More thoughts sparked by a recent Velveteen Rabbi post here: http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2010/12/the-forest-beyond-the-trees.html
My comments =
16 December 2010
12 December 2010
Prayer + change
I've got a post in progress -- current contemplations can be found in the comments on Velveteen Rabbi's latest blogpost: http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2010/12/prayer-life-changes.html#comments
What I said:
What I said:
Wow -- a lot going on here, and thanks for saying it.
After becoming more traditionally observant & engaged in Jewish life in my mid-twenties, davening with the traditional liturgy on Shabbat + holidays has been the backbone of my prayer practice, with daily prayer more an aspiration more than a reality. When I took up a job downtown a few years ago, I made a choice to try to turn my weekday early-morning commuter walk into prayer time. Cue the joke about asking whether you can smoke while praying vs. whether you can pray while smoking: for me, it wasn't a choice between praying at home vs. on-the-go, but between praying en route & not praying this part of the liturgy at all. (There's a version of the joke at http://snipurl.com/1mrli6 if you haven't heard it before...)
I could usually manage a greatest-hits version of the Birkot Ha-Shachar/morning blessings through the Shema between my house and the nearest metro stop: if I timed it right, I'd emerge from a pedestrian path to glimpse other walkers streaming down Connecticut Ave. right as I reached the mention of bringing us in peace from the four corners of the earth, which seemed entirely appropriate -- from our individual homes, lives, backgrounds into the community of city life. Although I'd sometimes pray part of the liturgy on the subway (particularly if there were something special/longer to add, like Hallel), it seemed wrongly cut off from the rest of the natural world to do so -- I would usually wait until I was at least walking up the escalator to emerge into the light, and then pick up where I had left off, to cover the Amidah + at least Aleinu, maybe the psalm of the day or another bit here & there before I reached the office door. I might manage the full weekday Amidah text if I consulted my bitty black pocket siddur (picked up at a used bookstore in Prague or Budapest a dozen years ago); if not, my mental or mumbled version would settle for highlights (bookends of start & ending are easy, familiar from the Shabbat/holiday liturgy) and half-remembered sections or personal meditations/supplications on the weekday themes. The prayers for the sick always made it in: a different formulation from the communal mi-shebeirach on Shabbat but the same names I recited week after week -- until suddenly they weren't. You want for names to disappear from the list because the person has recovered. That's not always what happens -- the shock of the rhythm disrupted when a 39-year-old professor, friend, father of young boys succumbs to cancer and his name falls from my morning list, replaced by thoughts of those he's left behind.
Something about the morning commute worked well for me--starting the day right, fresh, focused on thanks and tasks, who I am (made in Your image) and what my role should be (loving peace and pursuing peace). Sure, every now & again I'd manage to daven mincha or ma'ariv, the afternoon or evening prayers, on my way home (depending on time of year, my return journey might be before or after sunset) -- mostly if I found myself without another distraction (reading or iPod) and realized I could launch into Ashrei rather than just stare at the subway walls. But mainly morning. And that was something new. And that was a start; that was enough.
And then -- things changed. One July morning, no commute -- my in-laws sleeping in the living room hear a stirring and ask if it's time for me to head to work: no, but it is time for labor. When I come home from the hospital with baby two days later, morning and evening have already given way to the blur of smaller cycles: feed baby, soothe baby, try to catch some sleep; lather, rinse, repeat. I am exhausted; our sleepy baby is not regaining her birth weight. Prayer is internal and instinctive, barely verbal, certainly not liturgical. Please let her be all right. Please let me get through this. (But perhaps not so far from the tradition, either: Moses's terseness in praying for his sister Miriam -- El na, r'fah na lah/Please, God, heal her.) When the pediatrician prescribes a nighttime break so that I can get more than 2 hours of continuous sleep, morning regains meaning: it's the time when I come downstairs and my husband, who has fed baby her bottle and settled her back to sleep in the Amby hammock in the living room, can sleep upstairs on a bed instead of the sofa where he's sacked out post-feeding. When the sun rises and I carry baby back and forth to soothe her, or wear her on a sling against my body. I sing: sometimes the words are from the liturgy or the psalms, sometimes children's rhymes, sometimes lyrics from music that won't make sense until she's much much older (Elvis Costello, anyone?). I cry, overwhelmed by emotion and sleep deprivation: she is so tiny and precious, so helpless yet demanding, such a source of joy and of fatigue. The singing and the crying are not: one happy, the other sad -- either one can be either, or both, or something in a space beyond either. In the stifling heat of a DC summer, I watch the day wax and wane through the windows of the air-conditioned living room: the thermometer hovers around one hundred as I realize I have not been outside in three days. I remember now stepping out onto the flagstone porch in my white silk tallit, outside for the first time that day even though it is no longer morning. I cannot tell you for certain whether it was Shabbat or a weekday, whether baby was one week old, or two, or four -- or whether she was not even born yet, this memory an afterimage mapped onto the right space from a different time, where davening outside on that porch by myself didn't mean keeping an ear open for a cry from just inside the French doors that would call me back to her.
We move to a new house. She is six weeks old. I go back to work. She is eight weeks old. I work from home two days a week, commute in two days... then two-and-a-half...then three. Davening on the morning commute doesn't so much happen -- but the pattern of snatching weekday prayer time from the midst of some other activity persists. In the early morning when baby wakes me, I bring her downstairs for changing, feeding, playing -- and sometimes, I drape my tallit over my pajamas and clip my kippah to my unwashed new-mommy hair and daven. I sing all the parts of the liturgy that have good tunes, to keep baby entertained; I carry her in my arms and bounce her around and dance. I balance a siddur on the top of the TV set so I can catch some of the text I've forgotten but keep it out of baby's reach. She fusses, and I sit down to curl her up in my lap, the silk of the tallit forming a curtain as she nurses. Mah tovu ohalecha -- how goodly are your tents...
(There's more I have in mind to say, particularly about Shabbat/holiday/communal prayer at this stage in my life, but as the better is the enemy of the good, I'm going to post this now. Shavua tov!)
