d'varim

Al Shlosha D'varim Translation

2009-10-19T15:32:00.002-04:00

A lot of referring URLs to this blog are people looking for the translation to the phrase "Al shlosha d'varim." Which I mention in a blog post about leading services and reading Torah, but I don't think I've ever translated it. So, to satisfy those coming to this blog with that question, here it is:

Upon 3 things the world stands:
upon Torah, upon service to God, and upon acts of lovingkindness.

B'nai Mitzvot

2009-08-18T16:00:00.002-04:00

One of my best friends’ son is becoming a bar mitzvah this weekend. I’ve been to a number of b’nai mitzvot over the past 6 years, but I have not anticipated any like this one. I have watched her son, even in just the last year, grow and mature from a boy into a young man. I have shared many meals at their kitchen table, spent many hours in their house... to the point that they feel like my family. This young man has worked so hard and been so committed to what he is learning that, even without standing up in front of his entire family and community, he should be extremely proud of himself. The support that his family has given him is something that many people just never have. Each one of them has nurtured him, worked with him, studied with him, and in the end let him be himself. Every moment I have spent with my friend and her family I have felt the love and devotion simply radiate off of all of them.

B'nai Mitzvot have always been interesting to me; some can be very meaningful, very spiritual, and others can seem like both the kid and the family are going through the motions. The prep for a bar mitzvah at my temple requires a large commitment of time and energy by the entire family. But, there is also a sense at there that these are private affairs, to only be attended if you are a friend or family. I will admit to skipping a Saturday service or two in the past in order to avoid a bar or bat mitzvah that is occurring that day, so I am just as guilty. But, I think to continue to make our community stronger it is important that those of use who are regular attendees of Saturday morning Torah study and services show up for a bar or bat mitzvah. It lets people know that yes, we stand with our community. We ask our kids who go through this process to become a part of our prayer community, but what kind of message are we sending when we don't become a part of theirs? How can we expect them to take adult prayer seriously if we don't take them seriously?

There are those in the Reform world who think we do b'nai mitzvot all wrong, that it is too much a show and not enough a service. I believe at my temple my rabbi has really tried to keep these from becoming a show. I have found some deeply prayerful moments at these services, and I fully expect to again this week.

So, this weekend I will sit in the congregation with the multitudes of family who will have descended upon the city to be witness to the momentous occasion, and hopefully some of my fellow Saturday regulars. I will share in their pride and I will rejoice in the Jewish commitment this young man has made.

Alyssa Stanton: The convert, the rabbi, and the spotlight.

2009-07-23T10:39:00.003-04:00

I am not usually a fan of the online J-magazine Jewcy, but this story popped up in my email and grabbed my attention. I was at the ordination of Alyssa Stanton, but not because of her. I was there because friends of mine were also being ordained (at HUC-JIR, Cincinnati) and I was there to support them. So, it has been interesting to see all of the press coverage over Stanton, all the while knowing that my friends are deserving of just as much attention because of the amazing people they are and rabbis they will be. Obviously Stanton has received so much attention because she is the first African American woman to be ordained. But, as the Jewcy article points out, she isn’t the first African American to be ordained, nor is she the first woman of color to be ordained, yet the country and the world is still fascinated (see the article for more along this line of thought).

So, what is our fascination with Alyssa Stanton? I think part of it is the fact that she converted. Conversion is not only an increasingly hot topic within Judaism (one just needs to look at the frustrating situations in Israel re: conversion to see just how many lives are affected by differing views of conversion and converts), but it is controversial on many levels. If you convert via the Reform movement are you a full-fledged Jew? Will you be recognized by the Conservative and Orthodox movements? What about a Conservative conversion? What about a Modern Orthodox conversion? Will you be recognized by the Ultra-Orthodox? Who gets to say what constitutes a Jew and a legal conversion? Can a female rabbi be on the beit din?

Every article is quick to bring up that Stanton is a convert, which is important only in the context that it is a part of her history, her story. Jews are not really supposed to remind converts that they are, in fact, converts. Once you convert you are a Jew and should be referred to as such. Stanton converted some 20 years ago, so how incredibly frustrating to her to be referred to as a convert over and over again in local and national media. I’m sure she stopped thinking of herself as a convert long ago; I’ve only been Jewish for a little over 5 years, but it has even been a couple of years since I stopped thinking of myself as a convert and simply as a Jew. It is true that being a convert instead of a Jew-by-birth brings with it a different view of traditions and history, which would in turn inform someone's rabbinate, just as our history informs all that we do. But, you have to wonder: when will we just be Jews? Will there ever be a time when we won't need to explain our background or how we got where we are?

Becoming a rabbi is a remarkable achievement for anyone. Becoming the first African American rabbi is a footnote in history. Her race will not make Stanton a better or worse rabbi; her training, her commitment, her love of Judaism – these are what will determine Stanton’s quality as a rabbi. You have to wonder whether all of this attention on Stanton’s race and her first-of-a-kind situation is setting her up for either failure or disappointment. How can someone with so much hype actually live up to it? And what happens when the media attention fades? When the spotlight is off of her, what kind of rabbi will Alyssa Stanton actually be?

I think of my friends who were ordained alongside Stanton that day in June and I know that they will be great rabbis, spiritual leaders who will be attentive and loving throughout their careers. They do not have the spotlight on them, but perhaps they should. Or perhaps we should leave our spiritual leaders to what they do best: teaching, counseling, leading us in prayer, comforting us in grief, rejoicing with us in happiness.

Accountability and Arrogance

2009-07-21T15:45:00.001-04:00

Last Shabbat morning I read Torah (Matot-Masei). I hadn’t read in awhile, but this was a portion I had done last year, so I will admit to being lazy and choosing the same section to read so that my prep time would be minimal – which it was, at 30-45 minutes total. The intern asked me why I chose the verses I chose because it is a large portion (being double) and there is a lot of stuff to choose from. This is what I read:

Moses replied to the Gadites and the Reubenites, "Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Why will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Lord has given them? That is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to survey the land. After going up to the wadi Eshcol and surveying the land, they turned the minds of the Israelites from invading the land that the Lord had given them. Thereupon the Lord was incensed and He swore, 'None of the men from twenty years up who came out of Egypt shall see the land that I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they did not remain loyal to Me — none except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they remained loyal to the Lord.' The Lord was incensed at Israel, and for forty years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked the Lord's displeasure was gone. And now you, a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to the Lord's wrath against Israel. If you turn away from Him and He abandons them once more in the wilderness, you will bring calamity upon all this people."

Now, I will admit this seems kind of random and not the best part to read, but here are my reasons. The Gadites and Reubenites had just asked Moses and Eliezar and the chieftans to remain on the side of the Jordan that would be better for their cattle. As you can see above, Moses has a bit of a fit over this, and in my opinion, rightly so. I think what is important here is that Moses is stressing responsibility to the entire community as a whole, not just your own insular groups. Our actions affect those around us, not just us individually or as a small group, but everyone, especially in this case. You must be accountable to yourself, but you must also be accountable to your people.

Beyond the idea of responsibility and accountability is that of plain old chutzpah. One of the commentators we read pointed out that the Gadites and the Reubenites should be praised because they are, in fact, expanding the holdings of the Israelites. My response to that is: if God wanted the holdings of the Israelites expanded to that side of the Jordan, don’t you think God would have indicated it to begin with? How incredibly arrogant of the Gadites and Reubenites if that was, indeed, a motive. They are, in a way, setting themselves on the same level as God.

So, that is what I brought away from the portion. Be accountable. Don't be arrogant. Amen.

It is a tree of life

2009-07-15T16:07:00.005-04:00

I posted a couple of months ago (here) about the re-emergence of my love of painting. I have been painting a lot. When I say a lot I mean 4 or 5 times a week, multiple times on a weekend if I can. It has become a bit expensive, but totally worth it. I’m going to take this post to talk about a few of the paintings.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try my hand at a creation series. I’m pretty happy with most of the paintings, but think I may need to tackle a couple of the days again. For each day I took one aspect or event that always struck me (so Day 1 might seem perfect for “Let there be light!” but I have always liked the “unformed and void” part of creation. So, that is what I chose to attempt to paint. I’m not sure how successful I was, but this was my first try at a series and I know I do want to try another creation series again in the future.

Day 1:

My favorite day was Day 2: separating the waters above from the waters below. I have always loved the idea that the sky and the oceans were at one point the same thing.

My least favorites: Days 5–7. Those I will definitely be attempting again. I found it very difficult to portray the creation of animals, humans, and Shabbat. For Day 6 I kept getting stuck on depicting a soul. How do you paint a soul?

Something else I’ve wanted to tackle is for my favorite translation of the Gevurot:

1) We pray that we might know before whom we stand,
the Power whose gift is life,
who quickens those who have forgotten how to live,
having implanted within us eternal spirit.

2) We pray for winds to disperse the air of sadness,
for rains to make parched hopes rise again.

3) We pray for love to encompass us
for no reason save that we are human,
that we may blossom into persons
who have gained power over our own lives.

4) We pray to stand upright, we fallen; to be healed, we sufferers.
We pray to break the bonds that keep us from the world of beauty.
We pray to be open to our own true selves.
We pray that we may walk in a garden of purpose,
in touch with the power of the world.

5) Praised be the God whose gift is life,
whose cleansing rains let parched men and women rise again.

Rabbi Richard Levy
(From Mishkan T’filah, G’vurot, Shabbat Evening II)

This one is for paragraph 4 above:

I also have an interpretation of paragraph 3, but that one was also a lot more personal, so I’m not sure I’m going to share it publicly right now.

And finally, my tree of life:

Repost: And Let Us Say Amen

2009-07-02T08:13:00.002-04:00

Today is my step-sister's yahrtzeit. I don't really have anything I want to write, but thought I would repost what I wrote last year.

Originally posted July 9, 2008:

My Friday began late as I relished the opportunity to sleep in, staying in bed until well past noon. I had no specific plans for my day off, I just knew that I didn’t want to take part in any 4th of July celebrations. Seven years ago the holiday was tarnished for me as I stood on the back deck at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Lexington and silently watched the fireworks on neighboring hills, all the while knowing that the next day we were burying my sister. The only thing I wanted this year was a quiet Shabbat celebration as I marked my sister’s yahrzeit, fully aware that the guilt I carry surrounding her last months will not fade just because I say Kaddish.

I was a 21-year old college student, living 4 hours away from home, working hard at a very demanding higher educational institution, and trying desperately to figure out who I am. My dad had remarried when I was 14 and I had gained a stepsister 13 years my senior. We never lived in the same house, or even the same town. And as a young adult who did not see or hear from her father much while away at college, I was sometimes quite jealous of her. She had gone back to school to get a degree in nursing and all I could think about was that she was supposed to graduate the same year as me and I wanted my dad at my graduation. And then my junior year none of that mattered anymore.

I knew that attendance would be sparse on the 4th of July at my temple; even our rabbi was still out of town at camp. I was right. When I walked in there were 3 people plus the intern, soloist, and pianist. Eventually we gained 3 more, but we never quite got to a minyan, which is rare on a Friday. I waited for the couple, friends of mine, to choose their seats, and then I chose a seat far from them. It’s not that I don’t like them; on any other Friday I would have chosen to sit with them. But that night I wanted to be by myself, to truly delve into the emotion of the coming Shabbat and my feelings surrounding the anniversary of my sister’s death.

She got sick when I was a sophomore. Breast cancer, which had recently claimed the life of her grandmother. 30-years old, too young to need to fight this horrible disease, but she did it gracefully. I was there during her final chemo treatments the first time. We all went out afterwards and celebrated at a restaurant in Lexington. Unfortunately she wouldn’t stay well for long.

We began services singing Shalom Aleichem. Even though the sun had not yet set the sanctuary had a dimness to it; it had been raining that day, thunderstorms as if the sky was as emotional as I would be that night. There is a coziness, a warmth, that I find in the darkness of a thunderstorm, though it hasn’t always been that way. I used to be frightened of the thunder, the lightning, the wind. That night, however, I was far from that fear. I sat quietly, singing along with the melody that always seems to be bittersweet to me. Here we are welcoming guests, helping to bring in the wonder of Shabbat, but there always seems to be that edge of sadness to it, a knowledge that this too will be over, this wonderful respite in time, and we will move back into the ordinary hours of our lives.

Christmas break during my junior year brought the news that my sister would be marrying her longtime boyfriend in March. Everyone was happy; no one commented on the short timeline. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, but having grown uncomfortable years ago at even the thought of wearing a dress, I begged off, saying I’d read a prayer instead, design the program. I made the trip down for the weekend, celebrating with my family. She had a special wig for the ceremony, dyed the red that she had always liked her own hair to be. On Sunday I drove back to school, back to my life away from my family, away from her and the cancer.

As we moved into the Sh’ma and its blessings I began to feel a tightness in the back of my throat. Barechu et Adonai hamvorach. Praised be Adonai to who our praise is due. Baruch Adonai hamvorach l’olam vaed. Praised is Adonai to whom our praise is due now and forever. And then the Ma’ariv Aravim. Blessed are you Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, whose word brings on the evening, whose wisdom opens the gates and with understandings changes the seasons... I could barely say the words, much less see them through the tears that had welled up in my eyes. I felt overwhelmed with the sense of God’s presence and with the sadness I felt at the absence of my sister’s. God creates day and night, rolls light away from darkness and darkness from light.

I chose to stay up at school again that summer, working in one of the offices as I had done the previous year. Mid June I went home for the weekend and went down to visit my sister. By this point the cancer had spread to her abdomen and her brain. She had been having frequent seizures and hospice would soon be called in. But that weekend she was alert and joking and joyous. My dad later told me that she hadn’t been doing well up until that point and afterwards she declined rapidly. I felt lucky to know that the last time I really saw her she was at her best. Two weeks later on a Sunday night I got a call that I should come home, that she wasn’t expected to make it through the next couple of days. I wanted to leave right then, but it was late in the evening already. So, I waited and left in the morning. That afternoon I watched my sister take her last breath, surrounded by her family, her mom, her husband, my dad and my other sister. I said goodbye. The next few days were a blur; arrangements to be made, a funeral in Lexington, burial in Northern Kentucky, reception at my dad’s in Cincinnati. It was hot and humid and I have 4 distinct memories while the rest is hazy at best. The clearest memory I have is standing in the cemetary and listening to my dad, a reserved man most of the time, talk about losing the woman who thought of him as her dad, who called him “papa.”

Saying the Sh’ma that night I felt as if I were truly offering up my heart, my soul. Hear O Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai is One. The God who made the heavens, who brought on the evening, who gave us life, is our God and God is echad. One. Unique. Ineffable, as Heschel would say. My voice was reaching out, using these words as a path to God, not up or down, but who enveloped me that night. With my eyes closed I could feel the stillness around me and feel the reverberation of my own voice in my chest, something I have grown to love as I say the Sh’ma over the years, as if God is rumbling, answering back my call.

It was through the death of my sister that I began my exploration into Judaism. Not right away. First I railed at God, a God who I had been convinced I didn’t believe in, that is until I was angry enough to acknowledge Him. But it was that acknowledgement, that anger, that wholly emotional response, that gave me that push, that need, to find my spiritual home, which I did in Judaism. And in Judaism I finally found my way to mourn my sister properly.

The rest of the service passed in much the same emotional way. I was worn out, exhausted, as if my soul had run laps around the sanctuary the entire time, pounding the walls with its fists and crying out in fury, while finally collapsing into the waiting embrace of its Maker. All of this felt like it had happened inside and when we reached Kaddish Yatom I knew that I was ready to say the words that praise God.

Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One. Beyond any blessing and song, praised and consolation that are uttered in the world. May there be abundant peace from Heaven and life upon us and upon all Israel.

I still feel sorrow at the loss of my sister. I still feel sadness when I think of my dad and step mom and her husband who all must live their lives with her palpable absence. I still feel the guilt that only a survivor can feel for not having done enough while she was still alive. And so I will continue to mark her yarhzeit, year after year. I will continue to say the words that praise God and all that God has made. Time may make the ache less pronounced, but as we concluded our prayers on Friday I realized that the mourning will go on and should go on and that it is okay because God is still there at the end of it all.

In a New York Minute (Everything Can Change)

2009-06-30T16:52:00.003-04:00

I spent last Tuesday through Friday in New York City, my first ever visit. One of my very good friends went along for with me, and I couldn’t have asked for a better traveling companion. You see, this was our first time spending multiple full days together, 24/7. And I will readily admit to being an occasionally difficult traveler. I get cranky when my blood sugar drops in the afternoon and right now my moods can turn on a dime. This trip was no different, and I think everything was even more pronounced than usual because I was completely overstimulated with the sights, sounds, and smells of Manhattan. Our second day in the city was spent almost entirely at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you know me, you know that I love art. I’ve recently rediscovered my own love of painting (in a big way, actually—that is for another post), but I’ve never stopped loving art in general. The Met was like a pilgrimage experience for me. If you’ll excuse the Christian reference, it was like stepping into a grand cathedral to worship at the altar of paint, and marble, and beauty, and design, and form, and light. It was incredibly overwhelming, so much so that I believe I was literally on some kind of seratonin high. And anyone who knows anything about highs, whether they are artificially induced or not, knows that what comes up must come down. And down I came. I dropped fast and furious and that evening before dinner and the show I had what I can only describe as a meltdown. I had no control over my emotions and all I could do was cry and try to breathe. It was a stark contrast to how I felt going through the Met, and how I felt in general during the trip. It was frustrating to say the least. And at this point a lesser person, a lesser friend, probably would have written off the rest of the trip right then, figured that I was just a big emotional baby. But, my friend remained her patient and loving self as the tide passed and I began to feel better again.

I have to say that this was one of the best trips I have ever taken. Despite the aforementioned emotional issues, I had so much fun exploring New York, especially with my friend. I’m not sure I would have had as much fun with anyone else. Usually at the end of a trip like this it is all I can do to get away from the person I have been with for a little while; I need space, a lot of it. But, at the end of this trip all I wanted was for it to keep going. My mom asked me when I picked up my dog if we were still friends and I answered “of course!” Not once during the trip did I think “man, I could just use some time to myself.” I loved spending so much time with my friend and was sad when I had to get into the cab alone at the end of the trip to head home by myself.

One of the best parts of the trip was getting to see my uncle who lives in New York and who I don't get to see more than once a year usually. I don’t think I have smiled that much in a long time. It was so much fun and I felt so much love for him and was so happy that I got to share that with my friend as well. There is something special about getting to share the family you love with the other people in your life who you love. It was a great night.

I wasn’t back in town on Friday in time for services, but I was able to go Saturday morning, which was a nice way to end such a great week. I had gone through such a range of emotions while I was in New York and I was so tired, but I think it helped to inject my prayer with something more, a little raw, and I felt very connected.

To reference the title of this post, I don't believe that everything changed. I don't think any trip has that kind of power, no matter how amazing it is. But, I do believe I was able to discover some important information about myself, and that is a souvenir I will gladly walk away with.

Patching a Hole

2009-06-01T14:18:00.011-04:00

The World I Know, June 2009

This post is not about Judaism, or spirituality, or even God, per se. But, it kinda is at the same time.

After a nearly 5 year absence, painting has made a resurgence in my life.

I used to paint all the time. I fell in love with it in high school, and while I dated other art forms in college, I always came back to painting at the end of the day. And then I graduated from college and entered the real world and lost all confidence in my abilities as an artist. I told myself that I stopped painting because it was too expensive, or I didn't have the space, or I didn't have the time. But, those were all excuses and in reality I didn't want to paint because I didn't think I could anymore. I kept myself surrounded by the last paintings I had completed and been proud of, and some days it would make me happy to see them. And other days it would make me incredibly sad to think that this was a part of my life that was over. I doubted whether I would ever pick up a paintbrush again.

Last spring I picked up some watercolors and painted a couple of times, mostly because I wanted to do something for friends who were moving out of state. But I was never a water colorist and I wasn't very happy and so I put down the paintbrush again.

A year later and nothing much had changed in my thinking about my art. What had changed was this incredible friend who has encouraged me to be creative again. So, using a coupon that she had sent, I picked up some oil paints and paintbrushes and dug out a blank canvas that had sat in my apartment for 5 years. And one day I began to paint.

And then I painted again. And again. And again. I bought an easel and more paint and the brushes I had always loved using and more canvas. I even finished a painting I had begun 5 years ago. Then one day I realized I had run out of space to prop up the drying paintings around my apartment. I had to use my laundry drying rack, and thus neglected doing laundry in favor of protecting the drying oils.

What I discovered, almost instantly, was just how much I had missed painting. I missed the smell of the paint, the feel of the brush, the way I could block out everything around me and just concentrate on the canvas. I had missed being creative because somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that it was something I no longer was capable of.

I realized something that only now can I truly appreciate: before I discovered Judaism, painting was how I prayed.

I feel a freedom with my painting now that I never could have in college. I always had an assignment or a project to work on, and even though I did paint for my own pleasure those times were few and far between and I was so locked into what I was doing in class that I didn't break away from it. Now, however... now I am allowing myself to just follow where the process will take me. I have played with color, with form, with light and dark. I have painted hands -- a challenge to myself to master something that I never could in college. This past weekend I turned my attention to what is around me and took my time with the paintings, something I never really did before. I was always anxious to finish something, to see what it would look like. But this weekend I slowed myself down and concentrated on making the paint work and respecting it when I needed to step away.

At this point painting has become a source of hope, a way to cope (and sometimes avoid), a way to express how I feel, and a way to reconnect. I don't think I would have picked up a paintbrush again were it not for the encouragement of my friend. It isn't every day that someone gives you back a piece of yourself that you thought was lost.

Random Thoughts

2009-05-21T15:50:00.002-04:00

Look at this. Two days in a row of posts. Excellent.

So, where have I been since January you may (or may not) be asking yourself? Well, I've been around. I went through a few more bad months, but after some discoveries about my allergy medicine (don't take Zyrtec if you have a tendency towards depression or are currently being treated for it, and if you do, talk to your doctor!) I am beginning to feel on track.

Over the past 4 months or so I spent a lot of time at temple. A lot. Many weeks I was there 5 out of 7 days (Friday-Saturday for Shabbat services, Sunday for Religious School, Monday for a beginning Hebrew class I taught to newly arrived students, and Tuesday for Hebrew School and/or Board Meetings). For the most part it was a good thing to be there so much; I was around people I cared about, I had the support of my community, and it kept me busy and occupied, which was a key thing for me.

But, a couple of weeks before Passover I got a cold. Which turned into a sinus infection. And lingered for a month (though the infection cleared up w/ antibiotics within a week of finally going to the doctor). I was drained. I had no energy. And one weekend, for the first time in ages when I have been in town, I didn't go to temple for services Friday or Saturday. Friday night I went to a friend's house for a lively pot luck and outdoor service. And the next day I decided to take a long drive out into the country. I can't explain it, but those couple of days away from temple were needed. I needed to recharge. I needed to not feel like this was just an obligation, that it was a job to be there. I love my temple, and I needed a little bit of distance to renew that love.

Now the school year is over. My fourth graders ended their first year of Hebrew on a high note and my Monday night class was reading, if haltingly, and learning grammar by our last evening together. It was a good school year, and I am incredibly proud of all of my students. Last year I felt a bit over my head when teaching Hebrew; this year I think I was beginning to hit my stride and I am excited for next year.

Over the last few months I have also read Torah a few times (once for the anniversary of my bat mitzvah, once to fill in for our ailing intern, and once on Passover - the Song of the Sea). I rocked my bat mitzvah portion, did decently with the next one, and after only preparing for 2 days I muddled through reasonably well for the Song of the Sea, which happens to be the hardest portion, or so says my rabbi. I don't know when I will read next, but I am hoping it will be this summer.

Oh, and last, but not least, I passed my 5 year mark since my conversion. It isn't like when your car turns over from 99,000 to 100,000 miles. Maybe it should have been, but it was more like "Hmmm. I've been a Jew for 5 years. That's pretty cool." Somewhere along the way since my conversion I began to truly think of myself as a Jew and not a convert. So, while it was momentous in a way, it is also something I don't feel the need to make a big deal over.

d'var Torah - במדבר

2009-05-20T10:27:00.002-04:00

I realize it has been a number of months since I posted. I'm going to try and get better about that.

So, as a step back into things, this is the d'var Torah I gave last night at my temple board meeting. It was my 2nd month in a row doing it because last month I'd forgotten that it was my turn and hadn't prepared; I did pull something out of the air, but I was embarrassed and so volunteered for this month.

---------------------------------

This week we begin a new book of the Torah: Bamidbar, which means “in the wilderness,” referred to in English as Numbers because of the counting of the Israelites. The portion begins with a lengthy listing of the tribes of Israel and the number of males over the age of twenty whose duty it is to serve as the army and surround the Mishkan on all sides. However, the Levites are not included in this number as they are not considered a part of the army. Instead, their count begins at the age of one month and their duty is to guard the Mishkan itself and to assist the kohanim, the priests.

What interested me most doesn’t come until 3:1

“These are the descendants of Aaron and Moses on the day that Adonai spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. These are the names of Aaron’s sons; the firstborn Nadav, and Avihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.”

Why doesn’t the Torah list the descendants of Moses? Rashi says: “[Scripture] mentions only the sons of Aaron, yet they are called the descendants of Moses – because he taught them Torah. This teaches us that one who teaches another’s son Torah is considered as having procreated them.”

The religious school teachers at Valley are charged with the Jewish education of our congregation’s children, but this is a task that should not be limited to those who teach on Sunday or Tuesday. Each member of this board, each member of the congregation, is in some way a teacher of our children. Whether you are guiding the third graders through learning about Shabbat or showing up on a Saturday morning for services and Torah study, you are a teacher and what you do is important. We can all take pride in our students – when they learn to say the Sh’ma in kindergarten and when they stand in front of us at their bar or bat mitzvah. Whether we had them in class in a formal setting or not, they are still our students.

