Torah for now

Vayigash

December 26, 2014

Did you ever have to do this: to muster the courage to stand and speak and plead your case? I was once a VERY nervous (now just a little nervous) public speaker. I watch people really suffer to stand up to be seen and heard.  Now kick it up one step: imagine drawing up close to some powerful world leader to offer your words and perhaps your life.

The Torah portion begins with the key word as Judah “draws near” to Joseph: Vayigash – to approach or draw near. This word is repeated five times in the parashah, and repeated more with the grandchildren next week.
What does is really mean to draw near, as you come nose to nose with someone, what’s going through your head and heart?
The Talmud also asks about the full meaning of “vayigash” And three points of view are stated. you approach to fight, to reconcile or to pray. Rabbi Eleazar says all three are happening here with Judah. The approach is everything. This approach begins the climactic scene of the Joseph saga and one could argue all of Genesis.

Picture the scene; You are Judah in the royal court of a guy named Tzapenath panea, the most powerful Egyptian in the Empire. You are facing the starvation of your children, so you’ve come to buy food, and now you face the enslavement of a Brother. And not just any brother: Rachel’s other son, Dad’s other favorite. If anything happens to him, it will kill Dad. It’s dejavu, all over again. You’re scott free if you walk away, if you turn your back on Benjamin as you did to Joseph. Just ignore your Brotherhood, ignore your Father and the spoiled favorite gets what he deserves, and you are free: win/win. But you won’t do it this time. You will give up your very life so that it doesn’t. So you stand up and go nose to nose – approaching Tzapenath

Talk about hard times! From Joseph’s (aka Tzapenath’s) point of view his own brothers have sold him as a slave, and he was later imprisoned, accused of a rape he did not commit. Never giving up faith, Joseph rises from the pit to rule Egypt with a dream interpretation and a plan to feed the world. Right now he’s facing down these same scum brothers.
Joseph is testing them big time, setting them up: has slipped his silver divining cup into Ben’s sack.
“I will take only this guilty man as my prisoner, the rest of you are free to go in peace to your father”
Now these same brothers had sold Joseph as a slave from jealousy and hatred. “behold, this master of dreams comes, let us kill him! Would they walk away without their brother? These brother’s hands are blood stained. Yet Judah steps up.

So what does Judah say? He recaps for Joseph and quotes father Jacob who is reluctant to let Benjamin go at all: “I had another son by his mother (Rachel) but he “went out” from me became “torn, ripped” If he loses Benjamin he will die grieving. Judah explains Jacob’s soul is bound up in Benjamin’s. To step out, to be torn, Why does Judah recount this: maybe he knows that what we need is to draw close, to love, to have our souls bound up as the text so beautifully paints
And finally Judah speaks the closer – offering himself as servant, let the boy return to Dad with his brothers.

What changed Judah? What gave him the courage to stand up, to speak up, to approach power? To say he was wrong, and put his own life on the line? What do you think?

Torah doesn’t say, but a clue in the story of a woman injected into the story seemingly at random. Her name is Tamar, and she is Judah’s daughter in law, marrying his eldest. Judah’s son dies. Levirate marriage was a law at that time. It says to the dead son’s family: don’t abandon this woman, but offer another son as bridegroom. Judah does, but Onan dies too. So Judah says to Tamar, just wait, hang out in limbo for my third son. Judah’s scared to lose a third son, so he’s lying. Tamar ends up tricking Judah into fulfilling his obligation to provide her with and children by disguising herself and sleeping with Judah himself, becoming pregnant with twins. When Judah finds out Tamar’s pregnant he orders her killed. Tamar proves Judah’s the dad, and reminds him of his obligation to provide her with a family. And Judah say’s “I’m wrong, Tamar is right” He is able to see Tamar’s point of view.
Perhaps Judah’s change of heart begins from loving and losing sons. At first he sees only his own heartbreak. Now he sees Tamar’s heartbreak of never being able to have sons. And finally he can see his Father’s heartbreak at losing Joseph and the possibility of losing Benjamin. “Their souls are bound up with one another” He explains to Joseph. And he honors his father, and both brothers by offering his own life and freedom.
Would you do it? Could you? I’m not a brave person by nature. As a Mom I know only fierce love could make me step up and put my own life down.

Joseph clears the court. Before he unmasks and reveals himself he cries. he releases pent up emotions with cries that are heard by all, (by Pharoah). Ani Yoseph ha-od avi chai? I am Joseph, does my father still live? This is the only part of Vayigash I’ve chanted, my favorite part, It reveals Joseph as a hero for forgiving his brothers, all of them as they pass his test. The powerful dreamer who has the strength to forgive. I’d never seen Judah as a hero until this time reading through. Perhaps I felt Judah was just a bully. I’m not so judgmental this time. Without Judah’s change and courage to approach the powerful and offer himself, we don’t exist.

So love transforms – the binding of souls from parents to children and back again. Perhaps Judah grew close to his sons and daughter in law and grandsons first but now Judah continues to draw close – in love to his father and brothers.

Incredible stories, our stories and heritage. I love stories. There’s an effort called storycorp to record people’s life stories that I’d love for us to get involved with. But are stories important to tell?

This week we look back on 2014 we know we living in troubling times. I need the hardest kind faith when faced with troubling times: to think that things will be OK. Where to find the strength? Perhaps knowing we’ve been there before. In this week’s Ten Minutes David Segal explains that stories of our families, and our people overcoming adversity give children resilience: the power to overcome the really hard times. I cannot mention Hurricane Sandy to my students in passing. They jump on the opening in the conversation to explain how they personally got through these times, and how they helped others. Their love of others inspired them to give, and that shining light lives alongside the hardships in their memory. I am sure they will tell those stories to their children. As I hope they will tell the story of Joseph and Judah, and the power of soul binding love to stand up and approach powerful forces face to face.

And so one more story about a young British / Israeli woman named Kay Wilson. (Full text in the link) She is a British-born Israeli tour guide, jazz musician and cartoonist. She is the survivor of a brutal terror attack that occurred while she was guiding in December 2010. Since the attack, she is in a demand as a motivational speaker and also speaks on issues of human rights and justice for victims of terrorism. Just a bit of her words here:

I believe with an imperfect faith that the question is not “why” did this happen to me, but rather “how” can I incorporate this grisly event into the rhythm of my life in a manner that guards me from becoming like those who tried to murder me.
…I believe with an imperfect faith that waking up every day in mental and physical pain is better than not waking up at all.
I believe with an imperfect faith in the importance of making a phone call, just to hear someone’s voice.
I believe with an imperfect faith that life is rushing outside when it starts to rain.
I believe with an imperfect faith that life is making someone giggle.
I believe with an imperfect faith in acknowledging the future but living in the present.
I believe with an imperfect faith in accepting the past but embracing the now.
I believe with an imperfect faith that life is too short to bear a grudge…..
I believe with an imperfect faith in living my life with gratitude.
I believe with an imperfect faith that every single moment is a miracle.
I believe with an imperfect faith that my broken and battered body serves both as a testimony and also a warning, of where hate speech can lead.

