One last blog...

Shalom friends and family, 5 short/long years ago, I decided to create this blog to detail my year in Israel experiences. Looking back, I realize that how I view those experiences now is very different from how I viewed them then! After what Batya and I describe as the best and worst year of our life (for lots of reasons), I decided to rename this blog and tell the story of the next 4 years while I studied to be a rabbi. Hard to believe that my formal HUC education is coming to a close...VERY quickly!

Well, this is the last post for this blog. As of June 15, I will be starting a new job as the 2nd rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, Georgia. This blog will be renamed once again and it will go from being a blog about my rabbinic school career to my rabbinic career. I hope to share with you stories, experiences, and many opportunities for education and action! So, here is my last post until June:

In January, 1985, my life changed drastically. I was hit by a car, lost 4 pints of blood, broke my left femur and sustained substantial head trauma. I lost 98% of my episodic memory (memories of situations)...and thank God I retained all of my semantic knowledge. Any teachers out there? Well, you know that in those first 8 + years of a child's life, there is a lot of information and knowledge to gain/learn. This is the first real memory I have of God being a major player in my life. I believed then and I still believe that it was at that moment that God saved my life in order to make a real difference in the Jewish world, and in the greater world community.

That summer, the summer of 1985, my congregation, Tree of Life in Columbia, SC, sent my brother and I to URJ Camp Coleman. That summer was one of the corner stone memories of my life. 27 years later, Camp Coleman remains incredibly important to me and my family. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why I am so excited to be starting at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta is the proximity to Camp Coleman. I will have the great honor of working for a week or two at Camp Coleman every summer as a rabbi. And....another dream of mine is possible - my daughter to continue the Camp Coleman tradition of the Boxt family!

What made and continues to make Camp Coleman so special to me is that I have family from Camp that I have known almost my whole life. Yes, I made many memories at Camp Coleman, and my life has been enriched by those experiences in so many ways. However, it is the people that made those memories what they are. When I think of home, I always think of Camp Coleman and the many amazing times I have spent there. I am so excited for the future experiences and opportunities that will come!

When I think of Camp Coleman, I think of Nellie, David Israel, Malka Altman, Grace Sherman, Adam Tabachnikoff, Jo-Ellen Unger, Steve Zielonka, Bobby Harris, Lauren Zeichner and so many more wonderful staff members that were and are a part of my life. One of the fondest memories I have of camp was running into the Ulam Gadol (now the Ulam Elisheva) holding Kristin Barker's (Barkerbear)hand as we made our entrance into the play, "Story Theater." I will always remember playing the "little grey man," and even today joke about that role with camp friends.

The amount of friends and family I have accumulated over the years...oh my, no way I can count that high! I end this blog with a quote that has remained so dear to my heart for so many years, "You can take a kid out of Coleman, but you can't take Coleman out of that kid!"

C-O-L-E-M-A-N, Coleman is our name, huh!
L'hitraot until June,
Erin Boxt

Excited to be going home...

Yep, it's true. The Cincinnati Boxts are returning home to Atlanta. Thanks to a very positive congregational vote this morning, I was confirmed to be the 2nd rabbi at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, Ga. While it is absolutely true that Batya, Carlie and I are thrilled to be returning to our old stomping grounds of Atlanta...we are even MORE thrilled to be beginning a new journey in a new home tucked away in East Cobb - Kol Emeth. This congregation has so many wonderful things that make it such a great place to be a part of...and there is also opportunity for growth!

My life has always been about helping others...in so many ways, and I know that this congregation will give me plenty of opportunity to continue this work. Temple Kol Emeth is a community of people who want to talk the talk and walk the walk. And, we are ecstatic to be a part of it!

I will be writing more in this blog over the next few months with ideas and thoughts that I have for the future and especially with our new family. Please continue being who you are and never forget about the opportunities we all have to make amazing differences in the world!!

For now,
Erin

Watch and Share

http://www.t.co/dJVZe675


Let this message spread like wild fire..we can make a difference!

