Is a Jewish boy without a bris still Jewish?

A question was asked in class: Why is someone without a Brit potentially not part of the Jewish community - is Brit the real covenant - what makes a boy Jewish?

Even without circumcision, that child is considered Jewish even according to classical Jewish law. The law states that if the parents fail to have a bris for their son it is the responsibility of the rabbinic court to do it on their behalf. If the rabbinic court fails to do it, it is his responsibility to be circumcised as an adult. No where does it state that he is not Jewish. For a perspective on this, check out this responsa from the Reform Movement on the question of whether a boy can have a Bar Mitzvah if he has not had a bris.

http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=34&year=arr

If children are born to a non-Jewish mother...

Here is a question from class....

If children are born to a mother who is not Jewish and a Jewish father and they are recognized as Jewish by the Reform movement are they also recognized as Jewish by the State of Israel? I have heard that they are not recognized as Jewish (in Israel).

It is likely that the State of Israel would not recognize this child as Jewish under the law of return (a law that stipulates that Jews have the right to immigrate to Israel) because the reform doctrine of patrilineal descent is not in line with classical Jewish law. However, the son or daughter of a Jew, even if not considered technically Jewish by the state, still has the right to immigrate under an amendment to the law which was passed in 1970.

...the 1970 amendment, which accords the right to immigrate to Israel to non-Jews
who are either children or grandchildren of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew or the
spouse of a child or grandchild of a Jew (on condition that this person was not
previously a Jew who had knowingly converted to another faith). The amendment
was intended to accept in Israel families, mainly from Eastern Europe, where
mixed marriages were abundant(Source: Website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs mfa.gov.il ).

The doctrine of patrilineal descent is embraced by the Reform (since 1983) and Reconstructionist Movements. Unfortunately it is not accepted across all streams of Judaism. For more on patrilineality check out:

http://judaism.about.com/od/whoisajew/a/whoisjewdescent.htm

for the reform position on children of intermarriages see:

http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/resodisp.pl?file=mm&year=1983

Where are all of the Vowels?

Just a note on the Torah that we saw in the last class.

A question was posed about the spaces in the Torah. It is important to remember that the Jewish tradition was an oral tradition before the Torah was written down. As written documents go, the Torah is very early as is the technology.

There are only major separations in the Torah at the beginning of each of the 5 books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, etc). Otherwise, one has to search for the text where a reading begins. There are some spaces at the end of columns or long paragraphs, but these are not necessarily intuitive break points. There are no chapter numbers and no verse numbers as in the bound forms of the Bible that we are familiar with (ie. Genesis 1:1). There aren't even any punctuation markings! All of that came later.

The vowels were added later by a group of scholars known as the Masorites. The scrolls that were used in the first and second centuries of the common era had no such markings. These were the scrolls that were copied over and over by hand that are the ancestors to our own Torah scrolls.

We do know that the Babylonian sages of the 8-10th centuries had a separate text with vowels. Their text also contained trope markings which tell us how to chant the text. The trope markings also serve as punctuation symbols. If you are interested in how that works, I can show you in a future class.

Why Yiddish?

Wondering why there are so many Yiddish words in common usage today? In the early 20th Century, Yiddish was at its height serving as an international language for Jews of Ashkenazic (Eastern European) heritage. As we discussed in class, Yiddish is a mixture of Hebrew and German. Because Hebrew was (and is) considered the Holy Tongue, the language of prayer, it was considered sacrilege to use it as an everyday language in which to do daily business. In many ultra-Orthodox communities, you will still hear Yiddish spoken as an everyday language, even to this day.

In the immigrant communities of the early 20th Century, it was very common for Jewish families to speak Yiddish as their primary language. There were Yiddish newspapers, and even a thriving Yiddish musical arts and theater culture.

Though Yiddish has died out as a language of common usage, many of the Yiddish-isms still stay with us today.

Oy-Vey? Oh my goodness!

Bagel and a shmear? Bagel with a spread of cream cheese!

So many Yiddish expressions have now entered the mainstream and become part (not only of Jewish culture) but of American culture.

Interested in an online Yiddish Dictionary? The history of Yiddish? The history of bagels and cream cheese? Ah, the Internet. Full of useful info, huh?

Becoming a Rabbi

The short version, in response to the question that was asked in class, is that I began my career as a professional singer. I had studied voice and opera at the University of Michigan (GO BLUE!) and the University of Illinois, in Urbana Champaign.

After grad school, I made my way to the big city of Chicago and needed to find a way to support myself. I ended up finding a position as a cantorial soloist and music director of the very small Reform Congregation Kol Ami in the Water Tower Building on Michigan Ave. They used to call it "Da Shul in Da Sky" because our sanctuary was in an office suite on the 9th floor (yes, it was above the mall). I fell in love with congregational life in that synagogue and had a wonderful mentor in Rabbi Steve Denker. Rabbi Denker let me follow him everywhere. We did weddings, funerals, made hospital visits. He was an amazing mentor for me.

Eventually, I decided that the opera singing career was not my destiny (now you know why I insist that we sing so much in class!). After 5 years with the congregation, I decided to apply to Rabbinical School at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform Movement's Rabbinical School. Rabbinical School is a 5 year program and all students spend the first year living in Jerusalem. It was an incredible experience. I was ordained in 2005 and the rest, as they say, is history.

For more on me, check out my bio. A soy decaf latte will get you the longer version, but I cannot guarantee that it will be more interesting!

Jews and the New Testament

In the preface to his book A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament (Jewish Lights Publishing), Rabbi Samuel Sandmel wrote:

American Jews, by and large, know the New Testament today only from oblique and random contacts - a quotation here, a verse there, a chapter read in a literature course, a portion heard at a Christian wedding or funeral. With the physical isolation of the European ghetto far behind us, and with our intellectual homogeneity with fellow Americans taken for granted, our very modern generation of Jews is virtually as sealed off, whether through inertia or a vestigial sense of taboo from a real knowledge of the New Testament as our forefathers traditionally have been.

This quote is as true today as it was when Rabbi Sandmel first published these thoughts in the 1950s. Though many congregations (including Temple Shalom) engage in interfaith bible study, the majority of Jews have only a passing familiarity with the Christian Scriptures. The tenants of Judaism are based on the scripture of the Hebrew Bible which is distinct from the New Testament. By and large, Jews read the New Testament as a comparative exercise in order to understand our own religion in light of the holy text of others.

What is Kabbalah?

Kabbalah is an indigenous Jewish philosophy that rose out of 13th Century Spain. The principle text of Kabbalah, the Zohar, is a hyper-commentary on the Torah. That is, it looks at the scripture in a very unique way in order to discern its mystical truths.

The principles of Kabbalah are designed to be passed on from teacher to disciple and thus it is a received tradition. In fact the name Kabbalah shares a Hebrew root with the verb L'kabeyl (to receive). Traditional Kabbalists were mystics who had an outstanding grounding in Torah and in all of Jewish sources including a keen understanding of Jewish law through Mishna and Talmud.

The modern fervor surrounding Kabbalah is a bit perplexing because many modern students of this ancient philosophy do not have the grounding in traditional sources that is needed in order to unpack its mystery. On the other hand, I am excited that Kabbalah has become popular in this era because it brings Jewish mystical thought back into the mainstream of Judaism.

There are many Jewish mystical texts which help to solidify our own personal spiritual connections with our Creator. The mystical impulse, to know God and to yearn to be close to the Divine, is very human. Judaism has wonderful texts of the spirit for both prayer and study and Kabbalah is just one of the many mystical pathways of our faith.

For more on the mystical elements in Judaism I recommend reading The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition by Lawrence Kushner.