Feature of the Week

by Cantor Susan Caro

This is truly a momentous day; you are part of history, becoming a part of our collective memory, the first class to all be ordained, together. It represents the best of partnership between the College-Institute, the American Conference of Cantors, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism. You are all clergy, serving our Jewish people, side by side.

Ahead for each of you lay one of the most meaningful careers that one can imagine.  In your lives as clergy, you will find joy and sadness, you will feel certainty and doubt, and you will wrestle will the tension between the mundane and the holy.  As clergy, we are charged help to facilitate spiritual transformation in those whom we serve. 

It might be expected for me as the president of the American Conference of Cantors to speak only to my newest cantorial colleagues.  Yet, I am most compelled here this morning by the knowledge that each one of you will have a unique role to fulfill, and it is through the sacred relationship of rabbis and cantors in synagogue life that you can be most inspirational.  Sacred leadership is not about being set apart, but rather about discovering holiness in the most obscure of places and helping to render them as holy.  In Leviticus, there is reference to the description of the work of spiritual leadership as kodesh kodashim—work that is itself the holiest of holies, in the holiest of places.  A cantor and a rabbi sharing a bimah in leadership is a unique relationship that we pray will always be imbued with kedusha, working together with all those who lead and participate in our communities, keeping the ner tamid of Jewish life burning brightly. 

To our newest cantors: Cantor Tracy Fishbein, Cantor Vicki Glikin, Cantor Luke Hawley, Cantor Julia Katz, Cantor Elana Rosen-Brown, Cantor Michelle Rubel: I want you to know that you are entering into a wonderful and consequential life; take full advantage of the depth of collegiality that awaits you among the members of the ACC, with our support, encouragement, guidance, good counsel, warmth and friendship. With great pride, I welcome you as companions in the sacred work of our vocation and in the life of our Conference. 

To each of you, our newest rabbis and cantors: Mazal tov!  May your calling always be a source of strength for you; may you lead with courage and insight, inspiring all those whose lives you touch.

On behalf of the American Conference of Cantors, I am honored to be present here to witness this precipitous moment in your lives and the life of our people.  We look forward to the contributions that we know each of you will make, both to our Reform Movement and to the greater Jewish community.

[sing]: And you shall be a blessing…..you shall be a blessing….you shall be a blessing, L’chi Lach.

Click here to download the remarks made by Cantor Angela Buchdahl, Senior Cantor of Central Synagogue, New York, NY.

You can listen to the song sung by Cantor Buchdahl by clicking here.
"Taking Your Place"
Music by Tom Kitt
Lyrics by Abigail Pogrebin
© Tom Kitt Music (BMI)
ALL RIGHTS ADMINISTERED BY WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
http://www.alfred.com/Products/Taking-Your-Place--00-39141.aspx
http://www.totalsheetmusic.com/Taking-Your-Place-P1143052.aspx       

Dear friends and colleagues,

Greetings from Camp Arifjan, Kuwait!  Well, the moment finally arrived.  After all the years of hopeful optimism, the days and weeks of training, the frustrating setbacks of the past and the constant uncertainty of the future, my prayers were ultimately answered.  That’s right; Kentucky won its eighth national championship.  It wasn’t easy though… for me, that is.  As it happened, some person in authority (I don’t know who) scheduled the NCAA final for the very same morning as my flight into theater for Passover.  I was at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait on that Tuesday morning, and as the clock ticked closer to check-in time and I watched Kentucky’s lead steadily evaporate into the desert heat, it’s possible that after yet another turnover I screamed out “Oh God, how could you?!” in the middle of the terminal.  No one was alarmed, of course, since soldiers assume chaplains commune with the Creator of the universe in such a fervent manner on a regular basis. 

Kentucky’s victory probably owed more to the players’ talent than any Divine intervention, but the same cannot be said of the flat-out miraculous resolution to my quest for an overseas deployment in time for Passover.  As you might remember from my last update, while my final destination remained a toss-up between Kuwait and Bahrain, the only thing that appeared certain was a departure date on exactly the evening of the first Seder.  No matter how often I recited the mantra “This year I am here, next year may I be in Afghanistan,” there didn’t seem to be any way to reach this unreachable star.  Then, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God parted the seas of Army bureaucracy with biblically dramatic timing.  I returned to Mississippi from leave on March 27th, flew out on the last freight train four days later and, after stops in Virginia, Ireland, Kuwait, and Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, marched on dry land into Kabul on April 5th, exactly 24 hours before the Seder was scheduled to start.

A man of weaker nerves might have been worried about flying to Afghanistan, but I had truly terrifying things to be frightened of, like leading a Seder for the first time without Carla!  Passover is the only holiday where we are commanded to explain its meaning to everyone present, and my first attempt at that hadn’t gone so well.  When Kate and I were growing up, we often attended Seder in Lexington at our grandparents’ friends’, whose family was a bit more traditional than ours.  Charged with entertaining their children, we thought we’d give them a little education on the meaning of the Seder plate.  “What’s this?” I asked the youngest of them, pointing to the egg.  “Beitza,” she promptly answered.  “No…,” I smiled indulgently, “That’s an egg.  Can you say egg?”  “Beitza, beitza!” the little girl insisted.  “What’s the matter with this kid?” I asked Kate, after we determined the poor child was beyond any education we could offer. “She seems a little slow.”  Only after I got back to the table and asked someone what ‘beitza’ meant did I learn that the girl had been answering us in Hebrew. 

