Miryam's Space

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg displays the Biblical quote “Justice, Justice you will pursue”. http://www.jhsgw.org/exhibitions/online/jewishwashington/oral-histories/ruth-bader-ginsburg . The classic question “why the repetition of the word Justice?” is often answered by understanding the various aspects of justice. In Kaballah, the two aspects Chesed & G’vurah, which are Loving kindness and strength,  show the two complementary aspects that are the puzzle pieces of righteousness, justice.

But consider this: perhaps Justice is repeated for the same reason we repeat a lyric in a song. So that the second time can be in a different dynamic or in harmony. I Imagine that the first singing can harmonized in a major chord, the second in minor. Perhaps the first singing can be whispered, the second shouted! Only together as a community can justice, or righteousness even exist. Only with many voices, only when the truth can be verified by more than one witness (also in this Torah portion), and with a jury of many. Only in harmony.   Consider this quote from Shakespeare, in the Merchant of Venice, who speaks about justice verses mercy  arguing with the Jewish lawyer, Shylock.

The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes….

The attribute to awe and majesty

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,

But mercy is above this sceptered sway.

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings.

It is an attribute to God himself.

….Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this—

That in the course of justice none of us

Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,

Wow! Do you see the conflicts? Is mercy the opposite of justice? No, Torah repeats justice to show that mercy is the partner of punishment. Also, William says the quality of mercy falls like rain, but Deuteronomy says we must pursue justice! Justice is not easy, neither is the half we call mercy: wanting vengeance might be easier. I heard recently an interview of a man who was convicted to life in prison through faulty hair evidence.  The conviction was voided and another man (a prosecution witness) was later convicted. This is not an isolated case, hair cannot be “matched” as an identification, regardless of what Quincy ME says!  check out page 2 of: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/25/nyregion/hair-evidence-in-jogger-case-is-discredited.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm . There now is a non profit called the Innocence project which pursues wrongful confictions based on faulty DNA evidence http://www.innocenceproject.org/about/   Clearly justice, including mercy sometimes doesn’t fall as the gentle rain from heaven (sorry, Will) 

I then notice the “twice blessed” parallels the use of justice twice: cool!  Finally,  the reputation of the Jew is (unfairly),  squarely in the court of punishing, strong justice.    Mercy is not separate from Justice, but at its very heart. It is the path to harmony and community.

One other observation: we don’t call a person sitting on the bench of the Supreme Court a judge, we call her a Justice: repeat nine times.

For a modern musical setting, check out Eric Komar’s Justice, Justice, song seven on the Jukebox at http://www.komarmusic.com/

Too many hungry families sleeping on the street.  Too many addicts trying to get back on their feet.. Justice, justice shall you follow, Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof!

Happy Elul!

The sense to focus on this week is vision. “See that I set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse” are the opening words of “Re-eh” meaning vision/ see. These words powerfully appealed to me many years ago, because they validated my own independence to choose in life, and the possibility that choosing life and blessing are within my grasp!
The song, “Liv’racha” by Mah Tovu conveys drama surrounding the choice. To listen: https://myspace.com/mahtovumusic/music/song/livracha-77875314
But how much steering of our own life’s ships do we have considering how powerful outside forces  and circumstances that influence us are? We did not choose to be born into the time, family, circumstances that we were. Are there certain dispositions determined by our genetics and our upbringing that limit our choices? Fairly new in genetics is a third influence, epigenetics:, from fetal existence on, chemicals in our environment determine gene expression for decades to come. Certainly not choices we have made.  Classical physics of the 1800s was convinced that if they were able to plot the location and velocity of each particle, they could predict the future: there would be no choice at all, due to unwavering laws of nature.  This parallels a traditional religious belief that all is pre-known and pre-determined.

But then came Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: that one cannot measure location and velocity, that observation would actually change one or the other.  You can check out uncertainty in this Minute Physics short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vc-Uvp3vwg , Quantum physics further uncovered a world where particles could pop in and out of existence. Uncertainty itself is part of the fabric of existence.  So if uncertainty is back, choice then again looms large. And we do make choices: career, friends, address, whether to risk tangling with life’s dangers….

