URJ Biennial 2011, Washington, DC

  

This December 14-18, 2011, I was among more than 5000 Jews who attended the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial in Washington DC. Delegates from over 500 congregations in North America, Israel, and the UK studied, prayed, debated resolutions, and celebrated Shabbat together in an atmosphere of learning, networking, and passion for the future of Reform Judaism.

A major highlight of the biennial was hearing from President Obama, who gave a stirring address to the assembly,  addressing issues of social justice and  Israel, and peppered with humor - referring to his daughter Malia's busy schedule attending friends' bat mitzvahs, and giving a shout out to NFTY, the North American Federation of Temple Youth. He began his remarks by wishing us an early Shabbat Shalom and then continued with a d'var Torah on the portion of the week, resonating with the word “Hineini”,  “Here I am”. It was an exciting and moving start to our Shabbat together. We were also privileged to hear from Ehud Barak, and Natan Sharansky, and had the opportunity to dialogue and discuss the challenges and opportunities for Reform Jews in Israel with representatives from Israeli Reform congregations.

This year's biennial marked a major leadership transition as Rabbi Rick Jacobs became the new President of the Union for Reform Judaism.  Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who is retiring after having led the movement for the last 16 years, was celebrated in prayer, speech, and song on Saturday evening at Havdalah. Rabbi Jacobs shared his passionate vision for the future of Reform Judaism at the closing plenary on Sunday morning.

This year's biennial also had the largest attendance of Jews in their 20s and 30s and inaugurated a new initiative for the URJ, the Campaign for Youth Engagement, or CYE.  This initiative is a strategic plan to develop greater youth involvement and reinvigorate our movement's strategies for retaining youth post b'nei mitzvah and through high school and making our congregations more welcoming and responsive to the needs of Jews in the post- college and young adult years through their 20s and 30s. The convention halls were full of people, ideas, and energy.  There was also a large exhibit hall of vendors for Judaica shopping, Jewish books and music, and programmatic resources.

Prayer Services at URJ Biennial 2011

I attended many different learning sessions from Yoga Shalom to the Changing Landscape of Jewish Life, Judaism and Technology in the Digital Age, What Jews Need to know about Genetic Diseases - (the importance of genetic testing and counseling for young Jews),  and New Trends in Jewish Religious Education,  and much more.  I reconnected with old friends,  colleagues,  and teachers,  and made new friends and connections.

Kumsitz with friends

I danced and sang at biennial Shabbat and daily worship, studied text with wonderful and insightful scholars, and was thrilled to hear many Jewish musicians perform - Josh Nelson, Dan Nichols, Julie Silver, Jeff Klepper,  Beth Schafer, Joe Black, Rick Recht,  Michelle Citrin,  Noah Aronson, Ellen Allard, Shira Kline, Peri Smilow, and many more.  We were all profoundly missing Debbie Friedman at this biennial. The conference included a beautifully moving and heartfelt tribute to Debbie and her music. As Josh Nelson said, “She was there at the beginning and she is still with us now through her songs.” Theodore Bikel received a special award from the URJ and Saturday evening we were privileged to hear the incomparable guitarist and Israeli singer David Broza.  Services were enhanced with beautiful music from a special biennial choir and a choir of the American Conference of Cantors.  After the evening programming and concerts ended there was an informal late night kumsitz with old and new friends. The one thing I did not do much of at the biennial was sleep!

Kol B'seder - Rabbi Dan Freelander and Cantor Jeff Klepper - URJBiennial 2011

David Broza at URJ Biennial 2011

You can view videos from this year's biennial of speakers, teachers, and Shabbat services and music at the URJ Biennial 2011 link and be inspired!  And then plan to attend the URJ Biennial 2013 Dec. 11-15 in San Diego!

Remembering Debbie Friedman

On Sunday, January 9, 2011, the Jewish world lost a most beautiful treasure: Debbie Friedman, Jewish composer, singer, and teacher, died at the age of 59 from complications of pneumonia. On Friday, January 14th, at Temple Israel we joined together for Shabbat in a tribute to Debbie Friedman through her music.
This is an excerpt from my remarks during the service:

Debbie Friedman’s first album, Sing Unto God, came out in 1972 when I was 4 years old, the same age my daughter is now.  I probably did not have her album when I was 4, but within a year or two later, my Mom, Dad, sister, and I had gone on a family retreat with our synagogue to OSRUI in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and discovered Debbie’s music.  My friend across the street, Laura, and I spent hours listening to that album, dancing around her living room to the energetic and uplifting sounds of guitars, drums, and Debbie’s voice rising in prayer.             



Over this past winter break I pulled out my old turntable from college and a box of albums in the basement to share some of the music from my youth with our kids.  While I was dismayed to find out that I need a new turntable and, while I also do not have the Sing Unto God LP today (although Laura’s copy played just fine, we had made multiple trips to the record store to find the reason that our copy of the record skipped), I have all of her other early LPs, and most of her other recordings on cassette tapes and CDs.  



