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‘Remember the Ladies’: Voice and Representation
on Sisterhood Shabbat

As we reflect on the upcoming 250^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, let us consider these words from Abigail Adams to her husband John in the spring of 1776:

“Remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

As John Adams prepares for a long, hot and frustrating summer, Abigail, a thinker and revolutionary in her own right, reminds him that he and his colleagues cannot truly be champions of equality while conveniently leaving women out of their agenda for a new method of governing society. While Jefferson asserts that “all men are created equal,” Adams reminds her husband that “all men” are capable of tyranny. In no uncertain terms she tells her husband what future generations of justice advocates will say to the powerful leaders of their day: “No decisions about us without us.” Without “voice or representation” for women, you don’t have an inclusive revolution. Do not take our cooperation for granted.

From the beginning, Sisterhood has been about making sure all people have voice and representation in congregational life. We Reform Jews, dedicated to justice and equality, can be as oblivious as everyone else when it comes to those we are leaving out of decision-making. We are all of us human, and as Abigail Adams warned, we humans can misuse authority if no one challenges us. Embracing a progressive ideology does not make us infallible. America was not done with racism when it ended slavery and Jim Crow. We are not done with sexism because we stopped preventing women from voting, running for office or entering careers previously reserved for men. Sisterhood reminds us that we are never done with the work of justice and equality. We are unlikely to ever be done asking whether those who have historically been marginalized have sufficient voice and representation.

As we approach the 55^th anniversary of women in the Reform rabbinate next spring, we are painfully aware that we have yet to appoint a woman as president of our rabbinical/cantorial school, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, or director of the Religious Action Center. Representation is not everything, but the absence of women in these top jobs indicates there is still much to do.

May Sisterhood continue to be a place where leaders are developed, where voices are heard and where representation brings results.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Shoulders: A Call to Share the Load

“God said to Moses: ‘Accept these offerings from them for use in the service of the Tent of Meeting, and give them to the Levites according to their respective services’. Moses took the carts and the oxen and gave them to the Levites. Two carts and four oxen he gave to the Gershonites, as required for their service, and four carts and eight oxen he gave to the Merarites, as required for their service — under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest. But to the Kohathites he did not give any; since theirs was the service of the [most] sacred objects, their porterage was by shoulder.” — Numbers 7:4-9

Each of these groups are subsets within the tribe of Levi, different families within the Priestly class as a whole. All of them have been given the honor of transporting sacred objects along the journey. Yet, the Kohathites are asked to do so without the aid of oxen.

The passage provides at least two intriguing teachings. One can be readily moved by the idea that some things are so sacred they cannot be borne by beasts of burden. Only human beings can be responsible for their carriage. By extension, the verse can be interpreted to say: There are things that cannot be outsourced, tasks we cannot delegate, things that demand being done by us and no one else.

The second concept is more difficult to contend with. Why shouldn’t the Kohathites be afforded oxen? Where is the fairness in this? Yes, it’s an honor to carry the holiest of objects, but couldn’t someone else take a turn carrying them?

The Kohathites are not alone. Like too many organizations, we at TAI have become unwitting practitioners of the 80/20 rule: 20% of our membership doing 80% of the work. Truth be told, the ratio probably is closer to 90/10. Too few shoulders have been asked to carry too much of the work for too long.

This is not a call for a few heroes to step forward. It would be insufficient to spell or replace the 20% with another cohort who is asked to do too much. It is a call for everyone to help as much as you can, whenever you can, however you can. If everyone does this, we can stop demanding too much of an overburdened few and do a better job of shouldering sacred tasks together. Please reflect on how you would like to help, then reach out to Executive Director Nick Fain, Religious School Director Elissa Weinstein or me.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Giving: Celebrating Our Confirmands and the Meaning of Shavuot

Tonight is a threefold celebration: Shabbat, Shavuot and Confirmation. It is easy enough to confuse Simchat Torah with Shavuot. The first focuses on Rejoicing (simcha) in the Torah and the second focuses on the Giving (matan) of the Torah. In the Progressive Jewish world, we teach that this matan, this giving that we call revelation is ongoing. Yes, Sinai was a dramatic, transformative and awesome moment, but every moment has the potential to be these things if we approach it with a sense of purpose, gratitude and reflection.

Tonight we celebrate what our three confirmands and their families have given, are giving and will continue to give. These students have been giving their Sunday mornings to Jewish learning since they were toddlers. Their parents have been giving them the gift of a Jewish education even on days when it would have been easier or more entertaining to do something else. Students, parents, teachers and volunteers have given the gift of their time, a non-renewable resource, so Jewish knowledge, connection to community, and love of humanity can continue for generations. Our sages called this Shalshelet Ha’kabalh, the chain of tradition.