A midrash  speaks of choices that go against our nature. In a world gone completely violent there was a single earthling that still walked with God. Commanded to build the ark, Noah did, and soon animals were converging upon this righteous family bringing all manner of headaches in their wake the likes of which had never been encountered before. The lion roared I’m famished and began to crouch and stalk other animals. In true Dr. Doolittle fashion, Noah understood and approached the beast. Sir, if you’re going for a ride on my boat, I must ask you not to hunt the other passengers,  pleaded Noah.  Not hunt?!? But it is my very nature to! cried the lioness.  I am asking you to do it anyway so we can make it through this journey together, explained Noah, and when we make it out alive, I will let it be known to the world how regal your species is, true royalty among the animals. And so the lion and lioness agreed not to hunt for the rest of the journey. Just then Noah’s son Shem came running up to his dad as the whole boat began to thump and shake.. It’s the elephants, Shem spurted out, all out of breath, they’re stomping and dancing to the music. They’re going to capsize us all!  So Noah ran to speak to the elephants, urging them not to dance for the duration of the journey.  Not dance!?! But it is in our very nature to dance! trumpeted the elephants.  But when Noah promised to tell all of the elephants’ wisdom and memory, the elephants promised not to dance for the duration.  And so the monkeys promised not to steal, and the mosquitoes not to bite, and the snakes not to strike, each making a choice for mutual survival, but only for the rest of the journey. (adapted from R. Ed Feinstein) Now, lest you laugh, thinking it is impossible for a beast to make choices to defy it’s nature, it is what the human animal sometimes does, and is perhaps one feature that elevates us, making us creatures in Divine image. Jane Goodall uncovered those war-like, savage elements of chimpanzee nature that so mirror our own worst behavior. She considered despair, until an insight, that unlike chimps, we can choose ways beyond such pieces of our makeup. (Reason for Hope, Jane Goodall)

But still unanswered: can Divine knowledge and free choice still co-exist? For me, an answer in  a beautiful story by Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi. This is an adaptation of a piece of that story.  Reb Chayim returned home from a journey on a river in a row boat with his teacher, Reb Nachum. He explained to his wife Tzillah that in navigating the rapids, pools and falls, Reb Nachum was teaching them the answer to the question which had so troubled them all: how can divine providence and free will co-exist? Now, Tzillah was an artisan, with a brilliant eye and hand for weaving. Come with me to my weaving shack, my husband, and I can answer that question without getting you soaking wet!.  So Reb Chayim followed. There she showed him the Torah cover she had been commissioned to weave, still in the loom. She then took the shuttle with a purple thread and sent it across the loom The warp also had various colors, and it was always important to check these.  She then showed him a similar and completed work in which she’d embroidered beautiful symbols with gold thread.  She explained that the warp was carefully prepared, stretched and threaded to prepare the loom, and once this foundation was laid, it was her choice to select, not only the colors for the weft, but how much energy and care would be put in, and attention to complementing the colors of the warp.  Don’t you see? she exclaimed, the Divine presence is like the warp? It is for us to choose which threads we put into the shuttle with which God weaves the tapestry.  What we add is our love, intention and care.” 

After a long sigh of insight, Reb Chayim composed this hymn for Yom Kippur:

As tapestry is formed, thread by thread, and colof is to texture wed,

Our life is woven on Your loom, we yield to You, save us from doom.

This is the anniversary, on the Jewish calendar, of my trip to Israel in 1996. In this week’s Torah portion, Ekev, Moses exhorts the people to cut away the thickening of their heart, to “circumcise” their heart! So, the tiny paper I put in the cracks of the Western Wall did not have a prayer for healing but for helping cut away that thickening, fully knowing that makes me more vulnerable. As Carly Simon sang “there’s more room in an broken heart“. ( I guess I was afraid of getting an overly thick skin.) The Tin man in Wizard of Oz sang

I’d be tender, I’d be gentle
And awful sentimental
Regarding love and art
I’d be friends with the sparrows
And the boy that shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.

But if your heart were bare, wouldn’t you cry for the sufferings you see on the evening news, or the streets of the city, would you just be “bleeding heart”? Won’t that just make you depressed? The truth is the opposite depression, according to Lauren Slater, (Prozac diaries) is like a deadening, an inability to feel anything though your senses are feeding you information, like a steel curtain between your soul and the world.