True, a lot of time and graduate school had passed between then and now, but to be on the safe side, I spent my first flight in a C-130 multitasking like the Cat-in-the Hat—feverishly reviewing my notes in the Haggadah, while at the same time studying its references to the Bible, and learning Moishe Oysher’s Chad Gadya on my iPod from Cantor Arik Luck (Picture 1).  I also repeated the phrase “Beitza means egg, you nincompoop” a hundred times, for good measure.  Between my extra hours of study and the two-ton camouflaged rolling duffel that I packed to the breaking point with matza and macaroons, I wouldn’t just be the first cantor to perform Seders as a military chaplain; I would also be prepared for anything.

As it turned out, our Passover celebration in Kabul was a smashing success (Pictures 2 and 3) and preparation was the major reason, but of course it had nothing to do with me.  The real work was done by the community’s lay leader, who posed as a mild-mannered civilian contractor by day while performing such heroic feats as making fresh charoset by night (not literally, since the Seders were at night, so he actually made the charoset by day, well… you get the idea).  With such outstanding support on the operations side, my main assignment was to curb my enthusiasm for singing every song in the Haggadah and make sure the Seder ended in a timely fashion.  It wasn’t as fast as the reader’s digest version on YouTube at this link http://youtu.be/qahLChV37BM but everyone congratulated me afterwards on my restraint.  The most unusual moment of the evening, however, was not when I tearfully skipped over most of Hallel, nor at any other point in the Seder itself, but in a moment afterwards that I shared with one of the attendees, which I was totally unprepared for and which ended up having an unforgettable impact on the rest of my stay in Kabul. 

The location of our first Seder was at a base inside the Green Zone that abuts the US Embassy.  Several Jewish civilians working at the Embassy came to that Seder and brought their non-Jewish co-workers as guests.  When I introduced myself as a cantor, one of those guests approached me with a surprising request: would I sing Kol Nidre for him after the Seder was over?  I hesitated, given that it’s one of the holiest prayers in Jewish liturgy, and gently inquired why he wanted to hear it.  I don’t really know what kind of answer would have convinced me not to sing it (maybe if he’d said, “I just love its catchy beat!”), but when he explained that it was the most beautiful music he’d ever heard and he was in need of some spiritual relief at the moment, I was ready to sing it and sign him up for cantorial school.

Seeking a quiet place away from the other guests, I hastily opened the door to what I thought was an empty closet and blundered straight into a small altar, nearly knocking over the golden cross that sat atop it.  I stood there like a deer in the headlights, staring up at the giant picture of Mary on the wall, and then I just decided this was already so unusual, why not go all the way?  So standing there in the nave, or the apse, or whatever part of the chapel it was, I sang Kol Nidre for this non-Jewish guest on the first night of Passover.  And when I finished the prayer, he had started to weep.  Reading his biography online that night, I learned that he had served for almost twenty years in some of the harshest war zones in the world, from Angola and Rwanda to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Later, he sent me the following email:

“David, I can’t thank you enough for the wonderful seder… But I’m writing more so to say thank you for singing the Kol Nidre for me.  You have no idea how much your voice and the voice of a cantor penetrates my soul with beauty. Music doth hath charms to soothe the savage breast....especially mine right now as I seem to have lost my way. Too many wars I've seen, too much suffering in this world, too much sorrow for even a seasoned adventurer and traveler and aid worker that I am [but] I felt very alive for a moment when I heard you sing it.  Thank you!!”

From a surprising request to an unexpected reaction, the story was already impossible for me to have imagined.  But it took a truly unforeseen turn when I visited him at the Embassy a few days later.  After exchanging life stories for a while, he asked me if I’d gotten to see anything beyond Kabul since I’d arrived.  I thought for a minute.  The only other place I’d been was Bagram Air Field— a wasteland of sprawling construction where new projects competed for space with those abandoned long ago.  After ten years, millions of dollars and countless Army units, BAF resembled the gargantuan playroom of a spoiled and intemperate child, who has more models than he knows what to do with but still builds others, and prefers to start new projects without cleaning up the old ones.  “No… no, I haven’t really been anywhere else,” I said.  “Well, I do battlefield circulation to a different part of the country every week,” he said.  “You should join me.”  Before I could answer, he summoned his chief-of-staff, a one-star general. 

“Bob, do you think we can get Chaplain Frommer on our flight to Kunar Province tomorrow?” he asked.  The general stared at me, then at the rank on my chest (which places me right at the bottom of the officer food chain), then back to my host.  You knew what he must have been thinking, but he didn’t let on.  “I’ll make a few calls,” was all he said.  As for what I was thinking, it was something along the lines of “OHMYGODICAN’TBELIEVEI 'MGOINGTOKUNARPROVINCETHISISABSOLUTELYINSANE!!!”  I’d like to say I didn't let on either, but he must have detected something in the way my eyes had bugged out like two giant matza balls.  “Are you excited?” he asked.  “This might get a little… kinetic.  You won’t mind that, right?”  “Right,” I tried to say, but nothing really came out.

The next morning, I met up with the rest of the USAID team at 0700 outside the Embassy, for our helicopter flight to Kunar Province.  USAID, for those of you like me who weren’t aware, was created by JFK in 1961 to act as the independent agency that provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of our foreign policy goals. 

According to its website, it reflects “the American people’s compassion” and our “long history of extending a helping hand to people overseas struggling to make a better life.”  I immediately conjured up some foreign version of the classic scene from the Great Depression, with kindly WPA agents attending to the needs of honest, docile workers in some quaint, rural setting.  But in Kunar, of Afghanistan’s troubled east, I discovered that Americans haven’t always been able to afford a posture of compassion and assistance.  Mostly, we’ve been fighting for our lives.