Like Joseph, Kay is a dreamer, of the world as it can be. Like Joseph, Kay harnesses the power of that dream to have the faith of hope and optimism. I wrote this little chant last year using Emily Dickenson’s poem in memory of Nelson Mandela, but offer it here for Kay’s story. Listen here

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Vayishlach: Jacob’s Prayer

December 4, 2014

pesach

I have a little brother, well he’s big now, and when we were kids we’d sometimes wrestle -little kid fights. They were intense, but we were basically allies in our little world, and I was really glad to have him as a buddy.  We got together as many families did for Thanksgiving last week. And though we did not return to our childhood home, there was a returning, in a way, to a family that once was together.  In the Torah this week, a primal tale of Brothers, twins actually, and of returning home to the Promised Land.

Biblical Jacob is called to return home in this week’s Torah reading, after many years away. But  the way home is very hard, fraught with dangers from seeds he himself planted, from the bratty, grabbing punk kid he used to be. His twin brother, Esau is headed his way with 400 armed men at the very same time Jacob has decided to return!For more on the story check out Home

And so from Jacobs lips a prayer enters Torah:  “Please, Save me!” he cries. A petitionary prayer, one of very few whose words are recorded in Torah. His life began in a parents’ prayer to conceive, but the words of that prayer are lost. During pregnancy, Rivka sought God again, to know the meaning of her life in bringing these twins into the world, “If it’s like this, why am I here?” she asks. And now Jacob’s amazing prayer. He prays for salvation from from the hand of his twin brother. In this powerful narrative a terrified Jacob is returning to The Promised Land after many years raising a family far away. In fear, Jake has splits his camp – separating his wives and children so his brother cannot destroy all.  Jacob has been in trouble before, and in response, he fled, or found a way to outsmart his brother, to grab, to win. But Jacob has changed, his arrogance transformed to humility. For the first time he feels fear, and feels small and unworthy. He identifies his life with “mother and child” in his family. Is it possible love for his family has transformed him? With loved ones in danger, Jake’s response is this prayer.  He prays for “atzilut” freedom, NOT VICTORY perhaps for the first time in his life. What happens next is surreal. A mysterious stranger wrestles with him until dawn, ripping Jacob’s hip from his socket. What kind of answer to a prayer is this? Perhaps a brilliant one. Limping,  and offering many gifts, Jacob is seen, not as a threat, or a scoundrel, but as a true brother. Jake gets a new name: Yisrael meaning either “Struggle with God, or God Rules”, for, the wrestler declares: you have struggled with creatures Divine and Human, and prevailed.  Ironic, that true freedom from fear and from fighting with his brother can only be won in this divine wrestling match. But it works: the wrestling, the prayer. No longer fighting, Esau embraces his twin, and so embraces us, the children of Yisrael.
Could this be a lesson on how to achieve peace with humility? or on what it really means to be free? The prophet Micah spoke of a time when “all shall sit under their vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid” (4:4) Perhaps release from fear is the ultimate salvation.
What did Jacob’s Prayer sound like? Perhaps this: Imagine Jacob at the campfire at sunset, explaining what’s happening to his beloved Rachel.
JACOB’S PRAYER Listen to the Audio
You must go now, he can not find you here.
It’s I alone must stay behind, it’s clear….
Do you remember how we met, my sweet Rachel?
When I pushed that boulder off the well?
The Kiss, that cry, that rose to the sky; Entangling our destiny?
Now my very life is in your eyes, and with all the children by my side
Fear swallows me, I am unworthy; By mother and child, my brother will kill me   
Chorus:        
Please, God, Deliver me, hatzileni na m’yad Achi!
Please, Deliver me.
From my fear and from brother’s hand, set me free!

Who am I, am I the truth or the lie?
The child of Abraham and Isaac am I.
Am I the dreamer, of a ladder to the sky,
Or the deceiver, stealing blessings from the blind?
Believer in promises, I must now return to Canaan land
Chorus
It is so dark, the hour of demons, heed!
Who goes there now? What do you want of me?
I will fight with all my might.
I’ll keep you back and hold on tight
I won’t let you go, though day may break
You can turn my Pain to blessings great.
Chorus
You will be born anew this day, a new name now is yours
Yisrael, as you struggle with God,
You know truth and justice will prevail
A broken heart & limping pace; can help you find your brother’s embrace
He’s a child of prophecy too, born of momma Rivka just as you.
Chorus

*An American tale: There once was a girl who toiled, poor, and unhappy on her family farm. She dreamed of a far off place of wonderful riches. Following her dream she journeys along a road. Beset with terrible obstacles, she rises to each challenge, with the help of friends along the way. Her friends teach her great things, such as *”a heart is not judged by how much one is loved, but by how much one loves others” and that “true courage is facing danger when you are afraid” and that true smarts comes from experience, not brains. When she finally arrives, she discovers the true secret: that the greatest treasures lie back in the direction she came from. She must return home to find her heart’s desire in family and friends. I think maybe Jacob learns those same lessons as he returns to the promised land. What do you think?  From Thanksgiving to Oz, from Haran to Promised Land, Love transforms, and it’s always family you return to.

Above, Passover at my brother’s house, where we spent Thanksgiving.

(*Oh, of course, it is from L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz.)

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Seeing and Counting with Blessing; Re-eh

August 19, 2014

How do you know if it’s a blessing or a danger? That shiny new car – that you cannot afford, or is a gas guzzler, that lovely piece of cake, but you’ve had two already? That glass of wine -but you’ve had enough? That attractive person smiling at you: are they trying to sell you something you don’t need?  Is looking enough to know? Then how?  Well, we always will begin by looking!

What’s real, what illusion? Vision:  It can either mean insight to truth, or an imagining. The word “television” means seeing at a distance, and my son tells me there are screens with 8000 pixels per inch, beyond what the eye can see – what’s going on in that beyond? And is the existence on the screen real? “Seeing is believing” I’ve heard said, but in truth, what we see on the surface is not real. What about those times when something’s right there but you just don’t see it. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously flawed. Check out National Geographic’s “Brain Games” which features magicians playing fast and loose with our “realities” by directing our attention or inattention.  The Torah portion this week is named “Re-eh” meaning see because it begins with that word!  “See, I set before you this day blessing and curse”, says God.  Blessings if you follow the Mitzvot, curse if you do not… and to make the choice visually clear and dramatic, the Israelites are to set up the blessings on a green, lush mountain, and the curses on a barren one. God challenges us to choose well. But it isn’t always obvious, or easy to look beyond the surface!  The text could have just said: I set before you this day, what is added, what is God trying to tell us by beginning with “Re-eh, see”? Be careful! the text warns many times “guard and listen” “don’t be lured” by idol worshipers, dream diviners, false prophets, by loved ones luring you astray. Guard and listen. follow the Mitzvot!

The first Mitzvah the Israelites got as a nation, before we even left Egypt was that of Honoring the new month, in this case Aviv, spring’s month. This coming week Tuesday and Wednesday begin a new month  – the month of Elul which leads us to our journey approaching the High Holy days, our inner journey of teshuvah, an upward journey to finding joy and love. Elul is the month whose very name is an acronym for love, from the song of songs: Ani L’dodi v’dodi li. Of course, the word “month” is based upon “moon” and the Jewish month begins with the new, or barely visible moon. Her light changes nightly and predictably, and the celebration of the moon who rules the night has long been connected with women, and in Jewish tradition is a holiday which celebrates women!

