I know that a few times I have mentioned that currently the synagogue that I am a member of  is on the hunt for a new Rabbi.  As I understand it, the reasons behind our old rabbi leaving is mostly political and financial.  It is unfortunate that no matter what your religion may be, there is always some kind of political undercurrents that affect the day-to-day activities of the congregation or community.  So, that is how we find ourselves in the middle of a search for a new rabbi and a period of what will amount to almost six months without a rabbi at all.

Thankfully, there are plenty of people, like myself, who are volunteering to help the synagogue continue to maintain the same ritual feeling during this rabbinic drought.  We have people who help lead services, read Torah, and all that kind of stuff.  It is actually rather enjoyable, I personally like the lay-led feeling, which I think is something that I have expressed before.  Religion is all about community, and while i do think that there is an importance to having a trained spiritual leader, the fact that any Jew who is over the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah is eligible to officiate at services (by Jewish Law).

This morning we had one of our Shir Hadash services, which has always been a lay-led service.  Today was also a volunteer recognition day and we had a candidate for rabbi who was visiting.  It was almost a trifecta of events.  As usual, we had not to many people there at the beginning of the service, but I kicked everything off on a good start, I think.  Rabbi Goldstein, the visiting rabbi, seemed to really enjoy my leading of the first part of the service, he said it really put him in a great frame of mind to lead the next section.  Pretty cool.

I kind of book-ended the service in that I did the opening and the closing sections.  For the second time now people have come up to me after services saying things like “why do we need to hire a new rabbi when we have you?”  I haven’t really come up with a good response to that other than just thanking them for the complements.  Today we even had people asking why every service can’t be like the Shir Hadash service.

My personal feeling when getting up to lead a service is that it should be engaging and accessible and people (the congregation) should want to be there.  There are definitely days when I have got up to lead and it has felt like a performance, like I was there singing and reading and everyone else was along for the ride.  Today, on the other hand, I really felt like everyone was on the same page and energy of the service was really amazing.  I felt like people found a way to be active and participatory and I really wish I could nail down what worked.

People told me that they love the energy and excitement (I am not sure if that is the right word) that I bring when I lead.  I certainly try to bring that all the time.  I try to use melodies that people know and can sing along with.  I don’t really like it when services turn into a concert.  We are all there to pray as a community, not to listen to the rabbi, cantor, or leader pray.  Everyone has to put something in to get something back.

The thing that really struck me today was all the people who I have now heard with sentiments like the one above: “why do we need to hire a new rabbi when we have you?”  While I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in my Jewish studies, it was never the focus of any of my studies thus far in life.  I have learned a great deal from going to Hebrew School (kinda like Sunday school for most Christian religions) through high school, and from attending a Jewish summer camp, but that education barely scratches the surface of what there is to learn.  I am not a fluent Hebrew speaker, I can read the language but I don’t know every word on every page.  I also have no formal training as a religious leader.  I don’t think that I am really qualified to dispense faith-based advice.

I enjoy learning and studying my religion.  I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to Jewish books.  After all, one of the most important ideas in Judaism, and in most religions, is to continue to study the teachings and texts of the religion.  While I am sure that I could probably find my way through studies on my own, I often seek the advice or knowledge of my religious leaders.  The most fun there is when you ask a question that they don’t have an answer to and then you can go study it together!

I just find it interesting that people in our congregation would consider, even for only a moment in praise, that I would make a good addition to the pulpit here.  I am happy to help out, happy to volunteer.  I would be happy to do so on a regular basis, but I think that we would quickly find that something was missing if we didn’t have an ordained rabbi.  On that note, I was very impressed with Rabbi Goldstein, he seemed to have very god ideas on how to really embrace the values of Judaism and put them to work making a stronger, more active community.  He seemed like the kind of person who could bring to the table a lot of the same ideas and talents that I do AND also bring the role of spiritual leader.  Now, he is only the second candidate that I have met, but I am still very impressed.

Where will the whole adventure take us? I am not really sure.  I don’t really know if there are many other religions out there who ever really lean on the congregants to lead services and such.  I would hope there are as I think that it gives a great sense of community.  What do you feel is important in religious/spiritual leaders.

So, I mentioned yesterday that Utah lawmakers shot down a bill that would have changed the way that sexual education is taught in public schools.  I realize that often this is a sensitive subject everywhere, but it seems like if you are going to be able to teach sex ed at all, you might is well do it right and not leave things out! One of the major purposes of the bill was to allow educators to talk more openly about contraception and contraceptives.

As it stands currently, the law is written in such a way that most educators avoid any discussion of contraceptives because they are not supposed to appear as if they are pro-contraceptives.  Why is this a bad thing?  Why are people so afraid to teach kids about sex and sexuality?

The amazing thing is the statistics in Utah regarding sexually transmitted diseases.  The statistics that I saw on the news yesterday were based on reported cases of chlamydia and this is what they were (from: Planned Parenthood of Utah):

• #1 sexually transmitted disease
• Five new cases every day
• 5,000 new cases every year
  • 60% under age 24
  • 30% under age 19

Ironically (at least in my opinion), the bill was proposed by a Republican, but the state senate comittee didn’t even take the time to discuss it.  That’s right, all the people that shows up from BOTH sides of the issue didn’t have a chance to voice any opinions.  However one of the people who did manage to at least get her opinion on TV and quoted in the newspaper doesn’t even have kids in the public school system.