I spent this past week at the North American Jewish choral Festival in the Catskill mountains of New York. We were on a hilltop and the view and the weather were spectacular.  I got to study and sing with the likes of Nick Page http://www.nickpagemusic.com/www.nickpagemusic.com/Music.html; with Eleanor Epstein http://www.zemerchai.org/about_eleanor.htm and Benjie Ellen Schiller http://urj.org/about/faculty/?syspage=article&item_id=97481. Morning prayer flooded with the light of floor to ceiling bay windows began my day in harmony. And my heart melted several times, my eyes welling up, moved by the harmonies, the beauty and the sheer power of music emerging directly from the heart to the rarified air of the mountains

I went to a concert on the beach tonight, and a woman was singing in a plaintive voice “I’m scared!…” and she sang about being stronger after a Hurricane took her house. I listened to the music and the words. I listened. I listened to the surf and the gulls, the boat horn,  the crinkling of the chips, the chatter of folks nearby, cheers from the volleyball game. What should I listen too in the cacophony?   Some lyrics give insight from the chorus of Listen Close, song 18 in the jukebox at http://www.toddherzog.com/

Listen Close to the whispers,
they will help you to remember
who you are and who you came here to be.
Listen close and you will hear Me,
in your heart I’m always with you;
In the silence I’m the only voice you hear.                     Todd Herzog

This weeks parashah contains six of the most powerful words, and commands us to Listen! In Hebrew Shema Yisrael, YHVH Elohenu YHVH Echad. My own take on these words: “Listen up, you God-wrestlers, the creative Power of the universe,  is ours, and is Unity.”
This all important six word statement is shouted (perhaps) by Moses to the Israelites (translation: God-wrestlers) following the receiving of the Ten Commandments.  in Deuteronomy. What is your take on these six words? This prayer is in every service, in Mezuzot, is the first learned, the last uttered. Unity/Oneness is elusive, yet as real a part of our universe as separation and divisiveness. In one of the most profound connections, the very next statement is “V’ahavta” You shall love God, with all your heart, and all your soul and all your all. Easier to say than do. Do we ever do something with all we’ve got? And how to love God? By loving life? By loving others? Kindness, connecting, loving all build unity. Perhaps it’s listening that makes unity and loving possible. Unity by parts interacting, more than the sum of its parts.  You and I are organisms, unified mixtures of interacting parts, as are our cells, our families, our communities… Listen and you will hear the web of connections singing with the music of the spheres.
Todd’s Lyrics excerpted above are from a song about personal change and transformation. But I like it before reciting the Shema. Listen to your heart and the melodies and harmonies and rhythms, and the silken web of connections, listen in order to love.

A story. There once was a wise old king of a small land by the sea, beloved by the people of the realm. When there was thirst, the king’s scouts raced to tell of the news, and, at once, irrigation ditches were built. When there was hunger, emergency grain was delivered as fast as the horses could carry them. When there was sadness, the King mourned too. Any commoner could wait at court and be heard. But, alas, the wise old King died, and his son, the Prince who became king did not honor his father’s ways. When there was famine, the Prince declared “I have plenty to eat, why should I care about commoners starving?” Countered his advisors, “Your father always…” “I am not he! ” the Prince interrupted, “I am too busy with important matters of state to worry about peasants!” he bellowed. And when there was thirst, he was similarly unmoved. He had little time to listen to mere commoners. The folk of the realm became distressed. The Prince’s advisers were petitioned ceaselessly. Finally one adviser, Menachem, had an idea. Menachem approached the Prince with a wonderful idea of a relaxing day at sea on his boat. “Splendid,” said the Prince, “I can survey my coast”.

While out at sea, Menachem suddenly took out a drill and began turning the handle, carving a hole in the bottom of the craft. “What are you doing!?” cried the Prince. “Don’t you know that the boat will sink if you drill a hole in the bottom!? “We’ll both drown!” he exclaimed.  “Don’t be rediculous,” Menachem replied, “I’m only drilling on my side of the boat.”  “But we’re on this boat together, both of us will perish!” shouted the Prince.  Menachem stopped drilling. “As all of us, your common or royal,  are in this together, we cannot survive if others we depend upon suffer and perish. Now, unless you promise to mend your uncaring ways, I will resume drilling.” Menachem whispered, and picked up his drill.  Suddenly, the Prince’s ears and eyes were opened, and he understood. “Thank you, my friend, I’ve been a fool. My father was right, and I will rule like he did.”  From then on, he listened when even peasants approached the throne, and sent scouts out to make sure all were cared for. We’re all in this boat together!

