On the eve of the Festival of Shavuot, celebrating God’s gift of Torah and our ongoing receiving of Torah, it is fitting to share Rabbi Artson’s words delivered at the most recent ordination celebrated by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism. 21 new rabbis were launched in their new service with a community of 1300 celebrants – family, friends, and community to cheer them on. May these words help you to receive the Torah anew this Shavuot, and throughout the year.
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Thank you, Sandy, for those very generous remarks, and thank you friends for joining with us tonight for this miraculous and wonderful celebration.
I have been told in the past that my thank yous take too long; so you are just warned….. I will strive to be brief.
This rabbinical school is the work of so many wonderful people, that I feel called to use part of this evening to thank some of them. First and foremost, from the bottom of my heart, a deep thanks to Ruth Ziegler.
There are many wonderful lay leaders whose generosity and dedication provide the ability for the Ziegler School and the University to be able to do the good work that it does in the world. I’d like to ask the members of the Ziegler and the University of Judaism board, those who are with us, to rise to be acknowledged.
We are also blessed with a partnership of the diverse arms of the Conservative Movement. I would like to ask the members of the Rabbinical Assembly, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Cantor’s Assembly, and Jewish Educators Assembly also to rise to be acknowledged.
We are a superb school because we are blessed to have in our midst professors and scholars who are learned in Torah, learned in the rigors of academic and spiritual study, and who live what they teach. I would like to ask the members of the Faculty who honor us by their teaching, to rise now.
There is not a day or a week that our school is not graced by the leadership and insight of my dear friend, Rabbi Robert Wexler, President of the University. Many thanks, Bob, beyond words.
There are so many at the University, I can’t possibly thank the entire staff, all of whom put in hours and hours of work and devotion to the institution. But I do want to single out our distinguished President Emeritus, Rabbi David Lieber, our Chief Academic Officer, Mark Bookman, Vice President for Development, Rabbi Jay Strear, and Zofia Yalovsky, the Chief Financial Officer. Without these individuals our School would be a shell.
Last on the professional side, I would like to thank my colleague and partner, Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, who works with me every day, and late, late, late into the evenings, worrying about details of the school that escape my meager mind. But she’s always there to remind us, not only of the details, but how they fit into the larger picture of a life of Torah and the service of God. And for that, and for her rabbinate, I thank her.
We are so proud of the work of our alumnae/i; those who have been graduates of the full Ziegler program, and those who have been part of our previous two-year program. I would like to ask any of the alumni who are with us this evening to please rise to be recognized.
And then finally, to those of you who have shared this wonderful class of Ordinands – to the parents and the grandparents, the aunts and the uncles and the cousins by the dozen, and the spouses and close friends, our deepest thanks. Please rise and let us thank you.
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I am reading a striking book called Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism. It is written by a remarkable man, Kamram Nazeer, who was born of Pakistani parents, and who was raised in New York City, and now lives in London. Labeled with autism, he went to one of the very earliest programs that attempted to provide an appropriate education for special needs children. Many years later, as an adult, he decided that he would visit some of his former classmates to see what had become of them, and how they had adapted to life. The first former classmate has adapted to the challenge of being able to participate in conversation by speaking through the use of puppets. The man has created a variety of diverse puppets, and when he has specific things to say he utilizes a different puppet. His rules are that it is the puppet speaking, not him, and you have to address to the puppet, not him. And in this book, perhaps because for autistic individuals conversation is not something one can just assume, but is a skill requiring deep and persistent work, he spent several pages thinking about what it means to be in conversation. I want to share with you some of his insights because my charge to you is that the work that we Jews do is the work of participating in, and maintaining, an ancient and vibrant conversation — with the Holy One, with the generations, with creation.
Nazeer observes, first of all, that conversation is a form of performance. Conversations cannot flourish when one party sets out to win or when one party intends to destroy the other participant. To enter into conversation means to invite the other person to join with you. As with the Earth Games that we used to share in the ‘70s, once someone wins the game is over. Similarly, a conversation can only continue when everyone is participating, when everyone is engaged.
Nazeer noticed that conversations are not about conclusions. Most of the conversations that he overheard between typical people never had a real conclusion; they just moved from subject to subject, dancing around. I read that description, and I said, ‘How like the Talmud!’ The Talmud contains approximately 5,000 conversations/makhlokot, of which about 50 are concluded because the action is not in the answer; the action is in the exchange, in the questioning, in the probing, in the exploration. In understanding why someone might see a matter differently than the way we see it, we come to explore why we understand that different perspective, but nonetheless continue to perceive it the way we do. Shlomo ibn Gabirol, in his beautiful work Mivhar Ha-Pnimim, writes, “Wisdom about which there is no discussion is like a hidden treasure from which nothing is extracted.” Wisdom is made visible by sharing it with others; by bringing it to the light of day and then by batting it around. It is through conversing with others that we bring wisdom into the world; that it becomes something we can then own and with which we can live.
Nazeer reflects that conversations are not linear. He writes: “However, though conversation may well bring out matters of this sort, it shouldn’t be directed at a conclusion, and it shouldn’t, too formally, be about ‘something’. It should circle, it should break up, it should recommence at an entirely different point. Those of you about to be ordained know that this is certainly an accurate description of Jewish sacred literature. Our sacred writings routinely circle around, suddenly break up, begin yet again when we least expect it. What that means, in part, is — because we never know when a topic will reappear, we never know when a subject will begin yet again — we need to attend at each stage of the conversation. At any moment someone may be about to reveal something you need; someone may introduce a subject of vital importance in the middle of an apparently unrelated topic. We need to stay focused throughout the entire conversation. The Talmud notes, “Even the secular conversations of the Sages require study.” Precisely because there is deep insight clothed in the conversation even of the trivial, precisely because we don’t have access to an objective place to stand, we can only know through our own knowing; we can only converse from where we are. “A judge has nothing to see with save his own eyes.”
