"We are not enemies, but friends." A prayer for the Iowa Senate.

Prayer for Iowa State Senate – Presidents’ Birthday Week

February 16, 2017

It is an honor to be with you all this morning, to speak in this august chamber and among so many friends, members of both political parties, whom I know to care deeply about their constituents and about the present and future well-being of the State of Iowa.

O God, today, we find ourselves often defined by our differences and those things that divide us, sometimes with a heated passion, [As exemplified by the ongoing debate in this very chamber.] May we recall during this Presidents’ Day week, the words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his First Inaugural Address, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”

O God, may partisan division pale in our minds and hearts in the face of the need to address the needs of the people of our state, especially the urgent needs of those who are suffering and vulnerable. As our tradition teaches us, when we consider how to solve problems that go well beyond our personal ability to resolve, “It is not up to each of us individually to complete the task, but neither can we avoid doing the work.” Let none suffer because we did not do what we could do to help.

Too often, today, we are divided by identities and focused on our differences. Many see the world as “us” vs. “them” and anxiety increases. In this context, let us recall the words of reassurance offered by George Washington in response to an inquiry by the Jewish President of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island wondering how his minority community would be treated by the new government:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

May all work for the betterment of our communities, our state, and our nation together.

God, I ask you today to bless the members of the Iowa Senate, to bless the people of our state, and of our nation.

Scatter light and not darkness upon us, grant us the wisdom to see the best paths forward and the courage to take them. Then will blessings flow forth from us and we will make our world a better place for all of your children; a place of prosperity, happiness, and Shalom, of peace and well-being. 

And let us say, Amen.

Jubilees and Separation of Church and State

Jubilees and Separation of Church and State

May 9, 2014

Rabbi David Kaufman

This week’s Torah portion, Behar, is almost ideally suited to the Supreme Court’s decision this week concerning prayer at City Council meetings in Greece, New York. I do not say this simply because Leviticus Chapter 25 contains the words:

You shall observe My laws and faithfully keep My rules, that you may live upon the land in security.

These words, if applied to adherence to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights instead of religious doctrine, are the essential mission of the United States Supreme Court. No, instead I refer to the primary topic of this Torah portion, the Jubilee Year and what the Jubilee Year was all about. First, however, let me discuss the Supreme Court decision and its implications and then I will connect it to Jubilees.

Over the years, I have been and continue to become involved in advocacy for the separation of church and state. Reform Jews are particularly strong in their advocacy in that direction and many have expressed concerns about the recent US Supreme Court decision regarding prayers offered at city council meetings in Greece, New York. Such prayers have regularly involved the use of language specific to Christianity and often clearly appear to urge listeners to adhere to Christian beliefs. In fact, one would have to go out of his or her way to deny that Christianity is in fact the established religion of Greece, New York because all such prayers are given by Christians.

As I understand it, a solution was proposed in which it was argued that prayers could be offered as long as they did not advocate for a specific religion or that clergy of other faiths could be brought into Greece from other locales in order to provide diversity. The city challenged this argument which had been upheld by a lower court as a means to counter the de facto establishment of religion and the case went to the Supreme Court which decided in favor of Greece, NY, sending shock waves through the Separation of Church and State advocacy community.

In recent years, the discussion of Separation of Church and State has primarily focused on removing religious influence on state based functions. Essentially, such efforts have promoted the concept of a secular government, a government devoid of religious based action and bias. "Freedom from Religion" has been at the basis of this movement which argues that the basis of the anti-Establishment clause of the US Constitution mandates that view.

It would make sense based on this understanding to ban all official prayers in the context of governmental activities such as city council meetings or proceedings of state or federal legislatures for example. One must question whether or not prayer can ever be devoid of advocacy for a particular kind of faith if not for a particular faith. To argue that generic theistic prayers are acceptable but prayers that are specifically Christian are not would certainly raise concern about the violation of the free exercise clause at a minimum and potentially also the right of Free Speech.

The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 

Politically, Progressives tend to stress the importance of the anti-Establishment clause, whereas Conservatives tend to stress the importance of the Free Exercise clause. Our Supreme Court currently leans 5-4 Conservative and that almost by itself explains the decision handed down this week, though I will explain in more detail. There are many cases where the two clauses conflict and the case of Greece, New York is certainly one of them.

To over simplify the situation, what happens in Greece, New York regularly appears to violate the establishment clause with regular clearly Christian prayers being offered, while not violating the free exercise clause because every minister chooses his or her own wording for the prayer offered. Whereas the solution proposed by those opposing the City Council's practice would appear to adhere to the anti-establishment directive, preventing a situation in which only Christianity is represented or would violate the free exercise clause by mandating the absence of faith specific language.

