Reflections on My Love for Israel

My Grandma Jean, z"l, at Kibbutz 

Gadot with a calf suckling her fingers.  

Also in the picture: my parents, brother, 

and our host Victor, a cousin of sorts.

In 1993, I traveled to Israel for the first time - a young adult - with my brother, parents, and grandmother. It was a wonderful trip, with some of the typical tourist experiences (though I have yet, in many trips since, to make it to the Negev or the Dead Sea), and a handful of the typical "visiting family" experiences. Our most relaxing days were in Haifa and at Kibbutz Gadot in the northern Galilee - precisely because those were moments visiting people rather than places.

A particular event stands out as part of how I, personally, connect with Israel - with the land, with the history, with the state (aside from coming home and declaring my final undergraduate major, in archaeology).

My favorite part of Israel, instantly from the moment we landed that December and to this day, is the sense of history and culture all around. There is energy, flow, emitting from the old walled city of Jerusalem to the tools of war rusting by the roadside; from the great abandoned ruins of Caesaria to the living ancient city of Akko; from Jewish religious sites to the mosques and minarets to the Baha'i gardens of Haifa; from the bustle of the old-style shuk to the more modern Diezengoff of Tel Aviv with its shopping and night clubs.

During our stay at Gadot, we went on a day trip to see local notable places. Just a short distance from the kibbutz, on a hill overlooking the northern Jordan valley and across to the Golan, we stopped for the view. On the hill was a building in ruins, and behind it was a clearly marked mine field. Like all other places with ruins, I felt a strong pull to the building, little more than an outlining foundation with a few wall sections rising angularly. I wanted to spend some time in what shadow it had left to offer.

"It's a recent building," said our host, "nothing interesting." Recent, as in from 1967, when Israel captured the land and occupied the Golan for security purposes. At that time, the hill we were standing on - and the kibbutz behind it - were besieged by weapon fire from the Golan.

We moved on. We saw the view, we noted the trickling Jordan below, recognized the archaeological site alongside it, and moved on.

But the next day, when everyone else climbed into the van to see yet more, I walked back over to that hill, despite a fierce wind. I sat in the shadow of that ruined building. I sat, and I thought, and I let the energy of the past sweep over me.

More than twenty years and multiple trips back to Israel, including significant time spent at Kibbutz Gadot, and that building - its broken walls, its energy, perhaps its hidden and almost forbidden nature - remains a profound symbol of my connection to Israel.

I love the connection to places where things have happened - or where things are said to have happened. The archaeology along that water above Lake Kineret shows preCanaanite cultures - and our history rises up from there. Jewish access to these historical sites should by no means be exclusive - but everyone should have access to this history, to the experiences, to the feelings evoked by historical places and objects that have cultural and ritual significance.

This post, this story, emerged for me when I sat down to reflect on a recent post by Keith Dvorchik, in which he calls on us to Take Back the Words "Zionism" and "Zionist". I wondered, what makes me a Zionist? This is my answer, based on the dictionary definition offered in that post - "Political support for the creation and development of a Jewish homeland in Israel." 

I am a Zionist because I believe that Jews have a strong connection to the land - that a connection to land is a deep Jewish value (note the maintaining of rituals connected to the agricultural cycle of Israel even by people who electively remain in diaspora). I am a Zionist because full access to the land and its history should be available to the Jewish people - as well as to others who have similar connection (Utopianism is perhaps a higher value of mine, if less realizable). I am a Zionist because I love the land of Israel. So even, or especially, when I dissent with certain political moves or election results, I am a Zionist. After all, an election cannot be fair without the ability for people to have voted against the winner, and without the ability to continue to disagree and offer suggestions for change. I am a Zionist because I have a personal connection to the Land of Israel, and I desire the continued development and improvement of the State of Israel.




Note: I don't have a picture of that particular building - at least not accessible digitally at the moment (I took 18 rolls of 36-shot 35mm, some in B&W, that trip, but have only digitized one roll so far). Please enjoy the gratuitous picture of my grandmother, may her memory be a blessing, at Kibbutz Gadot.