Our service is not a graduation but a commencement. Our students are not “done.” We are never done with Jewish learning. They are taking the next step in their religious journey, and we celebrate this step with them. Just as they have given us their time and energy learning the aleph-bet, mastering b’nai mitzvah portions, working in the garden and cooking in the kitchen, we ask them to continue the sacred tasks of Jewish culture by remaining engaged, involved and committed to their congregation and community. We can go from preaching to practicing this charge by modeling the behavior we want and expect of them. We are not done either.

May the spirit of giving, a key component in the progress of these students and their families, continue to inspire all of us. May this festival celebrating the giving of the Torah remind us to give whatever we can, however we can and when we can. Mazel Tov to our students, their families and their teachers. May you take pride in all you have given, and may the joy of accomplishment renew your desire to give.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Wholeness: The Weakening of the Voting Rights Act and a Religious Call to Action

“Take a census of the whole Israelite community by the tribes of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head. You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms.” — Numbers 1:2-3

As the academic year winds down and summer approaches we start a new book of the Torah, B’midbar, meaning In the Wilderness but titled Numbers in English translations. You will note in the verses above that I highlighted the word whole, or kol in the Hebrew. I have done so because the lack of wholeness concerns me as we approach our primaries next week and continue with the long buildup toward the general election midterms in November. The repeated weakening of the Voting Rights Act, what one journalist called “death by a thousand cuts,” is demoralizing, depressing and undemocratic.

Let us be clear about something. There never has been a perfect form of representational decision-making. Whether we are looking at this week’s portion or the court decisions of recent weeks, we are forced to confront the fact that someone is always being left out. No sooner does our passage say all or the whole community than it says only males 20 and older capable of bearing arms. Add to this that Levites cannot hold land and are excused from military service so they can attend to their duties as priests, a role reserved solely for them.

Yet, like our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, we can look at Numbers as aspiring for inclusion, representation and fairness within the context of its time. We can strive for wholeness even if we never achieve it, strive for just representation even if we do not realize it. One of the problems with the latest defeats for the Voting Rights Act is that it no longer protects the power of the minority vote. It is true that gerrymandering does not disenfranchise people of color as individuals. It does not prevent people from voting. It does, however, significantly dilute the power of their collective vote. The number of Black legislators who stand to lose their seats is alarming. It is not in keeping with the letter or the spirit of the Voting Rights Act. Redistricting of this kind is to engage in a legal fiction whereby we count the votes of Black people while ensuring the Black vote won’t count. To dilute the Black vote is to leave whole communities without a voice. To diminish the collective strength of a district by conveniently relocating it elsewhere is to abandon wholeness so that a particular group can have more power.

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner sacrificed their lives so their Black brothers could live in freedom. Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma so we could live in a democracy. Jews from all over the country protested, joined the Freedom Riders, risked beatings, and jail so civil rights, particularly the right to vote, would no longer be denied. On these Sabbaths between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day let us reflect on what generations before us endured and try to practice at least some measure of their courage.

In the weeks and months ahead, I will be sharing information about what you can do in concert with local and nationwide partners to halt the advance of regressive efforts to weaken the hard-won advances of our past. In coordination with the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, I will be making voter registration, education and protection efforts available to you and our partners throughout the community. These organizations do not endorse candidates or contribute money to them. Within the framework of robust democracy, we can disagree about who to vote for and how we see the issues. What we cannot do is continue to decrease the power of some while increasing that of others as we insist we are truly democratic.

If numbers are to matter, if representation is meant to achieve wholeness, then all people must have a voice. Please look at what the organizations above are offering and keep an eye for ways we can support our Reform Movement and our partners in this important work. May everyone be counted and may everybody count.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Requesting Release: A Prayer for the Sabbath of Mother’s Day

This week’s Torah portion, B’har-B’chukotai, includes the famous verse that inspired the engraving on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land.” (Leviticus 25:10). Most Torah commentaries use the word release instead of liberty. Release from indentured servitude, debt and generational poverty. The teaching could not be better timed. Coming on the Sabbath before Mother’s Day and a week after Hadassah Shabbat, there are a few things one would love for all women — be they mothers or not — to be released from.

May mothers and all women be released from the impossible expectation of perfection. No one can live up to it. We don’t need perfection. We need strength, love, integrity, courage, wisdom and joy.