A goal - it will happen, I am not sure when...

Ok - all of you who read this blog know that Global Social Justice is of the utmost importance to me. It is not just the way I feel or think...it is in the way I live my life. I am not saying that I am perfect or any better than anyone else. What I am saying is that I try to live what I preach...and treat everyone the same. This is not just lip service...it is who I am and who I try to be!

So....I have been a big supporter of the American Jewish World Service and the One Campaign (and the Red Campaign) for years. I have often mentioned to anyone who was listening that Bono - Paul David Hewson - the lead singer of U2 (and one of the co-founders of the One Campaign and the Red Campaign) - was a major hero of mine. It is true. This is a man who has achieved the highest level possible in his craft/skill/career and who is using his celebrity to effect positive change in the world.

Each year, the American Jewish World Service sponsors individuals and organizations to host a Global Hunger Shabbat in November. It is an amazing opportunity to teach others about the problems of Global Hunger and organizations that are working to effect change. This year, I hosted a modest event with about 6 people. It was a good beginning, and I am so excited to be able to share this experience with my congregation next year.

Ok, so here's the goal: I want to combine my passion for social justice (and AJWS) and my admiration of Bono. My goal is to invite Bono to be a part of my Global Hunger Shabbat. I do not expect that this will happen this year...but I hope it will happen one day. After all, if we are all working to make the world a better place and improve the lives of those who are in the Global South, why not work together?

It is my dream/goal/aspiration that all people who desire to help the world to become an equal global community will be able to achieve this: where everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else. I hope that my children will live in this world...

B'Ezrat HaShem (with God's help),
May this happen soon!

An Op-Ed about Anat Hoffman and Women in Judaism

Op-Ed – “The Leadership of a Jewish Woman in Israel”

Throughout Jewish history, women have had prominent roles varying from strong mothers and wives to leaders of the Jewish people. We can trace the role of women in Judaism all the way back to Biblical times and move forward to present times. Looking back to Sarah, the first of the very strong Jewish women in the Bible, we find a woman who was as much a part of the story in Genesis as Abraham. The Bible presents many more great examples of very strong Jewish women who played great roles in the Jewish story, including Yocheved, Miriam, Deborah, Naomi, Ruth (a Jew by Choice), and Esther. In post-Biblical times, in the time of the Talmud, there were few women named, but those who were named were considered to be of great influence: Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, and Yalta, the wife of Rabbi Nachman.

If we fast forward to contemporary times, we find even more examples of strong Jewish women. Examples of these strong Jewish women include Golda Meir, the first female Prime Minister of Israel, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish female justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Messinger, the founder of American Jewish World Service, and Anat Hoffman, the director of the Israel Religious Action Center and Women of the Wall. Anat Hoffman, a strong and inspirational leader in Israel has been the source of many newspaper, magazine and journal articles in the past 15 years or so. Why? Hoffman fights for her belief that Jewish women should have the same rights as Jewish men, including holding and carrying the Torah, the sacred text of the Jewish people. This strong brave woman has been arrested numerous times for attempts to participate in the Jewish tradition to which she feels so strongly connected.

When the 10 Commandments were given to the Children of Israel in Exodus 20, they were given to the entire people – men, women and children. Every member of this group was given the opportunity to accept them and every member responded in the affirmative. While it is true that much of the Bible is written in gendered language, in this section the reference to the Children of Israel is presented as “the people,” not all men or all women. However, in Israel, the far right wing of the Orthodox movement has a vice-like grasp on all religious decisions. As such, women are not allowed to even participate in even the most basic religious practice of carrying the Torah. This is a travesty and Anat Hoffman has been working diligently to change these unfortunate laws.