Perhaps most important of all, conversation must be fun. You have to relish the opportunity to bring something into the world, or to bring something out of your fellow human being. In that exchange, there is deep joy: The invitation to connect to each other, the invitation to connect to our heritage, the invitation to connect to God. “When two persons meet and exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah hovers over them (Avot).”
In the course of inviting people into the conversation, of bringing yourself to the conversation and or of helping conversations happen, the process can only be fun if you treat your conversing partner with full respect and with unfeigned affection. There must be civility in our conversations with each other; else, again, they will shut down. There is a tradition that in the Messianic future, we will paskin, we will rule, not according to the Bavli, the Babylonian Talmud, but according to the Yerushalmi. Why is that? In Massekhet Sanhedrin we are taught, “The word gracious is applied to the Sages of the Land of Israel because they are always gracious to one another in their discussions of Halakhah, their discussions of Jewish Law.” It’s not that the sages of Israel are smarter than those of Bavel; it is not necessarily that they have arrived at a greater truth. But their graciousness to each other makes them fitting role models for us in the Messianic times yet to come.
And that insight leads me then to my last point. Conversations are almost never about the truth. Truth pertains to very finite and concrete matters: How much money do you or do you not have in your checking account? Did you or did you not eat your healthy food prior to dessert? There are tangible, empirical facts that are subject to judgments of true and false. But most of the areas in which we work – building community, healing hearts, saving souls, loving our brothers and sisters – these matters are neither true nor false. They are enriching, they are meaningful, they are empowering, and they are healing.
The Sefer ha-Hinnukh, speaking about the Hakhel, the Biblically-ordained periodic gathering of the entire Jewish people, says,
It will soon come to pass that among the men, women, and children, some will raise the question, “why are we gathered here, all together in this huge assembly”? And the reply will be “To listen to the words of the Torah which are the essence of our existence, our glory and our pride.” The ensuing discussion will lead to an appreciation of our Torah, its greatness and supreme value, which in turn will arouse great longing for it. With this attitude they will study and attain a more intimate knowledge of God. Thus, they will merit the good life, and God will rejoice in their works.
Conversation is not used to verify information. Conversation is used to build community. Conversation establishes the capacity to understand a viewpoint not our own, and to be able to then see the humanity of those who walk in the world differently than we do.
I love the fact that in a room full of mourners, what is required, says the Talmud, is not accurate information, but shared discussion.
Our rabbis taught: “When the temple was destroyed for the second time, large numbers in Israel became aesthetics, binding themselves neither to eat meat, nor to drink wine. Rabbi Joshua entered into conversation with them, and said to them: “My children, why do you not eat meat nor drink wine?” He said to them: “Children come and listen to me. Not to mourn at all is impossible because the blow has fallen. To mourn overmuch is also impossible, because we do not impose upon the community a hardship which the majority cannot endure.” … Therefore, the Sages have ruled: “You may stucco your house, but you should leave a corner bare.
Rabbi Joshua does not prove his point; he enters into relationship. He invites the others to step with him into another way of understanding the world and how to live in it.
My dear students, we are standing on the threshold of your Ordination as rabbis, and in a few moments you will be empowered to invite others into conversation. Such a power has the capacity to transform the world. The contemporary philosopher Jürgen Habermas, affirms what I believe is an ancient and Jewish insight when he notes:
In his capacity as a participant in argumentation, everyone is on his own and yet embedded in a communication context. This is what it means to have an ideal community of communication: The individual’s inalienable right to say yes or no and his overcoming of his egocentric viewpoint.
The right to say yes or no, and the ability to transcend ones own limited viewpoint, this is the basis upon which we build relationship, establish community, and live in Covenant. This is what it means to expand our vision, to see the views of another, to see through the eyes of the Holy One.
My brothers and sisters, my students and colleagues, God created the world through conversation, calling the world into being. God reached out yet again to our father Abraham and invited him to a conversation. God revealed before the entire Jewish People, at the height of Mount Sinai, and called all of us to a conversation that yet abides; a conversation that involves the give and the take of mattan Torah and kabbalat Torah. And our predecessors – the Sages of Israel and its prophets, its mystics, and its monarchies – they have harvested ever new Torah through an ongoing conversation, a respectful yet vigorous exchange of ideas.
Now we too, are given the holy privilege of joining that conversation, of adding our voices to those words and of inviting our people – some now waiting on the margins, some now excluded, some now binding their wounds, inviting them all to reclaim their birthright, to rejoin the ancient, sacred conversation that is Torah.
My blessing to you, my students, is that you should always be worthy participants in this conversation, so that you hold at one and the same time in conversation, the Sages, and the prophets who have come before you, and you hold in your heart and your mind, those with whom you speak and teach, and those yet to come. I bless you that your conversation should be a vessel for God’s love and God’s light to enter the world; that in your speech and in your deeds, you should invite others to walk on that path of righteousness that has guided us across the millennia.
And let us all say, Amen.
Shabbat shalom.