(Menachem means comforter, and this is Shabbat Nachamu, from the same root, and from the haftarah reading “Be comforted, my people”)

Did you ever do something that made your mom or dad sad with disappointment?

A confession, one I haven’t spoken about since I was 8 or so years old. My Dad was a generous man. He sent me on an errand with my cousin Sue to get something from the corner store, but lacking smaller change, gave me a $5 bill. This was the 1960’s, it was a fortune. Enough to buy that pretty, round faced doll. My cousin Sue encouraged me: “your Dad would want you to have it.” I hesitated, and then, wanting the beautiful doll badly, I just took out the $5 and bought it. When I returned carrying my prize, Dad’s sadness and disappointment stung. It was more effective than any smack or scolding. I have never forgotten it.

Rosh Hashanah is coming, the New Year, in 7 weeks, and we sing of God as a parent: Avinu Malkenu (Barbara Streisand at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YONAP39jVE )  And yet, 7 weeks before Rosh Hashanah, we weep on the ninth of Av for all the sad things in the world. We read of God’s sadness as a disappointed parent in the prophetic vision of Isaiah:

The visions of Isaiah son of Amoz: …

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,
For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up —
And they have rebelled against Me!…..
Cease to do evil;
Learn to do good.

I imagine God’s disappointment as a parent’s, when we do the wrong thing .

Flashback #2: Road Trip 1998: Disney world in November, and the middle one gets sick to her stomach. So I stay up all night with her. Well, she’d been having trouble adjusting to this new baby. She wants to be carried, to ride in the stroller like him. It’s been rough, but it softens her heart a bit that when things get really dicey, when she’s sick, her parents are still there for her. That’s what parents are for -to stay up when you’re sick,  to carry you into the ER for stitches, out of the car, ’cause you’re sleeping, or just ’cause you’re lonely: I wore my kids, carrying them for years. From the Torah reading this week, a connection to the parenthood theme:

Deut. 1:31. In the desert, you  saw that Adonai your God carried you along the road you traveled to this place, just as a man carries his child.

The best song about these words is http://www.mahtovu.com/mah_tovu/Turn_It.html    The second song on Mah Tovu’s album Turn It.

How incredible to know that you’re held, and can hold. So as we approach the Ninth of Av, and Rosh Hashanah, parent-child connections give insights to both of these Holy days.

As we think of these images of parenthood and childhood, and weep for things lost, it seems to me urgent that we protect our children’s futures by ceasing evil and learning to do good by our planet. For the sake of holding our children, so they have a place to live in good health and to love, and to walk in fields and swim in waters and eat and drink. So Tuesday, the ninth of Av, I will sing this lament:

Eichah / Lament for the Earth: Tisha B’Av 2010
By Tamara Cohen  (student at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.)

Eicha: Alas, she sits in danger.
Earth, home to multitudes,
like a beloved, deep in distress.

Blue ocean, source of life –
Endangered and imprisoned.

Bitterly she weeps in the night
Her shorelines wet with tears.
Of all her friends, none to comfort her;
All her allies have betrayed her.

Checkerspot butterflies
flee their homes;
Polar bears
can find no rest.
Because our greed has heated Earth.

Whole communities destroyed
To pursue off-shore oil.
Lives and dreams have been narrowed.

Coastlines mourn for families,
lost homes and livelihoods.
Barrier islands lament, desolate.

Wetlands sigh without their song birds.
Estuaries grieve; the sea is embittered.

Earth’s children – now her enemies;
Despite destruction, we sleep at ease.
The Breath of Life grieves
our abundant transgressions.
Infants of every species,
captive to our conceit.

Hashivenu Yahh elecha v’nashuva, hadesh yameinu kekedem.
Let us return, help us repent,
You Who Breathe all Life;
Breathe us, Breathe us,

Breathe us into a new path–
Help us, Help us, ,
Help us Turn to a new way of living
Make–new, Make -new,
Our world of life intertwining –
Splendor, beauty, joy in our love for each life-form.

