Out of My Jewish Mind

About the Hanukkah festival and the legend of the oil miracle: It seems to me that the teaching we must convey to youngsters and adults regarding the miracle of the oil is that we do not and must not confuse origins with validity, meaning contemporary authenticity. Not if we identify as progressive Jews.

Christmas and Hanukkah (even if the latter was Sukkot delayed) were originally winter solstice, light reawakening, sun-returning, sympathetic magic related commemorations and celebrations. But what Judaism and Christianity did with that reality is what counts. For Christians, the birth of a Savior born into this world to die in atonement for our/original sin. My friends who are Catholic priests and Protestant ministers tell me that has not changed. For Jews, the festival of lights developed into a celebration of religious liberty, interpreted to mean that Jews need not and must not be swallowed up by the majority religion/culture. We should teach that regardless of origins, today we understand the two different festivals of light accordingly.

There are examples without end of the diametric of origins and validity which we should be teaching, from the silly to the sublime: breaking the glass at a wedding originally was intended for frightening away evil spirits. Today we attach another meaning to this entirely. A chag was once a dance. The religions of all the peoples of the world have common astral origins – even recent ones.  Yisrael originally meant “Saturn – Moloch -will protect.” Later it was taken to mean “wrestling with God,” or with “the ultimates.” An adult person is not the same as when a newborn infant and the like. If we begin this lesson with the baby and the adult example, even the little kids get it. After all, we do teach that the transition or development of meaning(s) over time is what progressive Judaism is all about.

Concerning “the problem of the birth of religion and of monotheism in particular,” Velikovsky wrote, “investigation should be made into why and how the Jewish people, who had the same experiences as other peoples and started with an astral-religion like rest of the nations, early cast off astral deities and forbade the worship of images.” (Worlds in Collision).

Date:    Sun, 4 Dec 2011 18:42:01 -0500 From:    Rabbi Reeve Brenner <rebreeven@AOL.COM> Subject: the menora and the magen david: I thought others would like to see this.

Shalom Edwin: When I was a lad my matzeivah macher father, whom I watched chisel and sculpt the various monument symbols, mostly lambs, scrolls, magen davids, menorot, Levy’s pitchers and Kohen hands, told me in my countless Sunday morning 6am treks with him to New York cemeteries that the man protects and shields his family [and other Jews] and the magen david is a shield; the woman lights the menorah to invoke/bring on/usher in shabbat and yom tov – so the quotidian sexist (hmm?) division of labor extends even to the world beyond….Folk explanation to the menorah and magen david usages on monuments but I’d think it rings right.

Reeve Brenner

It should interest your readers to know that: The two Basketball Sports that are universally played were invented by clergy:  a minister and a rabbi.  What gives?  James Naismith brought into being the fast-moving, up-and-down running game we simply call Basketball.  The rabbi did the minister one better.  He reinvented basketball as would a rabbi.  With the sense of justice and fair play.  His invention Bankshot Basketball, some 90 years later, is so rabbinical.  And with Bankshot Basketball, the Rabbi, Reeve Brenner, re-defined the game:  Same goals, same balls – but what he did with the “Bankboards” you can’t imagine.  Bankshot Basketball is, like Naismith’s game, also played around the world from Korea, Kuwait, from Europe and Japan to Israel and a couple of hundred courts in USA cities. 

                What the rabbi did was to eliminate speed, size, strength, stature and gender from the equation.  He did not remove competition.  But you take on the court and yourself not your opponent. There need be no opponent. Players challenge themselves primarily, as in golf and bowling. To play well at Bankshot, you need brains as well as developed skill. At every station there is the challenge of an increasingly difficult trick shot off several boards. Some require flat shots, others rather loopy to make it. You play alongside, not against so no one is left on the sidelines.  That’s the genius of the sport. The disabled and special populations participate together. There is no offense or defense. That’s the key to unlock the rabbi’s purpose. Remember the game horse?  Talk about a variation of a theme.  Bankshot Basketball is a game of pure shooting skill. Trick shooting as in billiards contrasted with pool. In a national tournament, a wheelchair player won first prize. 

Dr. James Naismith was a Protestant minister and a sports nut among his many credentials.  The good rabbi Dr. Reeve Brenner is also multi-credentialed – his serious books are required reading in graduate schools, departments of religion, philosophy and sociology.  He also served until retirement as the Jewish Chaplain at the National Institute of Health.  He too, very into sports and an excellent athlete.   Sports Illustrated, in a story about him, dubbed him the Rabbi of Roundball in a feature article. 

