Sign In Forgot Password

Voting Matters

08/11/2016 09:25:18 PM

Nov8

By the time you read these words, voting will have concluded in the American presidential election. For many, this will bring relief merely for concluding a massively divisive and even bizarre campaign. Amongst factual as well as partisan reporting of the candidates, polling, alliances and breaches, there have been frequent references to the deleterious psychological impact of the season’s stories on many individuals and groups.

Does religion, Judaism, or, in particular, Reconstructionist Judaism have anything to offer in this quintessential secular matter?

Many of my colleagues have been circulating blessings to be offered prior to or following voting. A word cloud might find “peace” as the most-used word, closely followed by “wisdom.” We might, however, find it startling to read a prayer with words like “citizenship,” “responsibility,” or, indeed, “election,” or to learn that such concepts should be composed into the form of a prayer.

In the very first Reconstructionist prayer books, Mordecai Kaplan and his students, the rabbis who compiled and edited that first series in the 1940s and 1950s, included various prayers for secular occasions. Here is Kaplan himself, penning some of the radical thoughts that would inspire his new liturgies:

"I said that I hold no brief for the prayer book. Why not write new prayers in conformity with the modern conception of God? Why have a prayer book at all? Why not prayers which can be used at discretion and in accordance with actually felt needs?" [Kaplan Diary, January 29, 1935]

The publication of a Shabbat prayer book by The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation in 1945 led to the book being burned by a group of Orthodox rabbis who also put Kaplan in herem, Jewish excommunication. My colleagues do not face such risks, as they post and circulate their prayers, chants, rituals and actions, inspired by a sense of their sacred duty to bring their “modern conception of God” in line with the “actual felt needs” of the moment. But some are being arrested, at actions in support of and with the community of Water Protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota.

Ultimately, there should be no border between right action and sacred duty, just as there is no actual border that matters to the mighty rivers and trees on this continent. Yes, we are particularly aware of the limit the 45th parallel presents us on an extremely significant American election day. But there is no limit to how we can, any day, turn our prayerful intentions into meaningful actions.

-Rabbi Liz

Mon, 18 March 2024