A story of the moon from the legendary town of Chelm, home of the infamous wise fools. The townspeople loved the times when the moon shone brightly in the heavens. In the beautiful glow of the evenings  their homes filled with happiness and they were content. Children listened, all responded with kindness. But as the moon’s light ebbed, gloom and sadness seemed to settle upon them all.  “This just won’t do”, they said. “We must figure out a way to keep joyful even on the dark nights,” proclaimed the leaders.  “If only we could catch the moon,” said Yossele the tailor “we would have it, and could release light into those dark nights!” But how? the people wondered. Yankel the tailor mused, “Last week I was sipping a bowl of borsht. As I ate, I noticed that in the bowl was the light of the moon! Perhaps if we had a large enough bowl we could catch it!”  And all the brilliant folks of Chelm enthusiastically nodded – what a great Idea, they proclaimed! And so it was determined to try to trap the moon. In every home pots of borsht simmered.  Someone donated a bathtub, others contributed boards of lumber, and Moshe the carpenter directed the volunteers to construct the world’s largest soup tureen.  One night as the moon shone full and bright, the townspeople brought all their borsht and dumped it into what must have been the world’s largest soup bowl.  The moon light shimmered. “ooh”, admired the townfolk, and then several of them lifted the lid and “crash” covered it tightly. At that exact moment a cloud came to obscure the moon.  “We’ve done it!” they rejoiced, “we own the moon light”. Never again need we endure dreary depressing nights!” And they danced and rejoiced all the long night!  But the next night, as the sun sank beyond the horizon of Chelm and darkness spread, the moon rose once again.  “Treachery!” thought the townspeople. “Someone must have let the moon out of the pot!”  And so the search was afoot, house to house, all were interrogated as to their whereabouts during the day of the theft. And one by one, each denied the deed, had alibis – working in the field, studying in the classroom, caring for the shop. Finally the geniuses of Chelm, with no other suspects, reluctantly knocked on their beloved Rabbi’s door. “Excuse us Rabbi, but could it be you…?”  “Yes it was I who let the moon out of the pot,” sighed the Rabbi.  A murmer of surprise spread through the people, of disbelief!  “But we worked so hard, why would you do this, Rabbi?” “Why? I will tell you: because there are some things which we enjoy when they are ours completely,” began the Rabbi. “Like my shoes!” Cried Yossle, “Like my candlesticks,” cried Breyna. “That’s right!” the Rabbi explaine  “But their are other things that we cannot own, that we can only enjoy by sharing them,” continued the Rabbi. “Like Love?”, asked Asher, “and hugs,” offered Miri, “and joy”, shouted Aviva! “Yes, like joy and hugs and love!” responded the Rabbi. “And the moon?” asked Shmuel?  “Yes, the moon” Replied the Rabbi. “But now we will forever have to have dark, scary, gloomy nights each month” “what on earth shall we do?”  The Rabbi stroked his beard. “It is true” he said, “that we will all have some gloomy, dark days., it’s part of life.” But we can help each other through these dark times,” he continued, “by sharing something comforting and fortifying during these difficult times!”  “Like what?” they asked. “Like Soup!” answered the Rabbi.  And so it became a tradition in Chelm. On those darkest of nights, neighbors would knock on each others doors and share a bowl of borsht, and perhaps a hug.

What is real, what illusion? It’s an illusion that the moon creates light or is  gone when it’s dark just as it’s illusion that the moon can be captured in a soup tureen. But you can feel the tide, the moon’s pull. Illusion – that it’s possible to have only joyful times by grabbing and holding on to reflections and shadows, but real that you can share the soup you’ve captured it in.  It is also an illusion that while walking through New York on the way to your concert or show, that the homeless person on the street is invisible. Should you give them a dollar? How do you know if it’s a blessing or a curse? Re-eh continues, “if there is a needy person among you. do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin…give readily and have no regrets…for there will always be needy ones in your land..” which is kind of sad, but true.

So how do you know if it’s blessing or a ‘curse” – where can we look for guidance? “Follow my Mitzvot”, is God’s advice in parashat Re-eh for how choose blessing. I learned this week through Reb Arthur that Mitzvah can be translated “connectedness” If you connect deeply to a friend, or a beggar or to a tree in the forest or bird in the sky, or a child, then love commands you to care.  And the new month can help us know:  Elul, “Ani L’Dodi,,,I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Truth is that by listening and opening up to, and embracing one another we can find our way. Perhaps the only way to avoid the illusion is to see with our hearts. from a song I wrote last week at the conference:

And if we build bridges of Love, And if we build them heart to heart;

Then Eden blooms again; and many waters cannot quench this love of ours:

And then we will choose blessing as we count our way through the new month to Rosh Hashanah – the new year. Not just counting our blessings, but counting WITH blessings, day by day, moment by moment. “And if we choose rightly and often enough then the broken fragments of our world will be restored to wholeness” (Chaim Stern, Gates of Prayer)

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Eilat Chayim

August 15, 2014

I went someplace new, took a leap of faith, and I was totally plugged in and energized by the experience. I saw the program description, a course called “Wild Roots of Torah” about nature, Torah, music and stories…. and it sounded like a perfect fit! It was part of Eilat Chayim  program at Isabella Friedman nature center in the Connecticut Berkshires, a beautiful location to be sure:  majestic Pines and Aspens surrounding a small lake, complete with a playful resident muskrat and swooping swallows. But more beautiful were the energy and caring and kindness of the teachers and participants. And the joy of finding resonance – with the people, the surroundings, with ideals and values, and hopes we shared

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Wednesday:   it is pouring at the  nature center. Rain makes tiny circles in the lake, and runs in rivulets down trees and ground.  I am engaged with the program “Wild  Roots of Torah”, led by Rabbi Natan Margalit and Cara Silverberg (our nature guide).  R’ Natan is a gentle, kind, wise soul with an easy smile that lights up playfully whenever we find wonderful connections, or in appreciation of natural beauty.   On our first afternoon, Cara asked the group to find something amazing in our surroundings, and to enthusiastically share it. Natan was found soon swinging from a low, flexible tree branch!  Cara is passionate, and deeply connected to nature, movement and music.  It’s the second day, so, as per plan,  we are discussing water – in the world, in life, in metaphor. It’s the only rainy day and the weather/text coincidence strikes us, one of many coincide-incidents these last 2 days.  In the text we are studying, humanity is moving from the well watered river valley plains civilizations, to hills and valleys watered by rain from above (The quality of mercy is not strained, it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven, pops in to my head) We’ve also just been singing “Thank You for the water which nourishes my soul”, and water is a metaphor for Torah.  As we are born with a gush of waters from the amnion, we had to leave the well watered Garden of Eden in Genesis to be adults, and cross to sea of Reeds to birth a nation. In the same way we must leave the well watered valleys of childhood to the hills and valleys of our lives. It’s really unhealthy to maintain an umbilical cord of dependence – maybe like drowning with too much water, we explore with Natan. Yet, we yearn for safety and security. R’ Alan Lew writes: “our life is a river and it’s goal is taking us home”.

One of our group, Jeremy, has a tattoo from Song of Songs on his arm colored like flame: “Set me as a seal upon your arm”, it says, and I know that next the text reads: “Love is as strong as death… many waters cannot quench this love of ours”. So It occurs to me in a flash: LOVE IS THE UMBILICAL CORD WHICH CANNOT EVER DROWN us, and can lead us home to the Garden.

Cara has been sharing with us her own (and others’) personal connections with the natural world around us. She shared a story about a plant called Colt’s foot, which is medicinal and helped ease a cough she’d been suffering from. She came to feel and view the plant very personally,  in relationship. It was starting a shift in me, from seeing and analyzing the natural world to developing a more aware, more keenly felt relationship. And life and Torah may be at its core about relationships….