                How did all of this come about?  A Rabbi’s sense of justice and fair play already mentioned may be the right answer.  And an injured cousin suddenly in a wheelchair. Naismith’s idea was athleticism.  The Rabbi’s purpose was inclusion.  Running, jumping and stamina make any sport aggressive and exclusionary.  Sport comes from Sparta -combat.  There is intimidation, plenty of body banging and aggression and even occasional violence. By contrast, at Bankshot you play the course, not each other.  The Rabbi, with Protestant and Catholic clergy friends, also established the National Association for Recreational Equality (NARE).  He calls this association, which educates for inclusion in sports and recreation, his torah because it is a teaching of theory: community inclusion.   The Inclusive sports he invents he calls his mitzvah, the act fulfilling the theory. Its purpose is advocating the non-aggressive mainstreaming of athletes with the non-athletic, including the differently-able.

                It’s also interesting that there exists a basketball museum. There is now a Bankshot Basketball Museum. In fact, several art and science museums have exhibited Bankshot Bankboards as SportsSculpture.  The Boston Children’s Museum has even built a permanent Bankshot Basketball pavilion displaying Rabbi Brenner’s Bankshot Basketball.  The bankboard structures he designed with deference to modern art are identified as SportSculpture. For more you may check out http://bankshot.com and http://nareletsplayfair.com

Jonathan  Miller’s wise posting is on the right track about Shabbat weddings but I feel he does not go far enough as a meikhil.  See my halachic-rooted article Shabbat Weddings, the Pro Side for a Change scheduled for our URJ Journal, Spring 2012. I’d be pleased to send the ms by email.

I show that the reasons against Shabbat weddings are without foundation and a life cycle event such as bar-mitzvah, brit/naming, and weddings are quite “shabbosdik,” that is, quite appropriate for Shabbat (providing the ketubah is not a financial arrangement, although there are exceptions even with that.)  My article also deals with the concepts of minhag, marvin smachot, the ketubah and halachic precedents for Shabbat weddings (even with a traditional ketubah.)

In my article I reference the comment on minhag that really grabs me (and, in truth, has guided me all of my 50 year rabbinate), from Melville’s Moby Dick. I wrote: “In perhaps one of the greatest passages in all of English literature, Herman Melville in Moby Dick reflects on the carcass of a whale to dilate upon entrenched but baseless minhagim: ‘Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mast blowing in the sun, and the light spray heaving high against it; straightaway the whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log – shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There’s orthodoxy! …. Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend?’” I love this paragraph. We should disseminate the passage far and wide.

The reasoning for avoiding Shabbat weddings is without serious halachic justification. I hope you’ll read my article on Shabbat weddings. I believe it will change your mind. As will my book “Jewish, Christian, Chewish or Eschewish: Interfaith Marriage Pathways for the New Millennium” Without cost at reevebrenner.com. The HUC/JIR Cincinnati library has purchased a copy and the book may be read there as well.

One day I’d really like to integrate a 10-15 minute wedding ceremony into Shabbat morning shachrit or musaf services- or appended immediately thereafter (followed by reception-oneg-whatever). I’ve never been asked and don’t expect to be, but I can readily picture, in my mind, how lovely it could be, how Jewish the morning will be experienced by all the guests who’ll be there for services. And the ceremony would be treated much like a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony which, in my experience, always enhances the Shabbat, always instills pride in my regulars, and brings people to the synagogue service who would never otherwise be there and exposed to the beauty of Judaism.

Reeve Robert Brenner

Dear CBC congregants & friends:

I recently sent this draft resolution to my rabbinical colleagues on our social network Rav Kav. It is still very much a draft and as such I’d welcome any input or thoughts that you would have on this subject. I might incorporate these or any comments into a paper or article.  At Congregation Bet Chesed we are well aware that despite our size, our presence is significant in particular concerning issues that are wide ranging and important. For a small group we speak with a resonating voice and we are increasingly getting heard.

This resolution and its implications would undoubtedly be a discussion topic worth some of our time when we get together over the holidays. I look forward to spending some time with you on these and other subjects that mark the pathways deeper into our century and beyond. After all, Rosh Hashanah is a new beginning.

