From Shiva A Beginning

Moshe received Torah on Sinai and passed it to Joshua.
Joshua passed it to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and they to the Men of the Great Assembly. And they said, "Don't judge in haste, raise many disciples, and build a fence around Torah." (Avot 1:1)


As I sit in the week of shiva following my mother's death last Monday, I have had many recommendations, and many thoughts, about how to keep time during the process of mourning. Shiva is obvious, mostly - seven days mostly at home, letting community surround me and my family. And I must say the community, composed of people I know who knew my mother, and of people I know who didn't know my mother, and people I hardly know who did or didn't know my mother, has been incredible. I feel comforted. I feel met and honored in my place of mourning.

The custom of saying Kaddish daily is likely to be difficult, given the lack of daily minyan and the inevitable busy life I will be returning to. Someone suggested study, particularly some piece of Torah or Mishnah or other traditional text, as a daily practice. This would surely honor my mother's zest for learning.

Today, though, it came to me. My mother was a writer - and writing is for me a core part of life and living, a passion my mother passed on to me. Recently I read in one of her journals her words praising a piece I had written. Writing is a way to honor my mother's memory - and writing daily with this purpose is also the best way to avoid one of the pitfalls of grief that I could easily fall into - a sort of writer's block.

So I begin a practice today, on the 5th day of sitting shiva for my mother, in which I will write for eighteen minutes -- memories of life with her, reflections on her life and things she taught me, and, when I get stuck, finding a text to learn and reflect on in her memory. This in addition to journaling daily and any other writing I might do.

Today, I begin in reflection on Avot 1:1 (above):

My mother gave me Torah -- she and the people she surrounded herself with.
   She gave me Torah by choosing Judaism for herself and for me.
   She gave me Torah by choosing to send me to the Seattle Hebrew Academy
          for my early education.
   She gave me Torah by joining and becoming an active member of Temple Beth Am, 
         and by joining the choir and being in the synagogue for Shabbat and 
         other events throughout the week.

My mother gave me Torah by pursuing her graduate education, 
         especially because it was in the field of Jewish Studies, 
         but also because it was the pursuit of ongoing, ever growing knowledge.
   She gave me Torah by celebrating Jewish life at home, weekly and through the year, 
         and at personal moments along the way.

My mother gave me Torah by pursuing justice, through giving to diverse organizations,
         and by being an open and gentle and generous person to whomever she encountered.
   She gave me Torah by living her life with verve and with dignity, from difficult beginnings
         as a war orphan to the very end through adversity and illness.
  
My mother gave me Torah by loving me, from the moment she gave life to me, teaching me
         to walk through fears and to face life head on.
   She gave me Torah by holding on tight to life, and by giving to her family in the moment
         she finally let go of her place in this physical world.

Mom. Ma. Ima! I have called you many names. You gave me life. You gave me Torah.
   Your memory will always be a blessing, sweet on my tongue as I share with friends
         with family, and especially with my son.


I invite my readers to write your own reflections. Think of someone who has taught you Torah - who has taught you about life. Maybe this person is deceased, like my mother, but maybe they are still alive (too often we reflect only after someone has gone). How did this person teach you? What did they teach you? What have you received?

WSP: Writing as Spiritual Practice (1)

Something happens when I write. Actually, a lot of things happen when I write - to varying degrees depending on what, when, even how I am writing.

There are so many categories of writing, and categories within categories. Journal or diary writing varies based on time-of-day as well as what intention (processing, projecting, reporting, etc.) I put into it. Then there is expository writing with the purpose of showing or teaching others about what I am thinking, reading, focused on in life - taking a variety of forms depending on topic and intended audience (call this blog post that sort of writing). And there are all the little bits of writing - email queries and responses, marketing materials, lists, reminders, notes to self or spouse or coworker. And, on the side, I do a little creative, spiritual fiction.

Writing in the morning or evening is very different, in ways partly but not entirely specific to the of the type of writing I am doing. I am very definitely a morning person - I am at my most creative, typically, when the day is barely begun. In the evening, I'm more likely to reflect backwards - and if I'm writing fiction, just as when I'm writing in my journal, that produces a different voice than my morning writing. I can force myself to process in the morning, or to think creatively forward in the evening, but it's far less natural.

Writing by hand is by far my preferred mode. I use it for journaling, for first drafts of sermons and other expository writing, for fiction and creative nonfiction, and still sometimes for letters (I miss formal letter writing - and receiving). I think differently - more slowly (by force), but also in ways I can't quite describe - when I am writing by hand rather than typing. Interestingly, most of my blog posts are written strictly on the computer, and I wonder about that sometimes.

