Rabbi

A painting of Esther, Ahasuerus and Haman by Rembrandt. Credit: Google Art Project/Wikipedia.

Original Article is Published on JNS.org

Throughout Jewish history, public fasts have responded to and beseeched God for mercy at times of great pain and uncertainty.

Rabbi Eric Woodward of New Haven, Conn., plans to join more than 675 rabbis, cantors and Jewish community members in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel in a communal fast day on Oct. 12.

In an email on Wednesday, the rabbi of Beth El-Kesser Israel strongly encouraged the Conservative synagogue’s community to join him in abstaining from food and drink—something that Jewish communities have done throughout history in the face of tragedy, troubling uncertainty and other times that call for beseeching Divine mercy.

“With feelings of utter horror for the fate of the kidnapped, and with worry for the soldiers of the IDF, I am as mara d’atra declaring a taanit tzibbur, an obligatory communal fast, for our community tomorrow, Oct. 12, 27 Tishrei,” he wrote, using the English and Hebrew calendar dates. (Mara d’atra is Aramaic for a religious adjudicator who is considered to have authority in a certain place.)

The fast was called to begin at 5:38 a.m. at dawn and to end at 6:58 p.m. at nightfall, New Haven time.

Woodward told JNS that he and a rabbinic colleague had considered declaring a public fast when he received an email from the Hadar Institute—a Manhattan-based center of Jewish life, learning and practice—announcing a fast day.

“We stand in horror as Hamas has taken over 100 Israelis and other citizens hostage, among them infants, toddlers, entire families, the elderly and Holocaust survivors,” the Hadar email explained. “While political and military leaders are pursuing pathways to their release, we have a religious and communal obligation to stand up for the victims and to cry out to God.”

Woodward, who has great respect for Hadar and its rabbis, announced the fast in his community and signed on to a list of rabbis, cantors and communal leaders planning to do likewise. At press time, the list—which appears to span several religious denominations—numbered more than 675.

‘A gut punch’

“It feels like a very important Jewish moment. It is something we can do to unite our prayers with our bodies and our existence,” Woodward told JNS.

The rabbi has found himself feeling “unwell and physically nauseous” upon seeing new, horrifying images from Israel of the aftermath of Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 which Israeli President Isaac Herzog and others have called the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

“It feels like a gut punch,” Woodward told JNS. “A fast feels like a Jewish way to deal with it.”

Woodward’s colleague Fred Hyman, the rabbi of the nearby Westville Synagogue, is encouraging his Modern Orthodox community to fast as well. 

“At times of great distress, the community declares a public fast with prayers of supplication as a spiritual response of reflection and introspection,” Hyman told JNS.

The concept of a public fast in the face of danger or trauma comes from the Mishnah, in a tractate called Taanit (“fasts”), according to Woodward. In the Mishnah, which was codified in the third century, that danger includes droughts and persecution of Jews.

“This clearly fits,” Woodward told JNS of the present moment, despite the fact that rabbis don’t typically call for fasts in the month of Tishrei—that of the High Holiday season. (There are two set fasts in the month: Yom Kippur and the Fast of Gedaliah.)

“This is the right moment to call a fast,” he said.

Fighting back against danger

Laura Shaw Frank, of Riverdale, N.Y., told JNS that she finds the idea of a fast meaningful, having always connected personally with the biblical character of Esther—who fasted and called for the Jewish community to fast before she went to plead on their behalf to King Ahasuerus.

“I connect with Esther and the notion that Jewish people can be called to fight back against danger and oppression through a religious act,” said Shaw Frank, who directs the American Jewish Committee’s Department of Contemporary Jewish Life.

Linda Roth, of Woodbridge, Conn., also thinks of Esther and Mordechai when she thinks of participating in a public fast.

“We are in a critical time to put on sackcloth, sit on the ground and cry,” Roth told JNS.

Roth spent a lot of time in a bomb shelter in Israel in the summer of 2014 with her daughter, son-in-law and their newborn child. Roth told JNS that helping out by providing food, clothing and other supplies to those who need them in Israel is important. But it is “not sufficient.” Fasting will be a meaningful way to show concern, she thinks.

