voices Spring 2010 • Aviv, 5770 www.kolotchayeinu.
org
Co-creation: A Jewish Metaphysic of Wealth
By Seth Borgos
R
eading 19th century history
offers unexpected pleasures.
One remarkable feature of that
bygone age was a passionate
public debate over the origins of wealth.
From the agrarians to the socialists, from
the robber barons to the acolytes of Henry
George, every thoughtful person seemed
to have ideas about how wealth was cre-
ated and who had a legitimate claim to it.
Nowadays the very word ‘wealth’ has ac-
quired a musty, Victorian aroma, and open
debate about it has become taboo. But the
issue has not disappeared, it has simply gone
underground. There is an implicit story of
wealth – so deeply embedded it is barely dis-
cernible – that sets the boundaries of public
discourse today. It goes something like this:
1. Wealth is the product of individual effort
and belongs, in a fundamental sense, to
the person who generates it. This per-
in this issue
Co-Creation...............................1
From The Rabbi.........................2
Takhlis.......................................3
Good With Money......................4
Coming Back to Money.............4
Ethics of Business....................6
Shabbat Shekkalim...................8
Community of Givers..............10
Meaning of Tzedakah..............11
Donations................................12
sonal claim has certain limits – wealth
acquired through violence, theft, or de-
ception is illegitimate. But absent gross
violations of moral norms, the drive to
create value and maximize profit is an
ethically neutral process, subject to natu-
$
ral rather than spiritual laws.
2. Once wealth is earned, ethics kicks in. We
are encouraged, on a purely voluntary ba-
sis, to share some of our personal wealth
in line with our private values – this is
“charity.” We also grant government the
power to tax private wealth on behalf of
the common good – but because taxation
is coercive rather than voluntary, it must
be justified by a strong moral claim.
3. Conservatives say that meddling with
the natural laws of the market impedes
economic efficiency and growth, so taxes
should be kept low. Liberals say that the
cold logic of the market must be leav-
ened by equity and compassion, and
the winners need to share their earnings
with those less fortunate. The conflict
between these two positions defines the
contours of our politics.
That, crudely stated, is the contempo-
rary story of wealth. With minor variations
it is accepted across the social and political
spectrum. Regrettably, it is both false and
pernicious.
It is pernicious because identifying the
current distribution of wealth with a natural
order puts the cause of justice at a perma-
nent structural disadvantage. Yes, one can
argue that the natural order is unfair and
we have a moral obligation to provide for
those who suffer from it. Many of us have
spent years doing just that. But within that
frame, the burden of proof rests on those
who presume to redistribute wealth from its
rightful creators to such “non-producers” as
mothers, artists, government workers, the
disabled, and the unemployed. In that battle
the forces of the status quo will always have
the upper hand.
The story also rests on a false premise.
In truth, wealth is created by whole societ-
ies and communities, not lone individuals.
Personal effort plays a role, of course, but it
is impossible to isolate the individual con-
tribution from the social contribution; the
two are inextricably linked. Activities often
viewed as ancillary to economic production
–scholarship, art, science, public service, so-
cial work, caregiving – are integral to wealth
creation. Societies that invest broadly in
child welfare, education, health care, envi-
ronmental protection and other “collective”
goods are not just fairer, but ultimately more
prosperous. The conflict between economic
growth and social equity, the alleged bone of
contention between conservatives and liber-
als, is more myth than reality.
Problematic as it is, the governing story
of wealth is not easily supplanted. It clearly
continued on page 10
 FROM THE RABBI
Dear Friends,
I
t was 1987. I had recently returned
from a year of study in Israel and
began commuting to rabbinic school
in New York via the Broadway-La-
fayette F train station. Some of you will
remember that in 1987 President Reagan’s
cuts had taken hold and the Broadway-
Lafayette station was a de facto home-
less shelter, where people slept, lived, and
asked for food or money. I began to think
it was impossible to study the basic texts
of Jewish ethical behavior without doing
something about people in such desperate
need three blocks away so I worked with
fellow students, faculty and administra-
tion at Hebrew Union College-Jewish In-
stitute of Religion to start a soup kitchen.
It opened its doors in the fall of 1988 and
has operated steadily since then, a fact
which I find affirming and appalling in
equal measure. I will say that one of my
proudest moments came when my Tal-
mud professor, teaching us about a tam-
hui, the soup kitchen that was ever present
in the shtetls and towns of Jewish Eastern
Europe, stopped his lecture to say, “And
now we have one here at HUC.” Com-
munal assistance to those in need was an
obligation in the 19th century and still is,
in the 21st.
That experience led me to become an
active member of Interfaith Voices Against
Hunger, taking part in monthly protests at
City Hall against reductions in food stamps
and the shutting of food programs which
could not keep their doors open. We learned
about Native American corn ceremonies, we
engaged in Buddhist walking meditation, we
listened to the shofar blast, we gathered in
a Christian circle of prayer, and more. We
enjoyed each other and those rituals, but in
fact they did very little good for the people
who still lived in desperate straits in subway
stations and homeless shelters and piled up
10 in an apartment meant for 3.
When I was ordained, I went to work for
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger.
There, presented the opportunity to give
grants to organizations across the country
that work to end hunger and feed the hun-
gry, I learned a lot about the relative value
2 . V O I C E S
Photo courtesy of Ellen Lippmann
of feeding someone a meal and advocating
for change in the circumstances that create
hunger.
Enter the recession of 2008-09. Some
of you heard me tell this story during Rosh
HaShanah services this year:
I was meeting a Kolot member at a café
C his or her own way. ‘Ani’ is also very like
And finally the man
spoke the truth:
“I don’t have any
money.”
c others, but also of ourselves. What is each
in a neighborhood near here earlier this year,
something I often do as a rabbi without a
real office. As I approached the café, I saw
a man walking into the street and yelling at
a small boy, presumably his son, to come on
but the boy was near tears and hung back.
The man kept walking and kept yelling. I
suspected child abuse – the man was so harsh
and the child so small and fearful. As I got
closer, I could hear that the boy was saying
he did not want to come, because he wanted
something in the store behind him. Over
and over he cried, “I want, I want.” Over
and over, the man yelled, “Get over here!
Get here right now!” One more time the boy
cried, “I want…” And finally the man spoke
the truth: “I don’t have any money.”
I thought my heart would break. I
thought perhaps the man’s heart had broken
at that moment of having to yell his shame
as everyone around stopped to stare. Later
I wept.
Every week this fall I have spoken to or
counseled or met with a Kolot member who
has lost a job or seen a job diminish due to the
recession. The shame middle class, formerly
comfortable people feel in this circumstance
parallels that felt by that man shouting at his
son in the middle of the street.
Recently I have realized that I was see-
ing more people sleeping on streets and in
subway stations than I had in a long time.