In our next move, the group was instructed to take the experiences we’ve had and create something to express them. Each group member created and later shared their art, poem or song. With melody in my head, I wrote this song to distill a taste of the inspiration I was experiencing.  But first a bit of explanation: Adamah means “earth”, but it also contains the name of the first earthling: Adam. And Mayim means “water” in Hebrew. and is part of the word for “sky,” Shamayim. The song is called “Adamah, Mayim” and each element has it’s own melody, and then the two melodies come together in the end. Adamah rolls a bit, then reaches down. Mayim’s melody soars unrestrained.

Ruach is the Hebrew word meaning both wind and spirit; Aish means fire.

Adamah; Adamah, Adamah (2X)

To be aware when bare feet touch down,

We’ve found connections through the sacred ground

We are of earth, its colors and hues

Heed love’s commandment to choose life!….

Adamah!

Earth must drink, I must drink, crystal clear mayim!

Earth must drink as I must drink, sweet droplets from Shamayim

Mayim, Mayim, Mayim! Mayim, Mayim, Mayim Rabim!

the quality of Torah’s unrestrained; It falleth as the gentle rain

We must build bridges, of love

and if we build them heart to heart

Then the garden blooms again

and Many waters will not quench this love, it remains

Earth must drink, I must drink, crystal clear mayim!

Earth must drink as I must drink, sweet droplets from Shamayim

Winds carry us on eagles wings

Ruach my spirit soars and sings

Ruach, the wind can take us higher

Inspired, sparked, on fire.

Rising like mist from the lake warmed by sun’s gentle rays

Rising from the face of the earth, mist can never stay

Ruach, Aish, the spirit and the fire

Ruach, aish, carrying us higher.

We must build bridges, of love

and if we build them heart to heart

Then the garden blooms again

and Many waters will not quench this love, it remains

Thursday: our fourth of five days. After a starry, peaceful night, I joined a morning worship service that took my breath away, and kept my eyes welling for nearly an hour. It was unconventional, heartfelt, radical, beautiful, led by elder statesman Rabbi Arthur Waskow. In a multicolored cap/kippah, Arthur leads a service transformed and transforming: a bass, warbling voice which invites clarity and opens doors and connects souls to one another, to timeless tradition, and to the world surrounding.

He wants no less than to reinterpret the name of God, (spelled Yud, Hay, Vav, Hey) to sound like breathing, and the inter-breathing connected-ness that is God, rather than the traditional “Adonai”, meaning “Lord”. We read Arthur’s original Shema interpretation, moved to create and share an original chant right there, which had never existed before! There were only nine of us, in a majestic sanctuary whose walls were almost entirely windows.  Not a minyan (a gathering requiring ten adults). Huge pines, however stood right outside breathing in our carbon dioxide, turning CO2 into tree, and sending out oxygen. Arthur passionately made the case that the trees as God-valued creatures be allowed join our minyan.  And they did. Soon we read in Torah that if we created a just world, then the rains would fall, rivers flow, and our life be sustained, and if not, there are real and serious consequences akin to climate change karma. The service ended about 8:15, a few minutes late. Now there’s a window above the ark, like a second eternal flame.  And just as we were ending the service, waxing poetic about that “someday” where God would be One,  the sun came streaming through that window right on to my face, and the faces of those near me. It was magic – like the Rocks of Stonehenge positioned to capture important celestial moments, and I was blessed to be there to notice.

It is our third day, and we are studying the element of air in nature, in Torah, in metaphor, and in relationship to our life. We are listening to the sounds of the birds – for their meanings within the ecosystem, and to one another, in population.  Sitting still, I listen, looking up into trees and sky. After lunch I climb the red trail to the top of the nearby hill and cliff (with the help of Joe, a helpful classmate).  Sitting still again I begin to soar in my imagination, and just then,  three buzzards circle silently on an air current past me.  I strongly feel awareness of this  vertical dimension of air!  Yesterday we’d discussed the planes verses the hill country:  Perhaps its meaning is adding a vertical dimension to our awareness of the universe, new inspiration.

Friday: I awake to mist, which the sun burns from the lake and trees as it silently rises. This is our last morning here. Our element is Fire, and the mist rose like smoke, but was actually composed of water, elevated by fiery sun! We studied fascinating text of a prophet Hoshea (saving). It begins as a very strange text of a prophet who is commanded to marry a harlot, and does!, falling madly in love with her. It is supposed to be a metaphor embodied of the relationship between divine and human , where the human partner prostitutes herself (ourselves) for material possessions. But somehow, through this mess, love pierces and renews, culminating in a renewed, pure “betrothal” which does two amazing things: Renews Noah’s covenant with the earth and its creatures, and 2) breaks the warrior’s bow (same Hebrew word as Noah’s rain bow in the clouds: Keshet),  and the sword of war. WOW, what a vision.

Our assignment following this study was to go out for awhile and synthesize our own vision.  I first stood, then sat on my tree stump. I reread the text. I mumbled a quick b’rachah (and was really aware of the water, etc.. that I took in to my body), and then had a startling picture in my head. With that blessing, that awareness of two parts of creation connecting and merging (me and the water), a tiny spark of light pierced the space between things, and I was a part of a luminous larger organism.  This image reflected what I had heard last night about the various parts of the body capable of doing this illuminating and connecting.  It was now part of my world view.  Each day we yearn for understanding. It was my insight to learn that to really know something we become different – affected and connected to that person, or tree, community, or sip of water.  In this connection, love rides the light beam (like that Einstein imagining), pierces the lonliness, and carries the possibility of healing and saving.

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Wild Roots, Ekev

August 13, 2014

Tuesday, Eilat Chayim: 

“To See the World in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower; To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, eternity in an hour” William Blake
I used to say these words to my daughter as a newborn, so tiny, yet so beautiful and profound in her just being there.
This week I’m studying with Rabbi Natan Margalit at the Isabella Friedman Jewish nature retreat, a week long course called Wild Roots of Torah. It is Tuesday and I just had the most amazing insights from a spruce twig and my partner’ s white and black pebbles. We were engaged in studying natural objects using the Pardes method of Torah study – beginning with a simple description, deepening to personal connection, then to life lessons, and finally to mysterious unity. I might have been skeptical, but I spent the most amazing day in Nature/Torah study. There was a moment in the forest in which after learning to really activate my awareness, the plants and trees around me came alive with a palpable presence, almost like that feeling when a child’s born, and suddenly was in the room with me, looking my way. Today the woodland air seemed to tingle with life and possibility. It was weird!

So I described my spruce twig, its scent was fresh and fragrant. It bent and felt soft, its needles alternated from a central stem. Deeper: its scent reminded me, a city girl, of the forest, as did its colors, which made me smile and relax. Deeper still – its needles had to be tiny rather than broad to withstand the frost. Yet each one was arrayed at a different angle from the stem, so that together they contributed to the large lushness of the spruce, and captured enormous amounts of sunlight. Further the stem reminded me of my own spine, with limbs and other things radiating out. In fact, I have much in common with this plant – sharing almost 50% of my genetic material with this ancient cousin who builds cells a lot like my own, and it breathes out the oxygen I breathe in (and vice versa). So the spruce and I are all part of the grand design, the One-ness

. 
Then I turned my attention to my partner’s pebbles – one rough and black, one white and smooth. They are Torah, she told me: Black fire and white fire, as the letters of Torah are surrounded by the white parchment – the spaces surrounding each level pregnant with  meanings and interpretations. What about  an even deeper meaning? I offered this possibility to my partner:  this white smooth pebble may have been forged in a stream, a part of the rock cycle, thousands or millions of years in the making just to form this perfect white stone, and may very well be soil particles in the future! We saw the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower! Really!

Chevrutah, is what this method of study is called, pairing off to learn with the synergy that comes from interacting, exploring, even arguing “for the sake of heaven” – of finding truths. And it’s just magic! In our next venture we linked Pirke Avot section on what it means to argue “for the sake of heaven” as did Hillel and Shamai, who disagreed, but honored the words of their opponent. The opposite would be those who try to crush their opponents utterly. Natan brought in a quote from Michael Pollan’s Second Nature in the battle of a farmer against his insects. In trying to destroy insects with DDT or plants with Roundup, harsh, unintended consequences result. “Better to keep the quarrel going, reasons the good gardener…” We must maintain the struggle between different truths, perhaps it is an essence of life, we concluded.

In relating this lesson to our lives, we found this: The bully that only cares to belittle and squash his target may cause the suicide of the victim, or his own destruction or both. Rhonda is a social worker. In the attempt to utterly crush poverty with President Johnson’s Great society, laws that allowed only single women with children to receive checks chased men away, and encouraged a culture of dependence. Always the struggle against poverty, and never the victory? There is some aspect of truth in all arguments, Rhonda concluded, and so the deepest truth is present in allowing both sides of the argument to remain viable.
“Elu v’ elu divre Elohim chayim” Natan reminded us: After a three year argument between the schools of Hillel and Shamai, God’s very voice was heard to say: both this and that argument are the words of the Living God. Living in the complexity, and the striving toward truth. “What can we learn from this about the Israel/ Palesitinian conflict?” asked another student. Perhaps that peace can only come when honor is granted the opponent, when the conflict is for the sake of a better future for the children, rather that to crush an opponent.

Earlier today,  we read in Deut. Chapter 11 that the Creator was searching/ looking after us in the land of Israel! I found it surprising that God could be searching for us like some game of hide and seek – isn’t it usually we who seek?  But  this was a moral seeking  – insisting that we turn our efforts to creating a just society so that the very rains and dew from the sky would come. Today in the world we are burning up, and in some areas drying out. Rains that had fallen no longer do. The link of ethical negligence to climate change is powerful, and real.  We choose actions of relationship or of combat with one another and with elements of the natural world. And it seems unlikely that these actions can impact the larger world or even the climate – but they do! Each of our actions matter.  There really can be a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower.

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Gladiator (Matot)

July 17, 2014

Rage, anger: we call it being “mad” for it takes our sanity from us.

There are some passages in Matot, this week’s parashah about rage, that I struggle strongly with,  including one where an enraged Moses has women and children captives killed. When I write or speak about Torah, I often just focus on my favorite verses, and ignore the hard ones, but given the week’s violent and disturbing news in Israel, I cannot.

“I believe that it’s my job to find myself..” in Torah, sings Julie Silver. “I struggle and I question, I criticize and doubt, but surely that is what our tradition’s all about!  Where am I, in the midst of this commandment?.Where am I, I am not between the lines…how can I turn aside, where am I?”

Choral director and composer, Eleanor Epstein taught me something eye-opening last year. “You know how we say about Torah that “all its paths are peace?” Well, that means if you don’t find peace in the words, you are simply not interpreting it correctly, because ALL it’s paths are peace!” So with that in mind, the lesson on rage- that it makes us “mad” even for best of us, even our heroes.

A story (from R. Ed Feinstein’s Capture the Moon): Did you ever meet someone who just turned everything around, set you on a better path?  (or perhaps you been that person?). There once was a Jewish boy named Simon, who lived in Israel during the time of the Roman Empire around the 200CE . Kidnapped to serve Rome, he would become among its fiercest gladiators. His reputation?:  nobody could withstand his rage and might. One day he was traveling in a hurry to get to his next contest when he came to a narrow bridge which crossed a rushing stream. Weighted down by weapons and armor he stopped about half way across, his way blocked by another man traveling in the opposite direction. This man was a very different kind of hero. His name was Rabbi Yochanan, and he was small, had tender eyes and was armed only with scrolls of ancient wisdom.
“MOVE OUT OF MY WAY” ordered Simon. Rabbi Yochanon would not. So Simon unsheathed his sword. “MOVE OR I WILL CUT YOU INTO A HUNDRED PIECES AND FEED YOU TO THE FISH”. But Yochanon would not budge. So the gladiator raised his sword. But just as he would lower it, his eyes met the Rabbi’s eyes, and he saw something he’d never seen before. Always in his rival’s eyes was terror,  enabling him always to prevail. But there was none in Yochanon, only a deep serenity. Here was a man who knew his purpose, and had more inner strength than anyone he knew from the Roman arenas. This meeting of eyes  shook Simon deeply. He stared long at the gentle rabbi, and then  trembled and dropped his sword. And what was the Rabbi seeing? As Yochanon was staring into the eyes of the gladiator, he saw a spark – beyond all the rage and violence, the Rabbi saw an enormous heart, an aching to love and be loved. A soul waiting to be touched.
Softly the Rabbi spoke to Simon: “My brother, talk with me awhile. Don’t be in such a hurry to kill, or to be killed!. Perhaps I can show you a greater path”
“I serve only the Glory of Rome and Ceasar,” replied the gladiator, repeating the oath he’d sworn. “There is no greater glory!”
“Ah, sighed the Rabbi”,  One day soon Rome and its Caesars will be gone and forgotten. Instead there are truths and Ideals that are eternal. You, my brother, have a spark, are in God’s very image! and you can shine the light of Torah, of truth and love. Come, my brother, devote yourself to the study and mastery of God’s Torah!”
“But…Simon’s voice trembled “I know nothing except the arts of war and killing.. I could never study with a scholar like you…!”
“But your heart, it’s much stronger than your sword, and that’s all God requires of you, Come my brother…” the Rabbi gently urged.
Maybe it was the light in the words and eyes of the Rabbi, Maybe it was because no-one had ever before called him “brother”, but Simon’s soul was reached that day on the bridge. He dropped to his knees and cried. He threw away his weapons, turned direction and followed Rabbi Yochanon. Simon became a truly devoted student. and in time the gladiator become one of the most brilliant Rabbis and teachers of our tradition: the great Reish Lakish. He also became Yochanon’s brother in law. And it is this gladiator Rabbi whose teaching enlightened me this week.

From Torah, God gives Moses the following instruction. You may avenge the Midianites, and then you will die, be gathered to your kin.  You see the Midianites had not let the Israelites pass through on their way to the promised land, and instead had tried to curse them, when that didn’t work they tried to seduce the men, and a plague resulted killing thousands.  But here’s the thing: the Torah actually forbids vengence! (Lev 19:18)  Torah goes on to say Moses is furious -perhaps understandably:  he’s lost his family, has been condemned, will not see the promised land,… and these damned Midianites…! Reish Lakish then comments “When a man becomes angry, if he is a sage, his wisdom departs from him, if he is a prophet, his prophecy departs from him. That his wisdom departs… we learn from Moses, for after Torah says Moshe was furious with his commanders (for letting women and children live)… Reish tells us that Eleazar has to remind the troops of legal instruction (how to purify their swords  in fire), because MOSES FORGOT!

