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Caring for One Another
We are so pleased to share with you this second installment in our spring series on Leadership, Learning, and Love. The focus of this week’s installment is hesed, or loving kindness. We’ve chosen this theme in honor of the first week of the period of the Counting of the Omer, and in honor of the many ways in which members of our community are responding to the profound challenges of this moment with large and small acts of lovingkindness.
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"All of us, as we go through changes in our lives, often hold the hands of someone for a short while who points the way—sort of stepping stones over a stream..." — Rabbi Richard “Rim” Meirowitz
A Rabbi's Rabbi: Mentoring Leadership, Learning, and Love
As a teacher and mentor, Rabbi Rim Meirowitz has helped countless Hebrew College rabbis develop their voices, implement their visions, and advance along their spiritual paths. He exemplifies what it means to lead and teach with creativity, passion, and a caring spirit.
Rabbi Rim, our honoree for this year’s (now virtual) spring event, is all about Leadership, Learning and Love.
“I’m thrilled for this honor and what it means for me personally, but it really isn’t just for me,” said Rabbi Rim. “It’s for the Havurah idea—founded by Hebrew College Rector Rabbi Art Green and others in the 1960s—a kind of Judaism that is deeply meaningful, that is joyful, that is robust in terms of thinking and ideas. It means learning how to listen deeply to what’s being asked of you, as opposed to first saying what your answer has to be; it means looking within the tradition to the human meaning underneath the halacha. It means having caring and compassion for the community. It is the kind of Judaism that inspired me and that I teach as a mentor to others.”
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An Evening to Honor Rabbi Meirowitz
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 from 8:00 to 8:30 p.m.
Please join us on Wednesday, April 29 from the comfort of your own home for the online event honoring Rabbi Rim Meirowitz, beloved and esteemed mentor and teacher, who will offer a teaching on “Leadership, Learning and Love” and receive a blessing from Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld. We will begin and end with special musical performances offered by members of the Hebrew College community. Watch for your e-invitation with the Zoom link on April 27, then gather some refreshments, get comfortable, and prepare to be enveloped in leadership, learning, and love.
This is a free event, but we ask for your gifts in Rim’s honor, and in support of the College, to help us continue to provide leadership, learning and love to our communities. To make a gift, please use our secure online form and choose “Spring Event 2020” for your gift designation.
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We are collecting blessings and “love stories” for Rim. Please take a moment to share with us some words about the way in which Rim’s hesed and open-heartedness have inspired you, or tell us a story about "love in the time of Corona"—a time when you have been touched to see people responding to the current crisis with kindness and love. You may include your submission under “Comments” in the giving form, or email Mia Tavan, Development Associate, with your submission. Questions? Please email Mia Tavan.
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Chaplaincy: Voices from the Field
By Rabbi Suzanne Offit `09, Chaplain at Hebrew SeniorLife
with contributor Rabbi Sonia Saltzman `08
The still small voice of the health care system has finally received some attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as both hearts and spirits are requiring urgent care. Chaplains, spiritual care specialists, are being seen and appreciated in the wave of gratitude for all those serving on the front lines of the COVID pandemic. Chaplains regularly support patients and families in life changing, life-limiting, or life-ending situations. Chaplains listen, chaplains bless, chaplains are skillfully and sturdily present when most people can only look away. Chaplains are “spiritual chameleons,” reflecting and responding to patients’ own religious or spiritual language. Most of all, chaplains offer chesed, lovingkindness.
When people ask me what I do, I rely on the poet Mary Oliver for the simplest explanation of how I see my chaplaincy: “My work is loving the world,” she begins her poem, "Messenger" (Thirst, 2006). Like Oliver, I offer love to patients as the best remedy for their spiritual distress. My hope is that as I approach each patient, they sense that they are cared for in their vulnerability, their fears, their hopes and their prayers. I listen deeply. I stay. I am not judgmental. I am calm.
I reached out to a few of my dear Hebrew College colleagues to hear their stories and the role of chesed in their chaplaincies.
