Michael Birnholz

June 4, 2020

Over the years our group (what was once known as the Ministerial Association) has grown from a gathering of just Christian congregations to a truly interfaith and inter racial gathering. This Interfaith Community is a group of clergy and faith leaders who started with meeting the last Tuesday of each month for lunch many years ago. Over time we have organized and participated in community events and celebrations: Martin Luther King Jr parade, annual joint Thanksgiving Service, Four Chaplains service. From responding to the Pulse Night Club Shooting to a service of healing after the attack on the Muslim community in New Zealand, we have also gathered in moments of sadness to offer collective healing. This year we embarked on an interfaith dialogue program inviting the community to hear how each tradition or community approaches different values. Through all of these activities and meetings, we have come to know and understand each other better and have actually become friends in many ways.

Our Interfaith Community group has been working for years to “integrate” our spiritual communities. It seemed only logical that we might take this historic opportunity to try to set a course for the establishment of a more equitable world for people of color at this time. Our various Scriptures and the moral bases of our faith traditions speak powerfully to the basic dignity and equality of every human person.

Indian River County is a perfect microcosm of America in terms of race and ethnic diversity. We have an incredible opportunity here to significantly work on increasing awareness and understanding of cultural and racial differences that have long divided and separated us. Perhaps the road to a more peaceable and just America begins right here in Indian River County, if we take the time and effort to engage one another across communities. The interfaith community has a unique and vital role to play here. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, we wrote and now share this letter as one more example of how leaders of many faith communities, right here in Indian River County and the Treasure Coast are working together to bridge the gaps and the polarization that is so hurting our country and world. We hope our words and actions will inspire and empower you to reach out and seek dialogue and fellowship with people of all walks of life around us.

In the wake of the death of George Floyd and all that has followed members of the Interfaith Community group wrote this letter to our community.

So many of our traditions call us to “love our neighbor as ourselves”; to “let justice roll down as water and righteousness as a mighty stream”; to “beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks”; and to create a world where everyone can “sit in peace under vine and fig”… a world in which “there are no throwaway people”. These words and these values are all over Sacred texts, even if you have a different Sacred text or no sacred text, they resonate as a vision of what could and should be.

We lament that some who have sworn to serve and protect have chosen instead to dehumanize, cause pain and inflict harm.

We lament that people have taken cover from those protesting peacefully with righteous indignation and have acted to bring violence, chaos, and destruction into our midst.

We lament that leaders who could bring us together, offer prayers of justice and peace and call us to our highest American values have instead sowed division and directed the use of indiscriminate force.

We are uplifted by so many who come out not to just call for a country and communities of compassion and caring but have themselves stepped up to act to live out these values.

We are uplifted by so many of our law enforcement and first responders who, in these confusing and scary times, still rush forward to take care of all of us, both in body and in spirit.
We are uplifted by leaders who don’t just speak words about what we should do, but instead respond to inspire and empower all of us with action as individuals, communities and as a country so we might find our best selves.

We must be a mindful listener and graceful witness. We challenge ourselves and those around us, in this time and place to reflect on our actions, to connect with family and community and not just hope or pray for a world of compassion and peace, caring and kindness but to go forth and do what we can with an open heart, an open mind and open hands to build it. We stand up to care for and seek justice for people of color and all who are marginalized in our society.

Rabbi Michael Birnholz, Temple Beth Shalom
Rev. Linda Tice, Roseland United Methodist Church
Rev. Dr. Charles E. Johns, Affiliate Minister Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach
Sasan Rohani, member of the IRC Bahá’í Faith.
David Kimball, Humanist Chaplain
Cantor Sara Kheel, Temple Beth Shalom
Rev. David Johnson, Minister of Mission and Education Community Church of Vero Beach
Rev. Scott Wells Alexander, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach

Chaplain Mindy Serafin, Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital
Swami Anjani, Kashi Ashram.
Rev. Denise Hudspeth, Assistant Priest, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church
Imam Derrick Peat, Resident Scholar at the Islamic Association of Treasure Coast
Swami Dhumavati. Kashi Ashram
Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Jackson, Lead Pastor, Life Changers Global Nation Ministries
Rev. Z. Melinda Witter, Pastor and Director, Institute for Spiritual Development Treasure Coast
The Rev. Nicole K. Eastwood
The Rev. Mark A. Bernthal
The Rev. Jack Diehl
Rev. Dr. Crystal Bujol, First Woman’s Church in the City of the Angels
Carol Ludwig, Executive Director, Center for Spiritual Care
Gerry Lamothe, Pastoral Counselor.
Rev. Dan Holloway, Unity Spiritual Center
Rev. Kathy McManus, Unity Spiritual Center
Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Clanton Pastor, New Bethel A.M.E. Church Vero Beach (Gifford), Florida

Rev. Dr. Joe LaGuardia
Rev. Dr. John G. Brown III ministerial affiliate, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach

Father Michael Goldberg, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church
Victor Begg

