When the Learning Comes Together

How do we articulate goals about Torah study - to students of any age? What should those goals be? Obviously, there are skills one develops for Torah learning: language (Hebrew and English), understanding structure, finding one's way in a chumash or a tanakh or an online equivalent, and so forth. But when it comes down to it, the most compelling goal I have heard articulated recently is that students of all ages should develop love and passion for Torah and for Jewish tradition, and that it should be alive for them..

Easy enough to say. But how does it work?

Well, this week I saw my students' eyes light up. Recognition that learning we have been doing for weeks is not simply rote, neither is is some archaic thing. Words and concepts we have been studying in Modern Hebrew for several weeks came together with this week's Parashah, Vayera, in beautiful synchronicity.

Avraham and Sarah welcome strangers to their tent.  So, too, does Avraham's relative Lot welcome strangers - angels, even - to his city. And they welcome with such grace and hospitality that we can't help but learn from them that this is a godly, holy way of doing things.  Aha! So the fact that we began the year's Hebrew language module with language of welcoming - to welcome new students (both real in our class, and in the virtual classroom of our textbook) - is actually Torah, not just modern Hebrew! And not only that, but we had unexpected visitors in our classroom this week, AND next week we are having "Bring a Friend" day. 

I just love it when all the learning starts to come together. And when I don't even have to bring it together, for the faces of my students (in this case second graders) to light up with joy . . . I think I might just have achieved a little bit of the goals that Torah should be alive for the students, and that they should develop passion for it.

New Beginnings, Fresh or Rotten - Your Choice

You know that one moldy strawberry in the box? The one that's touching at least five others? What is your first thought - past the ICK - when you see that mold? Contamination!

Torah speaks of the first days of the world - of the separating of light from darkness and of water from land and air - as a time of completion. Things come into being whole and ready. The herbs and fruits are ready to eat right away, "in the beginning." Adam and Eve are not brought into this world as infants, but as wholly formed adults, walking and speaking and thinking.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates this whole world, the anniversary of that beginning. And that's where we stand now, in the autumn - with a world of abundance, beginning and approaching the harvest season.

Ripe apples and pomegranates for our Rosh Hashanah dinner tables mean that the trees - and the herbs of the field - are about to go dormant, to die their autumnal death. We are entering darkness, brought by the autumnal equinox and the hibernation of plants and animals.

Now, as we leave the light of summer and the growing season behind, we celebrate the abundance of the world Created whole, trees and fields offering up sustenance that we seek to preserve to carry us through the winter.

Now, we want to carry the best of our foods into storage - and we want to carry the best of ourselves into the new year. One moldy strawberry will contaminate the whole container; molds and rot spread. We don't want that - in our food supply, or in our selves.

So we clean out the old - we take inventory of our fruits and herbs, and we take inventory of our souls. We choose what goes into our containers carefully.

We have the opportunity to put an end to behaviors that cause rot, that fester in our relationships. We ask forgiveness, and we search our souls for ways to change our behavior, to be better people in the coming year.

If we choose our fruits well, we can make it through the darkness of winter. We will have healthy food for our bodies -- and we will have clean souls and strong relationships that will carry us through the coming year, whatever it holds for us.

Wishing you good choices, solid forgiveness, and a healthy and sweet new year.

Setting the Table for Rosh Hashanah

My new job requires me to blog periodically about what is going on my the classroom, as part of keeping communication open with the parents.  The blog is behind password protection, so I cannot link directly to it, but my current post does not include any private information, and I'd like to share it here, without the original photos:

There are many ways we “set the table,” from the special dinner table for Rosh Hashanah to the preparation for the “meal” that is all of the learning this year.  In these first weeks of school, we have been preparing the students as if they are a table – going over rules and routines to ensure good learning and a safe and warm classroom community.  That is true in General Studies and in Jewish Studies, and also on the playground and during lunch.

Art by yours truly - the same thing my students were assigned.
They will cut out the many pictures they have drawn, and set
their own family's "Rosh Hashanah dinner table" with every-
thing from apples & honey and pomegranates for a sweet and
abundant new year to flowers for hiddur mitzvah (making our tradition beautiful).

In the afternoon, we have been studying special holiday sounds (Shofar), special blessings and prayers, the different things involved in Teshuvah (recognizing we have done something wrong, saying we are sorry, and trying not to repeat the behavior) — all setting the table for a meaningful holiday celebration.  We are also learning what actually goes on that special dinner table, including sweet foods, round foods, and even strange things like a fish head (so that we should be like the head, always going forward, and not like the tail; and so that Israel may be as abundant as the fish in the sea).

We also worked this week with 1st graders, being role models and partners, thinking about how G-d is like a “parent,” as we learned to chant the Avinu Malkeinu prayer.

