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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Dear Holy Blossom Families,

 

We can’t wait to welcome your children back to Holy Blossom Temple.  We have a wonderful year of growth and discovery ahead of us.

As you prepare to return to school, we want you to know we are thinking of you and wishing you well.  We share this prayer with you to mark the milestone in the life of your family.

 

A Back-to-School Prayer

Our God and God of our Ancestors:

Protect, guide, and uplift our children as they return to their schools.
May they know good health and the joy of discovery.
May they know the warmth of good friends, the laughter of unstructured play,
the strength of teammates, and the comfort of community.
May they witness the inspiration of dedicated teachers,
the influence of thoughtful role models,
and the vision of how to create a better world for their generation
and the generations to come.
May they know that they are loved and supported.
May they know the blessings of their people, the safety of their land,
and the strength of their faith.
May they know peace and also resilience, hope and also hard work,
dreams and also practical skills.
May they grow in mind, body, and spirit.
May they know kindness and compassion — receiving it and offering it –
each and every day.

 

And let us say, Amen!

 

We wish you and those you love a L’Shanah Tovah!

 

Rabbi Yael Splansky Cantor David Rosen
Rabbi Samuel Kaye Cantorial Soloist Lindi Rivers
Rabbi Eliza McCarroll

How to Elevate your High Holy Day Experience  

The current month of Ellul is a gift to help us prepare more deeply, so we can greet the New Year with curiosity, courage, and compassion.

 

 

Asking the BIG Questions

  1. What are my three most significant achievements of the past year?
  2. What are my biggest regrets of the year past?
  3. What are the important decisions I need to make for this coming year?
  4. What important decision did I avoid making last year?
  5. If I knew I couldn’t fail, what project or goal would I undertake?  Is there some element of it I can pursue anyway? What’s my best first step?  Who can help me with this project?  What resources can I tap?
  6. Over the last year, did my most important relationships become closer and deeper, or was there a sense of stagnation and drifting? What can I do to nurture those relationships this year?
  7. What worthy causes do I want to support this year with my time, talent, and treasure?
  8. When do I feel my life is most meaningful?  How can I further devote myself to increase those moments of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment?
  9. What do I want written on my headstone? And how do I begin living that way now?

 

This is the time to hold up the mirror and see our life, our character, our dreams more clearly.  The pandemic has forced us to ask small questions.  It’s time to turn to the bigger questions once again.  Let’s find the confidence to do so by turning towards God, who is the Source of All Life.

 

Shabbat Shalom and L’Shanah Tovah!

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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Dear Holy Blossom Family,

This will be the first Shabbat since Rabbi Marmur was laid to rest in the hills of Jerusalem.  My condolences to those of you whose lives were directly shaped by his teaching, his leadership, his partnership, and his friendship. My condolences to those of you who did not know him personally, but know of his shem tov, his good name.  His influence is still very much a part of who we are as a congregation.  The entire Reform Movement is mourning this loss, and the Holy Blossom community is mourning uniquely.

I knew I’d be lucky to spend a few weeks studying in at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, but I did not know how fortunate the timing was. I was able to visit with Rabbi Marmur when he was well, to visit with Fredzia during the long days after his fall, to visit at Rabbi Marmur’s bedside in the hospital, and then to offer words of honour and comfort at his very beautiful funeral, and to visit with his family during shiva. With each step, I was there with my own heavy heart, my own love and concern, but also keenly aware that I was there as your representative.

You may read the eulogy I offered here or watch the recording of the entire funeral service here.  You may wish to send condolences to the Marmur family here or make a donation in his memory here.  You will hear Rabbi Marmur’s name included before Kaddish each day at Holy Blossom Temple.  I encourage you to pick up gift copies of his book, On Being a Jew and his memoir, Six Lives, so you can benefit from his insights once again.  These volumes are ready and waiting for you in the Schwartz/Reisman Atrium.

Zichono livrachah.  May Rabbi Dow Marmur’s memory continue to be a blessing for our congregation, which he served and led, admired and loved.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Yael

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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Shalom, Holy Blossom!  Greetings from the Holy City of Jerusalem!

Arrived safely at Ben Gurion Airport

I am so fortunate to be able to continue my studies with the Shalom Hartman Institute.  From early morning to late at night, I am on-campus learning with dear friends and colleagues from leading teachers and thinkers from Israel and North America.

 

 

 

 

 

We can all be proud of Karen Kollins, our congregant, longtime Holy Blossom teacher, and former Camp George Associate Director.  Karen has completed one year in a new position, Director of Canada for the Shalom Hartman Institute.  She has already elevated the profile of Hartman in Canada.  Ten Canadian Rabbis from across the country and across the denominational streams are studying together this week in Jerusalem.  Rabbi Kaye, Rabbi McCarroll, and I look forward to sharing some “Hartman Torah” with you throughout the year ahead as we draw from the faculty’s excellent curriculum,  “Foundations for a Thoughtful Judaism.”

 

 

Two extraordinary Holy Blossom-ites left for Israel this week – Racquel Mansoor and Hayden Taylor.  They will be representing Canada in the Maccabia Games, the “Jewish Olympics.”  Israel is hosting ten thousand athletes from more than thirty countries to compete in more than one hundred events.  Racquel will be competing in figure skating and Hayden in baseball.  I believe there are as many skating rinks in Israel as there are baseball diamonds – two of each.  I will be cheering for Racquel and Hayden at the opening ceremonies of The Maccabia Games.  We are already proud of them, of their commitment to their sport, of their commitment to Israel and to the spirit of global Jewry meeting in Jerusalem as one.  Go Team Canada!