Debbie’s music is, as many others have said, the soundtrack for the music of our lives.  I learned Debbie’s music as I learned in religious school and Hebrew school what it is to be a Jew in contemporary America.  Her prayer settings were what we sang and continue to sing in the youth choirs at Beth Emet synagogue where I grew up, in youth group, at camp, and in our congregations. My sister-in-law, who today is also a Reform rabbi, had the distinction of having a young Debbie Friedman perform at her bat mitzvah reception.  I walked down the aisle at our wedding to her music, I have sung her music at the brit milah of each of our sons and the brit bat of our daughter, and her prayer settings accompanied the levayah of my father.  



Over the years, at camp, at Women’s Rabbinic Network gatherings and in songleading classes at Hava Nashira, I have been privileged to sit with Debbie and learn from her, and to hear her in concerts at the Jewish Folk festivals in Chicago, at many NFTY and URJ conventions.  She and Cantor Jeff Klepper have profoundly influenced my musical and spiritual development, and have been beacons in the world of Jewish songleading. 

Debbie Friedman with Cantor Jeff Klepper, 2008

As Jerry Kaye, director of the Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute (OSRUI) in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, which was her second home, said: "For more than 40 years Debbie’s words and music were the voice, the expression of all we value and hold close to our hearts: love of Judaism; the power of our tradition in our lives to connect, inspire, heal and provide meaning, joy and sweetness. Without doubt, Debbie was the inspiration for a new generation of worshippers…she made real the idea that art and religion are the only two human pursuits that bypass the intellect and speak directly to the soul. “

Hava Nashira Faculty 2010

Debbie Friedman started as a group song-leader at OSRUI in the early 1970s where she set Jewish liturgy to her own contemporary melodies. Her first album, “Sing Unto God”, was followed by 22 more.  She is probably best known for her setting of “Mi Shebeirach”, the prayer for healing. Her gift to the world was her amazing ability to reach people and help them pray. She understood the power of prayer and felt her gift was to be a vessel for God’s power to convey this to others.  By combining Hebrew texts with English in singable, folk-inspired melodies, she made the experience of prayer more accessible and taught us to pray with our voices in song.  She was a pioneer in gender sensitive language, and helped transform the synagogue to make a place for the God of our mothers, and to make a place for those who were standing on the margins of the community, by honoring tradition but not fearing change. Most of all, Debbie taught that a prayer service, a song session, or a concert was not about the leader or performer, but about lifting the spirits of everyone in the room, inspiring everyone to sing and pray and connect to God.

 Yet, despite the popularity of her music, Debbie Friedman struggled in the Jewish musical world for much of her career.  In the 1970s and 80s the Jewish establishment and some cantors and rabbis dismissed her music as inappropriate in the synagogue. She never finished college, and she did not have cantorial training. She was not a classically trained musician. In fact, she could not even read music. When you would ask her, “What key is that in, or what guitar chords are you playing?”, she’d say, “ It’s this one, just put your fingers like this.”  But as my mentor and teacher, Cantor Jeff Klepper, who first met Debbie at Kutz Camp in 1969, has written: “Musically she was untrained; her genius was intuitive and expressive. She could see the musical talent in others and knew how to bring it out. She understood prayer and was able to teach it in a way you could understand. Singing with her was exhilarating in ways that words cannot express.”  Debbie Friedman was officially embraced by the Reform movement decades after her music had been informally welcomed and adopted in our camps and synagogue services.  She was made an honorary member of the American Conference of Cantors and in 2007 was appointed to the faculty of our Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s School of Sacred Music to teach music and prayer to our cantorial students.

Debbie Friedman’s life and work has profoundly changed modern Jewish worship.  One of my fellow havanashirites shared that the highest level a song can reach is when it becomes so much a part of the canon that it is as if it was always there and nobody wrote it.  This is what Debbie Friedman’s music and teaching has been to modern Jewish life, leaving behind a sacred teaching of which we cannot imagine a time when it wasn’t part of our spiritual lives.
We lost her during the week of Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of Song, the Torah portion Beshalach, of the Song at the Sea. She was our Miriam, teaching us to pray with song. And it is also during this week, that the Haftarah is the story of Deborah the prophet. Arise, arise Devorah and sing your song– Uri uri Dabri shir! Rest in peace, sweet singer in Israel.

Postscript to the sermon:

Debbie Friedman’s funeral was held in California on January 11th and over 7,000 people were able to watch the service via live internet streaming.  Since then over 20,000 have viewed the archived service.

More information and tributes to Debbie Friedman, her life, and her music, including streaming video of other concerts in her memory are at the URJ Debbie Friedman page, Debbie Friedman's website and at the "remembering debbie" page.  Debbie's music is available on her website, at URJ Books and Music, and on itunes.