With the new school year now fully underway, and the new year arriving next week, wishing you and yours a sweet and healthy year.

שנה טובה ומתוקה

Dancing with Gravitas: Welcome, Elul!

On Shabbat, during the prayer announcing the new moon, marking the Jewish month of Elul that arrives tonight, the woman sitting next to me said with a stunned look, "Elul is here - already?!"

Elul always seems to arrive with startling force - more than any other month in the calendar. I often dread its arrival, a stressful month of preparations for the "high holy days," a rush to get out final information for the holidays, distributing tickets to congregants and guests, polishing silver and brass, distributing "honors" for participation in services, choir rehearsals, security concerns, and for rabbis and cantors the writing of sermons and preparation of annual liturgy.

This year, I can hardly wait for Elul. And really, why dread such a beautiful thing?

Elul is ideally a time of reflection, not a time to rush. It is a time to slow down and consider one's actions and experience of the past year, to prepare heart and soul for the biggest tasks of the ten days of awe that will begin Tishrei, the month that follows, when we ask forgiveness from all people we may have harmed, we offer our own forgiveness, and we approach G-d with humility.

When Elul arrives on Wednesday (we begin Rosh Chodesh (new moon) celebration on Tuesday), it comes with a responsibility, to begin to awaken. We blast (or listen for) the shofar each day, somewhere between one tekiyah and ten varied blasts, depending on minhag. "Get ready," the shofar seems to say, "this is a serious and important spiritual season."

I feel, in some ways, that I have been living in Elul for months - ever since my job ended last November. I spent a lot of time reflecting, as I went back on the job market: what kind of work do I really want; where do I really want to live; how do I want to live? 

My fabulous partner and I - with support of every kind imaginable from family and friends - made a hard, risky choice. 

This week, as I settle into my new workplace, I am grateful for Elul's gravitas, for the reminder to check in with myself daily - am I building community with my new coworkers? am I representing myself well with my words and actions? am I listening deeply with my shofar-awakened ears and heart? 

Chodesh tov - may the new month bring joy and positive outlook in balance with and consequence of the deep work of self reflection and teshuvah ("repentance," or more literally "(re)turning").

B'Ezrat HaShem: With a Little Faith

B''H (With G-d's Help, A personal story)

The moon of Av has begun to wane - from full moon supermoon back to its crescent origins. Despite the heat, summer also wanes, and the rolling beginning of new school terms has begun.

I, too, have new beginnings upon me and approaching, and I want to share - personally and textually - a little bit of the experience of transition.

Less than two weeks ago (shortly after my last blog entry), my family - with me it is my spouse, my toddler son, and our three cats - moved from the east coast to the west coast. This is one of those big moves, not just because of distance but because we have done it for reasons of the heart far more than (perhaps in defiance of) practical concerns.

I gave up a solid job offer in the east, and we landed without an address (with gratitude to friends of friends who had an empty house in which we have been camping).

We came because we have always wanted to be here: I am returning to the city of my birth, here near family again after nearly a quarter century away, and my partner has fallen in love with this city in many visits over the years.

With each step in this decision, we have said one thing: we will do the footwork, and it will all work out.

I came out earlier in the summer, and managed - with gratitude to the networking support of one friend in particular - to procure part time work. The best part of this? I am so very thrilled by the working environment, the hamish community feeling, the positive energy. Who ends a job interview with hugs? I feel totally blessed!

Today, again through the networking of friends (this time a middle-school friend of mine, and that's a LONG time ago - many thanks to Facebook for reuniting us), we signed a lease on an apartment in a fabulous neighborhood, with good access both to my parents and to work, and so walkable, which I have longed for since I left so many years ago. I feel totally blessed!

Our decision to move here was because we wanted to live here, but the final push was my mother's health. She has, such blessing!, made a remarkable recovery, and since we arrived has moved home (more or less) from her various rehabs.

With a little faith, with a whim and a prayer, we jumped. And we are landing - slowly but surely - in our new lives.

The moon of Av is waning toward the crescent newness, which will become Elul, a month in which we are called to prepare our hearts and souls for the rigorous demands of faith.  Last night's fortune cookie told me to be careful what I wish for. That's a statement of faith. And I'm ever so glad I wished for this. I feel totally blessed!

B''H - B'Ezrat HaShem - with G-d's help.
Barukh HaShem - Blessed is the Source.

(Almost) No Complaints - Follow Up to Last Post

A couple of days ago I wrote about putting a moratorium on complaining - me complaining, since that's who I can control. It's hard!!! I am learning a lot about myself in the process. 

What to do when I step on a tiny piece of glass and it hurts - and hurts even more digging it out? What to do when it takes me hours trying to fill out online forms, trying Mac and PC, unsuccessfully, finally using "old" technology of writing and scanning? What to do when I'm exhausted and don't have time to pause between my toddler, packing, and looking for an apartment in the city I will arrive in next week? 

A couple of things of note: 

1) When I choose not to complain, I often am silent - at least for a long time.

2) I can do different things with that silence: grumble and complain internally, this blowing one of the main reasons to stop complaining; or contemplate the root of my complaint and whether to say something or do something in lieu of complaint that might help resolve things more positively. 

3) A lot of that contemplation is leading to an understanding of my complaints often being a response to grief over losses ranging from something happening (or not) outside my hopes/expectations, to "good" losses like purging so much stuff from my life and learning to live differently. 

4) Not complaining might be really hard, but I already feel a sense of integrity increasing as a result of the practice. 

So what do I do in those moments when I really have a kvetch itching to get out? I have been pausing, even with no time to pause. I have been looking at my son an enjoying his sweetness, even/especially when he spots the baby chair he has outgrown, already out on the curb, and brings it back in. 

The practice brings me back to the core teachings of Mussar: to be awake to our impact in relationship with each and every person we encounter, whether for a moment or longstanding connections; and not only the impact on them, but on me as well.

And so, I seek and find joy even when I just want to gripe (or scream). I even shed a few tears, which are so much more cathartic than complaining. 

And yes, a few complaints sneak through. And I try not to be too hard on myself. 

Seek Joy, Seek Peace - A Moratorium on Complaint

Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you had to bring us to die in this wilderness?! (Exodus 14:11)

Gevalt! Vey ist mir! Oy vey! (Yiddish kvetch words)

In seminary I wrote an article for the Onion-esque segment of the student paper entitled The One True Path, in which I parodied what I saw as a culture of complaint, about too much reading, too high expectations on our time, too many required classes, and so much more:

The [One True] Path:

• The best way to get what you want is to complain loudly and heartily.  Even if it won’t get you what you want, complaint is a valuable social skill.
• No matter how easy or difficult the task in front of you, be sure to complain as much as possible.
• No matter how good life is, complaining can only make it better.
• There is no reason too small or large to complain about… all problems are equal in the eyes of God if you only complain.  

Followers of The Path [understand God's apparently favorable response to the Israelites' complaints] to mean that God not only listens to the complaints ... but responds with sweet rewards. [Talmidei Haverim, 2003]

Take all of the biblical quotes on complaining - I won't list them here, but consider that it is not just the people, but also Moses, the highest prophet of Torah, and other leaders who whine to God). Add the Yiddish language penchant for complaint (see for example the book Born to Kvetch, a description of which tells us that Jews "even learned how to smile through their and express satisfaction in the form of complaint."

Is the Jewish culture really a culture of complaint?  Does the Jewish religion really reward complaint? (Is complaint, as the same description of Born to Kvetch implies, the reason for Jewish survival?)

A couple of weeks ago a meme suggesting "24 hours without complaining" reached my Facebook stream, reminding me of that article and the complaining I wanted to see myself as being somehow above. But I have have been catching myself complaining - a lot - recently. So I tried it - and I liked it.

This week I again find myself kvetching - at my two year old's newly discovered temper tantrum skills, about humidity, about sticky things on my chair, about people and things going too slowly, about my own behavior and things I perceive as failures, and.... I am not enjoying myself.

Complaining makes me feel so closed - physically - like I am shuttering myself, focused on myself - even when commiserating with someone else about outside concerns. Every time I complain I feel worse - physically and spiritually.  When I complain, clouds darken my day.

I'm returning to that moratorium. No complaints. It's time to be creative and constructive - or quiet. It is possible to note something I don't like without complaining - hard but possible.

So what combats complaining?  If complaining is about being closed, if it is darkness, then things that bring openness and light are the countermeasures.  Awe, love, mindfulness - being aware of how amazing our world is, and what I can bring to it.

And here's where I think Judaism has some pretty great counterpunches to its own internal culture of complaint:

• a custom of 100 blessings a day - literally counting our blessings and being aware of the amazing world around us;
• a tradition of song and dance - most traditional blessings have at least one tune associated with them; some Psalms have literally hundreds of tunes; even Torah and other traditional texts are traditionally read musically;
• tzedakah and gemilut chasadim and tikkun olam - traditions of giving, money and action, teaching and repairing, seeking to make the world a better place
• a desire for peace.  Yes, Israel is at war right now.  But our traditional greeting, Shalom Aleichem, means "peace to you" (American Jewish kids learning basic Hebrew learn early that shalom means "hello," "goodbye," and "peace" - but it really just means peace).  And many traditional daily and Shabbat request-prayers focus on peace. 