One word for a poor person, “ani,” is relat-
ed to the word for oppress or humiliate. It
also sounds very much like the word “ani,”
me. Each poor person is an individual, feel-
ing the oppression or shame of poverty in
the Hebrew word for answer, “anah.” Rabbi
Jill Jacobs, in her book, There Shall Be No
Needy, reminds us that “the psalms regularly
describe the ‘ani’ as suffering not only from
financial need but also from illness, oppres-
sion, loneliness, and depression. This ‘ani’
calls out for divine help, on the assumption
that God intervenes to redeem those who
are suffering.”
So what now, God? We need some
strength for heshbon ha-nefesh, taking stock
of our souls. Our task is not only rebuke of
of us doing that keeps the ‘ani’ needy? What
in our choices in homes, meals, clothing,
and more keeps the poor ‘ani’ – humiliat-
ingly poor? What small measures can I take
to help the man on the Brooklyn street who
cannot buy his child a sweet or a toy or the
Kolot member who needs help paying the
rent or food? And what can I do – rak ani –
just me -– to keep those new to poverty from
feeling the humiliation that is so often the
lot of the poor?
How do we allow the society – country,
state, city, neighborhood - in which we live
to come to such a moment? I have been
working on these questions for more than
twenty years. I have wept and raged, writ-
ten letters and written sermons, made calls
and made stew. And yet here we are again, as
forces well beyond most of our control wreak
continued on page 10
Good with Money
By Amanda Aaron
A
lthough it feels crass to admit
it, I’ve always loved money. I
love organizing it, counting
it, saving it, planning around
it, listening to podcasts about it. I liked
the tactile feel of coins as a kid, and en-
joyed making tall piles of each kind, roll-
ing them up and trading them for dollar
bills. When I worked the cash register at
a Hallmark store in the mall as a teenag-
er, I prided myself on my speed making
change and on my mental calculations of
the tax and the change without the help of
the register. I always took care to store the
bills face up, with all of the heads pointing
in the same direction.
I have also always been lucky with money.
I have always managed to earn enough mon-
ey to cover more than just basic needs, and in
a huge stroke of luck, I bought a Park slope
apartment in 1999 instead of waiting a few
years longer. Who knew that would be the
Coming Back to Money
By Jenny Aisenberg
M
y parents told me they were
getting divorced the sum-
mer after my Bat Mitzvah,
sending our fairly comfort-
able middle-class existence into a tailspin
that would have ended with bankruptcy if
not for my grandparents’ intervention. My
dad had quit his job due to clinical depres-
sion, and my mom, who is severely bipo-
lar, hadn’t worked in almost 5 years. Our
house and my college fund were gone. So
the mayhem was equal parts emotional
turmoil and financial crisis.
Before the dust had even settled, my
mom whisked me off to my grandparents’
house in Maine, where she could fall apart
without worry. My mother’s parents stepped
in and dutifully took over as our providers,
paying my mom what was essentially an “al-
lowance,” taking over the payment of that
part of my school tuition that wasn’t cov-
ered by a scholarship, and giving my mom
equivalent of winning the housing lottery?
Although I majored in history and Eng-
lish in college, and the even more abstract
Cinema Studies in grad school, it feels
somehow inevitable that in my career, I have
ended up working with money. For the past
11 years I have worked as a Real Estate Ap-
praiser, and the focus of my job is assigning
a dollar value to real estate.
But often I wonder, what does this love of
money say about me as a person? And what
does our culture’s obsession with money
mean for our quality of life and our obliga-
tions to one another as a community?
In my job, I clearly see the dangers of
abstract thinking about money, especially
when dealing with large numbers. How can
an office building I appraised a year ago at
$60 million dollars be worth $30 million to-
day? What is the meaning of value when it
so easily changes? For me, arriving at these
colossal numbers is purely mechanical: I re-
a credit card that would be billed directly to
them – for medical expenses and emergen-
cies only, they said.
So there we were, walking down the street
in Maine, trying to carry on with the busi-
ness of normal life while our heads were still
ringing with shock. For me, the most impor-
tant piece was taken care of – I could keep
going to the school I’d attended since kin-
dergarten. I was more than willing to scrimp
on everything else. As we walked down the
street toward the public beach, we passed a
knickknack shop with an enormous, four-
foot-tall statue of liberty displayed in the
window. “Ooh,” my mother squealed, “we
have to go inside!” I humored her, knowing
that resistance was futile. Statues of liberty
were her latest craze; she already had at least
a dozen figurine-sized ones at home. After
conferring with the salesman, she ran back
to me, beaming – “It’s only $80! Can you
believe it?”
search market data, punch some numbers
into my calculator or excel spreadsheet, pro-
duce a $60 million or a $30 million dollar
value. The change in value is only a different
number on a page to me. I’m sure this loss
in value means more to the owner who lost
all of its equity investment in the property
and to the bank that gave the owner a $40
million or $50 million loan, but is difficult
to imagine the troubles of a large property
owner or a multinational financial institu-
tion. These numbers are so large they be-
come just numbers in my mind. Although
the fee for my work is pennies compared to
the dollar value of the property, the reduc-
tion of my fee by half between last year’s ap-
praisal and this year’s packs much more of a
meaningful impact for me.
But one of the lessons I learn from Juda-
ism at Kolot is to try to put myself in the
shoes of others, to try to translate my own
experience into empathy for the experience
of others. It may be difficult to feel sorry for
the Madoff victims who lost millions that
most of us never had, but surely their pain is
as real as ours. Since the economic collapse,
the desire to rage and blame has been so
“Mom,” I said slowly, stunned. “You just
said this morning that we only have $80 to
live on for the next 2 weeks, and how we
have to be really careful, and not eat out or
anything.” My mom had never been practi-
cal, but I couldn’t believe she was suggesting
that we should invest in a four-foot statue of
liberty in lieu of food.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she chuckled, shaking
her head at me. “It’s not money – it’s the
MasterCard!”
Those words – it’s not money, it’s the Mas-
terCard, have haunted me my entire adult
life, as I’ve attempted to make my way in
the world as a woman on my own. That
my mom couldn’t be trusted with even the
most basic financial planning was reinforced
constantly throughout my adolescence,
when she’d come home with bizarre items
(like a real, freeze-dried alligator head) that
she’d spent our grocery money on, perfectly
happy to rely on Grandma’s “emergencies
only” MasterCard for all the necessities our
“living allowance” should have covered. I
gave up trying to change Mom’s ways, even
though my grandmother blamed me for my
mother’s spending habits. My grandparents
VOICES 3
great in our culture. But as someone whose
work is a cog in the wheel of the capitalist
machine, I also see clearly how individual
decisions, which can be rational or reason-
able, can lead to disastrous outcomes in a
dysfunctional system. How can we fix things
for the future when we are fixated on blame
instead of true understanding? The money
involved in large real estate transactions
seems like an entirely different entity than
the actual money I spend and save day-to-
day. And my own, personal relationship to
money, involving a Quicken budget with a
variety of spending categories, a 401(k) plan,
multiple bank and investment accounts and
insurance policies, is surely unrecognizable
to those who get by on little. Through Ko-
lot’s social justice work on behalf of domes-
tic workers, we are reminded of our ethical
imperative to treat those who work for us
fairly and equitably. But sometimes the scal-
ing down of money in our society, from the
trillions of our federal budget and deficit, to
the dollars and pennies that are meaningful
to domestic workers in our homes, is a chal-
lenging mental task.
