When it comes to navigating peaceful resolutions in matters of dispute, there is a common belief that any outward demonstration of empathy might ultimately compromise one’s bargaining position. The thought is that any sign of compassion or gesture of compromise towards an opponent (be it in a relationship, in a business transaction or in a court of law) might be seen as a sign of weakness. When such displays of the heart are off the table, negotiating issues can be contentious, merciless and unyielding.

Marital disputes can become like war zones where the inflexibility of spouses can compromise a sense of peace within the home. In business negotiations, hard-nosed transactions will often dismiss the needs of the other side in fear of losing the upper hand, and in all strategies where one party hopes to maximize power and strength, it is a common strategic ploy to demonize and demoralize the other. Whatever advantages these aggressive negotiation strategies may present, they can create hostile barriers to communications and significant impediments to finding a peaceful resolution.

Just as it is in disputes in the home or conflicts of interest in business, peace between nations can become paralyzed by dismissiveness and obstinance. This has certainly been the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where, for over seventy years, resistance to finding a resolution has been rooted in cycles of fear and mistrust as decades of hatred have become barriers to progress on every front.

Overcoming such seemingly insurmountable barriers demands an approach which strives to ensure that each side feels heard and understood. This concept of peace through mutual understanding has been central to the mission of Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB), an organization dedicated to fostering positive relationships between Jewish, Muslim and Christian teens in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In stark contrast to a strategic negotiation that seeks to maximizing bargaining power by dismissing the needs and claims of others, JPB promotes transformational, person-to-person encounters in its quest to overcome decades of hatred and mistrust. For the past nine years, JPB has been bringing Israeli and Palestinian teens to the United States for camp experiences designed to promote positive communications by building bridges of understanding, expanding circles of shared leadership and sowing seeds of hope and peace.

The teens who participate in this forward-thinking program are an extraordinary group of dedicated young men and women whose commitments to diplomacy is unyielding. Their boundless dedication to peacebuilding is evident in their avid desire to acquire the tools that will allow them to shine as leaders in forging a peaceful society in Jerusalem and across the Middle East.

Central to their toolbox for the future is empathy. These teens work hard to overcome the hatred that festers within each of their communities, and without empathy they would be stuck. Their lack of trust in each other is pervasive, so developing a sense of empathy is not an easy task.  For Israeli Jews, it is difficult to imagine trusting a people who are associated with building tunnels of terror and bomb bus stations and cafes to foment fear. Conversely, it is difficult for Palestinians to accept the full legitimacy of Israel, whose ongoing territorial expansions through settlements are seen as illegal and immoral, and whose existence (in the first place) is understood as an extension of European colonialism.

These teens grow up and live in very different understandings realities had hold aspirations for their people which are often diametrically opposed. Their relationships with each other are complex, and their connections with their past are complicated. Yet, their work with JPB demonstrates that regardless of the circumstances, each side has the capacity to suspend anger and suspicion for a greater good.  Central to this work is empathy.

Empathy is the act of seeing something from someone else’s perspective. Empathy involves the capacity to analyze a situation based on the values of the other side. Empathy requires an effort to understand an outcome based on a set of experiences that may not be shared, and in many ways, empathy is one of the most important tools in negotiating a compromise that can be agreed upon by two parties with conflicting interests.

Healthy divorces demand empathy; long lasting business relationships are strengthened by empathy; and the negotiations for the future of Israel and the Palestinian people cannot be shaped without empathy.

In January, the Trump administration presented a new peace plan. The plan has many merits as well as many challenges, but as we look ahead, it would be wise to take a lead from the teens of Jerusalem Peacebuilders who fully understand that the key to moving beyond conflict demands a sense of empathy.

 

Update: This article was amended to remove inaccurate information about the purpose of the award – which was purely for furthering interfaith relations in Houston. (12/8/20)

At a wonderful luncheon at Ouisie’s Table on January 8, the Anti-Defamation League presented Shariq Abdul Ghani and me with the Milton Popkin Award recognizing our work in Jewish-Muslim relations. The recognition was humbling, and it was an honor to receive it, but it was equally rewarding to look back and see the fruits of our collective vision.

Shariq and I met eleven years ago on an interfaith trip to the Balkans. We were the only non-Christian leaders on this unique immersive experience. Each of us had been invited on this learning excursion because of our passions for interfaith work and our reputations in facilitating multi-faith engagement.  During that ten-day excursion, we instantly became friends, and it was not long before we started dreaming of ways to bring our communities together to overcome the stereotypes which divide us.