To Sing With My Life: Short Thoughts

The Psalmist sang, I will sing to God with my life. My rabbinic classmate and colleague, Rabbi Me'irah Iliinsky, did a beautiful illumination of this verse, which I have framed - and has typically hung next to my rabbinic ordination certificate. I currently have no room for the latter, but have brought the former into my living room space. This morning I was pondering the words.

What does it mean to "sing out to God with my life"?

At first, I thought - well, it has to be a joyous song. I have to live my life in total positivity.

And the words from the Fiddler on the Roof song, To Life, came to me: "God would like us to be thankful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor. How much more could we be thankful when there's really something to be thankful for!"

Be grateful, is the message, no matter what. That's what I hear in the Psalmist's words.

As I think a little deeper, though, I realize that there are a variety of songs that I can sing out with, using my life:

• I can sing a protest song, actively trying to change the world. This may not be a joyous song - indeed, it might be a song that comes from anger about the brokenness. But it is a strong son.
• I can sing a punk song, in which I express my dissatisfaction with the behavior of some people in the world.
• I can sing a dirge, acknowledging the natural course of life as I sit with others at the end of their life, or remember with those who mourn.
• I can sing a children's rhyme, celebrating curiosity and silliness by playing with my son, with my family, or simply being playful.

I feel freed to sing as I make this beginning to the list of how to sing with my life. Yes, I can sing by being joyful and grateful. And I can sing my values and my hopes. The point is to live those values with passion.

What songs do you sing with your life?

How to Teach 2nd Grade From Scratch

As the end of the school year draws near, it's time to reflect on how to teach 2nd grade without an education degree or a teaching certificate.


Step one,

Say yes when the head of school offers you the job. Move right past thinking it is crazy. Never mind what she is thinking offering the job to you - that’s her business. You have to leap at the chance before you think better of it.

Step two,

Call on all that other teaching experience:

Hebrew/Sunday school classes for which you were probably ill-prepared, but there was so little expectation or oversight that it just didn’t matter - and don't forget directing Hebrew schools, including teaching others about how to teach;

College classes for which you prepared detailed syllabi with oodles of reading, and horrid consequences explicitly laid out for plagiarism and cell-phone use in class;

Adult-ed programs for which you prepared too many texts and then wound up relying heavily on student questions.

Take them all, and throw them out the window.

Except maybe the plagiarism consequences, which you might want to save for when a student defies the sign saying “do your best work.”  No - throw out those consequences. They don’t really threaten the college students out of the plagiarism, and you can’t throw a 2nd grader out of class, or the school, for most of that defiant behavior. And trust me, you probably don’t want to. Plus, many second graders can barely read, so the college and adult-ed lessons are pretty useless.

Which brings me to

Step three,

Bring your heart.

Be prepared for it to get broken.

You will fall in love with your students. Really, you must. And if you don’t, then you probably won’t be a great teacher. And if you do, you need the have a great big open mushable, mashable heart, and be prepared for it to be bruised and scratched and torn.

Because content is only part of what you are teaching - and probably the least important part. What you are teaching, what you need to focus on, is character. You are teaching, or better guiding students to push through the hard stuff, to try things they think they can’t do, to get rid of that “can’t do” attitude, to persevere. You are teaching curiosity. No, you can’t teach that.

Nah - forget the word teaching

You are guiding

encouraging

fostering

The students will learn better when you stop teaching. When you see them. When you open the journey to them.

How do you teach 2nd grade? I haven’t a clue. I understand more about how to read a curriculum, how to write goals that I can meet and that students can understand, and how to write and (sort of) stick to a cohesive lesson plan. But teaching day to day? Every day is different, and no matter how well my plans are written, how cohesive and clear they are, I have learned to be flexible and ready for the unexpected.

What I do know, though, is that my students are awesome, and I appreciate every lesson they have for me, planned or otherwise. And I will miss them terribly when the year is over.