During the recent financial crisis, I found
have never stopped supporting my mom fi-
nancially, and it doesn’t seem to trouble her
at all that she’s living off what ought to be
their retirement cushion. They are 84 and 82
now, and every month they still pay all her
bills (but not rent – 3 years ago, they bought
her a house). It has never been made clear
to me exactly how much money they have,
or when, if ever, they’ll be tapped out. What
was made clear to me from that summer
when my parents divorced was that my mom
and I didn’t have much; just enough, really,
to get by.
I had my own money from babysitting
and after-school jobs, and always earned
enough to cover my teenage expenses (what
I referred to as “the 3 C’s” – coffee, cigarettes
and concerts). I’ve always done my best to be
frugal, avoiding unnecessary luxuries rather
than focusing my energies on trying to make
more money. My grandparents pressured me
heavily to choose a career path that would
assure financial security early on, and we
fought for many years over our differing
opinions of what would be in my best inter-
est. I understood – and I still do – their fears
that I might turn out just like my mom, a
4 . V O I C E S
C or $200 expense that can be easily elimi-
Oh, sweetheart,”
she chuckled,
shaking her head
at me.
“It’s not money –
it’s the MasterCard!”
c how can I teach her to be good with money.
sponge that they can’t afford to subsidize in-
definitely. But I also knew it wasn’t as black
and white as they were making it: either get
an MBA and live a long and comfortable life
or, in my grandma’s words, “die in the gut-
ter.”
So I did something that no one in my
family has ever done: I ignored my grand-
parents’ advice (and their bribe money), and
struck out on my own, in search of a life
based on something more meaningful than
making heaps of cash. I took the scenic route
through my 20’s, trying on different kinds of
lives in the hopes of finding one that felt
right. I never had much in the way of fi-
nancial stability; there were times, as when I
was living in Santa Cruz and working in the
Farmer’s Market, that I wouldn’t have been
able to eat if not for the fact that I was get-
ting all my groceries on the barter system.
But I did get by. And I did it on my own. I’ve
lived in big, dirty coop houses with no heat,
studio apartments, off-the-grid communes
with full solar power and composting toi-
lets, and even in tents. I was never homeless,
but I knew that if I ever was that my family
would take me in, and that’s all the security
that my income was greatly reduced, but for-
tunately I was still employed. Cutting back
on spending forced me to reconsider the val-
ue of things I spent money on. Every $100
nated is meaningful. The first impulse of
many of my friends in similar circumstances
was to cut back domestic workers. Cutting
housekeeping seems like a no-brainer thing
to do, eliminating a luxury that seems hard
to afford any longer, and which many of us
feel guilt about having in the first place. But
what would that reduction mean to our em-
ployees? Surely the $100 or $200 per month
means more to our immigrant housekeeper
who travels two hours each way from New
Jersey for the income than it does to my
family.
My daughter is in 2nd Grade and is learn-
ing all about numbers and about money. She
loves numbers and I can see already that she
will be “good” with money. The question is,
I’m not sure I always set the best example,
but I do know that our involvement in Juda-
ism and community at Kolot will help us in
this struggle.
I’ve ever needed. I wanted to live more than
I wanted to plan.
At the same time, I knew it would be nice
to have more money – take exotic vacations,
have cable TV, savings that could eventu-
ally finance the having of babies. And now
it seems like I may finally be able to do both.
Since I started my first post-grad school job
last August, I suddenly have a lot of things
I’ve never had before. A private office, health
insurance, life insurance, paid vacation days
and sick days (none of which I need to use
for the Jewish holidays, as those are auto-
matic paid holidays). Suddenly, I don’t have
to worry about how I’ll make the rent from
month to month; I don’t have to stress about
whether or not I can afford to stay home
if I’m sick. I don’t have to cheat my way
into museums with my old student ID, or
agonize (as much) over the choice between
healthy food and cheap food when I’m out
with my friends.
And the flipside: I have to start paying
dues, literally and figuratively. I have to
start figuring out what I can now afford to
continued on page 10
Ethics of Business – An Oxymoron?
By Emma Missouri

One who wishes to acquire wis- As the Torah is given as a covenant, so was People can produce goods, create wealth
dom should study the way that mon- work given as a covenant. – Rabbi Nathan. and do business without Torah. It happens
In his book, Jews, Money and Social Respon- every minute. But as we do business, it is
ey works, for there is no greater area sibility, Lawrence Bush elaborates on Reb through Torah that we can understand our
of Torah study than this. It is like an Nathan’s idea: “Within Jewish thought, the dependence on others as well as our respon-
ever-flowing stream… wresting of our livelihood through labor sanc- sibility to our community and the world. Our
– Rabbi Yishmael. tifies the connection between the human being teachers point out that “the longest (spiritu-
(Adam) and the earth (Adamah). Work is one al) path is from the heart to the pocket.” The
Ethical business? A Torah of money? of the means by which Jews participate in the rabbis taught when two individuals establish
Aren’t these oxymorons? According to the recreation of the world, as a partner with the a business exchange in good conscience and
rabbis these ideas are not contradictions in Divine.” work to optimize the gain for both parties,
terms. It is ironic that stereotypes of Jews The rabbis magnify our purpose on this is a sacred moment recognized in Gan
and money, Jews and wealth and Jews in earth through their interpretation of Gen- Eden. People everywhere have been fooled
business have fueled anti-semitism. The be- esis 2:15: G-d took Adam and placed him in into believing that the value of money lies
havior of people like Bernard Madoff is to- the Garden of Eden, to work it and to guard it. in the money itself rather than in this ethi-
tally opposite of what our sages teach about They say we must work to survive and we are cal exchange. So money becomes for some
creating wealth. In all our texts rabbis and here to protect G-d’s work. Survival means a golden calf, when in reality money is a
sages deal extensively with money, business to support and nourish ourselves physically. means to fair exchange and the optimizing
and work. Survival also means to act upon our respon- of gain for all involved.
Our ancestors are shown as active par- sibilities as laid down in Torah. The Torah In the beginning of our history land,
ticipants in the market place. Whether it is of work might be state as the sanctification crops, livestock and slaves were measure of
Abraham buying a tomb for Sarah or Joseph of creation and the amelioration of the hu- wealth. G-d promised our ancestors land.
creating a development plan for Egypt, the man condition. Over the centuries money replaced land
torah is filled with tales of commerce, the ex- In the Pirke Avot the sages reflect, “Where as the primary measure of wealth. Money
change of money for work, work for brides, there is no flour, there is no Torah. Where there started out as an actual valued metal with
generous gifts, trades, greed and swindles. is not Torah, there is no flour.” The first part of weight – a shekel was a measure of weight as
Our texts point explicitly to the fact that the statement is clear enough. When we do was the English pound or the Spanish peso.