And so I call a moratorium on complaint (not to preclude constructive criticism or pointing out things I don't like in the act of making the world a better place) - and say instead that it's time to sing and dance and pray, to be in awe - even of the things I might kvetch about:

• to wonder at my son's independence, how he is learning new things, how long he can carry on a tantrum, and how he can change the tantrum mid-phrase so it is clear that it's more about getting something, anything, he wants than about the specific thing;
• to take advantage of slower moments to pause myself and take a breath;
• Bakesh shalom verodfehu - to desire peace and pursue it (Psalms 34:15);
• to sing and dance and be physically open;
• to connect with other people, learning and being in awe of their lives;
• to create - with words, with foods, with ideas, with play-time, with prayer;
• to seek joy and wonder in everything - to offer blessings for every day life - waking, eating, reading, connecting.

Fasting for the Breach - 17 Tammuz

The walls have been breached. Walls of sanity. And so, on a day I might not ordinarily fast, 17 Tammuz, commemorating the breach of Jerusalem of old, I am fasting. 

I concluded my last post, a few days ago, with a prayer that we shouldn't have to fortify our walls. But so many people suffer, even with fortifications, from breaches of sanity. My reading this morning: Iron Dome in Israel 90% effective at intercepting incoming missiles; girls in Kurdistan invent new and effective bomb detection system; friends and colleagues "pissed," and questioning "why," and wanting to protect not only their children but those of their neighbors and even, yes, the children of those who are inciting the hatred. 

I'm heartbroken. I'm a little lost in all this (why can't we just love?). And the breach of sanity has gotten to me. 

And so I am fasting in mourning for sanity, and in hopes that through this fast, in solidarity with others who are fasting (including Muslims fasting during Ramadan but also in solidarity), perhaps some sanity can be restored. I am fasting as a prayer for my son and the future that will be his. I am fasting as a prayer for our world. 

For more on the fast:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/rabbis-without-borders/2014/07/14/you-can-bring-peace-in-the-middle-east/

On War, Peace, Love, and Writing About It All

Israel, war, terrorism, Gaza, Hamas, peace, prayer . . . the "labels" are easy to come up with.

Despite all the words written, shared, and reshared about the current situation in Israel, I - a rabbi, a leader in the Jewish community, a mom, a Jew, and a self-declared writer - find it nearly impossible to write about what is happening in Israel, between Israel and Gaza, Israel and Hamas, right now.

I feel physically blocked - in my heart especially, in my head and in my gut, a stiffness running throughout my body. My blood doesn't seem to flow right, I'm not breathing well, and the fetal position sounds really good about now.

"Again!" says the feeling. "Again?!" and, on a sigh, "again."

War does not beget peace. The horrid cycle of revenge only begets more revenge. Bombs, rockets, missiles - these beget terror, anger, and a mother-bear sense of protection. I know. I felt it on 9/11 in America. And I feel a little PTSD from being in Israel during suicide terrorist attacks, and from my last trip to Israel in the summer of 2006, when I, like many today, sat in or near a shelter (in restaurants and at "home"), counting the explosions and waiting for news: what hit, where, was anyone injured; smelling smoke from resulting forest fires.

Peace will come only when all cultures value life - everyone's lives - more than they value anyone's death. This has been said before. So why? WHY do we human beings find this so difficult? When will we learn to love more than we hate? Why do I feel powerless? Why am I convinced that there's no stopping the current Israeli government and military and the current Hamas government in Gaza? That neither side is in the right, justified in their actions?

And that's it: I find it hard to write because I feel powerless to do anything about the situation, that my words will stop no war.

But I refuse to let the fear, the feelings of powerlessness and physical blockage, get the better of me.  I am writing about them, because maybe you have felt the same things, and need to hear someone say it. And I am writing to tell you about the prayers - traditional words (so many Jewish prayers are about peace) and my own words - that I am filling my mouth with:

• Ufros aleinu sukkat shelomecha - spread over us the shelter of Your peace (traditional)
• Od yavo shalom aleinu ve'al kulam - yet may there be peace for us and the whole world (contemporary)
• Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom (hi ta'aseh shalom) aleinu - may the One who brings peace in the heavens bring peace to us (traditional)
• Praying for peace, for cooler minds to prevail over the heat-of-the-moment reactivity, for all the lives that are caught in the crossfire.  This prayer is specifically for Israel and her neighbors, and generally for our world.  May we move towards peace, joy, love, and creativity - and ever away from destruction. (My words posted to Facebook, 8 July 2014)
• Please, Holy Creator, PLEASE... (I ask here)
• bring wisdom to those in power
• create a peaceful heart in all of Your people and peoples
• mold our hearts for compassion and love-of-life
• Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilmedu od milchama - let nation not lift up sword against nation, neither learn war anymore (traditional)

May love and creativity abound - may all war and hatred end.  What else can I say? For a political understanding of the current situation that comes close to what I think, see Gershon Baskin's words here, and JStreet's statement here (this just comes close, and that I do not fully agree with everything JStreet says or does).

"How many times must the cannon balls fly, before they are forever banned?"

May we soon live in a world where we construct our buildings to welcome those who would visit, as Abraham and Sarah did, and not to fortify or fight against our neighbors. (Pics from Caesarea, Israel - 1993, copyright mine.)

Cloud Dancing

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now, and still somehow, it's cloud's illusions I recall."

Clouds dance. I've seen them from airplanes up high in the sky, and I've seen them from perches on land. But I've only seen them dance when I've slowed down enough to listen to their music.

This is what I had started to write when the news started to come in. From SCOTUS, decisions that raise corporations above people (by the corporations for the corporations, rather than by the people for the people) a decisions that will have wide ranging and log term reverberations. 

From Israel - three kidnapped boys found murdered. Cries of revenge. An Arab boy murdered. Soldiers announcing rogue retaliations. Rockets flying this way and that. Desires to build new settlements and name them after the dead Israeli Jewish boys. 

And counterbalances: to SCOTUS, the dissent and the outcry makes me think that in the long run we might just beat this; from Israel, peaceful words and hopeful desires, from the families of the murdered boys and not just from the usual peace organizations. 

And because of this, I know that we still merit to dance with the clouds.

Today, I witnessed such dancing - of clouds and of humans - when my son pointed skyward and said "hippopotamus!"  He brought be back to awe and wonder.

He also brings me back to fear and heartbreak.  Because of him, I am much more empathetic to (and more likely to want to tune out from) the kinds of things I mentioned above.  My son could be targeted because of his religion: from American laws that protect corporate religious affiliation over personal (religious or otherwise) beliefs and choices; because he is Jewish, and someone here or abroad decides to take revenge or use a child to push a violent political agenda (he because he is Jewish - but clearly the other side must be wary, as well).

Forgive me if I vacillate, then, between hope and joy and awe on the one hand, and fear and uncertainty and utter sadness on the other.

But permit me to end where I began - with cloud dancing.  Because I first began to think of this blog topic a month ago, when I was in the city I most want to live in, visiting family and looking for work.  From the airplane window, I saw clouds dancing.  I saw them morphing and swaying and growing and dissipating.  I saw them responding to breezes and winds, to shadows and light, and to each other.  And in the dancing of the clouds, I saw great hope: that something so tangible, so real, could also be so open to becoming something different - a different shape; a raindrop, snowflake, or finer vapor; tall and thin, light and fluffy, dark and brooding.

I aspire to cloud dancing - to moving through life as a cloud, open to that which will invariably change me, and offering where I will invariably create change.

Thanks in part to those clouds and their dancing, and in part to the support of some magnificent people, I am in the process of moving to that place I want to live.  I will be near family, and I will be working with people I am very excited to work with.  I offer myself to the teachings of this transition and of the new work and of the new people who are coming into my life - to the ways they will change me and the ways I will change them. 

May I merit to dance - with all of my family, our friends, and the clouds. 

Addendum: today, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi died. I did not ever meet him, though surely I could have had I tried only a little bit, and I regret that I did not make the effort. He was a teacher and an influence to many of my teachers, and in that way to me. I take this opportunity to add to my above words because the whole idea of dancing with clouds is related to both seizing and creating opportunity, and reaching for dreams. May Reb Zalman's memory be a blessing - and may I yet learn from him. 

The Gifts of Walking and Writing

Our bodies were made for moving - walking, running, stretching. And our minds/souls were made for creativity. For me, remembering these gifts, and the soul-freedom that comes from them, doesn't always come freely. 

I haven't written a blog post in two months. I started one, shortly after my mother's April heart attack, but I let "life" get in the way. I continue to write in my journal everyday, forcing myself to "stay unblocked," but quite obviously pushing myself some days to keep the flow going. 

In this two months, though, I have relearned the power of walking. It helps that warm weather has returned, and that I've been spurred on by teachers. 

Today, half a mile into my two mile walk I remembered beautiful things from this morning. A mile in, I remembered how critical walking is. This is what happens when I walk, especially when I walk alone or in companionable quite: My mind opens, my thoughts loosen up as my arms and legs limber, and I start to write - in my head, and something on whatever paper or device I can grab. 

Torah is both ancient and contemporary wisdom of storytelling and journey taking, and it reminds me not to forget that both are about life. 

This week's Torah reading, about the death of Korach and his followers, is full of the kind of blindness that gets me in trouble. I stop paying attention to the gifts I have - or I stop using them - and I try to force tight ideas into unreceiving spaces.   

There is a redeeming note in the story if Korach. "Once [things] have been used for offering to the Lord, they have become sacred." And ever more shall be so. 

A colleague this week reminded me to listen to my gut feelings - not to try to force myself into a particular situation that just didn't feel right. Wisdom for Korach. Wisdom for all of us. 

And from that reminder, along with another friend's about the gift of my writing and the above words from Torah, I am trying to connect to the sacred, trying not to let "life" get in the way of living - walking and writing and telling stories of the things that move me spiritually. Like teaching my son this morning to communicate with a caged bird by bobbing and nodding and tilting our heads the way the bird does, and being amazed that it actually calmed the bird, and my son. I almost forgot about that, until half a mile into my solo walk this afternoon. Thank G-d for this body and all the life and sacred, creative energy that flows through it. 

Counting the Omer - Leaving Mitzrayim, a Starting Point

בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים
In every generation, every person is obligated to see him/herself as if s/he came out of mitzrayim.
(Passover Haggadah)

From whence do we come, and whither do we go?

Mitzrayim evokes both the literal narrowness of Egypt's fertile strip on either side of the Nile, and the emotional/spiritual narrowness of slavery.  It is the latter that each of us is obligated to search for in our own lives.  But the "coming out" from narrow places is only the beginning, what we read starting on the first night of Passover.  On the second night of Passover, we begin to count the Omer - for seven weeks we will count days and weeks, until we arrive at our next holiday, Shavuot.

The Omer reminds us that leaving mitzrayim is only the beginning.  It is like Abraham's Lech Lecha moment.  "Get up and go...to a land that I will show you" (Genesis).

In the moment we leave the narrowness - whether it is a way of thinking, or a job that binds us, or a relationship that restricts us - we do not land immediately in a place of certainty and strength.

Wandering in Haifa (c. 2005, RSR)

Rather, we begin a journey into the unknown, into openness.  It takes time to shake off old habits. We might, like the Israelites, sometimes question why we ever left, wonder if we really had to leave the security of what we knew (was it really so bad? "were there not enough graves in Egypt?").  Wherever we think we are going, like Abraham and like Moses and the Israelites, we really have no idea.  And that uncertainty can be disorienting and disturbing.he begin the journey - not expect that just because we have begun the journey we must have arrived somewhere special.

The Omer, the counting of days, helps to ground us on the journey. It grounds us with the simple act of counting, but also with Kabbalistic spiritual teachings, and a custom of self-reflection as we count, as we mark the journey. 

ארמי אבד אבי
"My father was a wandering Aramean" (Deuteronomy 26:5; Passover Haggadah)

I love the closeness in English of the words wander and wonder.  The journey is about openness - about being able to wonder at what we encounter, to find awe.

As we begin this wandering period, this counting of the Omer, I invite awe and wonder.  I also invoke compassion in response to the desire to shelter in the known narrowness, and for the desire to know "are we there, yet?!"  May the journey be the "there." May we not become stuck in the places where we sojourn.

Skin Lesions and Life to the Dead

Unlike my other blog posts, this is a more "traditional" D'var Torah, or sermon, on the reading of the week, Parashat Tazria, Leviticus 12:1-13:59. I offer this in part for those who missed my service this past weekend. To all reading, especially if you actually did hear my words: I typically write out what I want to say as a way of helping to congeal the ideas in my head, but it's still a little like jelly, fluid, so this isn't exactly what I said on Saturday. Thanks for the supportive readership.

This week’s Parasha, Tazria, contains sometimes vivid descriptions of bodily functions and malfunctions, skin lesions, and other physical “impurities.”  While it fits well with the rest of the Levitical blood and guts experience, this can easily be the most difficult, even embarrassing, portion for bar or bat mitzvah kids to work with, and quite disturbing even for an adult audience, trying to read it from a spiritual perspective.  

Even the ancient rabbis had difficulty with it.  What were these physical illnesses and what did they have to do with the spiritual work of the priests?  Surely there were plenty of lesions and illnesses that didn’t have to be proven pure or impure by a priest’s eye or through sacred ritual?

Leaving aside the issue of childbirth, where the parashah opens, the rabbis asserted that the skin diseases weren’t just any physical lesions - these were spiritual afflictions, resulting from actions, things a person did (or didn’t do).  Torah teaches that Miriam contracts one of these skin lesion diseases as a direct result of speaking ill of, or doubting, her brother Moses.  And so the most direct link between lesions and actions is said to be lashon hara, speaking ill of another.  