[Comment 2/18/14 - just read this post by Ilana Kurshan, "Confessions of the Tehillim Lady: Further Reflections on Learning How to Pray"- which certainly resonates w/ my experiences, both re: davening on-the-go as described above pre-baby, and also re: davening-on-the-go e.g. with stroller post-baby, either walking around the neighborhood in early mornings when she was little so as not to just be stuck in the house as the only ones awake for several hours, or say walking to shul on Tired Parents' Schedule = might be getting there later on, so do some Greatest Hits of the part you'll be missing before you get there. Her baby brother is due within the next three days [Fri 2/21] so we'll see where things go from here!]
After becoming more traditionally observant & engaged in Jewish life in my mid-twenties, davening with the traditional liturgy on Shabbat + holidays has been the backbone of my prayer practice, with daily prayer more an aspiration more than a reality. When I took up a job downtown a few years ago, I made a choice to try to turn my weekday early-morning commuter walk into prayer time. Cue the joke about asking whether you can smoke while praying vs. whether you can pray while smoking: for me, it wasn't a choice between praying at home vs. on-the-go, but between praying en route & not praying this part of the liturgy at all. (There's a version of the joke at http://snipurl.com/1mrli6 if you haven't heard it before...)
I could usually manage a greatest-hits version of the Birkot Ha-Shachar/morning blessings through the Shema between my house and the nearest metro stop: if I timed it right, I'd emerge from a pedestrian path to glimpse other walkers streaming down Connecticut Ave. right as I reached the mention of bringing us in peace from the four corners of the earth, which seemed entirely appropriate -- from our individual homes, lives, backgrounds into the community of city life. Although I'd sometimes pray part of the liturgy on the subway (particularly if there were something special/longer to add, like Hallel), it seemed wrongly cut off from the rest of the natural world to do so -- I would usually wait until I was at least walking up the escalator to emerge into the light, and then pick up where I had left off, to cover the Amidah + at least Aleinu, maybe the psalm of the day or another bit here & there before I reached the office door. I might manage the full weekday Amidah text if I consulted my bitty black pocket siddur (picked up at a used bookstore in Prague or Budapest a dozen years ago); if not, my mental or mumbled version would settle for highlights (bookends of start & ending are easy, familiar from the Shabbat/holiday liturgy) and half-remembered sections or personal meditations/supplications on the weekday themes. The prayers for the sick always made it in: a different formulation from the communal mi-shebeirach on Shabbat but the same names I recited week after week -- until suddenly they weren't. You want for names to disappear from the list because the person has recovered. That's not always what happens -- the shock of the rhythm disrupted when a 39-year-old professor, friend, father of young boys succumbs to cancer and his name falls from my morning list, replaced by thoughts of those he's left behind.
Something about the morning commute worked well for me--starting the day right, fresh, focused on thanks and tasks, who I am (made in Your image) and what my role should be (loving peace and pursuing peace). Sure, every now & again I'd manage to daven mincha or ma'ariv, the afternoon or evening prayers, on my way home (depending on time of year, my return journey might be before or after sunset) -- mostly if I found myself without another distraction (reading or iPod) and realized I could launch into Ashrei rather than just stare at the subway walls. But mainly morning. And that was something new. And that was a start; that was enough.
And then -- things changed. One July morning, no commute -- my in-laws sleeping in the living room hear a stirring and ask if it's time for me to head to work: no, but it is time for labor. When I come home from the hospital with baby two days later, morning and evening have already given way to the blur of smaller cycles: feed baby, soothe baby, try to catch some sleep; lather, rinse, repeat. I am exhausted; our sleepy baby is not regaining her birth weight. Prayer is internal and instinctive, barely verbal, certainly not liturgical. Please let her be all right. Please let me get through this. (But perhaps not so far from the tradition, either: Moses's terseness in praying for his sister Miriam -- El na, r'fah na lah/Please, God, heal her.) When the pediatrician prescribes a nighttime break so that I can get more than 2 hours of continuous sleep, morning regains meaning: it's the time when I come downstairs and my husband, who has fed baby her bottle and settled her back to sleep in the Amby hammock in the living room, can sleep upstairs on a bed instead of the sofa where he's sacked out post-feeding. When the sun rises and I carry baby back and forth to soothe her, or wear her on a sling against my body. I sing: sometimes the words are from the liturgy or the psalms, sometimes children's rhymes, sometimes lyrics from music that won't make sense until she's much much older (Elvis Costello, anyone?). I cry, overwhelmed by emotion and sleep deprivation: she is so tiny and precious, so helpless yet demanding, such a source of joy and of fatigue. The singing and the crying are not: one happy, the other sad -- either one can be either, or both, or something in a space beyond either. In the stifling heat of a DC summer, I watch the day wax and wane through the windows of the air-conditioned living room: the thermometer hovers around one hundred as I realize I have not been outside in three days. I remember now stepping out onto the flagstone porch in my white silk tallit, outside for the first time that day even though it is no longer morning. I cannot tell you for certain whether it was Shabbat or a weekday, whether baby was one week old, or two, or four -- or whether she was not even born yet, this memory an afterimage mapped onto the right space from a different time, where davening outside on that porch by myself didn't mean keeping an ear open for a cry from just inside the French doors that would call me back to her.
We move to a new house. She is six weeks old. I go back to work. She is eight weeks old. I work from home two days a week, commute in two days... then two-and-a-half...then three. Davening on the morning commute doesn't so much happen -- but the pattern of snatching weekday prayer time from the midst of some other activity persists. In the early morning when baby wakes me, I bring her downstairs for changing, feeding, playing -- and sometimes, I drape my tallit over my pajamas and clip my kippah to my unwashed new-mommy hair and daven. I sing all the parts of the liturgy that have good tunes, to keep baby entertained; I carry her in my arms and bounce her around and dance. I balance a siddur on the top of the TV set so I can catch some of the text I've forgotten but keep it out of baby's reach. She fusses, and I sit down to curl her up in my lap, the silk of the tallit forming a curtain as she nurses. Mah tovu ohalecha -- how goodly are your tents...
(There's more I have in mind to say, particularly about Shabbat/holiday/communal prayer at this stage in my life, but as the better is the enemy of the good, I'm going to post this now. Shavua tov!)