May mothers and all women be released from violence. Too many remain trapped in relationships where they must choose between homelessness and abuse. Neither is acceptable nor safe.

May mothers and all women be released from poverty. Too many are relegated to hunger, coercion and neglect.

May mothers and all women be released from a continuous campaign against bodily autonomy and equal access to health care. We don’t have to agree with the choices they make to insist on the safeguarding of their choices.

May mothers and all women be released from being told they are not pretty enough, young enough or ambitious enough to pursue their personal or professional goals. Our job is to encourage not dissuade, to support rather than condescend.

On this Shabbat before Mother’s Day, let us practice the values that strong, courageous, loving and compassionate women have taught us. Let us make the world a better place for all God’s children, and may all God’s children realize a mother’s hopes for happiness, holiness and peace.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Qualified: Hadassah Shabbat and Another Historic First for Women’s Leadership

It is poetically fitting that during the week we celebrate Hadassah Shabbat in Lexington (services tonight at 6 at TAI and tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. at Ohavay Zion Synagogue), there has been a significant step forward for women’s equality in Israel. Thanks to organizations like Hadassah, a group of female scholars was finally permitted to take the Chief Rabbinate exam to be recognized as rabbis in Israel. Hadassah had been supporting this effort for some time and deserves to be acknowledged among those who championed the cause of these religious leaders who had been deprived of equal opportunities because of their gender. What these women have had to endure — not only a four-hour wait the day of the exam, but every day leading up to it — is unacceptable. They should be lauded for their courage, persistence and determination in the face of discouragement and disrespect.

This week’s Torah portion is also well-timed for the delightful Hadassah services TAI and OZS will host this weekend. Parshat Emor includes a litany of qualifications for being a priest. The things that can disqualify someone are shocking to modern sensibilities:

“No man among your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God. No one at all who has a defect shall be qualified: no man who is blind, or lame, or has a limb too short or too long; no man who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or who is a hunchback, or a dwarf, or who has a growth in his eye, or who has a boil-scar, or scurvy.” (Leviticus 21:17—20)

Why is this fitting for Hadassah Shabbat? Because Hadassah holds up a completely different model of what qualifies people for leadership. Gender is not the point. Speech and hearing are not the issue. The length of our limbs and the health of our eyes are not the criteria in question. What qualifies one to lead at Hadassah, and at all organizations dedicated to equality, is the ability to lead, readiness to lead, and commitment to lead.

During the summer of 1992, I had the good fortune to be among those standing in the courtyard of the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion when Rabbi Naamah Kelman become the first woman to be ordained in Israel. Thirty-four years later, women have reached the point where they can take an official state exam to be recognized as a religious leader.

What qualifies someone to be a rabbi is not the chromosomes ascribed to them at birth but the knowledge they achieve over years of study, reflection and practice. I don’t when the results of the test will be available to the public, but this sabbath I assert with all of you that these women are qualified to be rabbis. May Hadassah continue its proud tradition of championing equality and may the milestone of progress this week be part of many more to come.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Our Centennial, Your Big Night

Tonight we celebrate the 100^th anniversary of our sanctuary and a century here at North Ashland Avenue. The planning committee started meeting more than a year ago, the choir has been practicing for months. Photos and documents have been collected, a slide show has been organized, food has been prepared, and worship booklets printed. Now the moment is here. The remaining piece of the puzzle is you, our congregants. Please do not treat tonight as someone else’s service, someone else’s celebration, someone else’s, obligation. We ask for the one thing only you can give: the honor of your presence.

If you were brought up here, then this is your night. If you have worshipped, studied, participated in social and community action efforts here, then this is your night. If you are raising children and grandchildren here, then this is your night. You need not be from a founding family to be part of our foundation here. Each and every one of us is a significant part of our history no matter how many years we have been here. As God says to the people in the Deuteronomy reading for the High Holy Days, this is about kulchem, all of you. It’s about “All y’all” as we say around here. Not a select few, not a particular group, not a distinct cohort or two, everyone.

Tonight we celebrate the generations that went before us, not only by incorporating their prayers and melodies but by recommitting to the values they brought to this place. They dedicated it with hope and trust that we might rededicate it. It is ours to protect, cherish and preserve, just as they did. We feel their presence here tonight. We pray that our words and deeds would make them proud.