Judaism concerns itself with every aspect of not have adequate livelihood we cannot be Now money has become an agreed-upon
daily life. involved in anything but physical survival. value of exchange of goods and work. We
all operate with faith that a dollar is worth
something. Every day, except Shabbat, we
act on that faith.
7 Principles of Eco-Kashrut Is money “the root of all evil?” as my
mother used to quip? Are money’s products
Kavod HaOlam­– Honor the Earth: This law comes from Genesis 2:15. It greed and competition? Is it a tool of op-
is our work to guard (protect) all of G-d’s creation. pression? The Kabbalist believed that money
Pikuach Nefesh – Save Life: “I have set before you life and death, bless- is the product of people’s desire for justice
ing and curses, therefore choose life, so you and your children may live.” and tikkun olam (healing the earth). These
Deuteronomy 30:19 sages created a concept of real money. Real
Bal Tashcheet – Do Not Be Wasteful: In Deuteronomy 20: 19-20, G-d en- money is fair exchange among people, which
joins us that during a war we should not cut down the trees of an enemy optimized the gains for all involved directly
– thus depriving them of their livelihood. and indirectly. Real money actualizes the ex-
change.
Tza’ar Baalie Hayim – Be Kind to Living Things: Using Parsha Ki Tetze,
Rabbi Nilton Bonder concludes that for
Deuteronomy 22: 4-10, the rabbis broadened the law to respect animals,
the rabbis, the use of money “represents the
into a principle which encompasses all life on earth.
interdependence of people, a desire for civili-
Lo Tonu – Do Not Oppress Others Economically: Leviticus: 19: 13 reads “ zation, organization, peaceful coexistence and
You shall not oppress your in or steal from him.” ecology.”
Tzedakah – Act of Justice: The rabbis expand the law to include sharing Remember that we are taught that work
the Wealth. is part of our covenant with G-d. One He-
Shmirat Shabbat: Keep the Shabbath brew word for work is parnassa. It can be
translated as livelihood. Parnassa brings us
into the marketplace. Here we earn real

VOICES 5
money, make exchanges for goods or services
and communicate through commerce. Rabbi
Arthur Waskow brings the marketplace into
perspective: “The rabbis insisted that the mar-
ketplace as well as the workplace operate within
a basic commitment to justice, loving-kindness,
fairness and community.”
Halakhah (law) demand actions,which
fulfill the principles outlined by Rabbis
Bonder and Waskow. One such example of
the law of ona’ah – wronging or oppressing.
The law comes from Leviticus 25:14: If you
sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your
neighbor’s hand, you shall not wrong (oppress,
overreach) each other. To strengthen this law,
the rabbis add, “You shall not wrong each
other, but you shall fear your G-d: I YHWH
The typical
chief executive in the
US earns on average
$10.4 million in total
compensation.
am your G-d” Leviticus 25:17. From these
passages the rabbis of the Talmud derived
the law of oppressive prices. For them there
is no such thing as just “doing business.”
Commerce is not a separate amoral reality.
Over charging – price gouging – is equated
with humiliating another person through
speech or action.
My experience in the organic, fair-trade
coffee business gave me the opportunity to
participant in another economic model. A
fair-trade network facilitates the purchase
of organic coffee from the farmers, and
then distribution and sale of green coffee
to importers. The farmers who participate
in the network are guaranteed fair market
value for their product. If the commodities
market price goes up after the contracts are
signed, the farmers receive a percentage of
the increase. If the price goes down the still
receive the agreed-upon price. This network
operated on the law of “not wronging an-
other person” and on the rabbinical idea that
commerce should be a fair exchange among
6 . V O I C E S
people, which optimize gain for all the par-
ties involved. More than Thirty
Rabbi Zalman Schachter coined the
term eco-kashrut. The concept of eco comes Million Americans
from ecology – understanding the inter-
dependence of life on earth. Kashrut come
from our dietary laws which define what is are currently
permissible to consume and what is treyfe
or not permissible to consume. Therefore, unemployed.
eco-kashrut translates into a concept of what
is morally and ethically imperative. A great
example of this occurred in Massachusetts
It is part of our work covenant to do tik-
in the 1960’s. The rabbis declared iceberg
kun olam, repairing the world. And the busi-
lettuce treyfe. They declared that iceberg let-
ness partner of tikkun olam is esher olam –
tuce was not permissible to consume because
wealth of the world.
of the working conditions of the farmer
The rabbis are emphatic that our liveli-
workers who planted, picked and packed it.
hood not just be about the accumulation
The principles of eco-kashrut (see box)
of wealth. So we come to tzedakah. Rabbi
come directly from the Torah and create an
Bonder states, “Wealth without giving im-
excellent framework for creating an ethical
poverishes the market.” We understand that
business. Let’s focus on the principles sur-
rounding the creation of wealth and Tze-
tzedakah is not merely giving. The root of
tzedakah is justice. Rabbi Bonder calls it the
dakah as they relate to the accumulation of
“act of justicing.” How we use our personal
wealth.
It is considered a mitzvah to create abun-
gives and talents is the true measure of our
livelihood. According to Maimonides, the
dance for people and the earth. However,
we are also admonished to create abundance
highest form of tzedakah is providing some-
one with the means to make a living.
without creating scarcity for someone else.
Thus tzedakah represents the real mean-
The rabbis believe that it is “better to not
have abundance if it brings about scarcity
ing of wealth. It demands of us involvement,
creativity and all our wisdom. It is our op-
anywhere else.” This idea of ecological abun-
dance could be derived from the principles
portunity to express our gratitude for life,
consciousness, opportunity and prosperity.
of Bal Tashcheet and Lo Tonu.
The “acts of justicing” express our under-
In the coffee business, we see the largest
standing that all we have is really G-d’s. In
coffee companies clear cutting rain forest to
Leviticus, G-d utters, “The land is Mine
plant coffee bush. They use toxic chemicals
and you are but wayfarers on it, visitors with
to control the “weeds” and pests. They pay
Me.”
their workers very low wages. These workers
Just as we can never really own the land,
live in extreme poverty.
so what we have accumulated is really the
So these big coffee companies are mak-
sum total of all the wealth of this earth and
ing a lot of money for themselves and their
its people – G-d’s wealth.
shareholders. But they create scarcity by
If you would like to know more about
destroying the environment and oppressing
ethical business principles and practices
their workers. Organic farmers grow their
check these books out.
coffee bush amongst banana, avocado and
Kabala of Money
nut trees. They do not use chemical her-
by Rabbi Nilton Bonder
bicides or pesticides. Many organic coffee
farms are worker cooperatives. Many organic Jews, Money and Social Responsibility
farmers belong progressive trade networks. by Lawrence Bush and Jerry Dekro
The organic coffee business represents cre-
Down-to-Earth Judaism
ating abundance while minimizing scarcity.
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
The eco-kashrut principles add up the “
non-predatory use of resources.” Dean Cy- She Who Dwells Within
con, owner of Dean’s Beans Organic, Fair by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Trade Coffee, likes to say, “I’m in the organ-
The Challenge of Wealth
ic coffee roasting business to make a living
by Meir Tamari
not a killing.” As we generate abundance or
wealth we must generate healing – repair.