While attending the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial in Washington, DC this past weekend (December 14-18), I had the honor and privilege of meeting Anat Hoffman. She was extremely gracious and kind. On Saturday morning during Shabbat services, I watched as she ran from her seat in the back of the hall to those who were carrying the Torah. She remarked, “Look there are no police…may I carry the Torah?” Watching Anat take the Torah and carry it around freely and openly made me extremely proud as an American Reform Jewish man. After all, in the United States of America, in the progressive Jewish world, women are allowed – encouraged!- to carry the Torah and participate in Jewish practices. She had a smile that was heart warming and showed how proud she was to be able to carry the Torah amongst 6,000 other Jews who celebrated her for doing so.

Anat Hoffman continues to be an inspiration to Jews throughout the world for her undying devotion to all Jews – making sure that all Jews are accepted, no matter their gender or sect of Judaism. For Hoffman, being Jewish is something more than the labels applied to a person from others. Anat Hoffman believes in equality for all Jews…and I would argue for all peoples around the world.

Thanksgiving...Thanks, but what about the Giving?

Greetings friends and family!

I have (as you probably already know) become one of the biggest supporters/recruiters/etc. for the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). This is an amazing organization that is led by a truly wonderfully inspiring and righteous woman - Ruth Messinger. Through her efforts and the countless hours of work by the AJWS staff in NY and DC, we are beginning to really see differences made in the world. Countries in the Global South are really starting to benefit from the knowledge and support they are gaining from grass roots organizations that are supported (with small grants) by AJWS.

When you sit around your Thanksgiving table on Thursday, take a moment and think about those who are "table-less," who are homeless and who would like to be able to sit at a table and eat with their friends and families. Take some of your leftovers and donate it to a local soup kitchen or even invite someone who is in need into your home to join with you. On Passover, we are told to open our doors so that everyone has the opportunity to eat...why not do the same on Thanksgiving? After all, on Passover we are thanking God for our deliverance from slavery in Egypt. On Thanksgiving, we are thanking God for all of the wonders in the world - including our freedom. Seems to me that this link is enough to cause us to want to throw our doors open to those who are hungry.

In the congregation where I serve as rabbinic intern, I teach the 5th and 6th grade. This morning, we had Grandparents Day. We invited as many family members who were able to join us for a special program in which we learned about the Hodaah prayer and its link to Thanksgiving. Afterwards, the family members joined us in our classrooms. In the 6th grade, we spoke for a bit about the Mitzvah projects the students would be doing as they prepared for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremony in the upcoming year. In the last few minutes of the class, I charged the students to not stop when their ceremony comes around. I encouraged them to continue working to make life better and more fulfilling for all of us - especially those in our community who are less fortunate.

I encourage you to read this blog by Ilan Caplan of AJWS: Ilan Caplan's AJWS Blog

In his blog, Ilan speaks about many of the things that are so vital and yet so forgotten in our own celebrations surrounding Thanksgiving. When you give thanks this year on Thanksgiving - and every day of your life - take some time to give others something to be thankful for. When we join together and work together, we will be able to create a world in which everyone is able to be thankful for their own bounties. We produce enough food globally to feed everyone...yet, we have millions and millions of people who are starving...this just does NOT make sense! And, can and should do something about it. First step - Say "YES, I will do something....," Second step - Learn how you can, Third Step - DO IT....ACTION!

Here are a couple of websites to begin your education:
www.ajws.org
www.one.org

Every bit helps...