[Comment 2/18/14 - just read this post by Ilana Kurshan, "Confessions of the Tehillim Lady: Further Reflections on Learning How to Pray"- which certainly resonates w/ my experiences, both re: davening on-the-go as described above pre-baby, and also re: davening-on-the-go e.g. with stroller post-baby, either walking around the neighborhood in early mornings when she was little so as not to just be stuck in the house as the only ones awake for several hours, or say walking to shul on Tired Parents' Schedule = might be getting there later on, so do some Greatest Hits of the part you'll be missing before you get there. Her baby brother is due within the next three days [Fri 2/21] so we'll see where things go from here!]
18 September 2010
A Come-As-You-Are Yom Kippur
(I made a post on Fiftypercenters.com just before Yom Kippur: visit it there, or read it here!)
Just hours until sundown, and I feel even less prepared for Yom Kippur than usual. The High Holy Days always take me somewhat by surprise (what? already?) -- and, with the joys of celebrating Sukkot with our community to look forward to, I anticipate the more shul-heavy Days of Awe with less enthusiasm than when they were the main events on my fall religious calendar.
And this time I have even less sense of what to expect from my Day of Atonement -- yes, even less than last year. Then, as a new mom with an 8-week-old, I knew I'd just be going with the flow, and not fully fasting -- I spent maybe an hour or so midday in one of the main adult services, nursing the baby under a cover during the repetition of the Musaf amidah, and nursed her again in the back of the late-afternon children's services, where the prayer leaders took suggestions from the kids of things they were sorry about and had everyone sing them back together, in the melody used for the traditional Ashamnu (an alphabet-acrostic catalogue of communal sins), confessing to "Not listening" -- "Saying mean things " -- "Hitting my brother."
Now I can foresee that my Shabbat Shabbaton will not exactly be a day of complete rest and reflection, with a one-year-old in tow. (Babysitting services for the holiday at the synagogue we go to here begin with age 3, so no luck there!) I'm running between parts of my lives, trying to finish up work I need to do, make sure we all get some food before sundown (even if not all of us are going to be fully fasting for 25 hours), get some shul clothes on, and get to Kol Nidrei (maybe).
For some people, the High Holy Days are time to dress up -- one way of manifesting the importance of the holy day: even if we no longer think of God as a king (a recurring image in the High Holy Day liturgy), shouldn't we at least show in our sartorial choices that this date with the divine is a significant event?
Me? Over the years since I became more observant & involved, my Yom Kippur dress has often been less, not more, fancy: if you go for the custom of wearing white and eschewing leather shoes, you may well end up wearing a long white cotton skirt, a not-exactly-matching-but-close-enough long-sleeved cotton shirt, and anything from sneakers to flipflops on the feet. And that's fine: it works for me, and even if some other people are wearing suits & hats, no one ever gives the impression that I'm not suitably dressed. :)
But this year I feel that it's even more a "come-as-you-are" Yom Kippur, inside & out. I'll be there when I can, for what I can, wearing what I manage to pull out of the closet in the minutes before we have to wrestle the baby into her stroller and walk out the door. Maybe I'll have been able to grab a shower -- maybe not. Maybe I'll have had some epiphany that makes me feel prepared for the day -- more likely not.
But I can say hineini -- "Here I am" -- and see where the day takes me.
On the eve of Yom Kippur 5771, I wish you all a year of blessing and abundance: shalom!
Just hours until sundown, and I feel even less prepared for Yom Kippur than usual. The High Holy Days always take me somewhat by surprise (what? already?) -- and, with the joys of celebrating Sukkot with our community to look forward to, I anticipate the more shul-heavy Days of Awe with less enthusiasm than when they were the main events on my fall religious calendar.
And this time I have even less sense of what to expect from my Day of Atonement -- yes, even less than last year. Then, as a new mom with an 8-week-old, I knew I'd just be going with the flow, and not fully fasting -- I spent maybe an hour or so midday in one of the main adult services, nursing the baby under a cover during the repetition of the Musaf amidah, and nursed her again in the back of the late-afternon children's services, where the prayer leaders took suggestions from the kids of things they were sorry about and had everyone sing them back together, in the melody used for the traditional Ashamnu (an alphabet-acrostic catalogue of communal sins), confessing to "Not listening" -- "Saying mean things " -- "Hitting my brother."
Now I can foresee that my Shabbat Shabbaton will not exactly be a day of complete rest and reflection, with a one-year-old in tow. (Babysitting services for the holiday at the synagogue we go to here begin with age 3, so no luck there!) I'm running between parts of my lives, trying to finish up work I need to do, make sure we all get some food before sundown (even if not all of us are going to be fully fasting for 25 hours), get some shul clothes on, and get to Kol Nidrei (maybe).
For some people, the High Holy Days are time to dress up -- one way of manifesting the importance of the holy day: even if we no longer think of God as a king (a recurring image in the High Holy Day liturgy), shouldn't we at least show in our sartorial choices that this date with the divine is a significant event?
Me? Over the years since I became more observant & involved, my Yom Kippur dress has often been less, not more, fancy: if you go for the custom of wearing white and eschewing leather shoes, you may well end up wearing a long white cotton skirt, a not-exactly-matching-but-close-enough long-sleeved cotton shirt, and anything from sneakers to flipflops on the feet. And that's fine: it works for me, and even if some other people are wearing suits & hats, no one ever gives the impression that I'm not suitably dressed. :)
But this year I feel that it's even more a "come-as-you-are" Yom Kippur, inside & out. I'll be there when I can, for what I can, wearing what I manage to pull out of the closet in the minutes before we have to wrestle the baby into her stroller and walk out the door. Maybe I'll have been able to grab a shower -- maybe not. Maybe I'll have had some epiphany that makes me feel prepared for the day -- more likely not.
But I can say hineini -- "Here I am" -- and see where the day takes me.
On the eve of Yom Kippur 5771, I wish you all a year of blessing and abundance: shalom!
30 May 2010
Leprous garments
(This is not the way I expected I would return to blogging post-baby, but... the best is the enemy of the good [or even the middling!], so better I should just start already when I've something, however trivial, to say!)