By the time we returned to Houston, each of us were convinced that the only way to move from fear to trust was to see each other as people – people who share the same concerns regarding the health, education and welfare of our families; people who work hard to make a living; people who root for the Astros and the Texans even though we may pray in different houses of worship.  Our intense experiences together in the Balkans inspired us to try to replicate what we had shared with our communities. We had prayed together every day and shared every meal together for over a week, why not try to do the same on a larger scale?

One day in mid-October of 2010, as Shariq and I were enjoying a wonderful Pakistani lunch at a local restaurant, Shariq asked, “What do Jews do for Christmas?”  I responded, “We usually go out for Chinese food and a movie.” And Shariq said, “That’s pretty much what Muslims do, too.  Let’s do it together.”

This year marked the tenth anniversary of the Muslim-Jewish Christmas, and as we look back, we can see that this annual gathering has been instrumental in so much more than creating friendly interactions between our faiths at Christmas time.  Our efforts have developed networks of trust and engagement in an ever-broadening web of Jewish-Muslim interactions.  We support each other when our communities are threatened, and we work together to defend the rights of all people through newly established groups like the Salam/Shalom Sisterhood and the Muslim-Jewish Advocacy Counsel of the AJC. Ten years later, after our first event (which brought together a small group of Muslims and Jews) our vision has expanded, and we are working with AJC to expand the Muslim-Jewish Christmas to a dozen cities in 2020.

I am proud of what we have accomplished in ten years; I am honored to share this recognition with Shariq; and I feel blessed by the HCRJ community which has not only supported these efforts from the start but has become collectively associated with building bridges of trust and understanding across communities of faith.

 

 

In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides states that the highest level of charitable giving is to strengthen the hand of someone in need and enable that person to become self-sufficient.  Such charitable actions restore a sense of dignity and meaning to the life of the person receiving assistance as that individual is provided with an opportunity to escape the poverty cycle as an independent and productive member of society.

This was certainly the case for Raffa, the individual whose house we were building during my recent trip to Puerto Rico. Raffa is a seventy-year-old man who lost his home during Hurricane Maria. The storm left Raffa with absolutely nothing. It wiped out his living space as well as his space to make a living. He was desolate, isolated and depressed, and when Hunger Corps (the faith-based nonprofit that organized the work we were doing) met with Raffa to extend a helping hand, they found that he had all but given up on life.

The good souls of Hunger Corps asked Raffa, what resources he might bring to the situation at hand. Raffa looked at them despondently and said he had nothing.  The hurricane had taken everything, and he had no money or resources to offer.

Then they asked the same question in a slightly different way.  They asked him if he had any skills. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Raffa stood up from the wheelchair that had been his throne of despair for months; he walked to the back of his desolated home; and he returned with a pallet of wood. Holding it in front of him he said, “I have skills in carpentry.  I can make chairs and tables out of old wood.”

This simple interaction became the foundation of the relationship that enabled Raffa to take a central role in repairing his life. As if reading from the teachings of Maimonides, Hunger Corps started their efforts to help Raffa by building him a small workshop. Raffa now pulls apart wood from discarded pallets and makes them into tables and chairs. These tables and chairs are sold to help purchase the supplies that are currently being used to rebuild Raffa’s house.

This beautiful story underlies the power of building relationships as a means to repair a broken world, for dignity and relationships go hand in hand. If we had gone to Puerto Rico and simply built Raffa a house, it would have been a transaction – one and done.  This effort, however, was much more about rebuilding Raffa’s heart than it was about building a house.

Our work in Puerto Rico has also served to deepen our relationships with each other.  Our group, which was composed of 12 religious leaders from Houston, has been working together for over a year. Our work has focused specifically on addressing underserved pockets of Houston which continue to struggle after Hurricane Harvey. Driven by the mission of the One America Movement, our multi-faith team embraces the idea that when we organize ourselves across political, racial and religious divides and work together on a common good, we can pave the way to a more harmonious world.

At HCRJ, the month of December is filled with opportunities to nurture relationships around doing good in the world.  Please read through this bulletin to learn how you can become part of Mitzvah Day, the Muslim Jewish Christmas and the Turning Point Christmas Lunch. Each of these opportunities invites us to transform the world for good.