Speaking personally, I know that when I enter the classroom each week to teach Hebrew to the 4th graders I do so with the knowledge that the groundwork that we lay in Alef is one that they will continue to build on, through Bet and Gimmel and on through their b’nei mitzvah training. And at the end of the year when they have gone from sounding out words letter by letter to reading the V’ahavta it is an absolute joy to see their pride in their own progress. But teaching our students how to read Hebrew, or about the holidays, or about Jewish history, is not enough. It is our duty to instill a love of Judaism that they will be able to carry with them throughout their lives. We teach them Torah, in the sense that Torah encompasses all that we are to learn and do Jewishly. As Rashi stated, one who teaches Torah to a child is considered to be like a parent, and as parents it is essential that we share our Jewish values, our history, and our customs—and not just as casual observers or distracted volunteers. When our students are with us in Religious school they are our children and it is a sacred duty to assist in raising them Jewishly during those few hours we have each week. At the end of the year we are able to look back and see how our children have grown in their Judaism and we have the pride of a parent. And when our students see us rejoicing in Shabbat, studying Torah, and doing Jewishly we are able to continue to teach them with our actions.

The beginning of this Torah portion counts the Israelites whose sacred duty it was to surround the Mishkan and guard it for safe keeping. We must step up and be counted now, as Jews who love our Judaism, who take pride in our temple, support our community, and teach our children, because it is our sacred duty to guard the future of Judaism.

The Heart of Reading Torah

2009-01-22T13:34:00.002-05:00

I ascend the 2 steps to stand on the understated bimah, trying to carry the tune for the song I have chosen to begin the Torah service. I am horribly off-key, but sing loudly anyway, knowing that I need to lead the few who have shown up for services this morning in prayer, and that includes prayer in song.

Al shlo-sha d’varim...

Open up the doors to the ark, first the right, then the left. One more step to reach the Torah, lifting it carefully so as to not bend the crowns, thinking don’tdropitdon’tdropitdon’tdropit. Turn. Fumble with siddur, say the Sh’ma, sing some more and undress the Torah with some help. Close the doors to the ark.

Deep breath. I remember I need to ask someone to do the aliyah, announce the page numbers for the blessing and for the reading. At this point my heart is beating quickly and my voice is unsteady. Another deep breath. I need to help the congregant chanting the Torah blessing to begin and flash back to the first time my rabbi had to start me off.

Another deep breath and I am ready to begin.

And suddenly my voice is a little clearer, my heart seems to not be racing so much as soaring. The words come clearly for the most part and I can practically taste them as they tumble off my tongue. There is an energy, an electricity, that is running through me as I trace the sacred Hebrew words with the yad. Before I know it I am coming to the end of the twelve verses I had prepared.

Vayomer al-tikrav halom shal-ne'aleycha me'al ragleycha ki hamakom
asher atah omed alav admat-kodesh hu.

I pick up the translation to read. I go too quickly through the English, the words rushing and pushing together.

And suddenly I am done and I need to remember to begin the after blessing for the congregant doing the chanting. I can feel myself shaking a bit as we dress the Torah and I set it gently aside but keep the crowns off because I know that I am likely to bend them when putting the Torah away later.

I chant the Haftarah blessing and read from Isaiah. The words are a blur to me, but I read loudly, and clearly, and try to calm my heart, slow my breathing. But I am unsuccessful and my voice is shaking as I chant the after blessing.

My mouth is dry as I turn to pick up the Torah again, to return it to the ark, fumbling with my siddur again, trying to sing.

Eitz chayim hi...

And then the Torah is back in the ark and the doors are closed, but I am still shaking, still unable to calm myself down. I grab the yahrzeit list off the lectern and descend the bimah steps to finish the service. Aleinu. Kaddish. Closing song. My voice is weak now. It shakes and I stumble over words that have become second nature for me.

Shabbat Shaloms are exchanged and I turn off the lights in the sanctuary and throughout the building, put away the commentaries from Torah study, get ready to close up and head home. But I cannot leave just yet. For 15 minutes I stand in my rabbi’s office, looking at the books on his shelf, feeling my heart rate finally slow to normal, feeling the adrenaline drain from my body and I know that I will sleep hard later.

Back Up On The Horse

2009-01-14T15:40:00.004-05:00

This weekend my rabbi and our rabbinic intern are taking the middle school students up to Detroit for a retreat, which means we will be rabbi-less for Friday and Saturday services. Friday night a rabbinic student will be handling things, but Saturday morning I get to lead Torah study and services, which I haven’t done since the summer. I also haven’t read Torah since July, so between using a prayerbook that I’ve never lead from (Mishkan T’filah) and being a bit rusty with my Torah skills, it should be an interesting morning. I met briefly with my rabbi last night to roll the Torah to its spot and to chat briefly about Saturday. He said that if I want to do a Gates of Gray service that would be perfectly okay. Which is tempting, mostly because it is a prayerbook I know like the back of my hand and service prep would be minimal. But, we’ve been using MT for a few months now and I have really begun to appreciate the different choices and different translations/interpretations (see my last post for a specific example). I don’t really want to step back into Gates of Gray just for ease of use. So, I have a lot of work to do to get ready for Saturday morning. Here is my list:

Practice Torah reading! I’ve been working with the voweled side of my Tikkun; tonight I need to take stab at no vowels.
Read the Torah portion and go through the commentaries I have at home (Etz Hayim and Rashi) and check for some online/modern commentaries. I wish I had thought to bring home the Rabbi’s Sforno or Ramban last night. Oh, well. I can borrow them on Friday night after services.
Take a tour through MT with a stack of Post-Its to lay out the service. Maybe practice a few melodies (I am not a fan of leading any of the singing, but I’ll do it; I’m okay with the chanting of the blessings, the Barechu, and the chatzi kaddish; I’ll probably choose some of the shorter versions).
Prepare a sheet for Saturday morning of items to discuss. I’m not sure if I am going to prepare any kind of a hand-out. What I will most likely do is have everyone take a different Torah commentary and just get through what we get through. I’m a fan of the multiple-commentary-route because I think it helps people feel more participatory. I’m less a fan of “this is what I found interesting and I am now going to teach you for the next hour and we’re not going to really deviate from that.” Sometimes that is okay, but I think it takes a lot away from Torah study if you aren’t encouraging others to direct the course of the discussion.

It’s a pretty big list for 3 nights; I wish I had gotten started a little earlier, but no use fretting over that now. I need to be a busy little bee and resist the temptations of my Battlestar Galactica DVDs...

On another note, Hebrew class went pretty well last night. I'd been quite frustrated after the last couple of classes, feeling like a fairly ineffectual teacher. The differences in behavior and learning styles of the class I had last year and the class I have this year are enormous and I need to keep re-inventing how I approach these lessons. Last week was a necessarily dry class to go over the special rules and exceptions to what they had been learning so that on Sunday we could begin in our new book which introduces actual prayers. I realized this going in, but I didn't want to spend more than one class period on the rules, so it WAS a lot to get through. But last night one of the parents came up to me afterwards and told me that their child thought that "Hebrew would be boring tonight." Now, I can understand wanting to bring this to my attention if it is a concern. What really got me is that they said it within earshot of a number of other parents, students, and other temple members who had been there for adult Hebrew. I was a little annoyed about that, but whatever. I think last night's class was fun; we moved forward in the lesson, we played a game, and we reinforced some reading and listening skills.

To Stand Upright

2009-01-12T12:57:00.005-05:00

This past Friday was our monthly Family Shabbat at my temple, preceded by a Religious School dinner and a Tot Shabbat. A full evening to be sure. I normally don’t show up for Tot Shabbat unless it is between Torah Study and services on a Saturday morning, but a friend of mine who has a 7-month-old son was planning on attending and since she is a fairly new member I said I would come for Tot Shabbat so she knew someone. And then I stuck around for the dinner. By the time services rolled around at 7:30 I had already been at temple since 6 and I was not only tired and had a headache, but I was beginning to feel a bit down. As a single person who would like to be in a relationship and as a Jew-by-Choice who does not have a Jewish family, it is sometimes difficult to be around so many families celebrating Shabbat. I have friends at temple who are like family to me, that is something I am incredibly grateful for, but sometimes it makes my own situation that much more lonely.

Thus with all of that on my mind and informing my thoughts and mood, I sat next to my wonderful and patient friend during services last Friday and when we reached the G’vurot in Mishkan T’filah I was struck by the profound nature of the interpretation by Rabbi Richard Levy that appears in the linear service (Shabbat Evening II) instead of the literal translation. This wasn’t the first time that the words of this prayer have resonated with me beyond the moment they are said, but that night they were especially powerful. After a long week of deadlines at work and a mood that swung high and low, sometimes multiple times a day, I was exhausted and more emotional than I was prepared for. I’ve included the text of the prayer below:

We pray that we might know before whom we stand,
the Power whose gift is life,
who quickens those who have forgotten how to live,
having implanted within us eternal spirit.

We pray for winds to disperse the air of sadness,
for rains to make parched hopes rise again.

We pray for love to encompass us
for no reason save that we are human,
that we may blossom into persons
who have gained power over our own lives.

We pray to stand upright, we fallen; to be healed, we sufferers.
We pray to break the bonds that keep us from the world of beauty.
We pray to be open to our own true selves.
We pray that we may walk in a garden of purpose,
in touch with the power of the world.

Praised be the God whose gift is life,
whose cleansing rains let parched men and women rise again.

Rabbi Richard Levy
(From Mishkan T’filah, G’vurot, Shabbat Evening II)

I recall a previous Shabbat, sitting next to the same friend, coming to the passage that states “...that we may blossom into person who have gained power over our own lives” and feeling the slightest of nudges and seeing the briefest of smiles, and I felt not only the support of my friend, but almost as if God had reached down and given me that nudge. It may sound hokey or even crazy, but that’s what I felt. So, when we came to this passage again last week I felt overwhelmed with emotion, knowing that the previous weeks had been a great mixture of happiness, frustration, sadness, joy, energy, and exhaustion.

“We pray to stand upright, we fallen.” This line, more than any other, is so full of meaning for me at this moment in my life. It does not say “We pray that God makes us stand upright,” or “We pray that someone will come along and prop us up” or even “We pray that we may prop our own selves up.” It simple says “We pray to stand upright.” As anyone who has suffered through bouts of depression and anxiety can tell you, this isn’t something that you can get through alone, but it also isn’t something that you can just ask someone else, even God, to fix. Whatever you need to do to stand upright again... well, you do it. You may do it grudgingly, you may fight it stubbornly every step, but in the end all you want is to stand upright again.

Brief Thoughts on Israel

2009-01-09T14:24:00.003-05:00

A co-worker's husband asked me last night what I thought about the situation in Israel and Gaza. I asked him if he wanted to know my opinion because I was a Jew, and he gave an honest answer of "Yes."

So, what do I think about the situation in Israel? I don't know. I can honestly say that I am conflicted about what is happening. It upsets me that civilians – children – on both sides have lost their lives or are being hurt, whether emotionally or physically, by the violence. At the same time I don't see how Israel should have to sit back and take Hamas slinging rockets at them over and over and over again. The situation is more complex than a simple "I support Israel" or "I don't support Israel" stance, and I'm having trouble coming up with a nuanced opinion about it. I know that as an American the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan anger me, but I also realize that we have to finish them in a responsible way, even if we got into them in an irresponsible manner. But as an American, as a Jew, I can't seem to come get to that same level with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oberlin student in me shouts that no violence is good, even if you think it is justified, and especially if it hurts children. The Israel-supporter in me shouts that sometimes you need to respond with violence if that is the only thing that terrorists understand. And then the regular old Jew in me wishes that things could just be peaceful.

Happy 2009

2009-01-06T11:59:00.001-05:00

I don’t make New Year Resolutions, but I have used the turning over of both the Hebrew calendar and the secular calendar in the past to begin new points in my own Jewish journey. After Rosh Hashanah in 2006 (5767) I began to wear my kippah at all times. At the beginning of 2008 I stopped eating pork and shellfish and began to wear tzitzit all the time. This year I’m not sure what I am going to add into my Jewish observances. I would like to get into the habit of lighting Shabbat candles at home before going to temple. I tried to do this a few times in December when I got home from work with enough time to actually be able to sit and enjoy the light before heading out to services. The problem is that I won’t leave the candles burning while I am gone, even sitting in the kitchen sink or the bathtub, because I am completely paranoid about fire. I guess I could always blow them out and re-light them, but even as someone who doesn’t hold by Shabbat in the traditional sense it just feels wrong to re-light the candles. A few weeks ago I had to leave for services and blew out the candles; they were about half-way down at the time so I used them the next time I was able to light candles before services (during Chanukah). Perhaps not the best solution, but it keeps me from wasting candles. So, I guess that is going to be my new stop along this journey.

There are other goals I have for 2009, but those will stay private for the moment. Along with a good friend, I am trying to devise some strategies to achieve these goals while she works towards hers, and we will support each other along the way. I have to admit that I wasn’t going to make any goals for myself for 2009, feeling as if I wasn’t going to be able to get them done anyway. But I find the positive attitude and support of this friend to be the kick-in-the-ass that I need.

Where We Find God

2008-12-17T15:56:00.002-05:00

I have faith. I can’t describe it, but I know it is there and it is both a comfort and a source of strength.

And yet I still have fear. Of the unknown. Of the future. Of death. One could assume that with faith your fear would melt away. If you have faith shouldn’t you believe that God will take care of you? What is left to fear? But, I don’t think that faith works like that. I’m not sure exactly HOW it works, but I know that it doesn’t erase fear and uncertainty.

On Monday I attended the monthly Lunch and Learn that my rabbi does in a congregant's office downtown. It was just a few of us, and the topic for the afternoon was death, the afterlife, and cremation. When your rabbi asks you point blank what you think about the afterlife and your first reaction is immediate anxiety it is perhaps time to examine why you feel this way, except this involves thinking about the very thing that causes you sleepless nights and panic attacks and why, oh why, would you put yourself through that? Isn’t it easier to just go through life and ignore the things that cause our stomachs to contract, our palms to sweat, our pulses to raise, and not in a good way? Can’t we just avoid the things that we are afraid of? I am reading David Wolpe’s Why Faith Matters right now, and of course one of the things he brings up first is death and dying and fear. So, it seems that I will be confronting this sooner than later.

Articulating what I think about faith and God is difficult. I know that when I am with people I love it is easier to express my experience of God—it is in the relationships, the smiles, the laughs, the hugs, the comfort, the support. It is harder to express what I think about faith when it relates to something that I fear, especially when describing that fear is troublesome in and of itself.

This past week the Torah portion dealt with Jacob wrestling with mysterious figure (An angel? Esau? Jacob himself?) and then with his meet-up with his estranged brother, Esau. This is one of my favorite parts of the Torah, because while my rabbi calls Jacob a thug, I think he is a much more relatable figure than say Moses or Abraham. Jacob is altogether human, with human frailties and imperfections. When he wrestles with the stranger we don’t know who it is and are left to draw our own conclusions. But, I don’t think we can understand fully the wrestling episode without considering the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau that occurs in the next chapter. Jacob says to his brother “for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” When Jacob had wrestled with the stranger he renames the place Peniel, which means “I have seen a divine being face to face.” Whether or not we are meant to believe that the stranger was Esau, or an angel, or God, or even Jacob, what I take away from this (and others have as well--check out G-d Cast) is that it is in our relationships that we encounter God. It is in the face of a person you love that you see God, that you can see your faith manifest.

So, how does this all tie together with what I wrote at the beginning of this entry? I’m not sure. I know that my experience of God has been profound in the past few months as I have struggled and as I have begun to regain my footing. I know that my faith has been strengthened because of the connections that have kept me going and I don’t believe these connections are mere chance. I have seen the face of God in the smiles of friends and I have felt God’s embrace in their hugs and their love. It makes the prospect of confronting that which I fear slightly less daunting.

I Am A Latke!

2008-11-18T14:06:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday I subbed for the Judaica section of my 4th grade class (the morning is split up into Judaica, which for the 4th grade is Prophets, and Hebrew for grades 4–6). Because of that I got the pleasure of taking them to music where we learned, among other songs, The Latke Song by Debbie Friedman. Now, I am not normally a Debbie Friedman fan (which I believe I've mentioned in my rants about Friday Night Live before), but I think I may have finally found a song of hers that I like. I have had The Latke Song in my head since Sunday and I finally had to go and download it from iTunes to satisfy my craving. I have also sung it to a few co-workers, bouncing along in a way that is not normal for me (I am not a bouncy person on a normal basis, but especially during this prolonged period of non-shiny-happiness).

So, to conclude, I heartily recommend The Latke Song by Debbie Friedman. I downloaded the live version from "Debbie Friedman Live at the Del" as it is significantly less cheesy sounding than the studio version. Click here for a YouTube video (it's a pretty bad video) to hear it.

Checking In

2008-11-12T14:27:00.004-05:00

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, and that mostly has to do with dealing with a pretty deep depression (which I wrote about here over at JBC.org). Life has been a bit of a roller coaster ride for me since September and I'm only just now feeling like things are leveling out a little bit, so hopefully I'll have some stuff to write about soon. I've felt quite disconnected from a number of things and I'm slowly trying to make those connections active again. I feel quite lucky that I have had an incredible support system during this time, from my best friend who is hundreds of miles away, to a wonderful friend and her family, to my rabbi and temple community, to my friends in California and Atlanta. Together they have provided me love, friendship, and help as I tried (and still try) to make the choices that are good for me. I'm not out of the darkness yet, but the light is easier to see and appears more often.

Life has not stopped in the past couple of months, however. The High Holy Days have come and gone, Hebrew school marches on, I've visited my dear friends in California, and work has been as busy as ever. Each day was a struggle for awhile; it is hard to go about your day to day business and relate to people when you feel so far out of your own skin, but the world around you doesn't stand still just because you want to crawl under the covers.

So, hopefully, this will signal my return to blogging.

L'Shana Tova Tikatevu

2008-09-29T13:01:00.003-04:00

I'd like to wish a happy and sweet Rosh Hashanah to all my Jewish friends/readers (and everyone else as well). I hope that all are able to get to services if that is their thing, or celebrate in whichever form they choose. As we enter the Days of Awe and journey towards the closing of the Book of Life on Yom Kippur I hope that everyone is able to take this time to reflect on the past year, on their life and relationships, on their goals and hopes for the future. This year more than ever my own mind is filled with thoughts that are ever so timely in this season. May we all be sealed for blessing in the new year.

I'm Scared of Sarah Palin

2008-09-26T09:23:00.003-04:00

Even though this isn't a political blog, I feel the need to post on a political issue at this point. And that is the Republican nominee for Vice President, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Simply put, this woman frightens me. Take a look at the interview she did with Katie Couric and marvel at her inability to put together a coherent thought or sentence. She seems to think that because she borders Canada and is close to Russia she has foreign policy experience, but if we used those kinds of qualifications Bush should have been better qualified to handle foreign policy since Texas borders Mexico. And we've all seen how well he's done with that.

And how can you go on a national news broadcast and not be more prepared for what the interviewer is going to ask? How can you not anticipate that you will be asked about how John McCain really is a maverick/reformer/agent for change and not be able to at least lie to back up your claims? She had nothing.

I know that most people don't vote for a candidate based on their VP pick, but how can anyone possibly vote for a candidate when they pick someone so grossly inexperienced to be their #2? How can you take seriously a candidate who rips into Barack Obama at every opportunity about his lack of experience and then picks someone to be VP who doesn't even have a fraction of experience, much less skill, to qualify her to national office?

I am liberal and a Democrat and proud of both. But, even if I weren't, I think that I am intelligent enough to see when I, as a citizen of this country, am being talked down to. The conservative pundits all harp on how the attacks against Palin are coming from the "intellectual elite." I want to know when it became a bad thing in this country to be intellectual and educated. Somewhere along the way the idea of education got wrapped up in elitism, but I'm pretty sure that there was a time that the country truly aspired to educate itself and its children. Now we are just saying to them that if they achieve an education beyond a certain level (and hold a certain set of political beliefs) they are "elite" and cannot be trusted.

Back in Ohio

2008-09-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

I am back from my business trip and am still exhausted. I don't really like being awake for 40 hours straight. The one good thing about the trip is that I got to miss most of the chaos surrounding the big power outage here in Cincinnati after the massive windstorms we had on Sunday. My power came back on about 2 hours before I returned home yesterday, though I did have to throw out everything in my freezer and fridge. However, I believe there are still around 200,000 people in the area with no power.

Is it just me or is anyone else getting a little worried right now? I mean, there is all the crazy weather, the economy, and the election. It seems like things could get really really bad in the next couple of months.

And on that uplifting note, it's time for lunch.

At JBC.org: Why I Am a Reform Jew

2008-09-12T08:39:00.002-04:00

Last night I posted over at JBC.org on why I am a Reform Jew. Per the rules of the blog, I'm not going to cross-post here, but I am going to link to it because I'm pretty proud of what I wrote.

So, if you are interested: Why I Am a Reform Jew.

Let's Gain Momentum

2008-09-11T14:49:00.004-04:00

It's been awhile since I posted, and I have no real excuse other than not having a lot to say that is blog-appropriate. Life has been interesting. So, in lieu of anything terribly exciting, here is a rundown of what is going on in my life:

• My 10-year high school reunion is next Saturday. I'm looking forward to it if for no other reason than to see the reactions of my fellow all-girls-Catholic-school-mates to my very obvious Jewishness. Admittedly I'm also looking forward to seeing some people who I haven't spoken with in a very long time.

• The weather if finally cooling down here in Cincinnati and my allergies seem to also be calming down, at least until the leaves start falling. All of which means I can now open up my windows again and enjoy the fresh air and breezes through my apartment. I love Fall. I love the way the air smells when it starts getting a slight chill to it. I love the colors and the smell of the leaves on the ground. The first day that requires a sweatshirt is always a good day.

• With the new season comes a new year of Religious School at my temple. This is my fifth year teaching, though only my second consecutive in the same class/subject. I have Alef Hebrew students again and our first class was this past Tuesday. They are an energetic bunch in a completely different way than last year's kids who I adored. It looks like it will be a fun year.

• A friend of mine from high school (the only one I've kept up a good friendship with over the years) has moved into my neighborhood, just a couple streets away. Last weekend we had dinner, beer, and played Carcassonne, one of the most addictive board games ever. I'm very happy to have a good friend within walking distance to hang out with. It's been since college that I could just walk to someone's house to see them and not need to take the car.

• For the first time in a really long time I had feelings for someone (a crush!). While it isn't going to work out it has been a nice little refreshing diversion. I'd forgotten how fun those emotions can be. And also how easy it is to revert to feeling like a sixth-grader when thinking about if the object of your affection has feelings for you in return.

• Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are fast approaching. I wrote a post over at JBC.org last week about how much I love YK and my strong connection to it. I find myself really looking forward to this High Holy Day season more than usual. There is just something completely satisfying emotionally and spiritually with ending one year and beginning another by accounting for what has happened. It is a good time to reflect and to ponder what could be for the year to come.

• I deleted my LiveJournal account a couple of weeks ago. I haven't really posted in over two years, but for about 4 years after college it was a large part of my online life. After a falling out with a friend from college, however, I just didn't feel like posting anymore. After contemplating it for awhile I finally decided to just delete it all together after downloading all of the old entries. It was interesting to read some of the stuff I wrote 6 years ago and to think about how different I was. It was cool getting to read my entries from when I was beginning my formal studies with my rabbi and to remember how exciting and new it was for me back then (and to realize how exciting learning still is). So, in a sense, I felt like I am closing that chapter of my life. Not to sound cliché, but I'm older now and my priorities have shifted. I feel that I am a much different person today than I was when I first set up that account.

The Choices We Make

2008-08-22T16:03:00.006-04:00

When I was out in Seattle last week visiting friends from college who I haven't seen in 5 years (and a couple I haven't been in touch with at all during that time period), I got the question. You know. THE Question. Every JBC or Jew-to-Be knows the question and gets asked it a million different ways by a million different people: Why did you convert?

I always find this to be a difficult question to answer, and not because I don't know the answer, but because I never am quite sure what kind of detail people want when they ask. Are they just being polite and they want the quick-no-details-I-did-this-and-thats-that answer? Or do they want it more fleshed out? Do they want to hear me talk about my philosophy of belief in God? Do they want to hear about belief at all? The choice of words, of language, is interesting. For instance, if I know that the person I am having the conversation with is religious themselves I feel more comfortable using God-language and language relating to belief and faith. If I don't know the person's own religious affiliation or views I'm usually a lot more general, talking about my dissatisfaction with the religion I had been brought up in and my interest in, and eventual connection to, Judaism.

This has been on my mind, because while on vacation I was surrounded by people I was friends with before I really got interested in Judaism and obviously before I converted. The ones I had stayed in touch with had been supportive as I converted and everything, but we had never existed in the same space together after I became Jewish. Throughout the stay part of me was very conscious of my Jewish identity and yet not completely connected to it, if that makes any sense. It was almost as if the Queer Jewish Woman that I am now was existing right alongside the Queer Woman I was in college, kind of poking her and saying "wow, I haven't seen you in a long time." Which makes it sound like I was acting differently, but I wasn't. It was more that I felt that the part of my current identity that had actually been around during college was the more acknowledged one because it was the most familiar one in this context.

For anyone who reads this blog regularly or knows me has probably guessed, attending Shabbat services on Friday and Saturday are incredibly important to me. This is my anchor to the week, my refuge when I need it, my celebration. I look forward to being in the presence of my community and God each week. As I headed to Seattle I wasn't quite sure how I was going to navigate Shabbat while I was there. On the one hand I wanted to spend as much time with my friends (none of whom are Jewish). On the other hand I still felt like I needed to have that opportunity to re-ground myself. Friday night before we headed out to Lake Washington I asked if we could look online to find a synagogue close by where I could possibly attend services Saturday morning. We had already made plans with E&M2 for brunch at 11:30, so I tried to find something that would be over in enough time and that was close enough to get to the cafe by the set time. The closest was Temple De Hirsch Sinai, but its service wouldn't begin until 10:30 and I knew it would be at least an hour long if not longer. So, I resigned myself to no temple for the week, which in reality bummed me out a lot more than I was expecting. I kept it to myself at first, because I wasn't quite sure how to express how important Shabbat was to me and I didn't want to upset the plans that had already been made. It wasn't until the next morning after we woke up and were trying to figure what we would do before brunch that I finally spoke up. "Would it be too much trouble for me to go to temple?" I realized that if I didn't make the effort it would bother me the rest of the trip, knowing that I allowed myself to make a choice that I wasn't comfortable with. They were more than happy to oblige; E dropped me off at the temple and everyone did some gardening while I was there. I did duck out before the end of services (though right after the Torah reading) because I needed to meet them all back outside on the corner by 11:30. While I would have loved to stay through the end, I was happy to have participated in Torah study and gotten the chance to sing and pray. The rest of the day I felt much more at peace, knowing that I had made the right decision for myself and my own spirituality.