In this specific case, the practice of offering a prayer at all was never questioned. The Greece, New York case did not address whether or not such prayers should ever take place, the question before the court was based on the proposed solution and seems to have been about how one may pray rather than being about whether or not one may pray in that context.

To put this general argument into the context of Separation of Church and State specifically, two concerns arise:

1.                 Should there be prayer at state functions? This action clearly violates "separation", but does not necessarily violate "anti-establishment," unless no diversity is present in which case it would appear to do so.

2.                 Should there be restrictions imposed on the religious content of prayers offered? Doing so would appear to violate the Free Exercise clause.

Here's a direct quote from Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Greece, NY case:

To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures sponsoring prayers and the courts deciding these cases to act as supervisors and sensors of religious speech, thus involving government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town's current practice of neither editing nor approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact.

This is in accord with the Free Exercise clause, i.e. keeping state out of religion. Telling a minister that he cannot represent his tradition would in fact be state interference in religion and, I would add, which Kennedy does not, in the context of both mandating prayers and requiring basic God language, could functionally in so doing establish Deism as the state religion which would be a violation of the anti-Establishment clause as well.

As I see it, the question for advocates of Separation of Church and State is truly focused on whether or not such prayers should take place at all with the clear understanding that the context of such prayers being offered overwhelmingly or even exclusively by Christian clergy will necessarily promote the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the government.

The fact that it is not within the court's purview to require the council to bring residents of other cities to offer prayers so as to provide diversity and avoid de facto establishment of Christianity as the faith of the city and that the court rightly defends the free exercise of religion does not excuse the fact that without diversity, the existence of prayers of similar nature from a single faith establishes that faith as the government's religion. In other words, the court cannot demand diversity or determine the content of prayers, but neither can it allow the establishment of a government backed religion which is the case in Greece, New York.

This case was about how prayers were offered. It was a Free Exercise case, even though many observers put it in the context of Establishment. The next case will argue that without accommodation for diversity, the allowance for prayer in this type of context is de facto establishment. My belief as both an advocate for the Separation of Church and State and for the Free Exercise of religion, is that in order to follow the US Constitution's directive, a city council will have to either provide diversity, something that the courts cannot and honestly should not mandate that it do, or not hold such prayers at all as such prayers offered without religious diversity necessarily results in establishment, something that the court could in fact demand based upon the anti-Establishment clause.

So how does this all connect to the Jubliee Year? The Jubilee Year was in theory a time of restoration. Land that had been sold would be returned to its original owner, debts would be forgiven, slaves simply declared free. The text tells us, “The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me,” and “For it is to Me that the Israelites are servants; they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt.”

The Jubilee Year is about the understanding that things change over the years, that what should be, often is not. It is unquestionably true that it has become traditional for the primary prohibition of the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution to be given lip service while being egregiously violated. There is no doubt that it has been the custom in many places in America for Christian prayers, regularly with a limited range of types of Christianity represented, to be offered at events and meetings held by institutions which in theory should be subject to the both the liberties and their restrictions enunciated in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The argument that custom and tradition makes law is certainly one found within the Jewish tradition. The rabbis of old treated established customs as if they were dictated by Moses at Sinai. But that is precisely where Jubilees comes into play.

The Jubilee Year is about warning us that what should be is not what is, that what has developed over the decades is not necessarily the way things should be, that customs that have developed over time, particularly in regard to the treatment of those with less power by those with more power, should not be allowed to violate the laws upon which they were based.

Sabbatical years, the seventh year, and the Jubilee year, the 50^th year, may have been part of adjusting the calendar to bring the 364 day solar calendar into line with the reality of the cycling of days and seasons. There is no historical evidence that the Israelites ever put the rules of the Jubilee year into practice, e.g. that slaves went free or that land was returned. We have no evidence of that.

What we do know is that the idea that original intent matters in our tradition and that the Torah, unlike later rabbinical tradition, maintained the concept that customs that have developed over time should not be allowed to defeat or obfuscate the original intent of the laws upon which they were based. How much more directly could a Torah portion be in regard to this week’s Torah portion in which Justice Kennedy, offering the majority opinion, quoted an earlier case, Marsh vs. Chambers saying, “the Establishment Clause must be interpreted ‘by references to historical practices and understandings’.” This is, of course, similar to the fact that the concept of “people” in the Constitution not all that long ago did not necessarily include those who by many were deemed less than people, slaves.