Protect this gift of creation! If we join together, spurred by visions of the children we were and those we carried, we can turn and re-turn this precious planet onto the right path.

Remember when?

I date my life’s events in the past 25 years based on how big my kids were at that time, (sound familiar Moms?!). The Torah portion Massei retells the Israelites 42 camping stops from slavery to the promised land. “Imagine you are packing up your belongings to take a journey,” my  instructor directed. In my imagination, I took only one thing: my toddler in my arms. Interesting, because it’s been at least 12 years since I’ve had a toddler. What would you take? Where are the places along your life’s path? How will you mark or describe them. Perhaps this: we journeyed to the place of love, and rested at despair. From despair we journeyed the place we were sick, and rested at a place of recovery. From recovery did you journey to someplace: California, and perhaps rest in a place of inspiration? And all along the way, how will you remember your journey, (by how big you have grown)?  Pathways diverged along the way, how did you choose?  Well, last week I journeed to New Hampshire. There I was attending the Aleph Kallah, organized by the Jewish Renewal movement: a passionate, new, liberal, movement strongly influenced by Chassidism, the teachings of Reb Zalman Shachter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wtq5L_zymM; by modern environmentalism and feminism, Conservative chavurah and Reform  and even Buddhist influences  but attended by a large mixed tent of Jews. Among my favorite experiences were morning services lakeside: the breeze rustling through the leaves blew through me too!  Evening services in the giant tent were fun: many hundreds raising voices, dozens dancing (many barefoot on the grass), many smiles, much music and joy.

I studied for a week with a great philosopher, lover of life, and trickster (I’m told), Rabbi Jack Gabriel, a child of survirors, yeshivah educated, modern musician, traveler, and a funny guy. He who spoke about music and the Chasidic masters, and Kaballah. He taught me what it means to walk through walls when it seems there’s no way out. He’s one of those teachers you just love to listen and soak up all you can. I had one cool, original insight from his teaching of Kaballah’s four worlds.  This is from his song “Four Worlds Chant”

…We’re in Four Worlds simultaneously…

The first World is Assiyah, where we do our deeds. We world, we fix, we build a way to fill our needs.

The second is Ytizirah where emotions flow. We laugh, we cry, we hold or let our feelings go.

The third World is B’riyah where our thoughts are found. Beliefs and world and theories goin’ round and round

The fourth World is Atzilut, where we stop –to bbe. A soul within a spirit of serenity.

So, I thought, how can you be in these four parallel universes simultaneously? How to unite them? Then I doodled: a musical staff has five lines, yes, but four spaces – one for each World! The clef sign can bind these spaces together as music can do for our soul! So cool!

I also studied Torah in a new way, with 20 study buddies, in a group called Speak-Chorus  taught by Cantors Abbe Lyons and Michal Rubin, and Rabbi Melissa Wenig. We listened to the verses in Hebrew and varying translations. It turns out that the names of each of the 42 stops in the wilderness have amazing meanings hidden in translation. For example, Rimon Peretz means “Exploding pomegranates”,  Marah is bitterness, Yam suf, usually the Reed Sea can easily be read Yam sof, the Sea at the end. We studied interpretive text including the Baal Shem Tov, Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, modern poets too. We were asked to write responses to what we heard individually in poetry and prose, and then in small groups. We spoke of our own lives’ journeys. Then the three teachers did something pretty amazing, combining the ramblings of seventeen students into a script! The common thread made it a dialogue between we wanderers and God.  The group presented this collage as the D’var Torah following the Torah reading. Rabbi Melissa explained we were presenting the Drash (commentary) of our hearts. It suddenly became beautiful, a sacred connection of the text to ourselves, and out to the listeners we were sharing with.  I include a bit of the script here:

Are we there yet? Am I at the Promised Land? (voiced as whiny children in the back seat)….

You and I stopped and camped so many times; explosive spaces between the resting…

40 years of wandering You and I, sleeping on dynamite! …

Your holy man the Berditcher told me: “Discover the divinity in each place and raise it up to its holy source”  Eighteen months.homelessness: Where’s the divinity in that?

