I C E S

RABBI continued from page 2

with ambiguity. But I am committed to the justice of this effort, and therefore to trying hard to learn and change.

it’s refreshing for me – and i think important for Kolot to know, that your interest in this issue stems from your interpretation of what our heritage encourages us to do, that you’re not just taking us on this radical path based on your own personal journey.

That’s a good point. One of the reasons for the class on gender that we had this spring is that I get to sit in and learn…. I tend to think that people change their minds about those they think of as “other” through one-on-one relationships and that’s always been true for me. So to get to know some of the people who were coming to Kolot, and then to meet Elliot (Rabbi Kukla) and to get to know a colleague who’s in this place has been expansive - which for me was great coming into Pesach: coming from the narrow place (as Egypt is often seen) into the expanse of the desert. As the psalm we read on the Shabbat of Pesakh says, “Min ha-meitzar karati Yah, anani ba-merkhav Yah. From the narrow place I called God; God answered me from the Godly expanse.”

i was really struck in the class i attended about how strongly you showed your dissatisfaction for how Kolot is doing on the issue of welcoming transgender people.

And not just transgender people. In any service, the way we’ve organized our space, I’m looking at the back of the room and I see the door. So, I see when people are greeted and brought in, and when they are not. And sometimes I find myself wanting to stop the service and say, “You, in the back! Stand up and say ‘hello’ to that person.” I want to be clear that Kolot does a good job of this in general. I just think we can stretch a little farther.

so, for you this welcoming of transgender people is very much related to the Kesher issues of welcome and connection we’ve been talking about this year.

For me it’s a lot about that, actually. I had an experience on a Friday evening. I was standing in the front and the service hadn’t started yet and a young black woman came through the door and was looking around. There were three or four Kolot people at the back of the room, schmoozing, getting ready to be shamuses. They didn’t say a word to her. I figured that they either didn’t see her, or assumed she was connected to the church, because she was black. So I went back to say hello and she turned out to be connected to someone at Kolot. So I said, “Hello, it’s so great to meet you, how wonderful that you’re finally here, etc……” and thought it was what anyone standing there should have done. It’s hard when you want to chat with friends to break away to do that greeting, but it is crucial; without it, we are a tallit without fringes.

So that is very much on my mind thinking about this. It’s not just about transgender people in particular, but the whole question of how each of us greets people who look different from us, or who are different from who we think is coming to Kolot.

I have heard, for instance, that unfortunately Kolot doesn’t seem to be very friendly to people who are very heavy. I’ve heard some stories from people who have been insulted in various ways, either by omission or commission – and I think for similar reasons: if your physical self makes people nervous, then how do they look at you when you come in the door?

My real hope is that that anyone who comes in through Kolot’s door will be greeted exactly the same way: with friendliness and re-spect and kindness and a real welcome. That’s it. It should be really simple. It happens. But it doesn’t happen enough or uniformly.

This (transgender) issue for me is like the canary in the coal mine: it’s the most grievous example that shows everything else. It may be that trans people are especially sensitive coming into a shul and that others at the shul are going to be the most nervous about them. How can we bridge that divide?

i’ve been reflecting since our gathering on what this all is like for me. i think the human mind wants to classify things in binary terms: yes/no safe/threatening, like/don’t like, man/woman – especially when we’re under stress. When something’s a little

continued on page 10

Although Kolot employs about 20 individuals, many of the critical day-to-day and more far-reaching tasks are done by

volunteers. Every day I find out that there is some specific thankless task carried out by a Kolot volunteer-member. For ex-ample, did you know that Karen Karop-kin provides the paper goods for Shabbat morning breakfast? Or that Jonathan Soroko fixed the little rubber feet on the door stop at the entrance to the Social Hall so we can keep the doors open? Or that Mark Berns and Gail Horowitz reg-ularly organize and clean out the storage room or that there is an entire committee (Mishkan – space) dedicated to making sure that the doors are open, the Custo-dian is there (and paid) and the space is ready in time for the Shabbat service?

