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Lieberman Family Brings Leading Modern Orthodox Think to Beth Sholom Sarah Antine
COMMUNITY NEWS Lieberman Family Brings Leading Modern Orthodox Thinker to Beth Sholom
By Sarah Antine
Every year, the Lieberman family sponsors a Shabbaton that brings a leading Modern Orthodox thinker to Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah in Potomac, Maryland, as a scholar-in-residence. The scholar-in-residence of this year’s shabbaton, which took place on February 3-4, was Rav Binyamin (Benny) Lau, Rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem. Rav Lau is an Israeli community leader, educator, author, charismatic public speaker and social activist. He founded the Moshe Green Beit Midrash for Women’s Leadership at Beit Morasha’s Beren College and is a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Talmud from Bar-Ilan University.
On Friday evening the Bobrow Chapel filled past capacity, so the minyan moved into the main sanctuary so as not to be in violation of the fire code. After dinner, the community listened to an engaging source-based discussion with Rabbi Dr. Lau. Rabbi Nissan Antine, the senior rabbi, and Maharat Dasi Fruchter, the assistant spiritual leader, interviewed Rabbi Lau on key issues surrounding women’s spiritual leadership and LGBT inclusion. In answering a question about women’s spiritual lead-
ership, Rav Lau quoted several sources on a historical timeline, starting with a source from 300 years ago that discussed that a Jew could not assist a deaf person who had fallen ill on Shabbat. Two centuries later, after deaf schools had been established, and the Jewish community had more understanding of the deaf, the halacha evolved to make it allowable to assist the deaf and not be in violation of Shabbat. Lau continued to provide examples that showed how halacha evolved over hundreds of years to adapt to new social realities.
Rav Lau said that in his community, which has members spanning five generations, many have a desire for increased inclusion, such as when women in his community wanted to carry the Torah on Simchat Torah. As a community, they must go through a process of studying the halacha surrounding the issue over the course of a year, before the possibility of instituting a change.
Sam Charnoff, Beth Sholom member, explained the process a shul should adhere to when considering a proposed change. In an e-mail message, he wrote, “The initial question a Rabbi must answer is whether the proposed change is consistent with halacha. If the answer is no, then the matter should be put aside. The second question is whether the benefits of an allowable change outweigh the costs to the community, because not
every change that is halachically acceptable should be pursued. Third, if a change is going to disrupt the fabric of an otherwise successful community, then even if halachically justifiable, it is probably not something to pursue. Rabbi Lau is clearly sensitive to each of these questions and therefore I am a strong proponent of his approach to take things ‘slow,’ teach the underlying halachic issues, observe how the community responds to that teaching and then only move forward if the community ‘buys in’ as a whole with teaching.”
When asked in what ways an Orthodox shul can include gay, lesbian and transgender members, and adult children of members, Rav Lau suggested a similar process: to study relevant halachic sources as a community for a year, in order to determine possibilities for LGBT inclusion.
“Halacha means to walk and not stop, and in order to keep halacha one must keep walking, but no change can be abrupt. It must be part of a process of learning halacha, and in that way we serve G-d,” he said.
Ramban Synagogue in Katamon, where Rav Lau is the rabbi, is the first synagogue in Jerusalem to hire a female spiritual leader, Rabbanit Carmit Feintuch. He said that his wife, Rabbanit Noa Lau, Vice Dean of Nishmat, and the Shoelet U’Meishiva of Nishmat’s Keren Ariel Yoetzet Halacha Training Program, which trains women to give halachic advice on questions pertaining to the laws of family purity, was not inclined to serve as a shul rebbetzin. When asked about her thoughts about female spiritual leadership, Noa Lau said that she is ready as long as it is within the halachic framework. The Torah world needs more women who are trained in the area of taharat hamishpacha (family purity), she said.
On Shabbat afternoon after a soldout communal Shabbat lunch, Rav Lau discussed his activism for Torah learning throughout Israel. He created a project to bring secular and religious Jews together to study one chapter of Tanach per day, Monday through Friday of every week. The online forum he initiated is called 929, which represents the 929 chapters of Tanach. It currently has 200,000 participants who hail from all walks of life throughout Israel. He said that the Tanach is no longer taught in secular Israeli schools, so he created the initiative in order to give all Israelis a connection to their heritage.
At seudah shlishit, the third meal on Shabbat, Rav Lau spoke about the Kaddish and how when he finished saying Kaddish for his father, it felt too abrupt, so he sat down and wrote a prayer for the end of Kaddish that has now inspired countless mourners.
Steven Lieberman said that he has three requirements to be selected as a scholar-in-residence for the shabbaton. He said, “First, the person must be a leader of Modern Orthodoxy in terms of new ideas and important activity in that regard. Second, the person must have shown some considerable personal courage or significant personal work to achieve an important goal that benefits the Jewish community. Third, the person must be a compelling speaker.”
Previous Lieberman Shabbaton scholars include Rabbi Riskin (twice), Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, Blu Greenberg, Tamar Ross, Rabbi Steven Weill, Rabbi Haskell Lookstein, Rabbi Dov Linzer, Rabbi Asher Lopatin and Rabba Sara Hurwitz.
Herbert Lieberman, a dedicated community leader and activist and Steve Lieberman’s father, died on October 18, 2001. The next year, the Lieberman family held the first shabbaton in his memory. In a bio about his father’s work for inclusion of the disabled, Lieberman wrote, “One of the many community improvement projects he spearheaded was organizing local support for Riverdale’s first group homes, battling those who said ‘not in my backyard,’ and educating residents about the value of homes for the disabled.”
This year’s shabbaton marked the end of the first year of mourning of Sharon Lieberman’s father, Ruben D. Silverman, a respected and admired lawyer, who was member of the Board of Directors of Congregation Sons of Israel, the oldest Orthodox Shul in Lakewood, NJ, where his paternal grandfather had been president and was one of the founders. The Shabbaton has become a memorial for both fathers.
Sharon Lieberman never expected that she would say Kaddish, but she went to mincha and maariv services and, as she said, “it became a pattern, so I did go for the 11 months.” On the last day she could say Kaddish for her father, Rabbi Antine of Beth Sholom introduced the concept of Rabbi Lau’s prayer, so Sharon and her sister Barbara Hirsh stood together and read Rav Lau’s contemporary “Prayer for the End of Kaddish” for their father. She had noticed that other mourners she had seen looked sad or lost at the end of Kaddish, but she did not feel that way. She said the prayer provided, “a moment of closure at the right moment; the prayer was like putting a period at the end of a sentence.”