As a Jew-by-Choice I know that I will continually choose Judaism as my path, as was apparent last weekend when faced with the choice to make my Shabbat observance happen or to go with the flow. I am glad that I did, proud of the fact that I did, and happy that I have the types of friends who didn't think any differently of me or the situation--it's just a part of who I am.

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

2008-08-19T16:27:00.003-04:00

I apologize for the radio silence. Work got the better of me and then I was on vacation in Seattle for a week visiting some good friends from college. I had an awesome time and it was really great to see these wonderful friends after so long (5 years!). There was a lot of good food, a lot of Buffy watching, a good amount of drinking, and tons of silliness. It was a much needed break and a much needed time to reconnect to people who were an important part of making my college years a memorable time.

A quick recap:

• Flew out of Dayton Wednesday morning, passing through Atlanta (and a 4 hour layover) before reaching Seattle at 5:30pm. Wednesday evening consisted of a light dinner and catching up/hanging out with E&M (who I was staying with).

• Thursday morning I explored downtown and Pike Place on my own. Met up with A at Pioneer Square for lunch and catching up, and then back to E&M's to sit on the porch and talk some more as we waited for them to return from work. Dinner at a really good pizza place with gellato for dessert (yum!) and a very earnest waiter. Some Buffy watching that evening (the musical, I believe).

• Friday morning was breakfast at Glo's and a browse through Twice Sold Tales (a great used book store in Capital Hill that I'd been to on previous visits--my trips always include lots of bookstore browsing) before taking the bus downtown to see the library and then out to see the Space Needle.

• Friday evening was dinner at a brew house and then some excitement that included a smoldering parking lot planter and the fire department. Later in the evening we enjoyed the cool waters and sand (ick) of Lake Washington and reveled in watching the moon rise.

• Saturday morning I headed to Torah study and services at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. I ducked out after the Torah service to meet my friends and head to Cafe Flora for lunch with 2 more friends from college (another E&M couple, if you can believe it, so they shall be E&M2). Lunch was quite delicious and enjoyable with the addition of beignets and mimosas of the non-orange juice variety. It took a good 20 minutes for 6 Oberlin College graduates to figure out the logistics for the afternoon, which eventually included me going to the mall with E&M2 while E&M1 and A headed back to the beach for an afternoon of swimming. I got scolded by an old Jewish lady for wearing my tzitzits out while at the mall on Shabbes, which was quite amusing, and I reminisced about fencing with E2 while M2 got her computer fixed at the Apple store. The late afternoon/evening was capped off with take-out from a Thai/Vietnamese place and more Buffy watching.

• Sunday was breakfast at the Coastal Cafe (I had crab cakes, the first time I've had shellfish since January 1st, but I was on vacation and on the coast and decided that I was okay with that; I did wear a ball cap instead of my kippah and shoved my tzitzit into my pockets, though). After that A had to drive back to Olympia and E1 had a massage, so M1 and I went to the farmers market in Capital Hill where we ran into E&M2. Much yumminess was aquired (blackberries, tiger tomatoes, corn, and cheese, plus a sampling for me of Earl Grey Chocolate hand-made ice cream. We also browsed (and bought) at Bailey Coy (I was looking for She's Such a Geek!, which has a really awesome essay by E2; I would recommend it to anyone, especially those out there who are also geeks). The rest of the afternoon was nice and lazy capped off with a call to one of E&M's friends who moved to Kentucky so we could "meet" over the phone, and then a delicious dinner with our items from the farmer's market.

So, a not-so-brief recap after all. It was a wonderful time and I'll maybe post some pictures later in the week.

Leading Services: The Post-Shabbat Wrap Up

2008-07-29T17:10:00.002-04:00

This past Saturday I lead my temple’s Torah study and informal Shabbat service. While I have the opportunity throughout the year to lead Torah study or read Torah, it is rare that I get the chance to lead Saturday morning, so I was pretty happy to do it. I posted over at JBC.org last week what I think is a decent guide for lay people who are getting ready to lead services for the first time. It would have been great if I could have followed all of my own suggestions, but I think overall things went okay. It was a small group made up of people I know and am friends with, but my nerves eventually took over mid-Torah service as I stumbled through a couple of words. As I have taken a few days to process the experience, here is where I stand:

• No matter how much I prepare a Torah portion I still get so overwhelmed by the actual act of read from the Torah that I do tend to stumble through words that I know. It really doesn’t have anything to do with nerves, per se, but rather I feel so emotionally connected to what I am doing that it overwhelms me. I’m not sure if this is something I want to go away, I just need to be able to pull myself back together to finish the service. Case in point: I forgot how to begin the melody for the after Haftarah blessing, something I know very well.

• A prepared sheet of Torah commentaries surrounding a specific topic in the portion can work better than a sheet with a range of topics. There was a lot I could have focused on in last week’s portion (Matot), but I really wanted to talk about the idea of vows and how words and language have power. Partially because that was the most compelling section for me, and partly because I wanted to avoid bringing up sexual activity (which would have been inevitable with the discussion of really why the Midianites were punished) because one of those in attendance was a soon-to-be 5th grader. It also helped me focus the discussion a little more. If I know going in that there is a lot that we can touch on I’m going to want to actually cover everything; allowing myself the focus of a few different ideas I think let the group really discuss in depth.

• I did decide to not chant the V’ahavta because I wanted to give the 5th-grader mentioned above a chance to follow along in the Hebrew. I tried to slow down the spoken prayers enough for her; as my former Hebrew student I know she has good reading skills so I wanted to give her a chance to test those out.

• A couple of technical things related to my particular temple building: I need to ask how to turn down (or off) the air conditioning in the library where we hold Torah study. It got so cold in there that halfway through we took our chairs out in front of the temple and finished our discussion there. I also need to leave plenty of time for copying the study sheet as the copier will inevitably give me fits. Luckily I did that this past week and had time to unclog the jam that didn’t want to unclog.

• In general I think everything flowed well. Having the post-its throughout my siddur helped me to keep moving without needing to pause and think about what is going on next. I had decided (in my head) on a few melodies before hand, but apparently in the heat of the moment I had something else in mind when it came to the actual singing. Oh, well. It all worked out. For the most part people sang along with me, which is good since I don’t have a particularly good voice and can’t always stay on key when I’m the loudest one. I’m really good at following someone else’s lead, though. Maybe next time I’ll make sure I have someone a little more musical along for the ride.

All in all it was a good experience. I enjoyed getting the chance to lead my community (or at least a small part of it) in prayer and I like the preparation that I had to put into it. It has, however, brought up the idea I've kicked around before about how the person who is leading prayers is able to truly pray themselves while at the same time pay attention to what is going on around them and to the needs of others. That is something for a future post, however.

Shabbat Post, Recent JBC.org activity, etc.

2008-07-28T13:21:00.003-04:00

I've got a post in the works about this past Shabbat and leading Torah Study/Services at my temple, but as I am running on about 50% capacity, it will have to wait until another day. As my post will be related to my most recent post at JewsByChoice.Org, I thought I'd post links to all of my June and July posts there. If you are not a JBC.org reader I would encourage you to check out the blog. There are a lot of great posts and ensuing discussion in the comments that are relevant not only to converts, but to all Jews.

The Art of Leading Services

My First Camp Shabbat

Shlach L'cha: Punishment and Reminders

Truth and Respect

The Barechu Is Not the "Call to Gossip"

2008-07-21T13:31:00.001-04:00

I have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to praying in temple: I usually like to pray uninterrupted. I understand that this can’t always be achieved and that sometimes services can be a bit rowdy depending on the people in attendance (ie. a family service with lots of children)*. However, I would like to issue a friendly note to those who enjoy chatting to me during prayer:

1. While I understand that you may be interested in the new person sitting down the row from us/the latest ongoings at the temple/the rabbi’s new haircut/the height of the grass that has just been cut outside, the middle of the Barechu/the Sh’ma/the Amidah/the Aleinu/the sermon/etc. is NOT the time to ask about this/bring them up for discussion.

2. If you are not here for a family service and you bring your children I think that is wonderful. However, they should be able to sit through the service without running in and out of the sanctuary multiple times. If you know they have attention issues or are going to be very antsy, please tell them that once they find themselves to be bored to quietly head to the babysitting room. I’m a firm believer in exposing our children to praying as an adult, but the fact of the matter is they are still children and shouldn’t be expected to sit quietly for an hour—there are plenty of adults who cannot.

3. If I choose a seat that is far from you or anyone else, please respect this. Do not constantly try and get me to move over to sit by you. I have chosen to sit by myself for reasons that I shouldn’t have to explain, but they can range from wanting quiet space, to wanting actual physical space, to the fact that I’ve grown sensitive to a number or perfumes and colognes as my allergies worsen.

4. If you do try and engage me in conversation and I give short answers and quickly turn my attention back to what is going on up on the bimah or in the siddur take this as an indication that you should not continue to talk to me.

5. If I have my eyes closed assume that I am trying to focus my attention inward or on God and that I wish to not be disturbed. I am not sleeping, but even if I was that doesn’t mean you should nudge me and wake me up.

Believe it or not, I usually come to temple to pray. There is a great time to catch up and socialize afterward at the Oneg, or even before** services begin. I don’t think any of this is too much to ask.

*I love family services, especially when my friends with small children are there, and don’t expect to be able to have the quiet time that I would on a non-family service night. I come to temple prepared for that and with the knowledge that I am gaining something different out of the experience. I do welcome all sorts of temple/prayer experiences, but even with the most rowdy and raucous services I expect a certain level of appropriate behavior from the adults.

**If you notice me sitting quietly before services with my eyes closed it can safely be assumed that I am preparing myself for prayer. Sometimes after a long and stressful week I need those moments of peace. It is nothing personal, and in fact, it isn’t about you at all.

And Let Us Say: Amen

2008-07-09T12:38:00.004-04:00

My Friday began late as I relished the opportunity to sleep in, staying in bed until well past noon. I had no specific plans for my day off, I just knew that I didn’t want to take part in any 4th of July celebrations. Seven years ago the holiday was tarnished for me as I stood on the back deck at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Lexington and silently watched the fireworks on neighboring hills, all the while knowing that the next day we were burying my sister. The only thing I wanted this year was a quiet Shabbat celebration as I marked my sister’s yahrzeit, fully aware that the guilt I carry surrounding her last months will not fade just because I say Kaddish.

I was a 21-year old college student, living 4 hours away from home, working hard at a very demanding higher educational institution, and trying desperately to figure out who I am. My dad had remarried when I was 14 and I had gained a stepsister 13 years my senior. We never lived in the same house, or even the same town. And as a young adult who did not see or hear from her father much while away at college, I was sometimes quite jealous of her. She had gone back to school to get a degree in nursing and all I could think about was that she was supposed to graduate the same year as me and I wanted my dad at my graduation. And then my junior year none of that mattered anymore.

I knew that attendance would be sparse on the 4th of July at my temple; even our rabbi was still out of town at camp. I was right. When I walked in there were 3 people plus the intern, soloist, and pianist. Eventually we gained 3 more, but we never quite got to a minyan, which is rare on a Friday. I waited for the couple, friends of mine, to choose their seats, and then I chose a seat far from them. It’s not that I don’t like them; on any other Friday I would have chosen to sit with them. But that night I wanted to be by myself, to truly delve into the emotion of the coming Shabbat and my feelings surrounding the anniversary of my sister’s death.

She got sick when I was a sophomore. Breast cancer, which had recently claimed the life of her grandmother. 30-years old, too young to need to fight this horrible disease, but she did it gracefully. I was there during her final chemo treatments the first time. We all went out afterwards and celebrated at a restaurant in Lexington. Unfortunately she wouldn’t stay well for long.

We began services singing Shalom Aleichem. Even though the sun had not yet set the sanctuary had a dimness to it; it had been raining that day, thunderstorms as if the sky was as emotional as I would be that night. There is a coziness, a warmth, that I find in the darkness of a thunderstorm, though it hasn’t always been that way. I used to be frightened of the thunder, the lightning, the wind. That night, however, I was far from that fear. I sat quietly, singing along with the melody that always seems to be bittersweet to me. Here we are welcoming guests, helping to bring in the wonder of Shabbat, but there always seems to be that edge of sadness to it, a knowledge that this too will be over, this wonderful respite in time, and we will move back into the ordinary hours of our lives.

Christmas break during my junior year brought the news that my sister would be marrying her longtime boyfriend in March. Everyone was happy; no one commented on the short timeline. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, but having grown uncomfortable years ago at even the thought of wearing a dress, I begged off, saying I’d read a prayer instead, design the program. I made the trip down for the weekend, celebrating with my family. She had a special wig for the ceremony, dyed the red that she had always liked her own hair to be. On Sunday I drove back to school, back to my life away from my family, away from her and the cancer.

As we moved into the Sh’ma and its blessings I began to feel a tightness in the back of my throat. Barechu et Adonai hamvorach. Praised be Adonai to who our praise is due. Baruch Adonai hamvorach l’olam vaed. Praised is Adonai to whom our praise is due now and forever. And then the Ma’ariv Aravim. Blessed are you Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, whose word brings on the evening, whose wisdom opens the gates and with understandings changes the seasons... I could barely say the words, much less see them through the tears that had welled up in my eyes. I felt overwhelmed with the sense of God’s presence and with the sadness I felt at the absence of my sister’s. God creates day and night, rolls light away from darkness and darkness from light.

I chose to stay up at school again that summer, working in one of the offices as I had done the previous year. Mid June I went home for the weekend and went down to visit my sister. By this point the cancer had spread to her abdomen and her brain. She had been having frequent seizures and hospice would soon be called in. But that weekend she was alert and joking and joyous. My dad later told me that she hadn’t been doing well up until that point and afterwards she declined rapidly. I felt lucky to know that the last time I really saw her she was at her best. Two weeks later on a Sunday night I got a call that I should come home, that she wasn’t expected to make it through the next couple of days. I wanted to leave right then, but it was late in the evening already. So, I waited and left in the morning. That afternoon I watched my sister take her last breath, surrounded by her family, her mom, her husband, my dad and my other sister. I said goodbye. The next few days were a blur; arrangements to be made, a funeral in Lexington, burial in Northern Kentucky, reception at my dad’s in Cincinnati. It was hot and humid and I have 4 distinct memories while the rest is hazy at best. The clearest memory I have is standing in the cemetary and listening to my dad, a reserved man most of the time, talk about losing the woman who thought of him as her dad, who called him “papa.”

Saying the Sh’ma that night I felt as if I were truly offering up my heart, my soul. Hear O Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai is One. The God who made the heavens, who brought on the evening, who gave us life, is our God and God is echad. One. Unique. Ineffable, as Heschel would say. My voice was reaching out, using these words as a path to God, not up or down, but who enveloped me that night. With my eyes closed I could feel the stillness around me and feel the reverberation of my own voice in my chest, something I have grown to love as I say the Sh’ma over the years, as if God is rumbling, answering back my call.

It was through the death of my sister that I began my exploration into Judaism. Not right away. First I railed at God, a God who I had been convinced I didn’t believe in, that is until I was angry enough to acknowledge Him. But it was that acknowledgement, that anger, that wholly emotional response, that gave me that push, that need, to find my spiritual home, which I did in Judaism. And in Judaism I finally found my way to mourn my sister properly.

The rest of the service passed in much the same emotional way. I was worn out, exhausted, as if my soul had run laps around the sanctuary the entire time, pounding the walls with its fists and crying out in fury, while finally collapsing into the waiting embrace of its Maker. All of this felt like it had happened inside and when we reached Kaddish Yatom I knew that I was ready to say the words that praise God.

Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One. Beyond any blessing and song, praised and consolation that are uttered in the world. May there be abundant peace from Heaven and life upon us and upon all Israel.

Dan Nichols: The Roots

2008-07-01T08:53:00.004-04:00

Dan Nichols and E18hteen just released The Roots. It is a spectacular album that I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys a Jewish rock music. It has soul, great melodies and thoughtful lyrics. To order or listen to samples of the tracks, go to www.jewishrock.com.

Challenges

2008-06-30T16:30:00.004-04:00

I experienced my first GUCI Shabbat this past Friday. You can read all about it here at JBC.org.

I have some thoughts about this past week's Torah portion, Korach, that I wanted to share. We are told that the firepans used by the 250 chieftains who rose against Moses and Aaron were sacred and Eleazer was to "[Remove] the fire pans of those who have sinned at the cost of their lives, and let them be made into hammered sheets as plating for the altar — for once they have been used for offering to the Lord, they have become sacred — and let them serve as a warning to the people of Israel" (Numbers 17:3). There have been a number of things in the past couple of portions that I felt have related back to the Golden Calf episode, and the firepans in Korach seem especially connected. We know that after the Israelites fashion the golden calf and Moses descends Mt. Sinai to admonish them "he took the calf that they had made and burned it; he ground it to powder and strewed it upon the water and so made the Israelites drink it" (Exodus 32:20). The rebellion of the golden calf is one that can only be remembered through passing the story down from generation to generation, or until it is written down. The story of Korach's rebellion, however, will be remembered because there is now a physical reminder of the rebellion to the Israelites. Just as the people are evolving, so is their relationship with God, and perhaps God's understanding of what they still need. R. Kook views the fire pans as a symbol of the "role played by skeptics and agnostics in keeping religion honest and healthy" (Etz Hayim commentary). He goes on:

Challenges to tradition... are necessary because they stand as perpetual reminders of the danger that religion can sink into corruption and complacency.

As I read this and another commentator's reasoning behind the now-sacredness of the fire pans ("because the men... were not really rebels and sinners, but people with a yearning for the opportunity to be close to God") I couldn't help but think of the Nadav and Avihu and the "strange fire" that they offered. A couple of years ago I came across a modern midrash online that was basically a long conversation between God and Nadav and Avihu. I remember crying after reading it, because the author had reasoned that Nadav and Avihu had approached the sacrifice not out of greed or need for power, but because they yearned to be close to God, and in the midrash, God recognized this. The conversation that the author imagines is touching and I only wish I still had the link, because it makes you understand both sides of it. So here, with the explanation above about the 250 men yearning to be close to God, it can be understood why the firepans are holy and why the Israelites were to use them as a remembrance. The gold calf was not holy; it was a desperate measure taken by desperate and scared people. But, by Korach's rebellion the people had felt God's presence, accepted His commandments, and heard that they all are to be a holy people. How could they NOT want to be closer to God? I think it is very interesting that the 250 are not swallowed up by the earth, but rather are consumed by fire, just as Nadav and Avihu.

Things That Make Me A Geek (TM)

2008-06-13T12:31:00.002-04:00

I'm going to depart from my normal blog subjects and do a little fun blog on other things that I am interested in--in top ten form!

1. NASA and the moon missions.
I have been mesmerized by NASA and space for years, reading everything I could about the moon missions, about the space race, etc. If there is a documentary on TV about NASA I'll watch it. My interest doesn't really translate to astronomy, really. It's the exploration in the past century that has fascinated me. Recently a friend's husband went to the shuttle launch and I was extremely jealous...

2. WWII
I a bit of a history buff and love to read about the battles, but more specfically about individual soldiers and outfits that sacrificed to get the job done. When those who fought in WWII and the others of that generation are described as The Greatest Generation, I can't help but agree.

3. TV Shows that bring out the Obsessive Geek (tm) in me.
These include: Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, Sports Night, West Wing, Alias, the Gilmore Girls, Angel, and Bones. I like a lot of other shows, too, but these seem to be the ones I geek out on and amuse my friends and co-workers with my excited blathering. Mostly Battlestar Galactica right now as it is the only one currently showing new episodes since Bones finished its season. (By the way, mental_floss.com has a great blog about Battlestart v. Star Trek that I enjoyed, being a fan of Star Trek as well).

4. Painting
I was a painter once upon a time. I've recently taken it up again as a way to reconnect with my creative side and relax a bit. But, there was a time when the best way for me to express myself was through painting. I was an art major in college, and while I didn't have the drive and ambition to make fine art my career, I still love it. I mostly worked in oil when I painted, but as it is such a mess and I have such a small space, when I began painting again I tried water color. Having not picked up water colors in over 10 years I was worried that I wouldn't remember how to paint with them, but I've found that not only do I remember, but I'm enjoying it more than I ever did with oils.

5. Sudoku
This might be a weird thing to admit obsession with, but I can't help it. I actually have to regulate my enjoyment of it otherwise I will sit for hours with a pen (no wimpy pencils for me!), doing puzzle after puzzle. I even dream about it if I've been doing a lot of puzzles... It's a sickness, really.

6. Coca-Cola
Another weird thing to be obsessed with, but alas, I'm weird. When I was in Atlanta a couple of years ago for a business meeting I made sure my flight arrived early enough to ensure I would get to visit World of Coke. Seriously, I got there 5 hours before I was to meet my colleagues for dinner... I just love the taste, and I have my preferences as to which is better--regular Coke in a cold can is tops, 2nd only to regular Coke in a glass bottle, followed closely by a fountain Coke w/ cherry syrup added from Frisch's Big Boy.

7. Corn Fields (and clouds)
Admittedly I wouldn't call my fascination with fields in general, and corn fields in particular, an obsession, per se. It's just that I love to look at them. My idea of a relaxing summer afternoon would be to go for a drive in the country and look at the fields. I have rolls of film devoted to fields and clouds and clouds over fields with fences or roads or farm houses...

8. Cheese
This is the one food I couldn't live without. I'd be fine without chocolate, bread, etc. But take away my cheese and you might as well tell me the sun is about to burn itself out and all life on earth will end in about 2 minutes. All kinds of cheese--American, French, stinky, mild, shredded, sliced, moldy. It's great. Goes with everything.

9. Books
This is kind of general, but I'm fairly obsessed with books. When I moved a couple of years ago I moved very close to my favorite bookstore and I have to limit my enjoyment of said bookstore to once a week. And I try to just browse, but I love books. The feel of the covers, the smell of the page and the ink, the information and stories contained within them. I have 5 bookshelves in my small apartment and I'll need a 6th soon. I love to read and think there is nothing better than to take a vacation so I can go away and read.

10. Hats
I love ball caps. Love them. I wear one probably every other day, but I if I'm wearing a team hat it must be the Cincinnati Reds. I may not watch them all the time, but I have a hometown loyalty and would never wear another team's hat. The most recent addition to my collection was a NASA hat, brought back from the Kennedy Space Center---a wonderful intersection of two of my obsessions. My love of hats is probably also why I have many different kippot and not just one that I wear.

Now, wasn't that an interesting trip into my mind?

The Spirituality of Pain?

2008-06-12T17:14:00.005-04:00

A couple of months ago I posted about the Book of Job class I attended at my temple. Since then I've begun reading (and am close to finishing) The Journey Home: Discovering the Deep Spiritual Wisdom of the Jewish Tradition by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman. There are a number of passages that speak directly to the issues that the Book of Job class brought up and I'm going to chat a little bit about them now.

Rabbi Hoffman states that "in Deuteronomic theology... we always get what we deserve" and goes on to detail the 2 instances where this theology is challenged–Ecclesiastes and Job. Throughout Ecclesiastes the author "recognizes the futility of imagining that if we are only good, we will prosper," but in the end "the great skepticism...is denied in a simple one-line conclusion that reasserts Deuteronomy's promise of justice: 'The sum of the matter, when all is said and done: revere God and observe his commandments, for this applies to all man-kind, that God will call every creature to account for everything unknown be it good or bad' (12: 12-13)." [all quotes p. 165]. I don't agree with Hoffman that the last line necessarily negates the rest of Ecclesiastes (though I am speaking here based on just what he has written and not with first-hand knowledge of the book, which I've never read completely). Does the last statement really deny the idea that prosperity comes from doing good and downfall comes from doing bad? Could it be that yes, what you do or don't do may not cause your suffering or your blessing, but you WILL eventually have to answer to God, whether that be on Yom Kippur or when you die, or whenever. We don't know how God will call us to account, but we can certainly imagine, and isn't it just like children to imagine the worst from their parent? If we go with the idea of God as Father or as King (melekh), do we not fear the worst when going against what they have asked?

Hoffman turns to the Book of Job, taking time to go through the arguments set forth by Job and by his friends, pointing out that the "ostensible point of the book is Job's unswerving faith in God despite his sufferings. But though he refuses throughout to curse God, he refuses equally to blame himself his afflictions" (166). In the end Job never admits he is the cause of his own suffering, nor does he curse God, instead just admitting that God is mighty and that he (Job) does not understand His ways. In response to the ending of Job, Hoffman states that "God admits, then, how wrong it is to hold that only the guilty experience tragedy and how equally mistaken to argue that God offers suffering as a loving corrective to human beings" (167).

As we saw previously in our discussion of Gnositicism, the Rabbis thoroughgoing monotheism made them concede that somehow, even the evil in the universe must come ultimately from God. But their balanced estimate of human character prevented their painting everyone as a complete sinner, and they seem to have recognized that suffering cannot be explained solely as punishment that is never undeserved or even that it is a blessing in disguise, a mild rebuke that is ultimately for our own benefit. - p. 168

So, where does that take us? What does it mean to suffer? Can we find anything spiritually fulfilling in it? Honestly, it depends on how you look at it and how you deal with it; if you believe that you have sinned and therefore caused your own suffering, is that going to help you get better? Will you, in fact, cause your situation to worsen because of this attitude and belief? Conversely, if you say "what will happen will happen" will you treat all situations as being left up to fate, to random chance? Should there not be a middle ground, where we can grant that suffering and illness are not caused by sins we commit, but are caused by something? If you get lung cancer after you have smoked 3 packs a day for 50 years are you being punished for sins, or are the physical repercussions of your actions just finally catching up to you? It would be a comforting thought to know that if we did good we would be happy, and when it does work out that way we feel vindicated in our beliefs. But, when we base our beliefs on a system that can, in the end, disappoint us, where does that leave our beliefs?

Rabbi Hoffman states that "suffering may have meaning. People want to believe that it does. But the dominant meaning-making schemes that surround it are morally unsavory. Sickness is not sent by God; it is not God's way of punishing us; we are not responsible for it ourselves; it does not express our inner character; and pain is not good for anyone" (173). He isn't saying that we aren't responsible for ourselves at all, because we can just as easily fall into the pattern of not taking any responsibility, but if you just think about it logically, who can honestly say that pain is good? That suffering is good?