Shabbat Shekalim
By Cindy Greenberg
This D’var Torah was delivered in February
to kick off our Spring Up! From Galut To Geluah
campaign.
S
habbat Shekalim is literally the
shabbat of shekels. This special
moment of the year – which is
about the taxes that are levied to
support the community – takes
place on the Shabbat prior to
Rosh Chodesh for the month of Adar or on
Rosh Chodesh Adar itself, which is about a
month before Passover. It is a reminder that
the due date for these taxes is approaching on
the 1st of Nisan. This timing is also interest-
ingly aligned with our American experience
of tax season which approaches in April; that
moment in the year when our financial obliga-
tions as citizens are most present, and when I
know many of us wrestle both with the per-
sonal financial implications involved and with
the moral and ethical questions of how our tax
dollars are spent – which wars are they fuel-
ing, what after-school and anti-poverty pro-
grams are not getting their fair share. How our
dollars and our values are or are not aligned.
That’s what I’ll talk about today.
In a special haftarah for this Shabbat, King
Yehoash commanded that all these funds of
our ancestors were brought to the Temple to be
used for its repairs and renovations. As Michele
Alperin from My Jewish Learning explains, this
included “both the required contributions and
the free-will offerings.” So you can see how this
Shabbat was a natural fit when the rabbi and I
met recently to think about when and how we
could begin talking more about fundraising and
Kolot, what is needed to support and sustain our
community all year long. It was bashert!
The name for this shabbat comes directly
from the maftir reading in Exodus 30:11.
Here are those words of Torah:
“11 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12
When you take a census of the Israelite people
according to their enrollment, each shall pay
the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled,
that no plague may come upon them through
their being enrolled.13 This is what every-
one who is entered in the records shall pay:
a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight – twenty
gerahs to the shekel – a half-shekel as an of-
fering to the Lord. 14 Everyone who is en-
tered in the records, from the age of twenty
years up, shall give the Lord’s offering: 15 the
rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay
less than half a shekel when giving the Lord’s
offering as expiation for your persons. 16 You
shall take the expiation money from the Isra-
elites and assign it to the service of the Tent
of Meeting; it shall serve the Israelites as a
reminder before the Lord, as expiation for
your persons.”
A few things in particular jumped out at me
from this parsha.  First, that there is a census,
a count, a taking stock of how many are in our
tribe. It seems wise in any community to do that
at least once a year. And it had a lot of resonance
for me here at Kolot where our community con-
tinues to grow – by about 20-30 members each
year – and in this American census year, reflect-
ing on the implications of being counted or
overlooked. Keeping track of all our people and
our needs, opening up space for our dreams and
questions is no small task. Without a count, how
could we do that? And the act of counting seems
to me also about affirming one’s connection to
the community. About, in essence, opting in.
Saying as Abraham said “hineini” – “Here I am.”
Hillel’s words also come to my mind here: “If I
am not for myself, who will be for me?” That
there is power in affirming one’s connection to
our tribe – whether it was all those years ago or
if it is just this week as you say, yes, I want to be a
member of this community and join Kolot.
But then came that strange word “ransom,”
and to make it worse, a ransom that one has
to pay directly to G-d so “that no plague may
come upon them through their being enrolled.”
Huh? Sounds like paying to offset the original
sin to me nd that seemed strange. Why do we
have to pay a ransom to G-d because we part of
a community that, as our stories say, G-d chose?
Clearly the stakes are high because if we don’t, a
plague is coming our way – and a month before
Pesach, that plague stuff is serious business! To
my mind, a G-d who has a covenantial relation-
ship with us doesn’t ask us to pay a ransom – a
sort of bribe as if we’d been abducted.  read as a reminder that we Jews have to think
When I try to think about the modern sig-
nificance of that for us here at Kolot, a commu-
nity we have chosen for ourselves, I don’t want to
view the financial support I give as a “ransom.”
But I do share the notion of obligation that is
embedded in all this: that it is not optional. That
being in the community, being part of this Kolot
tribe once I’ve chosen it, means I can’t “opt out”
of community obligations. I have to support and
sustain it. I get it that one can indeed “opt out”
of being Jewish or being in community: here at
Kolot we share an expansive view about what
it means to be Jewish and the many ways Jews
connect, identify, engage with, select and yes
sometimes reject what Jewish means to them or
pieces of our traditions and histories that feel in-
congruous with our experience. But for us here,
right here, in this minute, we all opted in – to
this Shabbat, to being here, and for many of us,
to being part of this community all year long. 
As I wrestled with this troubling ransom
piece, our rabbi shared this note from the hu-
mash Eitz Hayim with me:
Ransom, in Hebrew kofer, refers to a mon-
etary payment made to offset an incurred
physical penalty.   Apparently, it was taken
for granted that a census jeopardizes the lives
of those counted; therefore, each individual
must redeem his life through payment of a
half-shekel. (See 2 Samuel 24 where a plague
follows a census undertaken by David)
I found that really interesting. The act of
counting jeopardizes those who are counted. Is
that because they are then identified with the
community and so, then, visible to the communi-
ty’s enemies? Or because if you are counted, then
the obligations of the community become your
obligations and some of those obligations might
be risky?  What would that mean here at Kolot?
Do we have any enemies? And what risks do we
take as a community? Are there risks we should
be taking? 
The rabbi shared with me her read on this: 
This section is the beginning of the portion
Ki Tissa, in which the people make and be-
gin to worship the Golden Calf, before G-d
and Moses discover that, Moses comes down
and smashes it, makes them drink it, kills a
lot of them.  Then G-d and Moses have a
beautiful make-up session which is read on
Pesakh and Sukkot; she often thinks it is
about re-upping twice a year, with this pas-
sage that is in many ways a renewal of the
covenant.   So, a long way of saying that it
sometimes seems the ransom – the expia-
tion – is to be paid forward, for the sin of the
Golden Calf.  
I like that notion of “paying it forward,” as it
were. But I also hope that at Kolot being count-
VOICES 7
ed doesn’t feel quite so treacherous. Our notion
of “redeeming our life” through payments to the
community is more in the frame of our commit-
ment to Gemilut Hasadim or l’dor v’dor; that by
supporting our community and what it provides
to us and all who are in it, we are engaged in an
act of loving kindness and one which will sup-
port our continued life together from generation
to generation.
But coming back to those plagues... as some-
one who spends a lot of time thinking about and
yes worrying over what Kolot wants, needs and
dreams for and what our financial resources will
allow, I am right there with the plagues. As I
shared with you all before Chanukah, Kolot is
running a planned $30K deficit in our budget
this year. What if we hadn’t had reserve funds
– built through many years of people’s generos-
ity to our community – to help us do that? We
would have had some much tougher decisions to
make this year. And I bet some of them would
have felt like plagues. Imagine if we’d had to
scale back anything you love here at Kolot? Or
chose among our staff who we could keep and
who we must let go?