We could simply leave it at that, as the rabbis do - not try to find any explanation for how action might lead to physical ailment.  And indeed, the rabbis more or less do leave it untouched.

But they do offer some clues, in their discussion of this parashah, and in various other biblical texts and rabbinic interpretations.

The lesions at issue here are white.  Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Epstein, an 18th century Chassidic leader known as the Maor VaShemesh, taught that this is the clue -

“Now, actually, the reason for this is simple. The key locus of life’s vitality is in the blood, ‘for the blood is the life’ (Deut. 12:23); the human soul (nephesh) is in the blood.”

Essentially, we pale when our life goes out of us.  And white skin lesions are evidence of life leaving one or another part of our body, usually, he suggests, because we have embarrassed ourselves or another through our actions or words.  Anger, he suggests, is one of the worst offenders, and Rabbi Jonathan Slater interprets this to mean anger is “a small death.”

First, we need to be careful in a reading like this not to think that because a person has an illness of any kind that they have somehow brought it upon themselves by action.  Even the rabbis suggested that this was something that used to happen.  

Still, the notion of anger as being a portion of death is intriguing.  The Talmud also suggests that “sleep is 1/60th of death,” a little like death.

And this carries us to one of my favorite lines in our prayers - mechayei hameitim.  That God gives life to the dead need not be read as a direct assertion of reincarnation.  It can be easily understood in this way of restoring spiritual life.

In the Reconstructionist and Reform liturgies, mechayei hameitim has been replaced by either mechayei hakol or mechayei kol chai - both essentially meaning that the life we have and know is the life God has given us.

To me, this change in the liturgy is unnecessary.  Indeed, it denies the notion that we can be spiritually, or even physically, revived.  

One of my colleagues, Rabbi Megan Doherty, once argued that mechayei hameitim was the perfect blessing to recite over the first cup of coffee in the morning.  This may be a little tongue in cheek, but I think that the idea isn’t far off base.  Indeed, some hold a tradition of reciting these words as a short blessing when seeing someone they haven’t seen in a full year or more.

And what of the Yiddish “mechaya”?  Something good happens, even something as simple as a warm day after the winter, or a cup of icy cold water on a hot day - that’s a mechaya.  It’s a relief, a little bit of life-reminder.

The Reform siddur has returned mechayei hameitim as an alternative in its new siddur.  The siddur you use here is great about giving the options.  Reading with alternatives in place is an opportunity for us to rethink how we are reading: is it too literal?  Is tzara’at really leprosy, or is it a psychosomatic / or spirituo-somatic symptom, a result of something being not quite right in our inner life force?  Is mechayei hameitim only (or even at all) about reincarnation or resurrection, or is it closer to the Yiddish derivation, a mechaya, a little bit of life returning where we have felt a little weary or lost or some such?

Baruch ata Adonay - mechayei hameitim.  Blessed are You, our God, who provides sustenance and renewal, raising life up where it has drooped, offering solace and support and nourishment - to the individual, and to our whole world.  May we be aware of this renewal as the earth brings forth new greens, as the coming month of Nissan and our season of spring and Passover heralds rebirth and new beginnings, emerging from the deathly constrictions of winter and mitzrayim.

Olfactory Memory and Temple Sacrifices

The inner doors to my son’s school opened to let through the onslaught of parents picking up our children, and we were instantly surrounded by a moist, bready smell.  “Why are they baking bread?” another parent asked, “it’s not Friday!”  And I remembered - they were going to bake hamentashen this morning - at least in my son’s class, and probably others.

In the Torah reading cycle, we are in Leviticus, full of bloody, gut-flaying animal sacrifices - and a few somewhat cleaner bread and grain and incense sacrifices.  But in the holiday cycle, we are at Purim, that joyous holiday on which we eat (depending on Ashkenazi/Sephardi background) yummy pastries designed like a man’s hat, or the slightly more disgusting version of his ears.  

In a post-sacrificial Judaism, the holiday yummies are probably more likely to conjure some level of religious connection than the sacrifices.  But where the Mishnah makes the transition from sacrifice to prayer, I would like to suggest that our own experiences of holidays through food, tasted but especially smelled, may in fact hold a more direct connection for us.

The phrase ריח ניחח - re’ach nicho’ach - a fragrant (pleasing) scent, appears numerous times in Torah, all in direct relation to various sacrifices - four times in this week’s reading.  Whether grain or beast or fowl, a fire offering provides a pleasing scent, often specifically described as “for G-d.”  The fact that these sacrifices were commonly consumed by the priests (and, in the case of the Passover sacrifice, by the masses), we can begin to see the connection between the altar that stood before the Holy of Holies and our grandparents’ (for example) kitchens.  