No, it is not reasonable to argue that “historical practices and understandings” or customs and traditions have a veto.

All this said, if you wonder whether or not the framers of the US Constitution understood the meaning of the Jubilee year or that it had importance to them, this much is beyond dispute, the words of Leviticus 25:10, from this very Torah portion, are etched on the Liberty Bell:

Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

The words that immediately follow them, “It shall be a Jubilee for you.”

Shabbat Shalom.

Prayer, the Supreme Court, and Separation

Over the years, I have been and continue to become involved in advocacy for the separation of church and state. Reform Jews are particularly strong in their advocacy in that direction and many have expressed concerns about the recent US Supreme Court decision regarding prayers offered at city council meetings in Greece, New York. Such prayers have regularly involved the use of language specific to Christianity and often clearly appear to urge listeners to adhere to Christian beliefs. In fact, one would have to go out of his or her way to deny that Christianity is in fact the established religion of Greece, New York because all such prayers are given by Christians.

As I understand it, a solution was proposed in which it was argued that prayers could be offered as long as they did not advocate for a specific religion or that clergy of other faiths could be brought into Greece from other locales in order to provide diversity. The city challenged this argument which had been upheld by a lower court as a means to counter the de facto establishment of religion and the case went to the Supreme Court which decided in favor of Greece, NY, sending shock waves through the Separation of Church and State advocacy community.

In recent years, the discussion of Separation of Church and State has primarily focused on removing religious influence on state based functions. Essentially, such efforts have promoted the concept of a secular government, a government devoid of religious based action and bias. "Freedom from Religion" has been at the basis of this movement which argues that the basis of the anti-Establishment clause of the US Constitution mandates that view.

It would make sense based on this understanding to ban all official prayers in the context of governmental activities such as city council meetings or proceedings of state or federal legislatures for example. One must question whether or not prayer can ever be devoid of advocacy for a particular kind of faith if not for a particular faith. To argue that generic theistic prayers are acceptable but prayers that are specifically Christian are not would certainly raise concern about the violation of the free exercise clause at a minimum and potentially also the right of Free Speech.

The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 

Politically, Progressives tend to stress the importance of the anti-Establishment clause, whereas Conservatives tend to stress the importance of the Free Exercise clause. Our Supreme Court currently leans 5-4 Conservative and that almost by itself explains the decision handed down this week, though I will explain in more detail. There are many cases where the two clauses conflict and the case of Greece, New York is certainly one of them.

What happens in Greece, New York regularly appears to violate the establishment clause while not violating the free exercise clause, whereas the solution proposed by those opposing the City Council's practice would appear to adhere to the anti-establishment directive, but would violate the free exercise clause. In other words, in this specific case, which does not address whether or not such prayers should ever take place, the question, based on the proposed solution, seems to have been about how one may pray rather than being about whether or not one may pray in that context. The practice of offering a prayer at all was never questioned.

To put this argument into the context of Separation of Church and State specifically, two concerns arise:

1. Should there be prayer at state functions? This action clearly violates "separation", but does not necessarily violate "anti-establishment," unless no diversity is present in which case it likely does.
2. Should there be restrictions imposed on the religious content of prayers offered? Doing so would appear to violate the Free Exercise clause.

 Here's a direct quote from Justice Kennedy's opinion in the Greece, NY case:

To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures sponsoring prayers and the courts deciding these cases to act as supervisors and sensors of religious speech, thus involving government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town's current practice of neither editing nor approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact.

This is in accord with the Free Exercise clause, ie keeping state out of religion. Telling a minister that he cannot represent his tradition would in fact be state interference in religion and, I would add, which Kennedy does not, in the context of both mandating prayers and requiring basic God language, could functionally establish Deism as the state religion which would be a violation of the anti-Establishment clause as well.

As I see it, the question for advocates of Separation of Church and State is truly focused on whether or not such prayers should take place at all with the clear understanding that the context of such prayers being offered overwhelmingly or even exclusively by Christian clergy will promote the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the government.

The fact that it is not within the court's purview to require the council to bring residents of other cities to offer prayers so as to provide diversity and avoid de facto establishment of Christianity as the faith of the city and that the court rightly defends the free exercise of religion does not excuse the fact that without diversity the existence of prayers of similar nature from a single faith establishes that faith as the government's religion. In other words, the court cannot demand diversity or determine the content of prayers, but neither can it allow the establishment of a government backed religion which is the case in Greece, New York.

This case was about how prayers were offered. It was a free exercise case. The next one will argue that without accommodation for diversity, the allowance for prayer in this type of context is de facto establishment. In order to follow the US Constitution's directive, a city council will have to either provide diversity or not have such prayers as the latter without the former necessarily results in establishment.