Addendum: thoughts that don't quite fit the above narrative
but I want to say them anyway:

• More than a skim of texts about 2nd grade pedagogy, including who 2nd graders are, is actually quite valuable, and probably necessary for sustained work in this field.
• If it weren't for the price many students would have to pay, I would think it valuable for every adult to teach for a year, including all of the preparation involved. As a society, we might respect our teachers more, and possibly compensate them better, recognizing all that they do. And more parents might then approach teachers with a level of compassion and gratitude, out of experience. I know the experience changed how I approach my son's teachers, even when I have a big concern.

St. Helens - I will never forget! 35 years

On top of St. Helens
All covered with ash
We lost Harry Truman
And his 800 cats.
     (sung to the tune of "On Top of Spaghetti")

Thirty five years ago today, Mount St. Helens blew her top. She puffed out ash and smoke, creating beautiful and terrifying visuals for miles to come, leaving anywhere from a dusting of ash here in Seattle and a lot of other places (apparently as far away as Minnesota) to feet of it in the immediate surrounds.

My older brother and I used to sing the little ditty above with a sort of glee, but the truth is that Harry Truman (not the president), refused to evacuate his home on St. Helens prior to the eruption. He and his sixteen cats (okay, our little folk ditty exaggerated a little) died there. One of 57 human and countless animal deaths.

Whenever May 18th rolls around, I find myself reflecting. 

We felt small tremors at our house in Settle - watched the red mushroom lamp swaying on its wire over our kitchen table.

I can still see the ash plume in my mind's eye - I don't need the photographs, though I don't think we could see it from our house (we had a good north view, but not south).

I can remember the dusting of fine ash that was impossible to clean, and stories from family and friends south and east who had a foot or more of fallen ash to contend with. I always thought, if it's so hard for me to clean one little layer, which scratched the heck out of the plexiglass in our front door beyond repair, how much harder for those who had not just the dust but the weight of piled ash.

For years, when we would drive down I-5 to Oregon, we could still see barren hills of ash, pushed off to the side of the road. Eventually, these became fertile, grasses and wildflowers covered them, and eventually trees made them essentially indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape, so that if you don't know where to look you would have no idea what you were seeing. 

Like St. Helens, who has welcomed the return of plants and animals to her reshaped landscape, I too have changed in these past 35 years. Sometimes inside I feel very much like the 9 year old child for whom the above events were so immensely important. But 35 years adds a lot of layers. For St. Helens, a mountain, those layers include the rebuilding of the inner dome and the reshaping of the outer flora and fauna. 

For me, those layers include growing up (still, every day), developing an appreciation for landscapes across our country and, indeed, our world, and learning to welcome the diverse nature of this world into my heart. For me, these 35 years have helped me to deepen the sense of human journey in the world, the way we are drawn from and to places. 

35 years later, May 18th, 2015 - and I have returned to the PNW, where the local news (see here and here, for example) is acknowledging, investigating, and commemorating this event that has been a natural marker in my life, in that "do you remember where you were when" way. In my call to return, throughout the years, I think I can understand a little of Harry Truman's refusal to leave, his willingness to stay in a place where death was almost certain. Where else would he feel so at home?


Note: I can find no reference to the little folk ditty at the top of this post. Did my brother and I make it up? Was it limited to our neighborhood? Did you, my Seattle readers, also sing this?

Writing Isn't Always for Sharing

In the age of the blog, in which everyone can write publicly, and many many do, it is valuable to remember that not all writing is meant for sharing.

I say this without considering whether all writing should be read, though I could argue that a LOT of what is out there simply isn't worth reading.

But some writing isn't meant to be shared. Blogs are not diaries, though some people treat them as such. Blogs are not private - even when you share a URL only with your intimate inner circle, once you put something out on the internet, it can more easily be shared. Even a private email between two parties can shared and spread under wrong circumstances.

I am leading classes and workshops in Writing as a Spiritual Practice. It is tempting to tie such writing to sharing within spiritual community.

Some amazing writing may come out of these workshops - and some may be great for sharing, with community, in blogs, or even in publishing contexts.  Most of that writing will take careful editing and reworking, whether it is poetry or Torah (bible) commentary or prayer or creative fiction or memoir.