Poet Roger Kamenetz comments “In the atmosphere of war and violence, anger spreads and contaminates like a virus….Vengeance, even in a righteous cause, leaves a permanent stain, an impurity that cannot easily be washed out. Anger leads us to forget our deepest wisdom…Fire is fine for purifying metal, but how does a human soul cleanse itself from anger?”

So Moses was angry, and he messed up, and that’s a lesson. But doesn’t Torah say God was vengeful?  For ME, I know that although Torah is our Divine inspiration, its words have had to go through the lens of the folks understanding it at that time, in this case a despairing Moses, and it is our SACRED TASK to interpret it more truly.  Maimonides, in  Guide for Perplexed says

“whenever an act of God is perceived by us, we put our own emotion and attach it…. but God’s actions cannot be the cause of human emotions – God is beyond this defect”

It takes a reformed gladiator to criticize Moses, but he understands the rage of war. If Moses cannot handle anger, how much more careful should you or I be?

I was so ashamed of the angry Israeli mobs, and that our rage helped fan flames of war.  I despair that there is so much hatred for Jews on the Palestinian side of the border. Martin Luther King said “Hate cannot defeat hate, only love can do that”  Like the love of a small, wimpy Rabbi to reach the soul of a great gladiator, and turn him around on a narrow bridge.  Shalom, peace, comes from the root meaning “wholeness” and I think love can make us gladiators whole

Roman Gladiator

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In Praise of Ambiguity and Goodness (Balak)

July 2, 2014

There once was an Ogre who set out on a quest –to keep his little world safe. He found much more than he set out to find, with the help of a donkey who could talk. Instead of keeping his life the same, he was transformed, as was his lady, but maybe not the ways we expected! I love Shrek, it celebrates childhood rhymes, and journeys, and happy endings! But that Donkey: Is it animal or human? Donkey and Shrek and Fiona and the Dragon: Is it love or hate? Shrek’s world: Is it fantasy or reality?
Sanity means, it part, being able to tell the differences between things: L’havdil: we must separate. When a baby looks at the world, all is one collage of color and light, of line. Then an object moves, and all its colors with it – aha!– that is a separate object, we learn. But in one-ness, in connections, in ambiguities is also a truth.We know that, as Adonai Echad (God is One), therefore all is one.

I have always seen the Biblical tale of Bilaam and his talking she-ass as poetic comedy all leading up to the beautiful blessing: Mah Tovu – how full of goodness are your tents of Jacob, your dwellings oh Israel. The renowned seer and prophet/speaker who can neither see the messenger with the flaming sword, nor speak, as his donkey does, saving his life. Rather than speaking, Bilaam acts in violence, beating his ass three times. (as he will bless Israel three times). When Bilaam opens his mouth to curse, he will bless Israel/Jacob instead.
But it is this emphasis on ambiguity, being both a thing and its opposite that I’m able to see this time ‘round reading about Bilaam

shrek and donkey
Ambiguity:
1. Who is the prophet, who is the beast? Perhaps we are wisest are we then listening to the instinctive parts of us. Who are we at our core? Animal and spirit and emotion all rolled up into one. We fight against our inner nature often, depriving ourselves of its wisdom. As we “civilize” chidren do we sometimes subdue their playfulness, and grow up unable to play? I know we sometimes put weapons in the hands of teens, and teach them hate and fear. Similarly we beat down the Natural world with an agenda to subdue. We say we are superior to nature, when the reality is we have no existence apart from her at all. We beat her as Bilaam beats his ass. There is powerful force blocking his way that only she can see. And only when she speaks are his eyes open
2. Who is the Israelite and who the foreigner/ enemy. Bilaam is a foreigner, hired by the Moabite King, and yet he hears the wisdom of Israel’s God, and blesses them. He becomes the pathway for their survival. The Moablites are called our enemy. As the parashah finishes, they are seducing the Israelite men, and a zealot, Pinchas will slay a couple engaging in sex at the opening of the Mishkan. Yet Moses’ wife is daughter of a Midianite (Midianites and Moabites are interchanged) and Ruth, the Moabite is great grandmother of the great king David.
3. How can the messenger be both an angel and a Satan/ an adversary? Yes the messenger in Bilaam’s way is a “satan”, an adversary. Both an angel and a Satan, at the same time? Can the adversaries in our live be our saviors? The tough customer, or boss? The rebellious teen? The sports adversary that hones us to be our best certainly is. Meet and be open to the adversary with sword drawn.

4. How can we be both Israel and Jacob?  Israel struggles with Angels and prevails, gaining a new name. Jacob is a heel. The names symbolize male and female aspects of ourselves as well. Just as the first earthling in genesis was both male and female.

5. How can we set out for evil/ for cursing, and it be for blessing? I know the reverse well: we attempt to do some good, and it ends up hurting someone by accident. This is much better. Hired by kings to curse, only what is divinely put in Bilaam’s mouth is allowed to come out: of course that will be blessings, from the Source is blessing! If we are open, perhaps the same can happen with our lives.
6. Shacharit, comes from the word shachor: black, yet it means dawn. You know: it’s alway blackest before…The blessing: Mah Tovu, which opens morning services comes from this passage – what a cool coincidence: the transformational blessing at dawn. The time of day which turns darkness into light. As Bilaam turns darkness to light.

Israel this week is in darkness as she mourns the loss of three children. Seeking vengence,  settler mobs  kill a fifteen year old Arab boy. We struggle with demons and angels.  We cannot see the face of the divine in our adversaries nor can they in our face. I prefer the full vision of ambiguity. To send condolences to all four grieving families click here.  I pray somehow that this curse of senseless violence can find some happier ending. I suspect, though, that it will take ambiguous vision to really see “the other”.

Lesson from the Mah tovu: what is NOT ambiguous is goodness. In the Mah tovu, what is good is our tents, our dwellings, not our impressive army or beautiful Mishkan.  Perhaps there were no homeless, perhaps the boundaries between the tribes were soft, perhaps the love from within the tents shone through.  It’s the goodness that transcends the ambivalence of the new day dawning.

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Light and Sound. My Hava Nashirah 2014

June 10, 2014

I’ve just returned from Wisconsin, my second Hava Nishirah, a songleader’s Jam and inspiration and teaching. (Last year’s first was revelation, post here) My sound recorder died, first night, so I’m writing as I remember. Firstly, returning was like finding Brigadoon: connections made last year were as solid as though it were yesterday,  in an idyllic campground and perfect weather. It is also the end of Shavuot as I write,  celebrating the first harvest, and the Harvest of inspiration from Sinai. The theme of the Hava week was light, they told us, but it was light through sound: music and silence!  And it all seems to be converging: light and sound, Hava and Holiday.
What’s cool about mixing light and sound is that sound and light are very different energy waves, yet all connected, just like all 250 of us were totally on the same wavelength as we sang!   Also, in the Ten Commandments, read on Shavuot, the intensity of revelation is such that we saw the thunder: radical! and what a coincidence/connection.  They remind me of waves that rocked the aluminum dock on the lake as we sang in harmony in the sunlight.