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Rabbi Dena Trugman `19, Staff Chaplain at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA
“I received a request to provide support for a patient who will die of COVID-19 today. I walked over to the Intensive Care Unit to find out more about the patient and the patient's family, to see how I could best support them. I walked over intending to be a support to the staff in the ICU, who are beginning to watch their patients die on a daily basis. My job is to be present and witness people, but all I could think about were the invisible droplets potentially scattering throughout the air... everywhere. I was wearing a regular surgical mask and felt my attention snap as a patient's door opened or a nurse removed her N95 while speaking to me. I was off balance. This is brand new territory..."
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Hallel
“To give honor to Your name—for Your kindness, for Your truth.” (Psalms 115:1)
We give honor to God's name for God's ḥesed, kindness. The Talmud teaches us that the Torah begins with kindness and ends with kindness
As Rabbi Simlai expounded: In the beginning of Genesis, God makes garments for Adam and Eve, and at the end of Deuteronomy God buries Moses (B. Sotah 14a). Rabbi Simlai’s statement tells us that all of Torah is filled with God's ḥesed.
The psalmist, however, goes beyond ḥesed and states that we give praise for both God's kindness and truth. Why does he choose these two traits? We must look to the book of Genesis to see how they work as a unit. There, they come together as a hendiadys, a single idea expressed in two words. Jacob, on his deathbed, requests that his son Joseph deal with him in ḥesed ve-emet and not bury him in Egypt (Genesis 47:29). A midrash picks up on the language and asks: “Is there a ḥesed of falsehood (sheker), that he says ḥesed and truth (emet)?” (Genesis Rabbah 96:5).
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Miller Center's Freedom Songs: A Multicultural Musical Journey
As the world reels from the pandemic and people across many religions mark spring holy days, seeking liberation and renewal, The Miller Center for Interreligious Leadership & Learning at Hebrew College responded with an evening of hesed through song—and more than 150 people joined in online.
Last night The Miller Center joined with its partners—the Boston University School of Theology and Boston College School of Theology & Ministry—with support from the Boston Theological Consortium (BTI), to host freedom songs from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, as well as the “American Songbook.” Featured artists included Rabbi Jeffrey Summit (above), Director of the Hebrew College Innovation Lab; Rev. Teddy Hickman-Maynard, Associate Dean at Boston University School of Theology, and others. Together they raised voices in lament, yearning, and hope.
(Note: Acccess the video using password Q9!ZN2%K)
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Music and Chesed
In the second video in our series about music and the rabbinate, Rabbi David Fainsilber of The Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, VT talks about the love and care he provides for his community. And according to his congregants, the feeling is mutual.
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What Is Essential?
By Rabbi Brian Besser `10
Congregation Beth Shalom, Bloomington, IN
According to the Piasetzner Rebbe, for 400 years, throughout the entire period of their enslavement, the Children of Israel would sing the Song of the Sea, every Shabbat, week after week, rehearsing the Song of Redemption in the midst of their affliction, preparing for the day that they would one day be free. They had no idea when that day would come. They had no idea if that day would come. They only knew that if ever they were to be redeemed, they would be ready for it. They enacted their freedom, even while still enslaved.
I have come to a personal decision regarding this period of lockdown and quarantine, the duration of which none of us can know. I don’t want to merely survive this period of adversity, to endure it. I don’t want to brave the coronavirus crisis as a difficulty to put behind me as quickly as possible and return to business as usual. Rather, I intend to seek out the unique lessons and spiritual gifts that this crisis affords. I intend to grow from them, to be permanently transformed, and to approach life in an entirely new way.
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Spotify Playlist: Stillness, Joy, and Chesed
As we struggle for calm and comfort during this challenging time, we offer this Spotify playlist curated by rabbinical student Jackson Mercer. The playlist includes originial music by Rabbinical School alumnus Micah Shapiro `17, Shaneh Hey student Matt Ponak, and music that is popular with our students. We hope it brings you some stillness and joy.
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Missed last week's issue?
Read the first issue of our spring event series, Leadership, Learning, and Love: Let Us Sing a New Song!, online here. It is filled with multimedia spiritual nourishment for this challenging time.
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Please support continued leadership, learning, and love at Hebrew College
Please invest in a creative, vibrant, and meaningful Jewish future rooted in thousands of years of wisdom by making your fully deductible gift now.
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We thank our Leadership, Learning, and Love Corporate Sponsors
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