 

 

Dow and Fredzia Marmur sixty-six years ago

I visited with Rabbi Dow and Fredzia Marmur my second night here.  For many weeks you have heard Fredzia’s name included in our prayers for healing.  I am pleased to say that she is recovering well from her stroke.  However, I am heavy-hearted to share with you that since my visit with them just days ago, Rabbi Marmur had a fall that required brain surgery.  He is now receiving the finest care in Shaare Zedek Hospital’s ICU.  Please keep Rabbi Marmur in your prayers.  When we were together, he delighted in hearing about you and how the Holy Blossom Temple community rose to meet the many challenges of the pandemic.  Despite the years since his retirement and the geographical distance, he is our rabbi and we are his congregation.  To send a message to the Marmur Family in Jerusalem and England, please write in the Comments Section below.

 

The pomegranate tree in my neighbourhood.

The broad theme of this week’s study is: “Why Israel?”  The question is being addressed through the many lenses of history and politics, sociology and psychology, theology and human rights, sacred and contemporary texts.  Stepping back from the details and debates, I believe the question we are really pursuing, is not “Why Israel?” but “How Israel?”  Part of the answer is found in young people like Hayden and Racquel, who feel a magnetic pull to this land they are just now beginning to discover.  Part of the answer is found in Rabbi and Fredzia Marmur, who have lived in many countries over the remarkable course of their lives and found a true home here in Jerusalem, in the Land of the Living.  Part of the answer is found in the prayers offered up from Holy Blossom this and every Shabbat:  “Avinu Shebashamayim, God in heaven, Rock and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel, the first flowering of our redemption.”  It is that striving, that hope, that potential for fulfillment, that makes this place like no other.

From the eternal city, I wish you a Shabbat Shalom.

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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Dear Holy Blossom Temple Community,

 

The year 5781 is coming to conclusion. Baruch HaShem!

Soon we can close the doors to a year of challenge and fear, uncertainty and loss.

Soon we can turn the page on a year of discovery and lessons learned the hard way. We open the Book of Life to a new page, a new chapter, which we will fill with deeds of courage and deeds of love.

 

As we prepare ourselves and our homes to greet the new year, take a moment to acknowledge all we have endured and to acknowledge all we have received.

 

Before you rise to light your Rosh HaShannah candles, you may wish to offer your own words of reflection to name the moment when one year gives way to the next.  You may wish to offer up this prayer-poem, from “Wildly Unimaginable Blessings” by Alden Solovy.

 

Let us dream
Wildly unimaginable blessings …
Blessings so unexpected,
Blessings so beyond our hopes for this world,
Blessings so unbelievable in this era,
That their very existence
Uplifts our vision of creation,
Our relationships with one other,
And our yearning for life itself.

Let us dream
Wildly unimaginable blessings …
For a complete healing of mind, body, and spirit,
For a complete healing for all,
For the end of suffering and strife,
For the end of plague and disease,
When kindness flows from a river of love,
When goodness flows from a river of grace,
When God’s light,
Is seen by everyone.

Let us pray —
With all our hearts —
For wildly unimaginable blessings,
So that God will hear the call of the shofar, open the Gates of the Garden,
and see that we haven’t waited,
That we’ve already begun to repair the world.

Let this be our testimony of faith in life,
Of faith in one another,
Of faith in the Holy One,
Blessed be God’s Name.

L’Shanah Tovah.

May it be a year of good health and restoration for us all.

Rabbi Yael Splansky

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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Reevaluating

 

 

Click to Donate to the Annual Campaign: Together
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Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Rabbi Yael Splansky

Rabbinic Reflections

January 29, 2021

IHRA and Free Speech

“An almond tree blooming in Israel.”

In June 2019, the Government of Canada announced its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as part of Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy.  The “working definition” attempts to set parameters for what anti-semitism is and is not.  CIJA (The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs) has been leading the effort to have the IHRA definition affirmed by all three levels of government.  See here for a helpful resource on IHRA in the Canadian context.

This week, in time for International Holocaust Education Week, the Union of Reform Judaism, the umbrella organization to which Holy Blossom Temple proudly belongs for one hundred years now, made its own statement affirming IHRA as a working definition of anti-semitism.  You can read the full statement here.

I appreciate the URJ’s affirmation. And I was not surprised by how it included in its statement an expression of warning about how the definition may be used as a tool to chip away at freedom of speech. “Our commitment to principles of free speech and concerns about the potential abuse of the definition compel us to urge its use only as intended: as a guide and an awareness raising tool. The definition should not be codified into policy that would trigger potentially problematic punitive action to circumscribe speech, efforts which have been particularly aimed at college students and human rights activists. If the effect of application of the IHRA definition is to limit free speech, it threatens to divide the broad coalition needed to combat antisemitism.

I don’t believe the URJ’s affirmation needed to be couched with such concerns.  I understand protection of Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment is bedrock in The United States.  But it comes with a price.

I have come to appreciate Canada’s willingness to say that Hate Speech is definable and punishable.  I remember during the tiki torch parade in Charlottesville, a Canadian participant was interviewed on CNN.  When asked “Why are you here?” he answered simply, “I can’t say these things in Canada, so I came here to speak my mind.”  And there was at least one Canadian flag seen flying during the recent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

The URJ leadership wants to ensure that the Jewish student activist campus is protected when she speaks out against demeaning checkpoints or unethical housing demolitions in the West Bank.  I don’t believe the IHRA definition was created with her in mind.  More than I fear it could be used to marginalize her, I fear a world where antisemitism has no margins.  We know what can happen when hate speech goes unchecked.

The day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day was Tu BiShvat.  Ecclesiastes asserts there is “A time to plant and a time to uproot what has been planted.”  Let us plant ourselves in the good countries that shout down anti-semitism when they see it and uproot every form of bigotry and hatred wherever it festers.

Shabbat Shalom.

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