I'm doing baby-laundry. Life has been busy (when is it not?) and there are some baby clothes that have been hanging out in the sink in the downstairs bathroom, a location in which they land when they need some extra TLC -- to have stains rinsed out, to be set to soak, etc. I didn't set these ones aside, nor did I know how long they've been there, but I was vaguely aware of their existence & the general desire to get them washed when wash got done. So while the washer was filling with sudsy water, I went to investigate in preparation for throwing them in with the rest of the baby clothes that had been accumulating in the laundry sack. OK, here's her white onesie with her name on it... here's the onesie Grandma gave her from a Louisville museum exhibit, that's dark blue, maybe I'll save that for a later load that's not light-colored clothes...
oh
my
...
WHAT is that?!?!?!?!
Fuzzy. Brightly colored magenta and nasty steel-grey spots. Growing out of the fabric.
Ay-yai-yai!
First thought: Ewwwwwww!
Second thought: Hey, this is like in Leviticus when they talk about "leprosy" in cloth or a garment!
And when the plague of leprosy is in a garment, whether it be a woolen garment, or a linen garment; or in the warp, or in the woof, whether they be of linen, or of wool; or in a skin, or in any thing made of skin. If the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin, it is the plague of leprosy, and shall be shown unto the priest. (Leviticus 13:47-49)
No priest here. I reported on it to the spouse, who said "Throw it out!" After a brief consideration of recovery efforts (possible on the one dark-colored denim item that seemed to have just a little; not very promising on the light pink item covered in splotches, even once the fuzziness had been destroyed), and on the veritable heaps of existing baby-clothing hand-me-downs that could substitute for the leprous garment, I did so.
I'm doing baby-laundry. Life has been busy (when is it not?) and there are some baby clothes that have been hanging out in the sink in the downstairs bathroom, a location in which they land when they need some extra TLC -- to have stains rinsed out, to be set to soak, etc. I didn't set these ones aside, nor did I know how long they've been there, but I was vaguely aware of their existence & the general desire to get them washed when wash got done. So while the washer was filling with sudsy water, I went to investigate in preparation for throwing them in with the rest of the baby clothes that had been accumulating in the laundry sack. OK, here's her white onesie with her name on it... here's the onesie Grandma gave her from a Louisville museum exhibit, that's dark blue, maybe I'll save that for a later load that's not light-colored clothes...
oh
my
...
WHAT is that?!?!?!?!
Fuzzy. Brightly colored magenta and nasty steel-grey spots. Growing out of the fabric.
Ay-yai-yai!
First thought: Ewwwwwww!
Second thought: Hey, this is like in Leviticus when they talk about "leprosy" in cloth or a garment!
And when the plague of leprosy is in a garment, whether it be a woolen garment, or a linen garment; or in the warp, or in the woof, whether they be of linen, or of wool; or in a skin, or in any thing made of skin. If the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin, it is the plague of leprosy, and shall be shown unto the priest. (Leviticus 13:47-49)
No priest here. I reported on it to the spouse, who said "Throw it out!" After a brief consideration of recovery efforts (possible on the one dark-colored denim item that seemed to have just a little; not very promising on the light pink item covered in splotches, even once the fuzziness had been destroyed), and on the veritable heaps of existing baby-clothing hand-me-downs that could substitute for the leprous garment, I did so.
24 January 2009
WaKiWo: Ain't I A Women?
At some point I may attempt a more wide-ranging post about the ongoing Amusing Adventures of Watermelon Kippah Woman (a.k.a. WaKiWo for short), and to seek to answer such burning questions as Why is the ladies' room the predominant location for inquiries about my headgear? ('cos it is, by far!)
But in the meantime I offer this story, told to me at kiddush today by our friend & neighbor about a recent family conversation with their 2 young daughters as to what they would choose to wear on their heads when they grow up (in a synagogue context, presumably, given the discussion):
Elementary-school-age daughter: I'm going to wear a hat, like Mommy does.
[Parental response suggests that wearing a kippah is also an option.]
Preschool-age daughter: That lady who lives on our block, she wears a kippah -- and she's a women.
:)
Yes indeedy, I do, and I am.
(Take that, Weird British BeardMan!)
Ain't I a women?
But in the meantime I offer this story, told to me at kiddush today by our friend & neighbor about a recent family conversation with their 2 young daughters as to what they would choose to wear on their heads when they grow up (in a synagogue context, presumably, given the discussion):
Elementary-school-age daughter: I'm going to wear a hat, like Mommy does.
[Parental response suggests that wearing a kippah is also an option.]
Preschool-age daughter: That lady who lives on our block, she wears a kippah -- and she's a women.
:)
Yes indeedy, I do, and I am.
(Take that, Weird British BeardMan!)
Ain't I a women?
24 October 2008
You are not a "problem" -- The Truth is not a problem!
Now that the cavalcade of fall Jewish holidays is over (no more chag 'til Pesach!), I hope to have more opportunities to get back to this blog. In the meantime, though, I'll offer you a few fruits of the holiday season!
One of the pleasures of celebrating here this year has been having our new rabbi, Gil Steinlauf, and his family as part of our community. I particularly appreciated his Rosh Hashanah sermon/d'var torah on Truth. You can read it all here (PDF format), but I've excerpted some of the parts that struck me most (please forgive the clumsiness that comes from the cut-and-paste; I'm not reformatting it all here) :
Judaism teaches us a radical understanding of the Truth that we so badly need
to reconnect with in our time. The Hebrew word for ‘Truth’ is Emet. The Talmud
teaches us, Chotmo shel haKadosh Baruch hu Emet, the Seal of God is Truth.[ii] In other
words, every time we look at the Truth square-on, without fear or denial, then we’re
looking as close as we can get to the face of God. The rabbis from all over our tradition
present us with magnificent teachings on how we must relate to the Truth as Jews.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel teaches us that Truth is one of the three fundamental
pillars of the world, along with Din and Shalom--justice and peace.[iii]
One of the strongest champions of Emet, of Truth, was Menachem Mendl of
Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe of the early 19th century. He taught us that the second
paragraph of the Shema says ‘V’samtem et devarai elah al levavchem,’ ‘You shall place
my words ON your heart.’[iv] The Kotzker says, God’s words, the Truth itself, should
indeed be placed on your heart like a great stone. Only when a heart that is clenched
closed, and ossified—afraid of the Truth—will it be weighed down by that stone of Truth.