For me, the smell of latkes frying or chicken soup cooking on the stove can bring me home to my mother’s kitchen.  Fresh baking challah, tzimmes, brisket, roasting chicken, cholent, and yes, hamentashen, may be among foods that bring you to various kitchens of your memory.  

And not just any memories, but memories of Jewish time, exactly the kind of time that the sacrifices helped to mark.  The everyday, the Sabbath, various holidays and seasons.  

The association Jews have with food (there’s some idea that you can’t attract Jews to a program without it) is, therefore, not just about putting something in the belly.  It has the potential to be so very deeply spiritual -- in the sense that our kitchens are our altars, filled at their best with ריח ניחח, re’ach nicho’ach, pleasing odors that permeate our very souls and bring us into relationship with each other. It is an inherently spiritual relationship, in the sense that neshamah, soul, is related to breathing (as is smelling), and ru’ach, wind, another word for soul, is directly related to the word re’ach, odor.

Chag Purim sameach - a very happy and joyous Purim to all.  May your olfactory memories tingle, this week and always, with your own efforts or the efforts of someone you love.  

Rewriting What is Written in Stone

Fire in Stone
original sketch by the blogger ;)

The image of the ten commandments - a few dozen words etched directly by G-d into two tablets of stone - epitomizes the notion of immutability of not just these few words, but the whole of Torah, perhaps the whole bible.  

All of the progressive movements of Judaism have made gender-balancing changes to the siddur (prayer book), at least as an option, thus literally changing the words of our texts.  

But no Jewish community has, to my knowledge, rewritten the text of Torah. Torah is sacred and, for all intents and purposes, written in stone.

One of my two year old’s favorite TV shows, Super Why!, focuses on reading as a superpower. The show opens with song: “Who’s got the power / The power to read / Who answers the call / For friends in need / … / Who looks into books / For the answers we need / It’s SUPER WHY and the Super Readers.”  

Little boy Whyatt and his friends transform into superheroes. As Super Why, he says, “with the power to read, I can change this story and save the day!”

What a radical concept! Not only does reading provide knowledge, but the opportunity to change the very thing we are reading.

The stories the Super Readers enter and make to are often well known, like Jack and the Beanstock or Goldilocks, stories I would have thought nearly as sacred, immutable, as Torah.  

But the Super Readers come in and “save the day” by challenging the very text.  An angry giant takes a nap on his “huge bed” rather than having a “huge tantrum” (Season 1, Episode 1); moonlight suddenly brightens the room of a bear who is afraid of the dark by changing the last word of the sentence, “Charlie’s room is dark,” to “light.”

They transform the story by changing the words.  

But we can’t do that with Torah.  And there are times Torah seems to, I’ll be honest, contain things we would rather not read, let alone teach our children. So what do we do?

Essentially since the moment Torah was written, there have been ways to transform meaning. Consider, for example, the understanding of the word שמע shema (as in the credal, “Hear, O Israel,” (Deuteronomy 6:4)) as שאו מרום עיניכם - “lift high your eyes” - not only emphasizing the notion of “pay attention” but linking it to another text (Isaiah 40:26).  

In this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Vayikra, we find the following (Leviticus 1:2):  אָדָם כִּי-יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם קָרְבָּן

Just to give you a sense of how translation is inherently interpretation, I offer the following:

• 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation, “When any man of you bringeth an offering...”
• 1999 Jewish Publication Society translation, “When any of you presents an offering…”

The main difference between the two translations is a problem, as it were, with the first word, ADAM - אדם. The first translation is as a generic “man,” and the second translation avoids to word entirely.  

Some ask the question, why ADAM (אדם) instead of ISH (איש), which is the more common word for “a person”? Our second translation opens up the possibility that אדם is a more gender neutral term, something more compatible with contemporary egalitarian thinking.  I would imagine they might justify that based on the verse “And G-d created אדם...male and female” (Genesis 1:27), such that Adam is a word not subject to the gender binary, whereas Eesh (איש) is explicitly gendered.

Another nice twist is the acronym given for אדם by Rabbi Yochanan in a discussion on what a person does/is when they are haughty (Talmud Bavli, Sotah 5b) - aleph (א) for אפר aphar, meaning dust; dalet (ד) for דם dam, meaning blood; and mem (מ . ם) for מרה marah, meaning bile. An act of repentance or turning from haughtiness - a base, physical act - could be an offering, an attempt to turn away from the physical ADAM and to “draw near” to one’s spiritual self through an act of קרבן korban, the type of offering here, which is connected in its root to קרב karov, literally to draw near.

Those who read Torah, who are knowledgable in the Hebrew especially, have the power to be, as all Torah commentators throughout the centuries have been, nothing less than Super Readers, with the power to transform the meaning of our text for our own and future generations.