Coming just a day or two after the conclusion of Passover we bring the spirit of the seders with us. (The matzo we can relinquish until next year.) “What makes this night different than all other nights?” At all other services the sanctuary is a place to celebrate our values. Tonight we celebrate the value of our sanctuary. We only get one centennial year. We are planning to do this exact service only once. There are many days throughout the course of a year, a decade or a lifetime, but there is only one April 10, 2026, only one 23 Nisan 5786. May this sacred place remind us to sanctify time, encourage us to cherish Torah and inspire us to work for peace.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

Omer 5786/2026

At seder last night and again this evening, we will participate in counting the Omer. These 49 days, seven full weeks from the second night of Passover to the night of Shavuot, invite us to be  more attentive and thankful for the gift of time. Rabbi Karen Kedar has assembled a remarkable anthology, “Omer: A Counting,” with a poem or short piece of prose for every day. We will be drawing on this work tonight and in the sabbaths ahead to enrich our appreciation and observance of the Omer.

I encourage you to make saying a blessing, reading a poem or studying a passage of Torah a daily practice during these beautiful days of our Bluegrass spring. Every day, every moment holds the potential for holiness. Holidays, festivals and sabbaths provide us with keys to unlock that potential. Whether we use them wisely is up to us. May our observance of the Omer deepen our appreciation of time and may the blessing of time enrich our observance of the Omer.

Blessed are You, our God, Creator of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with Your commandment and commanded us concerning the counting of the Omer.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,
Rabbi David Wirtschafte

A Passover Prayer of Freedom for Shabbat HaGadol

The sabbath before Passover in known as Shabbat HaGadol, The Great Sabbath. Not the Shabbat before the High Holy Days, Sukkot or Purim, but rather before Pesach. Why? Because more than any other sacred occasion, Passover is about freedom. Z’man Cheiruteinu — Season of our liberation.

So on this Sabbath before the Seders let us pray for freedom.

Freedom from war and violence.

Freedom from fleeing one’s home.

Freedom from running back and forth to bomb shelters. 

Freedom from being forced off one’s land.

Freedom from death and destruction.

Freedom from tyranny and terror.

Freedom from hate and humiliation.

Freedom from slander and libel.

Freedom from starvation and suffering.

Freedom from desolation and despair.

May the salt water of the Seder renew our capacity to shed tears for the suffering of others.

May the bitterness of the maror renew our sympathy for others sorrow.

May Passover mark the beginning of the end of this latest war that cannot end soon enough. 

This year we approach Pesach amid oppression, sadness, and war. Next year may we enter into Shabbat HaGadol in a world blessed with freedom, happiness and peace.

Shabbat Shalom — and Zissen Pesach!
Rabbi David Wirtschafter

A Family of Foreigners:
Reunion on the Eve of Evelation

Before we get to the dramatic revelation of the Ten Commandments, before we get a comprehensive restructuring of a judicial system, the first thing we get in this week’s Torah portion is a family reunification story. When a tired, thirsty, hungry, stateless and homeless person winds up at his door, Jethro, a priest of Midian and a prosperous shepherd, does not ask for documentation. He never asks Moses what he did in Egypt, why he left or what his plans are. The only thing on Jethro’s mind is how he can thank the stranger, an Egyptian, he is told, who saved his daughters from being bullied and his livestock from dehydration.

You might think that a bath and a good meal would be sufficient thanks, but no. Jethro doesn’t just invite Moses into his home, he welcomes Moses into the family when he marries Jethro’s daughter Zipporah. Moses names their first son Gershom, meaning “I was a stranger in a foreign land.” The name honors his father-in-law, who has treated him like family even though his legal status is that of a foreigner.

All that was four Torah portions ago. Now, after Jethro has taken care of Moses’ wife and children during the plagues upon Egypt, the early days of the journey and the parting of the sea, the family is reunited. “Moses went out to meet his father-in-law; he bowed low and kissed him; each asked about the other’s welfare, and they went into the tent.” You will notice that no one on guard duty asks Jethro about documentation, his line of work in Midian, why he left there or what his plans are. He treated Moses like family, welcomed Moses into his family, and now, the vagabond Jethro took a risk on, the leader of this people on the move, invites his father-in-law, the foreigner in this part of the story, into his abode. The tables have turned but the values have not. What matters about someone is the “content of their character” not their nationality, nature of former employment or name of the deity they worship. We treat each other like family because we are family.

We will never know what would have happened to Moses without the kindness of Jethro. What we do know is that the relationship between the two men transcends nation and religion, caste and class, rigid hierarchy and personal history. Not only do they play essential roles in saving a people, they work together to found a family, a family that stands the test of prolonged absences, cultural differences and all the other highs and lows families go through.

May this multicultural, multinational and multitalented family remind us to treat the foreign born as we would have our family treated, and may we treat our family in such a way that no one feels like a foreigner.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter