Our First Decade at Tzedek Chicago: Sermon for Yom Kippur 5786

Rabbi Brant Rosen

Tzedek Chicago 5786

This Yom Kippur, amazingly, is Tzedek Chicago’s tenth Yom Kippur. And since Yom Kippur is a day for taking stock of the year that’s past, I want to to share some thoughts about our congregation’s first ten: to explore our history, our growth and perhaps most importantly, to offer some thoughts about what has changed in the Jewish world since Tzedek Chicago first began. 

This will be a significant sermon for me for a number of reasons, so let’s just get it out of the way at the outset: this is not my goodbye. It may be my final sermon at Tzedek Chicago, but the year is young. There will be time for goodbyes later – but for now, please know I’m not going anywhere just yet. And there is so much work to be done in the coming year. 

When I think back over the first ten years at Tzedek Chicago, I can clearly see critical milestones that fundamentally and irrevocably shaped our congregation. Like most things in life, the majority of these milestones were wholly unexpected. And yet they ended up being transformative.

How we began is a classic example. Just to give some context, in early 2015, Israel had just finished a military assault on Gaza it called “Operation Protective Edge.” At the time, it was Israel’s most brutal attack on Gaza yet, killing nearly 2,500 Palestinians and wounding 11,000 over the course of a month. It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time it felt like the most devastating massacre any of us could possibly fathom. Of course, we couldn’t begin to fathom the nightmare Israel would unleash upon the Palestinian people of Gaza nine years later.

Still, like other Israeli assaults before it, it was a last straw for many Jews, including me. A few months earlier I had painfully resigned from the congregation I had served as Rabbi for 16 years and I was fairly sure I’d never work as a congregational rabbi again. And there were others in Chicago who felt Jewishly adrift – many of us knew each other through our connection to the Chicago chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and had marched together in Palestine solidarity protests for years. 

At the time, we felt as if we were at a crossroads, not knowing where or how to express our Judaism in a community that seemed so thoroughly enmeshed in Israel and Zionism. But beyond the political, we had an underlying, perhaps still imperceptible yearning to be part of a religious community that expressed a different kind of Judaism. 

So after Rosh Hashanah 2014, we began to meet semi-regularly as a havurah, a completely lay-led group. We got together for occasional Shabbat dinners and some Jewish holidays, including a memorable Palestine solidarity Passover seder. In those days, we called ourselves the Haymarket Havurah. Very quickly, it felt like we were organically creating the spiritual community we had been yearning for. We were celebrating Jewish life together, observing the Jewish rituals that we cherished so deeply, but we also included readings, prayers and music that reflected our political convictions, consciously centering solidarity with Palestinians as a sacred Jewish value.

Eventually, we started to talk together about what it would mean to actually turn our group into a formal congregation. Some of us had been members of synagogues for many years, others had never belonged to one in their lives. None of us however, had any experience founding a congregation. We decided fairly quickly that if we did start something, it would have to be a consciously intentional community. So before we recruited a single member, we drafted a list of core values that would be foundational to the life of our congregation. We listed them under seven categories: “A Judaism Beyond Borders,” “A Judaism of Solidarity,” “A Judaism of Nonviolence,” “A Judaism of Spiritual Freedom,” “A Judaism of Equity,” and “A Judaism Beyond Nationalism.”

By spelling out our values so specifically, we were consciously going against a major tenet of liberal synagogue life, which is to hew to the path of least resistance.  If truth be brutally told, the central value of most liberal synagogues – most liberal congregations for that matter – is growth. I can’t tell you how many times, in my former congregations,  I’ve sat at board and committee meetings convened to discuss the question, “What are our strategies for growth?” “What is our outreach plan?” “How can we attract more young families with school age kids?” 

In building our new congregation, we approached this question from the opposite direction. We knew our congregation wouldn’t be for everyone, and we didn’t expect it to be. At the same time, we just knew there was a genuine desire for the Judaism we wanted to see in the world. So if we had a plan for growth, it was to be loud and proud about our values, and let our growth take care 

So during the summer of 2015 we held a series of orientation meetings in people’s homes throughout Chicago. As word began to spread, the meetings got larger and larger. When we held our first High Holiday service that fall at Luther Memorial Church in Lincoln Square, over 200 people attended. Here is what I said at my very first Rosh Hashanah sermon:

I’ll be honest with you: I still can’t quite believe that we pulled this off. It was only a short time ago that we even began to think about creating this new congregation. The leadership of Tzedek Chicago began these conversations a few months ago, and we held our first orientation meeting just this last summer. Our start up period has been astonishingly short – but I think I can speak for the entire leadership of Tzedek when I say I’m not surprised by how far we’ve come in this relatively brief period of time. I’ve known in my heart that there is a very real need in the world for a congregation such as ours.

Those who attended that service will attest to the excitement we felt in that sanctuary on that first Rosh Hashanah when we said the Shechehianu blessing together. It all felt so right and so transgressive at the same time, which I guess means it felt so Jewish. 

When we started out we were almost completely lay-driven. Our first board was a volunteer steering committee, led by our founders, Susan Klonsky and Mark Miller. My wife Hallie was our first part-time administrator. And I served as part-time rabbi for the congregation while I worked full time at the American Friends Service Committee, who very graciously allowed me to organize this new congregation as my side gig for our first five years. Our first family education program was created by our member families themselves, organized by member Erin Weinstein, of blessed memory. 

In those early days, we were essentially a part-time congregation, careful to do what we could within our capacity. We held Shabbat services and Torah Studies once a month, observed all the major holidays and held educational programs throughout the year. We also became a regular presence in the Chicago justice community. One of our first acts of solidarity was with the hunger strikers at Dyett High School, which was one of 50 Chicago public schools closed in 2015 by then mayor Rahm Emanuel. On the second day of our first Rosh Hashanah, in fact, we hosted a solidarity action with hunger strikers at Chicago City Hall.

Despite our size, however, word about us spread fairly quickly. I remember getting regular emails from folks asking if there was a congregation like us in their community. We knew that we had tapped into a very real and growing desire in the Jewish world for a synagogue that centered justice-focused core values such as ours.

In 2019, we marked an important milestone when I made the decision to leave AFSC to serve as Tzedek Chicago’s full-time rabbi. When I officially started at the beginning of 2020, our first order of business was to find a more permanent rental space for our congregation. Of course, we all know what happened that year. When the pandemic descended upon us, everything changed for everyone. 

We all recall the profound fear and uncertainty of those days. It was a time of so much grief and loss, so much fear and isolation. We weren’t sure what the future would hold but we knew the world would never be the same. We also knew we had to find creative, unprecedented ways to connect with each other and create community, which we realized more than ever was so essential to our collective well-being. 

So like the rest of the world, we did find new ways to connect and care for each other. Our Chesed Committee, tasked with community care, quickly became our most important committee. We instituted a weekly virtual check-in gathering for members and friends that still meets every Wednesday. We also went from being a part time congregation to a full-time one, expanding our services and programs significantly. This was when we initiated our weekly Friday night online candle lighting and Shabbat morning Torah study. These gatherings also continue to meet every week, and are still the anchors of our congregational schedule.

Our congregation also grew. Significantly. By the end of 2020, we had almost doubled in size. But we didn’t only grow in numbers – we also grew geographically, gaining members throughout North America and from around the world. We attracted people from far outside our shtetl in Chicago who had long been seeking a Jewish congregation such as ours. We now had regularly attending members from across North America and as far away as the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and Singapore. We also gained members who were disabled and immunocompromised who never had access to a congregation before. By going online, our community became available to the outside world in ways we never could have imagined.

To put it simply, that year transformed Tzedek Chicago into a Chicago-based, world-wide Jewish congregation. And that will always be the case. As we continue to grow, our leadership remains committed to maintaining this balance, to find creative new ways to build community in a congregation that is both local and global. And while this may be a challenge, it also makes perfect sense. Our congregation was never a neighborhood shul. We’ve always been more values-based than location-based. I personally never dreamed I would be leading Shabbat services and Torah Studies from my laptop every week, but then again, everything about our congregation has been a leap into the unprecedented.