And then in the parsha, there is the standard
of measure of what everyone pays to support
the community: “a half shekel by the sanctuary
weight.”  That struck me in two ways. First, and
a bit sarcastically, I wondered how our ancestors
could have determined how much the sanctu-
ary weighed so that they could then fix a half
a shekel in relationship to it. I have this im-
age of them lifting up the Temple or the Tent
of Meeting and standing there like Hercules or
Athena, the Temple in one hand and the Tent
in the other, “ah, yes, this year the Tent’s little
heavier than last, must be all those branches and
boughs from Sukkot we left laying around, but
boy, the Temple seems a little lighter than last
year, maybe we went overboard with the fast-
ing during Yom Kippur?” But I know that’s not
what’s being conveyed.  live a Jewish life and be part of our Jewish com-
Instead, the Torah teaches us that each is
paying the same: a half shekel and that we’re us-
ing a standard measure that everyone recognizes:
the scale in the sanctuary. This spoke to me a
lot about our life together at Kolot. In thinking
about our dues, we set a 1% structure so that
everyone is paying the same percent, but with
recognition of the differences in economic ca-
pacities and realities among us. So some of those
1 percents will be more shekels than others.  Talking about money and our community. That
One thing we’ve been learning in analyzing
our membership dues is that this system we put
in place is maybe not perfect and is not necessar-
ily doing for Kolot what we need it to do, mean-
ing that the total amount of money we are bring-
ing in from membership dues is not enough of
our overall financial pie. We will be looking at
8 . V O I C E S
that more closely for the year ahead. but this
disparity in our overall kolot pie is also where our
fundraising comes in: helping us meet the gap be-
tween what our fees and dues cover and what
we actually need to spend for the year. At Kolot,
that gap is pretty significant – this year just over
$100K – and that’s one reason why we’ve spent
so much energy strategizing about creative ways
to fill it. Creative things like the “last night for
Kolot” Chanukah campaign and year-end out-
reach we recently conducted that helped us raise
over $32,000. We hosted a “Seder Rebound on
the third night of Pesach and, in May, there will
be the special, “Practicing, Concert with our own
C At Kolot, we share this value: “all hands are
Being in the
community…
means I can’t “opt
out” of community
obligations.
c tion committee, to our Eitz Kehillah social justice
Jewish musicians.
But this nitty gritty of weights and measures
in a parsha about taxes during a series of parshot
(Mishpatim) about laws and regulations, also re-
minded me of the wisdom our ancestors had in
talking about the intricacies of what it takes to
munity: “Set them as a sign upon your house.”
“Do not oppress the stranger.” “If you lend mon-
ey, especially to the poor, do not take interest.”
“Bring no harm the widow or orphan.” Being
clear about things is important. Setting the rules
of engagement and obligation. Especially if you
want to build something – community, trust,
relationships, holiness – together. That’s part of
what I’m trying to do today right here and now.
we can’t have our beloved Kolot in the way we
love it without the funds to support it. “Im ain
kemakh, ain Torah” – without bread there can be
no Torah. And our ancestors knew that, which
is why they created a tax to keep the community
they loved – and which we have inherited – alive
and thriving.
But the piece of this parsha that speaks most
deeply to me is this last one: “the rich shall not pay
more and the poor shall not pay less.” Everyone is
obligated and everyone is obligated equally. I’m
not sure if these words of Torah mean that, in
fact, our ancestors didn’t recognize that economic
burdens are felt differently by people of different
means. This mandate is not written, for instance,
as “each according to each” or “each according
to the means they have.” But I hear that senti-
ment echoed in these words that all members of
the community are needed to sustain it and that
the obligation itself is the same, and holy. That
those with great means are not more obligated
and those with less means are not less obligated. 
needed,” we say in our mission statement and
that belief and value is deeply embedded in all
that we do. As we head into the second half of
5770 together, today kicking off Spring Up:
From Galut (Exile) To Geulah (Redemption),
a special spring campaign of events and activi-
ties tied to our Jewish calendar, beginning today
with Shabbat Shekalim and ending in May with
Shavuos, that equality of obligation and neces-
sity that we all pitch in holds true. Kolot needs all
of us and both the obligated taxes we contribute
-- our membership dues and the fees we pay for
Kolot programs like adult and children’s educa-
tion -- and the “voluntary” gifts we make, both
of our time and creativity in the ways we people
the many projects at Kolot from our siddur selec-
work, to Gemilut Hasadim and our care of com-
munity members in need, to the financial gifts we
share when we honor a friend who is becoming
b’nei mitzvah, or we buy a ticket to Off the Bimah
or the Dinners event, or we bring a friend to the
author series or Purim celebration. Without all of
us contributing--the rich shall not pay more and
the poor shall not pay less--Kolot cannot keep our
little engines running and keep our mishkan and
holy, beloved community intact and growing. 
This Shabbat Shekalim is the first of several
special shabbatot in this season from just before
Purim to Pesakh. Why do they start with this
one--Shabbat Shekalim--and why is Kolot start-
ing, drawing attention and marking it? Maybe
because without affirming that we are in com-
munity together--doing that count and opting
in--and then offering our support (in this case,
financial payments), we can’t yet do anything else.
That we need that tally and those taxes and gifts
and sense of obligation and community to lay the
foundation for us so that we can then observe our
rituals together, mark the season, learn and cel-
ebrate together. I know that’s true for us at Kolot-
-in this complicated economy but also the rest of
the time.
All hands are needed, all year long. n
A Community of Givers
By Phyllis Arnold
I will speak to you about the hau…The hau
is not the wind that blows – not at all. Let us
suppose that you possess a certain article (taon-
ga) and that you give me this article. You give
it me without setting a price on it. We strike
no bargain about it. Now, I give this article
to a third person who, after a certain lapse of
time, decides to give me something as payment
in return (utu). He makes a present to me of
something (taonga). Now, this taonga that he
gives me is the spirit (hau) of the taonga that I
had received from you and that I had given to
him. The taonga that I received for these taonga
(which came from you) must be returned to you.
It would not be fair (tika) on my part to keep
these taonga for myself, whether they were de-
sirable (rawe) or undesirable (kino). I must give
them to you because they are a hau of the taonga
that you gave me. If I kept this other taonga
for myself, serious harm might befall me, even
death. This is the nature of the hau, the hau of
personal property, the hau of the taonga, the hau
of the forest. Kati ena (But enough on this sub-
ject). –Tamati Ranaipiri, Maori informant
The Meaning of Tzedekah
by Susan Kranberg
G
eneva, New York, circa 1954.
When I was four, my family
moved to this upstate town
of 17,000. There were about
30 Jewish families in a twenty-mile radius.
The shul, Temple Beth-el, was a house on
Main Street with a view of Seneca Lake
from the back windows. Hebrew school
was upstairs in the “bedrooms.”
We got a big crowd for the High Holi-
days, but otherwise there were a small group
of machers who supported the congregation
with some arm-twisting from my father Joe.