It was in Kunar’s rugged mountains that the Taliban ambushed four Navy SEALS in 2005, killing three of them and then sixteen rescue personnel when they shot down their helicopter.  It was also in Kunar’s Korengal “Valley of Death,” depicted in the 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary, Restrepo, that over forty American soldiers were killed and hundreds more wounded during operations up until 2010, when the US finally withdrew.  Overall, the province had seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, but you would have never known it from our helicopter ride, as we floated over emerald valleys nestled within the mighty Hindu Kush (Picture 4).  Our destination was the capital city of Asadabad (Picture 5), which sits peacefully on the Kunar River a mere eight miles from the Pakistani border.

The USAID officer’s mission for the day was to meet with the agency’s Provincial Reconstruction Team, a cooperative military-civilian effort to help the Afghan government provide democratic governance, rule of law, sustainable agriculture and basic infrastructure to Kunar’s population.  For three hours the PRT briefed us on the progress they’d been making despite basic obstacles that would never even have crossed my mind.  One PRT agricultural specialist explained to me that depending on where you go, a community might be using farming techniques from the 1970’s, or the 1930’s or even the 1800’s—sometimes just down the road from each other.  On the border, over twenty Pakistani soldiers were accidentally killed in a NATO airstrike last summer, though the Afghan government claimed that Pakistan had shelled Kunar territory before that, and that the soldiers were actually Taliban insurgents in disguise.

In the face of such seemingly monumental challenges, I was overwhelmed with admiration for these USAID civilians; bright, creative and educated young adults who had put their lives at risk yet whom we never seemed to hear about on the news back home.  Amidst discussions of hydropower plants and finance cooperatives, I decided to hold my questions about the development of Provincial Gilbert and Sullivan Appreciation Programs until a later time.  My shining moment actually came during our return flight home, when it was discovered that I was the only one who had thought to bring along a snack, and I enthusiastically distributed matza to all the senior military and civilian personnel who had spent the whole day trying to figure out what I was doing on their mission (Picture 6).

Apparently, either I or the matza made a good impression on everyone, because they all welcomed me back the next week, when I invited myself on a similar mission of theirs to Kandahar.  For a longer trip into more dangerous territory, we traveled by both plane (Picture 7) and helicopter, and brought extra security.  When I arrived at the airport, there were already six or seven burly guys and a dog that looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles ahead of me in line.  They were all in civilian clothes and armed to the teeth.  One of them was carrying Decision Points, by George W. Bush and I think even that was loaded.  “I feel a little out of place in uniform,” I joked, trying to break the ice.  None of them cracked a smile, and Cerberus started licking his chops.  I decided to stop talking and focus on my Kandahar briefing packet.  That province, in the flatter and more fertile south, had apparently always held promise as “The Breadbasket of Afghanistan.”  Unfortunately, since the mid-1990’s it became more widely known as “The Birthplace of the Taliban.”  The view from the air captured that dichotomy with almost cartoonish clarity—scorched desert on one side, and naturally-irrigated farmland on the other (Picture 8). 

This time, rather than meet with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar City, we visited a District Stabilization Team in the Panjwa’i District of Kandahar Province.  This district achieved tragic notoriety of late as the location where Staff Sergeant Robert Bales was reported to have murdered seventeen Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, only a few kilometers from where we visited.  According to the DST, however, the incident was barely known about in the adjacent villages.  It sounded like typical Army spin at first, since the story drew harsh reactions from President Karzai in Kabul and was beamed all over the world via media outlets and the internet.  If I had heard about it in Mississippi, how could they not have heard about it next door?

But the more I considered the Neolithic conditions people live under in this part of the country, the more plausible it seemed.  How exactly would the other villages have found out?  It didn't seem like they had TVs or computers, and it didn't seem like they traveled much.  Their daily struggle was focused more on finding enough water to survive.  As for the village in question, the incident apparently allowed for an appropriately remorseful US response to strengthen the new District Governor, who was just getting his legs under him following the assassination of his predecessor.  Here again, I was overwhelmed by the ability of both the Afghans and the US soldiers and civilians assisting them to press forward in their struggle to improve the country, despite catastrophes which I’m sure would have totally paralyzed me were I in their position.

In between these two trips, I was lucky enough to travel on a more local (and uplifting) outing as the guest of a different Seder attendee.  This time, it was a Jewish female sergeant from Texas, serving in a National Guard unit from Georgia.  Her mission was to oversee various humanitarian aid projects around the capital, and she invited me along to visit a school that the US was in the process of building.  Guided by our Afghan interpreter, who had been disfigured when he stepped on an IED while assisting Marines a few years ago, we drove out to the neighborhood of Khair Khana, in northwest Kabul.  The school consisted of one main building, with several adjacent tents, a playground and an outhouse.  It was situated on a high plateau, with mountains rising behind it and a fantastic view of the city stretching out below.

Due to shortages of space and personnel, the same group of teachers was responsible for teaching every grade level, so students only attended for a few hours a day.  Nevertheless, seeing so many friendly and eager young children in school was one of the most heartening experiences of my entire trip.  Improvements in Afghanistan’s educational opportunities have been a really positive story of our involvement there over the last three years.  According to the New York Times, 5.2 million boys and, more significantly, 3 million girls (Picture 9) are now in school, up from 3.9 and 2 million in 2009.  As it happened, we arrived just in time for my favorite class (recess) and I spent a good half-hour demonstrating to the children why there are still faculty members at Yale who wonder how I was ever admitted there (Picture 10).

On Sunday, just two days before my scheduled flight back to Kuwait on 17 April, I opened my email to find a routine notice that the US embassy would be performing a “duck-and-cover” drill that afternoon.  With that in mind, I was pretty confident when the first crackles of gunfire peppered the air at 1345 that it was nothing of concern and would all be over soon.  I was just about to head out for lunch when my chaplain assistant told me to come back inside.  Ten minutes later, when two explosions went off in close enough proximity that we could faintly feel their impact, everyone in our billets started strapping on their body armor and exiting the building for the bunkers.  I, of course, was still convinced it was simply a very elaborate simulation, and only my assistant’s persuasive techniques from his civilian job in the NYPD (putting me in a headlock and dragging me downstairs) ensured I followed the crowd.