All of these tasks would be considered beyond drudgery in our real lives but doing them in service of a beloved community infuses them with a sa-credness that nurtures our souls. However, I didn’t come to this realization overnight. So….as in any good VOICES article, I am now going to tell you my story…

As probably so many of us have when we joined, I was searching but not exactly sure what I was searching for. The Kolot community seemed so kind and supportive and spiritually interest-ing but it’s so difficult to inject yourself into a pre-existing community. How to get in? The Rabbi suggested that working on the Gala might be a good way to meet people. I jumped at the chance

because it was a small group activity that didn’t involve anything overtly religious. So I went to those early morning meetings at the coffee shop with Cindy Greenberg, Andy Stettner, Ruth Cohen (and Izzy in the stroller), Jonathan Auerbach, Judith Kane, Shelly Weiss, Mark Berns and my son, Jonah, in the baby sling.

They were all very excited about this event about 10 months in the future. I sincerely had no idea what they were talking about but I was eager to help and their enthusiasm, confidence and even-temperedness was inspiring. They assigned me the task of organizing volunteers. Now THERE’S a great job for someone who doesn’t know anyone in the organization! We talked and drank coffee, planned, made decisions and every once in a while, they would give me a list of people to call and somehow these strangers I phoned agreed to come to the event early, decorate, stay late, schlep, greet and help. Then at the

Gala we met: What a wonderful experience to meet scores of people face to face that I had spoken to on the phone. I had asked them to help and they came through, smil-ing, enthusiastic and eager to serve Kolot.

The following year, I took on more responsibil-ity for fundraising, joined the Board. Eventually I took on independent leadership roles for events, including the debut of the Dinners event this past spring and the wonderful 3rd annual Off The Bimah concert last month. Both of these allowed me to work closely with members I hadn’t yet come to know well but

now include among my good friends and advisors. I continue to be amazed that the more “work” I do on behalf of Kolot, the more rewarding it is both for me and for the organization as a whole.

Even though I was a grownup with a family and a business when I joined the congregation, the skills I was taught by those early Kolot mentors have allowed me to grow in unexpected ways. Lately I find that my longtime fears about failure and talking to strangers have fallen away. And I have become certain that the strength of any society depends on the forging of rela-tionships between its members. I have been working towards deepening connections in all areas of my life.

Part of the mandate for this article was to discuss “What do we mean by, “sacred community” as opposed to “fee-for-service” as a model for how we relate to one another in the congregation. In my experience, the fee has nothing to do with it. It’s the “opportunity-for-service” that is the most rewarding benefit of membership. ■

Volunteering – Obligation or Privilege?By ellen HoniGstocK

V O I C E S 5

Ellen Lippmann, RabbiLisa B. Segal, Hazzan and

Music DirectorOra Wise, Education Director

Efrat (Effi) Baler-Moses, Administrator Franklin Billingslea, Custodian

TRUSTEESAdrienne Fisher, President

Rachel Hyman, Vice PresidentSeth Borgos, Treasurer

Cindy Greenberg, SecretaryPhyllis ArnoldSally CharnowAdam DeixelMarjorie Fine

Ellen HonigstockGrace Lile

Jeffrey SharleinBob Usdin

VOICES STAFFTrisha Arlin, Editor

Marina Bekkerman, Design & Production

Suri Duitch, Proofer

KOLOT CHAyEINU

CAs probably so

many of us have

when we joined,

I was searching

but not exactly

sure what I was

searching for.

c

Kolot Social JusticeBy roBin ePstein

continued on page 10

When I joined Kolot in the late 90s, I felt that, even though my Jewish knowl-edge was spotty at best,

I would feel at home in the congregation because of its commitment to social jus-tice. That, I knew about. My Hebrew was just vestigial, but after years of bouncing between the mainstream media and left-wing magazines and even writing a book in a somewhat quixotic quest to give a voice to the voiceless and explain com-munity organizing to a larger audience, I spoke the language of social justice. Working for social justice had been a through-line in my life; it was sacred to me. My perception that social justice was essential at Kolot provided me with an on ramp to organized Judaism. Had it not existed, I might never have joined Kolot – or any other congregation.

But then, for years, I did nothing related to social justice at Kolot. Focused on crafting a Jewish identity for my toddler daughter, Anzia, I became the crafts lady for family Shabbat dinners. It worked. Anzia grew up knowing she was Jewish. As she got older, I hoped she would grasp the connections between Judaism and social justice. When I joined the social justice committee two years ago, I found a group that dreamt of Kolot becoming part of a faith-based organizing network. Though we knew they were important, committee members weren’t fired up about making advocacy (political work on behalf of others, a top-down model in which those affected by a problem don’t participate in crafting its solution) or direct service (aiding people in need, for instance by volunteering in a soup kitchen, a model that doesn’t ad-dress underlying inequities) the core of the congregation’s social justice work.