But if we have the courage to have a heart that is open, we can let the Truth enter into
our hearts. The stone that once weighed heavy on our hearts becomes the agent that
opens our hearts up in life! And then we are transformed, lighter than we ever were,
because we have allowed the Truth in!
If there’s one thing none of us can escape in this life, it’s the Truth. We can run
from it, deny it, but the Truth is always there, often weighing on us like a stone, forcing
us to face it. Many of us fear that the Truth holds terror for us. Most of us assume that
the Truth is a problem. The Truth contains the inevitability of failure, of illness, of
collapse and even death. And so we do anything and everything we can to avoid the
problem of the Truth. And this avoidance, say our rabbis, is our greatest mistake. The
Truth is not a problem—despite its apparent message of tragedy and loss. Quite the
opposite, the Truth has been trying to get us to face it all along because it is the
opposite of frightening. In fact, the Truth contains the solution to all problems! We say
‘Adonai Eloheichem Emet!’ The Truth is the essence of the Divine. No matter what we
think of God, we can believe in the Truth. We can believe in the all-powerful nature of
Reality. The Torah tells us that when God created the world, that world was Tov Me’od,
very good. This world is Good! The Truth of our lives, in all its fearsome reality, is
Good! More often than not, this simple Truth is hard to believe, and yet, this is the heart
of our faith in Judaism: the Truth is Good! And it’s not only Tov Me’od—very good—it is
also ‘Rav Chesed v’ Emet” abounding in the potential for Kindness in its Truth—even in
the midst of loss and hard times.[v] Truth and Chesed—kindness--are linked in Judaism.
They are two aspects of the same thing. *
I speak today about Jewish teachings on the Emet, on Truth, because the Truth
is what all the Jewish people need to face in our time. Particularly in our Conservative
Movement, the time has come to face the Truth, in all its challenging beauty. The
challenge of our Movement, the challenge of Adas Israel, the challenge of all humanity,
is to have the courage to see the Truth as beautiful, no matter what form that Truth
takes.
A recent national survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has
shown us a disturbing Truth. The study determined that the religious group in America
that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. Sixteen percent of American adults
say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s
fourth-largest “religious group.” It would seem that the fastest growing group in this
country has given up on finding Truth in religion. It’s not just a Jewish issue, but it’s
certainly very much our problem anyway. What is going on here? Why is religion, our
religion, failing to reach a whole generation? The answer is that we, the religious
leaders and thinkers, have not grappled enough with the Truth. In the Jewish world,
every program and initiative for the last few generations have declared that there’s
something wrong, or missing or “not enough” about Jewish life in America. Our
religious leaders have confused the Truth with “a problem.” The unquestioned premise
of American Judaism has always been that so long as we can get Jews to become
more observant and knowledgeable, then Jewish life will improve: the “problem” will be
“fixed.”
But this take on the Truth is not quite right. If you walked in to this building
today, there is something deep within you—a pintele Yid, a spark of Jewishness—that
already burns in your soul. It’s what brought you here today. It’s all there, now, within
you, already! You don’t need to be ‘fixed.’ You are not a ‘problem.’ Quite the opposite,
you—each and every one of you—are the solution. You are my teachers of the Torah
of your lives, as much as I am your teacher of Torah and mitzvot. This is the Truth.
The Truth is Good! The Truth is not a problem!
...
Most of you know that I am a passionately observant Jew. I keep kosher. I
daven three times a day. I study Torah every day. I love Israel. I love Jewish holidays.
I love Shabbat and long Shabbat meals where we sing zmirot, traditional Jewish songs.
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to share that passion with each and every one
of you; to create the conditions where you can discover these joys for yourself. If you
want to learn these things from me and share them with me, then let’s celebrate that. If
you, however, have no interest in any of these things, then I don’t see that as the
slightest problem. It’s just the Truth, and I love the Truth! I want to learn your Torah. I
want our community to celebrate how you do Jewish. My approach is the approach we
all can have among one another—in all our multiple minyanim, in all our programs. We
have so many ways into Truth here: our services, our Gan, our religious school, our
youth programs, our adult education experiences, our social action, bereavement,
membership, our sisterhood and men’s club, service in lay leadership. Each aspect
here is another variant on how to feel welcome, on how to do Jewish, on how to be a
Jew in the fullest sense without anyone to judge you or to tell you that what you’re doing
is not enough.
A midrash is told of how, before God created Adam, the ministering angels were
arguing with God. The angels of love and righteousness urged God to create
humankind, but the angel of Emet, of Truth, urged God not to create humankind
because, Truth argued, human beings so easily delude themselves into confusion and
falsehood. What did God do? He took the angel of Truth and cast him on the ground.
And then, from the dust of the earth, God created humankind.[vi] To this, Rabbi Yehudah
Leib Alter of Ger taught us that Truth lives as a nekudat Elohut, the spark of Divinity—a
pintele Yid—within each of us that we so often cannot find because our hearts are
closed to the Truth all around us here on the ground. And so, says Rabbi Yehudah
Leib, our work is to uncover the Truth and see it for its goodness, and not to run from it.
We must develop a vision to see the Truth, the Torah that is all around us and even
within us. This is called ‘Torat Emet,’ the Torah of Truth.[vii]
In the years ahead, we will join together as a community and explore Torat Emet,
the Torah of the Truth. Together, we will learn to fall in love with what is in all its
beautiful, astonishing, terrible, wonderful reality. We will muster the courage to face
change, and build a faith in the Truth that reality is always kinder than we fear. While
the Truth is not always easy to look at, and while it sometimes will demand rigorous
honesty and fearlessness, it is the only way to meaningful change, and a life of true
holiness and purpose. We will forge new bonds of community and connection that we
have not made before. We will find new expressions of our Judaism, and reach those
who have been alienated. We will join together and find new ways to inspire one
another to work for justice here, in Israel, and all over the globe.