When we got outside, the scene was one of uneven reaction.  Some people ran back and forth, shouting instructions, while others leisurely made their way to cover, carrying folding chairs, books and personal computers.  Fortunately, my years of training triggered a highly professional response like second-nature, and I immediately began singing a cantorial aria by Yossele Rosenblatt.  It soon became clear that a more pastoral approach was needed.  “Remain calm, everybody.  I saw the email this morning,” I confidently assured them.  “This is only a drill.  It’ll all be over in a few moments.”  “I don’t know, sir…,” said one soldier, perusing his iPad.  “It says here on the BBC’s website that the Taliban have just attacked Kabul and Jalalabad, as well as targets in three other provinces.”  “Er, Really?  Let me see that…”

Four hours later, with the internet long shut off, we had exhausted what few topics of common conversation we could find, and the even fewer comfortable sitting positions the bunker would allow.  The ground, which magically managed to be both damp and dusty at the same time, also partially concealed such hidden treasures as a rusty knife, which my assistant nearly sat on, and on old packet of barbecue sauce which he wasn’t as lucky to avoid.  Time moved so slowly it seemed to be going backwards, until I finally conscripted the one Afghan in the bunker to start teaching me some introductory lessons in Dari.  Though it’s possible he would have preferred to continue his nap, I was glad to be able to learn some key survival phrases like “Man arzu doshtem ke laptopem ra dar bunker biyorem,” which means, “I wish I had taken my laptop with me to the bunker!”

Around 1800, we received the 'all clear' to head for the dining facilities, grab some food and report to our sections for accountability.  We found the command chaplain by the gym, which was one of the only buildings that was considered safe enough to seek shelter in.  We stood with him in the doorway for a while, watching squads of soldiers from Mongolia bustle this way and that.  They were newer additions to NATO and back in Afghanistan for Round Two after their mixed record of success here in the thirteenth century.  “What are they doing?” I asked.  “They’re responsible for base defense,” the chaplain explained.  “I’ve tried speaking to them but they don’t seem to know much English…” my voice trailed off.  “It is a bit disconcerting,” he agreed.  “The soldiers whose primary job is defending the camp are the ones whom nobody seems to understand.”  With that, he released us to return to our barracks, where I barely got my body armor off before I collapsed in a deep sleep.

The next morning, I was awakened by the blaring of the PA system, announcing that all the water had been shut off, due to the fact that the roads were now unsafe and the trucks couldn’t come to pump out the septic tank.  Apparently, I was the only person to have slept through the night soundly.  The battle had raged on and everyone was sharing stories about which particular sound had torpedoed their efforts to fall asleep.  “For me, it was the rockets…”  “No, the helicopters were the worst…”  I, of course, had enjoyed a pleasant dream in which Magevet was touring the Great Wall of China, which then morphed into one of our favorite Sushi restaurants in the Berkshires, with a wait-staff of Mongolians who spoke like Shakespearean actors.  I guess sleeping in the common room of my college suite for an entire year proved to be good training for something.  A front-row seat on a modern-day battlefield was nothing compared to the ruckus in Room 1898 of Silliman College on a Saturday evening! 

It wasn’t until later that day that I learned just how close the attack had been.  The Taliban had fired rockets at several embassies, NATO headquarters, and the Kabul Star Hotel (Picture 11-- this one is not mine) from atop partially completed buildings at construction sites within the Green Zone.  The hotel was so close it was actually visible from our office balcony (Picture 12).  More troubling than any damage from the attack was the question of how so many insurgents sashayed their way into the Green Zone in the first place.  On the bright side, no Americans were harmed and the 18-hour battle against the invaders was waged entirely by Afghan security forces, with NATO and the US assisting in merely an advisory capacity.

Though the attack did delay my departure for a week (by the time the roads re-opened and my flight was re-booked), it was finally time to return to Kuwait.  I spent my last few days doing laundry and shopping for souvenirs at the local bazaar of carefully vetted Afghan vendors.  Things really came full circle when, to my complete surprise, I discovered a shofar among the offerings of an antiquities dealer.  The Passover trip that began with Kol Nidre at the Seder ended with something of a “t’kiyah k’tana” at the bazaar (Picture 13), much to the amusement of the vendor… until he found out I wasn’t interested in buying. 

It was an appropriate ending to a trip that was laden as much with the heaviness of Yom Kippur as with the levity of Passover; with fears of what plagues we have brought on ourselves in this war as much as with hopes for what freedoms we have brought to the Afghans.  “Let us go into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God,” Moses demands of Pharaoh, as the story of our nationhood begins.  I never really understood that passage until this visit, but I have now seen the face of true sacrifice in what is a very frightening wilderness.  I don’t know what the rest of this deployment will bring, but if these are the most meaningful three weeks of the whole ten months, Dayeinu!

Missing all of you very much,
David
CH (1LT) David Frommer
HHC 27th IBCT

The ACC board just concluded its Spring board meeting in Cincinnati, on the campus of HUC-JIR. We had an opportunity to participate in a wonderful concert at Plum Street Temple to honor Bonia Shur, to experience worship with the students as well as be exposed to some of the other resources there, amid the work of the board.  The following are the remarks that I shared with the prayer community Monday morning in the Scheuer chapel, with student, faculty and our board.—Susan Caro, ACC president

It is my pleasure to be here with all of you this morning, to pray together in this sacred space, to have arranged the spring meeting of the Executive Board of the American Conference of Cantors to take place in these hallowed halls.  Of course, for us Cantors, this exact place is not where we studied!  But, the connection among the graduates of HUC is unmistakable, and the significance of those relationships I believe is further emphasized in this week’s Torah portion.  I will speak more to that in a moment.