נשא: From the Nazirite to the Modern Rabbi?

2008-06-10T14:10:00.002-04:00

This past Shabbat we read the Torah portion נשא which is partially dedicated to discussing the Nazirite and their vows. Aside from detailing what the Nazirite must abstain from and what should be done if they come into contact with something forbidden or are at the end of their term of service, the portion brings up an interesting idea for me as a modern Jewish woman. The Torah explicitly indicates that men AND women can take on the vow of a Nazirite and take on the extra religious obligations for themselves. Any Israelite could become a Nazirite and would not need to be of a certain tribe or a priest and could choose to serve God in this way. I’m going to go out on a crazy philosophical limb here and compare the ancient Nazirite to the modern rabbi, specifically the modern woman rabbi.

If a Nazirite is not a priest and still chooses to servce God in some ritual capacity, and the Nazirite can be a man or a woman, perhaps it can be further reasoned that the rabbinate is logically open to both men and women and not just men, as traditionally seen. Simply put, rabbis are not priests, but rather regular Jews who have chosen to take on this extra religious obligation to serve their fellow Jews in the capacities of ministers, teachers, counselors, etc. People who enter the rabbinate have done so to dedicate themselves to God in a way that goes above and beyond the regular religious obligations of being a Jewish adult and as such are similar to the Nazirite described in Naso. Obviously there are significant differences between a modern rabbi and a Nazirite–the rabbi can cut their hair, can consume wine and grape products, can be in the presence of a dead body. But the presence of the Nazirite in the Torah is a precedence of both men and women dedicating their lives to God and it is not hooked in specifically to the male-dominated temple cult.

To be fair, the ancient rabbis didn’t always look favorably on the Nazirite. Talmudic sages and Maimonides had a problem with Jews taking on extra vows. Though Rambam pointed out that the need for the purification ritual at the end of the Nazirite’s term was because of their readiness to return to a less demanding life. Later the Rav would say it was a sin for seeing the pleasures of God’s world as a source of evil and temptation. The commentary in Eitz Chaim points out that we are uncomfortable with such religious fervor and extremism, but I would argue this is why there was a ritual for ending the term of the Nazirite—because it would eventually come to an end.

All of this was just a bit of an intellectual exercise, to be sure. I firmly believe that women have just as much to be rabbis as men and to take on religious obligations and mitzvot that are traditionally only done by men. But, I also am firmly of the belief that using the lessons and ideals of the Torah to help guide our modern lives even if it means working through a process that may or may not work. Part of what I love about studying Torah is the process and trying to relate it to current situations and ideas.

תהו ובהו

2008-06-06T11:21:00.002-04:00

In a famous passage from a fifth-century collection of rabbinic musing, we find the Rabbis wondering how God knew in advance what the universe should look like. If, as the Rabbis staunchly maintained, God created the universe out of nothing, there could have been no preexistent model available. How, then, did God, the divine architect, imagine a universe when no such architecture had ever existed before. The Rabbis solve the problem by imagining that God used the Torah as a primal blueprint. It is as if the Torah is eternal, transcending all time, even the moment of the big bang, when time as we know it began.
-- The Journey Home: Discovering the Deep Spiritual Wisdom of the Jewish Tradition, by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman; p. 32

It is difficult for us, as humans with a long history to draw on, to imagine God creating something from nothing, with no reference points at all. I find it interesting that the Rabbis mentioned above felt the need to figure out how God knew what things would look like if He had no reference to begin with as it seemingly ignores the idea of the ineffable God that Heschel writes so well about. It is not surprising that the Rabbis couldn’t grasp the idea that God does not need a reference point to create, because, well, He’s GOD and we are not. It is inconceivable to the human mind to be able to imagine a world with no reference to anything else; we simply cannot grasp the idea of תהו ובהו and so how could we understand how God created the world from nothing? But, I would argue that it isn’t something we should try to understand or explain away. We cannot know the nature of God; we can search, and we can hope to find some sliver of understanding in our prayers and our deeds, but the bulk of God will always be out of reach. Personally, I’m okay with that. I don’t know that I would be able to handle the awesome ability to understand God, nor do I think I would want to.

To me the simple explanation is that God is God and if how He created the world without a reference is because He is God and it will remain a mystery to me.

However, returning to the quote above in context, the Rabbi Hoffman is trying to illustrate how “Torah defines the ideal shape of human life.” He goes on to detail how the Torah is much like Human life, with Genesis illustrating birth and childhood, Exodus is our lives as young adults, Leviticus dealing with our day to day lives where we find purpose, Numbers is our mid-life crisis, and Deuteronomy our end of life. I’m not far enough into the book to really write about what he is getting at, but it’s interesting and thought provoking so far, so I’m sure I’ll have more to say at a later date.

I’ll leave off with one last quote from Rabbi Hoffman as he addresses Leviticus:

The first two Hebrew words in the book are crucial: vayikra elohim. “God called.” The centerpiece of spiritual life is the sense that we are not here by accident. We are called. That is to say, every moment of life, from beginning to end, is a chance to rehear God’s love-laden call to purpose.
--p. 37

they would have come for me

2008-06-03T12:22:00.003-04:00

Feygele over at Jewschool recently posted a link to this article about Israel Gutman of Jerusalem's Yad Vashem taking Germany to task for erecting a memorial to homosexual victims of the Nazis so close to the official German memorial to the Holocaust.

Gutman is quoted as saying:

"For many years after the war I had the impression that the Germans understood the immense scope of the crime of the Holocaust which they had committed ... But this time, they made an error," Gutman told Rzeczpospolita.

"The location was particularly poorly chosen for this monument. If visitors have the impression that there was not a great difference between the suffering of Jews and those of homosexuals, it's a scandal," Gutman said, according to AFP. "A sense of proportion must be maintained."

Feygele rightly points out that there shouldn't be "quibbling over the degree of persecution" but rather Germany should be applauded for the long overdue memorial.

When I was 17 I visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for the first time. It was during summer before my senior year in high school and my mother, sister, and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. for our vacation that year. The museum was only 4 years old at that point and we were very interested in getting to see it. I had read a good amount about the Holocaust and new that homosexuals had been persecuted along with the Jews, but I never really knew to what extent. As someone who had recently come out, to both myself and my friends-but not my family-I was keenly aware of this as I toured through the exhibits. For the first time I felt truly lucky to be alive at the time I was and in the country that, while not accepting me with open arms and ticker tape parades, did not lock me up and murder me. Until that day the Holocaust had always been a remote event to me; something horrible, to be sure, but something that happened to someone else. This was years before I even entertained the idea of converting, much less identifying with Judaism. Being a homosexual and knowing what would have happened to me if I had lived in Germany in the 30s and 40s was my first experience of identification with the Holocaust and its atrocities.

4 years ago I returned to the Holocaust Memorial Museum for the 2nd time, this time as a recently converted Jew. I was hit even harder during my 2nd visit--not only did I realize that being queer would have gotten me killed, but I had chosen to identify with the 6 million Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. My decision and my journey hit home for me that day in a way that no other experience had, and I was proud to be a Jew, proud to know that I had cast my lot with those who had be persecuted. I didn't choose to be queer, but I chose my Jewishness.

So, is it okay that the memorial to the homosexual victims of the Holocaust is so close to the official memorial to the 6 million Jews who were murdered? I don't think anyone is trying to say that homosexuals suffered more than the Jews, or an equal amount, or anything to that effect. Rather the fact that homosexuals suffered and were persecuted at all must be acknowledged, must be memorialized. Remembering the Holocaust and the victims of the Nazis shouldn't be about who suffered more but simply about the fact that millions of people suffered and died. Period. Obviously the Jews were the main target of the Nazi hatred, but how is it okay for us to deny that others were hated as well? Isn't, in fact, MORE logical that we should be fighting to memorialize all the victims?

Looking Forward

2008-05-19T11:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my final day of Sunday school until the fall. I have to admit I’m more than a little happy to have a break. It is rare that I get to sleep in anymore and I’m really looking forward to staying in bed as late as I want next Sunday. One thing I love about Sundays during the summer is how lazy they can be; getting up when I want, reading the paper, drinking some coffee, going to the park. Monday through Friday is rush-rush-rush for me, and Saturday brings Shabbat and Torah study in the morning and a wonderful relaxation and release from the week. But Sundays in the summer are something altogether different. There is nowhere to be, usually nothing pressing to do and the morning holds so many more possibilities. Many times my mom has called during these quiet mornings, either waking me up or disturbing my quiet paper-reading or “Breakfast with the Beatles” listening. I don’t mind talking to her; but I love having that solitary time to myself. I know a lot of people who don’t enjoy being alone, spending time apart from their friends and family. I, personally, love it. Last year I took a 2 day vacation to a country inn and it was immensely satisfying. I didn’t need to talk to anyone, read e-mail, or be tempted by the TV. I read books, I sat out in the sun (and got sunburned), I walked in the woods, and I relaxed in my peace and quiet. I love being around people on Shabbat, but come Sunday morning, I love to take the hours for myself.

The next few Shabbats are going to be kind of crazy; the rabbi’s middle son will become a bar mitzvah this weekend, which means a huge service and party. And next weekend is HUC ordination and a very good friend of mine will ordained. There will be parties, and dinners, and breakfasts, and craziness will ensue as my friend’s and wife’s families descend upon the city. And it will bring them one step closer to their move to California and me one step closer to being many miles away from people I have grown to love.

Celebrating Israel?

2008-05-09T09:05:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, in honor of Israel's 60th Birthday, the local Federation put on a big ol' party down on Fountain Square. For those non-Cincinnatians out there, this is basically the center of downtown with a huge fountain and plaza; it's a great place to have an event. Now, the event, one would assume, would be all about Israel, about celebrating Israeli and Jewish stuff. Except not in Cincinnati. They decided to make it about diversity and celebrating world culture. I'm all for that, I think that should happen a lot more in my city, but it felt like the actual Israel stuff was really put on the back burner. It didn't feel like a celebration of Israel at all. There was one Israeli performer (and to their credit, quite a coup of a performer): The Idan Raichel Project. But, the rest were drumming groups, bagpipers, gospel choirs, jugglers, sword swallowers and fire eaters, and Indian dancers (Indian as in from India, not Indian as in Native American). So, where was the mention of Israel? Other than a couple of Israeli flags (and I mean a couple) and some people walking around in kippot, it would be very difficult to tell that this was a celebration of Israel. It was advertised as "Celebrate As One: A Multicultural Music Festival," and it was multicultural, and perhaps they were trying to illustrate the many cultures that come together in Israel. But, it felt almost like they were ignoring the Jewish part of Israel.

My rabbi was very insistent that members of our congregation attend the festivities; in his words he described it as something good that the Jewish community was doing after so many years of not being a good community and it is something we should support. So I did go; I walked over from my office at 5, met some friends from temple, and hung around for a couple of hours. It was like almost any other festival I've been to: too many people trying to mingle, loud music that made it hard to hear people talking, and bad weather. I left at 7 to go home and take care of my dog not feeling like I'd celebrated Israel and the founding of the Jewish state at all.

Random Thoughts on the Future

2008-05-08T15:14:00.003-04:00

I realize that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but that isn't because I haven't had anything on my mind. On the contrary, I think I've had TOO much on my mind and haven't been able to organize my thoughts past "ugh, I'm tired" on a daily basis. I did post over at JBC.org on last week's Torah portion, however. Go read it if you are interested.

What has been mainly on my mind is the future, namely my future, and what my plans are for it. I'm in an odd point in my life where I am happy and content in many areas, but in others I want change, need change in fact. I'm happy at my temple and with my involvement there. In a couple of weeks I'll join the Board of Trustees; next school year I will continue to teach 4th grade Hebrew and will likely be the permanent substitute teacher for a couple of the HUC students; and I will hopefully get more chances to lead Torah study when my rabbi and our intern are both out of town (or even when they are in town). I'm less happy with my job; at the moment it feels like a means to an end, but I just don't know what that end is. Suffice to say I have a lot of planning and decisions to make over the next few months if I'm going to make the changes I want. That was all very vague, but there are some things that are not ready for public consumption at the moment.

The weeks are winding down until my good friend is ordained and he and his wife move across the country to southern California. I'm very happy for them both as both will be beginning new jobs and hopefully settling into a more permanent home. At the same time I'm sad; they have become my family over the past couple of years and I'm going to miss them dearly. They are good people and have been a huge influence on my life and on my Judaism.

Channel-Surfing for God

2008-04-23T15:34:00.003-04:00

For the first time in over a week yesterday I got to come home from work and do absolutely nothing. I didn't need to leave for a meeting, for a class, for services, nothing. And it was lovely. I've been exhausted recently, due in part to switching my allergy medication, and part to my dog deciding 6AM is the perfect time to wake up and got outside, no matter what time we've gone to bed.

So, I settled in for a peaceful evening at home. I made dinner and sat down to watch a little TV before I pulled out the latest mystery novel I am distracting myself with.* As I waited for Jeopardy! to start I flipped through the channels and came across a program called "Creation in the 21st Century" on one of the Christian networks (I think it may have been TBN, but you can't quote me on that). I stopped because the image that was on the screen as I flipped through was of a Torah and a yad. I was curious as to where this was headed, so I settled in to watch as I ate my salad and matzah. I don't know the concept behind the show, but the host did reference "proving science" based on Biblical texts, even mentioning entropy at one point. What was fascinating, however, was that they had a complete Hebrew bible in scroll form, not just the Torah. I knew that there were the 5 megillot, but I had no idea that the rest of the Tanakh existed in scroll form (or still existed; I guess at some point before the advent of books they would have been in scroll form). Some foundation had set out to gather a complete collection and eventually succeeded. The foundation was Christian, and they kept referring to Jews as the people who had preserved the word of God for them. Now, I'm all for Christians respecting Jews and our practices and beliefs, but this was bordering on condescending, as if that was all we were good for. I know I shouldn't be surprised that an evangelical network would have this, but the program still surprised me.

Anyway, my question was, is this common? Do evangelical Christians collect Torah scrolls on a regular basis?

*For those who care, I've been reading mystery novels by Jeffrey Deaver lately. He's great at bringing the twisty, turny, surprise ending. I'm a fan of his Lincoln Rhyme/Amelia Sachs novels, but as I've read all of those at this point I'm working on his other books. Last night I was reading another author I'm trying out, Jefferson Bass (actually a combination of 2 men, a writer and a forensic anthropologist), so I was reading Carved In Bone. It was a decent distraction, but not outstanding.

Pesach, Boards, and Siddurim–-Oh My!

2008-04-23T09:44:00.001-04:00

First off, the Passover section post.

I love Passover, I really do. Until about 4 days in and them I am miserable. Which is, I believe, how I am supposed to feel.

That said, the sederim I attended this year were both quite excellent. The first night I was invited to my friend’s house for a meat- and dairy-free seder that was very fun. Another family from my temple and a co-worker of my friend’s husband were also in attendance, plus the children of both families. There was plenty of good food, good conversation, irreverent musings, and multiple haggadot which kept things interesting and thought-provoking. All in all, a ton of fun and I’m glad that I went.

The second seder I attended was the community seder at my temple. For the 2nd year in a row instead of having it catered a number of temple members and their families banded together and organized and cooked the entire meal. Last year was chaotic (due only partly to the power going out approx. 20 minutes in that caused my rabbi to scramble through the first part of the seder so that we could eat and get people out the door before it was too dark). But, this year, though a little bit nuts, seemed to go a bit smoother. There were some seating issues that caused some frustration amongst a few attendees (and that will probably lead to assigned seating next year), but from what I could tell people were enjoying themselves.

I got a number of comments from people this weekend about the fact that I’ve been nominated to join the board of trustees at my temple. I, personally, am very excited about joining the board. Not only is it quite an honor for someone my age to be asked, but I feel like it is my chance to really give back to the place that has given so much to me. I know that I benefit a lot from affiliating with my temple and I’m happy that beyond being a member and teaching I’ll be able to help out in a behind-the-scenes way as well. However, not every comment I heard about joining the board was a positive one. A couple of people made reference to “seeing a different side” of the temple, to temple politics, and the like. I understand that the world is not perfect, that finances and administration of things can cause frustration and the like and I’m very aware that I’ll be stepping into a different side of the congregation. But, that doesn’t mean it is going to be a negative experience, or that it should be, or that even if it has been in the past it needs to continue that way. What gets me the most is that these comments were coming from either current or soon to be ex-board members themselves! How do they expect things to be positive if they plant that bit of poison in the minds of new members before they’ve even begun?

In a somewhat related note, I am currently on the ritual committee and we met this past Monday to discuss whether or not we should recommend the new Reform siddur (Mishkan T'fila) to the board to purchase and adopt. It was a good discussion between the few committee members who were able to attend and our rabbi, and it brought up some reasonable concerns, mostly about the layout of the book. In the end we were unanimous in deciding to recommend the siddur, which I am very glad of. It will be interesting to hear about what the board says. I know of at least one board member (in fact, one who spoke negatively to me about being on the board) who is very opposed to the new siddur and will most likely vote against it based on the fact that any kind of change, to her, is negative. What gets me is that you wouldn’t find most board members at temple on a Friday night or Saturday morning on any kind of consistent basis (though or current president and president-elect are there nearly every week, along with a couple others who frequent once a month or so). I feel that the most strident objections to MT will come from people who don’t currently attend services more than a few times a year. To them it will be a difficult transition. But, to those of us who use Gates of Gray on a weekly basis there is no argument as to whether or not the new siddur should be adopted; it is a better siddur, far superior in language and options than Gates of Gray will ever be.

The Book of Job–Reward and Punishment

2008-04-18T10:38:00.002-04:00

Studying the Book of Job is challenging my thinking on a number of different levels, but I’m enjoying it immensely. Last night’s class was a reminder of why I loved college so much, and why I love to study Jewish texts. There is just a palpable excitement of learning something, in peeling back the layers and finding the meat of it all.

The basic question we are addressing is why do bad things happen to good people? The beginning of the Book of Job is very clear in stating that Job was “blameless and upright,” so why was he punished? The professor pointed out that the traditional answer to that question, based in the system of halakhah that the early rabbis built around their understanding of God and their attempts to reconcile that understanding with the God of the Bible, is that bad things happen to people because they sin and these bad things are punishments for those sins. But, how do they reconcile that idea with the fact that the Bible says Job was blameless? They do so by taking apart everything he says to prove that he did, in fact, sin. However, all of their arguments are about what he says AFTER he was punished, so what about the sins he committed BEFORE he was punished. One of the rabbinic commentators (it may have been Raba, but I don’t have my paper in front of me) points out that one does not slip easily or quickly into blasphemy, thus Job was obviously capable, and probably had, blasphemed God before, if not outright, then in his heart.

Now we get the the argument that was most compelling to me from last night. Maimonides puts forth the idea that Job was punished for being too attached to temporary things–his house, his possessions, his wealth, his family, his own health. When it was all taken away from him he sat and he mourned, especially when his own comfort was taken. What I got from this is that Maimonides is basically saying that it’s not that we are rewarded or punished for our actions, but rather we create our own rewards or punishments based on how we react to the situation. Job sat and mourned and removed himself from the world. He could have chosen to mourn for a short, proscribed period of time (which is why we have Shiva other marked periods of mourning that are required to end) but to eventually move on and do good and contribute to society–this would have been a reward. Instead he moped and sat in the dirt, so it was a punishment.

So, bad things can happen to you, for no apparent reason, and they will continue to be bad if you react poorly or negatively. But, as each situation is inherently neutral you are the one who, in the end, decides if the outcome is positive or negative, reward or punishment.

Now, the subject was brought up about whether the Holocaust was a punishment for the sins of the collective Jewish world. The professor pointed out last week that if you view the Holocaust through the lens of reward and punishment based on actions, then it would be a punishment for something (and there are plenty of people, Jews and non-Jews, who do make this argument). But, how would we see the Holocaust in light of Maimonides ideas? Was the event of the Holocaust essentially neutral? Perhaps philosophically, but in reality the atrocities were pure evil, carried out by evil men and a morally corrupt society. Was it then a punishment? I don’t know. Perhaps it was a challenge, our Satan taking away the our families and possessions and lives because we were blameless, we were upright. And how did we react? In a way that ensured our reward– we moved on, we created Israel, we created laws to protect ourselves and others, we fought for civil rights. Basically we took this atrocity into a way to say “this was horrible and it can never happen again.”

Upcoming posts...

2008-04-17T16:52:00.002-04:00

Posts that I am formulating in my head:

• A response to my Job class (the 2nd one is tonight).

• Thoughts on gay marriage and how it fits in with Reform Judaism.

• Pesach!

• Plus some random Torah and study related stuff.

But, at the moment I seem to have little time to actually sit down and write anything out. Perhaps this weekend.

The Book of Job class- first thoughts

2008-04-11T15:32:00.004-04:00

Last night was the first class on The Book of Job. It was interesting, though we didn't discuss the entire middle section at all, which was kind of what I wanted to hear about.

I'm writing this at home on my iPod so I can't go into a huge post about my notes and thoughts. But, I did find it interesting that the professor claims that God was saving face with the Satan and win the other gods. I'm not sure I like the idea of God needing to save face with anyone, especially other gods. Why couldn't these trials and tribulations that Job went through be God's way of saying to future generations "hey, someday this whole system of rewards based on good deeds and punishments based on bad behavior is going to be done with. Someday you are going to have a world where bad things do happen to good people and you are not going to be able to rationalize it."

I will have more to say about this, so stay tuned.

Sent from my iPod

Reading Job, An Article, and the HHD (not related)

2008-04-09T09:50:00.004-04:00

I've had a number of posts bouncing around in my head, but none of them have really formed into anything substantial, so I'm just going to dump them all into this one post so I can move on.

This Thursday will began a 3 week adult education class at my temple titled "The Book of Job: Why and How Modern Jews Read This Ancient Text." I'm looking forward to it, not the least because I can actually attend the entire class (usually adult ed begins 30 minutes into the hour long Alef Hebrew class I teach). But, I'm also looking forward to it because my knowledge of the Nevi'im and Ketuvim is sorely lacking. So, to prepare myself for Thursday, last night I read the Book of Job. It took approx. 90 minutes and it was fascinating. I knew the basics of Job before reading it, but I don't think I ever knew that nearly the entire book is a conversation between Job and these 4 men. I am now even more eager to attend this class and to learn about what the heck it all means.
I read an essay in the OU's online version of their publication recently that stirred up some frustration. The essay is titled "An Unintentional Intermarriage" and is written by a woman whose mother converted under the Conservative movement before the writer was born. In the past few years the writer has become more observant with her husband and has discovered that she is not really Jewish (according to the Orthodox), which in turn caused heartache on her part. My frustration grew not from the complete dismissal of all conversions not done under Orthodox auspices (though I do have a problem with it, that's a whole other can of worms), but rather from the idea that this woman, who had been actively involved in Jewish life for some 40 years, whose entire identity was that of a committed Jewish woman, would suddenly call her life into question. I think this situation created heartache where it need not have been and just reaffirms why, no matter how many mitzvot I observe, I doubt I'll ever consider myself anything but a Reform Jew.
I have recently procured myself a copy of the Reform machzor (Gates of Repentance) and have on order from Amazon a copy of Reuven Hammer's book Entering the High Holy Days. Years ago when i first began attending services every week I was concerned that I didn't quite get the Jewish idea of prayer, so my rabbi recommended Hammer's Entering Jewish Prayer. I found it incredibly helpful and a wonderful resource; plus it was easy to follow and not over-written. I've decided that it is time I delve further into the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Reform Judaism and the Holocaust

2008-04-03T10:41:00.005-04:00

I have a Google news feed on my blog that searches out mentions of Reform Judaism in the news and I try to make a point of looking at most of the articles that it collects. Yesterday I followed a link with the headline "People of the Cloth?" because it seemed odd. It was a column by Rabbi Naphtali Hoff in The Jewish Press online edition, which states on their "About Us" page that "For four-and-a-half decades now The Jewish Press has championed Torah values and ideals from a centrist or Modern Orthodox perspective." And I have to say it really frustrated me.

Rabbi Hoff starts off with a story about a father who wanted special allowances made for his child to have tutoring instead of attending Hebrew School. When the rabbi wouldn't give in the father proclaimed that "You know, rabbi, you people of the cloth can be so inflexible!" Which leads the rabbi into a rambling discourse that begins with the clothing of the Jews and distinguishing ourselves from other cultures and ends up blaming the Reform Jews of Gemany for the Holocaust. At one point he writes:

Historically, God has taken an active role where necessary to ensure that His chosen people not lose their distinctive identity. Often, He has even recruited gentiles to force us into a position of separateness, by imposing the threat of annihilation or restrictive legislation.

He details the reforms made in 19th century Germany, the changes in rabbinic garb, changes in liturgy, the rise of assimilation into German society, etc. Arguments I have heard before. And then came the following paragraph:

As in the past, God did not allow this trend to continue completely unchecked. In Germany, the Nazis passed the Nuremburg Laws (1935), which set out to redraw the line between German and Jew. These laws stripped Jews of German citizenship, forbade intermarriage, barred Jews from most professions, and ordered that the letter "J" be printed on their identity cards. In time, Jews would be forced to wear distinctive badges identifying them as Jews. Ultimately, most were murdered, going to their deaths as despised Jews, not as proud, assimilated Germans.

Rabbi Hoff bluntly states that Reform Judaism brought on the Holocaust. And I'm sorry, you can disagree all you want with Reform ideals and theology, but when you blame a group of Jews, who were simply figuring out how to be Jewish in a modern world, for the destruction of 6 million of their own... well, then you've just gone round a bend that I can't follow. I think it is disgusting and immoral to suggest that it wasn't a lunatic like Hitler acting on his crazed ideas that brought about the Holocaust, but rather it was God punishing the German Jews for their reforms.

I do not subscribe to the theology that God causes bad things to happen, or that God punishes with natural disasters, or that God has a hand in the actions of evil men. Maybe in a time and place long since past God was much more active in manipulating the world; obviously there is plenty of mention of it in the Torah. But, maybe that was the early Jews' way of explaining things they couldn't explain, or rationalizing why they were run into exile, or were defeated by a more powerful enemy. But, I refuse to believe that God would actively punish His people for attempting to adapt their Jewish lives to a modern world.