It seems to me that once again we see the clear lack of separation between church and state.  I hate to say it, but whether or not your religion has anything to say at all on sex, sexuality, and contraception has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it should be taught in school.  Some argue that it is a parent’s responsibility to teach their kids about sex and sexuality, but honestly, how many people had their parents talk to them about sex, and how many people are really going to talk to their kids about it? The question then becomes: why should the state teach what the parents are not?

Well, as illustrated by the statistics it is a public health issue.  In a state where the predominant culture is forcefully preaching no pre-marital sex, no/limited sex-ed in school, and that contraception is a sin how do you explain the high rates of STDs and pregnancies out of wedlock?  Might have something to do with the fact that all you have to do is turn on the TV and you get a pretty warped view of sex.  Of course you also have the internet and other kids!  So, would you rather have a trained educator teach your children how to be safe or should your kids just go out and try out the things that they learned on TV or on the internet?  Maybe it is that funny fact that when you tell someone what the are not allowed to do something, they are more likely to go out and do it.

It seems strange to live in a time and place where it seems that people would rather let ignorance rule life.  It isn’t just Utah that has issues like this, it happens all over this country.  Americans are really prude when it comes to issues of sex and sexuality.  It is like people believe that if they ignore it, it will go away.  Again, I hate to say it, but ignorance is not bliss in this case.  Ignorance leads to issues like disease and unwanted babies!

So, I ask, why is learning about sex and sexuality such a bad thing? Why is it such a taboo subject?  It is a fact of life, it is a life experience.  American society has made it into a subject that is almost worse than cursing.  We don’t have to explicitly teach kids how to put the peg in the hole, nor do we have to encourage them to do it.  We should give them the tools and the knowledge that they need to be safe so that when they decide to go experiment.  Or maybe you have people who are happily married with kids, but they don’t want more, maybe they should have been taught about rolling out the raincoats so that they can still enjoy life without worrying!

…Faith, God, Prayer…

It sounds like a list of tags, but they are themes that I seem to come across often in the blogs that I read.  I don’t have an issue with this, I just find it interesting how much and how many people publicly talk about these things.  I don’t know why it surprises me because since moving to Utah I have had more conversations about religion and faith than I probably have ever had before.  Sometimes I feel like any time you meet someone new out here the conversation inevitably turns towards religion at some point.

I consider myself to be a practicing Jew and I align myself with the conservative movement.  I feel like I have a pretty good Jewish education that probably stems mostly from the ten summers that I spent as a camper at a Jewish summer camp.  I enjoy going to synagogue, I help lead services, and I like to expand my knowledge base.  I am by no means an expert, but I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on most of the concepts.  I don’t let my religion dictate my life, but it certainly does influence some of the things that I do from day to day.

One of the things that I find most interesting are the cases where people “find” religion or faith as a result of dealing with something in their lives like an illness or death or something.  The question that it brings to mind though, is: “What is religion doing for you now that you have ‘found’ it?”  I firmly believe that people who convert to a religion make “better” members of the religion than people who were born into it, but how do people who find religion compare?  What is it about a person’s situation and their seemingly passed over religion that draws them back to that religion?

There is certainly nothing wrong with finding religion and taking what it offers.  One of the biggest things that religion gives people is a sense of belonging.  Religion is the foundation for many great communities, communities that support their members when they are in need.  At least I hope that is the case!  I certainly have been happy to find such a strong, albeit small, Jewish community in Salt Lake City.  I mean this is one of the only places in the world where a Jew could be considered a gentile!  the Jewish community here helped me out when I was new to the area, made me feel at home, and it still does.

Personally I find it interesting to discuss religion even though there are some aspects of some religions that I don’t agree with and really just don’t make sense to me (sometimes religion in general falls in that category).  Sometimes I find the people who say that god or Jesus gave them the power to go on a little hard to swallow, but if their faith gave them something to grab onto to keep going, that is a good thing.  Everyone, no matter where you live or who you are, should have the right to believe whatever they want.  This of course is not the case, but it should be.  However, it should be noted that the flip side of that sentiment is that no-one has the right to tell someone else what to believe.

It is the issue of what you believe and what you think other people should believe that is the source of much of the contention in the world.  There are too many people who think that what they believe is the only answer and they insist that everyone else believe the same thing.  I live in a city filled with people who believe just such a thing, it is literally their mission to bring as many people as they can into the fold over the course of their lives.  Their rite of passage is to go on a mission somewhere in the world to spread their faith.  What gives them the right to tell another person that said person’s beliefs are wrong?

Personally, I think that the best stance to take with religion is that there is no reason to insist that yours is the right one or the only one.  If there actually is a right and wrong religion then in the end, everyone will figure it out!  No need to try to shove it down my throat now when it is really impossible to know if there is a right and wrong at all.

So where does all of that leave me?  I am not entirely sure how I got here on account of I just kinda put my thoughts out.  I have been intrigued at how god and religion seem to play an important role in many people’s lives, or at least the parts of their lives that they blog about.  My religion and beliefs certainly play an important role in my life and they have made me who I am today, I have just never felt like some divine force is leading me through life.  I don’t challenge what anyone believes, they have the right to believe whatever they want and I respect that.  I just find it interesting to see what people believe and how it affects and drives their lives.