He served as President forever and I remem-
ber him calling up a handful of regulars and
asking them to donate a few thousand dol-
lars each to keep the place running. He was
always complaining that people didn’t give
as much as they could afford. There was one
big donor who was the mainstay – Eddy
Guggenheimer. Eddy Guggenheimer’s
name did not appear anywhere on the build-
ing and he rarely came to services but he
quoted in The Gift, by Marcel Mauss
Long ago and far away, giving even one
gift was a mutual act. The spirit of the gift
accompanied it and dwelled with the recipi-
ent until returned to the gift-giver by a recip-
rocal act of giving. One can apply a variety
of analytic frameworks to the phenomenon,
from functional (the reciprocity generated
by giving creates social cohesion necessary
to sustain the group) to symbolic (the reci-
procity both mirrors and prescribes a set of
moral standards that shapes the everyday life
of participants – “it would not be fair (tika)
on my part to keep these taonga for myself ”).
Any way you look at it, “gifting” in traditional
cultures was a whole different thing than it is
in American culture today.
When we talk about giving at Kolot,
we’re talking about a lot more than asking
for a flow of cash from your pocket to ours,
a lot more than asking that you pay a fee for
a service, whether it’s sending your child to
the Children’s Learning Program or attend-
ing Shabbat services each week. Our “ask” at
helped the congregation to stay alive.
So I grew up understanding the obliga-
tion to support a congregation. This extended
further to supporting Israel Bonds, United
Jewish Appeal and a host of other Jewish or-
ganizations. I recall vividly the blue and white
pushke my mother kept in the kitchen, the
contents of which went to a yeshiva. We were
constantly receiving appeals from yeshivas – I
don’t know how they found our family in Ge-
neva, New York but they did.
So fast forward thirty years to the 1990’s
when I found myself, after a long absence, in
a synagogue on Yom Kippur and in tears. I
mentioned this experience to my father and
he suggested I become a member. “If you go
to synagogue,” he said, “you must support it”.
To my surprise, I did, following in his foot-
steps and becoming increasingly involved. I
served on the Board of Directors, my name
went up on the donor wall, I received honors
at the High Holidays…I was a macher.
Throughout my life I believed that one’s
Kolot is about the “hau,” the spirit that ac-
companies the gift and that reflects so much
more than the thing given. Not that we don’t
want and need the thing given. We do. But
in asking that you dig as deep as you can to
help close our deficit or that you consider
(and hopefully affirm) the relative priority of
Kolot in your overall scheme of giving, we
ask that you create a relationship with Kolot,
a bond, that transcends the money. The re-
lationship created y that gift is rooted in the
obligation it engenders in Kolot to give its
spirit back to you, to shape that spirit into a
community of reciprocal giving and support.
We create our Kolot community with
every act we take, whether it’s eating to-
gether, learning together, or praying to-
gether. That community is there to help
cushion the impacts of tragedy or illness, to
help rejoice in the milestones that we cel-
ebrate, to pray for those forgotten, and to
lend our voices in support of those in the
world around us whose needs are too often
neglected by the dominant culture. And to
just hang out and talk.
So let us all consider the reciprocal obli-
gations created by giving. Please join us in
creating a community of givers – of life, of
sustenance, of joy and, of hope. n
contribution made to a shul was measured
in dollars. Service was important but ser-
vice did not pay the rent. But since I joined
Kolot three years ago and also seen my fi-
nancial situation radically altered in the past
year, my thinking has changed. How did this
happen?
Over breakfast at Dizzy’s several months
ago, Rabbi Lippmann asked how I was do-
ing. I mentioned that I did not know how
I was going to pay my rent and she said,
“Kolot can help. How much do you need?”
I was stunned and moved to tears. Without
my asking, help was offered. What had I
done to deserve this? Deserve according to
the dictionary means “to be worthy of: merit;
synonym earn.” Merit, in this case, came be-
cause I was part of a caring community and
this was not something I had to earn. In-
stead of feeling humiliated, I felt gratitude.
And now I know what paying dues and
supporting a community really means – it
goes for much more than rent and salaries;
it goes towards people. Receiving tzedakah
is a gift just as giving it is. So now, I will give
in the different ways I can to the community
and hope others continue to do so that we
can all prosper. n
VOICES 9
co-creation continued from page 1
serves the interests of society’s winners, who
wield disproportionate power over the cur-
rency of ideas. And it is rooted in a worldview
central to western culture, a worldview that
assumes a radical separation between the in-
dividual and society, the creator and the cre-
ated, the profane and the sacred. For that rea-
son, a narrowly political or ethical argument
has little power against it. Only an alternative
worldview, a different metaphysic of wealth,
can provide an effective challenge to it.
Judaism, taken seriously, offers just such
an alternative. In the Torah and subsequent
texts, wealth is co-created by individuals,
the community, and God, and ownership is
shared in the same fashion. Individual pos-
session of wealth is intrinsically contingent.
Hence the Jubilee year, when all debts – not
just “unfair” ones – are erased. Hence the
rabbinic concept of tzedakah, often trans-
lated as “charity” but fundamentally differ-
ent because, while you may choose who and
how to give, the obligation to share is not
voluntary but binding.
Another way to say this is that in Juda-
coming back continued from page 3
give to the causes I support; how much to
pay for my Kolot dues, how much I ought
to be saving every month, which retirement
plan I should choose – what does the word
“annuity” mean? I’m not all that freaked out
about it, honestly. Maybe I should be, but I
just can’t bring myself to feel anxious about
the fact that I am more cushioned and secure
than I have ever been before.
But I wonder whether I’m really earning
all this comfort and usefulness. My room-
mate works much longer hours than I do,
and makes significantly less. I know it’s not
really as simple as that, but I can’t stop my-
self from suddenly wanting the world to be
fair, in a way I didn’t really before. Is that
strange? Now that I’ve moved closer to the
haves than the have-nots, I feel more urgent-
ly the need for global pay equity. It seems
like it should be the other way around. I
never realized how comfortable I’d gotten on
the margins – I knew I didn’t owe the world
anything because I didn’t have anything. I
still wanted to contribute, but I didn’t feel
indebted to do so.
10V V O I C E S
ism, wealth creation is not distinct from the rabbi continued from page 2
spiritual realm but integral to it. This view is
havoc they may not intend and do not repair.
embodied in the famous biblical injunction
Hunger is the tip of the iceberg of pov-
to leave the fallen grain in the fields. This
erty, the symptom that makes us all know
passage, it seems to me, has been consis-
there is serious illness at hand. When our
tently misread through the lens of our con-
trusty editor asked me to write about money,
temporary story of wealth, with the point
hunger is what came to mind and keyboard.
being that you should give away a bit of what
The statistics are grim beyond belief. Chil-
you’ve earned to charity. But the injunction
dren across the country and the world are
does not say: maximize your yield, and then
hungry every day. So are old people. So are
donate a small portion to feed the poor. It
many able-bodied adults who want to work.
says: even though you have tilled the field
So are some Kolot members who may feel
yourself, you shall not harvest all of it. You
too ashamed to ask for help. The New York
didn’t create it alone, and it doesn’t belong to
City Coalition Against Hunger remind us
you alone. In today’s world that is a deeply
that in New York City, 1.3 million New
radical notion.