Over the years, we will begin to see how the change and vision that we crave in
our Jewish lives is lo bashamayim hi [viii], it is not in heaven, not in any notions of what
could be but is not. Rather, we will see how we are the vision that we have been
craving all along. When I look upon this congregation, I can see the Truth. And the
Truth is that Adas Israel right now has everything it takes to be the greatest, most
inspiring congregation in America, and maybe in the world. All the factors, the
resources, the talent, the passion, the possibility—it’s all here already, in this
community, in each of our hearts—if we can open our hearts to one another, to our
Truth. When I look out on this extraordinary congregation, I see a great flagship
synagogue in American Judaism. I see a beautiful Truth, that Adas Israel can be a light
to our people and to the world of what community means, of what chesed, kindness,
and compassion really mean. I see in us a congregation that can teach the world that it
need no longer fear the Truth. We can show the whole world that when we embrace
the Truth, then there is healing and purpose and vision—everything the whole world
needs to rediscover in itself. We can teach the whole world about the Power of Truth!
May we come to see with the eyes of Rabbi Akiva as we look upon our world.
May we come to see that the stone of Truth that once laid heavy on our hearts is the
“Even Ma’asu Habonim,” the stone that was rejected by the builders, “hayta leRosh
pinah,”[ix] but to us, it is the cornerstone, the cornerstone of Truth, of kindness and joy
itself that will show us the vision to evolve together with the generations of our people.
We have each been given Torat Emet, the Torah of Truth, v’chayei Olam nata
betocheinu, and the life of the world implanted within our hearts and souls. We already
have everything it takes to change the whole world. May we indeed open our hearts
and transform our Judaism, making it deeper and more meaningful for a new era, and in
doing so, may we transform the world for Truth, for justice, and for peace. Amen.
(References)
i B. Makkot 24a‐b; Sifrei Devarim 43
ii B. Shabbat 55a
iii Pirkei Avot 1:18
iv Deut. 11:18
v Exodus 34:6
vi Bereishit Rabbah 8:5
vii Sfat Emet, Bo
viii Deuteronomy 30:10‐14
ix From the service of Hallel
One of the pleasures of celebrating here this year has been having our new rabbi, Gil Steinlauf, and his family as part of our community. I particularly appreciated his Rosh Hashanah sermon/d'var torah on Truth. You can read it all here (PDF format), but I've excerpted some of the parts that struck me most (please forgive the clumsiness that comes from the cut-and-paste; I'm not reformatting it all here) :
Judaism teaches us a radical understanding of the Truth that we so badly need
to reconnect with in our time. The Hebrew word for ‘Truth’ is Emet. The Talmud
teaches us, Chotmo shel haKadosh Baruch hu Emet, the Seal of God is Truth.[ii] In other
words, every time we look at the Truth square-on, without fear or denial, then we’re
looking as close as we can get to the face of God. The rabbis from all over our tradition
present us with magnificent teachings on how we must relate to the Truth as Jews.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel teaches us that Truth is one of the three fundamental
pillars of the world, along with Din and Shalom--justice and peace.[iii]
One of the strongest champions of Emet, of Truth, was Menachem Mendl of
Kotzk, the Kotzker Rebbe of the early 19th century. He taught us that the second
paragraph of the Shema says ‘V’samtem et devarai elah al levavchem,’ ‘You shall place
my words ON your heart.’[iv] The Kotzker says, God’s words, the Truth itself, should
indeed be placed on your heart like a great stone. Only when a heart that is clenched
closed, and ossified—afraid of the Truth—will it be weighed down by that stone of Truth.
But if we have the courage to have a heart that is open, we can let the Truth enter into
our hearts. The stone that once weighed heavy on our hearts becomes the agent that
opens our hearts up in life! And then we are transformed, lighter than we ever were,
because we have allowed the Truth in!
If there’s one thing none of us can escape in this life, it’s the Truth. We can run
from it, deny it, but the Truth is always there, often weighing on us like a stone, forcing
us to face it. Many of us fear that the Truth holds terror for us. Most of us assume that
the Truth is a problem. The Truth contains the inevitability of failure, of illness, of
collapse and even death. And so we do anything and everything we can to avoid the
problem of the Truth. And this avoidance, say our rabbis, is our greatest mistake. The
Truth is not a problem—despite its apparent message of tragedy and loss. Quite the
opposite, the Truth has been trying to get us to face it all along because it is the
opposite of frightening. In fact, the Truth contains the solution to all problems! We say
‘Adonai Eloheichem Emet!’ The Truth is the essence of the Divine. No matter what we
think of God, we can believe in the Truth. We can believe in the all-powerful nature of
Reality. The Torah tells us that when God created the world, that world was Tov Me’od,
very good. This world is Good! The Truth of our lives, in all its fearsome reality, is
Good! More often than not, this simple Truth is hard to believe, and yet, this is the heart
of our faith in Judaism: the Truth is Good! And it’s not only Tov Me’od—very good—it is
also ‘Rav Chesed v’ Emet” abounding in the potential for Kindness in its Truth—even in
the midst of loss and hard times.[v] Truth and Chesed—kindness--are linked in Judaism.
They are two aspects of the same thing. *
I speak today about Jewish teachings on the Emet, on Truth, because the Truth
is what all the Jewish people need to face in our time. Particularly in our Conservative
Movement, the time has come to face the Truth, in all its challenging beauty. The
challenge of our Movement, the challenge of Adas Israel, the challenge of all humanity,
is to have the courage to see the Truth as beautiful, no matter what form that Truth
takes.
A recent national survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has
shown us a disturbing Truth. The study determined that the religious group in America
that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. Sixteen percent of American adults
say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated the country’s
fourth-largest “religious group.” It would seem that the fastest growing group in this
country has given up on finding Truth in religion. It’s not just a Jewish issue, but it’s
certainly very much our problem anyway. What is going on here? Why is religion, our
religion, failing to reach a whole generation? The answer is that we, the religious
leaders and thinkers, have not grappled enough with the Truth. In the Jewish world,
every program and initiative for the last few generations have declared that there’s
something wrong, or missing or “not enough” about Jewish life in America. Our
religious leaders have confused the Truth with “a problem.” The unquestioned premise
of American Judaism has always been that so long as we can get Jews to become
more observant and knowledgeable, then Jewish life will improve: the “problem” will be
“fixed.”