Ok, so now you know what it isn’t, but you’re probably still wondering what faith-based community organizing is. You’re not alone. It operates below the radar. And though the committee worked for a year and a half to help Kolot join a network and the board voted this winter to become a part of CAP, the Community Action Proj-ect, few people, including savvy activsts and news junkies, have a clear picture of faith-based organizing. (It has nothing to do with

President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative.)The father of this type of grassroots

organizing was Saul Alinsky, referred to by some as the Jewish Tom Paine, who in the 1930s organized the poor and disen-franchised in Back of the Yards, Chicago’s infamous meat-packing neighborhood. Alinsky believed that people didn’t need fancy degrees or a lot of wealth to exercise political power. If you organized enough people and identified your target carefully, you could hold those in power accountable and bring about change. The organiza-tion Alinsky created, the Industrial Areas Founda-tion, is still going strong. IAF groups and others like them have a reputa-tion for playing hardball. And yes, they confront the powerful when they deem it necessary, but they also cooperate with the power-ful when they can do so effectively.

Faith-based organiz-ing networks, like PICO, the national group CAP is affiliated with, are non-ideological, non-partisan, multi-cultural groups of groups – rather than groups of individu-als – that enable ordinary people to develop leader-ship abilities and take action on their own behalf. Using relationships as the building blocks of their power – relationships between individuals within congregations, between individuals in different congregations, and between leaders from those congregations and people in powerful positions in the public and private sectors – faith-based organizing networks (and those that use similar methods) have gotten thousands of low- and moderate-income housing units built in East New York and the South Bronx; put the creation of small, autono-mous high schools at the center of systemic school reform in Oakland, California; and stopped coal operators from strip mining people’s property without their permission in Kentucky.

It was with this idea in mind – that relationships are the cornerstone of power and can re-knit the social fabric – that the social justice committee conducted its Etz Kehillah (Tree of Community) campaign of one-on-one meetings (sichot) last year. Over the course of a few months, Kolot members had more than a hundred one-on-one structured conversations about their passions and concerns within the congregation and for the larger society. The consensus from the Etz Kehillah process was that there was no consensus on what issue – health care, housing, education, etc. – people cared about most, but that many participants wanted to know their neigh-bors in Brooklyn better and hoped that the congregation’s political work could reach

out over the lines of race and class and ethnicity.

I learned about faith-based organizing as a writer and from a year-long stint as an organizer in Eastern Kentucky. At my first and last journal-ism jobs, at Southern Ex-posure in North Carolina and at City Limits here in New York, I worked for publications that saw community organizing as core to their cover-age. But whether I was writing for Louisville’s Courier-Journal, or In These Times, I always fought to tell stories about democracy with a small “d,” stories in which regular people experienc-ing terrible injustice got

together, learned to participate in public life, challenged powerful forces of cor-ruption, ineptitude and evil, and actually changed their communities’ circumstances for the better. But for all my time amplify-ing others’ social justice work and meeting leaders who sprung from urban and rural environments where leadership was hardly expected, I’d rarely been part of a broad-based organizing effort. I’d seen its power, I’d documented how it functions, but I’d never had a chance to participate in a role no more, and no less, important than any other member of a congregation belonging to an organizing network.

6 V O I C E S

CWorking for

social justice

had been a

through-line in

my life; it was

sacred to me.

c

Praying with HumanityBy Gayle KirsHenBaum

It’s July. I’ve missed the June deadline for getting my 10 percent discount to sign my son up for Kolot’s Learn-ing Program. Come August, I’ll be

charged a $25 late fee. It’s time to get the forms in.

On the forms it says Kolot will teach my son how to pray.

At six years old, he doesn’t yet know what the word means. For him, what is most memorable about Kolot was the day he came to services to help me pass out flyers for a social justice committee event about our domestic workers rights campaign. For months, he equated Judaism with “helping the workers.” He’d unknowingly bypassed years of desperate struggle to extract lessons in contemporary ethics from stubbornly ancient texts, harkening back to early 20th century Jewish activism to establish some of the first trade unions. In the tradition of Jewish secularists, said my secular, non-Kolot member husband, we could forgo religious education altogether, creating community for him with those who share a commitment to socialist values as the primary expression of their Jewishness.

Our years-long discussion continues: How is a Jew made? How will we make this one? Where will he find human connection? Where do we find it?

Over the last few years, I’ve been work-ing with our social justice committee on the Shalom Bayit (Peace in the Home) campaign. Shalom Bayit is a project of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice ( JFREJ), which works in coalition with Domestic Workers United (DWU) to establish a statewide “Bill of Rights” for the more than 200,000 domestic workers in the greater metropolitan area. At the heart of the prob-lem is the fact that our laws fail to recognize nannies, housekeepers, cooks, and caregivers of the ill and elderly as workers deserving of the most basic employment rights. Despite the fact that our domestic workforce makes it possible for so many of us to balance work and family and contributes might-ily to our economy, domestic workers have been excluded from nearly all federal labor protections—and are even barred by law from organizing unions to bargain for better working conditions.

As I’ve worked on the campaign, I’ve slowly come to know members of DWU. I’ve found community in the moments when we greet each other by name before a meeting. I’ve found it when, as a former em-ployer of a nanny, I, along with other Kolot members, joined DWU on a dawn bus ride to Albany and we walked into legislators’ offices together. I was there last winter when Kolot and the Park Slope Jewish Center welcomed members of DWU to a co-hosted Shabbat dinner and program about their campaign. The event drew more than 80 people and created an opportunity for children in our school to write and reflect about the domestic workers who pick them up from school and clean their homes.

I’ve found sacredness in conversations with members of DWU, among the large and small facts of our lives, when we talk about being employers and employees and then talk about food and shopping and our families, indicators of self exchanged across ever-present lines of race and class. I’ve also found sacredness in DWU’s years of hard work and faith that a small, unmonied and unconnected group could steadily advance toward its goal. Last June, DWU and JFREJ co-hosted a “Town Hall” meeting where workers described their lives to more than 350 people, including a Kolot contingent, Ellen and many other rabbis, legislators, and state labor officials. The event was keynoted by John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. For me, the night carried a kind of holy charge, the otherworldly hum of telling and listening.

The Hebrew School registration forms say Kolot will teach my son how to pray.

It is so very difficult, this word, “pray,” the giant of Judaism, of religion, large enough to swallow up my son’s original no-tion that Jewish life organizes itself around the single imperative of justice. It encom-passes, of course, all of the interdenomina-tional horrors of blind faith and, for many Jews, still holds to its heart that particular notion of choseness; even at Kolot, I strug-gle with my fear that as my son learns more of Jewish religious practice and history, he will unlearn the self-understanding he was born with, the assumption that he is nothing other than a small citizen of the world.

Like others at Kolot, I’ve long wrestled with the tension between religion and politics, and with my psychological inheri-tance as a Jew, settling, finally, on a spiritual, rather than religious, identity. I don’t believe even a little bit in a God who has power over our lives; I listen to the liturgy as an ex-tended poem and the Torah as a high-brow novel, together a literature that, in moments, gives me access to the truest place in myself, the place where I meet up with everyone else, the whole lot of us, hoping against hope to be recognized by the universe and each other.

It seems that my prayer amounts to a silent plea with humanity for sacred com-munity. For me, the synagogue is a place where, at its best, we make our need for one another explicit. I’ll be sending in the forms. As my son begins his formal Jewish educa-tion, I’m grateful for what he already knows of the commitment of our Rabbi, our teach-ers, and many members of Kolot to social justice in their work or congregational lives. I hope this understanding will only deepen over time, that in learning about Jewishness at Kolot, he’ll come to know that the sacred resides in this community’s commitment to find unity of purpose beyond itself. ■

V O I C E S 7

That’s why our High Holy Days services are free and open to everyone and why our dues structure is flexible and does not bar anyone who cannot pay. But since a large percentage of our budget comes from contributions made at this time of year, we ask that you donate whatever you can. We suggest a minimum of $108 for Kolot dues-paying members and $144 for non-members per person.

Donate online at kolotchayeinu.org/donate/ or send your check to: Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives

101� Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn, Ny 11�15

Kolot Chayeinu members believe in livingour ethical values in our own community.

Kesher Made EasyBy trisHa arlin

Sacred community can be built in small steps. Even the most mundane meeting should, ideally, be giving each one of us at least a

little taste of the joy, promise and kesher (connection) of the sacred community.