First, I want to acknowledge the amazing wisdom and inspiring coaching of our colleague and your instructor, Cantor Yvon Shore. She has been a steadfast leader amongst us her colleagues, so I can say with certainty how I know that she is a blessing to this institution, to the guidance and training of rabbinic students here in Cincinnati.  She walks in footsteps laid for her by Cantor Sharon Kohn, who is also here this morning as she continues to serve on the ACC Executive Board. Both of them give great honor to Bonia Shur, who has been a dedicated composer of Jewish music for fifty years.  He has contributed a broad wealth of music to our liturgy and sacred repertoire, and has ensured that on this campus of HUC that serious and significant Jewish music has great importance in Jewish life.

As I considered what message it would be that I would want to bring this morning, I kept returning to the importance of our work as klei kodesh, for of course that is ultimately why we are all in this exact moment and place together this morning.  Yet, I couldn’t find a way to speak without some consideration of this week’s parsha.  Tzav—one of those parshiyot on the list of 'oy, do I have to?' sections of Torah, I feel inspired by the challenge!

We all know that this week's parshah continues to explicate the details of the korbanot, the intricacies of rituals regarding blood, fire, water....Zot Torat ha-Olah...The ‘torah’—the ritual, special conditions.—the content of the powerful instructions we have received. Why these elements? What is it that draws them together, what is their inherent commonality that they are joined together in our most sacred ritual moments?

They are elements which are integral to our lives in many different regards. Interestingly, each of them have meaning in this powerful ceremony here, which I believe is no accident.  Each piece - blood, fire, water, even the nature of power itself - are not inherently good or bad materials. They are only as good or as bad as how they are used and experienced. Blood gives life, but only when it is contained in its proper context. Fire can heat and cook, or it can burn and destroy.  Water is an element of our bodies, needed to sustain life; we also know of its devastation and destruction.  The use of these elements in an ancient daily ritual can still remind us today that what is important in our lives is how we conduct ourselves, the ways that we use our talents and our gifts for good and blessing, rather than causing hurt or harm. This is a critical element of spiritual leadership that is a continued gift from this parsha.

To emphasize this point, our ancient writers continue with a description of the ritual conferring leadership upon the kohanim. We are familiar with the details of the ritual; the piece that struck me most in my current reading was regarding the disposition of the ashes, the deshen.

R. Tzvi Hirsch Hakohen of Riminov is quoted in the collection Itturei Torah as asking, “How shall we understand the word deshen?  It is ‘davar shelo nechshav’ - a thing of little substance, something potentially unworthy of our attention.”  He then teaches: “The lesson is to lift and raise up everything that seems to you as small, of little value, and place it next to the altar, to make it a holy offering.”

Even the littlest thing that we do has the potential to be repaired and redeemed.  Even ashes, which seem to have no spark of holy fire, must still be brought to a pure place.  A basic principle of Chasidic teaching is that everything has the potential to be transformed into holiness.  According to this ritual in Torah, it is through burning that transformation takes place.  As spiritual leaders, we have to imagine that transformation.  What is the process of burning that effects the transformation?  For us, it must take place in our hearts, in our attitudes, in our orientation to the communities in which we work. We -  the clergy leaders today - are the ones who are charged  help to facilitate spiritual transformation in those whom we serve. 

Sacred leadership, then, is not about being set apart from our people, but about discovering holiness in the most obscure of places and helping to render them as holy.  We are taught this week to use the elements of ritual for good, to draw out their inherent goodness, and to attend regularly to the flames of this offering. The work of the priests was itself kodesh kodashim—in and of itself the holiest of holies, in the holiest of places.  I urge us to always be mindful that it is our work together, cantors and rabbis, with all those who lead and partipciate in our communities, to keep those fires lit.  We note this week that even the ashes—our ‘failures’—perhaps the programs that don’t succeed, the relationships that try our patience, the struggles that tug at our souls—those are not merely tossed out as trash, but rather are treated with care, relegated to a pure place, to a makom tahor,  just outside the camp.  The need to maintain a perpetual fire on the altar is for us a reminder as leaders today to keep God at the center of our work.

This conferral of leadership is very serious, filled with ritual.  Although it was once designated by lineage, today it is given with great consideration to one who is willing to undergo the hard work, study and commitment, to one who will embrace that sacred responsibility.  Each of you sitting here is at some point along this spiritual journey of commitment, of hitkorvut, drawing nearer to God and to our people in order to both offer oneself in sacred service and to be the shaliach - the support and inspiration for the community.

May our prayers together today embolden and sustain our spiritis, and may we never cease to experience the blessings of true partnership and collaboration amongst us in these sacred callings.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Greetings from Camp Shelby, Mississippi!  The Jewish month of Adar is a time when we gather in sacred community to celebrate the ridiculous ways that topsy-turvy events can happily and unexpectedly resolve themselves in the end.  I'm talking, of course, about the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  But aside from Kentucky's best chance to win its first championship since I was sixteen, the real drama on CBS this month is the final chapter of my contorted attempts to provide religious support for Jewish soldiers serving overseas. 

As our recent Purim festivities highlight, the last few weeks here have played out like a lost coda to the Book of Esther, with dithering leadership, contradictory edicts, hidden identities, and ridiculous plot twists.  At various times, chaplains in different senior positions throughout the Army and the National Guard have proclaimed that I would be spending the next ten months in (read the following list in one breath):

Germany,
Bahrain,
Upstate New York,
Afghanistan,
"An undetermined location outside the continental United States,"
Downstate Mississippi,
Kuwait,
"An undetermined location inside the continental United States,"
my living room at home, with the deployment canceled. 