But the truth is that my understanding of writing as a spiritual practice is that it is regular writing, practiced with the purpose of developing mindfulness and discovering the self. It is important for there to be a kind of safety in this writing.

I have a "Stickie" that appears every time I open my computer, which says "No one ever has to read a word I write." I got that from someone else. That puts it all on the potential reader, though, so I have added "I don't have to share anything I write, unless I want to." And this is the part that I'm sharing with my students in Writing as a Spiritual Practice groups.

You don't have to share. Let yourself write freely. Don't expect to share it, even if you have a particular audience in mind.  You may come back and rework a piece specifically for sharing, but often enough writing prompts may lead to a kind of tohu vavohu, a world unformed and chaotic, as in the biblical beginning of time, still needing to be ordered.

You don't have to share, and if you want to share, consider the right time as well as the right venue. This not-sharing is something I practice. I found myself saying "it's time for me to put another blog post up." In reflection, I find I have written a great deal in the last couple of weeks, even reworking a few pieces. One piece at least I will share on this blog, perhaps as early as next week, but more likely not for another few weeks -- because while it is meant for sharing, it needs to be shared at the right time.

And so I leave you with this - I have written to share with you that not all writing is meant to be shared. I don't mean all the junk out there that people share that I, frankly, don't want to read. And I don't mean the things people shouldn't write that can lead to job loss (e.g. dissing your employer publicly), though that should go without saying.

I mean from my internal perspective that there are things I am not ready to share, that there are things that can be problematic for one to write because one is afraid of sharing. I am talking more about the emotional safety - if you write, feel free to write without worrying that someone is going to read your words. If you need to write it for spiritual (or emotional) reasons, but you don't ever need/want to share it - burn it. 

Writing is a valuable process in and of itself. It can produce beautiful art, informative prose, supportive literature. But it doesn't always, and it isn't always meant to.

Writing isn't always for sharing. Sometimes it's just a way of learning to understand ourselves and our world.

For Our Teachers and Our Students: A Journey in NonLinear Faith

A long time ago this morning (likely yesterday by the time I finish writing and post), I sat at the table of local Torah maestro Beth Huppin. She is marvelous at demystifying Jewish text and weaving difficult teachings into meaning for any interested learner.

This morning's text, in honor of Yom HaShoah this week - was from Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889-1943), Piaseczno Rebbe, who taught light in the Warsaw Ghetto (and before).

In his posthumous Sacred Fire, Shapira takes the Talmudic teaching that "when anyone repeats the Torah (teaching) of a dead scholar, the lips of the dead, though lying in the grave, mutter along with the speaker." (Read positively as "whisper," or "murmer" rather than "mutter" with its negative connotation.) Shapira argues that this is literally "in the grave," and literally "moving," not some dreamy picture of our teachers in an ethereal Olam Haba (world to come).

This teaching Shapira places near the end of a rather elaborate explication of the importance of students to teachers, which basically states that a teacher may learn something in the act of teaching that is far beyond the ken of the students, but which the teacher could not have understood without the configuration of particular learners around him.

Am I blown away by this teaching? Yes. While we were careful in the room this morning to read this as having broad meaning, I want for a moment to reflect on its context, a teaching during the Shoah, before I move on to weave in a few texts that came to my mind.

Consider: Shapira is teaching this in January 1942. By now he is aware of the death of teachers and students, and may, whatever hope he tries to keep alive, reasonably anticipate his own mortality. (Significant change came with partitioning of the ghetto in December 1941, two parts joined by a wooden foot bridge.) Did he intend this teaching as comfort to those he spoke them to that January? A reminder to himself that so long as people came to learn from him, he had purpose, and he could learn? To console himself at the loss of his own teachers?

Consider now the far-reaching meaning of this text. One of the questions Beth asked her students (me) to reflect on this morning was whether we had "ever experienced hearing the lips of the dead speaking" when we speak or teach words we learned from them.

This gives me chills, just thinking about it. And I say, "well, not literally, no . . . and, yes!"