I will not apologize for being a Reform Jew. And I refuse to let people like Rabbi Hoff suggest that Reform is the root of all that is wrong with American Judaism.

Happy Anniversary

2008-03-30T17:19:00.002-04:00

Today marks 4 years since I became a Jew. It feels like not long ago I was nervously stepping into my rabbi's office for our first meeting and yet it was 5 years ago. Trying to place myself back in that time is difficult; I was a different person then, not as sure of who I was, just beginning to figure out my place in temple life, just beginning to figure out my place in Jewish life. As I enter my 5th year of being a Jew I do so as a Hebrew school teacher, as a sometimes-Torah-Study-leader, as a member of Sisterhood, as a wearer of a kippah and tzitzit, as someone making efforts toward a kosher diet. I am certainly not the same person, but at the same time I am. I still hunger for knowledge, and I still fervently love being a Jew.

Living with Friday Night Live

2008-03-30T16:07:00.002-04:00

This past Shabbat was another Friday Night Live in my congregation. I've mentioned a couple of times my feelings about Friday Night Live, but I do want to go into a little more depth here. When the phenomenon was first introduced to my congregation 5 years ago it was like this breath of fresh air. At that point we had two soloists, neither of whom were Jewish, who had been at the temple for over 30 years. They were both strong singers, but they had a style that really discouraged participation by the congregants. Add to that the fact that much of the music was slow and or overly dramatic, or just plain stale, and you find yourself not engaging with the service as much. As an effort to inject some life into our music we brought in the Friday Night Live band from HUC; basically a bunch of rabbinic students who were musical and who really knew how to use music to engage people in prayer. It was a tremendous evening, with a lot of singing, a lot of dancing, and a lot of heartfelt praying. Many of the students were being ordained that year, and having a band of rabbinic students is somewhat impractical anyway, as they all have student pulpits of their own. But, the following academic year introduced a regular Friday Night Live band to my temple. It was made up of mostly temple members who were either professional or amateur musicians, plus a local rabbi (who had been in that original band and had just been ordained) and our own intern.

That first year of Friday Night live services were still incredibly powerful. The band was small enough that it was unobtrusive and it didn't feel like a show. People participated, sang along, and really got into the new melodies and this new way to have kavanah. Unfortunately, though, after awhile the services became overly rowdy. Children were allowed to be noisy, to go in and out of the sanctuary, and in general, to be very disruptive. The band itself grew to the point that it no longer fit on the bimah and moved down in front of it on the floor. It was around this time that I began to dislike Friday Night Live services. It was too loud (the bass would regularly overwhelm any of the guitars or instruments playing melody), and it had morphed into almost a performance. I got the feeling that there were many people coming to temple not to pray, but rather to be entertained. I continued to attend, but my enthusiasm for the style had waned. I was always much more fulfilled by praying the next morning in our small and intimate Saturday service, which made me wonder if I just didn't like crowds when I pray. Except that I have found kavanah in a larger crowd just as I have found kavanah in the smaller services, so that wasn't it. It really came down to the performative aspects of Friday Night Live.

Now, I'm an opinionated person, and I'm not one to keep something to myself if it bothers me. I happen to have an excellent relationship with my rabbi, built, partially, on the fact that I have always been honest with what I think, whether it be something that happened at a service, or something that had to do with a Torah portion, or a Jewish custom. We have spoken many times on how you balance the need for something like Friday Night Live to engage people with the need to keep it a prayerful service and not devolve into a concert. And it truly is a balance. Do you put the band on the bimah? Do you put them to the side, off the bimah, but not in front? Do you ask the professional musicians to turn their volume down? Do you insist that people be responsible for their children just as much at this service as they would at any other?

This is something that is still being tweaked at my temple. On weeks that we have a Friday Night Live we usually have a Tot Shabbat the next morning; this allows parents who want to expose their kids to fun music to do so in an atmosphere that is more suited to their attention spans. Our Tot services have grown incredibly over the last few years, and it is a wonderful thing to see.

There has also been some experimentation with where to put the band. A few times they were partially on the bimah, and partially on the floor where the pianist and soloist usually stand. This brought the congregation back in closer but took the feeling way from the bimah-as-stage. It felt better, but it was a bit of a logistical nightmare, I believe. More recently the singers have sat in from of the bimah to one side, the musicians to the other side. This, however, has pushed the chairs in the congregation further away from the bimah (as was the case this past week). My rabbi commented that it took awhile for people to engage this week, and I really think it had to do with our physical proximity to the bimah. I, personally, felt removed, sitting just in the 2nd row. The fact that the musicians and singers were on our level combined with the fact that the seating was pushed much further back, made the space feel unbalanced and odd.

I am still on the fence with Friday Night Live. There are times when it feels right, when it clicks and it feels prayerful. There are others when I feel like I haven't attended a prayer service at all. I think it has potential to be a great form of worship, but I think it also has the potential to cause problems. If people only come for Friday Night Live and we don't have one between now and August, will they attend services? How will they learn to connect with other types of prayer? And if we make this style more prevalent, do we run the risk of alienating people who are not engaged with this type of music? When you are a small congregation that cannot hold 2 Shabbat services to provide for the needs of various constituencies, which do you choose? Do you need to choose? Is the compromise to mix things up each week? What is the final goal? Is it to have people attend Shabbat services every Friday night? Or is getting them there once a month good enough?

My rabbi has said many times that music can make or break a service, and I couldn't agree more. I find it much more difficult to engage, to step outside the keva and to find the kavanah when the music does not speak to me. I can do it, it is just harder to do so. But, maybe prayer shouldn't be easy. Maybe it shouldn't always be comfortable and maybe we shouldn't be able to just slip into it like an old sweatshirt. Perhaps sometimes the greatness of prayer is found in its challenges, in the words that seem to not grate, in the melodies that bore you, in the ideas that don't speak; transcending those problems and finding that kavanah, in engaging God in this eternal conversation is, perhaps, the point.

Haggadah Recommendation

2008-03-26T12:10:00.003-04:00

For those eagerly awaiting Pesach and are in need of a haggadah, I would like to recommend the Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah. Two years ago I had every intention of taking it with me to the first night seder at my friend’s house; I can’t remember at this point if I used it or not; there were a number of different haggadot and my friends encouraged their guests to find meaningful bits to pull out of them all. As I am heading back there for the first night seder this year, I thought I would go ahead and print this out and take it with me.

Queer and Jewish

2008-03-25T12:37:00.004-04:00

I posted over at JewsbyChoice.org yesterday on the subject of LGBT synagogues and whether they are still necessary. It seems to have sparked at least a couple of impassioned responses, which is what I wanted. If you read the post you’ll see that I come out on the side of not feeling the are necessary, but recognizing that for many people they are warm, welcoming, and needed communities. I should clarify a couple of things before I move onto the meat of this post. One is that it’s not that I’m opposed to LGBT synagogues, per se. It’s more that I would like to see the queer community integrated into the larger Jewish community. I don’t think that the greater, and generally heterosexual, Jewish community will feel the need to incorporate gender inclusive language or queer life cycle blessings and services until queer people make it an imperative. The second point is that I think the problem that can happen with LGBT synagogues when heterosexuals want to join has been addressed, it seems, well. Instead of discriminating, they are welcoming people in who see that these are warm and spiritual communities and want to be a part of it.

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I recently re-watched Trembling Before G-d. I had viewed this documentary at the beginning of my study for conversion and I was curious as to whether my reaction to it would be different now that I am more immersed in the Jewish world. But, frankly, I have much the same feeling about it as I did 5 years ago. It may be patronizing, and I am aware of the implications of writing this, but I truly feel sorry for the people in this film. That they cannot completely reconcile who they are with their belief in God and their lives as Jews. It gives me some hope and some joy to see that they are trying to live their lives as observant Jews despite rejection by families or Orthodoxy or their rabbis. But, at the same time I want to shake the people who reject them. I want to shake them and yell at them, because how can you believe that God would reject someone you love because of who they love? There are 613 mitzvot in the Torah. The prohibition against sexual relations between men is one of them. Am I to believe that these people who condemn queer Jews actually keep all of the mitzvot themselves? It is impossible. Ignoring the fact that so many could only be done in Jerusalem while the Temple stood, I believe that it is nearly impossible for any Jew, no matter how pious, no matter how dedicated, to keep all of the commandments. When I eat a piece of treif I am breaking a commandment, yes, but that is between me and God. It doesn’t affect the person next to me and is really no one else’s business. The same goes with this prohibition. Now, I also come at this from the viewpoint that this is one of those mitzvot that came from a certain time and place and that is no longer valid in this day and age. So, the fact that an entire subsection of Jews would be discriminated against, hated and reviled, it baffles me, and it angers me.

When I was in high school I struggled on a daily basis to reconcile my sexuality with what I was taught in religion class on a daily basis. I eventually came to the conclusion that if God did exist He didn’t care who I loved, but rather the kind of person I was and how I treated others.* By the time I came to study Judaism I was comfortable with who I am didn’t feel the need to reconcile a belief in God and an adherence to a religion with my sexuality.

*As an aside: at that time my doubts about Christianity made me doubt God in general; when you are taught that Jesus and God are one and the same how do you go about rejecting one without calling into the question the other?

Autonomy

2008-03-24T13:22:00.004-04:00

I've been going through some of the books I read when first exploring Judaism and came across One People, Two Worlds: A Reform Rabbi and an Orthodox Rabbi Explore the Issues That Divide Them by Ammiel Hirsch and Yaakov Yosef Reinman. I highly recommend it for anyone who is just beginning to read about Judaism and is curious about the differences between Orthodox and Reform. And I encourage people who already know where they stand to read it as well. It is basically a book-long conversation through e-mails between a Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi. As I re-read sections a number of things that I've been mulling over recently seemed to become coherent strands of thought, which is what's below.

“You misunderstand the concept of autonomy in the non-orthodox world. It is not ‘legitimized nonobservance as a final destination,’ as you describe. Rather it is an effort to encourage people to become more observant with greater and longer-lasting commitment, through their free and voluntary acceptance of the yoke of commandments. This is what freedom means in the Jewish sense. It is no the ability to do, or the desirability of doing, as we please, but the exercise of free will so we can better serve God.”

--Ammiel Hirsch, in response to Yosef Reinman, One People, Two Worlds, p. 236

That is the best argument (or at least the most coherent and straight-forward one) for Reform autonomy that I have read. I am a big believer in autonomy, in making informed choices, not only about your personal observances, but about what you believe. I think all Jews by Choice value autonomy to a certain degree, whether they are Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox. Because we all made very clear efforts to make a a break with our upbringing, to educate ourselves, and with that information make a choice about what we believe and where we would seek out God and community.

Beyond that I believe that God likes people who are able to challenge things, challenge God, stand up for what they believe—our best examples are two of our most revered figures in the Torah, Moses and Abraham. We learn early on that non only is it okay to argue with God it is practically encouraged. Why should we, as modern Jews, heirs to the same covenant that began with Abraham, behave differently?

It all comes back to how you view the transmission of the Torah and the Talmud–were they transmitted as a whole to Moses directly from God? Were they revealed progressively over many years and to future sages? Was it all man-made? Divinely inspired? Do we accept the absolute yoke of the commandments or do we accept the yoke of responsibility to try to live as good Jews with the mitzvot as a guide and our source? Do we accept the idea that fences should be built around and around these Torah laws and never taken away? Or do we acknowledge that so many of these laws were additions as reactions to the times and places in which the commentators lived?

I do not deny that the sages of the Talmud were great, beyond the scope of any ordinary scholar. However, I hold that they were still men of their times who faced challenges of faith and religion that were unique to them in some ways and universal in others, but that they were still citizens of a particular time and place. And as such were writing and responding in reference to that time and space. They did not exist in a vacuum and they were not prophets who could envision future times. They saw the world around them and they responded to it. And over the years more sages responded in light of their own time until we have this amazing conversation through the ages–a great one to be sure– but one that can, and must, continue today. I’m not saying that we add to the Talmud. I’m saying that Judaism has valued commentary that comes out of your particular moment in the past, so why should we abandon that today? Perhaps the early Reform movement responded too drastically to modernity, but they were responding and adapting just as our ancestors did in t he days after the destruction of the 2nd temple. It could be argued that the trauma of the Temple’s destruction could be paralleled with the trauma of escaping the ghetto and experiencing freedom for the first time in years. I say trauma because just as in the 1st century when our sages had to envision a Jewish world without the Temple and without sacrifice, envision ways to hold people in their faith, so too did our modern rabbis need to adapt our practices to help the non-ghettoized Jews remain connected to Judaism. And maybe some of their choices were overly dramatic, but as a movement and a people we are seeking a balance and a continued answer to modernity. We are not done with our conversation in the Reform movement. Just as the conversations of the Talmud last generations, so will ours.

Yosef Reinman states that the Reform movement that is “constantly defining and redefining itself, constantly interpreting and reinterpreting according to the dictates and demands of the people” (p. 69). I would argue that this is exactly what the rabbis of the Talmud did. They were constantly interpreting and reinterpreting Torah and midrash. Today we have thousands of years more of Jewish thought to draw on, but we are doing the same thing, and I believe it is just as legitimate. The Orthodox do not have a monopoly on holiness, on the mitzvot, on Torah, the Talmud, and other texts. I am just as free to study these and to make my decisions about what I feel commanded to observe. I have written a number of times about my views on autonomy and recently on my views of keva and kavanah. But what it comes down to is my belief that you must figure out your own observance for yourself. Be consistent with your process and serious with your efforts, but it is still a personal choice. In the end it is about God and trying to honor God and bring holiness into both your life and the entire world.

My New Rashi Chumash

2008-03-18T16:22:00.005-04:00

I recently received as a generous gift the Metsudah Chumash/Rashi pictured above. I've only had it for one parashah so far, but it was a joy to be able to study Rashi without needing to borrow my rabbi's books, and I have found it easier to use than his volumes, which have a confusing layout. My rabbi had suggested the getting into Rashi's head would be good for my studies so I'm looking forward to years of learning with this great set.

Finding the Kavanah

2008-03-18T13:16:00.001-04:00

Last week was the conclusion of a 3 week adult education course at my temple on Jewish prayer. In the last session one woman raised the question about how people can feel more connected to the service; the woman is not a regular attendee of Friday night or Saturday morning services, though she is there occasionally and on the High Holidays and may attend services while away for the winter elsewhere. My rabbi’s immediate response is that with time and with familiarity with the service and a sense of community the keva of the service can turn into kavanah. For the people who only attend services a few times a year they likely will not find the prayers meaningful and will feel frustrated. Frequently people who only come on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can be hear complaining about a lack of connection to the prayers and to the style of service. But if you have a good sense of what is going on the rest of the year you can appreciate the changes and the differences that happen during the Days of Awe.

Another rabbi friend of mine and I were discussing kavanah once and he asked me what I do when I don’t feel like praying. My response at the time was that I just don’t come to services; I didn’t understand why you should say a prayer if you don’t either a) believe it, b) understand it, or c) find it meaningful. I haven’t come completely full circle on this over the years, but I do understand the value in saying prayers even when you are not fully appreciative of what you are saying. On the nights I don’t feel connected to the words I am saying I still feel connected to God and to my community and am able to think about why I’m not finding something meaningful or what exactly is blocking my energy. And on the days when I am overwhelmed with spirituality and meaningfulness, that is when my comfort and familiarity with the words and order—the keva—that’s when my prayers are taken to the next level. There have been many times when I’ll notice a phrase, a word, or understand the Hebrew for the first time, and if I didn’t enter this prayer space each week and make an effort to connect to through the structure I wouldn’t have that opportunity.

In Everyman’s Talmud Abraham Cohen writes that “although the rabbis commanded the art of participating in the three daily statutory services, they were careful to demand that such devotions must not be allowed to degenerate into a mechanical and perfunctory performance.” This is an idea that I completely agree with but I think that people could view it as antithetical to the idea that kavanah follows keva; it could easily be said that saying things by rote in a service is only accessing the structure. But, I believe that you can appreciate the beauty of keva and still say the prayers with intention. I don’t believe that keva and intention are mutually exclusive and that if you connect to the structure and make yourself open to the possibility of kavanah, then your intention and your prayer is anything but mechanical. Perhaps you cannot always access that kavanah, but you give yourself that opportunity each time you enter into the Jewish prayer structure.

In the midst of all of this I began to think about the Friday Night Live phenomenon. I believe that it has been both a blessing and a curse to modern Judaism, and to Reform Judaism in particular. It is giving younger and/or disaffected Jews and entry point into the synagogue, but at the same time it is teaching them that this style of service and music are the only ways to truly have kavanah. When that style of service is not offered I think many people can feel disjointed, lost, or disconnected. But, how do you get them to commit to regular attendance without this enticement? (And when does the enticement become a gimmick and a show and stray from a true prayer community?) My rabbi brought up something during the class and during a conversation I had with him earlier in the week about how an individual’s attendance and commitment to the temple is good not only for just them but for the community at large–the energy I bring is good (or bad) for the people around me and vice versa. I think many people in modern Judaism are looking at their religious experience to be spiritually satisfying on an individual and personal level only. In Reform Judaism we value the idea of personal autonomy, but when it comes to building a community this can perhaps be taken too far. When you step into a synagogue you are no longer in an individual religious sphere–here your choices to attend and to try to connect to the prayers are part of a community and individual effort.

(cross-posted to JewsbyChoice.org)

זכרונם לברכה

2008-03-17T14:52:00.002-04:00

This morning I returned to my desk from a meeting to find an e-mail telling me (and my entire congregation) that one of our oldest and most beloved members had died Saturday night. I am struck with this enormous grief because this woman welcomed me so openly into our temple and into her life; she referred to me as her grandchild and I was invited to seders and break-the-fasts with her family. She was a wonderful and caring person who was always happy to be at temple, or to see new faces, or to hold the young children when she could. She delighted in receiving and giving hugs. And they love between her and her husband was amazing to see. She had not been well for a long time now and hadn't been to temple in months. I was just thinking this weekend how much I wanted to go visit her in the hospital. And then the e-mail. I hate that I found out through e-mail; it's such a cold and impersonal way to find out that someone you cared for is gone. I decided to go to the monthly Lunch and Learn in a couple of buildings over because I knew my rabbi would be there and I wanted to be around people who knew her. As we sat down for lunch and were waiting for the others he asked me if I had heard and if I knew when the funeral was. As it was still very fresh I just nodded my head and so he asked if he should just be quiet for the moment. Afterwards we walked out together and I couldn't even speak, but he hugged me and told me to call him if I needed to. He hadn't wanted me to find out through e-mail, but didn't want to say anything before our Purim celebration with the religious school kids yesterday, which I understand. I know he was very close to the family and how hard it must be for him as well.

זכרונם לברכה
May her memory be for a blessing.

Ah, co-workers

2008-03-11T09:09:00.003-04:00

So, today is my birthday (28, by the way). I walked into the office this morning to discover this in my cube:

My co-workers blew up 99 balloons (apparently 1 popped of the 100 planned) and Saran-wrapped them into my cube last night after I left. It was very sweet of them, and I was truly touched. The nut-jobs. ;)

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I'll have something Jewish to post, soon. Work was busy last week and then there was the blizzard this weekend, but I've been going to an adult ed on Jewish prayer at my temple, so I'll have some thoughts on that.

Music!

2008-03-04T11:33:00.008-05:00

After my last post on Jewish music I decided I needed to be an equal-opportunity music pimp. So, here are my current favorites when it comes to secular music.

Josh Ritter. I love Josh Ritter. He was a senior at Oberlin when I was a freshman and he was already a legend on campus. Since graduating he has done very well for himself. His music is a great mixture of folk and rock and he is a great story teller. I love that I saw him back in the early days and that he continues to shine. Favorite Song: Wolves

Hem. A couple of years ago they opened up for Josh Ritter at the Southgate House in Newport, KY. It was a great show and I was hooked. They create a lush and melodic sound that is instantly addictive. Sally Ellyson's vocals have an amazing and emotional range and the music is outstanding. Country-tinged folk. Favorite Song: The Pills Stopped Working

Kim Taylor. Another opening act for Josh Ritter, just this past November, Kim Taylor has one of those voices that tears you up on the inside. Whether it is an original song or a cover of Tom Waits, she knows what she's doing and will draw you in. Mostly acoustic, folk-y singer/songwriter. Ben Sollee, a cellist/singer played with her at Southgate and he was a great addition to her vocals. Favorite Song: My Dress Is Hung

Ray LaMontagne. Another singer/songwriter who has an amazingly emotional voice. I ran across him late one night on Austin City Limits while I was aimlessly flipping through the channels. I wrote his name down on a scrap of paper which I promptly lost until I moved a couple of months later. Favorite Song: Jolene

Patty Griffin. I don't remember where I first heard Patty Griffin, but it was probably in college. She's another of those great singer/songwriters who can plumb the depths of your soul. Her songwriting is outstanding as evidenced by the number of artists who cover her. Favorite Song: Poor Man's House

I guess I'm very much in a folk-rock stage at the moment. I highly recommend all of the artists above. You won't be sorry.

Jewish Music

2008-02-28T08:38:00.004-05:00

I am a music nut. If I had my choice I would be listening to music all day long; luckily in my job I can have my iPod plugged into my head for most of the workday. I'm always on the look out for new, good music, and my tastes range from my favorite band R.E.M. to Motown to the Beatles to contemporary folk to bluegrass to pop to alternative to classical... it goes on. And I love Jewish music, but sometimes it's hard to find good Jewish music that isn't, well, cheesy. I am not a fan of Debbie Friedman (though I don't discount the incredible musical impact she has had on the Reform movement) and Craig Taubman kind of bugs me (plus his L'cha Dodi brings to mind a frightful image of striptease thanks to some good friends of mine, unfortunate on Friday Night Live at my temple).

Listed below are my current Jewish music favorites. Anyone reading this is encouraged to comment with their own favorites!

Dan Nichols. He is coming to my temple this weekend as our artist-in-residence; it's the 5th or 6th year that we've had him and it's always a great time. If you don't know who he is, or have never heard his music, you can download a couple of songs from his website, www.jewishrock.com. When he leads Friday night services it is very special and spiritual, providing a connection that only music can. Dan was my first introduction to Jewish music outside of a service setting. During my conversion process I listened to him a lot and it helped me to form a strong Jewish connection. Favorite song: Kehillah Kedoshah
Moshav. I had heard about them a few years ago but it's only been in the last year or so that I began to listen to Moshav (formally Moshav Band). Beyond being incredible musicians they bring a great spirituality and social awareness to their music without you feeling like you need to be sitting in temple to listen to it. Favorite song: When I'm Gone
Blue Fringe. A group out of Yeshiva University, they have great text-based and tradition-based Jewish rock music. It's not all great, and mentions of the moshiach kind of turn me off, but all in all, a good band. Favorite song: Flippin' Out
Josh Nelson Project. I don't know much about Josh Nelson yet (not to be confused with Joshua Nelson), but I saw him at the Biennial this year and he has a great energy to his music. I'm not sure if his album is out yet, but from I have a few songs from a sampler CD and currently am enjoying it. Favorite song: none yet
Matisyahu. I'm not a big fan of reggae-tinged rap, and I don't listen to him a lot, but I respect what he is trying to do and he is quite talented. Favorite song: Lord Raise Me Up

I listened to Rick Recht for awhile, and he's okay, but I would classify him as more cheesy than not. I've heard a little bit of Rav Shmuel, but not enough to say I like him or not. The song I heard was decent, but I am reserving judgment until I hear more. I enjoy a couple of songs from artists I don't otherwise listen to. These include "Ki Va Moed" by C. Lanzbom & Noah Solomon and "L'cha Dodi" by Six13, an a cappella group.

So, what makes Jewish music, well, Jewish? Should it be about Jewish things? Should it be about God? Or should it just be music by Jews? And are we sometimes so starved for Jewish music that we'll listen to crap just because it's Jewish?

אחד

2008-02-19T13:05:00.002-05:00

How do you describe something perfect with imperfect language? How do you truly describe God with our human tongue? You can’t, really. All we can do is attempt to speak of God in the only way we know how. That is the beauty of it—God can never truly be known because with our need to translate Him into language, both out loud and in our heads, we are immediately reducing our true understanding. Perhaps our first breath is our only truly aware moment in our lives; before our minds are cluttered with human-made language and thought.

Heschel points out that in Hebrew אחד means “one” and “unique,” and it is the 2nd definition that is present in the Sh’ma. If that is so, it further illustrates why God cannot be described, for how do you describe something but in relation to others? If God is unique you can’t truly describe Him in relation to anything else and be spot-on. I believe that when we describe God we are describing our limited understanding, and to an extent, our hope of what God is. We hope that God is merciful and kind, but these are human qualities and to say that God possesses human qualities is to say that God is not unique. But, then we also have the quandary of humans being created in the image of God; if you believe the Torah to literally be God’s word, transcribed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, how can you believe that God is also unique if we, as humans, are made in God’s image? But, if you instead are able to step back and view the Torah as man-made and inspired by God, I think that it is perfectly logical to still believe that God is unique and that we are also made in God’s image. Because we understand that the qualities we are ascribing to God to be human qualities and that our hope is that these qualities that we see and value in ourselves are God-like qualities. God is still one, unique—אחד—because we still do not truly know God. And perhaps what makes God unique is that he is MORE than these qualities we ascribe to Him. God is more and beyond and we cannot know. We will never know what is beyond the event horizon of a black hole and we will never know how God is more than us.

“To think of God is not to find Him as an object in our minds, but to find ourselves in Him. Religion begins where experience ends, and the end of experience is a perception of our being perceived.”

--A.J. Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 127

"The task is not to know the unknown but to be penetrated with it; not to know but to be known to Him, to expose ourselves to Him rather than Him to us; not to judge and to assert but to listen and to be judged by Him.

--Man Is Not Alone, p.129

One day it's there...

2008-02-14T16:28:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week I was on a business trip that required me to be on the floor of a manufacturing plant for periods of time throughout a two day period. During this time I didn't wear my tallit katan as a safety issue (and I personally see the point of wearing it to see the tzitzit, so I didn't just tuck them in). I gotta say that I felt weird without it on. After only a few weeks I've really grown attached to the presence and significance of the tzitzit. I found myself reaching down for them on more than one occasion and feeling saddened when they weren't there.

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I'm going to have limited internet access over the next week and a half, so there will be no new posts from me. But, Tuesday I promise to have a new post for both this blog and a new contribution to jewsbychoice.org.