Shana Tova,

Reeve Brenner

Dear Colleagues:

I am working on a resolution with which we might like to go on record. Here is my draft and I would very much like to have some help with it. I’d welcome your reaction and your help to refine the text or address problems and identify the resolution’s shortcomings and what has been overlooked. After all, the issues it seeks to address are important, perhaps profound. [My book on the Ger, Retrojected Identity and Ascending Lineality, entitled, ”Jewish, Christian, Chewish, or Eschewish? Interfaith Marriage Pathways for the New Millennium,”  is without cost at reevebrenner.com]

RESOLUTION ON THE GER TOSHAV

Resolved: That the concept ger toshav – settled sojourner – be re-defined in such a way that the ger is not considered a nochri – gentile- but recognized as a part of, and an extension of, the Jewish people;

that the definition of the settled sojourn shall be understood to mean an unconverted non-Jewish person living in a self-defined Jewish household and is or will be supportive of raising children as Jews;

that the settled sojourner be accorded all privileges including participating in Jewishly self referential prayers and readings if they so choose to affirm their inclusion in this way at a Jewish worship service particularly when called to the Torah for the recitation of the blessings (reciting with others,  “banu” and understood to mean “us”);

that  at a wedding of a ger toshav the formula k’dat moshe v’yisrael be considered by the ger as an affirmation of intent to join or build a Jewish household;  

that requiring conversion as a condition of rabbinical wedding officiation is a form of coercion which cheapens Jewish Identity and should be abandoned.

I suppose it is not surprising for a movement which would have rabbis require a non-Jew to repudiate his/her religious upbringing, identity, siblings’ faith and the rest in order for the rabbi to agree to officiate at a wedding, that the same movement would also expect and advise a convert to repudiate parents by adopting Abraham and Sarah as parents as though their real parents exist no longer. Such an approach helps fill the ranks of the Unitarian Church with the intermarried.   Why not transliterate parents’ names and add, if the convert agrees, as an additional middle name, understood symbolically as spiritual descent, the names Abraham and Sarah? As others have pointed out, it’s their name, their call.    To be considered a spiritual descendant of Abraham and Sarah does not translate into a requirement for a Jew – or non-Jewish parent of Jewish children-to-be [ger toshav/Settled Sojourner] –to relinquish or drop family names and connections by way of a “tradition,” which is often seen by the very ones we seek to embrace, as a requirement understood as essentially turning their backs on their parents regardless of how rabbis understand replacing the names of biological parents for spiritual parents.

Ignosticism

Agreed, it’s good to be conducting God-talk and the distinctions among the theist, atheist, agnostic and ignostic are indeed critical because we can’t discuss God without agreeing as to what the word means. Otherwise, we’re not discussing the same “thing.” When there is agreement it is to what the theist affirms, the atheist denies and the agnostic insists we can never know. The agnostic (Thomas Huxley) simply gives up the quest [not appropriate for our calling; struggle is more appropriate as Yisra informs]. There can be no quest for the agnostic because merosh God is defined as unknowable or more precisely, however we define God, God cannot be known, by definition. The ignostic , by contrast, says, “I do not know what you are talking about when you say god. I’m ignorant of what is meant or what you mean.”

We as practicing rabbis should not see ourselves as agnostic (with an “a”) having given up the quest but all of us, in shul – the bet tefillah – (as opposed to the bet midrash, where such discussions belong) certainly, should see ourselves as ignostics (with an “I”) as I discussed fully in the chapter called “Thinking about Thinking about God” in my book, without cost on line, “Jewish, Christian, Chewish or Eschewish …”

The theist, atheist and even the agnostic have to agree or there is no conversation. Without agreement they talk past each other. It is not this or that understanding of God which we might find convincing. First comes the question what do you mean by God, not where is God or when is God or why. The ignostic’s self-identification might be the best start-up position, that is, the best candidate to initiate a discussion or postpone it for a different venue. The ignostic takes the position of being ignorant of an agreed upon definition or meaning of God and until clarified – perhaps never with any finality -remains an ignostic. At services especially, ignosticism is important. It allows us all to assemble in tefillah. The land of the ignostic, in my view, is where we might all come together at the start.