Sometimes simply studying a text that is thousands (!) of years old, if in a moment I sense the person or people behind that text (author, editor, redactor), I may feel profound awe at the opportunity to find meaning for myself in their words.

There are people who converse with a text. I mean out loud, even. What do you mean by X? they might ask, or delving deeper, Does your idea hold up when you consider A? This, I think, was the savvy of the Talmudic rabbis - not to try to preserve the text as is (though with sacred texts they did their best), but to be in conversation with those texts, or to imagine themselves in conversation with the originators of the text.

Many scholars have done this simply in the margins of a text (See Rashi's Torah commentary, for example). Joseph Caro was overheard by his disciples having conversations with the personified Mishnah.

How do I do it? Usually quietly in my head. Sometimes jotting an epiphany on paper. And recently, I have begun the idea of writing out such conversations.

Am I "imagining" the conversation? What is imagination?
Am I "really" in conversation with a text?
Do the answers that I scribe for the text or its author actually belong to the person I am channeling?

Yes or no, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is:
Somewhere along the way, now and then, I experience the murmer, the דובב (dovev), of teachers past, some of whom I can never have known.

A long time ago this morning - now yesterday morning - I sat at the table of a great teacher. She taught the words of another great teacher. And he cited Talmud from more than a thousand years ago, which in turn cited Shir haShirim, Song of Songs, attributed to King Solomon nearly 3000 years ago.

There is no time in Torah. The teachings reach backward into the generations, and forward to students not yet born, who will elicit from their teachers new and revelatory understandings, just as our students do today for us, and as we have for our teachers. Though I prefer, unlike Shapira, to consider an Olam Haba rather than the earthly grave, I offer the prayer: May we hear the voices of our ancient teachers and their future students murmering through the veil.

In memory of teachers and students lost.

Giving Voice to the Voiceless: Reflections on the Passover Seder

This is the first year I have had Seder with my mother since her words were stollen from her more than two years ago (this is her third Passover without it) by a massive stroke. I have eaten many meals with her in this time, especially since I made the 3,000 mile cross-country move to be nearer to family - approximately two meals a week the last nine months.

But something profound happened at the Seder that has not happened in a single one of these other meals. My mother read. Out loud.

She put her finger on the page, she opened her mouth, and she vocalized and intoned as she ran her finger across the words. Her eyes were lit, and her voice filled with song and joy. The Haggadah gave her a voice, even if, in order to know what she was reading, I had to read silently to myself from the same words on the page. Once again, thanks to the built-in narrative of the Haggadah, my mother was able to participate in the conversation.

The Seder offers many opportunities to give voice to the voiceless. The narrative of slavery, that we all need to see ourselves as having come out of Mitzrayim, has us connecting directly with the experience of slavery (see my previous post). As we do so, we begin to tell a universal story of human growth, but also to connect ourselves, to listen for and to speak for those who are deeply entrenched in slavery, so much that they may not be able to use their own voice.

Let us go back to our 4 Children, for a moment. There is one, in Hebrew called: שאינו יודע לשאול. Usually this is translated as "Who doesn't know how to ask." But the "how" is read into a phrase that literally means "who doesn't know to ask." Not how, but simply to.

Sometimes we are so deeply entrenched in our own universe, we do not know that it is possible to ask, that asking is an option.

Enslaved for hundreds of years, it is only after Moses, a free man, rebels against the taskmaster (yes, kills him), that the Israelites are said to have cried out.

The Haggadah changed my experience of my mother's current struggle. It gave me hope and ideas about hearing her voice again. Nay, it actually allowed me to hear it, just a little bit, for just a moment.

And from this I learn:
We can give voice to those who are enslaved and don't even know it.
We can give voice to those who are traumatized and can no longer speak.
We must cry out from freedom so that others may cry out from slavery.

Torah teaches us that because we were "strangers," we must not estrange anyone from our community - not the poor, not the widow, not the orphan, not the stranger who joins us. As we continue through this Passover week, I invite my readers, friends, family to continue think about where we see voicelessness, and how we can offer a voice to them.



[edited for grammar and clarity - two words - 4/8/15, 11:48am]