They have assured me that the need for Jewish chaplains is so great that once I get overseas, I will scarcely spend two weeks in the same place.  That said, it has taken them six weeks and counting to figure out how to get me overseas to begin with.  Part of the problem with finding a deployment for me and the other chaplains has been that we are neither trained nor allowed to serve as any other kind of officer (i.e. infantry, signal, artillery, etc.).  On top of that, a unit can only merit a chaplain if it has a minimum of several hundred soldiers and we are (thankfully) withdrawing more soldiers from overseas than we are deploying.  On top of that, chaplains are not permitted to handle weapons, so we have to be accompanied everywhere by a chaplain assistant (i.e. bodyguard), which takes that soldier away from all the other work a unit could use him for.  Finding us jobs has seemed as logistically challenging as embedding a Jewish queen in a Persian court under the nose of an anti-Semitic vizier, using nothing more than a beauty pageant and some myrrh.

At present, the current "solution" they've come up with is one that the Book of Esther's ancient author would have appreciated.  I will be assigned to a non-chaplain officer slot (which normally wouldn't be allowed), without an assistant (which would normally be dangerous), on the roster of a group of Army soldiers who will be traveling through Kuwait (where they need Army chaplains), on their way to serve on a Navy base in Bahrain (where they don't).  Since the most useful place for me to be is Kuwait, but the Bahrain mission was the only one that had an open slot, the Army believes it can square this circle in one of two ways: it can either (I'm not even making this up) spirit me off the Bahrain-bound flight when it stops over in Kuwait, and let the Navy figure out when the rest of the soldiers arrive in Bahrain that someone is missing... or allow me to fly all the way to Bahrain and then try to negotiate with the Navy to send me back to Kuwait in exchange for two minor league chaplains and a future draft pick.  The Army is concerned that said negotiations will become difficult once the Navy realizes that the generic officer on the roster actually happens to be a "highly valued" Jewish chaplain.  While they haven't yet explicitly instructed me to "hide my kindred or my people" from the other deployment virgins in the harem or from my future Naval overlords in Bahrain, I can tell it's on their minds.  Naturally, even though I still don't know where I'm going, the unit is "certain" we'll be leaving the country on April 6th, unless you live in an unwalled town, in which case I'll be leaving on the 7th.

The good news, however, is that amidst all this absurdity, I have been blessed to provide my most successful religious support to Jewish soldiers in my brief career to date as a chaplain.  Our congregation here in the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team is small but it reflects the entire visible light spectrum of Jewish identity in diaspora, including:

• A Chabad-certified ba'al t'shuva lieutenant who observes strict Kashrut and doesn't touch women.
• His fellow lieutenant in the same company who is comfortably Reform yet eager to learn about obscure prayers for things like Kiddush levana (sanctifying the new moon).
• Two captains who grew up in Jewish day school, are now Reform-to-Agnostic, and profusely apologize that they don't come to services more.
• A sergeant-first-class who was adopted by a Jewish family, and who explained that 'because he grew up Conservative, he doesn't like services with lots of Hebrew.'
• A private-first-class who attended Ramaz, the Jewish day school on the Upper East Side, and consequently knows more about Judaism that I learned in five years of graduate school.
• A female specialist who converted to Judaism and is now married to a Bedouin from Haifa whom she met at an Israeli Army summer camp in Israel. 
• A specialist and a female captain who are both interested in converting to Judaism.

Serving a community of such diverse practice definitely has its challenges, especially when movement off post is difficult to arrange.  While a Havdalah service (Photo 1), a Sunday bagel brunch (Photo 2), or a Tu Bishvat seder (Photo 3) might be easy to organize in the civilian world, it took nothing less than the timely arrival of New York State's senior chaplain, a full colonel who outranks me by about six pay grades, to ensure we could drive to the nearest Winn Dixie, twelve miles away in Hattiesburg, and obtain Kosher grape juice, Kosher bagels, and exotic fresh fruit for those respective projects.  As it happened, I overlooked the need for a kosher knife to cut the pineapple that had been so painstakingly procured, and ended up ritually slaughtering it with a plastic one.  Though the non-Jewish soldiers are generally very serious and respectful about our holidays, it was difficult to convince them that we hadn't concocted Tu B'shvat as an excuse to make pineapple daiquiris.

Our biggest success by far, however, has been Purim, thanks to the wonderful support we've received from synagogues (Temples Emanu-El in Dallas and San Francisco), family (Carla's cousins Joe and Tamar) and even fellow Jewish soldiers from our unit who were left back in New York.  In addition to masks and groggers, we received so many fresh-baked hamentaschen that we had a tasting contest at our Megillah Reading on Erev Purim (Photo 4).  The next day, a fellow chaplain who is Methodist arranged transportation out to the field so I could do a second Megillah reading for his Jewish soldiers (Photo 5) who were in the middle of a training simulation on a fake Forward Operating Base.  Fortunately, it was an equally fake mortar attack that thunderously interrupted our service and sent me scrambling for cover while everyone else looked on in amusement. 

Lastly, on Friday we were finally able to organize a trip to Temple B'nai Israel, the small Reform congregation that has been in Hattiesburg for over a century, and hosted Jewish soldiers for holidays when they mobilized from Camp Shelby in World War I.  We met the Israeli-born rabbi (Photo 6), who regaled our soldiers with tales of his IDF service in Sayeret Golani, an elite commando unit, during the 1960s, while I interjected similarly thrilling stories from my own IDF service, such as the time I washed 792 dishes using nothing more than a sponge the size of a toothbrush.  After a full week of festivities, our Jewish soldiers are fully trained and qualified on Purim's TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures), SOPs (Standing Operating Procedures), and a whole host of acronyms I can't even invent, and ready to educate Afghans on the comparative fortune to be made in Upper West Side markets by using their poppy fields to produce hamentaschen instead of heroin.