Building B’midbar in Covid 19
The Book of Numbers is known as B’midbar in Hebrew.  This word means – a place of speaking or a wilderness.  Literally it is the space between Mount Sinai and the Promised Land where our people wandered in dialogue with G!d and found the rhythm of life in covenant with G!d. It is the place where G!d spoke to us and gave us what we needed to be an interdependent, empowered and caring community. This physical and spiritual wilderness lay between the enslavement in the civilization of Egypt and the free society we would create as a people in the land of our ancestors, the Promised Land of Israel.
This is quite an auspicious time to read this book of B’midar.  As this month of June begins, we are B’midbar – in the unknown, in flux, in motion.  We remember our pre-Covid 19 days, and at the same time, we remember the feeling of being under quarantine and stay at home orders.   We also hope for a promised land where we may not be in danger of Covid 19 and not have to socially distance or wear face masks.  Just like for our ancestors departing Mount Sinai, we are not sure when and how we will get to the promised land of our time. As we endure this time in the B’midbar, we have two different models of communities who experienced time in the Wilderness also.  One was the community of Babel, setting up their settlement in the wake of Noah’s flood.
In Genesis 11, we read: 4 And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.”

This contrasts with the building project of the People of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness – the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.  In Exodus 25, we read:  “8 And let them make Me a sanctuary that I (G!d) may dwell among them. 9 Exactly as I show you — the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings — so shall you make it.”
Both of these projects happen B’midbar – literally and  figuratively.  Each occurs in a locale that is physically isolated after traumatic events.  Each represents a community focusing on a project to elevate its participants with construction projects.
As we enter this month rhetorically I ask, “Which model do we want for our community as we work to sustain ourselves to get to a promised land, a place of elevated community?  Are we trying to create a Tower like Babel, for our aggrandizement; or Mishkan, a space for the Divine Presence to settle amongst our gathered community?”
To me the answer is obvious. We don’t want a Babel, a place of confusion, built for the sake of building…grand, competing with divine,driven our own ego and hubris.   The Rabbis offer midrashim, imagining the tower being grand but empty of values and caring for the humans creating it.

 “Come, let us build us a city and a tower.” Many, many years were spent building the tower. It reached so great a height that it took a year to mount to the top. A brick was, therefore, more precious in the sight of the builders than a human being. If a man fell down and met his death, none took notice of it; but if a brick dropped, they wept, because it would take a year to replace it.

— Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews  https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/a-common-language/

My goal for the year is to engage all the members of our community in a wide variety of settings and moments to build and sustain both the physical sense of Mishkan, our campus as a place of gathering, as well our virtual sense of Holy and shared space. More than a tower to see, it’s a tent – something that is made of fabric that we have to collectively weave and craft.   As we gather in worship, exert energy for learning, make connections with friends,  offer support in times of tsuris and challenge, and  celebrate moments of awe and simcha, we build a strong fabric of community that shelters and focuses us as we become more than the sum of our parts.  This Covid 19 reality is new to all of us, just as it was for our ancestors B’midbar.  We have some great plans and ideas of what this will look like and how it will work, but it is only when we work together that we can create the type of Holy community that will sustain us.

The book, Jacob the Baker by Noah BenShea, starts with a bakery apprentice named Jacob, who has flashes of insight and wisdom that he scribbles on little pieces of paper.  Then one week, the notes fall into the Challah dough, (in a clean and sanitary way), and there you have it; challah with notes of wisdom baked in.  As the community eats its challah for Shabbat, they discover and read the notes.
Jacob becomes a celebrity, teacher and curiosity in his little town.

In one of the stories, an old woman approaches the protagonist, Jacob, and declares, “listen, young man!  I want to ask you something.  I heard you talk about dying, and I’m going to die soon.  I have a great deal of money.  If you’re so smart, why not tell me how I can take it with me?”  The old woman released a wicked little gurgle of greed.
Jacob just looked at her.  Her voice was more raspy with impatience, “Well? Well? What can be carried to the other side?”
“Everything of value,” replied Jacob.
Her greed excited, the old woman shouted, “How? How?”
Jacob drew calmer, “in your memory,” he answered.
“Memory?” said the woman, dumbstruck at this suggestion.  “Memory can’t carry wealth!”
Jacob’s focus seized the woman’s eye, “That is only because you have already forgotten what is of value.”1

Like this woman, we are facing death and loss on so many levels.  First and foremost are the tens of thousands who are dying from Covid-19 and its effects on our human community. In addition to so many deaths, how many are mourning lost jobs and businesses? We have poured heart and soul, countless hours and resources for financial stability and security, only to see Covid-19 disrupt and potentially wipe away so much progress. Also to be mourned is so much of our lives that we have had to postpone and cancel – graduations, anniversary celebrations, Passover…moments with family and friends that instead we have had to spend in isolation connected by phone and video chat.  Even our daily routine has been upended.  As April becomes May, it is clear that as we face Covid-19, the world that we knew is gone in so many ways and a new reality is here, at least for the foreseeable future.

