Parashat Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9)
August 31, 2011 

Reflections on the Torah Portion – Rabbi Andy Vogel

Crowds of over 300,000 Israelis have taken to the streets in recent weeks in protests about social issues.  In the days ahead this week (usually, these protests are scheduled to convene Saturday evenings as Shabbat ends), an estimated one million Israelis are expected to gather once more to continue these protests.  During the last week my family and I were in Israel in late June, the movement began, first as an outcry against the price of cottage cheese, of all things, but then developed and grew into protests against the costs of basic needs for all Israelis: food, housing, health care, child-care and education, and large “tent cities” sprung up on the medians of Tel Aviv’s major city streets, a characteristic which caught on in other cities as well. 

    The rallying cry of the organizers has used words that echo this week’s Torah portion: tzedek chevrati, in Hebrew, or “social justice.”  (This could also be translated as “justice across society.”)  Parashat Shoftim, our week’s Torah portion, begins using very similar words, saying, “Justice, justice shall your pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land” (Deut. 16:20), originally meant as an exhortation to judges to judge fairly, but extended in its meaning over the centuries as an obligation for Jews to work to create true justice, throughout society – justice in economic terms, distributive justice, as well as retributive justice.  Israel today struggles with inequalities much like other Western capitalist economies, and this summer’s protesters have adopted phrases drawn from the Torah and from Jewish tradition to express their yearning to address the large economic gaps within society.  That Jewish values and teachings can inform Israelis working to correct Israeli society’s flaws reminds us of the power of the Torah, that perhaps its idealism is not naive, but that it can touch our lives and build a better world.

-           Rabbi Andy Vogel

To read more, click to this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/world/middleeast/06israel.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=israel%20social%20justice&st=cse 

Or this article from the JTA: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/08/3088900/reform-backs-israeli-protests 

Handwriting on the Wall
August 24, 2011

Construction on the separation barrier in Al-Walaje

A minor headline in today’s newspaper is especially troubling to me as I write this morning (Aug. 24, 2011).  The Palestinian village of Al-Walajeh, just southwest of Bethlehem on the border of Jerusalem, had appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court to have the route of the concrete separation barrier moved, on grounds that the wall would completely encircle and smother the village, and yesterday, Israel’s highest court rejected their appeal.  I visited Al-Walajeh during my recent sabbatical in Israel, and met with Sheerin Alaraj, a passionate and articulate Palestinian woman who serves on Al-Walajeh’s local town council, who described their efforts to win approval of the courts in Israel, and gave me a tour of the village.  First stop on the tour was the house of Sheerin and her family, which overlooks a beautiful valley and the Judean hills beyond.  But because there is an Israeli access road to a nearby West Bank Jewish settlement, the administration plans to construct large cement barrier just a few short meters from her home, blocking her view and her access to the valley and lands.  When I encountered Sheerin, her anger and frustration were clear, and yet, I also heard in her story a glimmer of hope that Israel could deal justly with their village.  Today, the newspapers report that the village’s appeals have been rejected, and so Sheerin’s is just one of the many painful stories to be told in this village.

Town councilwoman Sheerin Alaraj

Panoramic view of the house of Ms. Alaraj, which will be blocked by a concrete wall

     In other cases, Israel’s Supreme Court has bravely changed the route of the wall-barrier on humanitarian grounds.  The Israeli authorities have, occasionally, responded compassionately to appeals, and moved the route of barrier (which in some places is a concrete wall, and in others a network of electronic fences).  One such celebrated case was featured in the documentary film, “Budrus,” which shows how Palestinians used non-violent community organizing to win over the Israeli public and the courts.  There is little question in most Israelis’ minds that the barrier has proven effective in reducing terrorist attacks inside Israel.  But some Palestinians that I met held deep convictions that Israel was using the barrier to expropriate lands and effectively change the actual border in certain key spots.  I have the feeling that each case is different, depending on the local situation and geography.  Either way, the entire situation is deeply painful: painful to see Palestinians suffering and growing angrier with the construction of each kilometer, painful to hear Israel accused of using these tactics (founded or unfounded), painful to see the destruction of land and environment by this ugly wall, and especially painful that two peoples trust each other so little and that the conflict deepens and intensifies with each day’s newspaper stories.    

-       Rabbi Andy Vogel

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/arab-villagers-lose-court-battle-against-jerusalem-fence-route-1.380325
see also:  
http://www.justvision.org/budrus
 

A New Trend among Secular Israelis

The common wisdom about Israeli Jews is that there are two kinds:  secular and religious.  If you’re a secular Israeli Jew, this line of thinking goes, you live in Tel Aviv, and have little connection to Jewish tradition:  Yom Kippur for secular Israelis means a day spent at the beach; Shabbat might include a family dinner, but singing blessings isn’t a part of it; when secular Israelis study the Bible in school-children, they primarily study the books telling about Joshua’s conquest of the land.  Religion among Israeli Jews, on the other hand, is usually stereotyped as Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox, isolated from modern society and rigidly halakhic (adhering to Jewish law).

     I discovered that some of these stereotypes are cracking in Israel today.  During my sabbatical, I experienced a number of very interesting spiritual communities and met their leaders who might describe themselves as religious, but also as secular – perhaps as somewhere in between these two poles.  Dozens of prayer communities have been formed to celebrate Shabbat evening, which do so in a creative, spiritually-attuned non-Orthodox way.  (This is beyond what the Israeli Reform movement has already created.)  One community, called Niggun HaLev (“melody of the heart”), meets in the social hall room at a secular moshav of Nahalal and 

Israeli musician Etti Ankri now sings about Jewish religious themes

uses instruments for beautiful music for Shabbat evening prayers each week; many of those in attendance would otherwise call themselves secular, but they are regular attendees at Kabbalat Shabbat services each Friday.  At least forty communities similar to this one have formed over the past decade.  One community, Beit Tefilah Yisraeli, meets on the Tel Aviv beach each Friday night for Shabbat services, and draws hundreds of people each week.

Tel Aviv's "Beit Tefilah Yisraeli": Shabbat services on the beach

      Another example:  I attended a dedication party / concert for a new Hebrew book of secular poems on prayer (!), called Kirvat Makom; in between readings of the poems, a major Israeli musician, formerly secular, named Etti Ankri came to the stage to perform her songs of the prayer-poetry of Spanish Jewish poet Yehuda HaLevi (12^th century).  I became friendly with a rabbi, formerly ultra-Orthodox, who now leads a creative Jewish renewal community on a moshav near Haifa, at Beit Oren, focusing on meditation and the human attribute of love and caring, whose Ark is in the shape of a teepee.  All throughout Israel, there is renewed interest in the spiritual teachings of Judaism, as they might apply to modern life for secular Israelis, and this phenomenon has been documented by Israeli scholar Yair Sheleg.  Perhaps soon these two dichotomous two terms, secular and religious, might one day be replaced with a new conceptual norm that will describe most Israelis: “incorporating Jewish tradition and spirituality into our daily lives.”

-       Rabbi Andy Vogel

Watch this YouTube clip of musicians from "Nava Tehilla" (a Jerusalem alternative synagogue) singing "L'cha Dodi": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhPLDLAMQLg&feature=related

Listen to this YouTube clip of "Niggun HaLev" community, on the Nahalal moshav, singing words from Psalm  98:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVO4KDDDDXI
Watch singer Etti Ankri sing her version of  Yehudah HaLevi's poem "B'chol Libi": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK8d9gmap8M

Environmentalism at Kibbutz Lotan  (a Reform kibbutz)

 
When a small group of Israeli and American Reform Jews, most of whom were in their 20s, founded Kibbutz Lotan deep in the southern Arava desert of Israel in the mid-1980s, I’m sure that none of them imagined how innovative the kibbutz would become today.  Lotan was started some twenty-five years ago as an idealistic community dedicated to communal living, egalitarianism, the spirit of Zionism and settling the Land of Israel, and also creative and vibrant Reform Judaism.  Among its founders were guitar-playing American Jews who grew up in NFTY (the Reform youth movement) and gone to Reform Jewish summer camps, and then made the decision to join with Israelis and make aliyah to live in Israel.  Renewing Progressive Judaism in Israel was as important to the kibbutz members as growing dates and milking cows.  But no one could have predicted that their commitment to Reform Jewish values would lead them to develop Lotan into a center for cutting-edge environmental living, studies and training.

   .  My family and I visited Kibbutz Lotan in April, just before the intense heat begins (it can easily reach 120 degrees once summer arrives this far south in Israel, about a 30-minute drive from Eilat).  I had lived on Lotan twenty years ago, and still have many friends on the kibbutz.  We were amazed at the tour a young kibbutz member gave us – we learned how Lotan focuses today on “earthcare,” an ethical way of living by caring for the planet, and interprets from the Biblical verse that instructs humans “to till and tend the earth” the concept of a “permaculture” (permanent agriculture) that is sustainable in every way possible.  To build its permaculture, the kibbutz builds all its new buildings from all-natural and alternative materials, and has built an entire “eco-campus” on its grounds.  It has developed advanced ways of composting and recycling for growing food.  Through its composting and recycling efforts, the kibbutz has reduced its overall waste disposal by 70% each year.  And the kibbutz has built a training program, “Green Apprenticeships,” that provide college credit in environmental studies, teaching a new generation about local food production, ecological design, renewable energy and sustainable technologies.  In this new phase of its growth, the members of Kibbutz Lotan are keeping alive their idealism, and they continue to make Reform Judaism thrive through caring for our world.

That's me on Kibbutz Lotan: 1992 & 2011

To read more about Kibbutz Lotan, click to http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1529