To help with that process, presented here are some “easy steps” that were gathered from the group of Kolot people who met for a year to discuss the issues of maintaining the feeling of a small commu-nity as our congregation grows, the Kesher Task Force. I also borrow a lot from reading Lawrence Hoffman’s book, “Re-Think-ing Synagogues”. I hope these suggestions will help create what we have been calling Kesher—spiritual, emotional and social connection and communication—in all of Kolot’s meetings, actions, and gatherings.

These techniques also made it easier to deal with disagreements. People were more comfortable expressing negative feelings in the group, less liable to take disagreement personally and more likely to recover after a fight or meltdown when we checked in prop-erly. We knew in advance where they were coming from, trusted that we cared about each other and could move on more easily.

You may already do some of these at most of your meetings. These may feel like a waste of time when you are trying to get important things done. And it is true that some of these items may add a few minutes to your agenda. But experience has shown that the quality of discussions and deci-sions as well as your connection to the other people in a group and your pleasure in the process of creating a sacred community im-prove when you remember to include these in your meeting. Really. It worked for us.

1. cHecK-in a. Go around the room (either in order

or as people want to speak) and let everyone else know how you are feeling at that mo-ment, tell them what you’re bringing into the room. You’re tired, angry, happy, etc. and why.

b. Be brief. Be self-disciplined. The chair can speak up if you’re going on too long but it’s more respectful if you do it yourself.

c. As much as possible, refrain from crosstalk. Checking-in works best when there is no response. You can share your

empathy, experiences and advice later, after the meeting. I write this knowing that most of the time we did indeed respond. Some-times it’s impossible not to, but try.

d. Listen. We feel much more connected to the other people in the meeting when we share our stories and when we’re listened to. The simple act of quickly describing your day or something that happened to you that week brings you into the meeting. The listeners learn what kind of feelings, interests and distractions each person is bring into the meeting. And hearing your own state of mind out loud helps you understand the context for your reactions to the meeting.

2. eat First – have something to eat and drink at every meeting to promote that great Kolot feeling of community and address the whole low blood sugar thing. Most of us do this already, but it’s always good to remember Kolot’s most basic philo-sophical underpinning. (and see #6)

3. maKe a Prayer – In Kesher, we successfully used an idea some of us first encountered in the Spiritual Explorations group with Rabbi Lippmann.

a. Choose someone to record and con-struct the prayer.

b. Choose a theme, based on the purpose of the meeting. Ex: It is a membership meeting and you are trying to figure out ways to increase membership. You might therefore be trying to construct a prayer to help you in this task generally or on some specific aspect.

c. Have the prayer leader go around the meeting asking for individuals to list what they are thankful about or are blessing or praising or asking for help. This prayer an be directed to whoever or whatever you want — to God, Adonai, Ruach, Yah, Ain Sof, the cosmos, that which is eternal, whatever you can all feel comfortable with. Examples of thanks or blessings: Thanks for having a congregation that I care enough about to help raise membership; asking for help in the task of raising membership numbers so we can grow and survive, etc.

d. The Prayer Leader should write down everything everyone says. When the group

has exhausted possible thanks, blessings, praises and requests for help, the Prayer Leader then reads through the list in the form of a prayer. Ex: Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’olam , we thank you for Kolot Chayeinu, a community that we care enough about to be at this meeting, please help us grow our membership so we can flourish, please help us attract members that will want to be actively involved, please help us finish the tasks at hand tonight, etc. An alternative opening, less hierarchi-cal and male-identified, is Baruch At Yah, Eloheinu Ruach Ha’olam (Blessed are you, Yah, Breath/Spirit of the Universe).

e. It’s not enough to go around and volunteer your blessings, praise or thanks. Hearing it read back to you in the form of a prayer, no matter how expertly or inex-pertly, is really important. Rabbi Lippmann taught us that it’s in the synthesis of all the thoughts that a true prayer forms, and we found it very powerful to hear it as a coher-ent prayer.

4. study – This may not be possible at every meeting, especially if you’re pressed for time, but if you can do have some read-ing in common that touches the subject, either directly (which gives you a common vocabulary) or a line or paragraph from Torah, Talmud or midrash that relates to the subject of your meeting (which gives you a common frame of reference). The Rabbi can help you find an apt passage.