Worship service highlights for me: I will begin with mornings. On our first morning shacharit service, we sang Or Zarua la Tzaddik: light is  planted for the righteous, we sang in three part harmony in the early sunshine, with scroll unrolled.

10439459_10152491498539839_1903649802664242715_nphoto by Susan Shane Linder

And Rabbi Ken Chasen told us Maya Angelou’s passing by reading from her poem, When Great Trees Fall 

….And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly.  Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed.  They existed.
We can be.  Be and be
better.  For they existed.

This was the first time I was moved to tears during this weekend, and it would happen at every service afterwards.

On the second morning, Friday, “Don’t forget the miracle of the morning, says God…how I drench my mountains in gold, pink, purple and orange,..” There was an index card on everyone’s chair to put our deepest wish or blessing, and these were incorporated into the morning blessings, while Craig Taubman sang Elohai neshamah (the soul You have given me is pure…) Later he asked us to give our card away. I gave mine to the lovely woman sitting next to me, whose prayer had been to help heal a sick little boy. She hugged me for the gift, and all four or our eyes were wet.

Shabbat morning services: Three Torah aliyot were chanted in English (!) and Hebrew by a Rabbi friend, Melody Davis. Two sweet teens sang That’s What Love’s About by Craig Taubman, to enhance the V’ahavta. Rick Lupert’s poem “Silence” was amazing and funny, he spoke of the silence in an elevator, or gazing into his wife’s eyes, and helped make all our silences ring with meaning. The pauses making the melodies much sweeter. Sound and silence… I wonder if silence has wavelengths too, because I thought I felt them.

Evening services: one evening I  “Laugh, Look, Listen. Leap, 4D family worship”. It was mind expanding. Did you know that with every step you take you bring G-d with you?”  asked Shira Kline? Yes, I’d read that, but tonight we’d pray that way. The yud in our faces, the hey  in our shoulders and arms, vav in our spin, and final  hey in our pelvis and legs, makes us walking breathing examples of b’tzelem Elohim,  and we, like Rav Heschel, got to pray with our feet, and arms and hearts as the Sun set, and sent our consciousness wandering and back under Billy’s guidance

Erev Shabbat was about doorways, the image kept appearing on our screens. And about LIght, of course “Let there be Light, Tonight, Tonight Tonight” we sang this beautiful song by Judith Silver, a wonderful lady, with whom I had spent time. We walked down to the dock on shifting platforms, to join in an impromtu song teaching session on the lake earlier that day. And Cantor Ellen Dreskin was a magical storyteller that night. Both of the stories she told made me cry. One was of the rescue of a momma sea turtle come to lay her eggs on the sand of a beach. But in the morning she’d not returned to the safety of the waves. The poet grabbed a park ranger to help, who hooked the enormous reptile onto his jeep, and she was terrifyingly dragged through the dunes until reaching the waves. This amazing prelude to Mi Chamocha made us all experience redemption as primally as a sea turtle freed.  Her second story was a prelude to Ba yom ha hu, (That day will come) of a mom and daughter walking home from synagogue. Mommy? queried the child. Didn’t Rabbi say G-d was all around us? Yes. But, mommy, didn’t the Rabbi also say G-d was  inside us.  Yes.  That’s what I don’t understand, if G-d is all around us and also inside us, then how can it help but shine right through us ?!  “On that day”, Ellen explained, “God will be One”

For me the most powerfully lovely evening service was our last, the most heart-expanding havdalah, beyond beautiful. Havdalah is usually bittersweet, marking the end of Shabbat, beginning a week of work, of stress, or obligations. This was even more so, for it marked the near end of Hava. We began in darkness, just candles in an enormous room. Shira told us a legend of danger, that Shabbat had opened some sort of door that must be carefully closed. Then Rosalie told a story I’d known.  Adam and Eve, who have struggled hard after being kicked out of Eden, endured trials, raised a family, eeked out a life together, and are now old. They decide to travel together, to see the wide world. They see gorgeous mountains, valleys, oceans, glaciers, rich forests, and then glimpse a place familiar, a garden guarded by a seraph with a flaming sword. God offers for them to return It’s been long enough in exile. There is no suffering here, and all is timeless. The earthlings choose instead a life of overcoming life’s hurdles and reaping joys. They turn their back on Eden, and walk off hand in hand together.  How brilliant to use it to here, as we return from Shabbat and Hava to the world, it was shattering! And then came the cello, whose sonorous tones filled the building and our hearts.  ….then we ate ice cream…

.10175008_10152471235254839_1211122048922492529_nphoto by Susan Shane Linder

Some of my classes at Hava were just as inspiring. My first, with Rosalie and Ellen, challenged us to find a worship vision. It began with text study to try to work out the meaning of prayer itself. Heschel describes prayer as having no adequate way to express what we long to express, but, a wave of a song carries the soul to heights which unutterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is not esape…for (this world) is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is…a return to one’s origins. What a JOY to study with my small group of partners.  We then were asked to record an inspiring prayer moment in our life, and to craft a metaphor for what it means to be a prayer leader. And by clearly defining the landscape, I felt my eyes really opened; light!  Another class with Merri gave insights in leading kids in a youth choir, and making it an organic part of a service, not a performance, by teaching, no, by demonstrating the kavannah, the intention of each moment in which they sing, by setting the background, helping the kids make connections with the lyric and melody. Similarly Alan Goodis’ workshop on connecting with teens and kids was from a kid’s eye view, with the life stories of real kids and their likely, or unlikely involvement in synagogue music. The kid on whom the Bar Mitzvah tutor gave up in frustration, but the rabbi took under his wing was a synagogue drop out, and electric guitar player. Alan reached out to him. persisted: we really could use you. Now the teen is a leader and teacher, irreplaceable. As they all are.  Shira Kline is a master song leader, and gave instruction on the most incredibly fun ways to experience/ teach music for young kids k-6. Use your body, and your feet! Just do it. Keep the beat while you are teaching. Be large and in charge. Use all your gifts. Tell stories: now I’m taking you back in time: A long time ago… The purpose of blessing is PAY ATTENTION. I have paid attention.

Torah Study with Jerry Kaye on Saturday morning was very small. Jerry asked why we were in the wilderness to receive Torah. He wondered if we were really exploring Torah here, or just Kumbaya Judaism. I reminded him we’d just sang Lechi Lach the night before. Lechi Lach, and you shall be a blessing… it’s from Genesis. He looked heavenward “Debbie stay out of this”, he implored.  Yeah it’s Torah all the way around. And the wilderness is Wisconsin.

A huge thanks to all my teachers and friends.  Let there be light, let there be music, let there be love (congrats Rob and Julie).

 

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Teacher Recognition

May 4, 2014

My Grandparents have been among my most powerful teachers: of what it means to be a mensch (good person) and how to cook and lots more. I have had powerfully influential teachers during my life in school as well, such as my High School biology teacher Leonard Warner, inspiration to be a biology teacher and environmentalist myself. I’ve been lucky to study with Clergy who’ve inspired me to in that direction as well, beginning with Cantor Susan Caro many years ago. Who have those teachers been in your life?
I have also been a teacher almost all my life. At age five, I remember instructing my baby brother with a toy chalk board. At sixteen, I began teaching in my High School in an apprenticeship program. I briefly worked as a lab technician and my first year of teaching was impossibly hard, and there were times following the birth of my children when I did not teach. But otherwise, teaching has provided constant fulfillment for me: communicating; the joy of the fabulous question; opening doors in “teachable moments”; the catching of a spark from mind to mind, teaching a song and hearing it catch wing with young voices; inspiration; exploring ideas, helping someone overcome roadblocks and find a path to success…… I am as lucky as it gets: I love my work.