My 5th Year Sermon - on Social Justice

I learned many lessons from my parents. Chew with your mouth closed; raise your hand if you have a question; turn the lights off when you leave the room; and, the hardest one for me to learn: not to interrupt people. I am still working on that one! However, the one lesson that has always seemed to be the most important, the lesson that I can trace all the way back to Seven Oaks Elementary back in 1981, in Mrs. Peterson’s kindergarten class, was the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I have always wondered how one sentence is so hard to learn, then to understand, and finally to enact. When we attempt and are able to understand these words we will then be able to live these words.
Close your eyes for a moment and try to picture a little African child sitting with his family and eating dinner. Try to imagine a little village school in a small African village. I am sure the images you have in your mind and the reality on the ground would not be so different. However, when we ponder these things, it is difficult to visualize the wonderful and beautiful images that are also present, until we are face to face with these images.
Yes, African nations have poverty and other challenges, but in those same nations are human beings attempting to live their lives to the best of their ability. And, for too long now, those of us who live in the Developed World, the Global North, have been telling these developing countries, the Global South, how to succeed. While there are success stories in the Global South, families who are able to make a better life for themselves, more importantly we are also left with a large percentage of the world’s population facing famine, disease and certain death.
In June, as I was traveling with the American Jewish World Service as part of a rabbinical student delegation to Senegal, I thought I knew what to expect. When the plane descended into Dakar, Senegal’s capital city, I began to visualize the images I had in my head of the little African children I had first seen on the cover of the album “We are the World” many years ago. I remembered the first time I thought I understood what Bono of the band U2 was writing about when he wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name.”
I began to worry about how I would respond to what I would see. After all, maybe for the first time in my life, I was going to be faced with a degree of poverty that I had only read about in the news. Sure, I worked in soup kitchens and homeless shelters in the States. I had participated in many hunger walks and food drives. But, this was going to be different. And, from the moment I arrived at the Baggage Claim in the airport, it was different – far different from anything I could have possibly imagined.
As we were waiting for our bags, we met the men who were going to help carry our luggage to the bus. One of the men, a very nice man who spoke English very well, saw that I had some garbage in my hand. He said, “This is Africa, man, just drop it on the ground.” When I responded that I would rather take care of it myself, he said, “Why, this is Africa?” I am not sure even today if he was joking or not. Yes, there was a lot of garbage in many places we went. My first impression of Senegal was not so different than what I had expected. Over the next 11 days, however, my impressions, my feelings, my heart strings and my entire being changed and in many different ways.
“V’Ahavtah Lereiacha Kamocha,” Love your neighbor as yourself, what does this really mean? When we read these words or any words from the Torah, the onus is on us to examine the rabbinic commentaries and dialogue to open up doors to new meanings and understandings of what the words mean. Sifting through these commentaries allows us to continue to learn, examine and even disagree with our texts – but with a greater depth of knowledge to support our thoughts.
The Rashbam, Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, a French rabbi from the 11th and 12th centuries, presents a commentary on these three words. Rashbam suggests that we should only love our neighbors if they are good and deserving of love. He continues to state that if they are evil, we should not be kind to them. Rashbam relies on Proverbs 9:13, “To fear the Lord is to hate evildoers” to make his point.
In other words, Rashbam’s argument is if someone is acting unfairly to you or your family, we DO NOT automatically love them. Rashbam goes even further in his interpretation not to vilify the neighbors, referencing the neighbors as good people deserving of good treatment. The point is that in order for us to love our neighbors, we must ensure that they are good people who deserve to be loved. If they are evil doers, we are to hate them, and not be kind to them.
Along with the examination of “V’ahavtah”, and you shall love, Rashbam also ponders the meaning of “Reiacha,” “Your Neighbors.” In Hebrew, “Ra” means bad or evil; “Rei” means neighbor. In this wordplay, it appears that Rashbam suggests that the evil, the “ra” refers to our non-Jewish neighbors and the love belongs only to our “reiacha.” The suffix “cha” translates to your, which reflects our Jewish neighbors.
My question this morning is – who are our neighbors? When we say neighbor, are we referring to those who live next door, those that live in our city, our state or our country? What about those that live in other countries around the world? What is our responsibility to those neighbors? If this word play causes you to feel discomfort or does not seem right, GREAT because we then have the opportunity to look to another commentator for another possible conclusion.