5. sinG – Singing, even a short bit of a Hebrew song, is a reminder that this is not just any organization I’m meeting about, this is a sacred Jewish community and this song in Hebrew is a little ritual that con-nects me to what we are and why we are. For years most Kolot meetings and classes have ended with the singing of “Shalom Haverim,” reminding us that we are all haverim - people connected to each other, and that we will see each other again.

6. enJoy yourselF – We’re not mem-bers of this community to suffer. We’re here to grow and learn and pray and eat, to be welcomed and comforted and to feel safe, to laugh and dance and sing, to heal ourselves and the world and to increase our own hap-piness and the happiness of others if at all possible. Even in meetings. Why not?

Shalom Haverim. ■

� V O I C E S

Last fall I brought my daughter, Olivia, to Kolot’s Simchat To-rah celebration. At that time I had been a member for little

more than a year. I joined after hang-ing around Kolot’s periphery for years because I wanted to be part of a Jewish community. And I needed to wrestle with the question of what I wanted to pass on to Olivia in the way of religion, culture, and heritage, which I felt I could do more effectively through engagement than observation. Experiencing the sacred was not much on my mind.

We went to the Simchas Torah celebra-tion because it was a family event. I had no special feeling toward the holiday, having not observed it for more than 30 years. During the early, kid-oriented portion of the celebration (i.e., the one scheduled to end before bedtime with the promise of pizza downstairs after the service), we sang, danced and danced again, and listened to Rabbi Lippmann and others as they taught us various prayers and rituals. While Olivia loves dancing, I don’t think she understood why we were dancing in shul. She knew it had something to do with the two big scrolls, but she did not know what those were or why anyone would dance because of them. I didn’t know what to tell her either, because I had never danced on Simchas Torah before. Apart from Passover, we’ve largely ignored Torah stories at home, in part because I do not know what I make of them and what I want to say about them to Olivia.

And then, near the end of the service we experienced a moment of sacred com-munity. As a group, we unrolled the Torah across the room, extending the unwound scrolls to a length of 20-30 feet. We all took a gentle hold of the scroll’s edges. Nearly every space along both edges of the exposed parchment, top and bottom, was held by someone. There must have been at least fifty people, nearly half of whom were kids, holding a piece of the Torah. And it survived! Whew.

In between making sure to do my part and moni-toring the kids near me, I took a deep breath and looked around. Sharing the responsibility of holding the Torah with me were many people with whom I had some other connec-tion that predated Kolot: a college classmate, a law school classmate, some-one with whom I used to play pick-up basketball, a colleague from the first law firm I worked for after law school, my daughter’s best friend’s parent whom I consider to be a best friend and others, not to mention my daughter and some of her good friends. Through physical contact with the Torah, I was connected to good people representing nearly every phase of my adult life. Not only was a sacred object holding us together through the act of our holding the object, but the community itself – the richness of our fabric – felt sacred in that moment.

I don’t know what I would have felt without knowing those particular people. But this realization of my other connections to the community in that moment was like a bop on the head — “oh, yeah, communi-ty.” The fact that I knew people, and knew them in different ways, has opened the door to my being more receptive to being part of a community, even the very idea of community, and helped me decide to push past my generally skeptical frame of mind.

I felt a historical connection, too. Our collective holding of the Torah seemed symbolic of the way that Jewish com-munities have held and been held by the Torah for millennia. But a paradox lurks

within that connection, at least for me and perhaps for many of us modern, skeptical Jews: at the heart of what binds us together as a community is the story that we carry

around and repeatedly read and tell. This story about how we became a community is one that I imagine many of us at Kolot do not believe contains much literal historical truth. So why do we keep choosing to tell it?

Back to Simchat Torah: The sacredness of the moment and of our community unfolded for Olivia, too; she insisted we stay for the later, adult portion of the ceremony because, it seemed, she picked up on and wanted more time to try to absorb and make sense of that sacredness. She was extremely disap-pointed when I did not volunteer to speak that night on Torah’s meaning for me (I didn’t volunteer because I had no idea then what I would say, although I think I am writing this in part to

respond to and fill my earlier silence). It un-folded further that night when I read Olivia the beginning of Genesis as her bedtime story. The questions continued, too. What sense was I to make for Olivia of the cre-ation as told in Genesis when we have been talking about evolution since kindergarten? What would Kolot tell her about this story or why we tell it? How was I going to answer Olivia’s questions about God when I am not sure what I believe about God or whether my conception of God remains a Jewish one?