An agnostic affirms with the certainty of self definition, one of the many forms of tautologies, that God cannot be known. We need not grapple with deciding, for example, whether God is Person or otherwise. God is an unknown and unknowable. Don’t bother. It’s a waste of time.

 The ignostic, virtually all of us, takes the stand that he/she is ignorant. Not for or against whatever God stands for but simply does not know what is meant when others say God. There are no certainties. Followers of Heschel and Kaplan, Borowitz and Reines may come to shul – the bet tefillah -as ignostics. They may think they know what they mean but not what others in shul mean and in shul it hardly matters.

There is no good reason to have to agree with others on theology to come to shul. The ignostic doesn’t know what you mean by God and at services that’s not the place to find out. Let’s teach that to others and provide as we do a wide variety of readings and t’filot which may resonate Jewishly and connect our congregations with our heritage. The purpose of all of this is kiruv, drawing ourselves and others ever deeper into the “Mansion of Jewish Identity” (chapter 1 – Who is a Jew?).

When we talk God talk, we should be ignostics first and admit we do not know what others mean. We hardly are knowledgeable with any finality about what we ourselves mean by God. We might admit to being an ignostic, always searching, finding, losing, knowing the quest is worthy of our attention, our energies and our thought. As a tactic ignosticism proves most suitable for bringing chevra together. God is not by definition unknowable (agnosticism). We simply have not yet arrived at an understanding with any finality-yielding knowledge. The journey surely begins with ignosticism in preference to the other alternatives.  

Before we think about God we should be Thinking About Thinking About God. My chapter by that title is without cost at reevebrenner.com as is the chapter on Judaism, Christianity and Islam – Contrasts! The best 100 page three faith contrast there is and I should know having written it.

I thought I might share this thought with you.
Your ignostic colleague who doesn’t know what you are talking about when you talk about god,

Reeve Brenner

I was called upon some three years ago to offer a prayer at a park in Rockville that had installed a Bankshot court alongside a playground. Bankshot is a sport I invented so they asked me to offer a prayer – about a half an hour before the dedication. So, thinking fast I did the obvious paraphrase of “Grant us peace…” A colleague asked for a prayer at a playground dedication, it wasn’t much of an effort but it was well received…what do they know???

A Prayer at the Playground

Grant us peace and play, o thou eternal source of peace and play and enable us to be the messenger of shalom, peace through play, peace by play and peaceful play to all.

May integration, socialization and inclusion reign within our playgrounds fostering health and fitness for our children of all ages.  May rivalry and competition evolve into gentility and friendships. May we interact with one another on the playgrounds as playmates rather than opponents learning to participate without competition, conflict or contest. And may we be worthy to pursue peaceful play in all our land. May the love of peace and play gain ever deeper hold in all our hearts and in the souls of all who visit our parks. Amen.

Reeve Brenner

MODERATOR: NOW THERE WILL BE A REPORT FROM OUR TWO CORRESPONDANTS – MISTER IPUWER IN EGYPT AND THE BIBLE ITSELF FROM THE BOOK OF EXODUS. READ BY A FORMER HEBREW SLAVE NOW A FREE REPORTER.

M: SAME STORY, TWO POINTS OF VIEW.  ON MY LEFT IS MR IPUWER AND ON MY RIGHT A HEBREW READING FROM THE BIBLE.

M: TELL US ABOUT THE PLAGUES THAT DESTROYED EGYPT.

IPUWER – “THERE WAS A PLAGUE THROUGHOUT THE LAND. BLOOD IS EVERYWHERE. THE RIVER IS BLOOD.”

HEBREW – YOU’RE TELLING ME? THAT’S THE FIRST PLAGUE. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. I GUESS WE AGREE. BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE.

MODERATOR – TELL US ABOUT THE CATTLE.

I – “ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE FIELDS ARE IN PITIFUL CONDITION. THEY ARE LEFT TO STRAY UNATTENDED.”

H – DEAD FISH. DEAD FROGS. LICE AND BUGS SWARMING EVERYWHERE. THAT’S OUR PLAGUE NUMBER FIVE, “THE CATTLE PLAGUE.”

M – WHAT WAS GOING ON? WHAT KIND OF DESTRUCTION WAS THERE?

I – “FLAMING BRIMSTONES. FIRE BRANDS. SULPHUR LIKE HAIL DESCENDING. FROM THE SKIES.”