 

In today’s political climate, where our differences are exaggerated in ways which cause us to hold positions with little room for compromise, we often overlook that most of us share the same needs and concerns.  In the grand scheme of things, the driving forces in life include a general sense of security for ourselves, our families and our communities. When we combine these concerns with our basic needs for food, water and clean air, we find very few differences between one human being and another.

This perspective on our humanity was the topic of my sermon on Rosh HaShanah day where I emphasized that the starting point of our perspectives of those around us needs to be rooted in our commonalities. We need to begin from a place of curiosity rather than suspicion, and we need to approach our differences with an open ear and an open heart.

When we stereotype and second guess the motives of others or judge them entirely based on superficialities like the language they speak, the color their skin, how they vote or who they love, we threaten to compromise the social fabric of our humanity and generate relationships which are rooted in our differences rather than our commonalities.  This can lead to a culture of ugliness, suspicion and distrust.

If, on the other hand, we are able to find ways to love across boundaries, listen more patiently and see each other in ways that allow us to feel more connected, then we can be weavers of relationships and builders of trust and understanding. It is in the spirit of weaving relationships and building bridges that I share this beautiful letter signed by forty-five leaders in the Muslim community.

Shanah Tovah! To our Jewish brothers and sisters in Houston – we hope the new year brings you goodness, value and more meaning into your lives!

For both our communities, this past year was particularly trying. Together, we faced hate and discrimination, and together we viewed the continued rise of white supremacy in our nation. We also witnessed our communities standing up for one another, and joining hands to combat these evils through dialogue, advocacy, and words of support.

It is reminiscent of the verse in the Quran which says “For indeed, with hardship there will be ease. Indeed, with hardship, there will be ease.”

As we move into the new year, it is our sincere hope that our two communities will continue to build on the momentum of friendship and trust between our people.

May God bless your homes and make this a good new year for you all, and may it be a year of continued hope for our city!

This letter is a strong testament to the work we have done within our faith communities to weave and build relationships based on trust, respect and friendship.  It is my hope to continue

A wise Indian elder once described his inner struggle:

He reported that inside him are two powerful dogs. One of them is kind and good. The other is mean and evil. These two dogs fight each other all the time.

Someone once asked the Indian elder which of the two dogs wins? He replied: The one that wins is the one that I feed the most.

This parable is at the heart of what Yom Kippur is about – we control who we become.

On Yom Kippur (Tuesday night-Wednesday night this year), we refrain from feeding our physical bodies so that we can more deeply think about how we nourish ourselves spiritually.   It is really easy to slip into patterns of self-deprecation, negativity, or not believing that change is possible.  On Yom Kippur, we work to make sure that we only feed the inner voices that allow us to create positive change in our lives.

Jewish tradition also offers us a recipe for how to embrace this process:

• Teshuvah – Repentance. We acknowledge what we have done wrong, apologize, and set ourselves on a path to make sure that we do not commit the same wrongs again.
• Tefilah – Prayer. We recognize that we are not alone. We ask for help from God and our community to recognize the good within.
• Tzedakah – Charity. We do something good for someone else. This is a tangible reminder that we create positive change in the world.

We do acts of Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah so that as the sun sets on Tuesday night and Yom Kippur begins, we become sustained by the voices that remind us our value and infinite potential.  G’mar Hatimah Tovah, May we all be inscribed for a good year.

 

In the Sheva Berachot, the seven traditional blessings recited at every Jewish wedding, our tradition elevates the importance of two aspects of marital connectedness. The first of these sacred connections is re’im (friends). The second kind of connection is ahuvim (lovers).  A couple’s ability to nurture both of these sacred relationships is essential in maintaining a healthy marriage.

As couples step away from the chuppah on their wedding day, these seven blessings are intended to launch them into a new life with shared hopes and dreams, where passion and friendship form the foundation of a long and healthy marriage. From that point forth, it is up to each member of the couple to nurture both aspects of marital love.

For newlyweds, this task is an easy one. The early years of marriage are usually filled with a sense of shared excitement, joy and adventure. Yet, as time goes on, it is not uncommon for couples to experience an ebb to the excitement and passion which brought them together in the first place.

As couples age, the “friendship/companionship” aspects of a marriage may continue to flourish, but the “lovers” aspect of the relationship can often wither.  Left unattended, time can become corrosive to the shared, passionate excitement that is central to the “ahuvim” aspects of marital love. The monotony of daily existence and the pressures of life often compromise the erotic chemistry once shared in the early years of romance leaving one or both members of the couple unfulfilled, resentful and longing for more.

 

This decline in physical and emotional intimacy may have many causes, but the result is always the same – marital distress. Roughly, 30% to 60% of all married individuals will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage, and the most common reasons identified for infidelity has to do with dissatisfactions in sex and/or emotional intimacy. Additionally, the rate of sexless marriages has been estimated to be 15-20%. These statistics are the result of variety of factors, many of which involve emotional and/or physical dysfunction.

Part of our challenge as a society in general and as a Jewish community, in particular, is that we do not know how to talk about sex, and we do not know how to nurture the sexual aspects of our relationships over the course of marriage.

In an effort to improve marital communications around sex and intimacy and a desire to rekindle the chemistry of romance, Houston Congregation for Reform Judaism will be offering four workshops on ways to keep marriage sexy. These workshops have been generously underwritten by funding from the Twenty-First Century Fund of the Houston Jewish Community Foundation.

The workshops will be led by Rabbi Gross, Dr. Bradley Frank, PhD and Beth Liebling, the owner of Darling Way, an adult store nestled in The Heights that strives to promote love, bolster confidence and nurture romance and intimacy. The goal of these workshops is to give people the information they need, the encouragement they deserve and the inspiration necessary to maintain a healthy, strong, passionate connection together throughout their lives. The first three workshops will be taking place on October 17, November 7 and December 5, so save the dates on your calendar.

 

Dear Friends,

In today’s ever-more-polarized world, there seems to be a decline in civility. The norms which dictate decent behavior seem to be eroding, as our interactions have become angrier, uglier and more vulgar. We make assumptions based on superficialities; we engage others with a diminished sense of trust and respect; we frequently jump to conclusions based on how people look, what they believe, how they vote and who they love.

In the marketplace of ideas, our engagement with each other has become a fragile, hyper-sensitized battlefield. We rarely listen to each other anymore, and when we do, we do so to find holes in the arguments of the other. A nuanced art of dialogue has given way to knee-jerk defensiveness, as a desire to find common ground and compromise has been replaced with viewing opposing opinions as an adversary that needs to be defeated. It has become almost impossible to have a reasonable conversation on any given topic of concern without having to brace ourselves for reactivity. Healthcare, public education, guns, taxes, national security are real issues which deserve discussion and debate, but instead, these topics quickly erode into vulgar, disrespectful diatribes from all sides.

The truth is that at the heart of the democratic process is civil engagement. Civility is the bridge to a place where common ground can be established, and the Jewish New Year provides us with an opportunity to consider better ways to engage those with whom we may disagree.

There is a famous parable about the ongoing disputes between the house of Hillel and the House of Shamai. According to the Talmud, God ultimately sides with Hillel on all matters of the law.  This is because the House of Hillel (unlike the house of Shamai) always cited the rulings of both sides of every dispute.  Hillel’s rulings always gave credence to Shamai’s view, demonstrating humility and legitimizing the value of the perspectives of others.

As our nation prepares for heated debates among presidential hopefuls in the months to come, and as we engage each other on controversial topics at large, we need to strive to be more like Hillel. Instead of digging in our heals, insisting we are right, we need to open our minds to alternative ways of seeing and understanding. Instead of listening for holes in arguments, we need to listen attentively to the narrative of others with curiosity and interest. We need to seek common ground (even when we know we don’t agree), and we need to find ways of continuing a conversation with reason and respect.

 

Dear Friends,

Few Jewish rituals celebrate life in a more complete way than that of a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony. From the perspective of a congregation, a bar or bat mitzvah holds great significance for the entire community. It celebrates a congregation’s efforts to educate its children; it brings members together in ways which mix the private aspects of a life-cycle celebration with the public aspects of communal worship; and it generates enthusiasm for the transmission of Torah from generation to generation. In many ways, this ancient ceremony provides multiple generations of a community an opportunity to learn, evolve and celebrate in a very Jewish way.

To become bar/bat mitzvah means to become a religiously responsible individual in the eyes of the Jewish community. The terms Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah literally mean “son and daughter of the commandment.” Technically, these terms refer to a coming of age when Jewish boys and girls become accountable for religious observance.

According to the Talmud, this transition in personal accountability takes place as soon as a child begins to look like an adult (usually at the age of 12 or 13). Thus, the bar mitzvah ceremony for boys and the bat mitzvah ceremony for girls each represent ways for the entire community to formally recognize and publicly celebrate the beginning of religious adulthood.