But this take on the Truth is not quite right. If you walked in to this building
today, there is something deep within you—a pintele Yid, a spark of Jewishness—that
already burns in your soul. It’s what brought you here today. It’s all there, now, within
you, already! You don’t need to be ‘fixed.’ You are not a ‘problem.’ Quite the opposite,
you—each and every one of you—are the solution. You are my teachers of the Torah
of your lives, as much as I am your teacher of Torah and mitzvot. This is the Truth.
The Truth is Good! The Truth is not a problem!
...
Most of you know that I am a passionately observant Jew. I keep kosher. I
daven three times a day. I study Torah every day. I love Israel. I love Jewish holidays.
I love Shabbat and long Shabbat meals where we sing zmirot, traditional Jewish songs.
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to share that passion with each and every one
of you; to create the conditions where you can discover these joys for yourself. If you
want to learn these things from me and share them with me, then let’s celebrate that. If
you, however, have no interest in any of these things, then I don’t see that as the
slightest problem. It’s just the Truth, and I love the Truth! I want to learn your Torah. I
want our community to celebrate how you do Jewish. My approach is the approach we
all can have among one another—in all our multiple minyanim, in all our programs. We
have so many ways into Truth here: our services, our Gan, our religious school, our
youth programs, our adult education experiences, our social action, bereavement,
membership, our sisterhood and men’s club, service in lay leadership. Each aspect
here is another variant on how to feel welcome, on how to do Jewish, on how to be a
Jew in the fullest sense without anyone to judge you or to tell you that what you’re doing
is not enough.
A midrash is told of how, before God created Adam, the ministering angels were
arguing with God. The angels of love and righteousness urged God to create
humankind, but the angel of Emet, of Truth, urged God not to create humankind
because, Truth argued, human beings so easily delude themselves into confusion and
falsehood. What did God do? He took the angel of Truth and cast him on the ground.
And then, from the dust of the earth, God created humankind.[vi] To this, Rabbi Yehudah
Leib Alter of Ger taught us that Truth lives as a nekudat Elohut, the spark of Divinity—a
pintele Yid—within each of us that we so often cannot find because our hearts are
closed to the Truth all around us here on the ground. And so, says Rabbi Yehudah
Leib, our work is to uncover the Truth and see it for its goodness, and not to run from it.
We must develop a vision to see the Truth, the Torah that is all around us and even
within us. This is called ‘Torat Emet,’ the Torah of Truth.[vii]
In the years ahead, we will join together as a community and explore Torat Emet,
the Torah of the Truth. Together, we will learn to fall in love with what is in all its
beautiful, astonishing, terrible, wonderful reality. We will muster the courage to face
change, and build a faith in the Truth that reality is always kinder than we fear. While
the Truth is not always easy to look at, and while it sometimes will demand rigorous
honesty and fearlessness, it is the only way to meaningful change, and a life of true
holiness and purpose. We will forge new bonds of community and connection that we
have not made before. We will find new expressions of our Judaism, and reach those
who have been alienated. We will join together and find new ways to inspire one
another to work for justice here, in Israel, and all over the globe.
Over the years, we will begin to see how the change and vision that we crave in
our Jewish lives is lo bashamayim hi [viii], it is not in heaven, not in any notions of what
could be but is not. Rather, we will see how we are the vision that we have been
craving all along. When I look upon this congregation, I can see the Truth. And the
Truth is that Adas Israel right now has everything it takes to be the greatest, most
inspiring congregation in America, and maybe in the world. All the factors, the
resources, the talent, the passion, the possibility—it’s all here already, in this
community, in each of our hearts—if we can open our hearts to one another, to our
Truth. When I look out on this extraordinary congregation, I see a great flagship
synagogue in American Judaism. I see a beautiful Truth, that Adas Israel can be a light
to our people and to the world of what community means, of what chesed, kindness,
and compassion really mean. I see in us a congregation that can teach the world that it
need no longer fear the Truth. We can show the whole world that when we embrace
the Truth, then there is healing and purpose and vision—everything the whole world
needs to rediscover in itself. We can teach the whole world about the Power of Truth!
May we come to see with the eyes of Rabbi Akiva as we look upon our world.
May we come to see that the stone of Truth that once laid heavy on our hearts is the
“Even Ma’asu Habonim,” the stone that was rejected by the builders, “hayta leRosh
pinah,”[ix] but to us, it is the cornerstone, the cornerstone of Truth, of kindness and joy
itself that will show us the vision to evolve together with the generations of our people.
We have each been given Torat Emet, the Torah of Truth, v’chayei Olam nata
betocheinu, and the life of the world implanted within our hearts and souls. We already
have everything it takes to change the whole world. May we indeed open our hearts
and transform our Judaism, making it deeper and more meaningful for a new era, and in
doing so, may we transform the world for Truth, for justice, and for peace. Amen.
(References)
i B. Makkot 24a‐b; Sifrei Devarim 43
ii B. Shabbat 55a
iii Pirkei Avot 1:18
iv Deut. 11:18
v Exodus 34:6
vi Bereishit Rabbah 8:5
vii Sfat Emet, Bo
viii Deuteronomy 30:10‐14
ix From the service of Hallel
06 October 2008
Talkin' 'bout Tallitot
Over on Livejournal's WeirdJews community, folks have been talking about making your own tallit. I threw in my two cents, so I thought I'd include 'em here as well:
I have made my own tallit--twice. (I also have a storebought one, acquired several years ago to replace my very first tallit, which I bought in Israel in 1996: beautifully painted but made of unsuitably light silk, it inevitably frayed at the neck and got torn. But I don't wear the replacement tallit that much now: I prefer the one I made.) You can see #2 being completed here.
These are pretty low-key minimal-effort tallitot: I am not a particularly handy or crafts-oriented person, lack a sewing machine, and possess only rudimentary hand-sewing skills.
But with a little help from my friends, I've turned 1 white silk shawl & 1 piece of striped fabric into 2 friendly tallitot!
Working backwards:
I made tallit #2 while in England this spring because I somehow failed to pack a tallit for my 10-week stay over there. (In the meantime, I wore my husband's blue Gabrieli tallit* to services in Oxford, and he wore one of the shul tallitot, since he's a guy & it's easy for him to do that. Once I'd created my new Made In The UK tallit & given him back his own, our shul friends started asking "Why are you wearing your wife's tallit?", not knowing it was his in the first place! ;) ) A friend who lives in London is a big fan of the Shepherd's Bush market & the surrounding fabric stores, so solving my no-tallit problem by making one from scratch seemed a good solution.