We are like this woman demanding to know what can be salvaged, what can be restored, maintained and protected.  We also have to be like Jacob, asking and reflecting, what do we really value, and how do we bring that into this new reality with us?

Another woman offers some of the answers to some of these questions.  Kat Hawkins lost both her legs to a bout of bacterial meningitis.  A life long dancer, she was challenged to find ways to participate in the activity and art that meant so much to her.    She finally found a dance troupe that worked with people who had disabilities.

There was an emphasis on adaptations, a word I’d never even heard said in a dance studio before. We would be shown a phrase of choreography and then spend some time adapting it for our own bodies and assistive devices.
Wheelchairs, prosthetics, crutches and canes were no longer just medical aids, but objects filled with possibilities. It was there that I began to learn about fear – the fear I felt at being in my body and of showing it to others. As soon as I was in an environment where that fear was removed, where all bodies were equal, I began to focus on possibilities.2

Our people have stood at the abyss many times.  Personally, but also communally, we have stared death, loss, and destruction down many generations over.   We have examples from the Rabbis at Yavneh and the Mishnah to the survivors of Auschwitz.   Our ancestors and sages, in partnership with the Divine, built resilience and renewal into our tradition and experience from Abraham’s first steps away from Mesopotamia and Moses’ first steps from Egypt.    Once they survived or were in the midst of their survival, they demonstrated time and again how to retain values and anchors, and how to adjust to a new reality.  Now, in our generation, we must do this again.  We should consider what we value, and then find ways with our new limitation and flow of time, energy and activity, to live out those values.
Our Campus may be closed, but we can still create a House of Shalom – a community that lives and shares a sense of wholeness, harmony and peace.   From our virtual worship to study groups, to Facebook postings and comments, to Caring Community phone calls… if we all bring energy of community forward, reaching out, engaging, offering our ideas and sharing in the bounty of our blessings, we can get through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, and be part of the light and love on the journey and on the other side.

1 Jacob the Baker  by Noah benShea  Page 54 and 55
2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/3oo0pebfvn/disability_I_lost_my_legs_but_am_still_dancing

Rabbi Michael Birnholz

The phrase “Social Distancing” has now entered our vocabulary.  Each day brings new instructions on quarantining ourselves, limiting the scope of our activities or distancing ourselves from human contact in the midst of the Covid19 epidemic.  Social distancing impacts our body and spirit.  Humans are social creatures.  How can we draw on the strength of community in this time of need when we are being instructed (please follow those instructions!) to move and stay far apart?

In early March we read from Parshat Ki Tissa (EXODUS 30:11) which includes making donations to ward off plagues and hand washing to stay holy, I shared three texts that challenge us to think about how we are reacting individually and as a community in this time of social distancing.

Some rabbinical thoughts from DavidWolpe:       https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/02/in-a-place-where-there-are-no-men/9587/

In the Mishna, Hillel declares, “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” This is usually taken to mean that when other people are acting in an indifferent or cowardly fashion, one should stand up and be a mature, courageous human being. But it could also mean that one should act as a mensch — a decent person — when there are no others around, in a place where there literally are no men. G-d may be always watching, but many of us care less for G-d’s good opinion than for that of our neighbors. So we may have to fall back on the old standby — strength of character, the kind of rock solid soul that would lead one to be heroic, even alone, on a desert island.

Social Distancing demands that we stand alone. Rabbi Wolpe’s response to the words of Hillel from the Mishna ring so true to me.   The further we stand apart, the more we have to work at being menschen.   We have to work to bring the best of our humanity forward.  If we are physically isolated, we need to remember not to let that drain us, but rather empower us to reach out to create a spiritual and virtual, caring community.   One prayer from the Siddur Lev Shalom gave body to the image in my mind and the impulse in my heart.

In the beginning

In the beginning G-d created the heavens that actually are not

(they are infinite, unbound and undefinable)

and the earth that wants to touch them.

In the beginning G-d created threads stretching between them –

between heavens that are not

and the earth that cries out for help.

And G-d created humans, for each person is a prayer and a thread touching what is not

with a tender and delicate touch.

[ Rivka Miriam (translated by David C Jacobson page 153 of Siddur Lev Shalem)

Our grip and ability to connect may be tenuous, but if we make the effort, if we throw out lifelines and calls of caring, it will draw people together and give us strength as we face this incredible challenge.  We have the thread and the prayer, and that is powerful.   We know that these connections are not one sided.  As we reach out, we create networks of spiritual and social energy that sustain and energize, pushing back against the anxiety, fear and exhaustion of this unparalleled reality.  We must make sure, with all our heart, our soul and might, not to let social distancing become social isolation.   We have to pull together in very different ways as the world cracks around us.  We might have to stay in our homes and not come to Temple Beth Shalom, but we can still create a House of Shalom – wholeness, harmony and peace.

Rabbi Michael Birnholz