Outpost from the cold road.

2008-02-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

I am currently on a business trip, but I have a bunch of free time on this kind of trip, so I'll try to do some posting.

This past Saturday I attended services at HUC (Hebrew Union College) here in Cincinnati. The occasion was the 5th year sermon of a good friend of mine (and intern at my temple). I was excited to go, not only because he would be speaking on a Torah portion close to my heart, but because I've really seen his confidence in giving (and quality of) sermons grow over the past year and a half. I'm' glad I got to go, too. Because he gave an amazing sermon, talking about the gift of the Torah and how important the act of learning and study is to Judaism. I wouldn't do it justice to even try and capture it in condensed form here. What was really neat is seeing how many people from my temple came out to support him, as well, especially since most of them wouldn't have been at services on a Saturday morning otherwise. I will miss my friend when he is ordained this spring and he and his wife move to wherever he finds a job; they have become a large part of my life and are a part of my growing Jewish family. When his wife (also my good friend) and I walked into the sanctuary he exclaimed "my wife's here! and my other wife!" I give him a hard time, but mostly I try to challenge him because I know he is going to be a great rabbi. When one of his aliyot honorees did not show up he said he was going to give it to me but didn't since he thought I wouldn't want to be put on the spot in front of a crowd of rabbinic students and professors. My response was that it would have been an honor because he would be the one doing the asking.

I love living in a city where I get a chance to meet and interact with rabbinic students. I just don't like to see my friends leave.

Creating a Sanctuary: תרומה

2008-02-06T16:19:00.000-05:00

2 years ago I had an adult bat mitzvah and my Torah portion was תרומה. Over at Jews By Choice dot org Chaviva posted about it and asked us what the synagogue means to each of us. So, I decided to update and clean up the d'var Torah I gave the morning of my bat mitzvah as my response and post it here. Everyone should check out her post as well and comment there!

Each moment in our lives has the potential to be life altering, whether you are experiencing the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, losing your first job, or simply a beautiful sunset. The Israelites who were present at Mt. Sinai experienced possibly the most life-altering moment of all: the moment when God gave them the opportunity to build for Him a sanctuary. What a wonderful opportunity, to give freely of their possessions! Gold, silver, and brass! Certainly the Israelites felt blessed that they were asked to give up these wonderful riches; riches they had painstakingly brought with them when they left Egypt. The best idea since taxes, perhaps? Except this is different. There’s that one disclaimer at the beginning of the portion: of every person whose heart so moves them. I can’t decide to not pay my taxes because my heart does not move me to do so. But God only wanted people who were moved to do so to give this great variety of goods. It’s almost as if God is playing the role of our mother at that moment, laying on the original guilt trip, but I think it’s much larger, and significantly more meaningful, than that. Specifically because I had one of those significant moments a couple of years ago, almost as if I was standing there with the ancient Israelites and Moses was telling me personally that I was to build this sanctuary for God to dwell in.

I had been studying T’rumah for approximately six months in preparation for my adult bat mitzvah, but it wasn’t until this “standing at the foot of Sinai moment” that I felt I was actually beginning to understand what it means. It was a Saturday morning before Shabbat services. I had arrived early that morning to practice my reading and hadn’t expected my rabbi to suggest reading from the Torah scroll for the first time; I nervous because I didn’t know if all the work I had been doing would just fall apart when I was faced with the actual Torah in front of me. I began by chanting the blessing, something I’ve practiced numerous times and done in a group countless mornings, and yet I stumbled through it, feeling the enormity of what I was about to do. I read through in Hebrew and began my English translation. By the time I was nearing the end of the translation my emotions were getting the better of me. Here I was, standing before the open ark, before the Torah, and reading the words that have been handed down from generation to generation. I was overwhelmed and could barely choke out the blessing after the reading, even having to pause, and begin again.

As I read, and afterwards while standing in my rabbi’s office, I finally began to understand these words: V’asu li mikdash, v’shachanti b’tocham. “And let them make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” I’ve been told this portion is often used to ask for donations for a building fund or capital campaign, which perhaps makes sense in a fairly profane way. Here we have God instructing Moses that he is to collect an offering from the Israelites so that they can make a sanctuary and an ark for the testimony and, further on, various pieces of furniture and other vessels which will would aid in the sacrificial cult. Before, when studying this portion I had always come to the conclusion that what it really meant was that God didn’t need a house to live in and doesn’t need it to be pretty, but we do. The building is for us, for the Israelites, the people who made the golden calf so as to have something tangible to worship. We need a place to gather, where we can be a community, a place that helps us focus so that we can pray to and worship God. God is still with the Israelites even without a sanctuary, but the physical structure is a reassurance to us, a reminder that yes, God is here in this place. God is with us. We will not forget God, and God will not forget us. It’s an explanation that works on most levels, but, that morning I realized the words meant much more than building a physical structure.

The sanctuary that we are to make is not a building. It is not an ark, or even a tent. We are the sanctuary, each one of us, each community of Jews that comes together to pray, each individual who says the Sh’ma. While searching for meaning in our lives and for our place in our communities we struggle, and sometimes we have to pause, and begin again. And each time we pause we should remember that during our searches and our struggles we are making a sanctuary for God.

Not only is the sanctuary we are making within ourselves and our communities, but we HAVE to be willing participants. We MUST invite God in for the sanctuary to have any meaning. We can build the most beautiful structures, but if we don’t invite God in with willing hearts the sanctuary will be empty, it will not be holy. Conversely, we must also answer God’s initial invitation. Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk tells us that God dwells wherever we let God in. We make for God a sanctuary in our hearts and in our souls when we let him in, when we help the poor and feed the hungry, when we visit the sick and celebrate with bride and groom, when we comfort the bereaved and when we pray with sincerity, when we make peace where there is strife, and yes, when we study Torah. God dwells in each of us and when we come together as a loving and supportive community, God is that much more present.

gender, tzitzit and mitzvot

2008-02-06T07:59:00.001-05:00

My rabbi finally said something about my tzitzit last night. I stopped in his office after Hebrew to say hi and to catch up a bit since it’s been a while since I’ve really gotten a chance to talk to him. So, he asked about why I decided to wear them (after point out he wasn’t sure he was going to actually say anything at all). I told him about how it related to why I chose to wear my kippah all the time— my tallit is this great physical connection as I strive for holiness on Shabbat and at services and I didn’t think it was something I should think about only on Shabbat or at temple. He pointed out that he’s always seen wearing them as a very Orthodox thing, a very Lubavitch thing; also that he always felt that they were very masculine, while wearing a kippah has been something that women have been dong for many years, at least within the more liberal movements, and entailed some self-expression; that wearing tzitzit more or less meant you were Orthodox. He said it got him thinking about how women could making wearing tzitzit their own, and while the option he came up with (attaching them to handbags??) was a little absurd, I’m glad he is thinking about it. I think, though, that what he is stuck on are traditional ideas of what is masculine and feminine, both in a Jewish sense and a general sense. I’m not saying he is close-minded, but I think that in this case he is just kind of stuck in these ideas. I come from a generation, environment, and educational background that questions gender stereotypes and what is “masculine” and what is “feminine.” My tastes have always run towards what is traditionally considered “masculine,” but that’s not why I like things, it’s just what I like. If I liked the idea of wearing a skirt, if I felt comfortable in it or liked how it looked, I would wear one. But, I don’t. I like pants, and t-shirts, and jeans, and polo shirts. I like my hair short and I like gym shoes. So, when I chose to wear a kippah originally, I didn’t look at it as taking on a masculine custom, but rather a custom that spoke to me. The same about wearing a tallit, and the same about wearing tzitzit. I’m not hung up on what is traditionally “masculine” or what is traditionally only done by the Orthodox. It really goes back to what I view is the very idea of Reform Judaism—you are supposed to educate yourself about the mitzvot, about Judaism, and make educate, thoughtful and informed decisions.

He said something else that had me thinking—that while kippot have become a mode of self-expression and are acceptable among Reform Jews and women, tzitzit are still seen as strictly Orthodox by most people. I feel like as a woman, as a Reform Jew, that wearing tzitzit is not only performing a mitzvah it is also a means of self-expression; I am saying who I am as a Jew, or at least part of who I am. They don’t need to be attached to a brightly colored garment to fall into the category of expression. Self-expression comes in many forms and I think that it is time that Reform Jews and women are able to reclaim this without getting questioned about observing this mitzvah. It’s almost like saying “we’ll support you if you find ways to keep Shabbat, in fact we will applaud you. We will encourage you to wear a tallit or a kippah if you find it a meaningful custom or observance.” And we say this to both men and women. So wouldn’t tzitzit fall under that category? When you see the 613 knots you are supposed to be reminded of the mitzvot. Whether you consider the mitzvot binding or not I think most people can agree that at the very least they are a guide to living a moral and ethical life. So, why shouldn’t wearing something that is a physical and visual reminder that there are these guidelines to living our lives as good people, good Jews, shouldn’t we be encouraged, or at the very least supported in the wearing of them? Man, woman, Orthodox, Reform, aren’t we all bound to live moral and ethical lives? No matter how we view the binding nature of the mitzvot, can we at least agree on that?

In the end, I know that he supports me, even if it is not something that speaks to him. And that is why I respect my rabbi.

Jews By Choice dot Org

2008-02-03T16:25:00.000-05:00

This past week began my new role as a contributor on Jews by Choice dot Org. I'm very excited to join a great group of bloggers and to bring my Reform voice to the mix.

I've been pretty busy at work and will be again this week, so I can't promise a lot of new posting here, but I'll try to get some more stuff in before I head out of town for a few days next week on business.

In the meantime, I've posted my first entry over at JBC.org and it's on my current favorite author, Abraham Joshua Heschel. I'm in the midst of Man is Not Alone, so expect some more reaction and response to that in the coming posts here!

משפטים, kashrut, and tzitzit

2008-01-29T12:56:00.000-05:00

I decided that watching the State of the Union last night would only piss me off, so instead I read the Torah portion for this week, משפטים (Mishpatim). And I noticed something interesting for the first time. As I mentioned in a previous post, we many times get stuck on early verses, or at other points and don't get through the entire portion. In משפטים I think we usually get caught up in the section about a fight that results in a woman's miscarriage. Last night I got through the entire parashah, including the following:

23:19 You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

Now, what caught my interest last night was that this prohibition, while seemingly coming at random, follows a list of how to make sacrifices, or more specifically, what things you can or can't do or bring when making a sacrifice to God. For instance, any sacrifice that includes blood (think of all the dashing of the blood we have later in Leviticus) cannot be offered with leavened bread; you can't leave the fat of the offering lying out overnight; and you should bring the choice first fruits of your soil to God. And THEN we get the prohibition against boiling a kids in its mother's milk. So, is it not possible to extrapolate that this is in reference to offering sacrifices as well? Or conversely, the previous verses have also spoken about Shabbat, the Sabbath year, and the festivals--perhaps this prohibition referred only to those specific times.

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I understand part of the reasoning behind kashrut is that it is a way of separating our behavior from our gentile neighbors, to an extent. I think that the lengths which it has been taken to has made it incredibly difficult for many people to follow it perfectly (and as such are discouraged to even attempt to because of the difficulty). It seems to go against common sense to make this a system that so many Jews want to have nothing to do with. I'm not saying that it should be so lax that gentiles and christians adopt it, but especially in our modern world isn't it something that should be amended and revised? Strip away the fences, get back to the root of the original commandments and begin to interpret them in view of our modern understanding of food and Jewish identity. I think my problem with kashrut, at the core, is that it assumes that the wise people, the sages, no longer exist in Judaism. I realize that my views are decidedly Reform, and that's not something I'll apologize for. We have wise Jews today, modern sages, and the interpretation should continue; it shouldn't be stuck in a time that most of us cannot relate to anymore. I feel that it is my duty as a Jew to study, to interpret, and to make decisions for myself. And I love that.

That is one of the reasons I felt good about adopting the mitzvah of wearing tzitzit. I feel a connection to my personal observance, to the miztvot, to my Judaism, and to God, that I most times only feel when I am at temple or praying. I love this physical connection that I have when I wear my tallit during prayer, and I love now having it all of the time. I love that I'm not making a distinction between striving to be holy while I pray and striving to be holy in my daily life. Should my behavior not be the same in and out of shul? If I'm connecting to that part of myself, the part that strives for holiness and a connection to God while I'm at temple, then what am I doing with the rest of my time? Either I'm striving for kedusha or I'm not. And I feel that by donning my tzitzit each day I am taking a small step to make my life holier.

A Welcome Shabbat

2008-01-28T17:19:00.001-05:00

I had a lovely Shabbat this week despite having a crazy and stressful week at work. Services were pretty chill, a decent medium-sized crowd for us. One of the older members was there with his wife, mother, and grandson, and at one point the grandson (who is 4 years old, I believe) decided to do a reverse army crawl under the first row of chairs. It was pretty awesome and a welcome sense of levity after a not fun week. A good friend was also in attendance with her two young children and it was great seeing them as I haven't in quite awhile. She taught me how to say "eat me" in Hebrew to respond to anyone who doesn't like me wearing tzitzit.

Because my rabbi was out of town again our intern would be handling Torah study and services the next morning; as we are friends and as I know he has a lot on his plate anyway, I told him I would read Torah since I had read the 10 commandments on Shavuot and wouldn't need to prepare. So, I got up Saturday morning and looked over things just to remind myself and headed to temple. It was a good Torah study, using some Rashi and Sforno and some of the new Women's Torah Commentary from the WRJ, though as usual, we didn't get through much. We have a tendency to get about 2 lines in and start our debating and not get much farther.

The Torah service went well and I only flubbed a couple of words, mostly because the scroll we were using is not the clearest.

And then I went home, had lunch, and took the day of rest thing literally by going to sleep for 3.5 hours. It was great.

What is it about being a teenager?

2008-01-28T11:59:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday I had a city-wide teacher in-service to attend on Israel. It's for local religious and Hebrew school teachers, and it pretty much sucked. Instead of providing us with hands-on training and ideas about how to plan lesson plans and practical ways to teach Israel we were lectured to about Israel's history. Which, I'm sorry, but we could have all picked up a book and read about it and been a) better informed and b) much more interested.

However, as I was leaving (early) the director of the Conservative high school stopped me and asked me if I would be interested in teaching an art class on Sunday nights. It turns out their usual teacher couldn't do it and they were desperate. Despite the fact that I have a pretty full schedule with my own job and teaching at my own temple I agreed to do it. It's only an 8-week thing and I have pretty much free reign on the art projects I want to do. So, last night was my first class and it is populated by mostly 8th-graders, all of whom seem to be quite ambivalent about attending religious school, and couldn't care less about an art class. It was frustrating to say the least, especially because it seems we will be doing craft projects instead so as to keep them busy and from gossiping the entire time. Oh, well.

I truly did appreciate my well-behaved and eager-to-learn 4th graders, though.

Loneliness = Belief in God & Loving Your Dog?

2008-01-25T09:27:00.000-05:00

I recently read an article on MSNBC.com about how lonely people are more likely to believe in God.

When people feel lonely, they may try to rekindle old friendships, seek out new ones or, as Epley's study suggests, they may create social connections by anthropomorphizing nearby gadgets, such as computers or cars, pets, or by believing in supernatural events or religious figures.
In their study, detailed in the February issue of the journal Psychological Science, Epley's team tried to induce feelings of loneliness in people to see how it affected how they thought of pets and their belief in religious figures.

I'm not sure what to think of this. I find it interesting that belief in God and anthropomorphizing pets is lumped into the same type of thing. I personally don't think that my belief in God stems from loneliness. I think it could be argued that joining an organized religion can grow out of loneliness, but I think you could make the same argument that joining an intramural sports team, a book club, or whatnot also stems from loneliness and a need to be social. The behavior I can understand, but the belief? No. I think belief in God is much deeper and more complex than loneliness.

Surrey w/ the fringe(s) on top...

2008-01-23T12:54:00.002-05:00

This past Saturday marked a new chapter in my journey into observance: I began wearing tzitzit. It is something that I have been considering taking on for quite awhile (case in point: I actually purchased the tzitzit more than 2 years ago), but just came to the decision to do it last week. Part of why I chose now to do it is that I have been wearing a kippah at all times for over a year now; I've grown comfortable with being outwardly Jewish in all aspects of my public life. I felt it was time to be outwardly Jewish in a commanded way. The other reason is that wearing my tallit on Shabbat or when I pray is very special to me; it reminds me of who I am as a Jew and where I am going. Having this physical reminder every day, all day long, is something that I wanted (incidentally that was one of the reasons I initially began to wear my kippah at all times). Why should I only be reminded of my journey while I am praying and not all the time. Am I not a Jew all of the time?

So far it has been very positive for me. I've gotten a few questions about what they were at work (someone asked me if it was some kind of belt) and a couple of friends have congratulated me on taking this step. I saw my rabbi for the first time last night and he was kind of frazzled so I don't know if he noticed; I specifically picked a weekend that I wouldn't see him (there was a youth group trip) so that I could achieve a comfort level before he commented--which isn't to say he will comment negatively, or even at all. It's an odd quirk of mine; this is the rabbi I converted under and part of me will always be his student and looking for his approval in some way; it's not necessarily logical.

Beyond that, the only problem I've run into is purely practical: going to the bathroom. It may sound crude, but how does one sit down without risking getting the fringes wet? My initial solution is to tuck everything under my shirt and kind of roll it up. It has worked so far. The other practical problem is that I dislike it when a shirt rides up and reveals any skin. If I am wearing a polo shirt or a t-shirt that does this, I'll wear an undershirt that can be tucked in. I've noticed that the tzitzit tend to make this happen even on shirts that don't normall ride up, so I've been wearing an undershirt under the tzitzit, which in turn is under my outer shirt. This is all fine and good in the winter when one more layer is just going to be better anyway, but Cincinnati gets hot during the summer, so I'm going to need to figure something out. I know I could just tuck the fringes in, but then I feel like the point of wearing them, my own visual reminder, is moot.

The Year of Living Biblically

2008-01-23T12:30:00.001-05:00

Last week I read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. I had heard from a number of friends that it was something I would enjoy, and being a fan of the author already, I figured it was definitely worth my time, especially considering the premise of the book. If you don't know what it is about, here is how he describes it on his website:

"The Year of Living Biblically is about my quest to live the ultimate biblical life. To follow every single rule in the Bible – as literally as possible."

With that in mind, I sat down Thursday night to read and could not put it down. Between 8pm and midnight I had read 2/3 of the book and finished it Friday evening after temple.

My initial reaction to it is that it was an admirable undertaking, especially for a self-described agnostic. I had been curious ahead of time how much he would follow strict biblical law versus later interpretation (and by later I mean Talmudic). It turns out that he truly was trying to follow what the bible says and not what the rabbis later deemed the bible meant. For instance, there is the commandment to wear fringes on the corners of your garments. He decided, at first, to take this quite literally and attached tassels to his shirt collars, which made me chuckle, trying to imagine this crazy, bearded man with tassels that you would see on a curtain (or so I pictured) hanging down from his collar.

What struck me most, however, were some of the conclusions that Jacobs came to throughout his year. Most significantly, I think, is that he came to realize that religion, at least Judaism, can't be a solitary pursuit to have the significance that one is often looking for. You need community to celebrate with, mourn with, pray with, and simply live a religious life with. A lot of people would agree that it is so much easier to live a certain way if the people around you are also living that way. Jacobs tried to do so much of his following of the commandments as an individual that I think he truly missed out on how much the religion can shape your life for the better. The results of his journey would have been completely different had he been trying to follow one religion strictly instead of the bible.

I would recommend this to anyone who is trying to observe more mitzvot, or even for people who aren't. It's an insightful and interesting read on a topic approached with humor that so many times is approached with seriousness that can border on fanaticism.

Good Jewish Books

2008-01-16T11:03:00.001-05:00

My new slide show to the right will include Jewish books that I have either read or am in the process of reading. I'd like to do small write-ups of the books I found most helpful while in the conversion process and post them periodically.

Teaching Hebrew

2008-01-16T08:57:00.000-05:00

I teach Alef Hebrew to 4th graders at my temple. We have class on Sundays and Tuesdays, for a total of 1 hour 45 minutes each week (the first part of their Sunday is spent on Judaic studies). Not really a ton of time, but we do what we can with it. We began the year by reviewing the Alef-Bet, something they were learning over the course of K–3rd. I was optimistic as we went through the book; a few struggled with remembering the letters, but for the most part everyone was doing great. We finished our review fairly quickly (according to our religious school director no 4th grade ever finishes Alef-Bet review before the December break and we finished in November, I believe) and moved on to learning to read, beginning with the Barechu. The one thing they really seemed to struggle with were the vowels. Remembering which vowel makes the "eh" sound, versus the "oh" sound, versus the "ooh" sound was a challenge for a few of them. And the sheva caused many a headache. But, they were doing well, they were trying hard and I felt really good about where we were.

And then last night. Last night was awesome. We began the evening talking about the Sh'ma (chapter 3). I had written 5 or 6 Hebrew words on the white board with no vowels for later. At one point one of my students asked me if the Torah had the vowels and all of the other dots in it so you would know if the letter was a shin or sin, bet or vet, etc. I told her that it didn't and she asked how we knew which it was. I explained to her about grammar and how at some point you just recognize the word, plus you practice with the vowels ahead of time (I could see them worrying already about their Torah portions for their b'nei mitzvot). We moved on and did a little more in the book. And then I had them close their books and look up at the board. I asked them if they recognized any of the words without their vowels or any dagesh. It's an exercise I've done before to help them remember their vowels and what each sounds like; if they know the word (or I help them out with it), they have to figure out which vowel goes where, using their ears. But, last night had the extra bonus that not only did they figure out where the vowels were supposed to go (with a hint or two at times), but they recognized the words without the vowels or any dagesh. I was so proud of them and I could tell that they were proud of themselves.

Torah As An Entry Point

2008-01-15T08:08:00.000-05:00

The following was originally written out free-hand and kind of meanders through a number of concepts that I've been mulling over.

I think that one of the major challenges facing Jewish converts is the concept of Judaism as a people hood. How do you convert to a people? How do you legitimately adopt what can be seen as ethnic customs? How can you do so and at the very least feel legitimate? We have this hurdle, and it is one that can be, at times, insurmountable, and at others like stepping over a crack in the sidewalk. We did not grow up with traditional, or even nontraditional, customs that our fellow Jews have. We can feel like pretenders when we try these out. I think it can be difficult to separate the rituals that we do to sustain our religious lives from those that sustained the culture of the Jews. Lighting candles, praying, studying, putting on tallit and tefillin, keeping kosher--these are ways, rituals, that enhance our religion (and by extension, culture). We should never feel illegitimate by adopting these, but it happens.

I think it is important to emphasize the concept of a Jewish people hood to converts, but to do it through Torah, through religious aspects. Not through food or Eastern European customs or Yiddish phrases. Torah should be the entry into Judaism, for all Jews, not just converts. Developing in people a love of Torah is essential.

When I was going through my conversion, each Saturday my rabbi would allow us all to come up to the bimah with him as he read from the Torah. And as I learned Hebrew and the stories I was hearing, I had this amazing physical connection to the Torah that I don't think a lot of people in the conversion process do. It wasn't just a spiritual or intellectual connection. And as I write this now I find myself thinking about how ironic it is that I don't kiss the Torah--clearly I feel a connection to its physicality, but to me the physicality is human-created manifestation of God's word and so I don't want to kiss the object of the Torah. I want to kiss the words of the Torah through my devotion to learning it, my quest for a closeness to God, my yearning to be holy. I don't want to fall into revering this physical presence more than I do the presence of God in the words.

I read Torah for the first time 2 years ago, though it wasn't on the morning of my bat mitzvah, but rather a few weeks prior. And it was such an intense and emotional experience it truly cemented my love of and connection to Torah. It is was the combination of how hard I had worked + the fact that I was reading from the scroll which I had been seeing my rabbi read for years + the feeling that for the first time I was really speaking the word of God. For those few minutes I was completely overwhelmed by God's presence--I had opened myself up to it and sought Him by seeking out the Torah and there He was.

Heschel says that "to sense the presence of God in the Bible one must learn to be present to God in the Bible" (God in Search of Man, 252). We must make ourselves open to the idea that the Bible is a living document, a living ideal, and that God lives through it. We cannot just study the Torah for its historical meaning, or for literature (though those are both legitimate studies). We must be willing to see the spiritual realm of the Torah for God to be present when we read and study it.

I am a fairly rational person--I want good reasoning behind the whys and wherefores of things, but when it comes to Torah, I'm okay not having a rational explanation for the parting of the Red Sea or for the prophets or for any of the miracles. Because God is not rational. Belief in God cannot be reasoned out.

Heschel also says that "we do not explore first and decide afterwards whether to accept the Jewish way of living. We must accept in order to be able to explore. At the beginning is the commitment, the supreme acquiescence" (282). And I disagree with that. While my belief in God may not be rational and reasoned, my journey into and through Judaism is. Because Judaism is my approach to my belief in God I feel it is vital to do what is right for me. And blindly accepting traditional Judaism and then learning about what I've accepted just doesn't make sense to me. And I think this is how many serious Reform Jews approach their Judaism--we believe in God, and we accept that, but we aren't willing to just accept everything and every practice within traditional Judaism. I think it is somewhat insincere to accept the idea of Judaism without informing yourself about what you are accepting.

But, you might say, what about when the Israelites said (and I paraphrase) "we will do and we will hear?" Is it truly antithetical to Judaism to learn and then decide? I don't believe so because we are not standing at Sinai as the Israelites did. The Judaism we would be accepting today is not the Judaism that they were accepting at Mt. Sinai. And honestly we each do have our own Sinai moments where we accept the idea of God and then try to hear what he wants of us. "Even the laws of the Torah are not absolute," (415) Heschel writes. Therefore the laws that man derived from the Torah are not absolute. Heschel says that "nothing is deified: neither power nor wisdom, neither heroes nor institutions" (415). But has traditional Judaism not done just that? Is it not just as big as sin (by traditional standards) to break the laws that man derived from the Torah as the actual Torah laws themselves? If the laws of the Torah are not absolute, and by extension the laws of man are not absolute, isn't it being a responsible Jew to study and to learn and to make informed decisions about what is right?

Dinner w/ the Rabbinic Students, etc.