While this ceremony has long been a celebration for teens, a second kind of bar/bat mitzvah ceremony at the age of eighty-three has gained popularity. This Second Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony is based on a reading found in Psalm 90:10, which says that the span of a human life is three score and ten years. Based on this ancient expectation for the human lifespan, our tradition has come to see seventy years of age as a new beginning. Eighty-three years of age, therefore, could be considered the equivalent to reaching bar/bat mitzvah age a second time around.

At HCRJ, we recently celebrated yet another form of bar/bat mitzvah ceremony, which I believe has the potential to become a new and extremely powerful way of commemorating Jewish values and personal commitments to our faith and heritage. On Saturday night, May 11, Bruce Shelby and Jay Kaplan celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their becoming b’nai mitzvah. In contrast to the ceremonies at thirteen and eighty-three, this anniversary version of b’nai mitzvah has no precedent, and therefore had the potential to define an entirely new concept in the celebration of a Jewish life.

Bruce and Jay first celebrated becoming bnai mitzvah in 1969 at Congregation Emanu El.  On that date, they read from the Torah and celebrated with family and friends. They each delivered speeches which addressed how they planned to apply the values found in their Torah portions to their lives in the future.

Fifty years later, at HCRJ, Bruce and Jay read the same Torah portion and celebrated with many of the same family and friends, but this time they had the joy of looking back rather than ahead.  They had an opportunity to reflect on how they had, indeed, applied the values they pledged to uphold in their speeches at the age of 13 and consider how those values shaped their lives throughout the years.  In this powerful ceremony, their wives and children expressed their appreciation and shared their pride and their love.

When we think about it, the only time this kind of retrospective tribute to our adult lives ever takes place is after we die and a eulogy is crafted in our memory. How glorious it is to be able to celebrate our accomplishments and our devotion to our faith, family and community with those we love while we are still physically and mentally able to do so.

Whether it is at thirteen, eighty-three or in celebration of the anniversary of our coming of age, the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony continues to be one of the most meaningful ritual celebrations of our faith. Through its focus on the transmission of our values through Torah, prayer and mitzvah, the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony enables us to confirm and embrace our place as a link in a timeless chain of tradition that reaches back through our heritage and forward (we pray) into the future.

 

Dear Friends,

Many Jews around the world are currently observing a sacred period of the Jewish calendar year called, “The Counting of the Omer.”  This observance is based on the biblical mandate to count bundles of grain (the omer) every day for seven weeks from the second day of Passover through the festival of Shavuot.

Traditionally, this seven-week period is considered to be a minor mourning period. Throughout these forty-nine days (with a few exceptions), observant Jews treat these days like any other period of mourning.  Weddings and other major celebrations are prohibited during this time, and grooming of nails, shaving and haircuts are not done.

While it is not clear why these seven weeks are set aside as a mourning period, a Talmudic legend claims that thousands of disciples of Rabbi Akiva died in the early 1st century from a plague, which supposedly transpired during the weeks between Passover and Shavuot. Oddly, there is not much more that can be found regarding the historical backdrop for these forty-nine days of ritual counting and communal morning. Thus, with very little historical meaning connected to the omer and the customs of morning and counting, observance of the rituals associated with these seven weeks ebbed.

Additionally, as the Jewish world evolved beyond the rituals of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, the concept of counting bundles of grain lost its significance for most Jews of the modern era. In recent years, however, this ritual period of counting has experienced a spiritual revival.  For Jews seeking to find meaning beyond the ancient agricultural rituals, the forty-nine days of “The Counting of the Omer” has been redefined as a period to cultivate the human spirit rather than the land.  One modern interpretation of the “The Counting of the Omer” suggests that this ancient ritual encourages us to count our blessings and make each and every day of our lives count.

Counting our blessings will play a central role at our Annual Meeting on May 19, as we honor and celebrate the many blessings brought to us by our Executive Director, Melissa Wolfson. Melissa has been with HCRJ for ten years, and her service to our community has been exemplary. Throughout her decade of dedication, Melissa has committed herself to growing and evolving with our community.

Melissa started as part time office manager with basic secretarial responsibilities, but as our congregation rapidly expanded, so too did the demands on Melissa. With an eye for detail and a boundless desire to meet our constantly changing needs, Melissa devoted herself to developing the skills and mastering the technologies which were central to the management and development of the business side of HCRJ.