So I found the perfect song for Teacher recognition Shabbat at my Hebrew School. I’ve heard it before. I love that it talks of trees, and planting, and creating a future for those yet to come. I’m sure it’s taken from the legend of Honi, a magical rain maker, original Rip Van Winkle, who chided an old man for planting a carob tree, because he would never eat its fruit. Honi fell asleep under the tree, to wake seventy years later. The old man’s grandson was harvesting the tree. I love trees. Torah is also called our Tree of Life: it’s ideals and laws of kindness have kept us alive through the ages. Still somehow didn’t realize this song is really about teachers, until just yesterday. Now I actually feel even more lucky and blessed. It’s really been an honor and a priveledge. (I am choked up right now…)

Standing on the Shoulders, by Doug Cotler

In the Garden is a Tree
Planted by someone who only imagined me
What love, what vision
I marvel at this gift: no fruit could be sweeter than this!
I’m standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before me.
As our people roamed from land to land; something passed from hand to hand
And it isn’t just the words and stories
of Ancient laws and golden glories,
It’s the way we study, it’s the Book we study,
I’m standing on the shoulders of the ones who came before me
Now my life is full of choice, because a young man raised his voice,
Because a young girl took a chance, I am freedom’s inheritance
Long ago they crossed the sea; to make a life for you and me
Chorus
So today I’ll plant a seed, a book of life for you to read
It’s fruit will ripen in the sun, the words will sound when I am gone
These are the things I pass along:
The fruit
The book
The song.

tree life

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Imperfect/ Emor

Grecian urn

Beauty is truth and Truth beauty, that is all you know on earth and all you need to know. This penned by Coleridge in Ode to a Grecian Urn, because in ancient Greek philosophy, beauty reflected the divine ideals that the universe was built upon.  Physical Perfection: we are bombarded with images of the young, beautiful and perfect, at least on the outside. Teens starve themselves, their self image on the line for a “look”, and I have frustratingly met some of these children. But Nobody’s perfect, and more importantly: Perfection on the outside does not mirror the soul on the inside. This week’s parasha, Emor has a section which is a challenge to my very imperfect self, .In Lev. 21:19 It reads a flawed Cohen may not offer sacrifice, including the blind, lame, deformed nose or misshapen limb. This mirrors sacrificed animal requirements.  My thanks to Rabbi Lisa Malik, for inspiring this train of thought. She taught that since both the life of the priest and the animal are gifts, offerings to God, it is simply bad form to offer what is blemished.  Yet there is still value judgement that what we consider beautiful on the outside is better. And that is a problem, perhaps on three different levels:

1. Beauty depends upon how closely you look, and how well you see. In Gulliver’s travels, one journey is to the land of giants.  One of Gulliver’s insights was: in looking close up at skin pores and hairs, there are no beautiful women! The closer you look, what we consider beauty disappears. Now I LOVE to look close up at natural things, including the skin, blood, bone, anything. It reveals a world of intricate workings, supporting amazing processes. Truly beautiful! But, when I teach human biology, I usually have a different reaction to these close up looks: one of disgust.  Reality is better revealed with a microscope and fiber optics. What we see on the outside is truly illusory. Yet for anyone to be alive is miraculous and beautiful beyond compare.  Even if a nose is misshapen.

2. Ghandi famously said that our value as a society can be measured by how we treat those among us who weakest. Surely that includes those who are blind and lame, or misshapen. The ability to recognize God’s image, in these folk is most crucial of all. To cast them as intrinsically inferior, only worsens prejudice against them.

3. One of the most profound gifts of Genesis is the understanding that human beings are created B’tzelem Elohim, in the Divine Image. I explored these words for almost 2 decades with third graders in Hebrew school. Does this mean,  I ask them, that God looks like people, with a bellybutton and eyebrows and fingernails? This makes them pause & think, and most conclude: that’s silly! It is not our physical appearance which is divine, but our insides, our spark, our creativity, our capacity to love and decisions to care. That is divine.  Look deep into the eyes of a friend,  I direct. See it there, that spark? That’s what God looks like.  Not on the outside, but the goodness and love within. That’s the valuable part, though admittedly difficult to judge sometimes. It’s hard to judge because folks lie, or we don’t get to know them very well…. it’s so much easier to judge the outside!

Blindness: I know some very beautiful blind people. I myself was born with very poor vision in one eye. If not for modern eyewear I would certainly have “weak eyes” like Leah. Or perhaps I do: to maximize vision in my strong eye, the other turned in, giving me a less than”perfect” appearance. Dealing with a flawed appearance is a part of who I am. Consider this: true blindness is to look, but not understand. In fact Torah often warns us not to follow our eyes, and prostituting ourselves for what we see. We see suffering, but ignore it. We don’t use our eyes to weep for others.  Instead we are urged to LISTEN!

Yet, I’ve found 3 reasons to agree with the ban of  Cohanim.

1. How does that person feel about their deformity: are they angry, insecure, resentful? Do they blame God, or themselves, or their parents, or….? Perhaps that emotion is the true location of their flaw?

2. I needed to look deeper: what is the reason that someone is blind or lame or deformed? Sometimes it is a birth defect, sometimes it is due to accident, sometimes due to violence of human against another. Thalidamide, agent orange, radiation – all of these cause mutations, and therefore birth defects. Certainly not the child’s fault, but perhaps not things we should be messing around with! War takes limbs, and eyes. Violence distorts the human form divine. A lack of respect for these gifts, and a willingness to sacrifice the wholeness of our young men and women in battle, or ourselves or others, results in deformity and death. Or perhaps there are those who are broken, but nobody has cared enough, or there is poverty that’s prevented “fixing” them.  I read an incredibly moving account in Scientific American this past summer about an MIT Dr. named Pawan Sinha . Returning to India following the death of his mother, he reached for a handful of coins from his Mom’s charity box to honor her. On his busy way, his car stopped at a light. There he was beset by a mother with two blind children. The lives of blind kids in India is brutal and short. These young boys were blind from cataracts! Easily and cheaply corrected, these boys could be given vision. Yet he almost didn’t see them.  An MIT scientist, he applied for a grant to correct children’s vision to study how we learn to see. One teen’s vision was restored with a $20 pair of glasses. ( See blindness above.)  Perhaps this is the real shame, not fixing people.

3. What is inside eventually tells on the outside (although youth may hide it for awhile). And it’s true: people seem Physically uglier while being nasty to others! In the times I’ve spent entertaining in assisted living places, many of the elderly no longer think a check is needed on their behavior, and true selves come out, for ugliness or beauty.  I think it was watching Reading Rainbow,  with my daughters, that I saw four beautiful actresses demonstrate how the “ugliness” of the stepsisters was portrayed simply by giving reign to the emotions of the character. The beautiful actress transformed herself magically to an ugly stepsister!

After all this, I find myself with a radical conclusion: Perhaps this verse of Leviticus is a test – as Abraham was tested, to see if we would say to God: this eye-blinded person is insightful and therefore blessed with piercing vision, and this lame person’s kindness moves mountains, their weakness superficial, their strength enormous, so accept this beautiful person. 

Musical comment for this blog is Fix You by Cold Play

 

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