I am going to leave it there because my experience with Kolot since then has not led to answers but to more questions and a sense that answering them is an ongoing process. That moment, however, is where and when the questioning turned active. ■

The Richness of Our FabricBy JosH ruBin

V O I C E S �

COur collective

holding of the

Torah seemed

symbolic of the

way that Jewish

communities

have held and

been held by

the Torah for

millennia.

c

From my vantage point, Kolot’s op-portunity to, as PICO says, “put faith into action” by making common cause with a predominantly African-American network of churches is a rare chance. I’m glad we’ve taken the first step. CAP is going through a transition at the moment, merging with two other PICO networks in Brooklyn and hir-ing a new Executive Director, all of which, potentially, makes Kolots involvement even more exciting.

PICO, the national organization that CAP is affiliated with, was founded in 1972. Its affiliates encompass 1,000 religious congregations from more than 50 faiths and work in 150 cities and towns in 17 states. PICO’s experienced organizers mentor new staff members, and the or-ganization offers training sessions for lay members – that means us – from across the country. The CAP model requires its member congregations to work on a local issue that affects them – ours is the domestic worker campaign – and to help select and work together on issues that affect people in all the network’s congre-gations. PICO groups sometimes focus solely on neighborhood issues, but several

have worked state-wide and the organiza-tion is trying to bring its local power base into play at the federal level.

Joining a faith-based organizing network is a completely different kettle of gefilte fish

from being involved in an advocacy cam-paign, going on a protest march or sending money to a PAC. It’s long-term, not one-shot. It’ll force us to identify and act in our own self-interest, something that might be uncomfortable for those of us who feel that our problems pale in comparison to those less well-off. Meetings will be a challenge for some of us; we’ll need to keep our over-edu-cated selves in check and to cede the floor to those whose wisdom comes from places and experiences different from the places our privilege has taken us. For some of us, it might be jarring to hear so much Christian prayer. Others will embrace the chance to share Jewish prayer, Kolot style, with our new compatriots. At this point, we don’t know what we’re getting into. It’s definitely going to be interesting, and it has the poten-tial to be amazing, and to give us a chance to help shape Brooklyn’s future. A rabbi (maybe Sue Oren?) once told me that there’s a Jew-ish concept of going ahead and observing the rituals even if you don’t know why you’re doing it, of having faith that faith, or at least some understanding, will follow your actions. Getting involved with CAP is like that, I think. We’ve just got to start. ■

1 0 V O I C E S

confusing and we can’t fit it into a comfortable niche, we can experience that as irritating. it can feel threatening. it takes a clear intention – kavannah - to, as you say, “bridge that divide.”

I connect this to our very origins as a people. The Hebrew word for Hebrew is ivri, the root of which relates to our ancestors’ act of passing through other people’s lands. The Ivrim – the Hebrews - are people who pass through, who cut across boundaries. We are all “trans” in that way, and need to remember it.

it reminds me of elliot’s blessing: “Baruch ata adonai….ha’ma-avir l’ovrim. Blessed are you… the transforming one (who sup-ports) those who transform.”

It’s a transformation within the self as opposed to the movement across. Who helps the passers-through, the crossers-over do that?

did anything specific happen that led the folks who were coming here to stop coming or what it just…? [several young transgender people had been part of Kolot’s community for a while and then stopped coming. it was a concern and was one reason behind the class]

I think that some experienced other members as not listening, espe-cially with regard to how they wanted to be addressed, either in name

or pronoun. Some may have been known at Kolot earlier with a different name, for instance, and even though they repeated the new name many times, people were not getting it. That is a kind of not seeing or being seen, as well as not being heard. That and just a kind of hands-off attitude, perhaps grounded in fear or confusion. And of course that can go both ways. Is the onus more on us? No doubt.

i have to say that i sometimes find some of what we’re talking about here, even though i know it’s so crucial, to be really chal-lenging at times. For me the hardest part of the service is having to get up and say “hello” to people, especially if i don’t know them. i don’t know why. i can be very gregarious. But there‘s a kind of ef-fort involved. i work on my own all day. some people who in their professional lives interact with a lot of people have internalized a repertoire and can just turn it on.

But it doesn’t matter what you say. It’s that you say it. That’s all. It matters that I look into your eyes and see your face and recognize you as another human being. That’s really what matters. And that’s true whether the color of your skin is different that mine, or your outward appearance is different than mine, or your outward appear-ance is different than it used to be.

that’s the Kesher moment.