H – YOU’RE RIGHT. FIRE FRIGHTENS THE CATTLE INTO PANIC. “THE FIRE RUNS ALONG THE GROUND.”  THAT’S THE SEVENTH PLAGUE BARAD.

M – ARE YOU BOTH SAYING THAT FIRE WAS CONSUMING THE LAND? BURNING UP THE PLACE? WAS THAT GOING ON?

I – “FIRE WAS RAGING EVERYWHERE. “

H – YES IT “RAN ALONG THE GROUND.”

I – “CONSUMING THE BUILDINGS.”

H – IT WAS BURNING UNCONTROLLABLY.

M – SO THERE WAS FIRE RAINING FROM ABOVE LIKE METEORITES. IT WAS A CONFLAGRATION.

I – “THE FIELDS OF GRAIN AND BARLEY ARE DESTROYED IN A SINGLE DAY AT ONCE.”

H – YOU’RE RIGHT. AND WE DIDN’T EVEN COUNT THAT PLAGUE AS ONE OF THE TEN. BUT YES, “GRAIN AND BARLEY WERE DESTROYED AT ONCE IN A SINGLE DAY.”  THE BOOK OF EXODUS ALSO SAYS SO. YOU GOT THAT RIGHT. OUR DOCUMENTS AGREE. OUR REPORTS AGREE.

M – I READ YOUR DISPATCH. YOU BOTH MENTION THE TREES. TREES ARE STURDY. THEY DON’T GET UPROOTED EASILY. THEY DON’T GET BLOWN AWAY.

I – THEY WERE UPROOTED LIKE A SNAP OF A TWIG.

H – INTERESTING. THE TREES ARE NOT ONE OF THE PLAGUES OF THE TEN PLAGUES BUT THE PSALMS MAKE A SPECIAL MENTION THAT THE TREES WERE TORN APART. UPROOTED, TORN OUT OF THE GROUND.

M – WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WATER?

I – CONTAMINATED.

H – AND HOW.

I – MY REPORT READS THAT “MEN SHRINK FROM TASTING. HUMAN BEINGS THIRST AFTER WATER.”

H – YES. MY BIBLICAL REPORT READS “THE EGYPTIANS DUG FOR WATER BUT COULD NO LONGER DRINK FROM THE RIVER AND THE RIVER STANK.”  IT WAS A PLAGUE ALRIGHT EVEN IF WE DIDN’T COUNT IT AMONG THE TEN PLAGUES.

M – AND THE HOUSES?

I – AN EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS THE HOUSES “HE WHO PLACES HIS BROTHER IN THE GROUND IS EVERYWHERE.”

H – THE TORAH WROTE IT UP THIS WAY: “THERE WAS NOT A HOUSE WHERE THERE WAS NOT ONE DEAD.” AND EVERYONE SLEPT IN THE OPEN.

I – THAT’S WHAT THEY DO AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE BECAUSE THEY FEAR ANOTHER WILL BRING DOWN THEIR HOUSES ON THEIR HEADS.

H – EXACTLY. THE HOMES WERE NOT SAFE. THE OPEN SPACE WAS THEIR ONLY HOPE TO SURVIVE.

M – DID YOU GET TO SEE ALL OF THIS FIRST HAND?

I – SEE? VISIBILITY? NO WAY! “ALL THE LANDS ARE WITHOUT LIGHT,” I WROTE.

H – IT WAS “A THICK DARKNESS. LIKE THE SHADOW OF DEATH.”

I – A BLACKNESS SO THICK ONE COULD NOT SEE ONE’S NEIGHBOR.

H – WE CALL IT PLAGUE NUMBER NINE. CHOSHECH.

I – “ALL THE LANDS.”

H – I QUOTE EXACTLY. “THERE WAS A THICK DARKNESS IN ALL THE LAND.”

M – WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SLAVES AND THE CAPTIVES AND THE FORCED LABORERS?

I – MUTINY, I WROTE IT THIS WAY “MEN VENTURED TO REBEL AGAINST ROYAL AUTHORITY.”

H – YES. THE ISRAELITES WERE INDEED REVOLTING AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF ENSLAVEMENT BY ROYAL AUTHORITY. YOU BET THERE WAS AN UPRISING. YOU BET ISRAEL ESCAPED. WE CALL IT THE EXODUS. YETZIAT MITZRAYYIM.