Prayers of the Heart – Kol Nidrei 5772-2011

This summer, the educational curriculum at Goldman Union Camp focused on prayer. In the first educational program of the session for the older students, the students were asked the following question. “Why do you pray?” And given four possible answers, hoping to elicit from them discussions including other possible answers—and there are many. So to the question, “Why do you pray?” The students were offered the following four answers:

-Because it makes me feel closer to the people I am with.

-Because it makes me feel closer to God.

-Because I feel obligated as a Jew.

-Because it is tradition.

The kids had to choose the one of these four with which they most agreed and then go on to discuss it. Think about your answer for a moment. With these four choices, which would you choose? What questions and concerns would you have about the choice itself? I will repeat the question and answers.

Why do you pray?

And here are your options:

-Because it makes me feel closer to the people I am with.

-Because it makes me feel closer to God.

-Because I feel obligated as a Jew.

-Because it is tradition.

Right off the bat, it was clear that this was going to be a challenge. First, many of the students told us that they prayed because they were told to do so by people in authority, their parents, their rabbi, their camp counselors, etc… None of the choices fit that response, so this group of students had to consider why they would pray IF they had a choice.

Another large group of kids considered themselves to be agnostics or atheists and wanted to choose, “I do not pray” as a response to the question, “Why do you pray?” The absence of this option ended up creating a substantial amount of discussion among the kids, some on the point, “Do you have to believe in God to pray?” The answer, which may be surprising to some, is “no” and for a number of reasons, some of which I will discuss in the next few minutes.

One of the most important things that became clear to the kids in discussing prayer this Summer is that the concept of prayer as simply saying traditional blessings or offering some sort of plea to a greater being is not inclusive of many forms of prayer, nor of many of the most important reasons to pray. Many of the kids who believed that they only prayed when forced to do so by those in authority found out that they actually pray at other times, some of them quite often, and do so when not forced at all.

First off, think about what happens when you find yourself amid a community at prayer, even if you do not yourself offer prayers.

In being with a community and hearing others pray, we become more aware of our obligations to others and our ability to help others, by seeing and hearing the words of prayers. Hearing their prayers seeking healing of a loved one, for example, we may realize that our joining in the prayer may make the person whose loved one is ill feel better, more cared for, even if we do not believe that our prayer may have any effect upon the person who is ill.

If our thought may offer support and comfort to those in need, so too may the thoughts of others offer support and comfort to us. As our prayers may be directed toward them, so may their prayers be directed toward us. And if you have ever been in a time of real need and found yourself engaged in prayer, you know just how powerful it can be to know that others are praying with you and even on your behalf.

In that vein, Debbie Friedman said that:

We can never know what happens to the prayers we utter. We do not know what happens to the words we speak with one another. The words we pray might feel useless, and we may feel that they simply dissipate into thin air, gone forever. Once we let them go, they are airborne, out of our control. It is the same with every step and every breath and every movement we make. But we never know. They may be the very thing that is life-giving and healing to another person.

And our prayers need not have words!

Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery, said, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Similarly, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of his participation in the 1965 Civil Rights march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that:

For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.

Those who have participated in efforts to feed the hungry, who have taken hammer to nail building a home for someone without one, who have tended a garden, who have cared for those who are ill, who have worked with those in pain, who have helped to bring new life into the world, who have sat for long hours holding a hand… You know that actions may be like prayers, that an offering of our hands and feet may be no less powerful, and often will be much more powerful, than any words that we might offer.

The phrase in the pastoral care community is, “Don’t just say something, stand there.” Sometimes just being there is more powerful than any words we might say, more appreciated than any prayers that we might offer. If you have ever given or received a hug from a loved one or a friend at a really difficult moment, you have experienced perhaps the most powerful kind of a prayer, a caring embrace, which often allows tears and emotions to flow forth.

How far beyond the four options for why we pray are we now?

Remember them?

-Because it makes me feel closer to the people I am with.

-Because it makes me feel closer to God.

-Because I feel obligated as a Jew.

-Because it is tradition.

Yet, the act of praying is not just about offering of ourselves or for those with whom we happen to be praying.

Prayer helps us to be more aware of things in our world. When we recite fixed prayers, such as Shalom Rav, the song for peace that we sing during an evening service or the G’vurot – the prayer that notes that God helps those who are in need, our thoughts are focused on the needs of others who may not be in our midst. We may realize that our thoughts had been too focused, or perhaps only focused, on ourselves or our immediate circle. Thus, the act of praying may result in our being more mindful of our actions in relation to the broader world and thereby altering our behavior toward others.