Rabbi Akiva, as we are told in the Talmud, believed V’ahavtah Lereiacha Kamocha to be “a great principle of the Torah.” Rabbi David Silverberg, a contemporary Orthodox rabbi, comments that although this principle is key, it does not encapsulate the essence of Torah. After all, we have to consider how we define the word love. When we make mistakes in our lives, we often get upset at ourselves. And, in that moment, I would argue that we do not truly love ourselves. It is vital to learn and discover how to love ourselves and understand what that means before we are able to love our neighbors the same. “When God created man, he was created in the image of God.” When we love ourselves, when we are truly able to love ourselves, we love God. All of this we find in the Torah –The history of humanity – a manual of how to proceed in our lives without dwelling on our past mistakes.
Ramban – Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, Nachmanides – one of our great teachers, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries, teaches that these three words, “V’Ahavtah Lereiacha Kamocha” are a great overstatement. In fact, he uses another of Rabbi Akiva’s teachings, “Your life takes precedence over the life of your neighbor,” to prove his point. Nachmanides is not telling us not to love our neighbors. He is making a point that I mentioned earlier – we must truly be able to love ourselves – in order to begin loving anyone or anything else. For Nachmanides, there is no distinction between Jews, proselytes, those that leave Judaism and gerim, Jews by choice. We should love each other, everyone, equally. However, if we do not understand how to love ourselves, then it does not matter.
It seems that Rabbi Silverberg and Nachmanides agree with each other in that we must first love ourselves in order to truly love the other, our neighbors. Ramban uses the example of the love from the Book of Samuel, the love that Jonathan had for David. If you recall, David became King Saul’s favorite, even more than his own son Jonathan, which certainly could have led to some jealousy. However, Jonathan had removed all forms of jealousy out of his heart and truly loved David as he loved himself. It is the love Jonathan had for David which is the purest example of loving oneself as one would love God. And if we were all created “B’tzelem Elohim,” in the image of God, than when we love each other, we also love God, and vice versa.
Friends and family, the challenge that we are presented with is clear. Although we may have preconceived notions or stereotypes of the “other” in the world, it is imperative that we step outside of our safe circles and create a world in which every man woman and child is seen as equal. The catch phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” gets tossed around very often, especially in liberal Jewish communities. We say that we want to help all of those who are in need and we even have great programs such as food drives, fundraising campaigns, etc. But, are we really helping? Yes, I believe every effort, no matter how large or small is beneficial for those in need.
HOWEVER, WE MUST DO MORE.
I am not suggesting that each of us should drop everything we are doing and jump on a plane and fly to Senegal or any country in the Global South – the developing world.
What I am challenging each of us is this – do not just do a Mitzvah project. We make the biggest difference when we pay attention. We must look, read and study about how we can make the biggest difference. Although we may think we are helping those who are in need, often times we are doing more harm in the process.
When the catastrophe hit Haiti, one of the first actions our government took was to send rice, tons and tons of rice to Haiti. On paper, this act seemed to be extremely helpful. After all, the Haitians needed food, among other things. However, in Haiti, the rice crop had just begun to be harvested. So, the Haitian farmers were not able to sell what they had grown for their own citizens. In effect, the United States put many farmers out of work in our attempt to help.
Throughout my experiences in Senegal, 3 words from our Torah kept appearing and reappearing in my mind. “V’Ahavtah Lereiacha Kamocha,” You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When we first visited our village, Ker Douda Cisse, I began to understand what it meant to live those words. The people we encountered in the village were so kind and grateful to visit with us; they welcomed us into their homes with open arms. And, truthfully, after only a few hours, we were no longer guests; we were villagers. In our attempts to communicate with them in English and in their native tongue, Wolof, we bonded in such a way that erased all of our differences and the many boundaries that seemed to exist when we first arrived.
I intend to make this ideal a huge part of my rabbinate and the very essence of my being – Treat everyone you meet with the same respect as you want to be treated.
My hope is that each of us will challenge ourselves and those whom we have elected to make the right decisions in the future with regards to aid to those who need it. May we enjoy our Sabbath of rest and peace today, realizing that when Shabbat is over, we have tremendous amounts of work to do to finally accomplish “V’Ahavtah Reiacha Kamocha.” After all, when we do, we will live in the world of Isaiah’s prophecy, “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”

Kein Yehi Ratzon! May this be God’s will!