I think it’s a way of understanding the Shema. Adonai is One. We’re all in this together. ■

RABBI continued from page 4

JUSTICE continued from page 6 CThe CAP model

requires its

member

congregations

to work on a

local issue that

affects them

c

V O I C E S 1 1

For weeks I’ve been trying to frame “something about sacred community” for Voices. And now there’s this prayer. It just came.

There was a little room in my life, space that came with a departing source of anxi-ety, and the prayer emerged. Some of the words are borrowed; the rest came from the Place where things wait for writers to discover them. It draws heavily on Ron Wolfson’s book Spirituality of Welcoming, part of the Synagogue 2000 project (www.Synagogue3000.org).

This prayer needs a context, because I really want you to “get it.” To me it feels like the heart of everything that Kesher is about. The prayer has not been approved (or disapproved) by our Kesher group. I write by committee all the time, but this is too deeply felt for that. But I think the group would ap-prove of the general spirit. And what Kesher is about is what has always been important to me about Kolot Chayeinu, even when we weren’t talking about it.

This is a prayer “to” and a prayer “about.” I want you to understand something of what “Kolot-as-a-sacred-community” would look like. I hope that you will feel the excitement and importance of it. I would like you to be-gin to think about the values that are missing from Kolot’s excellent values statement, not because they were rejected but because they simply never came up.

Above all, I want you to join me in this prayer. If not now, then someday. Soon.

A Prayer, in ContextBy Jude Jussim

SEPTEMBER

� Sat 10:00 pm Selichot PSJC 1� Wed 8:00 pm Erev Rosh HaShanah MT 1� Thu 10:00 am Rosh HaShanah I MT 1:30 pm Family Services MT 1� Fri 10:00 am Rosh HaShanah II CG/PP 15 Sat 10:00 am Shabbat Shuvah CG �1 Fri 8:00 pm Kol Nidre MT �� Sat 10:00 am yom Kippur MT 1:30 pm Adult Learning MT 1:30 pm Family Services MT 3:30 pm Afternoon Services MT 7:30 pm Break-fast MT �6 Wed 5:30 pm Erev Sukkot Celebration CG �� Sat 10:00 am Shabbat Hol HaMoed CG 2:00 pm Open House CG

OCTOBER

� Thu 6:30 pm Simchat Torah CG 1� Fri 6:30 pm Kehilat Romemu CG 1� Fri 6:30 pm Kabbalat Shabbat CG

LOCATIONS (in Park Slope)CG: Church of Gethsemane 1012 Eighth Avenue

(between 10th & 11th Streets)MT: Mission for Today, Sixth Avenue & 2nd StreetPP: Prospect ParkPSJC: Park Slope Jewish Center

Eighth Avenue & 14th StreetTBA: See www.kolotchayeinu.org

Join us for the Days of

Awe and Fall Festivals

5768/2007For more information, visit kolotchayeinu.org

PRAyER FOR OUR SACRED COMMUNITy

adonai, help Kolot chayeinu to become a place of radical acceptance. let us create a culture in which every person who enters our many doors is treated as an image of that Which is Holy.

may our collaborative efforts be enriched by an openness to the completeness of those with whom we collaborate. may we honor each other in our whole-ness—not for our role in the congregation or in the world in which we make a living. may each of us be willing to bring our full self to our community, for each of us is sacred in their wholeness, and shalom (wholeness) builds shalom (peace). But if some are not ready or do not wish to bring their whole selves forward, let us accept and welcome that, as well.

may our meetings hold evidence of our concern for and commitment to each other.

may we become skilled in behaviors that build understanding and acceptance of each other.

may we listen and reflect in silence when others are speaking, realizing that positions opposed to our own are just as arguable as our own beliefs; were it not so, the talmud would not exist.

may we speak our truth, with care, choosing our words so that we do not hurt others.

may we have patient empathy with others, so that our community may grow in understanding.

make us truly a community, adonai, for to be a Jew requires community. in life’s many transitions, may we support each other in ways both spiritual and practical. Help us to remember that community requires that we all participate in caring for each other. let us all be surrounded by the evidence of this care.

and may we all say, amen.

Congregation Kolot Chayeinu1012 Eighth AvenueBrooklyn, N.Y. 11215

718-390-7493www.kolotchayeinu.org

Happy New Year From the Kolot Chayeinu Community