But while the repair of the world and the betterment of the lives of others is certainly a big part of our regular prayers, prayer may help us understand and improve ourselves.

When we take a few moments to focus our thoughts on our feelings, our hopes, and our desires, we become more aware of ourselves, more mindful of what is going on within us, as well as perhaps seeing more clearly what is around us. This can result in our desiring to change ourselves. Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”

In many ways, prayer is a kind of conversation with us sometimes speaking, offering our hopes and desires and sometimes listening, not just to others’ prayers uttered aloud, but to those words passing through our lips or even to the murmurs of our hearts uttered in silence.

Some of you may know that I have spent four weeks over the past two years attending the Institute of Jewish Spirituality’s program with rabbinical colleagues from around the country. The primary focus of the Institute’s program is a mindfulness curriculum that includes meditation and yoga in addition to text study and regular daily prayer services. All of these are actually forms of prayer.

Mindfulness meditation is, as I described prayer to be a few moments ago, a kind of conversation with us sometimes speaking, consciously creating thoughts, and sometimes listening, being mindful of the thoughts running through our minds.

Yoga is also a kind of conversation, an interaction of body and mind. Some consider yoga practice to be a kind of offering, a kind of prayer. But even if one only considers it to be exercise, it is exercise that requires the mind to pay attention to what is going on with the body. In doing that, one becomes more aware of the needs of the self. If you have ever found yourself in the midst of a more intense yoga practice, you could easily have found yourself at prayer. “Let me be able to do that today. Maybe today it will work for me.” To whom are you speaking? For those who are saying to themselves that this happens when I run, bike, climb mountains or even just climb the stairs as part of rehabilitation, you are absolutely right. This is a form of prayer.

Prayer is not just a way to communicate with something beyond the self, but is a way to commune with our own spirits, to be mindful of our thoughts, and even to converse with ourselves, perhaps sorting through our own thoughts and feelings. Let me feel better, let me do better, let me be better. It does not take, an “O God in heaven” before these statements for them to be forms of prayer.

And how many of us, have stood in awe of a wonder of nature? How many of us have felt connected to creation when we’ve walked upon a beautiful forest trail or looked out from upon a high vista and looked down upon the valleys? Perhaps we saw ourselves in the context of human existence of one generation leading to the next, of our ephemeral nature compared with mountains, our smallness compared with the vastness of the ocean. Perhaps, just perhaps, we thought to praise creation and perhaps a creator.

Prayer, ultimately, may then indeed help us to understand ourselves better, to connect ourselves to something greater than ourselves alone, to bind ourselves with the traditions of our ancestors, to connect us with others in our community, to elevate our spirits unto God or even to help us feel at one with the whole of creation.

If you had asked the campers at the beginning of camp this past Summer about their feelings concerning prayer—and we did—many would surely have told you that they found prayer awkward, difficult, strange, foreign or any number of other adjectives implying a level of discomfort with or even outright rejection of the practice of prayer. I do not suppose for a moment that this is substantially different from how many of their parents and grandparents view it. In fact, I would say that a substantial majority of the world’s Jews feel this way.

Over the course of the two weeks that I was at camp, and I am certain over the following two weeks as well, many of the students came to understand prayer differently and felt much more comfortable engaging in it. It was not because they became Baalei T’shuva, suddenly turned piously religious, nor because their beliefs about God changed radically. This change occurred because they came to understand what prayer could be about, especially in a modern Reform Jewish context.

I hope that I have opened up for you pathways of prayer that you may have never explored or perhaps, having explored them and currently practicing them, never thought of them as ways of praying. To the question “Why do we pray?” then, the answers are as manifold as the ways.

It is told of the Baal Shem Tov that one Yom Kippur day a poor Jewish boy, an illiterate shepherd, entered the synagogue where the Baal Shem Tov was praying. The boy was deeply moved by the service, but frustrated that he could not read the prayers.

So he started to whistle, the one thing he knew he could do beautifully. The boy wanted to offer his whistling as a gift to God.

The congregation was horrified at the desecration of their service. Some people yelled at the boy, and others wanted to throw him out.

The Ba'al Shem Tov immediately stopped them. "Until now," he said, "I could feel our prayers being blocked as they tried to reach the heavenly court. This young shepherd's whistling was so pure, however, that it broke through the blockage and brought all of our prayers straight up to God."

May all our prayers reach their home.

G’mar Hatimah Tovah. May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a Good Year.