All joking aside, providing religious support to Jewish soldiers is incredibly rewarding work.  The army is more supportive of Jewish practice than my grandparents' and even my father's generation could possibly have imagined when they served, but it is still a lonely and difficult path to walk.  And yet it is precisely that potential for isolation, in the midst of a dangerous and uncertain future, that often binds Jewish soldiers tightly together, and opens them up to exploring their religion and culture in ways they might never consider in civilian life.  I was lucky enough to meet a young Jewish officer from an entirely different unit who happened to be briefly passing through Camp Shelby on his way to Afghanistan.  He spotted me wearing my camouflage yarmulke (the single greatest conversation-starter ever) and told me he hadn't even known the Army had Jewish chaplains.  I invited him to Shabbat services and he came to almost every one I offered in the few weeks he was here.  Just before he left, he told me that until Camp Shelby, he hadn't been to a Jewish service since his bar mitzvah, and after meeting some of the other soldiers in our tiny community he wanted to return to his Jewish roots.  I gave him my personal copy of the Siddur for Jewish Personnel in the Armed Forces of the United States and a yarmulke to match mine and told him to take care of himself because there's a synagogue waiting for him somewhere when he comes home.  I hope he does.

Along with all the humor and silliness, the story of Purim teaches us that we are always where we're meant to be, even if it's not always the easiest place.  "Perhaps you have attained this position for just such a crisis," Mordechai counsels Esther.  It's been a chaotic ride so far, but the Jewish involvement I have helped these soldiers plant or nourish in their stressful Army lives makes it all worth it.  I feel very lucky to be in this position as we send the last of our soldiers off to war, and I deeply appreciate everyone's support as I continue forward with plans to join them by stowing away on the next flight to Afghanistan, disguised as a giant, camouflaged matza ball.

Full steam ahead (wherever that is),

Chaplain ("I'm a cantor, not a rabbi!") Frommer

I love to travel, and when we go somewhere new, I like to check out the Jewish community of our destination. Sometimes it may be a defunct community; other times a strong and vibrant one, and still in other places we find ourselves gathering or rising once again from the ashes. Like many North Americans, our travel has taken us to Europe, to Israel, but really I never would have imagined nine years ago that I would be writing today about traveling to southeast Asia for so these many years serving a WUPJ congregation in Singapore for the High Holy Days.

This community of Jews hearkens from all over the world, joining the varied fabrics of their local lives and cultures together in Singapore, the financial and economic heart of southeast Asia. It is in this cultural melting pot of a city-state that they have created a unique and inspired community, a blending of many Jewish traditions from around the world, building and growing to meet their Jewish spiritual, religious and communal needs in a place filled with diversity.

Their membership comes from the world over; when I am there for the holidays, I feel like I am completing a large circle that is the diverse Jewish community. I have developed some amazing friendships as a result of these years and it is truly a privilege for me to serve this community. They may tell me how wonderful it is that I am enhancing their holiday experience through the music and prayer that I bring, but truthfully, I am the one that is blessed to be a part of such a community in a place they really need to live the dictum ‘Klal Yisrael Arevim zeh bazeh.’

We all find the fulfillment of our calling in different ways. In this issue of Koleinu, you will read moving and fascinating stories from our colleagues of forays into work in unusual and ‘far-flung’ places and circumstances. There is great importance in this outreach and in our working with these outlying Jewish communities, giving our time when we can; we are ambassadors of Jewish music, prayer, culture and tradition. In hearing these stories, we can be inspired by each other’s work, infusing our own with greater meaning. May we each continue to serve the Jewish people in our neighborhoods, our cities and around the world with joy and devotion.

 Why is the Reform Movement embarking on this Campaign?
Our communities are full of dedicated and creative lay people and professionals who successfully engage youth and families. And yet, we know that if current trends continue in our congregations, approximately 80% of the children who become b’nei mitzvah will have no connection of any kind to their Jewish community by the time they reach 12th grade. We need to better understand why far too often, youth and their families feel it is not worth their time and money to stay engaged in Jewish life.

What is the goal?
We plan to dramatically improve the ability of Reform institutions to involve young people in meaningful Jewish life and strengthen post-b’nei mitzvah engagement and retention in synagogues, day schools, camps, and youth programs throughout North America.

How will we accomplish this?
The Campaign will utilize the breadth and depth of relationships that exist within the Reform Movement—its congregations and its numerous governing bodies—and bring to bear the full commitment of talent and resources of the Movement.

How can you help?
See "Get Involved" below to learn how you can support the Campaign. Read the Call to Action, a series of Movement-wide commitments to the Jewish future that will be announced at the URJ Biennial – and email us at youthengagement@urj.org to participate.

Read the CYE Resolution here.

As more congregations explore community organizing we want ACC members to understand how community organizing can benefit our cantorates. At the invitation of the ACC, Just Congregations has created a special 2-part training especially for ACC cantors at the Biennial. Come explore how organizing can help you develop new leaders and relationships, and build a base of support. We will learn from Cantors Angela Buchdahl and Zoe Jacobs, who do community organizing in their congregations, and Lila Foldes, incoming Co-Director of Just Congregations. The workshops, Community Organizing for Cantors, will take place on: Part 1 (Learning Sessions, Block E) Friday, December 16th, 9:45-11:15 am and Part 2 (Learning Sessions, Block F)  Friday, December 16th, 3:15-4:45 pm.
 