All of these - the what I write, the when I write, and the how I write - move me. Whether journaling in the morning about something I hope to have happen, or creating a fictional scene, writing transforms me in much the same way that reading transports me - I find myself experiencing the world differently than when I don't write. I connect with the world outside of myself, I see myself in the larger picture, I discover how relationships connect or divide.

Writing is a spiritual practice for me, no matter what I am writing. Over the past couple of years, writing has been essential in my journey, offering a place to process and engage change as it has come my way, and providing inspiration to make meaningful transitions - mindfully.

New Respect for Writer's Block

All that white space in Torah, the spaces between the words, the information left out… I wonder, was it left out intentionally?  Or did the “author(s)” of Torah know that they just needed to “finish” the work and put it out there even if it wasn’t “perfect”?  

Apparently, I have writer’s block.  I was sure I posted in January, but apparently not.  Believe me, I’ve been writing up a storm!  I’ve even drafted a few blog entries, on “paper” and in my head.  I have plenty to say.

But I’m (re)discovering that writer’s block isn’t always about not writing.  Sometimes, yes, it’s the stare-at-the-page-can’t-find-a-single-word block.  Sometimes I have a lot to say, and I really want to share it, and I’ve even written it out.  But I make excuses: I don’t know if this is right for the blog, I’m not sure it’s a “finished” product, I don’t know if anyone is actually reading, or I don’t know if the “wrong” people are reading, or I do want feedback or I don’t want feedback, I’m sick, my son is on school break, I don’t have time.

At My Writing Space, created by prompt from The Artist's Way

In December, shortly before this unconscious hiatus from blogging, a rabbinic colleague recommended a book called The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron) - a workbook aimed at moving one past various creative blocks, recognizing that the creative energy in us is the way in which we created in the image of the Creator.  This is a very compelling answer to me about what Torah means that humans are created “in the image of G-d” (Genesis 1:27).

In the process of engaging with this book, I have written hundreds of pages - mostly journaling, but also drafts of two children’s books and some unpublished blog posts.  When the book asks each week if I see where I am blocked, I scoff.  “I’m not blocked,” I say, “I’m writing - I’m blogging.”  Whoops.  The only writing I have shared, however, has been work-related sermons and such.  I’ve shared the writing I had to write, not the writing that I have created as part of my personal creative energy.

I’ve used every excuse, until I became aware this week how bad the excuses really are.  And I see, after weeks of working through the book and claiming NOT to be blocked, that I actually am blocked.  Yes, I’m writing.  But I’m not sharing.

Can there be “wrong readers” on a blog, since anyone who reads the blog is self-selecting to do so?  And since I can find changes to make in any sermon, blog entry, short story, etc. that I’ve already been put out into the world, I know a finished project isn’t necessarily a perfected one.  I need to unblock, to put my work (and yes, sometimes my process) out there - blog or otherwise.  It won’t always be good, and it will have white space (intentional and not).  Let the readers read into it as they will.

More soon.  Um...I hope!

You Are What You Read (and Read What You Are)

You Are What You Read, declared a link posted by a friend on Facebook.  Apparently the news is a little old (2011-12), research suggesting that identifying with a character in a book can actually change us.

Actually, this isn’t news in Jewish tradition at all.  I find the annual cycle of reading Torah -- a practice dating back thousands of years -- to be a practice of identifying with characters and of becoming.  I spiral back to each story individually and with community, and each time I read a story I bring different questions to it.  

I mean that at any given point I am living certain questions.  These questions may be big or small, but they always are about where I am in my life, on a journey or in a stuck-place, grieving or experiencing newness and joy, as teacher and/or student, focused on love or grappling with darker emotions. 

Admittedly, the questions I am living at a given moment impact my reading of a story (biblical or other) -- but the wisdom of Torah and the cyclical reading of it is that  each story brings answers, somehow, to the questions in which I am living.  

The many questions I flow between in my life are not by any means unique to me.  Torah (and much good literature) is brilliant in leaving space for questions -- in answering questions with questions -- leaving room for the reader to examine what isn’t written, the stories between the stories.  This is midrash. 

From this week’s reading we have sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau beginning in the womb: “the children struggled within her” says the Torah, and Midrash says, “whenever she passed by a place of study Jacob would struggle to come out, and whenever she passed by a place of idolatry Esau would struggle to come out” (Genesis Rabbah 63:6).  The midrash has each child dealing with their own personal struggles, rather than the sibling rivalry that seems the original intent of the text.  Author beware -- your reader will find things in your writing that are more about him/her than about what you thought you wrote.

One of my favorite contemporary authors, Dara Horn, employs the concept of midrash to her writing.  I have just finished her recent book, A Guide for the Perplexed, which brilliantly tells a 21st century story by sweeping together the biblical Joseph story with a medieval book of the same title and a 19th century rabbi-scholar.  This is a book that has influenced me in recent weeks.  Another of Horn’s books, The World to Come, provides some of the foundation on which I tell my son the story of his birth (which came a year or so after I read the book).

Our modern experiences really aren’t that different from what has happened to people in the past, despite the illusion created by changing technologies and our own sense of progress.  Whether Torah or contemporary literature, horror or fantasy, news or memoir, self-help or spirituality -- what we read influences who we are. 

On the flip side, I am finding that who/what/where I am in my life has a lot to do with the choices I make in reading material.  Last spring I slipped into a phase of reading fiction that described terrorism and human slaughter in gruesome detail.  This literature somehow helped me to deal with loss and grief in my own life. 

Recently, I have realized that I am unable to open such books.  My circumstances have changed.  I’m moving out of hardcore grief and into a journey of hope.

And what am I reading?  Besides the weekly Torah readings, which are filled with great stories for the journey-oriented questions I am currently engaging, I’ve moved into the “cozy” mysteries, where deaths may happen but the details are kept to a bare minimum.  And I’m reading life-journey books, including Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, and Dara Horn’s Guide.  

Thank you for reading my words - I can only hope they are helping you with your questions. Recommendations for my next read are welcome!  

Losing Our Religion?

[Note: This post predates the creation of this blog by a week - originally posted at www.cbict.org/yepblog, where I posted regularly during the last academic year.  I repost it here as it was the first in my return to blogging this year.]

Much ado is being made about a recent Pew survey suggesting that the number of those identifying as Jewish is dwindling, and that those who do identify as Jewish are not identifying religiously.

Judaism is a culture – and a religion.  Judaism is values and actions, it is rituals and community, and it is about our place in the Oneness of the universe.  Notice the word “and.”  Judaism is not one of these things, it is all of these things.

Torah – the Five Books of Moses – is filled with mitzvot, commandments.  The word mitzvah has been distilled in recent times to mean “good deed.”  But this is a simplification that neglects the values of the original words.  The Talmud, the “oral Torah” of the early rabbis, understands these commandments in a variety of ways.

One teaching says that all mitzvot are rules about relationship, either between one person and another or between a person and God.  Those things seen as the Jewish “religion” typically fall into the latter category, but in fact even those that are about interpersonal relationships are ultimately about God.  We are all made, according to Torah, “in the image of God,” and thus every encounter with another person is an encounter with a bit of godliness.  And ultimately it is through our relationships with each other that we come to know God.

An example: The mitzvah, “ve’ahavta lereyacha kamocha,” love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18) – and the mitzvah, “ve’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha,” love your God (Deuteronomy 6:5).  The former is described by Hillel as “the whole of Judaism, all the rest is commentary,” while the latter is recited as part of the Shema in virtually every Jewish prayer service and at bedtime.  This is a commandment that encompasses emotion and experience, but also holds expectations for behavior.

Rituals help us focus.  The act of putting on a kippah (yarmulke – head covering) or a tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin – all “commanded” through mitzvot, and all nearly unique to Judaism – can bring the prayers we are about to recite (which are not very unique) into a physical, tangible experience.  The actions and the order and timing of prayer, not the language in which the prayers are spoken nor the words themselves – this is Jewish religion.

We are commanded to remember the story of the Exodus.  The Passover seder is traditionally a family occasion, and is celebrated by more Jews than any other holiday, including people who have left the “religious” part of Judaism behind.  There are literally hundreds of different haggadot telling the story of coming to freedom – often in contemporary terms, and sometimes with no clear religious context.  The gathering in of family and friends, the sharing of a story, the reminder that we are not the first generation to struggle – this is Jewish religion and Jewish community.

The practice of mitzvot has necessarily evolved over the generations.  We no longer sacrifice in a Temple that no longer stands. Artistic variations of ritual garments and utensils (e.g. candlesticks) in every generation.  Judaism will continue to evolve.  But the ideas and rituals of Judaism are religious – whether or not an individual who identifies with Judaism identifies as religious.  So I would argue that we are not losing our religion, but rather continuing to change and shape our religion even as it shapes us.