2008-01-11T16:47:00.000-05:00

Last night was the birthday dinner for two friends of mine, both of whom are married to rabbinic students here in town. So, almost the entire party was, in some way, related to HUC except for me. I enjoy hanging out with my rabbinic student friends because they can go from talking about midrash and Rambam to the fact that someone's son's girlfriend is a horrible driver to Israel to teaching to Einstein's spirituality to who is dating who to dirty jokes and back again. I love being with people who understand my language and who aren't going to ask me what I'm talking about if I mention something Jewish. I love that no one there will judge you for eating a cheeseburger, but that someone is sure to point out that the birthday cake is not pareve for those who care. I love when the talk turns to Shabbat.

Tonight is Tot Shabbat, a Pre-K through 2nd Grade dinner, and a family service. The temple will be teeming with kids and it is one of the few times I consider skipping Friday night completely. But my friends with small children will likely be there, and I do enjoy being with them on Shabbat, so I'll go. I'll just take preventative Advil before I leave.

Tomorrow is my first Torah study w/ my rabbi in quite awhile, since before the Biennial. I went to another temple last week because we didn't have services, and it was good, but I'll be glad to be back in my home temple and learning with my rabbi.

And Sunday is Religious School. I have a faculty meeting afterwards to map out lesson plans for the 2nd half of the year, which I don't really want to do. Not because I don't want to be prepared, but I teach 4th grade Hebrew and the next class really depends on what we get done in the current class. I plan for Tuesday after Sunday, and for Sunday after Tuesday. If the kids aren't getting things quickly, I'll choose to spend more time on something and not move on. But, I'll go because that's what I'm supposed to do. Hopefully I can get out of the all-city in service which is next week, I believe. Those are usually kinda crappy.

Awareness of God

2008-01-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago I read Abraham Joshua Heschel's God In Search of Man. It was an amazing book and it gave me a lot to think about. I'm going to take the opportunity to share some of my thoughts I wrote out as I read the book.

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"Awareness of wonder is not the same as knowing the wonders that happen to us. Wonders happen without our being able to notice them." (p. 50)

Such is the awareness of the presence of God. Knowing that there is a God is not the same as feeling the presence of God in our daily lives. Do we seek out that feeling? You bet--I think that's what prayer is. God may always be around, but we are only aware of Him, or feel that awareness, at certain moments of our lives. Perhaps the awareness is always there, living inside of us and there are certain experiences, deed, or thoughts that can unlock this box of awareness (mitzvot) and bring it to the forefront of our consciousness. We must seek out these moments and create them–they will be rare if we simply sit back and wait for God to happen. The Jewish idea of God is a hard one--we must work for it, we must strive to bring about the moments of awareness–maybe this is why we are commanded to pray 3 times a day, to care for the sick and the poor, to honor our parents, etc. It is through mitzvot, however you define it (commandments, good deeds, etc.) that we give ourselves opportunities to experience God, but that can't be the initial reason behind our deeds. Our deeds must come from a place of giving and kindness; perhaps it is only through pure selfless acts that we bring about our awareness of God.

So, each time we worship it is an opportunity to unlock our awareness of God. Each time we sit down individually or with others to learn we give ourselves an opportunity to unlock that awareness. The same with our actions, our mitzvot.

And one we have experienced that awareness we will seek it out more and more. Will we alway feel it? Probably not, but I think we will feel other things–the growth of relationships, of our awareness of our own abilities and potential, an awareness of the world around us. Does all of this equal an awareness of God? Some might say yes. I don't think so, because an awareness of God is like experiencing all of that at once x1000. It is emotional and overwhelming and a magical moment.

I do think we get glimpses of it at other times, though. When I feel a surge of love for someone, or awe at the beauty of nature, or wonder at the vastness of the universe, this is my awareness of God sneaking out, touching me, allowing me to feel these things. And it is a gift.

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What happens when we seek God when He is not near? Does our seeking make God near? Does God withdraw when we do not seek Him? How must we seek God to make Him near? With an open heart and a mind open to the possibility of God–we can't approach God with a closed spirit and expect Him to respond. But, we also can't expect God to respond in terms we necessarily understand. What happens if God responds and is present and we are not aware of it? How long will He wait around for us until we become aware? Must we become aware on the level of "Ah-ha"? Or does god show up, patient, when you call out to Him, and stay with you as you journey towards awareness of His presence? I think it is a gradual awareness, at least it was for me. I call out for God at some point in my life and I might not have know I was even doing it. And at some point I became aware. Now, the huge question is, was God always there and just waiting for me to cry out? Or does God wait for us to seek Him? And what is the difference if each situation ends in awareness? Because how we got there is just as important, if not more so, than actually getting there. I'm going to get more out of a long, rambling journey through the country-side than a congested and straight-forward freeway, but for others the freeway is the best and most useful option. Each journey is different and God responds to them all. But does God respond differently?

We can read and learn and memorize all we want, but we must experience God to have faith.

Biennial, Day 3–5 (personal observations)

2008-01-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

I'm going to combine my personal observations about the Biennial for days 3–5, mostly because Day 4 was Shabbat and was a pretty chill day, and Day 5 included much traveling.

So, Day 3 was an interesting day. It began with prayer and ended with really great Jewish music. I was feeling pretty good and comfortable at the Biennial by the third day, something which I think relieved my rabbi to a certain extent.

I had lunch with a woman I had met in the Shabbat session on Day 2, and it was a nice lunch, getting to hear someone else's story and why they have a commitment to Judaism. She said something interesting during our conversation that sparked off quite a bit of thinking on my part. We were talking about our congregations and rabbis and she mentioned that the rabbi who had basically brought her back into Judaism, had married her, had been such a huge part of her life, fell off her pedestal at the end of her tenure at the temple. It got me thinking a lot about the role of the rabbi and the appropriateness of putting them on another level than ourselves and what that does to both our own view of Judaism and our relationship with the clergy. I was worried that I was in that position, putting my rabbi on a pedestal where he could do no wrong and that one day he would fall off. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn't the case. I have a close relationship with my rabbi; we're friends, but more than that he is my mentor and my spiritual leader. But I have never once believed he was this perfect person who could do no wrong. I like and respect him not because he is perfect, but because he is imperfect and is able to recognize and acknowledge that himself. He doesn't pretend to be the absolute authority on everything, he doesn't pretend that he is the smartest when it comes to Torah, and he doesn't try to put himself on a separate level from his congregation and students. On more than one occasion he has said something that has either ticked me off or offended me, and I have taken each time as an opportunity to speak up and state why saying what he said upset me. And each time he has listened.

I think we do a disservice to our clergy when we expect them to be perfect, to never say anything wrong, to never do anything wrong, and to be the Jews we can't be ourselves. Their role is to teach and to guide and to help us along our spiritual path, and yes, they are role models, but so are other Jews. We can't put this pressure on our rabbis to be everything Jewish to us at all times. They are men and women who have dedicated their lives to the Jewish people, but they are also men and women. They are still students themselves, constantly learning, from each other and from us. As much as I learn from my rabbi, I know he learns from those of us in the congregation who engage him in discussion and study. Judaism is lifelong learning and it's not something the ends when you have your bat or bar mitzvah, or when you finish religious school, or are confirmed, or even when you are ordained.

I feel like if we are able to see our rabbis as perpetual students, just like ourselves, we won't feel the need to put them on untouchable pedestals, and they won't, in the end, fall off of those pedestals.

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Shabbat. Before Shabbat even began there was this feeling in the air, a sense of anticipation, of excitement that I've never felt before. As I was sitting in my final workshop of the day on Friday I was overcome with this intense feeling of.... I can't even describe it. It was like my mind and my body were saying "Shabbat is almost here! We're ready!" The exhaustion of the week and knowing that this wonderful evening of prayer and day of rest were coming was overwhelming. It was almost as if I could feel the sun sinking lower in the sky. It was nearly Shabbat and I was ready. And man, what a Shabbat. After 3 incredibly full days of workshops and lectures and meeting people and all of the excitement of Biennial, Shabbat was a welcome respite. I attended a Torah study breakfast with a friend from my temple (I was strictly forbidden to attend my rabbi's, though he said later he wished I had been there because it went really well) and then we joined up with my rabbi and the rest of the people from my congregation for services. I like the services, but again, the large number of people made it less than ideal. It was neat getting to actually sit in the congregation with my rabbi instead of him leading. We were just two Jews praying.

I have to get back to work now, but I'll try and post more about my Shabbat thoughts later.

Let's Be Honest w/ Ourselves

2008-01-08T08:49:00.001-05:00

I'm going to take a break from recounting my experience at the Biennial to write about something else, something I think that as a serious Reform Jew, one who converted through the Reform movement, I should address. And that is conversion itself. The following might be controversial and is a bit jumbled but here it is:

I just read a post on a blog (here if you want to read) that deals with the emotional frustrations when confronted with born Jews or Orthodox converts who believe that you aren't "really" Jewish. The poster, a Reform convert, had a troubling conversation with an older Jewish gentleman whose questions about her observance and her process, and his eventual pronouncements on her actual Jewishness, seemed to really shake her foundation of how she sees her Jewish self. I think this highlights the problem that people going through, or have gone through, the conversion process within the Reform movement face: their feelings of inadequacy when faced with more traditional Jews. It is something I don't know if rabbis address enough, and I think it is damaging, not just to the converts, but to the entire Reform movement. Because at the heart of the matter is what is considered "authentic" Judaism and who is an "authentic" Jew.

I began my formal conversion process 5 years ago, and became a Jew, officially, on March 30, 2004. But, in reality my process began much earlier, in college, and by the time I had my beit din and received my Hebrew name, I had felt Jewish for a long time. I am a Jew. I don't equivicate that and say I am a Reform Jew. I am, simply a Jew. I belong to the Reform movement, and I am proud to be affiliated with it. I am not Reform because I want to do the least amount of observance. I am Reform because I believe in figuring out what is right for you and not just blindly following tradition; that is one of the many problems I had with my Catholic upbringing. I believe that tradition and observance is important but only if there is meaning behind your actions.

This sentence is going to be contentious, but it is what I feel: being a serious Reform Jew is hard, harder than being Conservative or Orthodox, because a Reform Jew must inform themselves about what they are doing. You must educate themselves and discover the whys of doing something and not just do it. You aren't just told "this is what Jews do, so just go and do it." Each level of observance I take on is a very conscious choice that I debate and struggle with before I take it on. I've recently started down the path towards keeping kosher, and it is a path that I have gone back and forth on in my head since before I converted. Was this meaningful me? Would it be meaningful for me? I needed to make sure that I wasn't choosing to do something simply to take on a traditional observance.

People who convert through the Reform movement with the idea in their head that they will eventually convert again through Conservative or Orthodox to be "more authentic" are dishonest. Those who convert Reform, seriously, and are later drawn towards Conservative or Orthodox, well I believe that if they come to the conclusion by being honest with themselves and not out of some sense of inadequacy, it is valid. However, I find it troubling to read or hear these Reform converts doubt their own Jewishness or allow others to question it and not be able to defend themselves. I think this is a failing of their rabbi. I think it is just as important for a rabbi to help the convert learn about the what of Judaism as it is to learn about the why, especially the why of converting in their specific movement. Reform rabbis who are working with people in the conversion process MUST address the inevitable questioning that these people will get about themselves and their Jewish identity, and they must do it in an open and honest way, with no pressure, no agenda. I think that if someone goes into the conversion process with some doubts as to the movement they are going through, this should be addressed at the beginning. Why Reform? What does being Reform mean in the 21st Century? What does being a committed Reform Jew mean? These rabbis need to be able to help converts find and feel comfortable in their identities as Jews. If other people can make them doubt their own Jewishness (as opposed to genuinely being drawn to a different movement) then the rabbi has not done a good job in helping to shape and solidify that person's identity.

It is vitally important that Reform rabbis help the people studying with them towards conversion understand what it means to be a committed Reform Jew. They need to stress that this isn't the "easy" way towards conversion and that it isn't Judaism-lite. They must help instill a pride in being Jewish, and pride for the Reform heritage they are coming into, for the Jewish heritage they are coming into.

Converts will never have the same experiences that people born Jewish have. We won't have the experience of Jewish summer camp, of learning to our prayers for b'nei mitzvot with our friends, of being a part of a Jewish home from an early age. This can cause stress and sometimes depression in people who are converting, and it must be addressed by rabbis. It should be talked about, frequently, and with many people. It is not just enough to talk to rabbis. It is just as important to talk to other Reform converts who are comfortable with who they are as Jews. I think it is probably difficult for a rabbi to fully understand the stress that converts can feel unless they were converts themselves.

It is completely valid to have these feelings; at one point I had them myself--I was surrounded by people who had experienced all these life events as Jews, while I was attending mass and Catholic school. But after awhile I realized that my past experiences were just that--the past. What I did with my present and my future was going to be important in shaping my Jewish identity. In a sense I felt lucky because I didn't have the family baggage or expectations weighing me down. Who I became as Jew would be up to me and me alone.

So, I ask fellow Reform converts and those in the conversion process: let's be honest with ourselves. Be honest up front with why you are converting through the Reform movement. Is it because they temple is closest or it's the only game in town? Is it because you like the rabbi? Or is it because you genuinely feel that this is how things should be done, that the Reform approach of informed decision is what is right for you? Do you think that somewhere down the line you will convert Conservative or Orthodox to be more authentic in the eyes of more Jews? Who is your conversion for? You or a future spouse who may or may not see you as Jewish? Or is it for the faceless others who you feel will judge you and your conversion?

Becoming a Jew is becoming part of a larger whole, a people. But it is also about becoming YOU. It is important to feel a connection with the Jewish people, but it is just as important to forge a personal relationship with Judaism, and in the ultimate end, with God. Because when it comes down to it you are presumably converting to Judaism because it is how you are connecting to God and that is the most important thing. I think we get so caught up in what makes a Jew a Jew that we lose sight on the fundamental reason for converting in the first place is our relationship with God, not our relationship with man-made constructions of identity.

I am a Jew because I believe Judaism to be the best way to connect with God. I am a Reform Jew because I believe it is the most authentic and valid way for me to forge my Jewish connection to God, opening up a world to me that is precious and genuine.

Biennial, Day 3 (content observations part 2)

2008-01-02T12:15:00.000-05:00

Workshop #2
Making the Journey from the Gates to the Mishkan
w/ Cantor Chanin Becker-Rosin of Scarsdale Synagogue-Tremont Temple in Scarsdale, NY; Rabbi Edwin Goldberg of Temple Judea in Coral Gables, FL; Diana S. Herman of Temple Emanu-El in Edison, NJ; and Rabbi Sheryl Nosan-Blank of Temple Or Rishon in Orangevale, CA

I was quite eager to attend this workshop as I was recently added to the Ritual Committee at my temple and one of the major things we will be undertaking in coming months is an evaluation of Mishkan T'filah.

So, from my notes:
• it's an opportunity to look at the larger worship picture
• how do you address the differences?
• how do you introduce it appropriately?
• it is important to recognize that we all come w/ our own framework
• do you transition or just jump in and use it?
• offer different opportunities for groups to look at the pages, think and talk through the different options during the service--->get them into the siddur, the prayers, and the thinking
• introduce through chavruta study
• remind people that prayer is about an approach to God, not the book itself
• use familiar melodies to keep people feeling comfortable*
• use niggunim to connect texts
• start out with the linear service option and move to the choices as people become more comfortable with the book

*The example they used was for the morning blessing for the soul (Elohai n'shama....); the cantor (who, by the way, had one of the most striking and rich voices I've ever heard) sang the familiar melody as we either read through the English translation together, then sang along with her, then read the two alternate english readings.

One of the major points brought up is that congregations should probably transition gradually; don't just jump into the new siddur so that you alienate people, but don't resist it just because it is new. I hadn't realized that there were 2 linear services available (Shabbat evening and morning), so I think that will definitely help; the spread format can be difficult to get used to, but after using Mishkan for a number or services at the Biennial I felt quite comfortable with the format. The moderators brought up the point that people will know to turn the page or that the prayer is done because of the final line of Hebrew that comes up (even on the English sections), though I forget the term they used for it.

Someone in the audience asked the question of what do we do with our old siddurim. One of the suggestions was to donate them to a congregation that cannot afford siddurim at all (such as congregations in poor cities/towns/countries, new congregations, etc.). Another suggestion was to contact the families or individuals who purchased a book (or books) and see if they would like them (and also see if they would like to donate to the fund for the new book).

I heard some mumblings from people about how they assumed we'd be getting more concrete ideas about the actual transition, but I thought the dialogue was fairly helpful. And to be honest, I don't think enough congregations have begun using it to have a truly concrete method that will work, in addition to the fact that each congregation is unique.

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After the workshop I sat and chatted with a new acquaintance from Tennessee whose wife is a first-year student at HUC; I hope to keep in touch with them because he had a lot of interesting things to say, both about Mishkan and Reform practice in general.

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Friday evening was, of course, Shabbat services at what SRK referred to as "Beit Jumbo-tron." Coming from a congregation of approx. 250 families, I'm not used to ever being at services with more than 500 people (and that's just HHD), so 5000 people was fairly overwhelming. The 4 of use from my temple just followed SRK like little ducklings through the aisles, trying to stay together, finally getting 5 seats together at the end of two rows.

So, the service itself... it was okay. Everyone told me before I left for the Biennial that Shabbat services would just be so powerful and that "hearing 5000 Jews all saying the Shema at the same time will just take your breath away." And yes, it was pretty cool to be praying with a ton of people who truly wanted to be there and weren't there out of some feeling of obligation. But, truth be told, I attend a small temple for a reason. The intimacy of know most, if not all, of the people around me is much more powerful for me than a large hall of people. But, for the most part I thought it was a decent service. The Sh'lichei Tzibur (service leaders) were pretty decent (Rabbi Donald M. Goor of Temple Judea in Tarzana, CA and Cantor John M. Kaplan of Temple Israel in Memphis, TN) and the music was okay. The feel of it was just... off. I think a lot of it has to do with the large screens, which I totally understand the need for since the room was o large and no seats were raised up; for people who need connect visually to the service leader, the screens are a necessity. That said, people should probably learn how to behave with them a little better for services. Anytime people would see themselves on the screen (if the cameras panned out over the congregation) they would point and wave and generally act like they were on the jumbo-tron at the ballgame.

I'll have more comments about actual worship styles with the Shabbat morning post.

Go here for an interesting article about the mega-church feel of Shabbat at the Biennial (and of Reform practice in general). For some good discussion of this article, go here.

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After services we went to the regional Shabbat dinner; I was a little annoyed because when signing up for the dinner you are asked for food allergies. I have an allergy to most orange foods (it's odd and I don't know really anyone else who has it), probably because of the beta-carotene, but whatever it is I can't eat things like carrots and pumpkin and sweet potatoes. So, I put those allergies down (listing very specific foods, not just "no orange food") and my meal ticket said "Chicken-S," the "s" standing for special. First off, I had to pick the shredded carrots out of my salad. I usually don't like to do this since I seem to always miss some, but I wasn't going to complain because seating wasn't assigned. However, when they were bringing food out they forgot that I needed a special plate and I was given one with a ton of cooked carrots mixed in with the other veggies. I pointed out to my server that my "special" was b/c of an allergy to carrots. So, they took the plate away and then took 20 minutes to bring me a new one, during which time everyone else at my table finished their meals and SRK decided to move things along a bit with the servers; they claimed they need to go all the way back to the kitchen for it, which is why it took so long. However, when they did bring me something, it was the exact same meal, with about 3 fewer carrots. I just didn't eat any vegetables that night because I had a feeling if I didn't take that plate I'd get to eat dinner as everyone else began benching.

My frustration is on 2 levels here: if you are going to ask about food allergies you should actually use the information. Secondly, my food allergy, while not so severe that I was going to have my airway close up just by being in the presence of a carrot, is still an allergy that makes me quite uncomfortable but was obviously not taken seriously by those in charge of the food. Had my allergy been to nuts I can assure you that I would not have received a plate in the first place with the allergy-causing substance on it, and certainly not if I had pointed it out. I have a feeling they were just assuming that I didn't like carrots (which isn't true; I love carrots and hate the fact that I can't eat them).

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After dinner was the Shabbat Song Session, which was pretty awesome. Lots of great singing and lots of energy. Then we headed up to hear the Michelle Citrin and the Josh Nelson Project, both of who were amazing. I highly recommend checking out their music.

Then it was back to the hotel and collapsing into bed.

Biennial, Day 3 (content observations part 1)

2007-12-27T12:58:00.001-05:00

Day 3 at the Biennial began w/ services outdoors ("God is in This Place..." Finding God and Ourselves Outside the Sanctuary led by Rabbi Daniel Gottlieb of Kol Ami in Thornhill, ON, and Cantor Micah Floryn Morgovsky of North Country Reform Temple-Ner Tamid in Glen Cove, NY. I did not get as much energy from it as I had the day before with the singing service, but it was okay. It was a little too chilly to be outside, but the sky was spectacular and the sunrise was beautiful. The tenor of the service itself did not really suit my particular preferences, having one cantor with a voice that was good but show-y, and awkward congregant participation. I would also like to point out that I need to figure out how I feel about the silent Amidah repetition. In my home temple we do not do this, so whenever I am in a service where it is customary I feel somewhat awkward with my prayer. I think part of it is the time allotted does not seem to really give people a chance to go through the prayers fully or with any kind of consciousness. Every time I have encountered the silent Amidah it has been stated that when you are done you should sit down. I get very distracted by this, seeing other people finishing, wanting to hurry along myself. I have never been able to fully connect to praying this way any time I've done it.

On another point: while the title of the service suggested that we were leaving behind the sanctuary, in my opinion, we did not. Yes, we were outside instead of in, so there were no walls or ceiling. But, there were still chairs lined up in sections and rows, there was still a microphone and podium. It felt no different in many ways than being in doors. While the sunrise and the sky were gorgeous, I did not feel like we were really leaving a traditional sanctuary setting. If we had gone down to the water or onto a beach, perhaps it would have felt more removed from the traditional setting. Or if they had taken away the chairs. I don't know, but after attending the workshop the day before about finding spirituality in nature, I expected more. This was simply a change of location, not a change of setting, if that makes any sense.

(A sidenote: there were usually 4 morning services to choose from, including one focused on meditation, one on yoga, one for women, one for men, one all in Hebrew, etc.)

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Workshop #1
Think Globally, Act Locally: Dialoguing with Christians and Muslims about Israel
w/ Rabbi Meir Azari, Rabbi Paul Golomb, Ethan Felson, and Rabbi Peter Knobel

I really enjoyed this workshop despite being a row directly in front of a bunch of NFTY kids who were obnoxious and loud and rude the entire time (though I did, at one point, turn around and say "you might not be here to listen and learn, but the rest of us are, so BE QUIET").

From my notes:
• "Clergy are the necessary evil in dialogue."
• When we engage in dialogue w/ Christians we use Christian terminology/language (ie. the 10 "Commandments" being displayed in government space)
• We need to express our commonalities, but more importantly we must get to our differences to come to grips with them!
• The Holy Land: what do we mean by this? What is holy? (Torah, people, Shabbat)
---Torah: we stay far, physically from it, only use it w/ strict rules
---Shabbat: we rest, we do what we don't do the rest of the week
---Holiness is that which is antithetical to the norm
• The idea of what the "Holy" in "Holy Land" means for each group MUST be discussed.
• In what way is Jerusalem holy? It can't be assigned in the same was we usually assign the word holy.
• The use of "Holy Land" by evangelicals and protestants is very different than how we think of the word holy (I wish I had more on this, but I think at some point I stopped writing so I could just listen).

One of the major things brought up was the fact that we cannot discuss Israel w/o discussing Zionism and we need to go into the conversation w/ Muslims not expecting to change their minds about Zionism. One of the rabbis was from Israel and he really brought home exactly why we must have conversations with people about Israel, and why we must be committed to it even if we disagree with some policies.

Biennial, Day 2 (personal observations)

2007-12-27T12:37:00.004-05:00

So, my 2nd day at the Biennial was definitely better than the first. As I said in the earlier post, I began the day at services, and that was by far the best way to begin the day. I felt energized and ready to go and learn.

My fellow congregants at the Biennial and I went out for lunch with our rabbi and had an excellent time. It was a beautiful day (ah, San Diego weather), so we sat outside at a really good seafood/steak place. I've decided to attempt a kosher diet come the secular new year, beginning with cutting out pork and shellfish, so I figured that since I was in a coastal city I would have some good seafood while I still could. I had a bowl of clam clam chowder and some crab thing and my rabbi's comment was "wow, you have a bowl of treif next to a plate of treif." Ha ha ha. I pointed out to him last week what I'm doing, which he respects, so that's fine. It was amusing though. I did, however, take my kippah off while we ate. While I wear it all the time I do take it off if I am doing something totally non-kosher (like eating pork or shellfish).

I will say this about wearing my kippah at the Biennial: it was awesome to see so many other people, and especially women, wearing them the entire time. I don't imagine that everyone who had a kippah on during those 5 days wears one on a daily basis in their home life, but it was great none-the-less. I even purchased a brand-new Bucharian-style kippah that I normally would not have spent as much money on. But, I justified it b/c it is a) beautiful, b) something I will wear often, and c) cheaper than a new tallit. The number of amazingly lovely tallitot in the vendor hall was ridiculous. I like the tallit I have, it is just white w/ blue stripes, but it is my first and it is special to me. But there were a few that were tempting had they not been way too far out of my price range. So, the kippah and a breast cancer pin in the shape of a chai were my only purchases; I even resisted the book and music store. I was there on a budget and I really tried to stick to it. Considering my congregation helped me out financially, I also couldn't justify spending any more money (even though I didn't have it anyway).

I didn't take into account just how exhausting a convention can be, but by the end of the day of workshops and classes I was tuckered out. I wish I had taken the time to go to the ma'ariv minyan, but I decided instead to head back to the hotel room and take a shower before meeting my temple friends for dinner, which itself was a raucous good time.