Please note, this is only for ACC members who are registered for the Biennial.  If you are interested in attending this workshop/training series, please send an email to Beth Kozinn, at bkozinn@urj.org. If you have further questions, of course please email me at cantorcaro@jewishsong.net

We understand that incremental transformation is part and parcel of our work as spiritual leaders. This holds true as well for the work of our Conference. It is the moment-by-moment contributions of each member, each in your own way, that together weave the fabric of our future. Step by step, our Conference grows in significance and influence, in the ways we can support each other and nurture each other's spiritual growth. To that end, we will be scheduling the virtual Town Hall meetings during the coming year that I outlined at our gathering in Boston. We hope that this will open further conversation with me and the leadership, able to focus on and discuss matters both large and small. This will be a way for me and our leadership team to really be able to listen to you, to be able and available to respond to concerns and questions in a new way. Each call will have some timely topic with which I will begin the meeting; the remainder of the hour will be for questions and dialogue.

I am very excited to try this and invite your feedback as we try this out. The dates are: Tuesday, November 8, 2011 and Tuesday, February 28, 2012. Both calls will be at 1 p.m. Eastern/12 p.m. Central/10 a.m. Pacific. In addition, they will be recorded and archived on our website. Their timing is such that matters raised and discussed can be followed up by the Executive Board at our meetings already scheduled soon after these calls. I am very excited to try this, look forward to speaking with you, and invite your feedback as we try this out.

Call information for November 8:

My garden is full of vegetables, whose bounty I have been eating and sharing with friends and neighbors now for weeks. A few weeks ago, though, before our first little orange tomatoes ripened, we went on holiday for just barely a week. Not a tomato was yet ready for picking, and watching them day after day did not seem to bring their readiness any more quickly. But of course, when we returned, fantastically, there was the beginning of what has been a daily bowlful of these tiny, sweet gems. The changes were so minimal that I couldn’t see them from day to day, but with the passing of a week, that incremental ripening paid off.

Tiny changes in our lives can also be influential, and this season in our spiritual year becomes not only about the big changes we have to make in our lives, but also or maybe more importantly about the tiny things we often have to do to just get better at being human. It’s those small things in ourselves that, when we change them, have a huge impact. We may focus more often on what we think we see, while missing the larger picture, the greater experience. We look at the trees but don't see the forest; we look at the forest but don't always see the trees which comprise it.

The Yamim Noraim are about an honest accounting of both the big picture and the minutiae that make the picture happen. In parashat Ha’azinu, Moses tells us to see God in the droplets of dew, in the rain which falls upon us--in the small stuff. Moses concludes this poem by reminding the people to take to heart all in the words that he has spoken - to see both the droplets and to see the growth that is nourished by them. To see that in their multitude, they do make a difference; that with each step we take, no matter how small it may seem, we come closer to God, closer to our inner spirit, closer to seeing the big signs that we miss, precisely when we miss the little ones. If we keep looking for blessings in the big signs of the world, rather than in the small droplets that rain upon us, we may miss the true nature of what is bestowed upon us in each day.

There will be many moments of dewdrops this year, in our Conference and in our personal lives: opportunities for growth, for sharing joy, for receiving comfort, for learning and for living. Through our work together, each of your make up our core of volunteers that enable so much of the work of the Conference. Let me extend my personal thanks to each of you in advance for helping to create and participate in what I pray will be a fulfilling year. It is because of the hard work and dedication of each person that steps forward that we can continue to move our agenda forward, in service of our profession and the communities that we serve.

This holiday season, and throughout this New Year, I pray, too, that we all experience God around each and every one of us like the droplets of dew on the grass, and that we all find healing and hope in the promise of the year to come.

One of our most fundamental Jewish teachings is: Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh. “All Jews are responsible for one another.”  We invoke this often and practice it as skilled worship leaders, caring pastoral presences and outstanding educators in our communities.  We also have an opportunity and responsibility to try to foster closer connections amongst Jews the world over, with their heritage and with Israel.

Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs has just been appointed the President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It is important to me to create a team of partners for Steve: colleagues in the American Conference of Cantors who will work with Steve in advancing the critical work we do to establish and nurture Jewish communities worldwide.

Over the years, many cantors from the ACC have fulfilled the Talmudic dictum above by taking responsibility to travel (as volunteers) to World Union congregations across the globe to bring our special qualities as shlichei tzibur and teachers of Torah and Jewish tradition to communities still struggling to find their way. ACC cantors have taught for the WUPJ in their Machon Institute for Modern Jewish Studies in Moscow and have served as music consultants for a new generation of youth leaders dreaming to be song leaders and cantors in the future, whether in the FSU, in Eastern Europe, Latin America or other emerging communities in the world.

There is no better time than the start of Steve’s presidency to take the next steps in our sacred partnership. In collaboration with the World Union, we are inviting each and every member of the ACC to join the newly established World Union "Cantors’ Forum", which will assist you in contributing your special talents to strengthen the Jewish People in every community around the world.

An annual membership in the Cantors’ Forum of $180 will signal your commitment to work together with the World Union to bring the voice of Progressive Judaism to ever wider circles of the Jewish community. Members in the Cantors’ Forum will be listed in the programs of World Union International Humanitarian Award events and on their website.

If you are planning to attend the URJ/WRJ Biennial in Washington DC, you would also be invited to the WUPJ Celebratory Luncheon on Thursday, December 15th, which will include a performance of Kol B'seder, witnessing Rabbi Eric Yoffie receive a well-deserved WUPJ Micah award, and being present for the installation ceremony of Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs as the World Union's incoming President.

Thank you in advance for becoming a member of this newly established WUPJ Cantors’ Forum, and for taking the responsibility in helping us to foster and nurture our Jewish People all over the world.  To join for the coming calendar year of 5772, please send a check to WUPJ, att: Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, 633 Third Ave, 7th Floor, New York, New York 10017.  Or call Allison Klein at 212-452-6534 with credit card information.