“I have never seen it in our lifetime,” she said. “This is a serious moment, and I am grateful they called one.”

‘I welcome the opportunity’

While rabbis declared the fast for Jews worldwide, at least one pro-Israel, Zionist non-Jew, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) also plans to fast on Oct. 12.

The Dallas native Joseph Kline, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst currently in his second year at Harvard Law School, couldn’t stop thinking about the attacks in Israel and about his Jewish friends serving in the Israel Defense Forces, particularly after witnessing a pro-Hamas rally at Harvard University.

“I am very religious and am praying for the IDF soldiers on the front lines,” he told JNS. “I had mentioned the idea of fasting on behalf of Israel to my Jewish friend since we fast once a month. She said that there was going to be a fast.”

“I fasted alone on behalf of Israel on Sunday,” he said. “I welcome the opportunity to join my brothers and sisters around the world in fasting on Thursday.”

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Original Article Published On The JP

“I hope to maintain these relationships I formed at yeshiva. I think it will help me at university. I hope to continue actively and passively including people at all times.”

When Rabbi Shmuel Reiner learned from a mother at his local synagogue in Israel that her autistic son had no options for studying in a yeshiva, he grew frustrated. 

“He wants to learn in a yeshiva, and his parents want him to learn in a yeshiva. And there was no yeshiva for him? That upset me,” reports Rabbi Reiner, founder and yeshiva head at Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa, located on the summit of Mount Gilboa.

An inclusive yeshiva

Shiluv Hameshalev, the yeshiva study and community service program, was founded in 2012, and currently includes 10 young men on the autism spectrum. 

“Torah must go with moral sensitivity,” Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, the program and the yeshiva’s co-founder and co-rosh yeshiva, offers. “It is win/win for all learners.”

Both rabbis were committed to the project from the beginning, but were keenly aware of the limitations of their professional areas of expertise. 

LEARNING AT THE Ma’ale Gilboa Yeshiva. (credit: Ma’ale Gilboa)

“I am a rabbi, not a social worker,” Reiner notes.

Experts in the special education community advised him to “decide on a population [of disability types],” noting that each disability requires specialized support.

Reiner and his colleagues were aware of the social challenges students on the autism spectrum might face, but felt this demographic would have a high likelihood of success if the yeshiva program was designed thoughtfully and with the appropriate accommodations. 

Program director Dr. David Lester, a bibliotherapist and teacher, describes Shiluv as filling a gap for religious boys who graduate high school without a suitable framework. 

“The uniqueness of the program is that it is not a hostel or a therapeutic setting, but a yeshiva program integrated into a normative community,” he said.

A key tenet of the two-year program is that study is integrated. Reiner feels strongly that students on the autism spectrum should not study separately from the other yeshiva students. 

Students in the Shiluv program spend mornings performing community service and studying for one or two hours daily with their typically developing peers. They pray together, eat breakfast, and work on an educational agricultural farm until noon. After the lunch break, some Shiluv students participate in classes given to the general yeshiva, and some gather in study groups designed for them. 

The Shiluv students meet once a week with a therapist for individual and group therapy sessions. Electives offered by kibbutz volunteers include music, creative writing and computers. Men in the program are often hosted by kibbutz members for Shabbat meals.

Gateway to National Service

This year, some students will also work on a farm at nearby Kibbutz Ein Hanatziv. Their work on both farms is considered equivalent to National Service. Participants thereby fulfill Israel’s requirement imposed on young men to serve their country through either military service or community service.

Yosef Zaner, 21, a student in the Shiluv program who made aliyah with his family from Atlanta nine years ago, was drawn to the yeshiva in part for the reason that it would allow him to fulfill his requirement for National Service. 

Zaner was not eligible for full army service, due to his disability, but, through the program, worked on the farm, where he assisted with planting, farming, carpentry and woodworking. 

“I built stuff for the farm – and I made a big puzzle – like the game Rush Hour, inspired by watching the Survivor TV show.”