Yam sof. The sea at the edge of the world. I lean into the wind, smell the salty algae,  feel the squishy sand between my toes. It’s lonely there. You don’t advertise that you’ve been there. You don’t get a bumper sticker: “This car drove to the sea”, “Been to the End”.  I think I’ve come back, but sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes I smell the salt in the air.

Rimon Peretz: Exploding Pomegranates, Bursting forth with aliveness, all 613 vitxvot break loose and explode me into a juicier place. …Suck the sweetness out of each seed…

..Retracing my own birth between worlds, the rooms of my heart calling for restoration.

God, may I find my way in a land that is mine…

We ended singing a translation of Noami Shemer’s Haderech Aruchah

The road is very long, it is so long,

The road is very long and full of splend’rous song

And this long march…I travel all alone

And so I sing… the lonely singer’s song, Halelu, haleluyah, halellu.

May you grow and enjoy on your journeys!

There once was a father with FIVE daughters: oy! he must make matches for them all, and they’re all such modern, uppity young women, and then there’s this arduous journey…..

Perhaps you think it’s Tevya, the Dairyman, from Fiddler on the Roof,  but this family predates Tevya by a couple of thousand years, and the journey is not across the Atlantic, but across the wilderness, wandering toward Israel.  The father’s name is Tzelofechad, and he will die in the wilderness, as all the parents of the wanderers will, leaving orphaned families who must rely on each other. But Tzelofechad had no sons, which meant that when the daughters arrived in the Promised land they would have nothing:  the law from Sinai said only sons can inherit!  Now, life has been tough: born into slavery, a promise that seems unfulfilled, merciless attacks from the rear, followed by more wandering in wilderness. Cries of thirst and hunger, mutiny, plague and rebellion – things are so bad, the Israelites cry to return to slavery. And now they are fatherless and faced with poverty, a system that doesn’t respect daughters, but favors sons?

But these five daughters have it all figured out: they love their father and want to honor his memory, they support each other and believe in God’s justice and goodness. So they grab the guts to stand together before the powers that be: Moses and the elders in front of the tent of meeting, and make their reasoned, impassioned legal plea.

Perhaps God waits for such as these, a test to see in which of us the love and faith and ideals are more powerful than the fear. And… AMMENDMENT to the Torah!: the plea of Tzelofechad’s daughters is righteous!

So I wondered what these wonderful ladies were like, and I closed my eyes, and pictured them dancing in printed skirts, waltzing with each other. They each must have had talents, hopes and fears! Here’s one possibility:

Sister’s Keepers Waltz

Chorus:           Machlah, Noah, Holga Milkah and Tirtzah, daughters of Tzelophehad

                        Five beautiful sisters, each her sister’s keeper, as we journey to our land….

Machlah we call you Ima, you carried little ones on your back, too soon our mother died,

Noah master of the lyre, making even sad hearts smile,

Holga, tender and shy, open, gentle soul, don’t hide!

Milkah weaver of tapestries, brilliant at her art;

and Tirtsah you’re our little one, beyond your years you’re wise of heart.

Chorus

Now our father’s gone, We miss him so; What will come of us?  we can’t know.

But we believe in the promise, a land where milk and honey flow, where justice and wisdom grow.

The law says we have no hope, but we know that can’t be so!

Chorus

Arm in arm we stand, Moses hear our plea, Our father was a good man, but no sons had he.

We will keep his memory, alive in the promised land.  Just give us a chance, lend us your hand!

Chorus

Have we been too bold?  what will our future hold?  It is clear to all who hear: God has said our law is just,                 a future forged in faith and love is now within our trust

Chorus

So after I wrote down these words, I heard a song for the first time, and fell in love with it. The song called Show the Way  by David Wilcox is about how the violence of the world so overwhelms someone that they no longer believe in hope or love, and the composer sings an inspiring antidote. And then I realized that this is what the daughters mean to us.  It’s been another violent year. A shooting of 20 children in an elementary school, a war in the Middle East again, and….  But five daughters trusted in God and love and promise and stood up together to the powers that be and….changed the world! and maybe we can too…

http://davidwilcox.com/index.php?page=songs&category=Big_Horizon&display=1367

Show the Way,  David Wilcox

You say you see no hope, you say you see no reason
We should dream that the world would ever change
You’re saying love is foolish to believe
‘Cause there’ll always be some crazy with an Army or a knife
To wake you from your day dream, put the fear back in your life

Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify
What’s stronger than hate, would they not arrange the stage
To look as if the hero came too late, he’s almost in defeat
It’s looking like the Evil side will win, so on the Edge
Of every seat, from the moment that the whole thing begins
It is….