I also stopped by the 20/30s reception, which was well-attended and where I met 2 people who went to my college (Oberlin grads can find each other anywhere); and then a quick stop at the GLBT gathering, which was not well-attended, though I did meet a very nice rabbi for a congregation in Florida. I was kind of annoyed at the GLBT reception; it was totally shoved to the very end of the convention center, as if we needed to be hidden away. I mentioned this to the rabbi I met and he said it was because of privacy issues and people not being out, especially rabbis and cantors. I can understand this to an extent, but if we continue to perpetuate the idea that being queer is something that has to be on the fringes we'll never be able to be completely out and in the open. Yes, the Reform movement is very welcoming to queer Jews; yes, we are, as a movement, very committed to equality for all genders and sexual orientations. So don't shove us in a corner at the Biennial! Don't say one thing and do another.

Biennial, Day 2 (content observations)

2007-12-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

I began my 2nd day in San Diego at Shiru L'Adonai, a service in song. It was lead by Rabbi Ethan Franzel from Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim in Wynnewood, PA, and Cantor Kay Greenwald from Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos, CA. It was a spectacular way to begin my day and is one of the most moving services I have ever participated in. There is something about singing that makes me feel so much more connected to God, to my spirituality, and to the people around me. It was truly excellent and invigorating. I felt so much better about going into the day and into the workshops than I had on Wednesday. It helped that I got some sleep (and oh, the beds in the hotel were great) and just felt much more human than I had the day before.

Some general observations:
• I can apparently catch onto melodies fairly fast when hearing them for the first time.
• The ratio of tallit- and kippot-wearers is much higher to non-wearers than I have ever seen outside a Conservative or Traditional shul.
• I really enjoyed using Mishkan T'Filah (more on this later), despite some previous troubles with the draft copies in other congregations I've visited.
• I was sitting with a rabbinic student I know and during Hakafa I did not move towards the aisles to kiss the Torah and declined the offer of her tzitzit saying that "I'm a student of SRK's," though it does go deeper than that (also more on this later). She thought that was amusing.
• I seem to be in the minority of people at the Biennial who does not bow during Barechu or the Amidah; I bow only during Aleinu when it literally says "we bow."
• I'm getting used to hearing Torah chanted, though I still like the read-and-translate tradition of my own congregation.

I cannot overstate the positive nature of the service and how much I loved beginning my day that way. As I was putting away my tallit, I turned to the rabbinic student next to me and said "this is why it would be great to have a daily Reform minyan in my city." I really would love to get one going, somehow.

After services I was meeting the 3 women from my congregation who were attending the WRJ part of the Biennial. We sat and listened to Rabbi Daniel Freelander and MK Menachem Ben-Sasson speak about Israel and its importance, which was very interesting. Then after a quick call to SRK to plan lunch, it was off to my first workshop of the day.

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Workshop #1
Reform Reforms Shabbat w/ Rabbi Deborah Bronstein from Congregation Har Hashem in Boulder, CO; Art Grand from Temple Or Rishon in Orangevale, CA; and Iris Petroff from Temple Society of Concord in Syracuse, NY.

This was a great workshop. I am very interesting in moving towards a more observant Shabbat, even if it isn't in the traditional sense of observance. We heard a lot about what each of the panelists have done to increase both their personal Shabbat observances and those of their families and/or fellow congregants.

From my notes:
• Shabbat is like entering the color section of the Wizard of Oz, but we have to know how to enter.
• Add a new ritual each year.
• There are moments in our lives when a commandment (mitzvah) suddenly addresses us.
• Find some way to make the day different.
• Finding the discipline---not seeing Shabbat as part of the list you need to put off
• Congregations helping everyone who wants to attend a Shabbat dinner does
• Dinner & Davening: have pre-Shabbat dinners (at Temple or not) that are not religious-school based
• Shabbat is about re-juvenation, re-creating, and re-connecting
• Have conversion candidates commit to keeping Shabbat in some way during the year(s) that they are studying. Helps instill a sense of connection to the day and observance that they did not grow up with, were never commanded to do before.
• Put a table cloth on the table, a sheet over the TV or desk
• Have a specific food that becomes your "taste of Shabbat."
• Cineplex?

My thoughts wandered a little bit during the session to what we can do at my congregation to get more people to attend Torah study and services on Saturday morning.
• have Torah studies led by lay people and/or groups (such as Sisterhood) more frequently
• have a "Saturday Morning Live" program where we have good music that draws people in (not just a guitarist for Tot Shabbat)
• read Torah on Friday night once a month to give people a taste of what we have on Saturday morning, a connection to the Torah that they are not getting.

I was very interested in Rabbi Yoffie's Shabbat morning sermon as much of it had to do with ways to reinvigorate Shabbat in our congregations. I hope to have some conversations with my rabbi and other members of my congregation about Shabbat and how we can make it better at our temple.

In general I felt like I had some new ideas for how I can personally begin to observe Shabbat more. As it is I attend services on Friday night and Saturday morning, but beyond that I think it is difficult for those of us who are single adults with no Jewish family as so much of Shabbat observance seems to be centered around the home and the family. So, perhaps I will need to become more creative with what is a meaningful Shabbat observance for me. Plenty to chew on, to be sure.

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After lunch I attended a forum titled What's Spirituality Got to Do With It: Ritual, Worship and Mysticism. The panelists were Rabbi Zoe Klein, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, and Rabbi Arnold J. Wolf. It was a very interesting panel that I wish I could have gotten a little more out of, but as I had a massive headache for a good portion of it, I wasn't as focused as I would have liked to be.

From my notes:
• Are we afraid of holy moments? Rabbi Klein says that rabbis are especially afraid of holy moments (making jokes, etc.).
• Is the seeking of holy moments a kabbalistic idea? Why not just a Jewish idea?
• Love=reverence for mystery
• to be in awe of what is hidden beneath the veil is to be mystified
• Why are we now so attracted to spirituality?
• spirituality is soaring above the politics and every day bits of religion
• God is found in the details (Rabbi Wolf)? Isn't God also found in significant moments? Why not both?**
• Rabbi Wolf claims that spiritual seekers don't understand the nitty gritty of everyday religion (which is what he would prefer); I don't agree with this. As someone who is a spiritual seeker and who sees the beauty of religion I feel you can be both.

**My response a few days later:
What defines a "big" or "significant" moment? If we find God in the small details, does that not elevate the moment to significance? How actively can we pursue significant encounters with God? Is it possible to try too hard? Is it possible to miss the significant moment happening even as we are looking for it? What happens when we miss too many encounters with God?

I truly believe that I find God in so many different moments that there is no way I can even be aware of each one, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that on some level I am aware and it helps me in those moments when I am truly in need of God's presence. I think that even when I am not aware, God is.

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Workshop #2
Spiritual Pathways Through Nature with Rabbi Michael Comins of Torah Trek.

The notes I took were sketchy, so I don't have a lot to write below, but I enjoyed the workshop. I'm not personally very into meditation, but I do love to experience God in nature and in the beauty of natural things. I find my breath taken away sometimes when I look at a summer sky full of luscious clouds and can't help feeling that God connection.

He taught us a couple of ways that he helps people connect to their Judaism on the trails, much of it having to do with breathing and mindfulness, being aware of what is going on around you, and at that moment bringing a prayer into the mix, be it a traditional Jewish prayer, or one that is from your heart.

Rabbi Comins spoke about finding God in nature, finding a sanctuary that does not have walls, and how we are able to us Jewish prayer to feel more connected to the natural.

He spoke a lot about I-Thou receptiveness=mindfulness. In I-Thou you take in the whole and you respect and there is a moral dimension---whatever the "thou" requires is what you require of yourself.

Mystical connection:
• you feel the light of God, the energy of God in nature
• make yourself like an empty vessel so that God may fill it up
• being mindful means you are making room for God and a spiritual moment
• we are less likely to have a God-experience when we go right into the book (siddur); using music takes us back to the right side of the brain, the emotional side; better for mindfulness--we can use this by way of chanting in nature
• but can we also bring mindfulness and these techniques into the synagogue?

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So, that was the main content of Day 2. I'll post more personal observations in different post, including what I did in the evening. The 2nd day was definitely a good day.

Biennial, Day 1 (content observations)

2007-12-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

The first session I attended at the Biennial was Marketing for Small Congregations. Despite being 45 minutes late, I think I got a lot out of it.

Newsletters:
--try and use them as learning tools (ie. history, Torah, holidays, etc)
--have youth group students write a column
--have regular congregants write a column
--have a pull-out calendar that people can post on their fridge or bulletin board

Websites:
--make sure the first page has the service times displayed in prominent place
--make it easy to find contact information for the president, rabbi, administrator, educator, etc.
--make sure that if people are e-mailing those people they will get prompt responses
--have a link for people interested in joining
--links for people interested in conversion where some basic questions can be answered
--give detailed information about upcoming programs and services
--don't have large areas of text people need to scroll through and read on the first page; if you want to post sermons or columns, link to them or provide downloadable PDFs
--don't have music automatically begin playing when you enter the site
--have clear navigation bars
--update regularly!
--make sure the look reflects the other materials the temple uses (stationary, logo, colors)
--if you have pictures, make sure there are pictures of the sanctuary w/ people in it, of the temple with doors open, of a good cross-section of the congregation

I think they also talked about having a logo and colors, and a "brand," but I feel like we already have that, so I wasn't worried about missing it.

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The 2nd workshop I went to was on Outreach Programs (I forget the actual title). I'm not currently on the outreach committee, but I though there would be some good ideas to that I could share, and there were. I was most interested in the one about attracting people in their 20s and 30s to join.

--stop calling due "dues" and members "members." Call them "support" and "partners. Don't make belonging to a temple like belonging to a gym or swim club (b/c those are places that hope that you don't really used them once you've joined; we want you to come to shul once you are a member).
--don't just provide social opportunities for young people to get involved; do something that includes a service opportunity and community support
--have reduced or no dues for the first year and reduced up to a certain age, but try to instill in them the value of supporting the temple financially so that when they can, they will.*
--do a program where you provide free or reduced membership for the first 6 months; get people in the door so they can see what goes on
--do new member classes (such as who are the committees, the board, the administrator, etc.) along with mixers where new members can meet current members
--make sure you do a new member survey after the first year; find out what worked for them, what didn't
--make it a priority that the rabbi and president contact each new member/family at least once over the course of the first year.

I have more notes at home, so I'll add to this later. But I felt like this gave me a lot of ideas about outreach.

*I think it is a common misperception that young people don't understand the value of supporting their temple financially; for a lot of people my age (20s–30s) I think they realize that they would be doing something good and valuable, but when you don't make a lot of money you have to make sacrifices and choices as to what you can support, and for many it probably comes down to being able to pay bills or joining a temple. I can say for certain that despite having a decent paying job it is still a bit of a struggle to pay my dues each year, especially as I am trying to save money at the same time for the future.

Biennial, Day 1 (personal observations)

2007-12-20T11:46:00.001-05:00

I really do need to update more often... once a year doesn't really cut it. Since I've begun keeping a paper journal again, I'll try and relay some of my more public-friendly thoughts here.

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Most importantly, at the moment, is that I attended the URJ Biennial last week in San Diego. It was an amazing time, filled with lots of learning, praying, singing, and socializing with fellow Reform Jews. I'm not sure I can even begin to describe how I felt there, but I'll try.

My rabbi and I left Wednesday morning, flying out of Columbus. Being someone who hates flying, I did not sleep well the night before and was up at 3:30AM for a total of about 2 hours of sleep. This would prove to be a not great thing later in the day once we were finally in San Diego. There were a lot of people from the surrounding Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton areas on our flight; in fact it felt like the flight was about 75% Jews going to the Biennial! There was an air of excitement and anticipation on the plane and when we landed I couldn't wait to get to the convention center to check in. After settling into my room and changing clothes, I met my rabbi to walk over and sign in at the registration desk. The walk would be my first experience into the strange reality of the Biennial where everyone seems to know everyone else. We stopped so many times so that my rabbi could give people hugs and say hello and catch up in general; I was beginning to think I was with the most popular rabbi around!

Once we finally got into the convention center and got our credentials and schedules my rabbi basically said "see ya later" and I was on my own. Which is the point at which I began to freak out. See, I'm not good with situations where I don't know people and have to introduce myself and all of that. I kind of suck at being social in large groups. I was late for my first workshop because of registration and my 2nd workshops was running late, probably because everyone else was just arriving. No one talked to me in either of the first 2 sessions. I have to admit that my exhaustion and being in a new place with a ton of people I didn't know completely overwhelmed me. I stepped into the bathroom and cried. I wanted nothing more than to go home at that point and I felt like I was approximately 5 years old. But, I washed my face and headed to the exhibit hall where I (thankfully) ran into my rabbi, who asked me if I wanted to join him and his friends for dinner. I didn't hesitate in my acceptance, glad to know I wouldn't be alone for the meal.

I walked around a little more and then went to change for dinner. I wish, now, that I had instead stayed for Ma'ariv, but I think at that point I needed to exit the large, public area for a few minutes in case I began crying again. So, I met the rabbi and his friends for dinner, which was nice and loud due to the children, and I was able to kind of just sit there and listen for the most part. I was so tired by then that I wasn't even hungry anymore, despite not really eating much all day. I was just happy to not be alone, and honestly I like my rabbi and we have a good friendship, so hanging out was comforting. On the way back to the convention center, though, I admitted to feeling like a fish out of water. He reminded me that we'd talked about how there wouldn't be a lot of people my age at the Biennial, which is fair, but at that point I wouldn't have cared if people were 30, 40 or 50 years older than me; I just didn't want to feel like fading into the background. We separated once we were back inside, me to go to the opening address, him to head off to something else, but before we parted he said to call him if I needed anything. I didn't want him to feel like he needed to take care of me and don't him has much, but he said he didn't mind because he worries about me.

I went to the opening addresses and couldn't sit still or stay awake, so I went back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, but not before chatting with my roommate (another congregant there for the WRJ part of the Biennial) and planning to get together with the other 2 women from my temple the next day.

Lessons I learned, on a personal level, from my first day at the Biennial:
1. Getting sleep is vitally important.
2. Eating regular meals is probably nearly as important.
3. My rabbi is, at the very core, a good man.
4. My shyness and any social anxiety is severely heightened when I am tired.

I'll post more about actual content of the Biennial, but I'll try to keep posts like this one separate from content for anyone not wishing to read about my craziness.

b'reishit

2007-01-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

My only secular-year resolution is to attempt to make my life outside of my job more meaningful. It's an over-arching resolution that will likely involve a number of smaller changes. One of these is that I'm going to really try and post more thoughts here. I've felt fairly disconnected to my spirituality of late, though I think that has more to do with the insane number of hours I've spent at work, or thinking about work, or dreaming about work, rather than focusing on things like Torah and studying Hebrew and reading. I took a class in December that was on God, the creation stories and evolution, and I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was using a part of my brain that has been somewhat dormant for a few months. And then it took another break as things ramped up at work and went into winter hibernation mode at my temple. I haven't been to a normal Saturday service in so long, due to youth group things, or b'nei mitzvot, or not having it, and I really miss it. While Friday night is always there, I've come to view Saturday as the anchor of my week.

So, in the attempt to make my life outside of work more meaningful spiritually, I plan on trying to do the following:
• Study Hebrew 30 minutes a day. Some days this won't work, but it's a goal.
• Read part of some book on Torah or Judaism each day for at least 30 minutes. Since I have a large stack of books in general, I'm going to try and juggle a few at a time, not just Jewish ones.
• Get into the habit of saying morning prayers at least, evening prayers when possible. I need a way to ground myself daily in what is important to me, especially when my work life becomes more and more of a challenge.

I think that is a good start.

shamor v'zachor

2006-08-10T21:03:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday saw the return of Shabbat Torah study and morning services at my temple and I was so happy to have them back that I actually arrived before my rabbi. Oops. We didn't end up having services at all, however, since only 2 people other than the rabbi and intern showed up (August Saturdays is a new thing for this congregation). But, we decided that instead of just ending our Torah study at 10:30 and going home, we'd continue on and use it as our prayer. It was great. We were looking at a number of things in the portion, including what my rabbi feels is the proof text for fundamentalism (granted, he does not support fundamentalism, but pointed out this is where he thinks he it came from):

Deuteronomy 4:2 Do not add to the word that I am commanding you, and do not subtract from it. You must keep all the commandments of God your Lord, which I am instructing you.
Lo tosifu al-hadavar asher anochi metsaveh etchem velo tigre'u mimenu lishmor et-mitsvot Adonay Eloheychem asher anochi metsaveh etchem.

So, that pretty much says it, right? "Do this, do only this, do not do more, do not do less." However, didn't the rabbis of the Talmud add more and find ways to subract (or not do) without saying flat out don't do it? Isn't that one of the huge things in observant circles? Building a fence around the Torah, around the mitzvot, essentially adding on all of these little things to make sure we don't do that first thing? I mean, nearly all of kashrut is an addition to that one commandment of not boiling a kid in its mother's milk.

I'm not saying that the fences are wrong, necessarily. But, I think that there should be an awareness that Judaism began reforming itself almost immediately and will continue. There needs to be an awareness that there is plenty even the most strident ultra-Orthodox do that is not in the Torah.

So, that's something to chew on in the future. We also talked about the part of the V'ahavta in this portion that commands you to love God with all of your heart and to write these commandments on your door and bind them as a sign upon your hand and be symbols between your eyes. A number of questions came up about this:

1. How can you command someone to love?
2. Did people ever tattoo these commandments on their foreheads? Ignoring the prohibition on tattoos, this is an interesting question.
3. Is the binding literal? Obviously some take it that way with the use of tefillin (which are not biblical and came about later); but should we take it to mean that we should go forward and act with the commandments always on our minds and evident in all of our actions?

I found this discussion fascinating, especially about whether we can be commanded to love. My thought is that we aren't necessarily commanded to love. The line is "you shall love Adonai your God with all your heart..." (emphasis mine). Shall is a lot different than "must" or "I command that you love Adonai your God...." I think that when we follow the commandments to the best of our abilities, when we act righteously and walk with God, when we use our entire being to praise God and be good Jews the outcome of that is that we love God. We are not commanded to love God, not directly at least. But, every mitzvah that we fulfill is part of a relationship of love with God.

I know there are plenty of people who say that doing mitzvot is not about love, but rather about just doing it, fulfilling an obligation. But I always come back to the fact that obligation fulfilled is nothing without meaning.

And finally, we spoke about the reiteration of the 10 commandments (interestingly enough stated in the Hebrew as the 10 words). Specifically the command to observe the Sabbath. In the Exodus version of the decalogue we are told to "remember" and in Deutoronomy we are told to "observe." If you are under the belief that nothing in the Torah is extraneous then this can cause some problems. So, the rabbis decided that both words were uttered together on top of the mountain so that the Israelites heard them both but we get them in the two different versions. This is referenced in L'cha Dodi in the 2nd verse:

Shamor v'zachor b'dibor echad...
Observe and remember in one word...

I love knowing this about the song. It really opens things up for me and I've been thinking about it a lot since last Saturday. Because, to indulge in a little bit of midrash here, I think that back in Exodus the Israelites weren't ready for the command to "observe" Shabbat; they could barely keep from falling back into idol worship. So when the word was uttered they heard "remember." But, when Moses repeats the commandment in Deuteronomy they are just about to head into the promised land. They have endured 40 years wandering in the desert, 40 years of manna and then so much meat it came out of their noses and the older generation doubting God and being forbidden to see the promised land. They have matured and are ready at this point to become, truly, the people that God has chosen. So, at this moment they hear "observe." Because at this moment they are ready to do just that.

On Israel and Music

2006-07-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

My rabbi gave a really amazing sermon on Friday, probably one of the best I've ever heard him give, which is saying something since he's usually spot-on. He spoke about Israel and how frustrated he is with the fact that Israel must defend its defense of itself. That no other country would be questioned for their response to repeated shelling and bombing from a terrorist group, except Israel since it is a Jewish state. I'm going to try and get a copy of it, because it was such a passionate defense of Israel and it really made sense to me.

I feel more strongly about Israel at this point than I think I ever have. More than ever I stand behind them and support them. Though, I must admit, I've had some soul-searching to do over the fact that civilians in Lebanon are being injured and killed, too. I wish that it didn't happen, and I pray for the victims and their families, but Israel MUST defend itself and unfortunately in war innocent people are killed. How many innocent Jews and Israelis have died needlessly, killed by suicide bombers and other attacks? I'm not saying that this necessarily justifies anything, an-eye-for-an-eye and all that. But it does illustrate just how far Israel has been pushed to the breaking point. Can any American honestly say that if our cities were getting hit with suicide bombers and rockets on a daily basis we would not strike back with everything we had? Didn't we do that after 9/11? Why is Israel held to a different standard. Because they are Jewish.

It all comes back to that, to being Jewish. And I am happy and proud to be a Jew.

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For only the second time in months I didn't attend services this past Saturday. There was a bar mitzvah at my temple, but I wasn't really in the mood to sit through one. And I honestly am so ready to have my regular Saturdays back at my temple that I was pretty unwilling to go elsewhere, because it's just not the same. So, I opted to stay home, sleep in a bit. I ended up going out for breakfast a little later; got a coffee and a bagel and sat and read my book for an hour, which was just nice and calm. I will admit that a Saturday without services is odd. For one, it's longer. For another, it doesn't feel like Shabbat. Granted, I went the night before, and that began Shabbat for me. But, beginning my Saturday morning with Torah study and then our informal services, that really sets the tone for me.

I also realized recently just how much music is a part of what makes Shabbat meaningful to me. I know that the playing of musical instruments is forbidden on Shabbat, but as a member of a Reform temple, we do play instruments and sing quite a bit. Singing is just one of the best ways to lift your voice in prayer, and I find it very fulfilling. This week we had our cantor and I'm always happy when she helps lead services. She's not officially our cantor, but she comes to my temple at least once a month and really takes our prayer to another level. There's just something about melody and harmony and feeling your voice vibrate in your body and hearing those around you singing, on- and off-key, it's just exhilirating. I've always preferred to sing the Shema instead of just reciting it, to chant or sing the V'ahavta, to sing ALL of L'cha Dodi and the Psalms during Kabbalat Shabbat.

On Words

2006-07-28T16:14:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended services at a local Conservative shul. My synagogue does not have Saturday services during July due to a variety of circumstances, and while I miss going to my own temple, I do enjoy shul-hopping for 4 weeks. It gives me a better sense of where I am in my Jewish journey, where I want to go, and why. It keeps things fresh, though I am always more than happy to return to my home congregation.

Anyway, two weeks ago I figured I'd check out on of the Conservative shuls in town, picking the largest one where I new a few people (who, unfortunately would not be there that morning). Shacharit began at 9 and I got there promptly at 8:55, took a seat in the back row, and put on my tallit. There were maybe 25 other people there at that point, but by 9:15 another 15 had arrived and by 10:30 there were at least 100/150. Now, I've been to a Traditional shul before, and I know the pace is quick, and while my Hebrew is decent for just beginning in it 3 years ago, it's not to the point that I can follow quickly with silent Amidah. So, between that and the constant need to get up to let people in and out of my row, I found the first half of the morning fairly frustrating. I'd like to get a point in my Hebrew fluency where I can reasonably follow along with the silent Amidah and still get some spiritual meaning from it. I know there is a school of thought which holds that you just have to say the words and meaning comes later; I've always been of the mindset that the meaning and the feeling should be present as I say the prayer. A friend of mine (our previous rabbinic intern and newly minted rabbi in his own right), asked me once what I do when I don't feel like praying at services. I told him that I just don't come. If I'm not going to get something from my recitation of the words, I'm not going to say them. I'm not going to risk them losing their meaning for me. Words are incredibly powerful for me, especially in prayer and they should not be taken lightly or said just to be said. For one, I don't think God wants that; granted I don't know what God wants, but I can't imagine the God I believe wanting me to say words that are supposed to praise and exalt him if I don't mean them right at that moment. I would think that is akin to lying to God.

So, back to two Saturdays ago. I did get to hear the entire Torah portion chanted, though I was frustrated that no translation was read. While I'm sure there were people in attendance who understood what was being chanted and could translate as they heard it, I could not. I followed along in the Chumash with the Hebrew and was fully expecting a translation at some point, but none came for the Torah portion or the Haftarah. I point out again how this can hold any meaning for the people who are not fluent in biblical Hebrew. I think there is obvious merit in hearing the portion read (or chanted) aloud in Hebrew; I personally love that, and I love to read Torah myself. But you know what else I love? I love knowing what I'm reading/hearing. I love the learning that goes with it. And trying to follow along in the English while the Hebrew is read/chanted, well, that's just frustrating and takes away from both tasks. So you might have to sit in shul for an extra 20 minutes to hear the translation. So what? I would do it.

Musaf was much more my pace and I was getting into the swing of things just as the 3 and a half hours of Shabbat morning services was coming to an end. Oh, well.

Things that bothered me:
--Veiled comments from people around me about my own home congregation; nothing overtly mean or negative, but it was under the surface--comments like "oh, you go to ______? Well, this must be like a whole new world for you!" Um, thanks, but no. It's still a Jewish service with the same general structure and prayers. I'm not an idiot and my Reform temple is not a church.

--The aforementioned non-translation of the Torah and Haftarah portions.

--The way people wandered in throughout the morning, chatted with each other, got up, moved around, and in general were distracting.

Things that I liked:
--Getting to hear the entire portion, chanted.

--Getting to test my Hebrew knowledge.

All in all, an okay experience. It helped me realize a few things about my own prayer style and preferences while at the same time exposing me to a different way of doing things. Do I wish we used more Hebrew in services at my temple? You bet. Do I wish more people would learn to read Torah? Heck yeah. Do I wish that more people would learn to lead services. Definitely. Will I give up on the Reform movement and my temple? Nope. Reform Judaism is my home, spiritually and idealogically. I would love to see some more traditional practices both adopted and/or accepted. I would love to see Reform Jews with a greater range of observance and for those who don't observe mitzvot to not be critical of those who do and vice versa.

That's all for today.

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A quick explanation to why I'm here:

After more than 4 years on LJ and the loss of a good friendship closely linked with it, I have found myself drifting from it. A friend suggested starting up a new LJ, under a new name, but I think it might be time to start blogging elsewhere. I'll probably still keep the old one, just to keep in touch with other friends, but I think it will be good for me to move on.

So, what will this blog be about? Mostly my ramblings about being a Reform Jew who is interested in observance and Torah and learning. I may add in other boring details from my life, but we'll see.

My goal is to post weekly on my thoughts, about what is happening locally, either at my Temple or in the community; about my own spiritual journey; about what is happening in Israel; about what I am learning. Hopefully I'll stick to that and maybe post a little more. We'll see.