A mutually beneficial relationship

When Davi Frank of Riverdale, New York, was considering studying at Ma’aleh Gilboa, he saw the yeshiva’s brochure where, in small print, it mentioned the opportunity of studying together with people with disabilities. 

“At the time, it seemed nice, [but] then [I] didn’t think more about it,” Davi says. “I learned at Ma’aleh Gilboa for two years, and it became a crucial element of both years!” 

As Frank became more established in the yeshiva, he began leading a habura class for students in the Shiluv program. It didn’t take him long to appreciate how amazing his students – and his peers – were. 

“They are so smart and so engaged. You see quickly that they are here to grow and have similar goals as us. They make such an effort to learn.”

The relationship among the yeshiva, its students and the Shiluv participants is mutually beneficial. 

Reiner appreciates Zaner’s many gifts and level of commitment to the yeshiva. “He was a hazan (prayer leader) and Torah reader, and you could see his confidence. He was not shy in the yeshiva.”

Challenges for students

While each Shiluv student presents many strengths, there are also challenges. As an example, many on the autism spectrum have difficulties with changes of routines, loud noises and sarcasm. 

Frank recalls one Purim when a Shiluv student became overwhelmed, appeared to having a panic attack, and began screaming at Davi during a good-natured skit. Davi was able to calm down the young man. 

“It was scary for a few minutes,” Frank recalls. 

Heidi Zaner, Yosef’s mother, appreciates the yeshiva’s ability to understand her son’s level of required support. 

“He sometimes talks beyond the time that people want to listen, and the students understand how to be kind, and how to rotate in and out as havrutas [study partners].”

The Shiluv program also creates other challenges. As Reiner notes, “logistics are sometimes complex, and the intensive staffing and small class size comes at a financial cost.”

Long-lasting benefits

Davi Frank, who started his college studies at Princeton University after two years at Ma’aleh Gilboa, looks forward to applying in college, and in life in general, the lessons he learned about inclusion. 

“I hope to maintain these relationships I formed at yeshiva. I think it will help me at university. I hope to continue actively and passively including people at all times,” he said. “Once you become used to including people, it becomes automatic.”

Getting out the word

While the program has been in existence for 10 years and has the potential to serve as a model for other study programs, it continues to be not very well known in the yeshiva world in Israel or in the United States.

Additional information can be found online at https://www.israelnextyear.org/israel-programs/Ma’aleh-gilboa and on YouTube.

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Original Article in JNS:

Let’s face it: Sitting through services can feel long, arduous and not so interactive for worshippers. Congregants tend to talk with seatmates and neighbors to help pass the time.

But not at Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff’s High Holiday services. There, you could hear a pin drop. Worshippers had all eyes focused on the prayer leader for hours on end, enjoying it so much that they wound up spending the entire holiday sleeping in the shared apartment/synagogue space of the newly married Chabad rabbinical couple in Israel.Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Rabbi Yehoshua, 27, and his wife, Cheftziba, both deaf from birth, recently hosted Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in their Rishon Letzion apartment for members of the deaf community. “Twenty came and slept in our home. We had services and meals together. It was really wonderful,” Soudakoff tells the JNS in a phone call from Israel with the assistance of an interpreter. When asked how it was advertised in Israel, Soudakoff quickly (and playfully), replies: “Word of hand!”

“The deaf community in Israel is very close and connected,” relates the executive director of the Jewish Deaf Foundation (JDF) and director of Chabad of the Deaf Community, based in Kfar Chabad, “and Israel is a small country. Word spreads like wildfire.”

The rabbi’s main goal is to create an accessible prayer experience where “people don’t feel deaf, where they feel like regular people.” He notes that in typical services, members of the deaf community are constantly wondering, “What is going on? What’s happening?”

Soudakoff’s services resemble a more conventional, cantor-led service in many ways. But perhaps out of necessity, it’s also more interactive.

“We have a hard-of-hearing person who davens [leads prayers] at the amud [prayer platform], and he signs parts of the tefillah [prayers] so that the rest of the group can follow along,” describes Soudakoff. “Another person stands directly across and tells the congregation when to answer, and indicating the page number on the machzor [prayer book], as well as signing part of the davening [when the chazzan isn’t signing]. So it was more of an interactive experience, with the chazzan, the gabbai and the congregation all davening together, and knowing where everyone else is holding. Which is the whole point of the experience—so that a deaf person doesn’t feel like he or she is catching up or totally lost in prayer.”