*(He picked it out from the gift shop of our shul in Louisville when he converted in 1997)
I didn't have a definite idea of color or pattern when we went in, so I just let things suggest themselves as we looked. I ended up buying 2 types of fabric--one white/cream-colored with stripes that suggest traditional tallit design, the other a solid burgundy--and decided to use the former for the body of the tallit and the latter for reinforcing corners and an atarah at the neck. (I had thought I might make another one that was the reverse, but that didn't happen. I think my friend still has the burgundy fabric, though.) My friend hemmed the top and bottom edges with her sewing machine, and attached the reinforcing squares with it as well. We left the sides unhemmed, and she showed me how to pull out threads to fringe the sides. (I haven't gone as far as to tie them into those neat little knots you may see on commercial tallitot: at present it's more like tiny tallit dreadlocks...) I hand-sewed the atarah shape onto the neck area (I'd rescued some interesting metal jangly bits from the decorative edging to a giant table-shading umbrella on the theory that I could add them to the atarah, but so far that's just a theory) and added the tzizit, and voila: tallit!
Tallit #1 came about as something I'd been contemplating for a while: the Stealth Tallit... shawl-like enough not to attract attention when worn in Ladies-Don't-Wear-Tallit-Here Territory (not my native climate, but one that I find myself in when traveling--especially overseas--or visiting/celebrating simchas with the Orthodox contingent among my relatives), but able to satisfy my desire for my usual Jewish prayer garment (which I was increasingly tired of giving up in order not to rock the boat with frummy family's congregations).
So in the run-up to Passover a few years ago, when we'd be at Chabad for my cousin's bar mitzvah on the 2nd morning of Pesach, I kicked the plan into action. I knew I had several shawls that might be contenders, of a good size & shape for tallit transformation--I rarely wear them (but my mother loves scarves & shawls & keeps giving them to me), so whichever one I picked would surely see more use as a tallit than as a neglected shawl. An off-white silk shawl, light but with an interestingly varied texture and fringey bits on the ends, looked perfect for the task. I asked around at the Sisterhood Gift Shop in the synagogue where I was working, and got the name of a wonderful tallit-maker in the area; I asked her if she could give me advice about converting the shawl into a tallit, and we arranged a time for me to come over.
She couldn't have been more generous! She gave me squares of fabric for reinforcing the corners & told me to hand-sew them on before bringing the shawl back. When I did, she used her sewing machine to do a buttonhole stitch in the middle of each corner-square, then used a seam-ripper to create a nice reinforced hole for the tzitzit to go through. She gave me instructions on tying tzitzit and guided me through the first one, then watched as I did the next. The last two I did on my own--finishing the final one just minutes before Shabbat, 2 days before my cousin's bar mitzvah, in their neighbors' basement where my husband & I were staying. On the morning of the bar mitzvah, I folded over the corners to keep the tzitzit from flailing about, settled the shawl around my shoulders, and pinned it together as an ordinary-looking shawl. When I got up to the ladies' gallery at the Chabad shul, I unpinned it, unfurled the tzitzit, and donned it as my tallit. Chabad takes all kinds, so it's possible that no one would have given me grief even if I had been davening with something more conventionally recognizable as a tallit--but I certainly didn't want to make trouble for my cousins by standing out as some kind of freaky radical, and I felt much more comfortable this way.
Since then, I've generally used this tallit--I love the way it feels, and it's very light and portable.
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I'm glad to see more endorsement of the view To tree, or not to tree? That's not really the question! There's a lot here to consider, and I'm looking forward to exploring the many links and seeing the conversation that continues to develop!
That said -- my own experiences growing up with a Jewish mother & non-Jewish father don't lead me to agree with Susan that, because I as a child of intermarriage am "equally related to both parents, and both sides of the family, ...it is not so easy to define what is 'yours' and what is 'someone else's,' no matter how clearly you try to define their religious label." The latter part may be true for plenty of families, particularly if they don't feel comfortable joining in or affiliating with one or more of the existing religious/communal choices in their landscape (and I applaud "independent interfaith family communities" for creating ones that they find to work better) -- but it doesn't follow inevitably from the former proposition.
I'm Jewish. (And my father is not.) My spouse is Jewish. (And his family is not.) My daughter is Jewish. (And three of her grandparents, plus the majority of her aunts-and-uncles, are not.) The tree is not for me, or him, or her. The menorah is, the shabbat candles are, the sukkah in the backyard is. My in-laws will have a stocking hanging over the fireplace for each of us, as my father's mother did when we spent Christmas at her house in my childhood -- but that's part of their celebration, not ours. When we are on home turf, there are no stockings and evergreens and lights.
I understand that it's a different story when there's more than one religious tradition being actively celebrated under that roof -- after all, you can see my young self smiling with my brother in front of our name-emblazoned stockings in my parents' living room in photos from the year my father's mother was living with us, before she passed away. But that didn't make it any more my holiday than when we had previously visited her in her own home.
That this holiday is indeed "someone else's" doesn't make me less related to my non-Jewish relatives -- but it does mark that the ties that bind us are not those of religion...even if I open presents with them on December 25th; even if they spend Shabbat or a seder with me or other Jewish family members. We can celebrate occasions together whose basis may be religious for one party, but that doesn't make their religion mine or my holiday theirs.
I do agree that the language of the "guest" or "respectful tourist" (with regard to a religious tradition not one's own) assumes easy insides & outsides that don't obtain in a family of mixed religious background. For me, then "inside" and "outside" are different from "mine" and "someone else's": Christmas isn't mine, but it's part of my family memories and experiences; Judaism isn't my father's religion, but he's not an outsider at the seder.
And even though we don't tree, I think that "rabbis and religious teachers [who] tell these children and parents that they cannot have a tree" would do better to focus on what positive Jewish practices or customs they would like to encourage (you're cheered by greenery? put some up at Shavuot! you like assembling & decorating a holiday structure? here are some suggestions for Sukkot!) instead of finger-wagging about firs.