Yorkers (one in six) live in food insecure
To be clear, traditional Judaism does
households. 417,000 of them are children.
not deny the legitimacy of personal wealth
My prayer is that they get help, that the
– it is not “collectivist.” It recognizes ten-
shame diminishes in the face of true com-
sion, but not contradiction, between private
munity, that the economy picks up, that jobs
ownership and social ownership of wealth,
return, that Kolot’s dues return to normal
and this is precisely what makes it speak
levels, that we get through this bad time as
powerfully to us today. In the ancient Jew-
we got through the one of the late 1980’s,
ish idea of co-creation there is the germ of
but without the greed and unbridled risk
a new story of wealth in which justice is not
and use of people as pawns that marked the
an add-on, an afterthought, but embedded
recovery of the 1990’s. My prayer is for more
in its very core. n
regulation, more compassion, more interest
in people than in mortgage rates, more jobs
and fewer soup kitchens.
In 1987, I looked around at people in
need and began a soup kitchen. 22 years
Now, having more than the bare mini- later I look around and ask, “Who is mak-
mum I need to survive, I feel obligated to ing all those people hungry?” The answer is
give back in a much more urgent, immedi- multi-faceted, making it hard to know how
ate way. It’s a strange sort of feeling; not the to help. I am back to thinking one hot meal
desire to give tzedakah, which feels normal, can make some difference. It just doesn’t
but the realization that I have tzedakah to solve anything. n
give. And I understand more deeply now the
rules of tzedakah that were taught to us in In tarnished hope,
Hebrew school; how giving money directly
to someone who needs it, from your hand Rabbi Ellen Lippmann
to theirs, creates a chasm of power between
you, and how easily that’s abused.
You’d think I would’ve learned that from
I am endlessly grateful to Connect
a lifetime of struggling with my grandpar-
ents, and their implicit assumption that they to Care, a program of UJA-Federation
could buy the right to make all my decisions of New York, which provides help
for me. I don’t ever want to use money that
way; and I also realize how much easier it (social work, legal, financial) to Jews
is to say that I won’t when the question is hurt in this recession. Do you need
purely academic – when I didn’t actually
this help? Find it here: http://www.
have any money. I just hope that, someday,
if I’m lucky enough to have grandchildren ujafedny.org/connect-to-care/
and the financial resources to support them,
I’ll be able to honor whatever choices they
make for themselves…even if it’s business
school. n
KOLOT CHAYEINU/VOICES OF OUR LIVES
INVITES YOU TO

SPRING UP!
FROM GALUT TO GEULAH
FUN, COMMUNITY, FUNDRAISING
FROM SHABBAT SHEKALIM TO SHAVUOS

SATURDAY MAY 15—PRACTICING: A CONCERT AND

CONVERSATION WITH CREATIVE JEWISH IMPROVISERS
With renowned musicians Marc Ribot, Jessica Lurie, Marty
Ehrlich, Roy Nathanson and friends. Jazz, Jews, spirituality,
musicology, Brooklyn—all under one roof. At Kolot. 8-10pm.
Further details TBA. To sponsor the evening or to reserve your
ticket, email info@kolotchayeinu.org.

SATURDAY JUNE 5—SPRING UP! FOR SUPPER

Kolot’s annual community dinners event. Join friends from
Kolot and beyond for terrific dining, conversation and
connection all over Brooklyn! Further details TBA.
Interested in hosting? Want to reserve your seat at the table?
Email info@kolotchayeinu.org.

Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives is at 1012 Eighth Avenue at 10th

Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn. Visit us at www.kolotchayeinu.org or contact
info@kolotchayeinu.org or 718-390-7493 for more info, rsvps/tickets, updates or
to get involved with any of these SPRING UP! events.

V O I C E S 11
If There is No Bread
Im ain kemakh, ain Torah,
we learn in Pirke Avot, the
Sayings of our Fathers. If there
is no bread, there is no Torah,
no learning.
This crucial teaching echoes
down the centuries to my com-
puter as I contemplate Kolot’s
ambitious fundraising plan for
this spring. It echoes because
it is so true: we literally could
have no Torah – no Torah
scroll, no Torah commentaries,
no Torah study, and no Torah
reading – if we had no bread,
meaning no sustenance, which
in our time means money. And
so while some separate the
spiritual from the financial, I
cannot understand how such
separation is possible or why
it is desirable. If I cannot sepa-
rate my family’s budget from
our ability to be together in joy
and work and recreation, how
can I separate my community’s
budget from our ability to pray,
12V V O I C E S
Kolot
learn, laugh, cry, act, and build take on the Torah that leads to
Chayeinu
together? our sustenance, physical, emo-
But Pirke Avot gives us a tional, spiritual. We want to Staff
second part of this important have fun too, so we’re having an Rabbi Ellen Lippmann
teaching, mirroring the first: amazing jazz concert (May 15) Founding Rabbi
Im ain Torah, ain kemakh. If spearheaded by noted musician Lisa B. Segal
there is no Torah, there is no and Kolot member Marc Ribot. Chazzan/Music Director
bread. And we like to get together just Ora Wise
If there is no learning – no so, so we are hosting our many Director of Education
community celebrations, no dinners on one night again, in Diane Kirschner
holiday services, no learning June. We may go to the movies Administrative Director
for children or adults, no action together, too, or to the theater. Molly G. Kane
for justice – then why would And all the while we are raising Student Rabbi
anyone give to support a hol- the funds that Kolot – meaning Miriam Attia
low shell of a congregation? all of us – need to strengthen Shabbat & Facilities
Coordinator
For just this reason, our spring the foundation of our mishkan,
campaign connects to the ways our traveling tabernacle. Efrat Baler-Moses
Administrator
we want to celebrate or learn or Terumah is the Torah term
enjoy anyway: You who came to for contributing to build the Carlos Albino Nunez
Custodian
enjoy Purim already gave more mishkan. It comes from a He-
then we imagined you might! brew root that means to lift or Board of Trustees
We came together again for a elevate. When each of us gives Cindy Greenberg
first at Kolot: a Pesakh non- for our tabernacle, it becomes a President
seder party on the third night true mishkan, a place God can Adrienne Fisher
of the holiday. We will cele- dwell among us. Treasurer
brate Shavuot together as well, Seth Borgos
standing again at Sinai as we – Rabbi Ellen Lippmann Secretary
Phyllis Arnold
Vice President
Margie Fine
At-Large Member
of Executive Committee:
Sally Charnow
Cathy Einhorn
Ellen Garvey
Melanie Holcomb
Lisa Jakobsberg
Josh Rubin
Shira Sameroff
Eric Sloan
Laura Srebnik
Bob Usdin
Teachers
Johanna Bronk
Daniele Kohn
Shanie Israel
Hannah Mermelstein
Leah Sasha Schwartz
Tehila Wise
Voices Staff
Trisha Arlin
Editor
Sarah Sills
Layout & Production