He further describes some of the inner workings of the service. “There is singing in the sense that there is a sound, but also signing out the words of the tefillah. For example, we would all read ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ together, or ‘Unetaneh Tokef.’ ”

During Sukkot, he will be driving a mobile sukkah from Metula, in the northernmost town in Israel, all the way down to Eilat at Israel’s southern tip, meeting with deaf people along the way to shake the lulav and the etrog.

Singing through signing, following the cantor

Moishy Wertheimer, a board member of the Jewish Deaf Foundation who met Soudakoff many years ago when they were roommates in yeshivah, served as cantor for the High Holidays. “The crowd sings through signing, following the chazzan, with assistance of Rabbi Soudakoff,” he clarifies. “There is also shofar-blowing.”

Those who have cochlear implants can hear it; others can feel the vibrations, and some put their hand right on the shofar.

Wertheimer shares some of the challenges of leading services for a community that doesn’t sing. “To be a chazzan leading a deaf crowd is a challenge because they cannot hear me, but Rabbi Soudakoff interprets the prayers into Israeli sign language,” he says, acknowledging that it was definitely different than usual. “Rabbi Soudakoff is a real shliach tzibbur[‘public messenger,’ Wertheimer’s translation]. I learned no matter if they don’t need my voice to lead the prayer, they still they need to ‘feel’ the voice of a chazzan.”

Wertheimer says he’s proud of what the Soudakoffs have accomplished so far. “For many deaf people, our shul is very accessible for them; they can participate without any [communication] barrier.”

Soudakoff would next like to build a synagogue and community center. “We have a lot of dreams. With a physical space, we can do more activities and hold more services.” He already has an impressive record of determination and success in the world of Jewish learning, education, outreach and camping.

Working towards greater inclusion and awareness

Soudakoff was born deaf to two deaf parents. His two brothers and his sister are also deaf. He had a very rich Jewish experience growing up in Los Angeles. “My mother started an organization in Los Angeles for the Jewish deaf. It was in our living room. I always saw events there. I grew up with that exposure.”

Soudakoff then attended Yeshiva Nefesh Dovid, a Jewish deaf high school in Toronto. “There are not many deaf people who have the same opportunities that I had growing up,” he acknowledges.

After three years of studying Jewish texts, he graduated and returned to Los Angeles—thirsty to continue pursuing Jewish learning and his involvement in the Jewish community. Soudakoff quickly learned that the Jewish world offers very few resources for the Jewish deaf, including access to the Jewish community and functions. “I wanted to change that” he says.

So he began blogging and making online videos about Jewish holidays and ideas. “My sister would make videos of herself making latkes or matzah-ball soup, and I would sign and later add captions.” (See “Jewish Deaf Multi Media” on YouTube).

Soudakoff then started summer camps for Jewish children who are deaf. The camp met in the Poconos of Pennsylvania for one summer, then in California the next summer. This past summer, the two-week camp took place in Italy; it was a travel camp with one week in Tuscany, and the second week visiting the north and Rome.

Jeremy J. Fingerman, CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, says “we admire Rabbi Soudakoff’s dedicated efforts. His inspired work reminds us of the importance of making Jewish camp—and indeed, our entire Jewish community—accessible for everyone.”

Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation that works to promote and support inclusion worldwide, is similarly impressed with Soudakoff and his work. “How great that we are living in a time when people are proud of who they are and teaching us that people of all abilities have the right to be equal members of our society,” he states.

Wertheimer, the prayer leader, is pleased with what the Soudakoffs and the deaf community have accomplished so far.

“We are working together to bring accessibility for the deaf community into the Jewish world,” he says, pointing out that a great deal of work still lies ahead. “They have a big responsibility for making sure that any deaf Jew has access to Jewish life. I think there has been a lack of Judaism in the Jewish deaf communities because there no awareness and sensitivity for deaf people in Judaism world.”

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