I am also mindful that it would be a mistake to refer to this milestone as a historical or past tense phenomenon. Of course, the pandemic is by no means over. As I look out into our sanctuary now, to a room full of masked people gathering for Yom Kippur, I see a powerful visual of our congregation’s commitment to the health of all its members. This value will always be sacrosanct to us as well. Whether you’re a member or a guest with us today, we’re grateful for your readiness to honor our congregation’s mandatory community health policy – our congregation’s commitment to our collective well-being. 

Another major milestone for our congregation occurred in 2022, when we voted to formally change our core value from “non-Zionist” to “antizionist.” Once again, it began rather unexpectedly, as an initial board conversation, that eventually turned into a unanimous vote. Since the board did not want to approve of this change unilaterally, however, it facilitated member meetings over a series of months, to discuss what this change would mean for our members and for our congregation. In the end, we held a vote and more than 70% of our membership quorum voted to approve the change. Since then, Tzedek Chicago has been, openly and officially, an antizionist congregation. 

This was much, much more than a semantical change – it was a decision that reflected our moral commitment as a congregation. In our original core values statement, we define Zionism as “the creation of an ethnic Jewish nation state in historic Palestine” and affirm that “(Zionism)” resulted in an injustice against the Palestinian people – an injustice that continues to this day.” In other words, we make it clear that Zionism, at its core, is a form of systematic oppression.

The term non-Zionist, however, is a neutral term. It doesn’t take a stand or make a judgement about this injustice.  In our deliberations, many of us were impacted by Angela Davis’ famous quote: “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist – we must be anti-racist.” That is to say, we cannot remain neutral about systems of oppression. If we truly oppose them, we must affirm transformative justice: we must commit to dismantling oppressive systems and replacing them with ones that are more equitable and just. 

I strongly recommend reading and sharing the board statement that explained the reasoning behind our decision; it is, in its way, just as important as our original core values statement. I truly believe it offers a critical vision for the direction and future for Jewish life, reflecting a consciousness that far transcends the simple label “antizionist”: 

While we affirm that Tzedek Chicago is an anti-Zionist congregation, that is not all we are. This value is but one aspect of a larger vision we refer to in our core values statement as a “Judaism Beyond Borders.” Central to this vision is an affirmation of the diaspora as the fertile ground from which Jewish spiritual creativity has flourished for centuries. Indeed, Jewish life has historically taken root, adapted and blossomed in many lands throughout the world. At Tzedek Chicago we seek to develop and celebrate a diasporic consciousness that joyfully views the entire world as our homeland.

Moving away from a Judaism that looks to Israel as its fully realized home releases us into rich imaginings of what the World to Come might look like, where it might be, and how we might go about inhabiting it now. This creative windfall can infuse our communal practices, rituals, and liturgy. We also believe that Jewish diasporic consciousness has the real potential to help us reach a deeper solidarity with those who have been historically colonized and oppressed.

When Tzedek Chicago was first founded, we were something of a voice in the Zionist hegemonic wilderness. In 2015, one newspaper article about us included a snarky quote from a rabbi who said, “Statistically, they don’t exist.” Ten years on, I think it’s fair to say that antizionist Jews are now standing up to be counted. If there could be any doubt, just look at the dramatic increase in political efforts to label and legislate antizionism as antisemitism. Why would Israel and Israel advocates bother if they didn’t take us seriously? This is a reactionary response to a phenomenon that is very real – and growing.

Today, our congregation is on the vanguard of this emergent movement. Jewish Voice for Peace formally became an antizionist organization in 2019 – and for the past several years, JVP has coordinated a growing network of antizionist Jewish ritual spaces. Some are congregations with rabbis, some are lay-lead havurot, some are more traditional, some are more progressive in their liturgy, but all are committed to creating and building a Judaism beyond Zionism. 

In addition, there are educational initiatives such as Jewish Liberation Learning in New York City, an “antizionist education program for kids,” Achvat Olam Diaspora Community Day School in Boston and Shel Mala, a queer, antizionist Talmud study program that meets online. There are antizionist Jewish student groups proliferating on universities and college campuses across North America. There are antizionist artists creating new Jewish liturgy and ritual art. There are antizionist spiritual resources such as “For Times Such as These,” the already classic “radical Jewish guide” to the holidays written by my colleagues, Rabbis Jessica Rosenberg and Ariana Katz. 