Love that mixed the mortar
And it’s love who stacked these stones
And it’s love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we’re alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it’s love that wrote this play…
For in this darkness love can show the way

So now the stage is set.  You feel your own heart beating
In your chest.  This life’s not over yet.
So we get up on our feet and do our best.  We play against the Fear.
We play against the reasons not to try
We’re playing for the tears burning in the happy angel’s eyes  For its….

Chorus

The Daughters five know the stage is set for them: they feel their hearts beating as one, and stand up tall and put their plea. They do it with love and faith, though the odds were stacked against them, and there were lots of reasons not to try (the earth swallowed challengers to status quo previously). The five an inspiration in our own lives.

I’ve always liked the animated movie Shrek. It’s cool how the film plays off the many childhood fables and icons to build its comic world. But where does Donkey, the wisecracking sidekick come from? My sixth grade students are tickled to learn that Donkey in Shrek was born in the Bible, from this week’s reading, verses which begin with comedy and move toward beauty and blessing.  A crazy mix of spiritual and comic that you don’t often see.   King Balak has hired the greatest visionary and wizard of the pagan world, Bilaaam, to curse the Israelites, because their numbers scare him. The visionary wizard is indeed open to God, who first tells him not to go, but when Bilaam persists, “alright, go already! but be aware of what I’ll tell you and do it!”, God groans. Perhaps expecting all the drama to come from the heavens, Bilaam is blind, cannot see a messenger/ angel right in front of him waving a flaming sword. But the donkey he’s riding can! Does this ever happen to you – can’t see what’s right in front of you (I could not find my glasses or my tea this morning!)

Inattentional Blindness: The lack of awareness we constantly experience because we’re focusing on what we think is important – we miss so much. Optical illusions, deceptions, mind blowing stuff – check it out here from National Geographic’s “Brain Games” We are blind due to lack of attention- so true!  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/brain-games/videos/brain-games-seeing-is-believing-preview/

But what does it say that the ass Bilaam is riding CAN see the angel, and because of that saves Bilaam’s life? And when the prophet goes to the mountaintop (to curse the Israelites) he ends up being the conduit to God’s blessings instead – all because a donkey has vision!

Maybe the donkey we ride is the animal within us, or wild nature.  We ignore nature and our own instinct at our peril. Thoreau writes: In wildness is the preservation of the world

Sharing this song once again: David Wilcox’s “How Did You Find Me Here”

I knew I’d disappoint you

If I showed to you this child

Who is crying out inside me

Lost in the wild

http://davidwilcox.com/index.php?page=songs&category=How_Did_You_Find_Me_Here&display=206

Brothers and Sisters. We grow up in the same universe of childhood, and share so much. If you’re lucky, (as I am! shout out bro!) this is a relationship you keep, as a compass and a connection in your life. I hope my own children always look out for one another, and keep each other in their hearts as an anchor, a lifeline. In this week’s Torah portion Moses loses his brother and his sister. How must Moses feel, losing siblings that have shared leadership with him? Strangely Aaron is mourned but not Miriam: Miriam, who followed Moses along the Nile, who led us in freedom, birthed from the sea, whose very name has the sea “yam” within it, draws no tears. This always reminds me of siblings who’ve shared leadership in my own memory, the Kennedy brothers, and whose passing brought tears.  The date of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination was June 6th, so it’s also on my mind. He might have won that race for the presidency, if not for the violence, and then how would our world be different today? For me, his most memorable words were

There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?   but he’s got many memorable words http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/98221.Robert_F_Kennedy

Back to MIriam: a woman who is  water in the desert. The legend surrounding Miriam speaks of a miracle: a well of fresh water which followed the Israelites through their desert wanderings. For a great song on the well, check out Debbie Friedman’s Water in the Well at 2:50 in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jJXCpEqO54