Speaking of antizionist rabbis, more and more of them are being ordained every year. I know many of them through the JVP Rabbinical Council and Rabbis for Ceasefire: gifted, passionate Jewish leaders who have much to offer our community. Perhaps more than anything else, the emergence of new Jewish leadership is the most powerful signifier that antizionist Judaism has a real future – that it will continue to grow and thrive. 

Though we’re still at the nascent beginnings of this movement, its emergence is surely a sign that Jewish life has changed dramatically over the past ten years. It’s also a validation of the leap of faith we took when we founded Tzedek Chicago, just knowing in our hearts there were growing numbers of Jews out there who shared our passionate vision for the kind of Judaism we wanted to live – or more to the point, the kind of world we wanted to live in. 

I’ve just highlighted a few of the milestones that I believe have been critical in our congregation’s growth during our first decade of existence. In the coming year, we will mark another one: this spring Tzedek Chicago will be hiring a new rabbi to lead us into the next chapter of our journey. 

Naturally, I have all kinds of feels about this, but mostly, I’m excited and proud. I’ve been doing the work of a congregational rabbi for a very long time – since I’ve been in my twenties, actually – and I’m genuinely ready for this change. But I’m also so proud that we’ve created a robust and thriving congregational community that will provide a full-time rabbinical job to one of the growing number of very talented antizionist rabbis who are emerging into the Jewish world. 

As I said before, this is not goodbye yet. And I also want to say that while I’ll be stepping down from the day to day work of the synagogue, I’ll still be around. Soon enough I’ll have a conversation with the board about what an appropriate future involvement with Tzedek Chicago might look like for us. But for right now, there is still much work for us in the year ahead – and I’m eager for the blessings and challenges that the new year will bring. 

I’d like to end on a personal note. I have often said, one of the most painful experiences of my life – resigning from my former congregation – led to one of the biggest blessings in my life: the opportunity to help found Tzedek Chicago. To be the rabbi of a congregational community of conscience, where I could for the first time in my rabbinical career, be my authentic self and speak my authentic truth. 

I cannot begin to tell you how liberating this has been for me. I’ll offer you one small but telling example: Last year, as I was considering participating in the Rabbis for Ceasefire Passover action at the Gaza border, I was stressing because it came during a particularly busy, event-filled week in the congregation, not least of which was our annual Pesach Seder. 

When I mentioned my hesitance to our then board president Nate Goldbaum, he said to me, “You have to do this. You need to be there. We need you to be there.” Mind you, this was the president of a congregation telling the rabbi that their congregation needed him to protest at the Gaza border. It was only later when I realized how revolutionary this actually was, how rare it is that any of us are given the permission to be our full moral selves, to speak our consciences openly, freely and without fear. 

The opportunity to be one’s authentic self is a rare gift, and it is one that I have never taken for granted. I fervently hope that Tzedek Chicago has provided this gift to you as well. Because at the end of the day, isn’t this what our spiritual  communities should be: places of authenticity and conviction, where no one has to bury their most deeply held values, where we have the permission to express our truest and best selves? It really shouldn’t be too much to ask: that our congregations reflect the world we want to see, or as I so often put it, the world we know is possible.

I don’t think I can put it any better than I did in 2015, at the conclusion of my first sermon for our congregation. So I will conclude with those very same words:

I want to express once more how blessed I feel that I have been granted such an opportunity at this point in my life and my career. I am so very grateful and excited to be embarking on a journey such as this with all of you and many more who will be joining us as we make our way. I know it will be a complex and challenging journey in many ways. We’ve set our sights high and it goes without saying that we will be learning together as we go.

To be sure, it is not easy to do this kind of work. It is challenging, it is painful, it can often mean being alienated or isolated from family and friends, from the larger community. But for so many of us, we don’t have a choice but to do this work – and we know that we will ultimately find the strength to continue through the sacred relationships we cultivate along the way. In the end, this is a journey we must take – and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather take it with than all of you. Speaking for myself and the leadership of Tzedek Chicago, thank you for putting your faith in us and in one another. Wherever our steps may lead us, I know we will be going from strength to strength.

And finally, please join me in expressing gratitude at having been sustained long enough to reach this incredible new season together:

Holy One of Blessing, your presence fills creation, you have given us life, sustained us and brought us all to this very sacred time together.

Amen.