Water: It’s just been pouring in New Jersey, again.  Yet, recently  I was reminded of the terrible drought that plagued so much of the nation this past year.. It is summer on the Jersey shore, and the crashing of the waves draws people and commands them to look toward the horizon. Water is life, Or flooding and storms bring death and destruction.  Miriam is  Mayim Chayim, living waters to her brothers and to the spirit of this rogue people. And when she dies the people cry out for water, and Moses strikes a rock, in defiance of God’s command to speak to it. And for his loss of words, he will never enter the promised land. Or is it his loss of Miriam, or loss of tears for her? In any case, when he strikes the rock, Great waters gush forth for the people, Mayim Rabim. This phrase reminds me of Song of Songs: Great waters cannot quench this love of ours.  Although love between siblings is not something you hear about much in songs on the radio, they moved a nation through the wilderness, drove our nation in the 1960’s and powerfully drive our lives each day.  Here’s to brothers and sisters. I offer this song about great water from psalm 93, whose melody rises and falls as water waves: Mikolot Mayim Rabim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdSade-P9I

“The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
Choose:
For we meet by one or the other.” Carl Sandburg

These words were the cover of readings which enhanced a T’flilah (prayer) session at Hava Nashira that I attended this past week.
At this session, dozens of us encircled three leaders, teachers, lightening flashing outside the bay windows. It was beautiful, even when giggles (!) took over for a few minutes (an experiment in group sound). I was in an amazing place. It sounds sappy, but it strongly occurred to me earlier that day, as I walked along lovely paths, song and harmony coming from everywhere all day long, that I had wandered into Paradise. And it wasn’t just the natural and aural beauty that lent truth to this feeling, but the people, whose hands were ALWAYS open to help and embrace. I have never been in a place like this before, it’s good to know that reality can take this form for a few days, that this is possible. Inspiration on so many levels.
In this week’s Torah portion, the rebels’ talk of paradise and of ideals, is abused to bring the spiritual and moral leaders down, in order to raise egos up. Korah tells Moses and Aaron: Rav L’chah!- you are too much! All of the community are holy, not just you, because God’s in their midst.  Sweet, head-turning words, appealing to the democratic instinct in us, but although God is always among us, but it’s how we act on that potential, with open, embracing hands that makes a holy community. It’s what we do. But Korah’s hand is clenched in a grasping fist. The first words of the portion lets us know Korah took: he’s a taker. He want’s Moses’ turf, and the turf will swallow him alive to Sheol, land of the dead. Then Moses sent for Datham and Abiram, but they would not come, and they used the words of paradise as a weapon. First they called Egypt, of slavery (!) a land of milk and honey compared with the accursed wilderness they were in. Then they announced: even if they land they’d been led to was paradise, land of milk and honey, it wasn’t enough, because Moses had “gouged out subordinates’ eyes!” Talk about living life with a fist, and making paradise irrelevant! They will be consumed by fire. A plague would begin, and only the courage of Moses and Aaron could stand between the living and the dead. Nowhere, and during no time in my few days at Hava Nashira was there ego, power struggles, or grabbing. Spiritual leaders sang, and souls soared, though each song leader in attendance could have led, there was no resentment. Faculty and students, basses and sopranos, teens and elders, our voices harmonized and raised us all. There were lots of great moments: 240 voices in Shabbat prayer blew me away, as did Billy Jonas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXMngHZapiI, Dan Nichols, Rosalie Boxt, Merri Arian & Ellen Dreskin (just plain inspiring, all faculty were awewome), a song tribute to Debbie Friedman, enthusiastic teens, Nigg’n leading by Joey Weisenburg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mUYOyC5-Hw , Shira Kline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGw2g_5DWa4, a lovely lake, beauty everywhere the eye or ear turned.

I’ll share that there was one moment when I knew, like lightening, that I was in a place better than Paradise. It was following a really cathartic Mi Sheberach, a prayer for healing, sung by the open scroll. We embraced one another, Dianne, next to me, embraced me with her tallit, and lent me a tissue. Angels don’t need healing, don’t have their days made more precious for their impermanence, and don’t receive the benefit of the support and magic I was receiving, my hand held out and waiting.

I end with this new Oseh Shalom, which resonated through the camp and our hearts http://www.navatehila.org/35897/Oseh-Shalom  You’ll just have to imagine it raising the roof 240 voices strong!